Concerns are being raised over a sweeping plan to tackle anti-Semitism as some warn it will stifle legitimate criticisms about Israel.
Recommendations in a report from Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism Jillian Segal are being considered by the federal government as it examines ways to combat a surge in discrimination against Jewish Australians.
While it suggests embedding Holocaust education into school curricula and strengthening legislation against hateful conduct, the report also recommends terminating or withholding funds from universities, broadcasters and cultural institutions that fail to address anti-Semitism.
It also suggests deporting and the cancelling visas of immigrants who have been involved in discrimination against Jewish people.
National Union of Students president Ashlyn Horton raised issues with the way widespread student encampment protests were portrayed.
“Conflating actual anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel is a massive, massive concern,” she told AAP.
“Most student activists who have been part of the Palestine movement have never actually been anti-Semitic … it is just students who are concerned about the genocide in Gaza and their universities’ involvement in weapons manufacturing.
“Spinning it in this way of ‘the encampments were anti-Semitic, we need to crack down on all freedom of speech now’ is absolutely the wrong approach.”
While there were some cases of anti-Semitic individuals, Ms Horton said student unions were often the first to crack down.
First Nations, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities would be disproportionately harmed by the plan, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network warned.
Walkley-award winning journalist Jan Fran said Israel had killed nearly 200 people in Gaza since Tuesday, along with ordering Palestinians into what experts labelled an “internment camp”.
“If the anti-Semitism envoy’s plan stifles criticism of Israel for these actions, particularly at public broadcasters and in media organisations broadly, then we are headed down a very dark path,” she told AAP.
The report also recommended universities and all levels of government adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, even though it has been accused of conflating anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel and Zionism.
Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Max Kaiser labelled the report a “blueprint for silencing dissent” and his organisation said the emphasis on surveillance, censorship and punitive control over funding were “straight out of Trump’s authoritarian playbook”.
But other Jewish groups including the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council called for the plan to be adopted in full.
Ms Segal’s report found threats, vandalism and physical violence against Jewish Australians tripled between October 2023 and September 2024.
Universities Australia committed to considering the report’s recommendations.
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