Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference at the Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, June 17, 2024. Photo: Lukas Coch/Pool via REUTERS

On August 11, 2025, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stunned many when he announced that Australia would formally recognize the State of Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly — pending promises by the Palestinian Authority to demilitarize Gaza, exclude Hamas from governance, hold elections, and cease payments to families of terrorists.

The glaring problem is that Albanese appears to take these assurances at face value, as though a handful of pledges — offered without timelines, enforcement mechanisms, or credible evidence of intent — could erase decades of violence, corruption, and rejectionism.

It’s the mark of a leader who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know: either unaware of the PA’s long record of breaking its commitments or unwilling to confront the implications of that record. He also doesn’t understand that this is a reward for terrorism and, for the enemies of freedom, liberty, and democracy.

The question I find myself asking today — whether I am truly choosing Aliyah, merely considering it, or being pushed toward it — is not a new one. Over centuries, Jews have wrestled with the call of Aliyah — “ascent” to the ancestral homeland — versus the pull to remain in the Diaspora. For some, it was not the call of Aliyah at all, but the search for a safe haven — somewhere in the world where they could live without fear.

My grandparents had that promise; they went to Canada believing it would be that place. Now, I’m not sure where in the Diaspora that promise still exists.

And without that sense of safety, Aliyah no longer feels like a romantic, idealistic choice — how I’ve seen it most of my life. Instead, it starts to feel like the only real option left. Ahad Ha’am wrote that Aliyah should be a deliberate, inspired choice, not a desperate escape — and that truth has long been woven into our collective soul.

Today, the landscape is starkly different. Aliyah is shifting from a Zionist aspiration to a contingency plan. After October 7 and the surge of antisemitism worldwide — including here in Australia — the Diaspora finds itself asking: what’s our Plan B? And of course, many Diaspora Jews — in Australia, in Canada, in France, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and across the world — are not even considering the choice to move but instead are deepening their connection with Israel. There is comfort in knowing we have somewhere to go; there is a psychological sanctuary that our ancestors lacked, and we have it. That knowledge is a safety net, one that offers reassurance even to those who never plan to use it.

Australia’s recognition of Palestine, dressed as a diplomatic advance, feels deeply personal and destabilizing. For those of us whose Jewish identity is rooted not only in heritage but in the continuity of a safe, supportive homeland, this punting of responsibility troubles the heart.

Albanese’s decision shows the danger of a leader who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know: he steps into a geopolitical minefield believing he is making history, without recognizing that he is rewarding terror, undermining alliances, and ignoring lived realities on the ground. Did I just get nudged toward Aliyah by the government’s betrayal? Perhaps. But even if I never make the move, the knowledge that Israel exists — that there is still one place where we are not guests — remains a lifeline in an increasingly uncertain world.

Will the Palestinian Authority honor its conditions, or is recognition merely a performative act? Has Australia fractured its alliance with Israel at a moment when global support is profoundly precious? Is this recognition a hopeful step toward peace, or a perilous reward for violence? These are not only diplomatic questions — they are mine and ours.

As a Jew in Sydney today, I stand torn between devotion to a country I’ve called home for over 30 years and the ancient, pulsating call of Zion. Aliyah no longer feels like a choice — it feels like inevitability. But while we are here, we must live as proud Jews and proud Zionists, unafraid to stand tall in our identity. We must educate — not only within our own communities, but in the broader Australian community — about our history, our homeland, and our truth. That is both our responsibility and our strength.

Perhaps both history and the present have finally pushed me to the place my grandparents only dreamed of. L’Shanah Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.

Michael Gencher is executive director StandWithUs Australia, an international nonpartisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.

A drone view of the “Arbeit macht frei” gate at the former Auschwitz concentration camp ahead of the 80th anniversary of its liberation, Oswiecim, Poland, Jan. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, argues that genocide unfolds through a ten-step process. It begins with early warning signs like discrimination and dehumanization, then escalates into violent persecution and extermination. But Stanton’s final stage might come as a surprise. He says genocide culminates with denial, and that denial is an integral part of the process itself.

Of course, denial can help relieve the conscience of the perpetrators, or be part of their efforts to shield themselves from legal culpability. But according to Stanton, denial is actually a final act of violence towards the victims. It completes their destruction by assaulting even the memory of the victim group, causing not only further psychological anguish but also cultural erasure.

This last step the Nazis were largely unable to achieve. How they singled out, persecuted, and ultimately mass murdered Jews is on display in museums worldwide. Jewish youth return to Auschwitz each year for the March of the Living, keeping the death camps and the memory of what took place there preserved.

But where the Nazis failed, the United States’ largest teachers’ union now aims to succeed.

The National Education Association (NEA), which represents nearly three million public school teachers, just released a new handbook instructing teachers to no longer tell their classes that Jews were the primary target of the Holocaust. Instead, they are now supposed to say that the Nazis killed “millions of victims of different faiths.”

The fact that Jews were taken to the gas chambers solely because of their religion is to be covered up; that the Holocaust was an assault on European Jewry is something they want to erase.

Why the change? The political context makes it clear. In the NEA’s view, the memory of Jewish persecution at the hands of the Nazis is being improperly used to exempt Israel from scrutiny over its conduct in Gaza, and the legacy of the Holocaust is causing undue hesitation in accusing Israel of genocidal conduct.

Believing that Jewish persecution by the Nazis has been misappropriated in defense of Israel, the NEA seeks to sever this link between the Holocaust and Jews.

And of course, they have a point about how history can be misused. Clinging to historical grievances often fuels efforts to correct past injustices. And all too easily, that impulse can lead to inflicting new injustices on others

But the NEA seems to have no such compunctions when it comes to the history of Palestine. The new manual goes into great detail about “the Nakba.” Teachers are to tell students that the establishment of the State of Israel resulted in the violent, forced displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. They claim this is important in order to help understand what they call the ongoing trauma of Palestinian Americans today.

But doesn’t this kind of Nakba education risk inflaming tensions and fueling further violence? By their logic, wouldn’t it be better to offer a more generic description — something like, “When the State of Israel was established, some people of various ethnicities relocated to new places.”

After all, history has shown us that the ongoing effort by many Palestinians to rectify what they perceive as the injustice of 1948 has repeatedly led to violence against Israelis and Jews.

It seems that the NEA’s real aim is not to revise history in order to defuse its potential for fueling violence in the present, but rather to weaponize it in support of the Palestinians’ cause against Israel. Unfortunately, this will only plant the seeds for more conflict in the future.

We can’t achieve peace by denying the history or suffering of others. That only deepens resentment and hatred — and eventually, it will resurface. The path to peace begins with a willingness to face the past honestly: to acknowledge the pain, injustice, and harm both experienced and inflicted by all sides. From that shared reckoning, the foundations of peace can finally take hold

Memory of the Holocaust certainly should not be used to exempt Israel from legitimate criticism or scrutiny. But the solution is not to deny that the Holocaust was an attempt to destroy the Jewish people. Instead, we have to make sure that when we say never again, we mean never again for anyone — not for us, not for Palestinians, not for anyone else.

Shlomo Levin is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah, and he uses short fiction and questions to explore human rights at https://shalzed.com/

New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Donald Trump in the White House on May 6, 2025. Photo: Wiki Commons.

Earlier this month, an Orthodox Jewish man in Montreal was savagely assaulted, right in front of his children. This is just the latest incident in a seemingly endless series of attacks against the Jewish community in Canada, a country that prides itself on being a tolerant, multicultural society.

Indeed, multiculturalism is even part of Canada’s Constitution.

Article 27 of its Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically states, “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” One could easily argue that multiculturalism is Canada’s national ideology. But lately, it seems that Canada’s multiculturalism excludes Jews.

In fact, antisemitism in Canada has gotten so bad that some have suggested the Great White North isn’t safe for Jews.

Last December, for example, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, wrote on X, saying, “Canada is no longer safe for Jews.” In response, Anthony Housefather, a Jewish member of Canada’s Parliament and the country’s special advisor on Jewish community relations and antisemitism, called Chikli’s statement “false and exaggerated.” But is it really?

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war following the October 7th massacre — the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust –Canadian Jews have been under siege. They’ve been assaulted both verbally and physically, and their institutions have been attacked on numerous occasions, even shot at and firebombed.

According to a report released this year by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, antisemitism in Canada skyrocketed a whopping 970% in 2024 — the highest increase of all Western countries. And I would argue that the blame for at least some of this antisemitism can be laid at the feet of the current federal government.

Canada’s current government is led by the Liberal Party, which, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, embraced woke, ultra-leftist policies. For example, the Liberals have implemented reckless immigration policies that have flooded Canada with more newcomers than it could absorb. These policies have led to soaring housing costs and a significant strain on public services. No wonder, according to a Nanos poll last fall, nearly two thirds of Canadians wanted Canada to absorb less immigrants in 2025.

No other political party in Canada uses immigrants more cynically than the governing Liberals. They encourage more immigration than the country can handle, because they believe that immigrants who come whenever a Liberal government is in power will vote Liberal if and when they become citizens. For the Liberals, more immigrants mean more votes.

The Liberals’ immigration policies have also inundated Canada with many immigrants from countries in which antisemitic attitudes are taught almost from birth — countries like Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, all of which have been among the top 10 countries of origin for immigrants to Canada in the last decade, and all of which are hotbeds of antisemitism.

Of course, not every person who comes from these countries is an antisemite, but many likely are. In addition, according to a study conducted by Robert Brym, a University of Toronto sociology professor, Muslims in Canada by far have the strongest anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments. Thus, it is highly likely that when Canada absorbs immigrants from Muslim countries, it is importing antisemitism.

The Liberals also cater to radical left-wing extremists, another group that Professor Brym identified as a main source of antisemitism in Canada. This group includes militants like those that participate in anti-Israel rallies across the country, who frequently chant the genocidal slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” or call for violence, shouting, “Globalize the Intifada.” It is these radicals that the Liberals pander to when they repeatedly condemn Israel for defending itself against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist group bent on wiping the Jewish State off the map.

To make a long story short, Liberal policies are adding gas to the fire that is antisemitism in Canada. So, what do we do about it? It’s very unlikely that the Liberals will stray from their current path, as doing so would put them in trouble with their leftist supporters, whom they depend on for votes. Thus, stemming the rising tide of antisemitism in Canada depends, at least in part, on electing a new federal government.

Unfortunately, it may be a while before we can do that, as the previous election was just held last April. The Liberals managed to win with a strong minority government, having convinced Canadians that their current leader and now Prime Minister, Mark Carney, is different than his predecessor Trudeau, who polls showed was widely unpopular when he resigned.

But in fact, Carney is no different from Trudeau, which is why he chose to recognize a Palestinian state, effectively rewarding Hamas for their atrocities on October 7, 2023.

Indeed, following the Montreal assault, Diaspora Minister Chikli told JNS that, “When weak left-wing governments in France, Britain and Canada reward the barbaric gangs that carried out the massacres and rapes of October 7, the message is clear: It is permissible—and even effective—to harm Jews; this is the way to achieve results.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jason Shvili is a freelance writer and commentator on Jewish affairs, Israel and the Middle East.