Virginia Bell, the head of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, delivered her opening address on February 24 and it confirmed our worst fears.
She said the commission will use as its frame, the much-contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. This, in combination with the so-called “hate” laws being adopted federally and state by state, will give license for criticism of Israel to be deemed antisemitic.
Bell wrongly asserts that the definition itself is “uncontroversial”, but acknowledges two of the 11 examples that accompany it have drawn criticism. In fact, seven of the examples refer to Israel. One explicitly defends Zionism, asserting that antisemitism includes: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg. By claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
Professor David Feldman, Director of the London Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, believes this is why this IHRA definition is dangerous because it suggests criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights are antisemitic.
“Since its birth Israel has systematically discriminated against its Palestinian population. Today Israel denies equality to Palestinians both within and beyond the country’s legal borders.”
Further, Feldman said: “It is not difficult to see why Israel might be labelled ‘a racist endeavour’.”
The IHRA definition has, in fact, been the subject of fierce controversy across the globe and has been widely rejected on the grounds that it conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
Those rejecting the IHRA definition include the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), Amnesty International, Dr Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Feldman.
Even its original author, Kenneth Stern, who considers himself a Zionist, has expressed alarm over the way it is being used to silence criticism of Israel.
One would be forgiven for thinking that antisemitism is the only form of racism in Australia today.
We know there has been a rise in antisemitism, but we also know that racism in this country is first and foremost directed against First Nations people, as well as Palestinians, Muslims and other people of colour.
Over 2024-2025, Australia recorded the highest number of Aboriginal deaths in custody in four decades. Despite a 1987 Royal Commission into this national crisis, more than 500 First Nations people have since died in custody. Forty years later, a number of the recommendations have only been partly implemented and others ignored. Meanwhile, the deaths mount.
While Islamic organisations and mosques publicly condemned the antisemitic attack at Bondi, within just one week of the shooting the Islamophobia Register Australia received 126 reports of hate incidents — ten times more than had been received the two weeks prior.
As Sawsan Madina, former Head of SBS Television wrote in Pearls and Irritations on January 26, over the last two years there has been a “disturbing hierarchy become painfully clear. We, Arab Australians, have learnt that not all lives are equal, not all pain is equal, and not all grief is equal.”
The response of the corporate media, and Labor and Liberal politicians, to the genocide in Palestine over the last two and a half years makes this very clear.
They are mute at best and outright denial at worst. They grieve the deaths of 1200 people in Israel but look away at the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands in Palestine.
They talk about outlawing hate speech but invite a President of Israel who has said that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza to justify collective punishment. It is hypocrisy on steroids!
We are right to fear that this royal commission will be weaponised to silence criticism of the genocide. This is precisely the expectation of Zionist organisations.
Dr Colin Rubenstein, Director of the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council, said in December when urging Labor to call a royal commission that “the main test for the government will be its willingness to push back against the obsessive hatred of Israel and Zionists that emanate from progressive and Islamist spaces”. Failure to tackle this, he said, will be a clear sign Labor has not “internalised” the problem.
The JCA, which supports universal human rights, including for Palestinians, has called for the royal commission to adopt an anti-racist approach and ensure diverse Jewish voices are heard.
JCA has always emphasised that antisemitism is just one form of racism, connected to racism in its many other manifestations, and that it must be dealt with as such.
However, on day one, Bell shut the door to a broader examination of racism, confirming that antisemitism will be exceptionalised.
At a time when a bomb has been hurled into a First Nations Invasion Day protest in Western Australia and a white supremacist has been arrested for planning an attack on Muslim places of worship, dealing with antisemitism alone actively undermines a comprehensive response to racism.
Worse, it will actually make Jews less safe.
[Janet Parker is a member of Socialist Alliance and a founding member of Jews for Palestine, Western Australia.]