“Israel is writing one of the darkest pages in history,” United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese said of the genocide against the Palestinian people.
The Special Rapporteur also observed something different about today’s genocide: While it is openly incited, cynically denied, relentlessly supported, armed and weaponised, those opposing it are beaten, criminalised and smeared.
Most people are aware of the limits of international law — that its efficacy is contingent on political will and is, as Albanese posits, in many ways the product of the same inequitable, imperialist system that shields Israel now.
This impunity is accompanied by ever-more determined attempts to criminalise the movement demanding justice.
The 2025 shooting at Bondi unleashed a new authoritarianism, as apologists for Israel seek to blame the pro-Palestine movement for the terrorist attack.
The anti-genocide movement is now being charged with responsibility for the rise in antisemitism and while we acknowledge the rise, we reject the charge.
The anti-genocide movement has consistently condemned antisemitism, as it condemns all forms of racism.
To oppose genocide is not anti-Jewish; opposition to the murderous Israeli state and the political ideology that underpins it — Zionism — is about rejecting an apartheid ethnostate.
Who ultimately is responsible for this rise in antisemitism?
It is Israel’s own actions in Gaza and the West Bank, in combination with its campaign to conflate being Jewish with support for Zionism.
The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as its frame of reference, which Commissioner Virginia Bell declared as “uncontroversial”, is helping the forces of reaction to re-frame Palestine solidarity.
To date, the commission has only allowed two anti-Zionist Jews to provide evidence, despite many having made submissions and indicated their preparedness to testify. The commission has justified its political choices by arguing that pro-Israel Jewish organisations “represent the majority of Jews”. In just the first three public hearing days, 23 of 36 witnesses characterised criticism of Israel, opposition to Zionism and/or Palestine advocacy as “antisemitic”. This included the wearing of keffiyehs, Palestinian flags and chants of “Free Palestine”.
The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network and Loud Jew Collective were refused leave to appear.
However, the Jewish Council of Australia was finally granted leave and Sarah Schwartz made the clear point that it is the state of Israel’s actions towards Palestinians that is making making Jews less safe.
Another anti-Zionist Jewish activist, Yasmine Johnson, the national co-convenor of Students for Palestine, was grilled over the 2024 student university encampments. She said Israel’s genocide had moved students into action, here and around the world, and that the protests were about making a political statement and Jewish students had been welcome.
Johnson said her grandmother’s loss of relatives to the Holocaust have given her a sense that being Jewish “should mean fighting for that to be the end of genocide forever”. Counsellor Zelie Heger preferred to focus on the hurt feelings of some Jewish students, and singled out Palestine freedom slogans as the cause.
Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal also elevated feelings over evidence, repeatedly telling the commission that it was her “strong perception” that the ABC and SBS coverage of Israel’s war with Gaza “lacks balance”. While she pushes for a new “oversight” committee, the ABC’s ombudsman has rejected that and the imposition of the IHRA definition.
Segal, with government support, is pushing for all civil society organisations to adopt the IHRA definition — potentially criminalising those speaking out against genocide.
The Australian Public Service Commission is working with Segal to determine how it will apply in the public sector. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, together with Segal, said it would use the IHRA definition as a reference tool. And all 39 Australian universities have adopted a definition of antisemitism that “closely aligns” with the IHRA one.
The IHRA deems it antisemitic to describe Israel as a racist endeavour, despite the International Court of Justice having found Israel to be in breach of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racism.
The commission’s refusal to fully engage with an array of Jewish voices will not help its goal, nor will its exceptionalising of one form of racism over another.
Indeed, the Mapping Social Cohesion Report found that by 2025, negative sentiment toward Muslims was more than double that of Jews, and that First Nations people bear the brunt of racism.
Green Left pledges to fight every attempt to shut down the anti-genocide movement. “Social cohesion” will never be achieved by suppressing opposition to genocide. While the tide is turning, it requires ongoing work. You can help by becoming a supporter of Green Left.
As Albanese said in When the World Sleeps: “Alone we are as fragile as the wings of a butterfly, but united — solid and supportive — we can create a storm”.