Australian news presenter Erin Molan spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News about her outspoken and passionate advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people in the wake of the October 7 massacre. "I think the first instance after October 7 that I realized, 'We have a real problem here [with antisemitism]' would have been those shots you would have seen that went around the world outside the Sydney Opera House. Before an IDF boot had hit the ground, we had people in my country celebrating the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, cheering about the slaughter of children and women and using the backdrop of my country to do so," said Molan, who is in Israel to attend the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism. "When I saw that, I started to understand that this is not going to play out the way I would have hoped or the way I would have thought, the way I would have given my country credit for. And then it appeared that was the case across the world in terms of the reaction," she said. She continued, "I look at what happened on October 7, and in equal parts, that's probably the worst thing I've ever seen in my lifetime - on equal footing with the reaction from the world. Both have been just as devastating." She described the horror she felt at seeing the reactions around the world to the barbarity of Hamas. "I must be incredibly naive because I was blown away by it. I had zero expectations. My beautiful dad, whom we lost a couple of years ago, was a Major General in the army, and then he was a senator after he left the military. And people in Australia, in the Jewish community, would stop me often and say, 'your father is such an incredible ally of our Jewish community.' And I would think about it and say, 'Oh, that's really lovely, but why do you need an ally? I didn't quite understand what was simmering under the surface, but it very quickly became very apparent to me what existed, and it was horrifying." "If you told me two years ago that there's going to be a terrorist attack, October 7, you're going to come out very publicly and condemn the terrorists, and you're going to stand with the victims of that terrorism - and that willmake you controversial - I would have said, 'You are absolutely dreaming. No chance.' Yet here we are," she said. She stated that her "take" is simple because "it is simple. There's nothing complex about what has occurred or about who is good, who is evil. Absolutely nothing complex about it. It is incredibly simple. I struggle to comprehend why others don't see it that way and I know that there's a portion of those people who choose not to see it that way. But there's a lot of people who are simply fooled by some very clever propaganda. I'm not and never will be." Molan said, "I love speaking to Jewish people and Israeli people, but I'm wasted doing that all the time. My job is to speak to people outside of that and to show them that caring about kids dying in Gaza, and this is the thing that's thrown out there all the time - that if you stand with Israel you're a child murderer, a genocider, etc, etc, which is just completely, utterly ridiculous. I think there's almost this belief now that's been created by the other side that if you care about kids in Gaza, then you've got to oppose Israel. But it's the complete opposite. If you care about kids in Gaza, you should stand with the only group, the only body, the only country currently doing anything to try and save them from their real enemy, which is Hamas. I think that's something that they seem to have woven in very cleverly, which is that if you're humane and you care, then stand against Israel, when in fact, it's the complete opposite. I don't find that hard to understand or comprehend, but a lot of other people seem to." She criticized the media for spreading anti-Israel propaganda and ignoring Israeli civilians who have been victims of Hamas. "I think there's a lot of money and a very sophisticated PR campaign that has gone into this - Qatar, Iran, there's a lot of people that are funding a lot of the algorithms, a lot of the images that people are seeing, a lot of the rhetoric. Young minds are desperate to care about things. In our own country, in Australia, we teach our kids to hate our country, that we're colonizers, that we're bad people. Why would they like our country when we're teaching them to hate it? I think there's this whole generation of people that are desperate for a cause. I feel like the media is so complicit in so much of this in terms of how they report this conflict. I don't look at a lot of people as being malicious. I listen to and watch media in Australia and I'm watching a story on one of our biggest news channels that's covering the prisoner/hostage exchange, and I'm seeing opening shot is an emotional shot - the first thing you see is not the innocent hostages - it's a [Palestinian] prisoner on the shoulders of someone. His mother crying, there's emotional music, and the narrator is saying, 'A family reunited.' But what they're not telling you is that that bloke 15 years ago that killed kids." "I think if you're you or if you're me, you're invested heavily in this. You do this for a job. It's your people, it's your life, a major part of your day-to-day existence is this conflict, is this issue. For most people around the world, it feels very far away, and they're not watching or listening to a mainstream media that is giving them a scewed narrative and then saying ,'I'm going to investigate that.' In my mind, I always thing about a 45-year-old single mom working three jobs. She's tired, she's not into politics or anything like that. She hears that and that shapes her narrative, and I think that's a big part of the issue as well," she said, She stated that when fighting back against this, "a great place to start is telling the truth. In the early days, I felt that those who opted to be a part of the silent majority had the right to do so and that was their choice. I think that time has passed. I don't think anyone who purports to care about humanity, peace, freedom, democracy, anyone who stands against terrorism, I don't think really can be quiet any longer." "I think everyone needs to use their voice and use their platform," she said. "You might have two women in the tea room during your lunch break at work. Every platform, every opportunity, every chance you get, you've got to be telling people the truth, even if it feels completely futile. Words are so powerful. It is the most dangerous thing that the other side have at the moment, and they're doing it more effectively than we are." These words turn into actions of hate and violence. "We're already seeing it. Anyone who thinks that this is just an Israeli-Jewish issue is a fool, and a dangerous fool at that. I keep hearing people saying, 'Oh, it's coming, it's coming. ' It's already here. It's already in Europe, it's in Australia, it's in America. It's all over the world. This threat is genuine and it's real, and if we don't clamp down on it, if we don't take it seriously, if we don't fight it and eradicate this extremism, it doesn't end with the Jews, it doesn't end with Israel. Everyone has skin in this game. I have a six-year-old daughter; I have skin in this game. So does everyone else. If you want to live in a world that values the things that we take for granted now, then you've got skin in the game and you need to fight this." Addressing the Jewish people in the aftermath of the massacre and the ongoing global antisemitism crisis, Molan stated, "You inspire me. I look at you as a group of people and I think you should be in the fetal position in the corner, in tears 24/7, given what you are subjected to constantly. But you are the complete opposite." "Every time I see a gathering that is pro-Hamas, they're pro-Hamas. Every time I see a gathering, 'From the River to the Sea,' 'Intifada,' 'Death to Jews,' it's always calling for violence, the eradication of Jews, of Israelis. Any time I've seen a group of Jewish or Israeli people together, the only thing they chant: 'Bring them home.' I think, if that doesn't tell you in a succinct to the point way about these two different groups of people, then nothing else will," she concluded.
