Australia’s recent wave of political scaremongering and hyperbolic reporting about antisemitic attacks on Jewish schools, synagogues, businesses and a day care centre has finally subsided, but its impact is still being eagerly exploited by right-wing media outlets, pro-Israel lobby groups and politicians of all stripes.

The antisemitism crisis came to a peak in early January when it was leaked to the media that an explosives-filled caravan capable of killing scores of people was discovered parked in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Sydney containing a list of Jewish targets, including Sydney’s main synagogue. At a hastily assembled press conference, a grave-looking New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, stood alongside the NSW Chief of Police Karen Webb announcing what looked like the biggest antisemitic event in Australian history, one that followed a recent spate of 14 other incidents including arson and graffiti attacks on Jewish businesses, schools, synagogues and a day care centre.

“These are horrifying antisemitic attacks,” Minns told the press, “…and we have to send a clear message to these animals that this will not be tolerated.” Webb assured the public that the criminals would be brought to justice and David Ossip from the Jewish Board of Deputes declared, “All Australians should be sickened [and] outraged by yet another antisemitic hate crime.”

Stoking legitimate fears in sections of the Jewish community, the press, politicians and Australia’s leading Zionist organisations were in unison with one terrifying message — Australia’s Jewish community was under attack from a chilling wave of rampant antisemitism — Kristallnacht was just around the corner!

Except that it was all a giant hoax.

On 10 March it was revealed that state and federal police knew from the very start that the caravan was not the work of antisemites but an elaborate fraud perpetrated by organised crime gangs. “Almost immediately, experienced investigators within the Joint Counter Terrorism Team believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot – essentially a criminal con job,” announced Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett. “Today, I can reveal that the caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event [it contained 40-year-old explosives with no detonator] but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.”

According to state and federal police investigators, an overseas organised crime kingpin had planned to inform the police of the caravan in exchange for a reduced sentence and that the other incidents were distractions to divert police resources from their criminal activities. The 14 people arrested in relation to these attacks had no political, religious or ideological axes to grind – they were simply a bunch of hired thugs.

Now the question was, when did the politicians know this was a hoax and why did they persist on stoking fears of widespread antisemitism?

On 30 January, more than two weeks after the discovery of the explosive-filled caravan was announced, Minns told ABC radio, “This is the discovery of a potentially mass casualty event. There’s only one way of calling this out and that is terrorism.” Standing alongside Minns was Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said, “I agree with Chris Minns… It was designed to harm people. And that’s the very definition.”

Since then, it has been revealed that both Albanese and Minns knew the caravan plot was a hoax all along. But the damage had been done.

In February, the New South Wales Labor Government had rushed a spate of hate speech laws and protest restrictions through parliament. The laws include prohibiting making racist remarks in public, restricting protests near places of worship or hindering public access to places of worship – although nearly every major protest site in Sydney is near a place of worship. The offences carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison and/or a $22,000 fine and the decision to make arrests is left totally to the discretion of the police.

The legislation has been condemned by human rights groups, the Greens and some Labor MPs who believe that they do nothing to respond to the problem of real racial hatred in Australia. Muslim groups said the laws would have the effect of increasing Islamophobia and undermine social cohesion, while Zionist organisations, which define any criticism of Israel as antisemitic, strongly supported the new laws.

Zooming out to the federal level, Australian politicians have been falling over themselves to pass the harshest and most oppressive hate speech legislation to date.

Last year, the Australian Government introduced a bill that it claims is a strong deterrent to antisemitism by creating new offences that include threatening violence against groups or threatening the “peace, order and governing of the nation".

This came on the heels of a grovelling trip to Israel by the Labor Party’s attorney-general after Australia was publicly scolded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who claimed that an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue was a result of the government’s “extreme anti-Israel position” – a reference to Australia’s United Nations vote to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Not to be outdone, the Liberal-National Party Coalition has lambasted Labor for being too soft in its response to antisemitism and demanded the Albanese Government explicitly outlaw threats and attacks against places of worship as part of a planned crackdown on hate speech. Echoing Netanyahu, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton blamed Labor’s UN vote against Israel’s occupation of Palestine for the Melbourne synagogue attacks and described Palestinian rights demonstrations as “anti-Jewish protests".

Meanwhile, backed by Jewish leaders in her electorate, independent MP Allegra Spender called for even stiffer anti-vilification laws to be included in the bill.

Rest assured, all of this legislation has less to do with fighting antisemitic hate speech (which existing anti-discrimination laws already address) than silencing protest. More emphatically, these politicians are cynically exploiting the reality of antisemitism to whip up fear, suspicion and hatred against Muslims and Palestinians, while suppressing the Palestinian solidarity movement and criticism of Israel’s genocidal policies.

Although the antisemitic attack hoax has waned for now, it has supercharged an extreme right-wing Zionist campaign. As one example, Australia’s Sky News recently organised an Antisemitism Summit of Zionist groups, politicians, broadcasters and businesspeople where The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) presented a 15-point plan for combating antisemitism.

Among the plan’s recommendations are: antisemitism education in public schools, a ban on Palestinian support encampments on university campuses, a call to revoke funding to institutions perceived to be promoting antisemitism, an antisemitism “character test” for immigrants, the creation of algorithms to detect online antisemitism and the revoking of grants to institutions that display antisemitic views.

Antisemitism is never defined in the plan. However, the ECAJ and Australia’s two main political parties endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism – a definition that includes “claiming that the state of Israel is a racist endeavour” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Of course, it should go without saying that even the sharpest criticism of the moral foundations of the state of Israel has nothing to do with being antisemitic – and that being Jewish has nothing to do with Zionism, a fringe religious and political movement that evolved at the beginning of the last century and evolved into a settler colonial project.

Make no mistake, the ECAJ’s 15-point plan that follows the recent disastrous round of legislation in the wake of the antisemitism hoax has nothing to do with protecting the Jewish community in Australia; it is aimed squarely at critics of Israel’s genocidal policies and those who support the fundamental right to protest injustice.

The project mirrors some of the worst provisions of Project 2025 and its sister Project Esther in Trump’s America – blueprints for the hijacking of American institutions with explicit powers to crack down on Palestinian protests and anyone who challenges Israel’s policies. The more Australia becomes captive to this political movement, the more the ECAJ’s draconian plan risks jumping from a theoretical wish list to the real world.