Truth hurts

Is it time to legislate against it, Mr Albanese?

There are two resolutions I try to keep. Today I’m going to break them both.

The first resolution is to try and avoid writing Substacks in response to the outrage of the moment. There are more than enough people doing that and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to add or subtract from the fury, is my view.

The second resolution is to be politically evasive: equally scathing about both the Left and the Right, according to their deserts. It’s not a successful formula for building a rabidly committed audience. In fact, if I was a social media algorithm I’d have been re-coded long ago.

But today I’m going to break both those resolutions, because I’ve realised at last how to define Hate Speech. People have been agonising about this for years. Politicians, lawyers, academics, free speech advocates, and multiple purveyors of victimhood have fought viciously to slip their own fruit salads of words into legislation, and each fruit salad has been proven to make the situation worse, no matter what form it takes.

Let’s begin with the first resolution.

Within days of the Hamas orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, tens of thousands of people in face masks filled the streets and campuses of Western countries, waving Palestine flags and calling for the death of all Zionists. In the following two years the crowds grew bigger and unrestrained. The chants grew louder, calling not just for the elimination of Israelis from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, but for a world-wide Intifada to eliminate all Jews on earth.

In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, events took place which were startling in their similarity. Mass demonstrations were viewed at a distance by the police while single individuals standing mutely to one side holding an Israeli flag were arrested for disturbing the peace. Politicians spoke of the threats from the “Far Right”, and inter-agency units were set up to search the internet for seditious phrases that included the words “Islamic fundamentalism” and “illegal migrants”. Anti-Semitism spread like syphilis in a bath house. Soon the children were catching it.

Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses were vandalised and torched. Jewish students were insulted and attacked by teachers and fellow students alike. Their cries for help were ignored by politicians, the police and judiciary in the age-old diversionary trick of blaming the victim.

Don’t look to me for an explanation as to how this perversion of morality could have taken hold so quickly. It’s complicated. Imagine you’re looking at an Aboriginal dot painting, or a French pointillist painting, composed of many thousands of dots. At this stage you have your face so close to the canvas that all you can see are dots. But as you slowly pull back you will start to see shapes, until eventually you will see the whole subject clearly. Last Sunday we started to pull back and began to discern shapes.

On Bondi Beach, Sydney, hundreds of Jewish families gathered in the afternoon sun to celebrate Hannukah, the “Festival of Lights”. It’s eight days of peace and thanksgiving that’s been celebrated for thousands of years, with nightly candle-lighting, blessings, food, songs, and games. With what they have been enduring in the last two years, the occasion must have felt especially welcome and comforting.

But not for the two radicalised Islamic terrorists who came to kill as many of them as they could. And succeeded. Was the blood in the sand any different to the blood of October 7, 2023? Yes, it was. This time the blood was spilled on iconic Australian sand for all to see. The violence — the Islamic Fundamentalist violence — had come home. The world caught its breath, seeing for the first time the reality of what it had been determined to ignore.

Anthony Albanese (above), the Left-Wing Australian Prime Minister, who had stubbornly ignored every warning of the impending threat for years, spoke of the “danger of guns” and the ever-present threat of the “Far Right”. The State Premier said he would tighten firearms restrictions on “recreational shooters”. (Who would have guessed that the Islamic terrorists were “recreational shooters”?)

Albanese, unable to acknowledge the source of the anti-Semitic hatred, could not force the words “Islam” or “Muslim” out of his mouth. The State broadcaster, the ABC — that models itself on the impeccable standards of the BBC — danced with him in perfect step. Australia watched and waited.

An ex-politician, Josh Frydenberg, gave an impassioned address to mourning survivors at Bondi which was covered by all media outlets. His words were spellbinding in their honesty. He named the evil for what it was, and the source of the evil for who they are: Islamic fundamentalists. He recited the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, a Chrisian pastor who survived the Dachau concentration camp and the Nazi’s attempt to eliminate the Jewish Race over eighty years ago:

First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me and there was no one left
To speak out for me.

All over Australia, people took another step back from the dots, many with tears in their eyes.

But the Prime Minister remained silent, un-joined to the sentiment, and the Left-Wing media accused Frydenberg of “politicising the event”. Too late. We’d seen what the Left-Wing deemed to be Hate Speech.

They hated the truth.

So, there goes my second resolution.

A.I. Fabler

December 20, 2025