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OpinionAustralia

Confronting Richard Flanagan and the myth of the Israel lobby

Repeated often enough, the accusation that the Israeli lobby wields undue influence has become dangerous group think
Mary Garden
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(Image: TJI)

Published: 10 September 2026

Last updated: 10 September 2026

Booker-Prize-winning author and journalist Richard Flanagan recently claimed that Israel tries to keep the world ignorant of “the orgy of evil” it has visited upon the Palestinian people. In a searing speech at Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas held on August 22, he said that one way it does that is by trying to silence us with the “deadliest slur” of antisemitism.  

He described the politicisation and weaponisation of the Bondi massacre as a “foreign influence operation” led by what he and others call “the Israel lobby”, and asked: 

“To what extent has the Israel lobby itself contributed to antisemitism in Australia by consistently advocating for Israel’s war in Gaza in a highly aggressive fashion … could it have been the lobby’s own acts fuelling antisemitism?” 

He even denies that antisemitism was present at Bondi. “Where was the antisemitism to be found at Bondi on that terrible day? Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.” 

In his speech, Flanagan uses the word “lobby” 19 times. 

Lobby. Lobby. Lobby. The Israel lobby. 

I am sick of these words. “The Israel lobby” gets in my craw. I keep seeing it in essays, books, interviews and speeches. It reverberates and echoes across social media. 

Flanagan names three groups as part of the “Israel lobby”: the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, the Zionist Federation of Australia, and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. 

These are organisations that lobby and campaign, and the public has every right to criticise and scrutinise them. But to describe these different organisations as a single “lobby” raises an obvious question: how are they coordinated? Also, who runs it? Who makes the decisions? At what point did three separate organisations become one thing called “the Israel lobby”? And who else is in it? The Israeli government? Jewish community organisations? Any Australian citizen who supports Israel? Without these answers, “the Israel lobby” becomes an invisible ghost. One giant, monstrous lobby. 

Steve Biddulph, psychologist, educator and bestselling parenting author, praised Flanagan’s speech on Facebook, declaring that Flanagan confronts the evil – including the “myth” of Australian antisemitism – and that there was not a word in the speech he disagreed with. “Wow. Every second is worth hearing. Well-done RF.” 

When I challenged Biddulph about “the myth of antisemitism”, he replied: “you're right, I have modified it to the myths around antisemitism. I was being unclear.” His post now reads “myths around antisemitism.”

In a comment, Paul Arnott, a former executive director of the Christian Ministry Advancement’s Q4: Rethinking Retirement, agreed, saying that Flanagan’s speech was “a timely warning that our freedom of speech in Australia is under grave threat because of the very political pro-Israel Lobby group.” He continued: “The greatest myth perpetuated by the lobby, the greatest lie, is that criticism of the state of Israel is antisemitic.” 

I asked him: “What lobby? What is its name? Where is its base? How is it organised?” 

He replied: “The pro-Israel lobby is a network of political groups and individuals – led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – that works to secure strong military, financial, and diplomatic support for Israel from Western governments. It is extremely influential and asserts that any criticism of the Israeli state is antisemitic.” 

But here again, a specific organisation – AIPAC – is offered as evidence for a much broader and largely undefined entity.  

This is not a new concern. Writing for ABC Religion & Ethics in 2017, researcher Julie Nathan argued that the notion of “a powerful and sinister” Jewish lobby buying, unduly influencing or manipulating decisions is a recurring theme in antisemitic discourse. She noted that the “Jewish lobby” idea did not reference any particular organisation or individual, but referred to the notion of shadowy, undefined Jewish sources exerting influence over public life. She points out that it is irrelevant whether the term used is “Jewish lobby”, “Israel lobby” or “Zionist lobby”. 

John Lyons, an acclaimed journalist and former Global Affairs Editor at the ABC, has been making the same argument for years, and has described the Australian pro-Israel lobby as “formidable, well-funded, and effective”. 

In his 2021 book Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment, Lyons singles out one specific organisation: the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). He claims that the AIJAC is “a lobby group so influential it can force changes to government policy, hound journalists out of their jobs and pressure the ABC board to justify the appointment of foreign correspondents”. 

What evidence is there that AIJAC can actually exercise that degree of control? And how does one identifiable lobby group become “the Israel lobby”? Kim Wingerei’s review of Lyons’s book is tellingly titled “Crossword clues and bullying: the almighty power of the Australian pro-Israel lobby”. The almighty power! 

Flanagan, Lyons and others give the “Israel lobby” enormous power. They say it influences government, the media, universities and cultural institutions. It influences public debate and threatens free speech. It seeks to silence critics of Israel. 

Once you construct this supposedly all-powerful actor, you can blame it for anything. If a university changes its rules, the lobby did it. If a media outlet edits a story, the lobby pressured them. If a writers’ festival cancels an author, the lobby played a part. 

This is a point made with characteristic bluntness by journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Age Michael Gawenda. In his memoir, My Life as a Jew, Gawenda scoffs at the narrative that an all-powerful shadow network dictates national foreign policy or terrifies newsrooms. He writes that like most conspiracy theories, the monolithic myth is “bullshit, but powerful bullshit, because it is rooted in ancient prejudice”. 

The phrase “the Israel lobby” has appeared repeatedly in several writers’ festival controversies. In August 2025, more than 50 writers and academics withdrew from the Bendigo Writers Festival after a new code of conduct was sent to participants shortly before the festival. Australian-born writer of Palestinian and Egyptian parentage Randa Abdel-Fattah was among those who withdrew, arguing that the requirements would force her into self-censorship. She described the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A) as a “pro-Israel lobby group”, even though that group did not make the final decision about the code of conduct. 

In her account of the Adelaide Writers’ Week debacle that occurred in early 2026, when Abdel-Fattah was removed from the event, author Hannah Ferguson writes of her disgust and explains that she decided to “withdraw from a festival that has silenced the most pertinent voice”. This, she argues, was “an active choice to rail against a Zionist lobby that seeks to control every major institution in this country.” 

Where is the evidence that any Jewish group influenced Adelaide Festival Board’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah? 

Literary critic Lisa Hill makes another pertinent point: those authors who decided to withdraw from the festival were, in effect, supporting Abdel-Fattah, despite her “abhorrent views”, including that “Zionists have no claim or right to cultural safety.” Hill points out: “Well, that includes me, even though I am not Jewish, because I believe that Israel has a right to exist.” It also includes me, for the same reason.  

Grace Tame, author and 2021 Australian of the Year, has also adopted the “lobby” language. In February 2026, Tame spoke at a Sydney protest against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. During her speech, she referred to Herzog as a war criminal and led a chant to “globalise the intifada”. After being called “difficult” by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, she wrote that “I know he and his government have been corrupted by lobbyists”.

In a March 2026 ABC Radio Sydney interview, Tame mentioned a “pro-Israel lobby group that targets people who speak out about the Israeli government and their actions and try to get them shut down.” She went on to describe this as “a pretty classic part of the propaganda playbook”. 

Flanagan made a point of noting that some of Australia’s leading Jewish figures have spoken out against the Israel lobby and tried to warn Australians. One is Louise Adler, a former publisher and the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week from 2023 to 2026. She is on the advisory committee of the Jewish Council of Australia, an organisation only established in January 2024. 

In June, Adler wrote about the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which finished on 26 August:  

“If the Royal Commission is serious about investigating the nature of antisemitism and its ‘key drivers’, it should begin with Australia’s Israel lobby – the leading proponents of the conflation of antisemitism with antizionism.” 

She even attacked the credibility of people submitting evidence, claiming that “most will have been scripted by the lobby’s full-time ‘project officers’”. Most? Mine was not. 

There is, at times, an almost reverential response to figures such as Adler, Flanagan and Abdel-Fattah in parts of the literary and cultural world. They also seem to admire and reinforce one another, and seldom, if ever, challenge each other. A mutual affirmation.  

On Instagram, Adler described Flanagan as “fearless”, noting there was a full house at his Festival of Dangerous Ideas’ speech for which he “received a truly deserved standing ovation”. She urged people to “live stream [sic] his clarion call.”  

After Adler resigned as director of Adelaide Writer’s Week, she wrote an article in The Guardian in which she said she “could not be party to silencing writers”. Abdel-Fattah shared this on Instagram, describing her as “brilliant”. “I stand with her,” she wrote. Flanagan also praised Adler in The Age, writing: “Louise Adler is a brilliant, combative director who has made Adelaide Writers’ Week the most successful, exciting and globally significant writers’ festival in Australia.” 

Words have impact. Repeated often enough, across festival stages and opinion columns, a phrase can become a mindless mantra. A simple label suddenly sounds like a hard, undeniable fact: there is one identifiable, powerful organisation sitting behind the scenes, pulling the strings. 

Perhaps I am particularly sensitive to this. In the 1970s I was caught up in a Hindu-based cult in India, and the experience left me wary of mantras and groupthink – of the way repetition can make an idea feel true simply because we hear it over and over. 

To see how unfair this label “the Israel lobby” is, we only need to flip the script. Imagine if a commentator wrote: “A dangerous, unified pro-Palestinian lobby is controlling our universities and tearing our society apart and contributing to Islamophobia.” 

Pro-Palestinian advocacy is fragmented. The various groups disagree on goals and tactics. There is no single pro-Palestinian political organisation that speaks for everyone. 

Why can’t we do the same with pro-Israeli advocacy? Criticism of the Israeli government is legitimate. Criticism of Jewish organisations is legitimate. But criticism should be directed at identifiable people and organisations for identifiable actions. 

This reveals the ultimate contradiction in Flanagan’s argument. He warns us not to blame all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government. Yet, he immediately turns around and bundles separate organisations and individuals into a single, ominous “Israel lobby”. 

Flanagan asks: “To what extent has the Israel lobby itself contributed to antisemitism in Australia?” 

But what if we turn the question around? Rather than asking whether some mysterious “Israel lobby” is contributing to antisemitism, should we also ask whether rhetoric like Flanagan’s is contributing to it? Could the relentless mantra “the Israel lobby” be feeding antisemitism in Australia, including the antisemitism that Flanagan denies was present at Bondi? 

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About the author

Mary Garden

Mary Garden

Mary Garden is an award-winning author and journalist whose work has appeared in Australian and international publications, including The Guardian, The Australian and the Australian Financial Review. She has a PhD in Journalism.

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