What if the antisemitic tide has a bigger target: Australia’s stability?
Russia has even given haven to leaders of designated neo-Nazi terrorist organisations, such as American Rinaldo Nazzaro, founder of The Base, who some suspect of being a Russian agent. As The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported in 2021, The Base recruited neo-Nazis in Australia. Russia also engages in information warfare in the US, Europe and elsewhere to stoke societal divisions over divisive issues to undermine democratic norms and interference in democratic institutions, processes and elections.
Iran too has been known to engage in this manner. Some reports suggest it has done so directly in Israel. Iranian information operations have not only sought to escalate divisions within Israel over the war but, like Russia, have sought to encourage extremism and political violence. Iran has disseminated narratives online aimed at inciting violence against Arab Israeli citizens and through accounts imitating extreme right-wing Israeli groups.
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Stoking extremism, polarisation and political violence through co-ordinated disinformation campaigns frays social cohesion. Outside actors use sabotage and information warfare to exacerbate existing divisions, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to undermine the appeal of Western democracy by equating it with chaos and dysfunction.
But foreign actors can’t manufacture extremism and polarisation out of thin air. There has to be an existing spark to fan the flames. The most successful foreign-interference campaigns press on an existing wound or attempt to widen a division that already exists. The fact remains, antisemitism has increased in Australia and interfaith relations have faltered. Social cohesion has been eroded due to many factors, but among them is division over conflicts in the Middle East.
ASIO has raised the threat of terrorism and violent extremism from “possible” to “probable” due to growing online radicalisation, acceptance of use of violence, declining trust and growing grievances.
It’s a stark reminder of the increasingly transnational nature of the threats we face as a society. Nothing can be siloed any more. To protect against foreign interference, we must address our domestic challenges. Domestic difficulties are inevitable, but to ensure they are not exploited, we must remain vigilant of foreign actors seeking to interfere and undermine us from within.
Lydia Khalil is a project director at the Lowy Institute and convener of the AVERT (Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism) Research Network. She is the author of Rise of the Extreme Right: the new global extremism and the threat to democracy.
