The universities block of Australia’s Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, beginning today, is designed to air the grievances of pro-Israel students and to provide a platform for them to denounce the Palestine solidarity movement on Australian university campuses.
Nevertheless, Students for Palestine—an activist group with chapters across the country, which led the student solidarity campaign—applied to appear before the commission to challenge some of the lies in an official and public setting.
This article by Yasmine Johnson, a Jewish student, socialist and one of the national coordinators of Students for Palestine, is based on her submission. She is due to testify on the opening day of the hearing in Melbourne.
My family history is part of what has compelled me to join and stay involved with the fight for Palestine, alongside a general progressive belief in a world without genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. I’m appalled by the idea that the atrocities of the Holocaust—the systematic annihilation of Jewish lives which left my grandmother, like so many others, without remaining family—justify any of Israel’s current actions. The legacy of the historic injustices perpetrated against Jews, the mark of which has been left on my family, has strengthened my resolve to oppose genocide wherever it takes place.
I was an organiser of the University of Sydney Gaza solidarity encampment in 2024, as well as the national student referendum on Palestine in 2025.
The Gaza solidarity encampment movement had started at Columbia University in the US, where activists brought tents to campus to protest the ties between their university and companies supplying the weapons used to facilitate Israeli attacks on Gaza. They called for disclosure of and divestment from all such ties, and an end to related research partnerships. The tactic they used—peacefully occupying university space with tents as an act of civil disobedience—was drawn from the movement against the Vietnam War.
We were inspired to do the same on our campuses, where universities contribute funding and research capacity to weapons companies like Raytheon, Thales and Lockheed Martin. Our encampment at Sydney University was the first in Australia. A few activists, me included, brought the proposal to begin an encampment to a large, open Students for Palestine meeting, where we voted to set up that same night. Throughout the course of the encampment, mass meetings determined the future of the movement. We were joined on some campuses by representatives from the student unions, political societies and a variety of other clubs, who took part in the decision-making process. We were met with a positive response from students, a large number of whom set up tents, attended rallies or seminars at the encampment or stopped by to hear from activists about the pro-Palestine campaign.
The encampment at the University of Sydney, like those around the country, involved regular protests on campus, organising meetings, open forum discussions and cultural events.
We were exercising our right to free speech and political expression and joining a longstanding campus tradition of political activism against war, racism and oppression. On most campuses where we set up encampments, however, we were met with attacks on our democratic rights, false claims that pro-Palestine activism constitutes antisemitism and the implementation of harsh campus restrictions on protests.
Throughout the encampments, numerous student activists were threatened with misconduct cases by university administrators or presented with demands that their encampments be disbanded. At Deakin University, for example, the deputy vice-chancellor demanded the “immediate dismantling and removal of the current encampment” to ensure the “safety, security and amenity of all campus users”. The university did not, however, allege that the encampment posed any specific threats to the safety or security of students, staff or anyone else.
As part of the encampments across the country, students were subjected to numerous acts or threats of violence against them by individuals and groups supporting Israel. At Monash, where the encampment was set up on 1 May 2024, a dozen mostly middle-aged men entered the encampment at around 2am on the first night. One individual told students that he was a serving member of the Israeli military. The group physically damaged a gazebo and threatened activists with violence. On the night of 24 May, at 9.40pm and 10.20pm, makeshift firecrackers were thrown at students at the Adelaide University encampment from a roof. At the University of Sydney, we felt threatened by the presence of hostile individuals, on one occasion wearing balaclavas, who came to the camp at night.
Political expression often disrupts the “amenity” of campus life—this, in fact, can be one of its aims. The encampments were a form of public and disruptive action against atrocities that universities across the country continue to facilitate. As Jewish Council Executive Officer Max Kaiser has noted, “Protests may make some students and staff uncomfortable, and even disrupt the normal functioning of universities, but that is not grounds to penalise protesting students—it is a reality of life in a democracy”. This disruption is a legitimate form of political expression, and one which has had a place in countless progressive social movements from the fight for Indigenous rights, to the movement against South African apartheid. Universities should not have the right to deny our free speech on the basis of convenience.
In addition to disrupting university life, the main justification used by opponents of the encampment movement to restrict the expression of anti-genocide views is that the encampments constituted a form of antisemitism. We reject these allegations entirely. Criticism of any state is a fundamental tenet of free speech, not an act of racial or religious discrimination. This is particularly relevant given that the state of Israel is engaging in what a UN commission of inquiry has described as a genocide in Gaza.
As is the case in all protest movements, particularly those as long running as the encampments, those involved had a variety of political opinions, and serious debates took place between activists. Those running the camp, however, were clear about their hostility to oppression and behaviour that reinforces it. Students for Palestine has always opposed all forms of racism and discriminatory behaviour, including antisemitism. For example, our Manifesto of the Encampments included the following:
“We reject all forms of racism and discrimination including Islamophobia, antisemitism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia. Accusations of antisemitism are weaponised to silence us; this is a travesty. Opposition to the state of Israel and to Zionism as an ideology is not antisemitism. Many Jewish students and staff are participants, supporters and leaders of the encampments. We stand alongside Jewish people against discrimination, and we see ourselves as standing on the shoulders of a long line of Jewish pro-Palestine and anti-war activists. It is our opposition to all forms of oppression that motivates our solidarity with both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples.”
As part of the encampment, I spoke publicly about my Jewish identity. In one interview with Channel 10, it was asserted that Jewish staff members said they were hiding their Jewish identity because they were concerned about antisemitism. I was present at the encampment for nearly its entire duration. I took part in organising meetings, chaired and spoke at demonstrations, and spoke to students and community members who attended the encampment every day I was present. Despite doing all of this while publicly identifying as Jewish, I did not experience a single instance of antisemitism from any supporters of Palestine at the encampment, nor did they cause me to feel unsafe. In fact, I felt a sense of solidarity across racial and religious lines.
On 17 May 2024, I helped facilitate a Shabbat event at the encampment, which had been organised by the Tzedek Collective, a Sydney-based Jewish organisation. This event brought together students of various faiths to make a clear statement that our encampment was not about religious hatred, but tolerance and anti-genocide political views. I felt then, as I do now, that I had become part of a global shift in Jewish opinion in recent years, which has seen so many young Jews stand in solidarity with Palestinians in an attempt to make “never again” a reality.
The Tzedek Collective and Jews Against the Occupation ’48 were very warmly received at many of our events, alongside other faith groups and secular organisations. A deep sense of community developed at the camp, because of our shared humanitarian ideals. I felt most at peace with my Jewish identity at an encampment that brought people together in support of freedom and justice for Palestine.
We are aware that there are strongly held opinions about Israel and Palestine. Individual beliefs, however, no matter how strongly held, are not a legitimate reason to deny others the right to free speech and expression.
Across the country, we were committed to meaningful discussion and debate. Dr. Shiri Krebbs, a scholar who taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as legal adviser to the chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court (2005-10), noted:
“As a Jewish-Israeli Professor at Deakin, I would like to add that the encampment enabled some meaningful learning activities and teaching opportunities, such as the teach-in activity I delivered to a group of interested students on the legal and historical dimensions of the conflict. Both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students participated, as well as other staff members. During four hours, we had an informative, nuanced, and lively discussion which benefited all.”
Krebbs was one of many signatories to an open letter addressed to Deakin University, which called on the administration to cease their repression of the encampment.
This pattern was repeated all over the country, with significant staff support for student encampments. In just a week, more than 1,000 university academics signed an open letter in which they “reject[ed] the characterisation of these peaceful and urgent student-led protests and encampments by sections of the popular media and politicians as antisemitic. These camps are open spaces of learning, solidarity, and support for everyone, with many organisers and leading activists being Jewish themselves”.
The conflation of anti-Zionism or pro-Palestine sentiment with antisemitism denies the broad spectrum of opinion on the issue amongst Jews in Australia and around the world and dangerously associates all Jews with the actions of the Israeli state. This is a dynamic we have seen globally, with the rapid growth of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States. In the context of genocidal attacks on Gaza carried out by Israel, it has been important for groups like ours to make a clear argument that not all Jews support, or want to take responsibility for, Israel’s actions.
Following the encampment movement, Students for Palestine organised student general meetings across the country to vote on pro-Palestine motions. At the University of Queensland on 29 May 2024, more than 1,500 students voted overwhelmingly in favour of cutting ties with companies that supply the Israeli military, shutting down the Boeing Centre and financially divesting from Israel. Similar meetings occurred all over the country, largely in August and September 2024. The results were indicative of what we have seen in polling: the majority of people, particularly young people, are in favour of ending Israel’s genocide on Gaza and the complicity of Australian institutions.
On 7 August 2024, I addressed a student general meeting at the University of Sydney focused on supporting Palestine. I spoke in favour of a motion calling on the university to sever its connections with arms companies involved in supplying Israel. And I said: “As a Jewish student, I am incredibly proud to stand with all of you and with Palestine. I am proud to see Jewish activists in the United States standing up to police to say ‘not in our name’”. I also emphasised the difference between Zionism and Judaism, stating that the genocide in Gaza “is not a project of Judaism”.
The overwhelming response from the room was supportive. Opposition to my speech queried my right even to discuss my Jewishness if I was not a supporter of Israel. Student media coverage noted that “the Liberal [Party] contingent heckled throughout Johnson’s address”. Members of the campus Liberal club interrupted and jeered during my speech. After I had finished and was making my way back to my seat, some of these students shouted at me, asking whether I had ever been to Israel. The implication was that, if I had not, my Jewish identity could be questioned. Like so many Jews around the country and the world, I was having pressure placed on me to identify with the political ideology of Zionism in order to have a right to Jewishness.
