Despite the Gaza Holocaust continuing and Palestinians in the West Bank being attacked by illegal settlers, the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is being conducted according to the Zionist playbook.
It is depressing to watch, but there are moments to savour.
Not only has it adopted the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, Jillian Segal, the Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism, has accused the ABC of inflating the death toll in Gaza and contributing to “an impression of great negativity about Israel”.
Segal’s claims, made under oath, were not challenged by Commissioner Virginia Bell or the commission’s lawyers.
Zionist Jews claim to “feel threatened” at the sight of a Palestinian flag or keffiyeh, or when they hear someone challenging Israel’s Zionist policies and ideology. But it is wrong to interpret this feeling as an antisemitic attack on their person, safety and existence.
So far, the commission has overwhelmingly called pro-Israel witnesses to appear. This is despite the fact that many anti-Zionist Jews have lodged submissions and offered to be cross-examined.
Some have described the royal commission as a “whinge fest”. It is a pricey one, costing the public a whopping $131 million. In addition, since the Bondi attacks the federal Labor government has given about $600 million to “protect” Jews and to appease the pro-Israel lobby.
The voices of non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews, like myself, have been ignored — except on two occasions.
The first was when a representative of the Jewish Council of Australia was asked to be a witness on July 2 (Hearing Block 3) and the second was to give a representative of Students For Palestine leave to appear on July 13 (Hearing Block 4)
There was another welcome moment on August 4, during the hearing block 7, on the subject of “protests”. A short passage from a submission by a member of Jews Against the Occupation ’48 was quoted by the Counsel Assisting. The passage recounted how, despite attending numerous pro-Palestinian protests, she had never experienced antisemitism. To the contrary, she wrote that she had been welcomed as a vital part of the movement for justice and peace. But instead of hearing more about her lived experience, the commission decided that a 30-second quote was sufficient.
Moreover, the two days originally dedicated to the topic of the Palestine protests were reduced to one.
The commission’s focus then shifted to the question of policing the protests. A key rally to scrutinise would have been the protest against the visit by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in February on Gadigal Country/Sydney where NSW Police brutalised people, including the elderly and those who were praying, who had gathered peacefully to have their say.
However, the Commission decided to focus on the rally organised on October 9, 2023, which marched from Sydney Town Hall to Bennelong Point, where NSW premier Chris Minns had instructed the Opera House sails to be lit with the Israeli flag.
Segal has used her appearance at the commission to try and blame the pro-Palestine movement for the Bondi terrorist shootings.
But, when questioned by Australia Palestine Advocacy Network’s lawyer Dominic Toomey SC, Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Peter McKenna said the Palestine Action Group (PAG), which organised many of the pro-Palestine rallies, had been cooperative with the police. He confirmed that the rally was not called to celebrate the Hamas uprising, that the march to the Opera House was a protest against Minns’ decision to light up the sails and that the only people that NSW Police had to remove from that rally were protesters with Israeli flags threatening to disturb the peace.
McKenna said that the rally had been peaceful and “orderly”, except for about three minutes when flares were set off at the Opera House steps. He said PAG had made sure they were put out and that no racist slogans had been chanted.
An anti-Zionist Jewish protester told the 2025 NSW parliamentary committee hearing into Antisemitism in New South Wales that “the police wanted the pro-Palestinian protesters to move away because there was a Jewish [pro-Israel] protest coming next. And I think the call was … ‘Where’s the Jews?’. It wasn’t ‘Where are they? We want to get them.’ It was, ‘Where are they? You’re forcing us to move, but there’s no-one here.”
McKenna carefully criticised the media for choosing to broadcast a few moments of chaos, thereby helping create a wrong impression of what had happened. The ABC then reported this day of hearing in a way McKenna had warned against by replaying footage of the flares, rather than airing footage of Richard Lancaster SC reading out a quote from a JAO48 member about her experiences at the Palestine rallies.
The Pew Research Center’s June analysis shows that a large majority (79%) of Australians have an “unfavourable view” of the state of Israel. Australia’s negative views of the Israeli state are higher than the European countries surveyed, and point to the steady opposition against Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians and the people of the Levant.
Added to this is the growing concern about federal and state anti-protest rules, including banning Palestine liberation phrases.
The federal government still refuses to describe Israel’s military operation in Gaza, following Hamas’ attacks in 2023, as constituting the crime of genocide. Labor continues to allow the supply weapons’ parts to Israel, with its recent conference refusing to debate a mild motion on Palestine.
As long as Judaism is falsely conflated with Zionism and antisemitism with anti-Zionism, antisemitism will not decrease.
The feedback JAO48 received from that single quote read out loud in the commission does rekindle some hope. “On days when the world seems extra upside-down, your words are a welcome anchor to reality”, one person said. Another said: “Thank you for your persistent strength in countering the ongoing conflation. It’s because of Jews like you that I haven’t become antisemitic in the past almost three years. You and others have shown me that Judaism and Zionism is not the same thing.”
[Jepke Goudsmit is a member of the Jews Against the Occupation ‘48.]