DEI and the Normalization of Hate in the West
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has become the moral currency of modern Australia. From boardrooms to classrooms, government departments to universities, no institution dares operate without proclaiming its commitment to inclusion and respect.
But between the polished language of policy and the reality on our streets, something has gone badly wrong. Antisemitism, that ancient hatred we swore would never return is back, louder and more brazen than it has been in decades. Hate speech, once confined to the internet’s underbelly, is now shouted openly and excused as “free expression.”
Across Sydney and Melbourne, antisemitic chants have echoed from the Opera House to the Harbour Bridge, becoming a routine feature of city protests. We’ve even reached the point where a neo-Nazi rally in Sydney, explicitly targeting Jews, barely provokes outrage, a chilling sign of how normalized hate has become.
In Melbourne, the reality is impossible to ignore. At the Garden of Eden Nursery in Albert Park, a 24-year-old Israeli woman applied for a job and received this message in reply:
“Free Palestine and end genocide NOW. You’re complicit in it … Good luck on your journey and I hope you leave Melbourne soon!”
The co-owner reportedly told her she lacked “humanity” and that the job had gone to “someone with a semblance of humanity and who cares for plants, animals, and the environment.”
At Juniper Salon in Bentleigh, an Israeli customer was told, after the owner heard his accent:
“You’re a baby killer. Get out.”
And at Ray White Real Estate, a senior partner stood down after social-media posts included:
“The most Jew thing I’ve ever seen. Who builds a house at a sacred site? Yep, only a money-hungry Jew. $$$$$ Child murdering [pig emoji].”
These aren’t isolated aberrations. They’re symptoms of something far more disturbing, a culture in which antisemites now feel emboldened and Hitler’s Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
At its core, DEI was meant to guarantee fairness and respect for everyone, regardless of race, gender, faith, or background. Australia, with its proud egalitarian tradition, should have been the ideal proving ground.
But somewhere along the way, DEI lost its moral anchor. What began as a movement for equality has hardened into ideological selectivity – empathy for some, silence for others. Certain prejudices are condemned with fury. Others, especially antisemitism, are quietly ignored. Some voices are celebrated while others dismissed as “privileged” or “problematic.”
Antisemitism doesn’t fit the current DEI narrative, so it is simply left out.
Over the past two years since the October atrocities which saw the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, Jewish Australians have faced escalating abuse, intimidation, and exclusion. Swastikas on university campuses. Synagogues vandalized or firebombed, Jewish businesses attacked and social media filled with threats and slurs.
And yet, from government to corporate Australia, the response has been timid at best. The outcomes of February’s Sky News Antisemitism Summit remain unimplemented. The recommendations of the government’s Antisemitism Envoy, Jillian Segal, gather dust.
The government must do more. Hate speech cannot be allowed to go unchecked, and antisemitic chants echoing across national landmarks cannot be normalized. Doing nothing is not neutrality. It’s moral surrender and complicity. Every time hatred is excused as “political protest,” we erode the foundations of the country we claim to be.
Six years ago, I joined March of the Living, a journey through Poland and Israel tracing the path of the Holocaust. As the grandson of four Holocaust survivors, I have seen what happens when hatred is left to fester.
My grandparents endured ghettos, camps, and daily dehumanization. They saw the worst of what happens when society decides that one group of people no longer deserves to belong. Even today, survivors tell me that hearing chants like “Gas the Jews” or “Kill the Jews” or “Globalize the Intifada” brings back unbearable memories.
While working in a large corporation, I proposed that two employees each year join the March of the Living and return as DEI Ambassadors under the slogan “All Lives Matter”, a reminder that inclusion must be more than a slogan. The idea went nowhere. DEI, it seems, has room for every cause except the inconvenient ones.
Jews have been part of Australian life for more than two centuries. After the Second World War, this country became a refuge for those who had lost everything, including my family. My grandfather, in his Shoah Foundation testimony, ended with these words:
“You are lucky to grow up in Australia, free of the antisemitism we knew. Always be a proud Jew. Never let anyone make you feel like a second-class citizen. And always be kind to all mankind.”
That message is simple, humane, deeply Australian and feels painfully relevant today.
Something fundamental has changed. We no longer speak the language of shared decency. Everything is now filtered through the lens of identity, race, skin color, sexuality, ideology. People are sorted into categories of “oppressor” or “oppressed,” rather than judged by character or conduct.
This isn’t progress. It’s regression. A return to moral tribalism, dressed up as social justice.
Allowing antisemitic chants, neo-Nazi rallies, and public displays of hate to go unchecked doesn’t just threaten Jewish Australians. It undermines the very freedoms our ANZACs fought to defend. Those men and women sacrificed everything for a country built on liberty, fairness, and courage. Capitulating to those who come here waving flags of hate, not just against Jews, but against Australia itself betrays that legacy.
Freedom of speech is vital. But freedom is not a suicide pact. There is a line between expression and incitement, and it is long past time our leaders had the moral clarity to draw it.
If DEI in Australia is to mean anything, it must rediscover its moral core. Inclusion cannot be selective. Equality cannot be conditional. “All lives matter equally” should not be a controversial statement. It should be the foundation of any diversity program.
That requires leadership, not slogans. The government must enforce hate-speech laws decisively. Institutions must stop treating antisemitism as a political inconvenience. DEI programs in schools, universities, and workplaces must return to universal principles of respect, not ideological fashion.
And as citizens, we too must speak up. Remaining silent in the face of hate is not neutrality. It’s complicity.
The Australia my grandparents arrived in was imperfect, but kind. It offered safety, dignity, and a fair go. They were grateful every day for its decency.
Today, in 2025, that decency is fraying rapidly. But it isn’t gone. If we have the courage to confront hate wherever it appears and insist that our leaders and institutions do the same, we can still preserve the Australia that generations before us fought to build.
Because true inclusion isn’t a hashtag or a corporate slogan. It’s a moral choice. One this nation cannot afford to abandon, or we lose Australia for good.
