The definition of antisemitism has been hijacked and devalued, most recently in the craven acceptance by vice-chancellors that it should also cover some criticism of Israel. This article argues that the time has come to push back by actively resisting the misapplication of the term and restoring it to its proper meaning – hatred of Jewish people, not criticism of a state’s illegalities and excesses.

Why now? The prompt has been two incidents – the panicked response to the discovery of a caravan containing explosives and a public outburst by a leader of Israel’s supporters in Australia. In both cases, the deficiencies of current talk around “antisemitism” were exposed.

1. The great antisemitic caravan bomb scare

_"_A suspected mass-casualty anti-Semitic terror plot has been foiled in Sydney, with police uncovering a vehicle loaded with explosives and linked to a potential synagogue attack." Source

This was a typical media report of the discovery of explosives in a caravan at Dural. However, it appears that the Great Antisemitic Caravan Bomb was nothing of the sort. The explosives were degraded, 40 years old, and probably belonged to a crime group for use as a chip in sentencing negotiations with the authorities, while antisemitic material found in the caravan was part of the set-up.

In my circles, the response to the original story had been evenly divided, but only to the extent that while half said “beat-up”, the other half said “BS”. Abandoning antique mining explosives in an old caravan which a helpful local resident moved from the road to his property is not a tactic one would expect to find in a terrorist training manual. No-one with half an ounce of sense was convinced that this was an evil plot to attack the Jewish community, directed by sinister “foreign actors”.

No-one, that is, except our politicians and media. The prime minister and the NSW premier rushed to express outrage and alarm, vowed to protect the Jewish community, and reassured us that the police were on the trail. Other politicians followed suit, apparently certain of the facts. For example, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles decried “another example of the kind of hate crimes that we have seen too much of in the last few months aimed at the Jewish community”. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was, of course, not far behind (while slipping in a dig at the government), warning of “a grave and sinister escalation in this insidious rise of unchecked antisemitism in our country” . While the story may be a turkey, politicians are not allowed to say so: the AFR explained: “Treasurer Jim Chalmers has apologised for comments suggesting the discovery of a caravan containing explosives showed that ‘some of the fears that Jewish Australians have right now are not unfounded’.” The attenuation or qualification “some of” implied that some other fears may be unfounded.’

Journalists wrote confidently of the discovery of a “bomb” and a “potential mass casualty event”. An anti-terrorist task force was established, including ASIO, the AFP and NSWPF. Inconvenient facts were massaged into support for the narrative: when suspects proved to be neither Muslim nor Arabs, talk began of “overseas actors” paying white, apolitical, low-level criminals to do their dirty work. It may still be that a connection will appear between this hapless group and organised antisemitism (probably domestic fascists rather than Hamas or Iran, who have rather more urgent matters to deal with than the Australian Jewish community). Nonetheless, this would not justify the hysterical jumping to conclusions and competitive expressions of concern.

Why was the Great Antisemitic Caravan Bomb Scare treated this way? The answer is that politicians and the media are terrified of being criticised for not taking antisemitism seriously and for not caring about the Jewish community. Public obloquy and electoral disaster haunted anyone who did not bustle in front of a camera, even if, as in this case, they are left looking a bit silly for their apparent credulity.

Pro-Israel lobbyists have been demanding action. A prime example is AIJAC executive director Colin Rubenstein who told the ABC that Australia is ‘confronting a national crisis of law and order spiralling out of control… a very serious crisis and threat to our coherent and cohesive democracy. Law and order is under challenge here and the government, federal and state, need to do many more things" (ABC 22 January 2025). The way Rubenstein spoke was almost as significant as what he said: the tone was demanding and entitled. This is someone who expects officials to jump when he says so. Of course, the ABC did not provide an alternative view, for example from someone who could have pointed out that talk of “a crisis of law and order” is hyperbolic when arrests have been made and the incidents (except the synagogue burning) have been thankfully relatively minor property damage, with no deaths or injuries. (Saying this ignores neither the particular existential threat felt by some Jewish communities nor the reality of antisemitism. Exaggeration and panic-mongering are hardly help them.)

    2. Self-hating Jews

My second example is a tweet by Mark Leibler on 8 February in which he declared:

“Nothing, but nothing is worse than those Jews who level totally unfounded allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the State of Israel. They are repulsive and revolting human beings. Their relatives who were murdered by the Nazis — the role models for Hamas — will undoubtedly be turning in their graves. Their avowed anti Zionism is clearly a cover for the reality that they are vicious antisemites.”

If this bilious, hate-filled rant came from an unknown, it would have been ignored. But the author was Mark Leibler, the “power-broker”, a leader of the Australian ultra-zionists, patriarch of a prominent legal tax practice, supporter of Indigenous initiatives (including the Voice) and confidant of politicians left and right. John Howard gushed, unconvincingly: ‘I don’t think in my life I’ve met a person with a keener intellect, a sharper sense of advocacy for the causes in which he believes. But also a great capacity to generously see another point of view."

The question to be asked about Leibler’s diatribe is, how does a person in his position feel able to speak in this way about fellow Australians, co-religionists, and (often) professional colleagues? Where does this sense of entitlement and impunity come from? In Leibler’s case, it is the product of a long-running deference accorded him by people as varied as Bob Hawke and Howard. There is an irresistible comparison to be drawn with Alan Jones. Newcomers to Australia often struggled to understand why a radio commentator had such influence. It seems that self-image can become the reality: talk as if you are powerful and influential, and people will treat you as such. In Leibler’s case, his claimed ability to influence politically a significant minority and politicians’ fear of being denounced as antisemitic were vital.

Leibler’s tweet relies on a claim to ownership of defining antisemitism. The way in which he expressed this shocked many – people who are Jewish (self-hating or otherwise) and people, like me, who are not. Indeed, if accusations of antisemitism are to be bandied about, the author of this tweet expresses hatred of a group of Jewish people which itself could be seen as antisemitic.

    3. Pushback

The time has surely come for a more responsible public discussion of antisemitism. The current debate is riddled with problems.

First, describing Jewish people who criticise Israel’s war on the Palestinians as antisemitic, self-hating Jews. Let’s deal first with “self-hating”. I know many Jewish people who are appalled by Israel’s action. None of them demonstrate the kind of dissonant personality that one would expect of a self-hater. On the contrary, they seem to me to be remarkably balanced people. Perhaps it is really their critics, such as Leibler, who, deep down, hate themselves. They are smart, educated, aware people whose minds must, at whatever suppressed level, acknowledge that their beliefs (eg that the IDF only targets terrorists) are contrary to unchallengeable facts. Similarly, do they not respond like anyone with a beating heart to the killing (and the manner of killing) of so many thousands of Palestinian children? Are ultra Zionists so devoid of humanity that, when they look at themselves in a mirror, there is no flicker of doubt?

Secondly, there is the extension of the definition of antisemitism (as the universities have just done) to include sustained criticism of the Israeli state. This point should barely deserve attention: anyone with half an ounce of sense knows that criticising the Israeli state does not make one an antisemite any more than criticising the Vatican makes one anti-Catholic. But it has to be answered because in Australia governments are demanding that institutions adopt a version of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in their codes of conduct and other policies.

What is really happening here is the use of this redefinition of antisemitism as a weapon against critics of the Israeli Government’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Ultra-Zionist groups have long insisted that anything other than trivial criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and in doing so have attempted to silence critics. What is new is that this approach now has the imprimatur of the government, expressed notably in the appointment as “antisemitism envoy” not of a person able to represent the diversity of Jewish opinion, but Jillian Segal, immediate past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (which, despite its status as the peak body of Australian Jewish organisations, consistently supports ultra-Zionist positions). Segal may have many qualities, but the ability to speak for reconciliation across the divides, within and outside the Jewish community, is not one of them. A priority of Segal and her faction has been to exploit the reticence of politicians to object and to persuade universities to adopt a version of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in policies and regulations. Universities, no doubt, have their share of bigots who insult Jewish students and draw swastikas. But they are a minor target. The ultras’ real concern are academics (many of them Jewish) who present material critical of Israel’s government to their students. We are seeing a sustained campaign to have such teaching labelled (and then suppressed) as antisemitic.

There is a big problem with this approach. The kind of sustained criticism of Israel that is to be suppressed as antisemitic draws on rulings and opinions by courts responsible for the international rule of law – the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. It draws, too, on multiple reports by respected organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. And it speaks in language used by world leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope. Are they all antisemites?

The idea that we should dismiss all this as antisemitic should surely give us pause. Doing so undermines and weakens the concept of antisemitism. If criticising Israel’s killing of thousands of children is antisemitic, then the accusation has little bite. Antisemitism should not be used as a political tool. It should be reserved for statements and actions expressing hatred for Jewish people. That is an evil which all good people can unite to oppose.

But that point is trivial beside the fundamental objection to this tweet which is that it expresses a discreditable intolerance for the opinions of others and a much-used strategy of silencing and intimidating people whose political views you don’t share. The tactics are familiar – such as claiming to speak for a consensus; abuse, as in this tweet; challenging credentials; complaints to employers that one of their employees has signed a pro-Palestinian petition; and refusing to acknowledge the nature and scale of the ongoing tragedy inflicted on the Palestinian people. (For clarity, I am not claiming that Leibler has behaved in these ways.) This episode should prompt a public reweighting of debates around antisemitism.

An earlier draft of this piece included the obligatory statement that I denounce Hamas and support the existence of an Israeli state, and that allegations of my antisemitism are offensively inconsistent with a long lifetime of antifascist commitment. I now realise that there should be no need to establish my credentials in this way. I avoid use of the terms genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing not because they are inaccurate, but because their use entraps us in arguments about terminology.

If you won’t accept that Israel has murdered tens of thousands of people, injured more, and systematically destroyed a culture’s institutions and communities, that is a problem for you and your conscience. If you can’t see, you are wilfully blind. If you don’t understand, you are wilfully stupid. If you don’t care, you wilfully deny your humanity. If you argue with me, you waste my time, and yours. In Max Porter’s words, “I’m not wasting my time on converting people you should need no converting to a human rights atrocity of this scale”.

I have two recurring nightmares in which real videos from Gaza replay: one is a Palestinian man carrying the headless body of his child; the second is a Palestinian baby, alive but with both feet mangled stumps screaming as a piece of string acts as a pathetic tourniquet. As Arundhati Roy said, ‘The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable."

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.