The focus of Block 3 of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion was on online hate but the commission did not hear about the hate directed at pro-Palestinian groups.
How can the “discomfort” felt by certain Zionists when they see a keffiyeh or hear pro-Palestine peace slogans be more serious than the mutilation and murder of tens of thousands of children? More important than the unspeakable suffering of an entire people being dehumanised, dispossessed and erased from their land, culture and history? More pressing than the escalation towards an all-out war?
On Thursday 9 July, Jews Against the Occupation ’48 (JAO48) and Stop the War On Palestine (SWOP) co-hosted a protest rally against the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
JAO48 is one of several anti-Zionist Jewish organisations refused leave to appear at the Royal Commission Hearing Block 3 focusing on “the dissemination of antisemitic content and other forms of hateful speech in the online environment, as well as antisemitism in traditional media and broadcasting”.
Why is the anti-Zionist Jewish voice not heard? Nor the voice of our Arab and Muslim communities and the Palestinian community? Apparently because none of these excluded groups have a “direct and substantial interest” in the scope of the hearing.
Yet, the Commission supposedly concerns social cohesion, and the Block 3 hearing encompasses “other forms of hateful speech”, not only antisemitism.
The Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) is the only non-Zionist Jewish group given leave to appear. One of its founders, Sarah Schwartz, gave a comprehensive testimony on 2 July. Seen as dissenters and traitors, she and the JCA have copped much flack and many smears from the Zionist majority that dominates the narrative.
In May, when the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) was refused leave to appear, they rightly said: “excluding our community from a process examining racism and social cohesion, as well as from discussions which label our advocacy as antisemitic, is unacceptable”.
At Thursday’s rally, JAO48 displayed posters of the shocking online hate speech and abuse, including death threats, received by our members because we take an outspoken anti-Zionist stance in our advocacy for Palestinian rights and an end to the genocide. Specifically, we showed the abuse we as anti-Zionist Jews have been copping from Zionist Jews. Here are some examples of the threats and insults.
On 15 December 2025, someone using the name Brenton Tarrant (of Christchurch massacre infamy), posted these comments to a JAO48 member’s online business account: “You deserve a bullet in the head, you rancid old Muslim apologist c***. And thanks for revealing your bitch friends [SIC] name. Gonna make hunting the bitch down and putting a claw hammer in her skull even easier. Die mad you worthless childless boomer c***.”
A FaceBook group posted a picture of several JAO members at a Sydney pro-Palestine rally whom the anonymous author called “fake Kapo Jews” in the commentary. Other commentators added: “About as Jewish as a ham sandwich”, “Disgusting, despicable apologetic Jews” and “About as Jewish as Ali Khameni”.
In case the reader is not familiar with the word “Kapo”, Jewish Kapos were concentration and extermination camp prisoners forced to serve the Nazis against other Jews.
Our requests to bring this abuse before the Commissioner having been rejected, despite the hearings encompassing online antisemitic abuse, we thought to share it with the general public outside on the street.
Online abuse from pro-Israeli Jews reacting to our rally poured in on JAO48 FaceBook and Instagram immediately, confirming an obstinate and dangerous conflation of Jewishness and Israelism:
“They are Jews by name only, they clearly have no link to the Jewish homeland of Judea/Israel.”
“These people are the lowest of the low total traitors, the kind of filth that you wouldn’t let touch your toilet bowl.”
“Ultra-woke, radicalised, keffiyeh-wearing, self-hating, virtue-signalling kapos”.
It was significant that on the day of the rally the Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, was inside complaining about the ABC “creating a negative image of Israel”. As far as Segal is concerned, the ABC is biased towards the pro-Palestinian cause. And to her the pro-Palestinian movement is “synonymous with antisemitism”.
Criticism of Israel is being framed by the likes of Segal as an act of Jew-hatred and antisemitism. People who speak out against Israel’s atrocities must be cancelled, while genocide apologists can have their say.
Of course, the false conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism works to Segal’s and Israel’s advantage, and, ultimately, to the advantage of the perpetual war industry and all countries complicit in Israel’s genocide, including Australia.
But after 1,000 days of live-streamed genocide on illegally occupied Palestinian territory, accompanied by countless independent reports on Israel’s genocide, its intentional targeting of women and children, its systemic rape and torture, its continuous breaching of all manner of treaties and its general impunity, who has not seen through the Zionist propaganda?
Most people who make an effort to follow the real news are well aware of the hidden agenda of the prominent Zionists, like Segal, who pushed for this Royal Commission. Let’s spell it out again. Simply put, it is to suppress criticism of Israel, ban Palestine protests and legalise censorship in our public institutions, including media, arts and educational bodies.
Unfortunately, even Commissioner Bell has been persuaded to adopt the deeply flawed and dangerous IHRA definition of antisemitism, by which criticism of Israel can be interpreted as antisemitism.
We have already seen shameful censorship playing out when artists were scrapped, writers cancelled, university students and staff haunted with expulsion, physicians and journalists disinvited. It is playing out right now in the healthcare sector, since the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency has adopted the IHRA definition. Healthcare practitioners now face a deepening risk of workplace censorship if they refuse to be silent when hospitals are bombed and healthcare workers kidnapped, tortured and killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and beyond.
Will this Royal Commission let itself be the tool for imposing such censorship?
Meanwhile, Islamophobia is going through the roof, and people who dare speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Australia’s complicity have lost their jobs, been the object of smear campaigns, or found themselves dragged in court.
When will the Royal Commission hear their side of the story?
The former director of the Adelaide Writers Festival, Jewish Australian Louise Adler, wrote that “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 anti-Zionism.”
On 13 July, a new block of hearings started in Melbourne with a focus on antisemitism in universities. Jewish students came to air their stories of “discomfort” on campus. Fortunately, there was an exception. One of the leaders of the activist group Students For Palestine, testified on the first day.
She, of Jewish background herself, kept remarkably composed during a more than one hour-long cross-examination. She spoke about the longstanding campus tradition of political activism against war, racism and oppression. She told the Commissioner her side of the story about the solidarity encampments she had helped organise and the false allegations of antisemitism her group had suffered. She also exposed the physical violence some of the protesting students had experienced from pro-Israel intruders, one of whom being a serving member of the Israeli military.
Weaponising antisemitism as a shield for Israeli crimes against humanity, including genocide, must not be the driver of the Commission’s investigation. If the Commission itself turns out to be a Zionist pro-Israel tool, it will be another deep stain on our country’s history of racism and discrimination.
It would be a good thing if the Commission had a serious inward look and took pains to avoid being racist and damaging to social cohesion itself.
Jepke Goudsmit
Jepke Goudsmit is a theatre maker. Since 1985 she has been co-director of Kinetic Energy Theatre Company. Since 2004 the company has focused on social justice and human rights issues through theatre-in-education.