The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion formally opened last week.<\/p>\n
Over recent days, I\u2019ve sat watching the lived experience testimonies and they are harrowing and resonate deeply.<\/p>\n
For more than two years, Jewish Australians have carried the grief of October 7 while watching tens of thousands of Australians march in the streets celebrating it.<\/p>\n
Public figures championed it, defended it, all while branding Jews with the slur of genocide.<\/p>\n
The 21st Century blood libel, deployed against Israel and the Jewish Diaspora at the very moment of grief\u2026 After two and a half years, I am done with the debate. I want outcomes.<\/p>\n
The Commission was told that one of the key drivers of Antisemitism in Australia is the growing conflation of hostility towards Israel with Jewish Australians. For what it\u2019s worth, I have no problem being conflated with Israel. Israel is fighting a war of self-defence against barbarian tactics. What I do have a problem with is lies and what passes for criticism of Israel is predominantly Antizionist lies.<\/p>\n
On day one, it was stated that a central task of the inquiry is to identify when Antizionism crosses the line into Antisemitism. I\u2019ll save the Commission the trouble. It doesn\u2019t cross a line. If Antizionism and Antisemitism were a Venn diagram of anti-Jewish bigotry, it is my opinion that in every documented instance, you would see a single circle.<\/p>\n
Antizionism is not a proxy for anti-Jewish bigotry. It is anti-Jewish bigotry.<\/p>\n
What makes Antizionism uniquely insidious is it takes a people\u2019s liberation movement and reframes it as the bigotry itself.<\/p>\n
Zionism \u2013 Jewish self-determination \u2013 has been recast as racism. And the movement that seeks to eliminate the Jewish state dresses its language up as liberation. The slogans confirm this. \u2018Intifada\u2019 is not a human rights slogan. \u2018From the river to the sea\u2019 in its original Arabic means \u2018From water to water, Palestine will be Arab\u2019. This is an ethno-nationalist eliminationist demand, not a civil rights one. And the dissolution of Israel is the ethnic cleansing of seven million Jews.<\/p>\n
The problem we keep skirting around is that Antizionism palms itself off as political criticism when it is in fact ideology and slogans borne of a communist-Islamist fusion. Its basis is the dissolution of Israel and it falsely claims Israel is an illegitimate state. Just as Antisemitism dressed hatred in the language of science \u2013 racial biology, eugenics, pseudo-academic frameworks \u2013 Antizionism dresses hatred in the language of politics. And just as the law once accepted Antisemitism as legitimate political discourse, it is largely accepting Antizionism on the same terms today.<\/p>\n
The courts reveal the limits of prosecuting Antizionism\u2019s harmful and hateful expressions.<\/p>\n
In November 2023, Islamic speeches were given at a mosque and published online. Three breached the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 18C. The court identified 25 racist imputations: that Jews are conspiratorial, treacherous, wicked, vile, that they control the media and the banks, that they are descended from apes and pigs. But two speeches were dismissed. These contained claims that \u2018certain media outlets owned by the Zionist entities are trying to sway public perception\u2019, that \u2018right wing politicians have stepped into backing Israel because Israel holds their leash\u2019, and that Israel is \u2018the terrorist state of Israel and its mass murdering machine, the IDF\u2019.<\/p>\n
Sound familiar? Jews control the media. Jews control the government. And the Jewish state is a uniquely evil force in the world holding foreign governments and politicians by a leash. These are not criticisms of a state.<\/p>\n
The charge that Jews \u2013 sorry, Zionists \u2013 control the media and the banks and control foreign governments comes straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.<\/p>\n
The charge that the Jewish state commits uniquely monstrous violence against children is the blood libel \u2013 the medieval fabrication that Jews murder children for ritual purposes.<\/p>\n
When we say Antisemitism is a virus, it\u2019s because this is how it works. It mutates with the language of the time. And this language is promulgated across the board by mosques, churches, political figures, influencers and the media. As stated, it has become almost fashionable.<\/p>\n
How are anti-Jewish tropes avoiding condemnation?<\/p>\n
It comes down to the idea that the \u2018ordinary reasonable listener would understand that not all Jews are Zionists\u2019 and that \u2018disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group\u2019.<\/p>\n
That is the gap. That is exactly the gap. And it is the gap this Commission must close.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a sample of why:<\/p>\n
On one occasion, protesters blockaded a private Jewish function screaming, \u2018All Zionists are terrorists!\u2019 and \u2018Intifada, Intifada!\u2019 It is alleged protestors coordinated on social media, told others to block the entrances and exits, and to make \u2018Zios\u2019 as uncomfortable as possible inside the venue.<\/p>\n
On another, a club listed Zionism alongside racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia in its house rules.<\/p>\n
We have seen people associated with political groups displaying signs equating \u2018Zionist Israel\u2019 with \u2018Nazi Germany\u2019 with captions such as \u2018Equally as evil or worse?\u2019 and \u2018Zionism has hijacked Judaism\u2019. In my opinion, that\u2019s Holocaust inversion and according to the Commission \u2013 is Antisemitism.<\/p>\n
In 2025, we witnessed across the Palestinian protest movement signage illustrating the Prime Minister of Israel as the \u2018Fuhrer\u2019, \u2018Zionism is a death cult\u2019, and the appropriation of \u2018Never Again\u2019 \u2013 the phrase primarily associated with the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
In 2026, weeks after 15 Jewish Australians were murdered at a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach allegedly by ISIS-inspired attackers, protesters gathered across Australia. Their signs did not mourn the Bondi dead. The signs they carried read: \u2018Zionism is Terrorism!\u2019, \u2018Zionism is a Death Cult!\u2019, \u2018Death to America, Australia, and the Zionist Entity!\u2019, and \u2018Globalise the Intifada\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n
Socialist magazines distributed at one protest had a sidebar describing the Bondi massacre as \u2018How Israel\u2019s war crimes brand terrorism\u2019. This is the Antizionist movement.<\/p>\n
And how did we get here?<\/p>\n
Because on October 9 2023, protesters freely gathered outside the iconic Sydney Opera House chanting, \u2018Where\u2019s the Jews?\u2019 and \u2018F**k the Jews!\u2019 while burning an Israeli flag. Police advised Jewish Australians to avoid the CBD as if that made it okay. At the same protest, one of the organisers endorsed Hamas\u2019 \u2018right to resist\u2019 \u2013 meaning shooting up kids at a music festival is, apparently, a-okay for this organiser \u2013 and instructed the crowd to use the word \u2018Zionist\u2019 rather than \u2018Jew.\u2019<\/p>\n
No one across two and a half years has faced significant consequences for any of it \u2013 especially not the current government.<\/p>\n
The zeitgeist in Australia is Antizionist, and the result is that the floodgates for neo-Nazi white supremacism, for classical Antisemites, for anti-Judaists, and every form of anti-Jewish bigotry we thought we had pushed to the fringes are opened. So the single most important question is how do we make Antizionism\u2019s harmful expressions prosecutable? How do we get back to some kind of normal?<\/p>\n
Commissioner Bell reaffirmed her commitment to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Antisemitism and the Commission is right to apply it, but the IHRA definition remains anchored in post-Holocaust language. It is not designed to capture Antizionism as a distinct ideology, and its adoption has not amended a single law. Subsequent legislation has followed: a ban on the Nazi salute, the Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Act 2025, but none of it reaches Antizionism directly.<\/p>\n
There has been one isolated advancement. In Vorchheimer v Tayeh [2026] VCAT case 134, the Judge found that Tayeh, by initiating the chant \u2018all Zionists are terrorists\u2019 at a rally in March 2025, contravened sections of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. The tribunal found a very strong association between the word \u2018Zionist\u2019 and Jewish identity, and that the word \u2018all\u2019 carried the spectre of de-individuation \u2013 a hallmark of racism.<\/p>\n
But this is one tribunal, one chant, one respondent. Victoria Police are separately prosecuting Tayeh in the criminal court, where the question is not whether the chant is Antisemitic but whether the words were grossly offensive. This is, in my view, entirely the wrong question. It doesn\u2019t matter whether calling Jews terrorists is offensive. I am more than happy to be offended.<\/p>\n
What matters is the environment it creates and who is the target.<\/p>\n
If Jews are publicly branded as terrorists \u2013 or Nazis \u2013 the public is morally licensed to doxx, exclude, harass, and harm them. The violence that follows is not random. It is logical. It flows directly from the premise. That is why the harm of Antizionism is not a feelings question. It is a safety question. And until the law catches up to that, we are prosecuting the symptom and ignoring the disease.<\/p>\n
Queensland has gone a step further and banned specific chants such as \u2018From the river to the sea\u2019 and \u2018Globalise the Intifada\u2019 when used to menace, harass, or offend. But as I\u2019ve written before, banning specific phrases is a game of whack-a-mole. The ridiculous Johnny Farnham pro-Palestinian cosplay from a month ago is a case in point. Here was the Brisbane pro-Palestinian movement dressed in 1980s outfits, mullets and all, waving Palestinian flags and singing \u2018Like a River to the Sea\u2019. If you missed it, imagine the reverse. Jews donning mullets and dancing in 1943 to convince the Nazis to stop the genocide of Jews. This is how we know this is not a serious movement (and there is no genocide). Bottom line, the phrases will continue to change but the ideology doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
There are three legislative options as I see them if we are to truly bring safety back to Jewish Australians.<\/p>\n
First, amend 18C to explicitly include political ideologies that function as vehicles for ethnic vilification \u2013 the test being whether the ideology, in practice, targets a specific ethnic group. Antizionism clearly does. It targets Jews.<\/p>\n
Second, name Antizionism explicitly, but this is the weakest option. Legislators will resist naming a political position as illegal, despite Antizionism masquerading as political critique.<\/p>\n
Third, strengthen the incitement threshold. Antizionism doesn\u2019t need to be illegal, but when it functions to mark Jews for violence, harassment, or discrimination, that conduct becomes prosecutable. We didn\u2019t outlaw racism. We made its specific expressions prosecutable. That is the point.
We pushed Antisemitism to the fringes once before. We disproved its pseudoscience. We criminalised its expressions. So too will we do the same for Antizionism. We will disprove its pseudo-critique. We will criminalise its expressions. I simply pray it will not be after more mass murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion formally opened last week. Over recent days, I\u2019ve sat watching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,9616,44],"class_list":["post-665277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-flat-white","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}