Antisemitism Excuse: Silencing Truth About Zionism
If ever there’s ever been a media outlet keen to promote its allegiances to Israel, its’ been The Australian. The paper hasn’t been shy about boasting its desire to promote Israel’s narrative of victimhood.
But today, it ran a news piece highlighting comments by Australia’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal. It was one of those stories that not only misrepresents key concepts but also has any fair-minded reader raising critical questions about the need for such a role in Australian public life.
Conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Zionism—and by extension, the policies of the Israeli government—isn’t only intellectually dishonest but detracts from addressing broader issues of racism and bigotry in Australia.
“Semite” refers to a linguistic and ethnic grouping that includes Jews, Arabs, and other indigenous people of the Middle East. Understanding that, it becomes historically and anthropologically wrong to equate antisemitism solely with prejudice against Jewish people. To suggest that criticism of Israeli policies or the Zionist movement equates to antisemitism ignores this nuance and perpetuates a troubling narrative.
It's this narrative that’s frequently weaponised to silence debate about Israel’s war crimes, particularly in occupied Palestinian territories and toward the subjugation and oppression of Palestinians. Segal like The Australian, aren’t only dishonest but are blatantly engaging in the effort of conflation to mask evil. For an envoy Segal has no credibility.
Criticising Zionism isn’t antisemitic, just as opposing the policies of any other state or political movement isn’t inherently prejudiced against its people.
Does Australia even need a special envoy to combat antisemitism or would a broader focus on combating all forms of racism and bigotry serve it better?
The answer lies more with the issue of appeasement to pander more than anything else. Segal’s appointment is a political gesture to placate influential lobbying groups than a genuine effort to address hate and discrimination.
Segal’s claims lenient sentencing has created “effective impunity” for antisemitic acts are made without sufficient evidence to demonstrate systemic judicial failings. While any act of hate or violence is unacceptable, the suggestion Australia’s judiciary is failing Jewish Australians is a sweeping generalisation that doesn’t consider the broader context of hate crimes against other communities. Indigenous Australians, Muslims, and other minorities also face discrimination and violence. What makes the Israeli community any different? power and influence does.
Furthermore, Segal’s call for new legislation to address antisemitism is equally problematic. Existing laws in Australia already provide mechanisms to prosecute hate crimes and acts of violence. Strengthening these laws to specifically address antisemitism, as Segal suggests, risks creating a hierarchy of victimhood where some forms of hate are deemed more egregious than others.
Segal’s approach undermines the principle of equality before the law and may alienate other communities who also experience discrimination.
The focus on punitive measures like harsher sentencing overlooks why education and community engagement is important at addressing the root causes of prejudice. Combating hate requires more than legal instruments; it demands a societal commitment to fostering understanding, inclusivity, and dialogue.
The Israeli government’s policies, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, have drawn widespread condemnation from human rights organisations and the international community. Labelling criticism as antisemitic attempts to deflect attention from legitimate concerns about human rights violations. It’s crucial to recognise opposing these policies isn’t an attack on Judaist Jews but a stance against state actions of Zionist ideology that contravene international law.
Australia’s close ties with Israel, including the recent visit by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to Tel Aviv, highlight the influence of pro-Israel lobbying on domestic politics. This relationship prioritises the interests of a foreign state over the broader needs of Australia and Australians. Appointing a special envoy to combat antisemitism can be seen as part of this dynamic, serving to reinforce political alliances.
To genuinely address racism and bigotry in Australia, the government needs to adopt a more inclusive approach that doesn’t prioritise one form of discrimination over others. A national strategy to combat all forms of hate—including antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Indigenous racism, and other prejudices—would better serve Australia.
Segal - Australia’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, as currently conceived, appears more as a political appointee to sweeten specific interest groups than a genuine effort to address hate in all its forms. Conflating antisemitism with criticism of Zionism, Segal and others risk undermining the very cause they claim to champion. Instead of creating divisive roles and policies, Australia should focus on fostering a country that values equality, justice, and open dialogue.
The time has come for Segal to resign and stop taking Australian taxpayers’ money for a job not well done, or hand over her massive salary to charities who are supporting the Palestinian victims of Israel’s war crimes. But for Sega, that simply wouldn’t be Kosher.
Radicalised Zionist Fanatics weaponising antisemitism, drunk on Zionist Koolaid propaganda and bleating they're the victims is reprehensible. The genocidal atrocities against Palestinians by these Radicalised Zionist Fanatics are cruel, evil and break international laws. They are ethnically cleansing Gaza, the occupied West Bank and are also bombing Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. The world can see what's happening. As a Jewish Anti Zionist I'm appalled at all of this. Australia should not be supporting genocide.
Segal will not consider resignation nor donating her outrageously high salary to a deserving organisation. She will not do so because she is not a disinterested 'special envoy', (whatever that is supposed to mean), and as you so rightly say, the. position is both unnecessary and its creation a prejudiced and ill considered move in appeasement of Netanyahu - a war criminal.
Unfortunately, the majority of Australians almost certainly have little real knowledge or understanding of the machinations that have taken place in the Middle East, the foreign interference, the bias against Arabs and the reality that the Palestinians had their land stolen from them, largely by Britain, (though with the connivance of other European powers and, at the time, a reluctant USA).
The very creation of the Israeli state was itself an example of appeasement to a Zionist lobby and the partitioning of Palestinian land to create the state involved *no* Palestinians, followed deceit by Britain and breaking of a promise to the Arabs for their role in assisting Britain against the Ottomans, and falsities such as the notion that there were not many Arabs living in Palestine - only a few % it was claimed, when in fact it was more in the vein of 95%.
As you also stated, there is *no* justification for special attention to be given to supposed antisemitism which is fraudulently used to describe what almost certainly are either attacks by those angered at Australia's support for a brutal and genocidal Zionist nation and/or an opportunistic indulgence by hard right wing individuals or groups who wish to cause as much social upheaval as possible. It is also notable that the daubing of slogans on Israeli synagogue, businesses and such and the deliberate damage and arson feed the desire of right wing 'law and order' zealots who ignore or fail to comprehend why crime exists to the extent that it does and who argue that greater policing and penalties are needed to stop it when, in fact, they have never done so and are more likely to increase both initial criminal behaviour and recidivism.
Netanyahu's criminal behaviour and that of his colleagues and the military they command, as well as that of the illegal West Bank Settlers, are almost certainly also a symptom of the ever increasing right-wing movement across the World and play to the simplistic understanding of those who are in pain from being at the bottom end of an increasingly inequitable society or societies. These people want change and are ripe for conditioning by hard line right wingers who care not a jot for their lot but will use their pain to induct them into a misguided and deluded populist movement, as has happened in the USA with Trump and his cohort of self aggrandising, corrupt and self-serving right wing delinquents.
'The Australian' ought to change its name, just as should the Liberal Party for they are both misnomers. There is nothing of positive moral character or action about either organisation and Peter Dutton is as much a threat to justice, freedom, women and democracy as is Trump in the USA.
I am heartily disappointed in Albanese's leadership and the failure of the ALP to condemn Israel's ethnic cleansing, cruelty, criminality and breach of international conventions and UN resolutions. I saw, as did many, the 'writing on the wall' when the ALP chose to retain the tax cuts decided by the LNP but never thought I would witness such kow-towing to the USA as has been the case.
The Greens and independents are now the only Australian politicians who exhibit any honesty, clarity of vision and understanding of reality. They are also the only ones who recognise that they are there to serve and improve the well-being of all and that such means reducing inequity, improving moral standards - starting with their own - and acting responsibly in relation to major issues such as climate change and the increased militarisation across the World. Buying multi-billon dollar nuclear powered submarines that will be obsolescent before they ever set sail, subsidising fossil fuel companies and granting more fossil fuel mining leases is not what Australia should be doing and that the ALP is in government and acting this way is reprehensible and a betrayal of all it has stood for and the statesmen and women that it has produced.