In July, those seeking an "independent, alternative" opinion courtesy of this site would have seen a revolting graphic which attempted to ram home the calumny that children are "slaughtered according to Jewish rites", with the illustration accompanied by such commentary as "the Jewish culture is about thievery and back-stabbing evilness", Jews have a "duty to take everything from all non-Jewish people in the world", that "in the past they would kill non-Jewish children for human sacrifices according to ‘Jewish rites’ if you look close this is still part of their behaviour", and concluding "we must remove these Jews for all their victims they feed on before they get to the point of destroying the entire planet".

Days later, this, and a series of comments "inspired" by it (e.g. "get rid of the fucking Jews and there is no more problem"), remained on a site which had in the past quickly removed material deemed by the "collective’ which runs it to be offensive.

Not long after this post appeared, a "news item", purportedly taken from United Press International, was posted, which read (I quote in full) "An American archaeological team has discovered the remains of the oldest jewish banker to date was killed by ancient Egyptians apparently because ‘he was fixing the books’ - jews still exhibit this behaviour around the world today officials said Sunday".

Of course, this never appeared in UPI and was simply an antisemitic re-working of a legitimate story on how an American archaeological team "discovered the remains of the oldest bakery to date …" The suggested response of one of many who threw in a comment was that Jews should "get over it" and find the humour in such pathetic antisemitism.

The publication of this item was used as a pretext for some of Sydney Indymedia’s regular contributors to submit anti-Israel propaganda and snippets which would promote sympathy for all who fight against Israel or Israelis.

In early August, a contributor bravely suggested that genuine progressives should understand that Israel has a legitimate argument for its existence. The replies which were allowed to be published and to remain for some time on the site, included "fuk off and die jew bitch and quit lieing" and "kill all zionazis DEAD KABOOM!!!".

Shortly after, when a poster argued that it was wrong to blame all antisemitism on Jews, he received responses such as "zionazis are subhuman scum" and told that as a "zionazi whore" he should "shut" his "trap".

Comparisons between Israel, Jews and Nazis, a staple for that type of self-described progressive who seems to harbour a private wish that Hitler had been a little more complete in his Genocide, appear with disturbing regularity on Sydney Indymedia and few indymedia fans would have been surprised to see overt Holocaust Denial - pages of it - appear on August 12. There was nothing new or "alternative" in this posting, with even antisemitism hardly an alternative for what has been posted on this website.

While this posting did not receive the usual rapturous support accorded to anything which offends or incites hatred towards Jews, one of the "regulars" declared (without revealing any sources) that this submission was the work of "nasty Zionists … with a malicious agenda".

In case any reader imagines that Sydney Indymedia postings could not sink below denying that there was a Nazi Holocaust, other postings in August 2002 confirmed this site in the leading rank of publishers of race hate material in Australia.

On August 14, an extremely long and obscene attack on Jews appeared under the heading "The Talmud shows the jews ARE demons", which contained an enormous number of straight defamations of the Jewish religion, including most of those circulated by far right-wing organisations which besmirch the Australian landscape and a few which probably would defy the imagination of less "alternative" haters of Jews. The posting even included a promotion of a "classic" of anti-Jewish propaganda, I.B. Pranaitis’ The Talmud Unmasked, with the Australian League of Rights the suggested supplier. Supporting comments included the claim that Jews are "the basis of every problem on the planet" and "the children of the devil".

This was closely followed by another obscene posting, "the lunatics of Zion" which was based on the claim that "The Bible and the Talmud, the holy books of hate, mandating innocent Jewish youngsters to hatred, to murder, to deceit, to expel, to rob non-Jews in the name of God".

As I write this article I have Sydney Indymedia open on an article, "Jewish operated Child porn/Murder ring busted in Thailand", where the word Jew is added as a descriptor for individuals who are involved in criminal offences, without any evidence that the individuals involved were indeed Jewish and no reference to the irrelevance of any ethno-religious labels to the item.

The "collective" which takes credit for publishing this website have been responsible for providing a platform for the most extreme anti-Jewish hatred in the public arena in Australia over the past few months.

It may be an "alternative" site, only in that it is the alternative to truth, tolerance and basic civil discourse.