Exclusive Brethren leader calls Jews ‘wicked’, ‘infidel’ as Liberals remain silent

“The PBCC actively supports our valued Jewish communities and regularly pray in our church services for the safety and protection of Israel and its people.”

Wertheim, from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said much antisemitism stemmed from the refusal of Jews to accept the religious claims of Jesus and Muhammad and convert. Historically, this was “seen as offensive and deeply threatening” by the leaders of those faiths.

“Jews collectively were branded as ‘Christ-killers’ by the Christian authorities (the Deicide charge) and were ruthlessly persecuted through pogroms, expulsions, the Inquisition, ghettoisation, forced conversions and other horrors … culminating in the Holocaust,” Wertheim said in response to Hales’ comments.

Rabbi Ralph Genende, the interfaith and community liaison spokesman at the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council, said some of Hales’ ministry was a “dramatic expression” of widely held beliefs among fundamentalist Christians.

But his generalisations about Jews as a group, calling them “evil” and “infidels” were “very concerning, especially at a time when antisemitism is at unprecedented levels in Australia”, he said.

“Obviously, members of this church should be entitled to engage in Australian politics in the same way as anyone else,” he said. But political parties should “exercise caution about formal institutional ties with this church ... until it clearly distances itself from rhetoric that condemns Jews collectively”.

After this masthead revealed the Brethren’s far-right election influence plot, seven Coalition MPs including Canavan leapt to the church’s defence, saying questions put to the Brethren by the parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters constituted a witch-hunt, persecution of a religious minority, were un-Australian and further evidence of the Albanese government’s push for a “Communist utopia”.

The lack of a response to questions about Hales’ ministry contrasts with the Coalition’s response to a series of tweets by Labor staffer Rhys Muldoon. In 2022, Muldoon called Liberal frontbencher Dave Sharma a “fake Jew”, and when they were recently unearthed, Sharma said: “I am surprised that the Labor Party was prepared to overlook such a vile public record, or seemingly did not bother looking”. Muldoon lost his job. Sharma did not answer multiple requests for comment on Hales’ preachings.

Two other organisations, the Australian Jewish Association and Freedom for Faith, both of which have backed the Brethren’s right to campaign at elections citing their religious freedom, also failed to respond to a list of Hales’ quotes and questions about antisemitism.

In recent weeks, the Brethren has shifted towards more overt support of Coalition rival Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

Hales preached last month: “I hope that red-haired lady gets a chance” so she could “get enough uranium together and build a few bombs” to drop on the Middle-East, obliterating Iran.

Of the covert stunt campaign, multiple rank-and-file Brethren members who were kept in the dark have since told this masthead of their horror at the church using white nationalist guns-for-hire in the attempt to influence an election.

Teal donor Climate 200, founded by Simon Holmes à Court, who was himself targeted in a far-right Brethren stunt, has referred the church to the charity regulator for investigation.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said paying such notorious characters to “stalk and intimidate” politicians was something “Australia hasn’t had before, and we shouldn’t”.

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