Support Palestine: Stop the Synagogue!

Our longtime Australian commenter and occasional contributor Julius O’Malley left an informative comment on last night’s post about the synagogue that will not be built in a suburb of Sydney. The planning request for a new synagogue in Bondi was turned down, ostensibly because it would cause an increased risk of terrorism in the area.

Mr. O’Malley’s detailed explanation of the local political currents in Bondi and adjacent suburbs provides some welcome nuance on the situation. It seems the purported fear of terrorism is actually just a cover for the time-honored lefty cause of supporting “Palestine” and keeping the Jews down.

The text below has been edited for punctuation:

Here is the judgment of the Land & Environment Court of New South Wales upholding Waverley Council’s refusal of planning permission for a new synagogue at Bondi.

The sad reality is that Jewish institutions are targets of Muslim hostility. Everybody knows it; they don’t want to acknowledge it and don’t want to assume the personal risk of being collateral damage when a synagogue is firebombed, shot up, etc. Islam wins.

While everything Gavin Boby states in the interview is correct, it has little direct bearing on this case as there was no Muslim opposition to the proposed synagogue — which was a Chabad, ultra-Orthodox, synagogue. What makes this case very interesting is the subtext to the refusal of planning permission by the local council — the Court was merely persuaded by the Council’s security concerns argument, as reading the case will make obvious.

To understand the subtext here, one has to understand the demographics of Waverley, the local government area in which Bondi sits. While there are at least five synagogues, several Jewish primary, secondary and pre-schools in Waverley Municipality and several more just beyond its borders, and there is one street in Bondi where the street name is a local byword for the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and another street nearby is simply nicknamed “Kosher Boulevarde”, Bondi is not a Jewish neighbourhood per se. Waverley LGA [local government area], less so again, although another of its suburbs to the north of Bondi, Dover Heights, is nicknamed “Jehovah Heights” and its neighbor, Rose Bay, is nicknamed “Nose Bay”. Another suburb adjoining Bondi and Waverley, the very affluent Bellevue Hill, has the highest density of Jews (by postcode) in Australia and is nicknamed “Bellejew Hill”. It is the other, non-Jewish, demographic of Bondi and of Waverley that is in play here.

Waverley is home to the iconic Bondi Beach and several other beautiful ocean beaches such as Bronte and Tamarama (“Glamarama”). It attracts “Bo-Bo’s” (Bourgeois-Bohemians) and affluent hipsters and has been gentrified since the 1970’s. Such people vote to give the left wing faction of the Labor Party and the Green Party a very substantial, often dominant presence, in the local council and in state parliamentary representation. The left wing of the Labor Party and the Green Party are both deeply, ahem, “pro-Palestine”. They are never “anti-Israel”, of course, although they are increasingly willing to go on the record as “anti-Zionist”.

A recent representative for the seat of Waverley in the NSW state parliament was the former mayor of Waverley, Paul Pearce, who is a member of the left wing faction of the Labor Party (and inherited the seat from another Left Laborite, Ernie Page). The balding Pearce, now cruising through life on a generous parliamentary pension, sports a ponytail and ear-ring and used to wear Che Guevara cufflinks to state parliament. Pearce bequeathed the mayoralty of Waverley to his left-faction Labor Party girlfriend (they are both in their late 50s-early 60s and have lived in Pearce’s father’s impressive multi-million dollar home overlooking Bronte beach for several decades) Ingrid Strewe, who used to speak glowingly of her years living in East Berlin before 1990 where “there was free childcare so women could have careers” — never mind the Stasi.

Getting the picture of Waverley? The Bo-Bo’s, hipsters and others who vote for the likes of Pearce, Strewe and the former Labor Party (left faction) federal candidate for the area, David Patch, or for the Green Party, would never, ever, come out in the open and state “We don’t like Jews and don’t want them or their schools or places of worship around” but … .

I recently obtained a surprising insight into how some people in the Waverley area feel about the armed security guards stationed outside synagogues and Jewish schools. I accept such a presence as a natural and normal response to danger. The wife of an artist from the area, however, whined to me at a dinner about how offensive it was to her that security guards outside a Waverley synagogue would stare at her as she drove past. When I made the point that they had to be wary of who was passing by their synagogue for security reasons, especially on a Saturday, she responded: “They wouldn’t need security guards if they weren’t doing what they’re doing in Palestine”! It is that type of sentiment and viewpoint amongst (presumably many) of the non-Jews of Waverley that drives the refusal of planning permission for a new synagogue at Bondi.

Interestingly, the group that proposed the Bondi synagogue formally called themselves “Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe”; no doubt in an attempt to garner some of the extraordinary sympathy extended to “refugees” in our era.

13 thoughts on “Support Palestine: Stop the Synagogue!

  1. So, they’re going to build a mosque instead to combat any increased risk of terrorism in the area? /s

  2. I would have a synagogue near me on principle! Homonids are not fit to live in civilisation. We should treat all migrant areas from the Mohammedan fakery as reservations. Their moral behaviour is lower than we require. Civilised societies should not have to tolerate these species and their vile practices. Jewry is civilised,

    Shalom!

    • The Jews wised up decades ago, but no man is an Island, including Jews. There are many Jews who know the dander, but still belive that appeasement is the best policy.

      Unfortunately ‘liberalism’ is more a matter of a ‘Pollyanna’ fantasy where if everyone is ‘nice’ to each other then we can all be happy, and Jews are certainly not immune to this.

      Here in Israel we are a bit less affected by the disease, but we have to live with neighbours and trading partners who are absolutely ravaged by it.

      So what will it take for the Europeans to wise up?

      So what will it take for Democrats and RINOs to wise up?

      They need to come and stay in Sderot in missile season……

  3. What will it take for the World to wise up about muslims? How many beheadings, rapes, killings, will it take for the West to realize what/whom they are dealing with?

    It really doesn’t take long to read a basic book about muslims and their history to wise up and then you have to realize that muslims do not change much. They follow the same beliefs that were laid down to them many years ago. There is no modernity there, other than learning how to make bombs.

  4. The Muslim American Society of Minnesota says that someone threw an explosive device that started a fire in the imam’s office at a mosque near Minneapolis.

    Does this mean that we can now get rid of the vile mosque in Bloomington, Minnesota, because it REALLY IS a terror target? If the same befell one of the dozens of mosques in Sydney, Jews could demand their removal!

    • Nope, but we can run endless articles about how scary it is for the Ummah and how it’s un-American while Deep State agents try to make an arrest.

  5. The Jews and the Christians must unite to fight the threat posed by globalists the far left and Islam .My children will be the generation who have to face the consequences of a West that sleepwalked off a cliff ,lulled by dope and Kumbaya ,into a false and complacent sense of security.

    My grandchildren will be the first generation to grow up in a dystopia ruled by: fear ,restrictions on freedom of speech ,the loss of personal privacy and safety in public bathrooms/ change- rooms / schools,intense pressure to have a sex change and to enter a same sex relationship ,intense pressure to convert to Islam and accept Female Genital Mutilation and child rape gangs and forced child marriage and halal slaughter..

    Unless of course my children emigrate to a place where sanity prevails-Eastern Europe for instance

  6. The Jews and the Christians must unite to fight the threat posed by globalists the far left and Islam.

    It’s not just the “Jews and the Christians” that “must unite” against this combined threat of Islam and Globalism.

    Atheists, Agnostics, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, Jains, Greek Orthodox, Pagans, Wiccans, Animists, and every other non-Islamic faith or credo on earth must unite in common cause for their freedom of belief (and practice thereof).

    Islam must be aggressively rolled back worldwide by any means necessary. This constant predation upon all other cultures cannot be allowed to continue.

    • Yes well the others of course .But Jews and Christians have got to stop undermining each other.There is a strong anti-Semetic movement in Australia within the Labor party to which the Christians in the Labor party at best turn a blind eye and at worst actively support.
      This is simply not good enough.

      As an Anglican I intend to speak up for the Jews in my capacity as a member of the public and as a Christian. And those Australian Labor party ministers and officials who claim to be Christian and either support the Palestinians against the Jews, or turn a blind eye to the streak of Jew hatred among their colleagues are disgusting microscopic slime dwellers in my humble opinion.

      The Jewish people are intelligent ,hard-working ,peaceful ,tolerant and an asset to the community.

      If some slimeballs in the Labor party want to bully Jews in order to pander to the Muslim community then I shall call them out for the unprincipled Nazi scum they truly are.

      As it is Labor/Liebor is behind the unprincipled ,vicious (BDS campaign against Jewish owned businesses , Jewish intellectuals,Jewish universities and goods produced in Israel).BDS stands for Boycott ,Divestment and Sanctions.It’s the modern day,Australian equivalent of Kristalnacht in 1930′ Germany. Liebor wants to see Australian Jews either expelled or living in ghettos ,stripped of their assets and their livelihood and begging in the streets.

      It’s time we had an organization like Christians for Israel in Australia to address the Jew hatred in Australian society to which the most backward , ignorant and parochial elements of Australian society respond.

      Proud not to be a Labor voter .I voted for Tony Abbott when he led the Liberals .I won’t vote for the Liberals under Malcolm Turnbull .I’ll vote for Cory Bernardi and the Conservatives , Australian Liberty Alliance ,Rise Up Australia ,and One Nation.

      Labor and the Greens can combine #$% and travel

    • Agreed. It will take a broad church to roll back the enemy of the kuffar. Right, left, theists (of all stripes but one) atheists, gays and feminists must unite together.

  7. “Keeping?” the Jews down??

    Poor, poverty stricken, excluded souls they must be, with their meagre aspirations being dashed at every turn.

    What a self-serving load of the usual whining victimhood.

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