For two years, we’ve been told Australia is drowning in antisemitism. Every protest for Palestinian human rights, every mural, every chant criticising Israel has been hauled up as “evidence.”

Watermelon must be outlawed because it apparently makes Jews feel uncomfortable. The wearing of a keffiyeh has cost people their jobs. We’ve had the Dural caravan hoax, the “antisemitism crisis in our universities” (which turned out to be hyperbole), and… well, you know the rest as antisemitism has dominated public discourse since October ‘23. The word has been stretched so far it’s lost meaning.

Now the wolf has arrived.

On Saturday, photos from outside NSW Parliament House showed black-clad neo-Nazis with a banner reading “Abolish the Jewish Lobby”, chanting fascist slogans straight from the Hitler Youth songbook. This wasn’t ambiguous; this was real antisemitism in the flesh.

I don’t feel fear when I see these clowns so much as fury — fury that the term antisemitism has been so cynically misused that people have tuned out. For two years, anyone questioning Israel’s brutality in Gaza has been smeared as antisemitic. Those false alarms have drained the word of its power and made the public stop listening.

The irony, of course, is that while Zionist lobbyists were busy labelling anti-racist activists as Jew-haters, they’ve been happily sharing political space with the far-right. We saw it at Bondi, where Zionist supporters stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the same neo-Nazis who were screaming Islamophobic abuse — telling women to “go back to Lakemba” and threatening sexual violence. We’ve seen it in the UK, where notorious racist Tommy Robinson has been welcomed to Israel as some kind of folk hero.

The far-right has embraced Zionism for its own supremacist reasons, and Zionists have accepted the applause — until, inevitably, those same extremists turn on Jews, as they do on every minority. The far-right always eats its allies.

A question on many lips is: where is our so-called envoy on Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, while actual Nazis parade outside Parliament? Silent. Just as she was silent when neo-Nazis joined anti-immigration rallies in August and October. Her voice only seems to find its volume when it’s time to condemn pro-Palestinian protesters — the very people who have consistently stood against racism in all its forms.

Those who deliberately blurred the distinction between a peaceful community of protestors — people of all faiths and none — and actual hate groups have helped create this “boy who cried wolf” moment. Because now, when real fascists wave antisemitic banners in Sydney, the public doesn’t know who or what to believe. The cynics among us are even wondering if this neo-Nazi day out was a set-up to encourage the Minns Government to curb our right to protest, further conflating neo-Nazis with those opposed to genocide.

The word antisemitism has been hollowed out by overuse and political manipulation.

The wolf is here now, and it’s wearing black with the National Socialist Network insignia.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.