The core of Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s plan is to suppress any debate about what constitutes anti-Semitism.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of anti-Semitism reads: “Hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people”. The Oxford definition of racism, of which anti-Semitism is a reflection, reads: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”
In the 20th century, the most horrendous, evil example of such hostility, prejudice and antagonism against Jews culminated in the systematic murder of millions of Jews in Europe during Hitlerite Nazi control. The murder had been legitimised by years of disgusting, evil and demeaning propaganda racialising the Jewish people, a people sharing identification with a religion, and depicting them as sub-human – in particular, inferior to Aryans. These events are now known as the Holocaust, a word that in its previous use described total annihilation by fire – such was the violence, torture and suffering underwent by six million Jews during 1941-45.
Nothing of the scale and depth of inhuman intent, planned and systematic mass murder, carried over several years has happened since – not even the nuclear holocaust suffered by Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the numerous other mass murders and genocidal actions. Given the stated intent by some members of the current Israel regime calling for the destruction of Palestine, the depth of intent of extremist Zionist genocidal ambitions also reach to extremities of such intent. However, the six million tortured and killed off between 1941-45 remains the worst to date.
Except among a tiny number of Holocaust deniers, mainly to be found on the political extreme right, the evil of the European Holocaust against Jews is condemned by all. The post-war public discussion of this Holocaust, and the utter horror exposed by footage from concentration camps after the war, provided the broad justification among Western societies for accepting, even enthusing, about the creation of Israel as a haven for persecuted Jewish people. Israel, as a representation of those who had so suffered, achieved a certain sanctified status in post-war western public discourse. This provided the basis for the more recent emergence of a new definition of anti-Semitism. Criticism of Israel itself, especially questioning its legitimacy as a country, is now defined as anti-Semitic.
Suppression of debate on what is anti-Semitism
In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) proposed a new ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism. The IHRA was founded in 1998 on the initiative of the Swedish Prime Minister as a response to holocaust denial sentiments in Sweden. Sweden, the U.S., Germany, Israel, and the U.K. were the initiating countries. Thirty-five governments are now members. The issuing of the 2016 definition effectively changed the understanding of anti-Semitism to include as a basic element the questioning of the legitimacy of Israel as a state. The precise and most relevant formulations in the definition are:
“Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
As well as:
“Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
The adoption of this definition as an operational standard at the governmental level, and among many institutions such as universities, lays the basis for the enforcement of an idea which would otherwise be open to debate. The recently proposed Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism is based on instituting enforcement of adherence to this definition. On July 10, Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, accompanied by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister Tony Burke, presented this report. It is clear that the core of the plan has nothing to do with combatting anti-Semitism but is about how to suppress any debate about what constitutes anti-Semitism.
The plan proposes monitoring all publicly funded institutions to ensure that they adhere to the IHRA definition and restricting visas or deporting people on the same basis. In other words, debate around this definition is not acceptable. It is very likely true that this is the only definition of any historical or political phenomena that would be subject to state enforced adherence.
Segal’s own stance is very clear. She is a supporter and defender of Israel. That helps explain her defence of the IHRA definition and strength of her commitment to enforcing it. There is no need for any puzzling around that.
The more fundamental and pressing questions are why did Prime Minister Albanese choose such a champion of Israel as the government’s main spokesperson on anti-Semitism? Will the government agree to her proposals to enforce adherence to the IHRA definition?
In 2018, the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People was passed in Israel which states in article 1c that “The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.” Can there not be legitimate questioning whether “the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”? All reference to Israel as an “apartheid state”, referencing laws that discriminate against people of non-Jewish descent, would become subject to punishment.
Since October 2023, there are plenty of observers, including those tasked by the United Nations, noticing that Israeli forces have carried out collective punishment, including bombings, shootings and starving civilian populations. Given the IHRA definition includes the forbidden ‘illustrative example”: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”, it would become punishable to point out that the Nazis did the same.
Actually, many, many fundamental things would be banned.
Why is the Australian political establishment – its capitalist ruling class, its state and its parties – so open to enforcing suppression of debate? Perhaps, the ALP government will reject these proposals even after appointing Segal and publicly launching the report with her. The Government’s response will be a measure of its depth of commitment to Israel, although that is already clear. But why is this being promoted at all?
The Fundamental Reason For the Australian State’s Support of Israel
There are no doubt many factors. However, I think there is a fundamental starting point for understanding this commitment. The history of the world since the 17th century has been the history of colonial conquest and domination. The legacy of that today is a world divided between those nations who prospered during the colonial period and everybody else – the latter being three quarters of the world’s population. Since the 17th century, the enormous power enabled by the scientific and industrial revolutions in Europe were used for conquest, theft and then systematic exploitation.
Throughout this period, within the imperialist countries, there were countless rebellions against the ruling classes, sometimes even threatening revolution. Rebellion kept the radical and humanist traditions alive, but they were marginalised. The culture and identity of the imperialist countries, based on the values of conquest and exploitation, was defined as “western and civilised” in comparison to the ‘barbarian’ peoples of ‘failed states’ that governed ‘shithole’ countries as Trump later put it. These lesser peoples were imagined to throw their babies overboard to get rescued by Australian ships, pretend to be raped in refugee concentration camps in order to enter Australia, form criminal gangs on the streets of Melbourne – thus has run the imperialist elites’ propaganda. The ‘barbarian’ peoples would forever pose a ‘terrorist’ threat to the prosperous suburban life of cities such as Tel Aviv – a city where homes were confiscated from Palestinians during the Naqba (catastrophe) in 1948.
Australia, which has among the highest per capita income in the world, is still integrated in Anglo-American hegemonic cultures, and with no history of revolution to create any deep legacy of radical humanist tradition, shares the sense of membership because it is indeed a member of the world’s imperialist club of former colonial powers. Australia’s wealth may not come so much from direct imperialist exploitation of other countries, but it has its origins in the genocidal seizure of lands by the colonies first capitalist squatter barons while also benefiting from the flows of wealth from the British empire to the new Australian capitalist class, and even to some of its workers.
This global division between the Western and civilised countries and the “shithole” ones is seen by the ruling classes and elites of the imperialist world as being reflected in the Palestinian struggle. The “shithole”, “barbarians” must be defeated. A victory for Palestine would be a dangerously inspiring example to the whole world, especially to the peoples of the Global South. The Australian ruling class could survive any direct financial loss if the Palestinians had a victory and won freedom. They would, however, be certainly worried, even scared, by an emboldened Global South. Their profits are significantly dependent on being able to share in imperialism’s super-profits flowing from exploitation of the oppressed nations of the world.
The Outlook of Working People in Australia
What about the Australian people, the millions of wage workers, white and blue collar? Again and again, the working people of Australia have displayed a democratic inclination. They voted in referendums against a ban on the Communist Party and for recognition of indigenous people as genuine full citizens. Millions opposed the Vietnam War. Sympathy for the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples over the Stolen Children and participation in reconciliation marches has been large. Demonstrations against the Iraq war were huge. The trade union action that involved the greatest number of trade unions ever was the Black Armada strikes against Dutch ships attempting to take soldiers and arms to retake Indonesia as a colony.
There are, in fact, many such examples of the resilience of the democratic sentiment among the working people of Australia. Even today, among a very atomised working class weighed down by a severe erosion of collective union struggle, the leakage away from the two major parties has mainly been to the left – to the Greens and TEALs – rather than to the right. But sentiment is just that, sentiment. It is what survives under the ideological hegemony of a long embedded and prosperous bourgeois class. It is not enough to drive change and it can be easily co-opted, whether by racist, chauvinist scapegoat politics or by the egotism of the worst types of identity politics.
A strong movement in support of a victory for Palestine, for an end to a world divided between those on the prosperous side of the wall and those on the other side, can only be built by serious organising and educational work motivated by commitment and idealism. Since the 20th century in particular, young people have often taken the initiative and provided most of the energy for such movements for social progress. It will need to be the same now.
This is an edited version of the article originally published on Max Lane’s Substack as Australia, Israel and Extremist Ideological Control: The Deeper Question is – Why?
see https://maxlaneonline.substack.com/
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