The Strawman Of Antisemitism: Banning Protests Against Israel Down Under

Of late, a spate of incidents has taken place in Australia giving sheer delight to the simian-resembling Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton. On a visit to South Australia, he showed himself to be merrily divisive in attacking protestors who had shown solidarity for Palestinians in Gaza in the wake of their catastrophic suffering since October last year: “If you allow these lunatics to continue their protests at university campuses and you allow them to spew their hatred and affiliate with a listed terrorist organisation, and there [is] no consequence, of course we’ll see the sort of outcomes we have seen – which most recently has culminated in the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne”.

The December 6 attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, while horrid, was immediately elevated to a level of concern warranting an emergency – that, at least, was the view of Dutton and his charges. The attacks on mosques and their worshippers, a feature of Australian public life for some years now, hardly warranted a mention. (A 2021 joint study by three Australian universities surveying 75 mosques found that 58.2% had experienced violence between 2014 and 2019.)

Dutton also had inspiration from another source. “The burning of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne is an abhorrent act of antisemitism,” stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on platform X. “I expect the state authorities to use their full weight to prevent such antisemitic acts in future.”

Ever the opportunist, Netanyahu saw a chance to see unsubstantiated links between the bombing in Melbourne, Australian foreign policy and antisemitism. “Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia, including the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel ‘to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible’, and preventing a former Israeli minister from entering the country.” The conclusion was childishly simple: “Anti-Israel sentiment is antisemitism.”

This unbridled nonsense had its effect. In the aftermath of the synagogue attack, Australia’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, got busy. On the Australian public broadcaster SBS, she took the rather authoritarian view that Australian cities were no place for protests against Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. “There should be places designated away from where the Jewish community might venture, where people can demonstrate.” Presumably, pro-Palestinian protestors needed to be given, like smokers, caged areas to engage in their activities, leaving the pure and docile safe to go about their everyday business.

In Segal’s view, the weekly protests held in solidarity for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank had become “something more sinister”. Not only were they “intimidatory”, they had “morphed into attacking the Jewish community.” Not exactly furnished with much by way of evidence, she pointed to the display of “flags from a terrorist organisation” and “anti-Jewish sentiments” seen and heard at rallies. Demagogy always resists context.

Amnesty International Australia, in a December 13 statement, expressed its strong opposition to Segal’s call “to ban pro-Palestinian protests from city centres. Protests advocating for a ceasefire, the protection of human rights, and an end to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza are an essential and protected outlet for Australians to freely express their views.” It was vital to distinguish instances of “hateful acts and calls for justice, freedom, and human dignity.”

These views are correct – to a point. As Australia lacks a human rights charter protecting the right to lawful assembly and free speech, parliaments at both the federal and state level can show sneering contempt for protests when they wish to do so. Wishing to jump to the aid of Segal and the unspecified fearful in the Jewish community, Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan has done just that, proposing legislation that targets pro-Palestinian protests. “Antisemitism,” she solemnly stated, “thrives in extreme and radical environments, and we are giving police more powers to control protest and making it harder for agents of violence and hate to hide.”

Allan gives the impression that the proposed laws are universal in nature. “Doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Jewish Muslim, Sikh, Hindu – you all deserve the right to simply be who we are”. However, things become very clear with the explicit mention “that Jewish people increasingly feel the promise of a modern and multicultural Victoria is being denied them.”

The ludicrously named Anti-Vilification and Social Cohesion Bill 2024 will not only, as the premier noted in a public announcement, ban the flags and symbols of designated terrorist organisations (Hamas and Hezbollah included), undefined “white nationalists” (presumably those of other colours slip under the radar), “and more”: the statute will also focus on the decorative and dramatic nature of protest. Masks, “used by agitators to shield identities and hide from personal accountability”, are to be banned, along with glue, rope, chains, locks and other devices “used to cause maximum disruption and endanger Victorians.” This shows that protestors of all stripes, including those concerned with climate change and environment, will also be targeted.

Showing a conventional loathing for Victoria’s own Charter of Human Rights, which has a paper tiger protection for freedom of assembly, Allan condescendingly shreds it: “the right to protest is balanced against the right of people to live safely – free of danger, discrimination and harassment.”

These moves replicate the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995, as amended by the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023 passed last year. As if Australia’s citizenry needed to have more strangulating laws, these measures already criminalise the display and trade of prohibited symbols, along with the Nazi salute, which includes “a prohibited terrorist organisation symbol.” Police-minded bureaucracies, whatever their level, adore duplication.

The beneficiaries in all of this are the noisy, bellicose members of the pro-Israel lobby, a divisive federal opposition keen to capitalise on hatreds it claims not to have, and the State of Israel itself. However murderous, annihilating and cruel its policies might be to the Palestinians, the belief shared by many of its defenders is that the Jewish state is faultless, beyond the moral and soiling reach of any protest. To think otherwise would instance, as Netanyahu barkingly insists, antisemitism.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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