You’d expect a car rental company to apply its rules consistently. Yet in Melbourne, an Israeli tourist was refused a vehicle by Europcar because his driver’s license was in Hebrew and English. The English alone should have sufficed. Meanwhile, a Chinese tourist presenting a foreign license received no such refusal; staff were happy to accept a verbal translation. When challenged, Europcar reportedly admitted the decision was based on the customer’s nationality. Imagine if a tourist demanded not to be served by an employee because of their sex, age, or skin color; such behavior would rightly spark outrage. So why is discrimination tolerated when the target is Jewish?

Contrast this with Avis/Budget, whose staff, despite being fully booked, went out of their way to find a vehicle. Their response highlights one of the clearest lessons here: corporate values mean little if they aren’t applied consistently. Respect, Integrity, Service Excellence, these are supposed to be universal principles, not selective conveniences.

The problem is not limited to rental counters. During President Isaac Herzog’s recent visit, Premier Jacinta Allan delivered a speech in solidarity, yet outside Melbourne’s most secure venue, protestors chanted hostile slogans against Jews despite a heavy police presence. Symbolic gestures matter little when public hostility goes unchecked.

This is a pattern, not an isolated incident. Consider March 2024 at the Officeworks store in Elsternwick, Melbourne. A staff member refused to laminate a page from the Australian Jewish News, citing her “pro-Palestine” stance. The company apologized, issued a final warning, transferred the employee, and mandated a visit to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. Appropriate, but not sufficient: patterns like these risk emboldening discrimination by signaling that consequences are temporary or superficial.

The trend continued at Ray White in late 2025, when senior agent Andrew Dimashki was stood down after antisemitic posts resurfaced online. Though predating his employment, the posts’ circulation alongside the company logo amplified the reputational damage. Following a Holocaust Centre visit and public apology, he returned under monitoring. These incidents demonstrate a troubling truth: education without firm accountability can normalize bad behavior.

We need to confront this frankly. Antisemitism rarely appears fully formed. It begins with exclusion, selective enforcement of rules, and rationalizations disguised as policy. Service denial at a car rental desk is not trivial; it is a warning sign. We only have to look at history. The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with discrimination, boycotts, restrictive laws, and the steady normalization of hostility toward Jews. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. The wave of antisemitism in Australia since the October 7 Hamas attacks reflects this trajectory. When prejudice is tolerated, even in small, everyday ways, it grows bolder.

Corporate Australia has a responsibility. Values like Respect, Integrity, and Service Excellence cannot be flexible. Employees are ambassadors of those values. If staff discriminate based on identity, they should not occupy customer-facing roles. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion must genuinely mean inclusion for all not selective inclusion based on political sentiment, identity, or personal bias. Education, Holocaust museum visits, and mandatory training are important, but without enforceable consequences, they risk appearing symbolic rather than substantive.

Consider the irony. The Officeworks employee’s behavior echoed tactics from the 1930s – denial of service, exclusion based on identity, moral justification of bias. Visiting the Holocaust Museum would have shown what followed: property confiscation, restrictive laws, ghettos, and ultimately, the systematic extermination of millions. Policies without teeth risk letting history’s lessons slip into the background.

Australia in 2026 cannot afford this. We are not debating ideology or policy—we are debating equal treatment under stated corporate standards. Policies cannot bend depending on the target. When discrimination is minimized or inconsistently addressed, it does not disappear, it grows emboldened. A rental desk refusal today can be the first step in a much larger pattern of hostility tomorrow.

Corporations wield enormous influence over social norms. If they are serious about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the same standards must apply to all. Otherwise, values are mere slogans, symbolic gestures that do little to stop prejudice. It is not enough to apologize. Action must be swift, consistent, and unambiguous. Anything less is a failure to history, a failure to the community, and a failure to the principles that supposedly guide corporate behavior.

Australia cannot wait until discrimination escalates further to recognize the problem. Antisemitism in rental counters, retail stores, and social media is a warning. Companies, communities, and governments must take it seriously or risk normalizing behavior that history has already shown can lead to catastrophe.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)