Antisemitism Special Envoy Jillian Segal’s “Plan to combat antisemitism” is nothing of the sort. Her latest report, published 30 October, is a stunning piece of Trumpist propaganda. It is riddled with conspiracy theories about malign radical-left and Islamist influence in Australian institutions. It calls for sweeping crackdowns on free speech, political activism and migration, all in the name of protecting Israel’s reputation. It is an indictment of the Labor government that commissioned it.
Labor named Segal “special envoy to combat antisemitism” knowing her record as a right-wing warrior and campaigner for Israel’s murderous wars. Her appointment was part of a multi-faceted offensive against the Palestine solidarity movement. She has consistently used this platform to shield the Israeli government from criticism and attack opponents of the war.
Segal’s new report pays little attention to the growing antisemitic far right. Since her appointment, Nazis have addressed thousands at anti-migrant marches. One Nation, a party riddled with Hitler fanatics, has shot up in the polls. But far-right antisemitism is minimised because it isn’t the “primary source of concern or anxiety to members of the Jewish community”.
The real danger is “modern, progressive antisemitism”, which Segal labels “the most pervasive manifestation of antisemitism facing Australia”.
Segal claims that anti-Israel progressives have simply repackaged an age-old hatred:
“The language of human rights and its greatest crimes—apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc.—has increasingly been appropriated to portray Israel (and, relevantly, members of the Jewish community who support it) as morally evil, often to the point of being equated to Nazis.”
Segal doesn’t bother disputing the many well-evidenced allegations of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide levelled at Israel. Nor does she consider that comparisons to the Nazis might diminish if Israel dismantled its concentration camps and Israeli politicians stopped quoting Hitler. Her report is remarkably devoid of any facts or engagement with arguments and counter-arguments. It reads like a News Corp opinion piece.
That’s because her primary objective is to dismiss criticism of Israel out of hand on the basis that it inevitably leads to anti-Jewish racism. While she concedes that criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic, she argues it is “utilised to create an environment where that sentiment can so easily morph into hostility towards Jewish people”. She terms this “ambient antisemitism”, which increases the danger of “conflation”, where “Jews in Australia are treated as collectively responsible for the actions of Israel”.
There is a danger that people disgusted by Israel’s actions misdirect their anger toward Jewish people as a whole. The Palestine solidarity movement has made every effort to combat this by distinguishing between Jewish people as a politically diverse religious and ethnic group on the one hand, and the state of Israel on the other.
Segal, for her part, reinforces this conflation. It is laid out explicitly in her report: “Jewish identity is inherently linked to the land of Israel; it is central to the existence of Jewish people, the Jewish religion and culture”. This is echoed by Israeli politicians who cynically claim to represent the entire Jewish community while committing unspeakable crimes.
So far, these are the predictable arguments of the pro-Israel right. But as you dig deeper into the report, things get weirder. Segal thinks progressive antisemitism is dangerous not only because it legitimises criticism of Israel, but because it can act as a Trojan horse for more sinister ideologies.
Mainstream progressives are guilty, in her eyes, of “effectively laundering far-left antisemitism and Islamic extremism through a progressive lens … giving fundamentally extremist ideologies an apparently acceptable face”.
Segal’s report makes repeated reference to this supposed intersection of radical-left politics and Islamic extremism, sanitised and promoted by respectable liberals. It is a wild conspiracy theory, one that sounds remarkably similar to Trump’s recent rants blaming rioting in France on an alliance of “migrants, jihadists, and communists”.
The language in her report mirrors that of right-wing intellectuals and government ministers overseas who rail against “Islamo-leftism”. This is the new iteration of the old myth of “Judeo-Bolshevism”, a discredited racist conspiracy theory which claimed that malign Jewish influence lay behind the Russian Revolution. This was a way for establishment reactionaries to connect their racism to their hatred of the left.
The connecting thread is the claim that a marginalised ethnic group is engaged in a shadowy alliance with the left to undermine Western civilisation. Just as widespread antisemitism made Jews an easy target in the 1930s, Islamophobia entrenched by the so-called war on terror makes Muslims an easy target today. Muslims are painted as a fifth column, bearers of values incompatible with Australian society.
As historian Enzo Traverso noted in a 2020 interview in Contretemps, this “suits a xenophobic and authoritarian discourse that aims to present Islam and the radical left as objectively complicit in, if not the allies of, Islamist terrorism”. Today, as in Europe in the 1930s and France in recent years, this narrative provides justification for sweeping crackdowns on civil liberties.
Segal’s report calls for the removal of the influence of “progressive antisemitism” from “key institutions”. She lists “universities, media, arts organisations and human rights NGOs” as areas of particular concern. In her view, mainstream media outlets have given a disproportionate and misleading view of the “conflict in the Middle East”. Universities have become hubs of pro-Palestine activism. Healthcare facilities have been riddled with “political and ideological symbols and slogans”.
Back in the real world, the mainstream media have actually provided cover for Israel’s crimes in Gaza. And the suggestion that universities have been permissive environments for the Palestine movement will come as news to many student activists who have been surveilled, suspended or threatened with expulsion by university authorities. Red Flag has documented this repression extensively.
Having invented a vast problem of institutional complicity in antisemitism, Segal proposes a sweeping program to deal with it. The discredited International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used to delegitimise criticism of Israel, should be adopted in full across arts, sports and cultural institutions. An independent ombudsman should monitor the ABC and SBS. Social media sites should clamp down on pro-Palestine content.
Segal’s report doesn’t just call for a further crackdown on civil liberties. She also repeats her prior calls for increased migration controls. The possibility, based on someone’s religion, cultural or national background, that they hold “antisemitic views” should be given “significant presumptive weight” when making determinations about visa applications. Generalisations about Jews and Israel are condemned, but those about people from Muslim-majority countries are actively encouraged, with visa approval dependent on “compelling countervailing considerations”.
This is further evidence that the campaign against the Palestine movement is not simply about silencing critics of Israel. It has become a vehicle for the right to pursue a much broader set of political objectives. We’ve seen a similar dynamic at the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion, where the discussion has extended to include, for instance, calls to reintroduce national service.
How could someone with such a brazenly reactionary agenda be allowed to masquerade as an anti-racism expert? The answer lies in Labor’s own role in the establishment campaign against the Palestine movement.
In appointing Jillian Segal as antisemitism envoy, Labor has created a platform for a far-right activist, cloaked in the language of “social cohesion”. Albanese has given her the opportunity to shape Australian politics, pushing an extreme pro-Israel agenda.
Labor may distance itself from the most extreme of Segal’s proposals. It has rejected an external body to monitor ABC and SBS reporting. But this should not obscure how much of her agenda has already been implemented. Already, important institutions like the healthcare worker regulator, AHPRA, have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. University research grants have been denied to those accused of antisemitism. A Social Cohesion Education Hub has been set up to distribute pro-Israel material to students from pre-school to year 12. And anti-protest laws are being introduced across the country by Liberal and Labor state governments alike.
Labor has given Segal an official platform and adopted significant parts of her agenda. The result is an attack on free speech, migrants and the right to protest against genocide, under the cover of combating antisemitism and defending social cohesion.
