Mob rules

# 602

More great attendances at the NGV

Does this present not belong to the mob?

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883

In what world is it acceptable that an angry crowd of protesters descend on the National Gallery of Victoria, trying to force the museum to end its relationship with the Gandels? When I saw footage of this protest on the news last week, I was shocked at the level of baseness we have reached. The Victorian Premier, Jacinta Allan, has denounced this episode as sheer anti-Semitism, and it’s hard not to agree. As the conflict in Gaza has continued to rage there have been countless angry words exchanged on both sides, but a general reluctance among politicians to endorse the worst charges.

The most vehement supporters of Israel have been quick to smear all those who oppose Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza as anti-Semites. Almost from the beginning the Palestinian lobby has been just as eager to refer to the IDF campaign in Gaza as genocide. Until recently, I would have argued that the issues are not black-and-white and shouldn’t be reduced to such inflammatory terms. Now, there is powerful evidence to support both cases.

When we witness scenes of mayhem, death and starvation coming out of Gaza on a daily basis, while well-fed Netanyahu brazenly claims there is no famine, it’s sickening to watch. Sickening and confounding, because the TV images of Palestinian children look for all the world like the human skeletons rescued from Auschwitz at the end of World War Two. Are we supposed to believe this is all play-acting? Is it supposed to be done by AI? It’s almost inconceivable that the descendants of those who endured the Holocaust would be willing to inflict the same punishment on other civilians, but this is what is happening. When I saw leaders of two prominent Israeli human rights organisations on CNN denouncing the Gaza campaign as “genocide”, it felt as if an unthinkable taboo had been broken.

On the other hand, the anti-Israel protests have become so tainted they no longer seem to draw distinctions between the Israeli government, Zionists, and Jewish people in general. All the Jewish people I know are horrified by what is going in in Gaza and completely opposed to the IDF’s actions. They want to see the hostages returned, and this one-sided war brought to a conclusion. The suspicion is that Netanyahu has no particular interest in securing the release of the final hostages because it would remove his excuse for continuing the campaign.

If Hamas had any sense of self-preservation it would release the hostages at once and take away the major raison d’être for the bombings. It should be clear by now that Netanyahu will continue the assault regardless of whether or not there are hostages being held. Releasing them would increase international pressure for an end to this murderous business.

What has all this to do with the NGV protests? The Gandels are among the most generous philanthropists in Australia. Take a look at the website for the Gandel Foundation and see the range of projects their wealth supports in the areas of art and culture, education, health and welfare. Recipients of the Gandels’ largesse are not exclusively Jewish, but come from a variety of backgrounds, selected on the basis of need and merit.

The rhetoric being used to support the NGV protests is truly ghastly. The material sent to me last week, which I won’t hotlink, was a farrago of militant clichés that sounded as if it was inspired by the language of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The big justification was that the Gandels are “Zionists” and therefore the embodiment of evil. This is so stupid and nasty I don’t know where to begin. The assumption is that all people who support a Jewish homeland are murderously inclined towards Palestinians. But there are many different shades of Zionism, and every Jewish person should not be tarred by the extreme views of the barbarians in Netanyahu’s cabinet.

John Gandel seems to have handed his antagonists a weapon by saying in an interview with the Australian Financial Review: “There’s sort of no choice. If they don’t go all out it means they withdraw. They can’t do it gently.”

That interview was published on 13 October 2023, in the first week of what has become a campaign of almost two years, which has seen Gaza reduced to rubble. I don’t know John Gandel, but I suspect he wouldn’t use those words today, as nobody could accuse Israel of weakness were they to cease hostilities. Rather the opposite. The longer the war continues, the more universal moral outrage it generates. We should also take note of the “sort of” in Gandel’s first sentence. That’s not what a fanatic would say. It’s certainly not the way his chief abusers speak.

What’s happening in Gaza is rightfully causing outrage around the world, as shown by 90-100,000 people (the high estimate is 300,00 people!) turning up to march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in the rain, in support of the Palestinians. The crowd of roughly 1,000 protesters who picketed the NGV was an entirely different affair - not a mass show of solidarity, but a targeted assault on individuals. It was more like a lynch mob, determined to take out a wealthy couple that had already been extensively villified. As far as I can see this protest was not organised by Palestinians.

Dig a little deeper, and one finds the same vilification being applied to the Besens and the Schwartzes. If this isn’t anti-Semitic in inspiration, I’m stumped for another explanation, even if it’s mixed in with old-fashioned class hatred of prosperous capitalists.

The simple truth of philanthropy in Australia is that removing the rich Jewish families from the picture would have a crippling impact. The Jewish people, as a group, have been far more willing to support good causes than probably any other ethnic category. Whatever the political or religious issues at play, it’s foolish to imagine there’s anything especially sinister in giving money to arts, health, science or social welfare. At a time when governments are becoming ever more reluctant to properly fund public cultural institutions it would be catastrophic to drive away the major donors and sponsors. This is what the Biennale of Sydney found, in 2014, when that year’s director, Juliana Engberg, sided with protesting artists to drive Luca Belgiorno-Nettis off the board, for completely misguided reasons. The Biennale has struggled for funds ever since.

It's especially depressing that activists are targeting the art museum again, following on from the cowardly climate protestors who think they’ve done something heroic by throwing soup or paint at a famous work of art. Why are the visual arts – and museums in general - seen as fair game? Works of art are rare and precious items held in trust as the common property of all citizens. They should not be treated as pawns in partisan political disputes.

The guerilla climate activists are bad enough, but for a mob to lay seige to the museum is an alarming new development. As many writers have noted, the mob has many arms and legs, but only one mind. Bring people together for a shared cause, stir their emotions to fever pitch, and violence is often the result. The mob is rarely susceptible to reason or argument because of the groupthink involved. Everyone is convinced that their cause is just. Those who harbour doubts are quick to push them aside, fearful of losing the trust of their companions. The mob is powerful where individuals are weak, fully committed where individuals may be hesitant. It's a very dangerous phenomenon.

Mobs are made up of people filled with passionate indignation who have chosen to listen to only one side of a debate. Some would argue that participants in a mob go seeking a cause which may act as justification for unrelated personal agendas. Step back, and it’s hard to understand how the plight of the Palestinians is advanced by preventing the NGV from taking money from the Gandels. It’s only the museum-going public that suffer. For a crowd to lavish so much hatred on one elderly couple is frankly disgusting. Could participants in this mob feel proud of themselves afterwards?

With the terrible events in Gaza, we desperately need to stop adopting extreme positions and cleave to basic humanity. Of course, that’s easy to say if you’re of Anglo-Celtic heritage, but the clash of convictions has become purely destructive. War without end will not help the hostages, it won’t put an end to Hamas, it won’t do anything to settle age-old hatreds that look set to continue for future generations. At this point the true confrontation is not just between Israelis and Palestinians, it’s between humane and inhumane behaviour. Those who take the path of inhumanity are diminished in the process. If we tolerate such actions in silence, we are diminished as a society.

So much for the intersection of art and politics for another week. Tell the truth, I rather dread getting involved on any of this, but it’s become one of the defining issues of our times – another topic that stirs antagonism and divisiveness. It’s with some relief that the art column deals only with that reliable topic of “women artists”. Dangerously Modern: Australian women artists in Europe: 1890-1940, at the Art Gallery of SA, is a lively survey of 50 women who gave up on Aussie provincialism and sought their bliss in London and Paris. This week’s movie is The Stolen Painting, which takes us inside a fictitious French auction house on the trail of a lost Egon Schiele masterpiece. Trigger warning for protestors: the film contains references to wealthy Jewish art collectors.