Source : Perth Now news
As tensions flared within its own halls, the anti-Semitism royal commission has probed how to defuse the reverberations of conflicts in the Middle East playing out in Australia.
Commissioner Virginia Bell was forced to step in after backlash to a question by the legal counsel of a pro-Palestinian advocacy group.
It was a week in which the causes and possible remedies for extremism were explored in depth, with many of those tasked with the job giving evidence.
Kelly Mischel is Victoria’s commissioner for preventing and countering violent extremism in the state’s prison system.
The number of individuals referred to programs after accessing extremist material online had risen in the past three years, she said.
“What we’re seeing is individuals who have engaged with a large range of content that is quite emotive … based on some of that conflict that’s happening in the Middle East and specifically how it reverberates in Australia,” Dr Mischel said.
Corrections Victoria’s former deputy commissioner of sentence management, Jenny Hosking, and Deputy Commissioner of the Western Australia Police Force, Joanne McCabe, also gave evidence.
Both said the aim was to disengage those with radical beliefs from constant immersion in those beliefs and expose them to other ways of thinking.
Throughout the week, other experts told the commission online radical movements, high rates of misogyny among youth and even economic difficulties had fed into Australia’s extremism risk.
Demonstrating how delicate the subject matter the commission was addressing could be, tensions flared earlier in the week over questions posed by the lawyer for a Palestinian advocacy group.
Issues arose on Tuesday during an exchange between counsel for the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) Ragni Mathur SC and Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip.
Ms Mathur questioned Mr Ossip over his harsh criticisms of a protest held outside the Opera House, two days after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, aspects of which he labelled an international disgrace.
Following a backlash from members of the Jewish community, NSW Premier Chris Minns told ABC News he found Ms Mathur’s questioning disappointing.
Commissioner Bell attempted to defuse tensions the next day, saying Ms Mathur “did not hijack this royal commission” as some had suggested.
Further hearings on Monday will continue to focus on the causes of radicalisation and how to combat it.
