Published: 13 November 2025
Last updated: 19 November 2025
Of all the attitudes surveyed in Crossroads25, the response that raised the most red flags was the significant agreement with the statement “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews”.
A third of respondents (33%) agreed with the Nazi comparison statement, compared with 22% who disagreed, and 43% who were neutral or uncertain.
The comparison was heavily endorsed by young people: 54% aged 18-24 and 43% aged 25-30 agreed. Agreement declined with age but remained significant: 32% aged 31-44, 27% aged 45-54, and 30% of those 55 and over.
The statement also found strong agreement on the left side of politics: 52% of Greens voters, 42% of Labor and 37% of Independent, dropping to 20% of Coalition voters and 17% One Nation.
The significant agreement with a statement that is offensive to many Jewish people and arguably antisemitic demands examination.
Why we asked the question
Crossroads25 was commissioned by The Jewish Independent to measure Australian attitudes to Jews, Israel and antisemitism, and to provide a longitudinal comparison with Crossroads21.
Comments4
Jo Thomson15 November at 12:47 am
I assumed that the problem referred to in the headline referred to the impact of Israel’s genocidal treatment of Palestinians on community sentiment.
But no, it appears that the problem is conflating growing community hostility to relentless cruelty with anti-semitism.
No one can tell me I’m antisemitic, whatever definition one chooses to deploy.
Jesse McNicoll13 November at 12:05 pm
I find it interesting that a question about the respondents’ abhorrence of brutalisation of Palestinians is really about antisemitism?
Janet Kossy13 November at 09:35 am
To categorically rule comparison of Israeli policy with the Nazis as antisemitic or offensive, is to say the Israeli Government could never engage in Nazi-like behaviour of any kind. Really?
Comparison, saying things are alike in some way, doesn’t require them to be identical.
Whatever view one has of Israel’s conduct toward people it has displaced and occupied, an automatic “antisemitism” label for any Nazi comparison is unfair and even racist. If, by definition, nothing done by Israel can legitimately be compared to the Nazis, it means that, unlike the rest of humanity, Israeli Jews are essentially incapable of such evil. No matter the scale of systematic dehumanisation and killing?
The images from Gaza Australians have seen on our screens over the past two years have appalled us. Comparing the devastation of this Palestinian population to the work of Nazis may not be based on exact historical fact, but that doesn’t make it antisemitic. Rightly or wrongly, the world expected more of a country largely built by the victims of Nazi dehumanisation. Australians think of the Holocaust when they think of Jews and Israel, so the comparison comes easily.
Michael Visontay’s Crossroads25 analysis doesn’t mention this obvious explanation.