Published: 24 July 2025
Last updated: 24 July 2025
July marked the return of antisemitism into the Australian national conversation, and it continues to be as racked by division and diversions as ever before.
Less than three weeks after the East Melbourne Synagogue was set on fire and Israeli-Australian restaurant Miznon was attacked by anti-Israel protesters, our public debate has become fixated on details of Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, rather than the issue itself.
Newspapers have published countless op-eds denouncing the plan. It has been labelled a threat to democracy, Trumpian and a push to weaponise antisemitism by the “Jewish establishment”.
Greens deputy leader and anti-racism spokesperson Mehreen Faruqi called Segal’s position untenable, posting five times within a week to denounce Segal on Instagram, but has yet to issue condemnation of the synagogue attack itself – the second Melbourne synagogue set on fire since December.
Even putting aside the rhetoric one finds in the sewers of social media, the prevailing narrative and debate around antisemitism has become about conflation.
Comments7
Otto Waldmann30 July at 05:37 am
Obvious distortions of a clear entity as legitimately complex as any other in the dictionary cum debate over Jewishness pose as moral measurements defining, in fact, obvious political loyalties cum pretense of objectivity. As Israel is fundamentally conflated with anything veritably Jewish, an attack on the Jewish State implicitly affects just as realistically/tangible everything else Jewishness contains, hence Zionism , Judaic religion, Jewish individuals ANYWHERE are being integrated/conflated while any spot on Israel’s map is targeted. As clear as daylight (sic) attacks under the cover of the night against a shul in Melbourne, perhaps the longest distance from Israel proper, are intrinsic to the conflation here denied by purveyors of political partisan confusion.Similarly, a direct armed conflict such as the one in Gaza cannot accept advise ( we say “eitzes” ) particularly from those identified easily with open dislike of …Jewishness itself, hence Israel. Anyone displaying empathy for those who have hailed to high Heavens on the streets of Gaza on the tragic day of October 7, 2023 ( not at all tragic for the “hailers” ) those local heroes jamming hostages into holes of terror MUST have imagined the LOGICAL retribution by Israel that followed their celebrations. In fact Netanyahu was blatantly clear about the hell that was imminent. Well, this is what hell on Earth looks like for those ignoring the the effects of crime, a crime committed at the widest-highest social/communal level. Realistically -another Jewish expression : TAHLES – as hamas has no chance of prevailing militarily, yet refuses to abandon Gaza and also return what has remained of the hostages, dead or alive, itself, hamas, are the exclusive responsible of a genocide perpetrated by them, hamas, over their own actually loyal to ………. death criminally conflated people.
Ian Light29 July at 12:28 am
Critics of the Israeli War against Gaza do not ask : How would we react if we were attacked like Israel was attacked on October 7 with the atrocities the barbarism and hostage taking ?
Say the USA as we saw on 9/11 the sympathy for defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was world wide and in the USA very highly supported .
If a Gang of Terror attacked anywhere with the horror in which Israel was attacked how would any even any Human Rights Democracy act to obtain Justice ?
The worst was even before the Israeli counterattack the demonstrations outside the Sydney Opera House coloured Blue and White in sympathy for the atrocious barbarism with heinous anti-Jewish chants and jeers .
The prime minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong strongly attacked the chants as horrific .
The Israeli counterattack with Civilian deaths amongst the deaths of the Hamas Terrorists did cause a far greater complexity of views about restraint .
But attacks on Jewish People are crimes .
Attacks on the Existence of Israel are also regarded as filled with Malevolent anti-Jewish Ideology .
Ian Light28 July at 10:54 pm
The Two States Israel and Palestine already exists in reality : but Palestine is under Israeli Security Control because the Palestinian people have been educated to reject Israel as a State and reject it with as much violent terror as possible .
October 7 2023 brought the terror violence with heinous atrocities and included kidnapping and killing of babies young children and non-combatants and combatants but in a time of declared Truce .
A Truce in which 15,000 Gazans were working in Israel
was broken with atrocious barbarism setting back a Peaceful Two States for Generations.
Simon Krite26 July at 06:49 am
Jeff, your response is a textbook example of moral inversion and frankly, cowardice…
You say “there is no excuse for antisemitism” then immediately offer one. It’s beyond bizzare.
Jews in Australia are being assaulted, their synagogues torched, their restaurants targeted, not because of anything they did, but because people like you keep telling the world it’s understandable. That they somehow bear guilt unless they pass some moral purity test and publicly denounce Israel with the right volume and vocabulary.
Jews don’t owe anyone a performative disavowal of Israel to earn their safety. And they certainly don’t deserve to be scapegoated in Western democracies because Hamas launched a genocidal attack, and Israel responded.
If you genuinely care about decency and humanity, then start by holding the actual perpetrators of mass violence to account. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the regimes that bankroll them.
And you want shameful? Here it is. Standing by while mobs justify hatred against Jews then pretending that’s empathy.
Simon Krite24 July at 09:33 pm
This is a thoughtful piece that rightly tries to reclaim space for nuance. But let’s be equally clear….. those now loudly questioning the validity of Segal’s antisemitism report, many of whom are activists or politicians who simultaneously demand action on “Islamophobia” need to be scrutinised far more closely.
You don’t get to delegitimise antisemitism by pretending it’s being “weaponised,” while demanding your own definitions of racism be treated as sacrosanct. That’s just gaslighting. And under that cover lies something far more corrosive, a growing movement that excuses, justifies, or enables hatred against Jews, so long as it can be framed as “anti-Israel.”
The real conflation isn’t happening in Segal’s report. It’s happening from those who want to collapse all criticism of their own ideology under the banner of protected speech, while decrying Jewish self-defence…. physical, political, or discursive as censorship.
These people aren’t confused….. They’re playing a very deliberate game. And they should be called out.
Because what’s at stake here isn’t just Jewish safety, it’s the basic integrity of our civic society. A society that allows one group’s trauma to be politicised and dismissed, while sanctifying another’s, cannot call itself multicultural or just.
The truth is this…. rising antisemitism is real. It’s measurable. And if you feel the need to bury that fact in footnotes about Gaza, or preface it with “but what about,” then you’re part of the problem.
Jeff Loewenstein24 July at 08:04 am
What an appalling mealy-mouthed piece. Trying to appear “empathetic” to the Gazans being starved and shot at can only be described as pathetic. There is no excuse for anti-semitism but some introspection might lead someone with nouse to understand that anti-semitism has risen since 7 October 2023. People of integrity, decency, humanity and who claim to be Jewish in following the Ten Commandments, Halachic law and Jewish lore cannot stand back and let Israel off the hook (or perhaps a soft tutt-tutting) for what it is doing in Gaza and the West Bank. It is shameful!
Michael Gawenda24 July at 07:39 am
Terrific article. I hope it is widely read.