A prominent Jewish leader has argued protests movements have been unfairly targeted following the Bondi massacre, with migrant communities singled out for blame.
Sarah Schwartz, director of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, fronted the anti-Semitism royal commission on Thursday, when she said political manipulation of the shooting had left Palestinian and Muslim communities as scapegoats.
Much of the post-Bondi discussion sought to place the source of anti-Semitism among migrant and religious communities, leaving them to bear the weight of others’ actions, she said.
“This sends a message not only to the broader Australian public, (but) to Palestinian and Muslim communities that they have to account for anti-Semitism in a way that no other community is asked to account for it,” she said.
The Jewish Council rejects anti-Semitism but says criticism of Israel, particularly the actions of its government, is not the same thing.
Ms Schwartz said her views on what constituted anti-Semitism had changed drastically as she learnt about Israel’s history.
“A lot of government and policy responses to anti-Semitism have focused on anti-Semitism as being primarily sourced within the Palestine solidarity movement,” she said.
“It’s incredibly dangerous for government responses to be focused on Palestinian and Muslim communities and responses.”
The third block of public hearings for the royal commission began on Monday with a focus on the treatment of Jewish people in mainstream and social media.
The ABC and SBS will appear later in the hearings, along with dozens of Jewish Australians who have been subject to online hate.
Senior representatives from Australian Federal Police and NSW, Victorian and WA forces are due to give evidence on Thursday.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, will also appear in the afternoon.
Experts in social media, online hate and extremism appeared throughout Wednesday.
Online Hate Prevention Institute’s Andre Oboler, who has researched hate speech for more than a decade, said social media platforms X and Reddit removed less than a quarter of posts flagged as being anti-Semitic.
Reddit deleted 17 per cent, while X was slightly better at 24 per cent.
YouTube, LinkedIn and Telegram all removed just over 40 per cent.
TikTok – which had less media flagged than other platforms – deleted about 62 per cent, while Facebook removed 54 per cent.
Dr Oboler said AI was presenting new challenges as users could find relatively easy ways to bypass hate-speech filters.
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