The Antisemitism Envoy’s Call to Ban Antigenocide Protests in Cities is Undemocratic

“What we have experienced every single week in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne are these demonstrations and marches, and having insults hurtled at Jews and at Israel and anyone who supports Israel,” Australia’s antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal told SBS News late last week.

“And those two sentiments are morphing into each other: anti-Israel is anti-Jewish because they want Israel to disappear,” said the envoy who was appointed to the position on 9 July this year, as part of the local fallout from the ongoing genocide the Israeli state is perpetrating in the Gaza Strip.

Segal was interviewed by SBS in the wake of the arson attack upon the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne early morning on 6 December, which has since been investigated as a potential terror attack, as well as being the centrepiece of a media storm regarding antisemitism.

This incident was followed by the burning of a car in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra last week, which was accompanied by anti-Israel graffiti, and it mimicked a similar attack in the same suburb in late November, which involved the burning of a vehicle and messaging condemning Israel as well.

The issue of rising antisemitism has been front and centre since Israel commenced its wholesale massacre and starvation program in Gaza, and the dangerous conflation that Segal made above – linking sentiment critical of the state of Israel to antisemitism – has been underpinning it.

This conflation has long been propagated by the Israeli state in order to deflect criticism of its apartheid regime, which entails the persecution and oppression of, as well as the attempt to destroy, the Palestinian people. And it endangers everyone in our constituency, especially Jewish people.

Political criticism is not racial prejudice 

“Every day for a year now, we see heartbreaking pictures from Gaza – livestreamed atrocities – on our mobile phones,” Professor Peter Slezak told the 62nd consecutive weekly pro-Palestinian protest on Gadigal land in Sydney on Sunday.

“Our politicians and our mainstream media have stood by and allowed this to happen without sufficient response.”

“My mother was a survivor of the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz, and she always asked me, ‘How could the world stand by and allow this to happen?’” the well-known Jewish academic continued.

“Well, today, we know that answer: our politicians and media have stood by while, as UNICEF said, Gaza has become a graveyard for children.”

The philosophy professor explained it’s become impossible for Israel to maintain its earlier stance on shielding criticism of its genocidal operations in Gaza by labelling them as acts of self-defence, as it’s wearing thin now the “official” death toll is at over 45,000 Palestinians, while there’s a “potential” death toll predicted to be up to 300,000.

“There is now a campaign to distract us from the obscenities of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the increasing brutalities in the West Bank, which are not getting enough attention,” he added. “The tactic has been to resort to a historical campaign to combat the supposed threat of antisemitism.”

Slezak set out that Anthony Albanese has failed to comment on the “bombing of refugee camps, of food lines, hospitals, mosques and universities”. But the Australian prime minister has rather appointed Segal as antisemitism envoy as that’s been transpiring.

The academic also raised specific examples involving Israeli officials having let it slip in the past that the conflating of anti-Israel sentiment as antisemitism is a purposeful act to block political criticism. And it should be noted that over recent weeks, these are the reasons that our public sphere is focused on questionable acts of antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment rather than the mass killings.

“So, for example,” Slezak continued, “Alon Cassuto CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia, he said, “The graffiti we’ve seen in Woollahra, which is declaring ‘Kill Israel’”, he said, ‘It’s a thinly veiled call to kill Jews everywhere.’ That is bullshit.”

And the professor’s authoritative summing of the events of recent weeks and the last year brought a smile to many of those gathered for the rally despite the heated pushback against it during the week.

Pontificating from on high

According to Slezak, Israel has been conflating anti-Israeli sentiment with antisemitism for decades.

The fact that Segal commenced her SBS interview by establishing that link shows that instead of being focused on the centuries-old issue of European prejudice towards Jewish peoples, her actions have been about shielding Israel from criticism in the public sphere.

As to whether the PM is aware that he appointed someone to the new position of antisemitism envoy, who would spend her time progressing the Israeli objective of suppressing criticism of its extreme and deadly prejudice against the Palestinians, as its citizens make a violent grab for their lands, is uncertain. But as he is the top minister, one can assume he knows what he’s up to.

The antisemitism envoy further pontificates on the solution to the issue of the weekly protests for Palestine marching through the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs, which she considers makes Jewish people feel unsafe. And this consists of protests being scheduled for particular times and places, but not in areas where it disturbs the community “and particularly, not the Jewish community”.

“So, the cities should not be used for that. There should be places designated away from where the Jewish community might venture where people can demonstrate,” continued the envoy, as she suggested massive cuts to the civil liberties of NSW constituents without giving it a second thought.

“That is not in any way an attack on the right of people to express their views,” Segal graciously added.

“At some point, every single week becomes intimidatory in the city. It moves from just an expression of one’s democratic right to express one’s view, because it’s not only a view about attacking the government or better conditions, but it has morphed into attacking the Jewish community.”

Never again

Antisemitism is a serious matter. It permitted Nazi Germany to perpetrate the Holocaust, which saw 6 million Jewish people murdered during the Second World War. So, the charge of antisemitism carries a lot of weight.

Zionism is the 19th century political doctrine that aims to establish a Jewish nation on the land of the Palestinian people. And the outcome of this venture was the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The ethnic cleansing and dispossession involved in the Zionist settler colonial project, however, leaves it open to heated criticism, and the conflating of the denunciation of the Zionist project or the policies and actions of the state of Israel with antisemitism serves to stifle political opposition.

The major issue that’s developed in this country over the last fourteen and a half months of the genocide in Gaza is that the Australian major party political class is allied with the Israeli government, so it too has been labelling anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and antigenocide sentiment and acts as antisemitic.

And on being asked to define antisemitism during the interview, Segal outlined that she adheres to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, which includes the dangerous conflation that’s leading to distorted ideas about incidents that are labelled as Jewish hate.

“This definition has become an international scandal,” Slezak told Sunday’s crowd in Hyde Park North. “It has been criticised and rejected by the world’s foremost experts on antisemitism and the Holocaust and even by its original author. The reason is that out of 11 examples of antisemitism, more than half of them are examples of criticising Israel.”

An example of the problematic definitions given by the professor was the claim that “Israel is a racist endeavour”. The issue here, the academic continues, is that the Israeli state has 50 laws on its books that discriminate against its Palestinian citizens, and, on 19 July 2018, Israel enacted its nation-state law into the country’s basic law, and these reserve self-determination in Israel for Jewish people only.

“In other words, Israel is a racist endeavour,” Slezak told those gathered at the demonstration, that he and many other Jewish people have been attending since the illegal slaughter in Gaza commenced in October 2023.

“In fact, from the earliest beginnings of Zionism… it has been an ideology based on ethnic supremacy, ethnic cleansing and land theft.”

Main photo: Antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal being interviewed and Professor Peter Slezak setting the Palestine Action Group rally straight on the issue of antisemitism