Extract from ABC News
Analysis
The Israel-Palestine conflict continues to have ramifications in Australia. ( ABC News: Keana Naughton )
When university bosses went through security at Parliament House last week, a hearing on the other side of the Pacific that had brought down two Ivy League presidents would have been playing on in their minds.
Last year, university bosses in the US were summoned to Capitol Hill to answer questions about anti-Semitism on their campuses in the wake of the encampment movement.
The moment that captured the world was when a New York Republican asked university leaders whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their universities' codes of conduct. It should have been an easy answer, but each responded with qualified and conditional answers where they essentially argued that the context of the statements would matter. It was a train crash and contributed to the view that their campuses were not safe for Jewish students.
While university campuses have always been the epicentre of political movements, the Israel-Hamas war is dividing students and the community in ways that are unprecedented. Universities have struggled to walk the line between tolerating protest and defending free speech and establishing red lines on what isn't acceptable.
On Friday, watching Australian vice-chancellors face a grilling at the Senate inquiry into anti-Semitism on campus — set up following the establishment of protester tent cities on several university campuses earlier this year — it became clear that they were not going to replicate the mistakes of their American counterparts.
The best example of this was University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott, who apologised to Jewish students and staff, admitting he "failed them" in his handling of a pro-Palestinian student encampment on campus.
Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott apologised to Jewish staff and students. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
'Heartbreaking and unacceptable'
The inquiry has received submissions from Jewish students at the University of Sydney who reported feeling unsafe and unwelcome on campus during the eight-week Students for Palestine protest.
While Scott defended his decision not to forcibly remove the encampment earlier, he apologised to students who were upset by what had unfolded on his campus.
"The testimonials are heartbreaking and unacceptable and for that I am sorry," he said. "If students have felt unsafe or unwelcome, if that is their lived experience, if that is their testimony, we have failed them," he said.
Under questioning by Liberal senators Sarah Henderson and Paul Scarr, Scott told the inquiry the submissions from Jewish students were "searing". "Yes, I have failed them, and the university has failed them and that is why we have made significant changes to our policy settings," he said.
Scott said he was committed to working with the federal government's newly established anti-Semitism envoy. It was a masterclass in taking responsibility — even if his critics will argue his concession had come too late. He didn't challenge their experience of feeling unsafe and didn't come across as tone deaf to the testimonials from his Jewish students.
The pro-Palestine student camp at Sydney University was set up in April. (ABC News: Abbey Haberecht)
Student politics 'complicated'
Encampments sprung up at campuses in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra in May, with participants calling on their institutions to disclose and cut ties with weapons manufacturers they say are supplying arms to Israel. The movement began in New York at Columbia University in April.
Vice chancellors from the University of Melbourne, UNSW Sydney, Monash University and the University of Adelaide also fronted the inquiry, with the Australian National University's also facing difficult questions.
ANU's Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell refused to comment on a student who expressed their "unconditional support" for Hamas. Beatrice Tucker was expelled over the comments made about the militant group on ABC Radio earlier this year.
The inquiry was told that Tucker has now been permitted to continue as a student again following an appeals process and is running for the president of the ANU's Student Association. Under questioning from senators Henderson and Scarr, Bell told the hearing she would not comment on individual cases.
"Student politics are a complicated space, but one of the things about being a university is that we create room for our students' space to be able to engage in creating their political categories and behaviours," she said.
Scarr interjected during her answer. "This is not complicated, Professor Bell," he said. "Goodness sake."
Bell responded that the university was adhering to a set of "academic freedoms and freedom of speech" and its code of conduct was being followed. I suspect this will continue to be pursued by the Coalition senators who were less than impressed by the answer.
The pro-Palestine encampment at Australian National University in May. (ABC News: Ruby Thomas)
Gaza war causing domestic political headaches
Away from the Senate grilling, the complicated politics surrounding the war in Gaza continued to unfold.
On Friday, it was revealed that Australia's spy agency was given a list of every Palestinian visa holder in March for security checks, challenging claims by the Coalition that refugees from Gaza are not being properly vetted.
Government papers tabled in the Senate detailed the checks Palestinian visa holders have been subject to. The Coalition has in recent weeks called for a ban on refugees from Gaza while the conflict is ongoing due to concerns people were being issued visitor visas and therefore not being thoroughly vetted for links to Hamas.
The heavily redacted government briefing documents, written in April, reveal ASIO was provided a list of 2,601 Palestinian visa holders on March 16.
"This included Palestinian visa holders of all ages, regardless of location, holding any subclass which allowed ASIO to filter the data as needed so they could choose to prioritise cohorts of most concern to them," the document said.
"ASIO continues to work through the list, however, to date no adverse information has been identified."
But ASIO has cancelled five visas based on concerns the person had a "direct or indirect risk to Australia's security" after receiving additional information about them, the documents said.
The revelations take the sting out of the Coalition's argument that there have been inadequate security assessments, but they don't completely end the issue. Shadow home affairs spokesman James Patterson told me the whole point of referring visa applicants for security assessment to ASIO is to ensure they don't pose any risk to Australia before they get their visas.
"Given Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said we can't send anyone back to the Palestinian Territories, what happens if ASIO identifies a problem after they arrive in Australia," Patterson asked. "We know at least seven were refused visas onshore. Have they been deported? Are they in immigration detention? It's time for Labor to come clean and explain their rushed and risky Gaza visa process."
You can expect the Gaza visa issue to continue to be pursued by the Coalition. The Opposition has wanted to focus on immigration and security, and the adjacent issue of immigration numbers are playing into their narrative. Australia's net migrant intake will exceed 400,000 for the last financial year, blowing the federal government's chances of meeting its target.
Plurality in multicultural communities
Among the many words spoken about Palestinians fleeing Gaza in our febrile domestic political debate about visa checks and national security, we have heard very little about the hatred — both private and at times public — that some Gazans feel about and toward Hamas.
It's a similar case with Israelis and Jewish people, who have been depicted by some anti-Israel activists as a monolith, the political diversity among them discounted, when there are many — both in Israel and around the world — who are alarmed by the behaviour of the Netanyahu government.
In both cases the plurality and diversity of the community has been lost — the hard, fast and polarised debate has missed the nuance as so many of the political contests we have often do.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan-born humanitarian activist and blogger who now lives in the US, writes extensively on Gaza's political and strategic affairs for the Atlantic Council has long been speaking out against Hamas.
He spoke with me recently and said he believes the debate we are having in Australia is a misrepresentation and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people when it suggests that everybody in Gaza is sympathetic to Hamas.
" [They say] Everybody's out there to kill Israelis. Everybody's so anti the Jewish people that no matter where they go or what they do, that's their sole focus. And that couldn't be further from the truth," he says.
And he would know. The 34-year-old left Gaza when he was 15 and received asylum from the US when he was 17. "My asylum interview was on the day, the very day that Hamas took over, June 14, 2007, so it is simply inaccurate to say that all the Palestinians leaving Gaza are associated with Hamas."
He says around half of Gaza wasn't even born when Hamas was elected in 2006. He says 70 per cent of Gazans have never left the coastal enclave.
"And so there's an element of support for Hamas, absolutely. Because that is, unfortunately, the reality when you're closed off to the rest of the world for 17 years. However, think of it as an onion. There's an ideological core of support for Hamas. And then there are people that view Hamas … There's Hamas the government, Hamas the social group, Hamas the political organisation, and Hamas the militant group. And across all of them, these are jobs those militants that went in on October 7. They have monthly salaries. So there are people that engage with Hamas at different levels, strictly because that's the only game in town. That's the only way to gain support," he says.
But he wants the world to know that half of Gaza is aligned with Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, and so they are ideologically and politically vehemently opposed to Hamas.
"There are people that absolutely despise what Hamas has done and the suicidal adventurism of the group. And so those who are fleeing, those who are blessed and lucky enough to get out and pursue safety, like myself, I got political asylum in the United States.
"So it is simply inaccurate to say that all the Palestinians leaving Gaza are associated with Hamas. I have, you know, an academic background and Intelligence and National Security, I support vetting people, but I think we need to have compassion. We need to understand that those who are fleeing are pursuing a better life elsewhere, and they will not bring the disaster that was Hamas and the failures and the ideology with them wherever they're going in the Western world."
Patricia Karvelas is the presenter of RN Breakfast and co-host of the Party Room podcast. She also hosts Q+A on ABC TV Mondays at 9.35pm.
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