Season 3 - Episode 5- How do we unf*ck It?

In “How do we unf*ck It,” hosts Rob Kaldor and Isy Oderberg turn from diagnosing Australia’s deepening social fractures to asking what it will actually take to repair them. They are joined by Dr Hass Dellal AO, Chair of the Australian Multicultural Foundation; academic Professor Michele Grossman AM, pollster and social researcher Kos Samaras, educator and activist Zachary Schaffer, Board member, creative and researcher Noe Harsel,Palestinian activist Hamza Howidy, award-winning journalist and academic Margaret Simons, commentator and author Van Badham and Movement Against Antizionism founder Adam Louis-Klein. This episode explores how we can rebuild trust.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Coming up on this episode of Tensions Transplanted.

SPEAKER_09 0:04

I want to be there for someone who asks the question and wants the answer. And I also want to be there for those who don't ask the question but still want the answer.

SPEAKER_06 0:14

What we need to do is continue to scale evidence-based and effective efforts. We are just at the beginning of doing this work.

SPEAKER_08 0:23

Because in the end of the day, the Australian public have developed a view that that compromises an industry, a political industry, and they don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 0:32

Community-based programs that actually brought people together and enable them to explore differences and conflicts.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

The most effective response is to try to build a structured dialogue, help diffuse some of that tension through a bit more cultural understanding and trying to put yourself in the role or the position of the other person.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Welcome to Tensions Transplanted for the Jewish Independent. I'm Rob Caldor. Joining me for this series is Izzy Oderberg, author, mother, legend. Hi Izzy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

What an intro, I love it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

This is, in my opinion, the big episode. Izzy, what is it about?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

This is the sort of constructive journalism approach to covering an issue. Obviously, we've looked at all the reasons that anti-Semitism has exploded. We've looked at the reasons that it's gotten out of control, the lead up to the Royal Commission. But now we're looking at the core piece of how to move forward, which is how do we unfuck this? And it might not be a pretty way to say it, but it really does encompass how we've approached this episode and the topics raised therein.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

So, in a phrase I thought I'd never say, let's start unfucking.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Dr. Has Delal A.O. is truly one of the absolute pioneers and champions of multiculturalism in Australia. He was the executive director and the founding director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, and after 36 years in that role, became the chair of the Australian Multicultural Foundation board. I went to Haas to talk to him about where we go from here and how we can find a way forward.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

I think that community is the answer, and and we have seen from time to time when there is crisis, communities coming together is probably the most powerful way of healing, in a sense. And that fairness and that respect and sense of belonging and trust in institutions. Leadership becomes so important at this time, a critical one. A tone set by leaders, political media, community has a direct impact on how people behave and how communities feel safe. Language matters. How you frame language, it becomes very important because communities respond to that as well. And look, yes, we have many moments in how we think about recent events like Bondi with Christchurch and rise of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism. Moments like this test us as a society. But they also remind us of the importance of staying anchored on our core values. And that fairness, and I keep saying fairness and respect and the rule of law become so important. We need to remind ourselves what and what that means. Importantly, not allowing individuals act to translate into a collective blame. So communities can unpack that. I think the role of religious leaders have really played an important role. There may be cultural differences, but religious leaders have been able to bring communities together during times of crisis. It really can work, and the real question is whether we have the discipline to implement it consistently, collectively, and with a long-term view. Investing in local capacity, intercultural, interfaith, engagement, community-led initiatives, trusted local leadership, that is ways of bringing communities together. And also coupled with that is having a whole of government approach. This is not just a community issue, it's a core national business, education, justice, media, employment all play a role in all of this. So I think working together with government and communities on an equal playing field is important. And the other thing is government needs to learn to trust communities. Governments are not good at working in partnership with communities. You need to trust them. And the only way we saw that, and the only time really practical way we saw that was during the COVID pandemic. Because the government or service providers had to get a message across and they couldn't effectively reach communities. They relied on communities to inform communities. So they developed healthy and practical partnerships, and we actually saw how they could work. But we've lost it again. You know, we've gone back again, we've gone back to our old practices, and it's so important to ensure that we build trust and engagement between services, government, and community because community can provide some of the best services during crisis and conflict because they live in the neighborhoods. They know who their neighbors are, they know where the barriers are, where the fears are. So they can actually work collectively. What community lacks are resources at times, and that's where governments need to work together, whether it's at local or state or federal, it doesn't really matter. The closer to community, the closer the better. And the cost of repairing those cracks later is much higher. So we need to start seeing those cracks now through rising tensions and polarization. And we've done it. And we've just got to make sure that we can continue that work, but we need to strengthen those partnerships. Intercultural dialogue becomes so important. I mean, there's this notion of a them and us. There is a lot of challenges between inter-ethnic communities, migration and diversity of diasporas, a number of challenges with them. I like the uh the title of your um of this show. That's interesting in itself. I I I guess because if there are situations in our community where transplanting tensions happen and conflicts do come from other places, and and that is a consequence of I guess migration, where they're carried into a new setting through media or or political networks. Instead of disappearing, old divisions get sort of recreated in different societies. And I guess tensions could although you know, even though tensions can travel, they can also be diffused.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

When you talk about diffusing tensions or when you talk about intercultural dialogue and disagreement with dignity, I imagine that you through the course of the last 30, 40 years, you've probably had to sit through some uncomfortable conversations as a participant or watch them. And what I've noticed is that in peace movements, especially in the Middle East, but also even in Australia with our um, you know, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander communities, what I've noticed is that truth-telling and that airing of grievance is like an absolutely crucial step to moving forward in any way, shape, or form. What is your personal advice around having uncomfortable conversations?

SPEAKER_03 7:53

I think listening is is really important. We can quickly fall the trap of engaging without thinking or emotional response to something. One of my experiences has been to really listen carefully and to hear out that person because half the time it's the frustration of a person being unheard. You don't have to agree, but to listen is respectfully, I think, becomes really important so that you can actually start to have a conversation. The most effective response is to try to build a structured dialogue, help diffuse some of that tension through a bit more cultural understanding and trying to put yourself in the role or the position of the other person and try to listen to that. Then make sure once you've done that, then I think you create an environment where the other person almost needs to listen to you as well, and then we start the dialogue. Multicultural societies do better when people feel part of a common we and are free to keep their cultural identities. You need to recognize that governments, schools, and media can reinforce shared values, that rule of law, mutual respect and equal rights, and while still representing diverse histories and voices, try to invest in media literacy and responsible information flows. Because tensions are often amplified online, people need tools to question what they see and share, give media literacy, especially for young people, how to work with algorithms and misinformation spreads and how to verify sources. Create a structured dialogue, not just coexistence. Simply living side by side isn't enough. I mean, programs that bring people from different backgrounds together, schools, workplaces, community forums, should include facility dialogue, not just casual contact and approaches inspired by bodies like Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Show that acknowledging harm and hearing multiple perspectives can reduce inherited hostility, even if full agreement isn't reached. We tend to stereotype communities. We see in in major broadsheets where there is a stereotype of an entire community. You take the Muslim community, there's 36 different communities, uh, the Jewish community, there's so many different communities, Polish, Russian, whatever. This is where multicultural media and others go, as you say, go down into the communities and and show the differences, but also allows for the different community voices to talk about things and to share information and to inform each other. And I think it it gives a much better sense of understanding of who we are as a nation. The reality is that diversity in this nation is for real, it's there to exist, it will not go away. So those who have trouble with it learn to live with it because that's the reality of this nation, and therefore we build on it. Australia's migration and humanitarian programs have long been among the most successful in the world, and they've helped build a modern, dynamic economy and a society that's by and large cohesive, resilient, and globally connected, and that's through its communities. It's also been built on clear and consistent foundations, uh, fairness, non-discrimination, and a shared commitment to civic values that underpin our democracy, and I think that's important. And by and large, most people have signed on to that, and I think those stories need to be demonstrated. This nation has been built on migration economically and socially. It's not a welfare state as some people portray migration. Unfortunately, we have leaders out there that who have loud voices and are recorded in media which set a different paradigm, and I think we need to continually remind ourselves you know, it that's not the way the true Australia is at that community level.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

How do you stay optimistic when it feels like the wheels are falling off?

SPEAKER_03 11:48

You are challenged, and certainly in the last 30 to 40 years, I have seen how we have managed a range of tensions and events as a nation, but more so as a community. And I think I have more trust in community and its ability to work together, even though we are now being challenged, even more so. I mean, let's be honest, in the last two or three years, two of the you know, largest Abrahamic faiths in Judaism and Islam, the leaders were not talking to each other because of recent events, and we felt that it's been felt because previously, during events and crisis, these two groups, along with Christian leaders and other leaders, were the first to come together during any times of tension and crisis and say, This is not who we are as a nation, this is not who we are as a community, our faiths do not support this sort of action, and it's against everything that we stand for in our faiths and our religion, and here's our common core values that pull us together. Even through that, now I have seen behind the scenes communities from both sides and all sides working together to preserve a sense of stability and respect at the grassroots level.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

So they're back in the room? Are they back in the room?

SPEAKER_03 13:17

There have been occasions where they've been back in the room as communities, and I think as we move forward that will increase even more so. Because at the end of the day, we live in this country, and there are more out there who are willing to divide us on these issues than unite us, and we need to overcome that. And I've seen lots of incidences in my life and tensions where communities have embraced to ensure that we are not even divided further. I think our national life is underpinned by well-established civic principles and a respect for democracy and the rule of law, and I guess an equality between men and women, freedom of religion and expression, and a commitment to fairness, fair go is so important. And I see that in the community. One of the things I I would also have the pleasure of sharing is the Australian Multicultural Framework Review, the panel with two other colleagues. And one of the things that we heard time and time again as we traveled throughout Australia, engaging with communities in regional and metropolitan areas in consultations and then through submissions, is what people wanted to say is communities will come together providing they know that government has got their back. So it's so important for us to make sure that we look at who is sitting around the table for the future. And young people today in Australia have really got a very strong and loud voice, but some very constructive opinions and solutions to a lot of the problems as well, because they engage. One of the things we also noticed, with particularly a lot of the second and third generation of young people, they've developed this hybrid culture. They come in a room regardless of where they're from, what religion, background, the first thing they say to each other is that I'm an Australian. That opens dialogue. There's a common understanding of who we are as an identity. Then they feel safe enough to talk about all these other issues because they have one common thing: the fact that they're Australian. And that is becoming clear and loud. And I think we need to ensure that that actually grows in this nation.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

I went back to Professor Michelle Grossman, who we've spoken to several times in different episodes of this podcast. And one of the things I wanted to talk to her about specifically was examples where extremism and fractures within Western societies have been addressed successfully. And she gave me some examples.

SPEAKER_05 15:57

One of the inhibitors at the moment is the demand for people who need to feel safe when they have difficult or painful conversations. Feeling safe can be both an enabler of a difficult conversation, but it can also be an inhibitor. It gets very tricky. And I say that the demand for a safe space can be an inhibitor because people can sometimes interpret that as meaning I shouldn't feel anything negative at all. I should only feel happy and comfortable all the time. Well, if you're only ever feeling happy and comfortable all the time in a conversation, you can't have a difficult or a painful conversation. You can't hear other people who might, you know, be not feeling happy or comfortable themselves. So I think part of this is that there has to be a kind of rethinking and a reworking of what we mean by safe and what we mean by a safe space. That safe means safe from some kinds of harm, but not from anything, you know, that even has a whiff of negativity or critique or where you might feel uncomfortable. We have to learn how to feel safe with discomfort. Yeah. We have to learn how to sit with discomfort if we're to, and you know, we know this from some of the terrific work that's been done around reconciliation in Australia. Okay. So we actually have some fantastic models uh over the reconciliation journey that I think we could learn from, and that we could learn from, particularly indigenous perspectives, on how to manage some of this that we could bring in to this space. But the program that really stayed with me to this day, as part of my work, I interviewed quite a wide range of people doing work that was related to countering vulnerable extremism. One of them was a fellow who was, at the time, he was the he was the imam in the chaplaincy program at New York University, NYU. And he talked about an initiative that he set up where he got Jewish New Yorkers, Jewish kids, yeah, students at NYU. He got them to put on traditional Muslim garb and spend the entire day walking around dressed like a visible Muslim. And that included women, Jewish girls putting the hijab on. He got Muslim boys to walk around with a yarmika on their head for a whole day. And I'm not sure what he did with the with with the Muslim girls. Anyway, the point of the program was he wanted them to feel what it was like. It was an empathy program. He wanted them to feel what it was like to be subject to the responses of others based on a superficial assessment of who you were, what you thought, and how you felt, purely on the basis of how people typed you because of what you how you dressed and the identity category that they associated with that. And then, of course, everybody would unpack this. This was hugely successful in terms of promoting a deeper level of empathy, but it also served, and I think this is the key point, it was a kickstart for the kind of conversations that needed to happen. In Australia, we had a program, this is quite a while ago, the Australian Federal Police set up. It's called the Unity Cup. So it's an AFL football rules, you know, footy game. It's again got teams. So originally it was to be about both um bridging capital, sort of uh contact between groups, and linking capital so that people got a had a better relationship with and understanding of the AFP. Um, so they had an AFP team of police officers who who were playing. One of those teams was called Muju, right? It was the Muju footy team because it was comprised of equal numbers of Muslim boys and Jewish boys. I think the Jewish boys were from Yalek and the Muslim boys were from Newport Mosque. So this is going, this is going back some years now, right? Quite a few years. Um and they decided they they came up with the name Muju. And I we did an evaluation of that program, which is all I know about it. So I remember boys from each community saying, I mean, they had literally never traveled across the bridge to the other side of Melbourne, right? Uh the boys from Biallock had never been to the western suburbs. The Newport boys had never been over to Coalfield, like they had physically never been in each other's territory. Many of them said they had never, if they were Muslim, they said, we haven't met any Jewish people. We haven't met any Muslims. So there's this um, you know, this contact zone between those two groups, their ability to work and sport that kind of team sport, which encourages people to find common ground despite their differences. So it worked a treat for for a good period of time. So I think those are two examples of community-based programs that actually brought people together and enabled them to explore differences and conflicts. So I know that in the Muju group, they talked about this long before the Hamas attack or Gaza or anything, they talked about Israel and Palestine. There were Palestinian boys in that, and they talked about their views and their experience and that of their families. The Jewish boys were able to talk about why Israel was important to them and to their families. You sort of think, well, what other opportunities were there for them to hear from each other? And the answer is really hardly any, you know, hardly any. We haven't even touched on the extent to which some of the issues that we face are largely because of interest. Generational transmission of certain stereotypes, biases, wanting to respect the experience of our elders, wanting to respect their perspectives, even where we don't share them. Young people are the future, as the cliche goes, but it's not just a cliche, it's also the reality. And I think that we have to make a special effort. It's also young people who get radicalized to violence more quickly and more pervasively than others. So if we're really looking for a starting point, I think schools have a role to play, but it's not just schools. If you just expect government to do it, if you just say it's all about schools, schools are very important, but again, they're not the only place. You can go to school and then you come, and we know this, we know this from radicalization and extremism studies. You know, kids go to school, but and and then they come home, and the parents spend the next three hours contradicting everything around tolerance, around inclusion, around uh, you know, the value of cultural diversity. And the kids are like, what am I gonna do? I, you know, I'm not leaving my family, right? There are those kinds of issues as well. So we need lots more inter and intra-community conversations that are safe, but that do not avoid discomfort and indeed even pain in the conduct of those if we are going to move beyond this.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Polster and social researcher Koz Samaris spoke to us about politics and the rise of one nation in previous episodes. But in this scenario, I really wanted to talk to him about transparency in politics and how this could contribute going forward.

SPEAKER_08 23:41

The art of compromise is important and needed in public debate and decision making, but it shouldn't become the absolute norm where you are constantly compromising and cutting corners and doing deals and because in the end of the day, the Australian public have developed a view that that compromise is an industry, a political industry, and they don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

The compromise is okay as long as you're honest about what your compromise is. If you say I'm gonna block this legislation, which seeks to increase social housing because I see this legislation as more important, and I've done a deal where if I oppose this, I get that. Just be honest about it and be open and let Australians make their own call. I shouldn't need to go to an analyst to understand news consumers shouldn't need to go and seek out a reason. You just tell them what you're doing, and if there's nothing wrong with it, then you shouldn't have an issue telling them.

SPEAKER_08 24:38

In absence of that honesty, people jumped to conclusions and conspiracies. So they will say, for example, after the Bondi incident, that the reason why the Albanese government was not acting strongly was because of uh Tony Burke's relationship with the Muslim community, which is not right, not correct. But that missing clarity initially and the and the decisiveness that was missing allowed that vacuum to be filled with absolute crap. That that repeats itself all the time. If the journalist wants to get um serve you a gotcha question, give them the gotcha. Your audience is not the journalist, your audience is the people who may listen to their work or read their work. Nine times out of ten, most decisions a lot of politicians make are actually quite reasonable. But they feel like, well, I've I have to make this decision. I don't want to upset certain certain people, so I've got to spin my words. No, just be honest.

unknown 25:35

Right?

SPEAKER_08 25:35

So if you're gonna have you're gonna introduce tax tax reform on capital gains tax, yep, be honest. Yep, there's some people are not gonna like this. But you know what? Sorry, you're not our target here. We're worrying about our younger Australians now.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Zachary Schaefer spoke to me from New York. He's the one of the founders of Project Shema, specifically about the difference between anti-Jewish hatred and anti-Jewish biases, and how he has hope about the future and moving forward.

SPEAKER_06 26:13

First, I will say that we are all socialized and conditioned into anti-Jewish ideas. To be Jewish or not Jewish, simply to be human in society today, is to be inculcated with certain ideas about Jews. Ideas that Jews are powerful, that we're greedy, that we're evil, that we're disloyal or untrustworthy. And these ideas are in our media, they're in our culture, they're in music, they're in the textbooks that we're reading. So to be alive today is to be socialized into these ideas, and we all have these unconscious and implicit biases and prejudices about Jews. So when I think about solving for anti-Semitism, I don't actually think about solving for Jew hatred. The evidence that I have seen is not that most people hate Jews, it's that most people have biases and bigotries about Jews, and often they are not even aware of those biases or bigotries. If that problem statement is correct, it means our approach should not be to condemn or deplatform or ostracize anyone who perpetuates an idea that might be harmful to Jews. It means we have to identify those who are speaking or acting in ways that are accidental and unintentional. And I believe that to be the vast majority of folks, and then to think of an engagement strategy that is focused not on content but on process, a relational engagement strategy that's grounded in depolarization, in storytelling, and in empathic identification, to help folks to understand what it means for Jews to be insecure or vulnerable, to help people understand what it even means to be Jewish. Because most folks see us as a white, religious, powerful community that only experienced anti-Semitism in an existential way once during the Holocaust. So there's a lot of education that needs to take place, but it has to follow through from a relationship, from a place of trust and from a framework that is depolarized.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

I'm very, very interested in anti-Semitism as it relates to other forms of bigotry and hatred, because I personally believe that that they're that while each form of hatred has its specificities, that they're all interrelated, that hate hate kind of always comes with friends. You know, hatred of Jews also comes with hatred of other people who were othered for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_06 28:45

A trend line of my work that I must name to answer this question is the importance of dismantling binaries. We need to dismantle binaries, and the question is anti-Semitism related to other forms of bigotry, yes or no? Or should we handle anti-Semitism in isolation or in connection to other forms of bigotry, I think can sometimes perpetuate this polarized debate that doesn't help us to solve these challenges. Antisemitism is a its own conspiracy theory, it is its own systemic bigotry. And what that means is that anti-Semitism is a set of ideas that has existed for thousands of years, wherever Jews have lived and places we haven't, right? These ideas are woven into the fabric of our life and our history, and we're all socialized into specifically anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and bigotries. And in order to show up for Jews, we have to understand what it means to be Jewish. We have to understand what antisemitism is, the ways in which it operates, the trajectory of Jewish dehumanization and exclusion in society. And I think that does require a standalone conversation around Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, and what it means to be an ally for the Jewish community. I believe that's what equity means. We figure out how individuals and groups need our support, what their unique needs are, and we show up appropriately for them. And antisemitism is connected to other forms of bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination. We know the ways in which, especially in the United States, white supremacy, racism, and antisemitism fuel each other. We know how antisemitism fuels other forms of bigotry. We've seen how antisemitism can be a canary in the coal mine for the fraying of democracy, how it can fuel other conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory in the United States, how it exists in this vicious cycle, this vicious relationship with polarization and the collapse of democracy. When we live in a society that enables the dehumanization of any one group, the dehumanization of any other group is much more permissible or likely. When we live in a society that is fractured, that is collapsing, and that says there's one group of people or identity that we can blame for that collapse, and everyone is less safe. So when I think about what it looks like to do anti-Semitism work, I think there's two parts. The first part is doing education around Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, and really understanding what allyship for the Jewish community looks like. And that needs to happen alongside a second part that explores how antisemitism intersects with and fuels other forms of bigotry, how extremism, polarization, and conspiratorial thinking both enables anti-Semitism and how antisemitism can also spread polarization, conspiratorial thinking, and extremism. So it is really a yes and to do anti-Semitism work effectively, we do need to focus on the Jewish community specifically and to step outside of that vacuum and realize the ways in which anti-Semitism is caused by and cause is other forms of harm for other communities. Any threat analysis conversation that the Jewish community is having needs to be grounded in a recognition that we are a community carrying intergenerational trauma, and the impact of that trauma is dissociation and emotional numbness. We dissociate from the pain, we don't integrate those traumatic experiences, we don't always engage in the post-traumatic growth that can happen, and also hyper-arousal. We become hyper-vigilant, we become oversensitive, we become flooded with these fight or flight stress hormones, and that chronic activation can force us to see urgent threats anywhere. So to understand anti-Semitism today and if we should have hope requires living in paradox. I want to offer some of that paradox. Jews have faced a cycle of systemic, institutional, and state-sponsored violence almost everywhere we have lived for thousands of years. And our community is still here and has flourished for thousands of years. Jews today live in an era of unprecedented safety and never before seen institutional support compared to any time throughout our history. Governments worldwide, from the U.S. appointing individuals within the government specifically to fight anti-Semitism, such as an anti-Semitism envoy, to EU action plans and national strategies, governments worldwide stand with us in ways that would have been unimaginable a century ago. The fear feels acute. The threats are real. And this amplification of visibility and tools is something our ancestors have never had. And I think beneath this fear lies the strongest infrastructure in Jewish history for protection, alliances, and awareness. And I hope that this paradox can give us power, can make us feel safer to act, to build, and to endure. So we have to be vigilant without being hyper-vigilant. We have to take these threats seriously and existentially without allowing trauma to hijack our every step. And I think our strength and our resilience lies in that balance, an awareness of threats anchored to resilience and not that exhausting spiral that our community can fall into. I'll also add that for so long, our collective response to anti-Semitism has stopped at remembrance. We've taught about atrocity, we've taught about the Holocaust, but we've rarely taught about the systems that made that hatred and that harm possible. And we've rarely talked about how to dismantle that. And I believe that today, for the first time, our community is daring to imagine what it would mean to educate not just about the Holocaust, but about anti-Semitism itself, the roots of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, the patterns of anti-Semitism and the human cost. Never before in the history of the Jewish community have we tried at scale to educate about Jewish identity and anti-Semitism. I feel very proud to be a part of founding an organization that helped to pioneer that strategy to scale systematic interventions around Jewish and anti-Semitism education for our friends. And I have found that for the first time, the Jewish community and non-Jewish communities are teaching people about the roots of contemporary anti-Semitism, how the machinery of anti-Jewish harm operates, and what we need to do to dismantle it. And that gives me a lot of hope because it is something we have actually never tried before.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Is it working?

SPEAKER_06 36:31

I believe it is working. What we need to do is continue to scale evidence-based and effective efforts. We are just at the beginning of doing this work.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

At this point, I decided to go back to Margaret Simons, who is an absolute Australian leader and pioneer in the field of journalism and journalism education, and talk to her about how educating the general public about news media, about information consumption, about critical thinking when it comes to all of those things will contribute going forward.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

Learning how to sift information, and you know, this goes beyond just news information, obviously that's the topic we're talking about. Learning how to assess and sift information and how to think, basically, about it, is fundamental and begins with birth, if not before. Certainly schools play an important part in that, but so do all sorts of civil society groups, from you know scouting troops to neighbourhood watch to all sorts of things at every level. I think we have to develop societies which are inoculated to some extent against believing. The latest thing which might confirm your own sense of disconsent or suspicion or whatever, but is in fact bullshit, you know, the heart of conspiracy theories. Making sure that we do still have the gatekeepers, the established media organisations reasonably well resourced that are standing on the edge of this sewer commentating and policing it is part of that. Because if you don't have that, then I too would be lost in trying to work out what's really going on. I've been pleased that our current government, the Albanese government, has made some solid moves in this direction.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Post-October 7, and then also post-Bondi, there's been a lot of finger pointing within politics, outside of politics. I asked Michelle Grossman about who is responsible for fixing this fractured society that we find ourselves in, and she had some really interesting uh reflections.

SPEAKER_05 38:39

Who's really responsible for fixing anti-Semitism? Who's responsible for addressing it? Where do we go after we've had this kind of experience? And my answer to that is that it actually starts with Jewish communities. If we do not pick up the cudgel or the palm leaf at the olive branch, if we don't get out there and actually start to say, for a starter's maybe being in the room with some of the people that we're currently refusing to be in the room with. If we don't put ourselves into the room with others, we are not going to make any progress. My sense is that most mainstream Australians, aside from a passing G, you know, I don't really agree with, you know, perhaps what they've done in Gaza, or, you know, I wish they'd uh, they're not thinking about it too much. This is not, it's not like a national preoccupation. Instead, what's happened is that we've had very vocal groups on various sides of the debate, but governments can't fix anti-Semitism.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Has Dalal also explained how our history in these spaces, how our work to date stands us up going forward.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Given the fact that we are faced with challenges, but at the same time we have built a solid foundation as a nation. We're not a successful multicultural nation simply because we've been standing still. And simply being ethnically diverse or religiously diverse doesn't necessarily constitute a successful multicultural nation in the absence of good social policy. And we have actually made investment in that since 1989 and prior, after getting rid of all those assimilations policies and what Australia policies, we actually actively worked on addressing these issues and with the launch of the National Agenda for Multicultural Australia in 1989, which actually not only conferred rights like any democracy, but it also set about setting up a set of uh obligations and responsibilities. So as we conferred rights, the right to religion, employment, access and equity, we also asked, in terms of conferring those rights, there are also obligations which are commitment to Australia first and foremost, reciprocal respect, obeying the law, the constitution. So they were very important and they were very solid foundations that were set from the very start. The challenge has been we need to continually remind ourselves that multiculturalism is not just some sort of is it comes out of Australian democracy, not the other way around, and people get that all confused. Multiculturalism was set up as a policy to help integrate communities quickly so they can make their contribution to Australia. It wasn't a sort of a separate political agenda, and people get that confused, and and it was around how do we actually recognize the diversity of our community, but also how do we actually move fast enough with a number of policies, whole of government approach, so that people can settle, integrate, and make their contributions. Learning language, employment, access and equity, but also working on setting some sort of common identity which brings us together as a nation. And that was the responsibilities and obligation component of it. Now, certainly recent events have presented community leaders support human rights for all Australians with serious challenges, no question, and the state of inter-group tensions, the rise of assimilationist and racist ideologies, the tragic attacks of December 14 on the Australian Jewish community at Bondi. I mean the rise of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the I guess the invigoration of xenophobic movements have really coalesced into the most serious threats to multiculturalism. Yet Australia's strength has always come from how we live together, how we treat one another, how we debate our differences, and how we share a sense of fairness that binds us even when we disagree. And I think those foundations have helped us understand that, and we just can't be complacent about it. Socio cohesion might be uh a policy term, um, but it really means simply respect, participation, that belonging and trust, and and I guess shared responsibility. It's really about everyday choices that make our democracy work. And listening before judging, helping a neighbor, engaging in civic life, and respecting the institution. I mean, it's really good that government's new focus on social cohesion right now, but but yet social cohesion can't be treated by statements alone. It it it's it's lived, it's resourced, it's continually renewed. We want to move beyond slogans and rhetoric. Australians are becoming very smarter than that now. And and true cohesion grows from trust, and and trust grows from fairness. Communities need more than guidelines, they they require genuine partnerships, that you know there's got to be consistent inclusion, and that means to develop local solutions. When policy is paired with action and engagement with empowerment, cohesion becomes real. And they're the sorts of things that we have worked on and need to remind ourselves because we have those foundations. Social cohesion is built on relationships. And that's why I I reckon it's it's really essential to see it as a process rather than an end state. And in a way, trust is is the glue that holds society together, and social cohesion is really one of those consequences. It's an ongoing process, and and it's shaped by how we respond to change, how we welcome difference, and how honestly we confront inequality. A cohesive society isn't without one without disagreement. It's one where disagreement is handled with dignity, and that's what we need to remind ourselves and work on. Australia has shown time and time again when we act with respect and fairness, we're stronger together. And there's been many moments that that we've seen that. Our task isn't to achieve cohesion once it's once and for all, but keep building it and and and through leadership that listens, trusted communities, and shared belief that everyone belongs and everyone can contribute. And I think that's what's really important.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

I did ask Michelle a difficult question about the Jewish community going forward, and it's a it was a difficult question to ask, and it was a difficult answer to listen to, but I think it's worth hearing. Do you think that the Jewish community is at more risk than other communities?

SPEAKER_05 45:23

I think that the answer is both yes and no. We used to think about terrorism as being aimed at terrorizing a mass population. And indeed, many of the terrorist attacks that we've seen, both the large-scale organized attacks and some of the more smaller but nevertheless disproportionately impactful uh attacks, they have targeted random populations, either mass populations or random populations. And I don't think that we should ever underwrite the impact of the fear that's created by the idea that the target of terrorism is random. Because you never know. You could be next at some point. You're just going about your life, you're taking the train, you're on the bus, you're in the city square, you're in school going about your day, and suddenly kaboom, right? That's that's where that comes from. When you see terrorist as committed against our target group, I mean it it may be terrorism if it meets other threshold definitions, but whether or not it's terrorism, it is still a form of what you might call target and what is called targeted violence. So are you more likely to be the target of targeted violence at this point in time? I would say yes. Sadly, one of the reasons, and this is again just one of the conundrum, one of the reasons um is because once there's one attack, it kind of opens the door towards the possibility of others. I think that one thing that many Australians perhaps you know for good reason don't have much knowledge or appreciation of is just how many plots we actually disrupt in Australia. How many plots don't ever get anywhere because they are successfully interdicted and disrupted, meaning they are stopped in their tracks. Bonda was of interest from a professional point of view, and obviously I wish to God that it had never happened, but it did happen. And one of the things about her is that there was no leakage. So two things didn't happen. It often helped with the interdiction of plots before they get to the point of action. They didn't need to communicate with each other online. A father and son who did not need to be online to talk to each other, and therefore they didn't leak. They did not leak to anybody. They didn't there was no boasting, there was no bragging, there was no hint dropping. Those are the ones you actually can't stop. My argument would be there was really nothing that could have been done to prevent what happened in Bond Island. And that's absolutely terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Given my background as a writer and a journalist and someone who's operated in creative spaces for a very long time, I wanted to go to Noe Hassel, who we've spoken to previously, who is, you know, sat on numerous boards in creative spaces, still does, and has unique insight into those sort of arenas and ask her about what can be done specifically in those spaces. So, how do we unfuck the tree spaces?

SPEAKER_09 48:40

So I am ever the optimist, and I have also gotten to an age where I'm also a little bit like call it courage or stupidity. Bring it. We unfuck it by showing up. We show up with our full hearts because we care and because we know other people care. I want to be there for someone who asks the question and wants the answer. And I also want to be there for those who don't ask the question but still want the answer. Because there are times when I have sat in a room and wished that someone else would ask the question because I want to know and I want to learn and I want to do better. And if there is any venue format that I can be a voice support or offer anything, I'm there for it. And so that's how I hope that we can all do a little bit to unfuck it.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Another theme that we've talked about this series is is about people who are basically making careers out of spreading hate. I'm talking about the rise of the social media influencer and YouTubers and you know, twitchers and TikTokers and all these people. I went back to uh author and commentator Van Bader and asked her about that specifically.

SPEAKER_10 50:02

Quite honestly, phones give you the illusion of being a celebrity when you're not one. Because you can film yourself and you can create films of yourself and you can style yourself like a celebrity and you can position yourself in the way that what you say matters, even when you have no skills, no experience, you know, no worldly contact, no participation in a broader world or broader community. Like that illusion is available to you, and people take that up. And the people who are willing to eviscerate more and more and more of themselves, that's the economy that you become part of. Not every girl makes a million dollars on OnlyFans, not every boy becomes a million dollar Twitch streamer. That's not how the economics of opportunity work, just like not everybody gets to be a pop star, not everybody gets to be a famous actor. And part of what I think we're dealing with is this the narcissistic appeal of the technology and the platforms, which the corporations are more than happy to encourage. And so you end up with like 13-year-old Nazis because it gets clicks and it gets hits and it gets controversy, and it's an attention economy. And if you can get attention by saying nakedly anti-Semitic things in any context and speak to that audience, I mean I've watched this happen since October 7, people making pivots into a very complex policy space that is not about homogenised groups of people, is not about universal identities, but deeply, deeply contested identities and territories and nuance and behaviours, like a policy issue so dire that the greatest minds of the 20th century could not solve it, and yet now somebody who was selling mattresses or dildos 12 months ago is now weighing into that space with no qualification or experience or language knowledge or cultural familiarity, and because there is a community of people who find that as a badge of their identity and follow that as consumers of a market to buy different products. It's ugly and it's difficult, and we're going through the the teething phase of that as a society. But I do think it's important to remember that your timeline is not the timeline of the society in which you live. People in my community out here are infinitely more concerned about petrol prices and the impact on the school run or how they're going to get to work or if they're going to carpool or whether they'll be able to do what they need to do with public transport or even if they have access to public transport, these are much more pressing issues than an Australian influencer going off the rails about the Rothschilds on the internet. And people need to remember that. And the left that I come from, which is the very material democratic socialist left, like if you build the structures of an inclusive society through economic opportunity and good schools, good hospitals, like good transport, secure housing, the other problems become less appealing because you can actually get on with your life. I understand the legitimate fears of the Jewish community about persecution and anti-Semitism going mainstream. And obviously, in the wake of a mass murder event that targeted people on the basis of their Jewishness that left 15 people dead, that is incredibly legitimate. But it is really important that we nail down where these threats are coming from and the fact that we are not looking at a mainstream position. Most Australians are absolutely horrified by the persecution of Jewish Australians, as can be evidenced by the fact that after like the absolute horror expressed in the wake of what happened in Bondi. And and when we're in online spaces, you get a distortion effect where you think has everybody lost their minds. Who are these people talking about? The freaking Rothschilds. Like do people do actually believe that? And just because it's a majority of what you see on your timeline does not mean it's a majority of what people think in the community or the butt.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

What I will say is that I I get what you're saying, but I also think that when you have someone who has half a million Instagram followers, right, and they're sharing a Rothschild conspiracy, that, you know, and this is someone who, for a lot of Australians, has a sense of legitimacy. They've received awards, they've been lauded for their social justice work, they've, you know, all of these things, and then they share a Rothschild conspiracy. I do think there is a risk that for a lot of people who see that on their timeline, that it will lend an air of legitimacy to something that wasn't necessarily known about or seen before. It amplifies it and gives it an air of legitimacy. And that is what concerns me is that some of this online hatred is genuinely affecting real-world issues. And it deeply concerns me that people, knowingly or unknowingly, although I think they have a responsibility to know what the hell they're sharing when they have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, is legitimizing some of this absolute meshas.

SPEAKER_10 55:08

Is it possible to unfuck to be perfectly honest? We once had this conversation about pamphlets as a society. We had this conversation about newspapers. We had this conversation about television. The conversation about television was going on when I was a kid. We've had this conversation about the theatre. Like it is inconceivable to us, but there were like hundreds of years of active theatre censorship in Britain because the theatre was considered such a volatile and morally dangerous medium that it could encourage wives to leave their husbands or acts of promiscuity. Every media we develop, there is a conversation about, oh my god, look at all this torrent, that Shakespeare guy, he's wild, he's out there, we can't put this play on Richard II. Like Elizabeth I attempted to censor the play Richard II because she thought it was about her. This is an ongoing conversation we have as a society. Is it surmountable? Yes. How is it surmountable? It's surmountable by the fact that people develop their political values from the six people they're closest to. So the challenge for us, because screens are portable, the screens that we have in our lives, we have to develop a resilience to minimize. And I think that's happening. The social media ban, like, I think it's one of the best things we've ever done. Is it perfect? No. No piece of legislation is perfect. Is it a start? Is it setting a precedent? Is it giving us a framework to move forward? Is it affirming that we as society are like, actually, these things are dangerous? Social media is dangerous, it is dangerous to children. That has just been proved in a court in the United States where Facebook and YouTube were found liable by a court for the dangerous structural design of their platforms. That the endless scroll or infinite scroll, various algorithmic rewards, these were designed to keep people fixated on the platforms, and for that reason they were dangerous and had contributed to this young woman's like social isolation and breakdown. That was found by court. And there are more of these decisions being made where liability around these platforms is bringing the necessary regulation under control. Regulation is not just about policing corporations, social media corporations, or any other kind of internet corporation can or cannot do. Legislation is also about affirming social principles and highlighting that things are dangerous. Now, you can get into a car and not put on a seatbelt. You'll be breaking the law, but you can do it. The moment you get in a car without a seatbelt on, if there's no cop visible, you're not going to get arrested. You can literally drive that car with no seatbelt until a cop pulls you over. You can take that risk. But you know, because it is illegal, that it's a dumb thing to do and you shouldn't do it. And you put your seatbelt on without even thinking about it because the message has come through that this experience of seatbeltless driving is crazy. We think that about all kinds of things that are available to us that we can use, that we can break the law or participate in unlawful behaviour, but the social message that this is dangerous is actually really important. And we're getting there, and we have to get there really quickly because now when there's a problem, it doesn't affect just one community, it affects a global community.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

What else can be done to get us there quicker to understand the dangers of the online spaces and social media and some of the things that this algorithmic world can create?

SPEAKER_10 58:26

Well, we've got to talk about it, and family conversations about it are really important. My husband and I watched the excellent Louis Thoreau documentary about the Menosphere the other day, which was is a great thing to watch because it enables a conversation about who these guys really are and what they're selling and how it's a lie. We need a disinformation act in this country and we need dedicated resources around what that will look like in order to not just hold social media companies responsible but hold content creators and other bad faith actors responsible for the stuff that they do, get things taken down, have a means as a society of talking about these texts. We need to absolutely bolster the institutions that we do have. These things are not separate. When trust in institutions reduces, that's when people are vulnerable to powerful arguments made by people who seem familiar or appeal to the values they want to express. When you watch that Manosphere documentary, you see these like young boys running towards these goons in the street, and you know, because you're an adult that those guys are losers, they're lying about the money, they have their lives actually quite miserable. It's pretty pathetic how they all live. But the illusion that they've created is speaking to aspirations of young men who don't trust the institutions around them to give them a sense of meaning and purpose. And that's because societies do degrade and become corrupt and systems break down. And what we can do is be really vigilant.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

He made it clear that he views anti-Zionists and the anti-Zionist movement as the primary obstacle to social cohesion around the conflict in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:12

From my experience as someone who witnessed the 2023 to 2025 anti-Zionist riots on campuses, right, I saw how they were narrated, right? There are tensions on campus, there are strong disagreements, etc. Right? That was a way of institutions to claim a kind of neutrality while they were actually often implicitly supporting the anti-Zionist riots, right, or allowing them to unfold. Of course, we know it wasn't bilateral tensions between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, right? The anti-Zionists started these protests, these riots, the anti-Zionists initiated mass harassment and abuse of Jewish students on campus. It all came from the anti-Zionist movement. So the so-called divisions in society are the result of the anti-Zionist movement. So one has to clearly identify the cause of what's going on, right? So-called Zionists didn't just get up on October 7th and start attacking sort of people who supported Palestine, so to speak, within these diaspora countries. It was the anti-Zionist movement posing as a pro-Palestinian movement, when it's actually an anti-Palestinian movement, who started causing all this disruption.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

We spoke to Hamza Howadi slightly earlier on in this series. He is a Palestinian man, Gazan man. He was raised there and left uh as a refugee after being imprisoned by Hamas several times. He left literally months before October 7 and has been a consistent critic of Hamas in exile. He now lives in Berlin. And I talked to him about whether he thinks that peace is a realistic aim at this point between Israel and its neighbours. And also I talked to him about how the coverage could be different and where the hope lies going forward. And his answer, as always, was just absolutely fascinating and I think uh a beautiful sentiment on which to end this episode. But I also really, really hope that there are some journalists listening to what he has to say.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

The the conflict resolution, uh I mean it uh it doesn't happen normally that you will have uh complete peace after the war. It will take time, and uh yes, of course, for the people in Gaza, I think it will take them a long time to to to go out of this trauma of what they experienced. Because it's uh it's unbelievable. I mean, I wouldn't start describing it because I I I cannot. I tried many times and I always fail. And I think that also goes to parts of the Israeli community, especially the families of the hostages and uh those who were uh the civilians who were killed, because it's extremely bad, and those people are with the trauma, the same trauma that you can say happened to the Israeli society during the second in the fata is being repeated again, maybe on a bigger scale. It will take a long time, but uh as my father said, the the the sooner we start the better for us. So we cannot just sit and say, yeah, it's uh going to take a long time. We have to start with this from now, and even with the settlers, like I'm I'm I'm not expecting the Israeli army to take the settlers tomorrow and uh go back to Israel and that's it, we found the solution. We also want the new government of Israel to somehow give something for the moderate Palestinians to if they saw the moderate uh government of Palestine uh trying in a way or another to be a partner to stop building settlements in specific areas, to stop uh violence in specific areas, to to motivate the moderate Palestinians. Otherwise, uh Hamas would use the argument that they used for a long time in Gaza that look, there is a Palestinian authority in in West Bank, they don't have armed resistance and they still attack them. So Israel should also give the moderate Palestinians an argument that we can take and go back to our own society and see say, see, we did that and now it's going well. So that should happen. At the same time, the Palestinians also need that because I um I'm not naive. I also admit to the fact that we were ruled by Hamas, which is uh fundamentalist Islamist ideology. We were ruled by for 19 years, more than Nazis ruled uh over Nazi Germany. So don't expect much flowers after that. So I I also want the Palestinian society to start the de-radicalization process, and this is why I mentioned Saudi Arabia and Emirates with their own experience. What worries me about the Israeli society is is is not the level of radicalization itself, because I I think maybe in Palestine it's a little bit more, but the spike, how they jumped during the current coalition, how they jumped from October the seventh to the hot week now. It's really horrific that we are seeing people a few months before they were saying no, it's not happening, it's not a war crime, it's not now they are saying, Yeah, it's a war crime, what should I do for you? So this is something really bad and something we should stop and stand against. We shouldn't allow these kind of arguments and the humanization or demonization of any other society.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

How do we elevate the voices that are slightly more reasoned and maybe maybe m better read, maybe more insight, maybe a bit more understanding? Like how do we get those voices and you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

Yeah, as as as you said, uh people unfortunately don't understand the current Israeli co alleation and think, yeah, all everyone is like Smortrich and Pink Fear, and they are all sitting and they have the same ideology, which is completely false. I mean, I do also acknowledge how the Israeli society actually criticizes and hates those people. They might only be loved in the in the West Bank, but in the if you went to Israel, I don't think so. The same goes for us, and uh as I said, we need more um media coverage of the the moderates, uh we need uh protection and safety for those because A Jewish voice or an Israeli voice who's criticizing his own society will be called backoo and maybe attacked or harassed. This needs safety and protection. The same goes for the Palestinians because right now, and even the war stopped, Hamas uh continue to execute and torture people who criticize them. And those people, even us as the Palestinian community in the diaspora, they are now going after our families inside Gaza. Many of my friends got their mothers even with a phone call threatened, their fathers interrogated and held. So we need protection and uh safety for those people. We need your help to to to give us an opportunity to say our opinions clearly. And I think for for Gaza right now, the focus should be on the rebuilding of Gaza. Of course, Hamas should be completely outside of that. This is how they can support us with that. They can also support us with with uh making pressure on the Israeli government to stop the the the settler attacks in the West Banks and the stop even the building of settlements because some European states recognize the state of Palestine, uh small trich went like a crazy and they started building settlements here, settlements there. So this will also be an obstacle at the end of the day. The same th way I see the extremist uh groups as then as an obstacle to peace. I also see the settlements as an obstacle, maybe not in the same way, but it it will be hard when we try to make peace and have many settlements to evacuate them. We saw in 2005 when uh Israel did that. So, yes, I I uh I this is what I can think of as ways to help the Palestinians.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

Now, Rob, we thought that this was gonna be our last episode initially when we started making this series of tensions transplanted, that we thought that there were gonna be five episodes. But there was a question that we asked every single interviewee. One question. The responses were so varied and so fascinating that we came together and we decided to make one bonus episode. And that question was when we look back on this period, whether that's in five years or ten years, what will we have misunderstood? And the answers really, some of them really do give me goosebumps, and that is gonna be the bonus episode. We are gonna give you the answers that every single interviewee gave to that one question. And then following that episode, we're actually gonna put all of our unedited interviews online so that you can hear them in full. There are a few that went quite a long time and dove into so many different uh topic areas that we thought that it was worth people having the opportunity to hear those interviews in their entirety.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

But there's something about listening to longer form interview with some of these amazing guests that we've had because you get the sense of where they're coming from in a deeper way, not just a snapshot. Look forward to that next and final bonus episode as well as the full ones. If you've been enjoying Tensions Transplanted, please let your friends know, let your foes know, you let your family know. That way, more people listen, more people get to hear these perspectives. We're on all the major podcasting platforms, so it's not too hard to find us. We've got a few emails at tt at the Jewishindependent.com.au, and we're all over the socials of the Jewish Independent, so we're easy to find. But until next time, I'm Rob Caldor.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:21

I'm Izzy Oderberg. Thanks for joining us.