When hatred finds a home in our institutions

I recently watched the documentary October 8, a searing and distressing film about the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas atrocities in Israel. The film does not linger on the violence itself. Instead, it turns the lens on the response of the Western world in the days and weeks that followed. What it reveals is as shocking as the events that triggered it.

October 8 chronicles the appalling reactions — and silences — from elite institutions, universities, student unions and even cultural leaders. It shows how the massacre of Jews was not met with universal horror, but with justification, denial, and, in some quarters, outright celebration.

It documents a profound moral collapse. And what was shocking was how recognisable much of it felt here in Australia. This isn’t just a foreign story. It’s our story too.

Since October 7, Australia has seen a disturbing rise in antisemitism. Swastikas on synagogues. Jewish students afraid to walk freely on campus. Crowds chanting genocidal slogans.

In too many cases, our institutions have responded with vague statements, both-sides equivocation, or worse — silence. The refusal to speak plainly about antisemitism is itself a form of complicity.

We are living through a new wave of intolerance, and it’s not coming from the margins. It’s being tolerated — even excused — by our most trusted institutions.

October 8 forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: that antisemitism has found a home not just in the dark recesses of the internet, but also in our universities, our media and even our parliaments.

The new antisemitism often wears a different mask. It cloaks itself in the language of social justice. It insists it is only opposing Israel, not Jews. But time and again, we see how that distinction collapses in practice.

When Jewish people are held collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli state — and then targeted, harassed, and excluded — that’s not political critique. That’s bigotry.

Antisemitism has long been a warning sign of civic decay. When hatred of Jews is mainstreamed, it’s never the end of the story but the beginning of a broader social unravelling.

Institutions that lose the moral clarity to condemn antisemitism soon lose the capacity to defend pluralism itself. That’s what we’re seeing now.

That’s why the Centre for Independent Studies has launched a major three-year research project: The New Intolerance: Antisemitism and Religious Hatred in a Fracturing Civic Compact. We want to understand why this climate has emerged, how our institutions have failed — and what we must do to restore moral clarity and civic trust.

We’ll be commissioning reports on antisemitism and Islamophobia in Australia, examining how schools and universities are coping with rising hate, and surveying the public to map perceptions of religious hatred. And we’ll be asking some hard questions: What happened to our civic compact: the shared moral framework that once bound Australians across difference? Can liberal democracy withstand the pressures of identity politics and moral relativism?

Watching October 8 made the urgency of this work feel overwhelming. The film shows what happens when hatred is excused and evil is explained away. It’s a mirror held up to the West — and we don’t always like what we see. But looking away isn’t an option.

If our institutions cannot find the moral courage to name antisemitism when it appears, then who will? If our public square cannot defend the equal dignity of all people, then what exactly is left of liberalism?

It starts with clarity. It starts with calling things by their right names. October 8 is not just a documentary. It’s a warning. And we have no excuse for silence.

Peter Kurti is Director of the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program at the Centre for Independent Studies, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Photo by Ömer Faruk Yıldız.