The universities block of the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion is over. One of the key throughlines in the testimonies of students, lobby groups and vice-chancellors was that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. The first day ended with a witness claiming that the murder of Palestinian children was a matter of “tough decisions”. Not a single Palestinian was given the opportunity to respond, and only two supporters of Palestine were allowed to speak: Yasmine Johnson and Dennis Altman. Both were allowed to testify only because they are Jewish.
The argument of many witnesses was straightforward: because most Jewish people are Zionists (supporters of the state of Israel), Zionism itself is a key part of Jewish identity, rather than simply a political ideology. Indeed, Commissioner Virginia Bell interrupted proceedings at one point to query Students for Palestine representative Yasmine Johnson’s Jewish identity, asking three questions:
“Did you grow up in a family that identified strongly as Jewish?”
“Do you have relatives who live in Israel?”
“When you were growing up, did you have an attachment to Israel in the sense of feeling some strong identification with Israel as the nation state of the Jews?”
University of New South Wales professor Joseph Keller, representing the Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, argued that all opposition to Zionism from “out groups” is antisemitic. He labelled this “antizionism-without-a-hyphen”. “Anti-Zionism-with-a-hyphen”, on the other hand, he said, could be part of a legitimate discussion between Jewish people, as it arose from the history of Jewish debates about Zionism. Asked by Australia Palestine Advocacy Network counsel Rachel Doyle SC, “How does one detect the presence or absence of a hyphen in the spoken word?”, Keller appeared first not to hear, and then not to understand the question.
Yet Keller’s admission that Jewish people have long debated Zionism confirms that it is an ideological current. But in a sense, that’s irrelevant. Zionism is no longer a fringe ideology, as it was until the 1940s. It is embodied in a real state with a nuclear arsenal. Today, Zionism forces people from their homes, burns down olive trees, arbitrarily imprisons children and kills indiscriminately.
Keller asserted that if a law professor were to teach students about a United Nations report into the killing of Palestinian children, they risk being antisemitic if they don’t also teach “other viewpoints” about said report. When pressed by commissioner Bell about whether criticising Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, parts of Gaza and East Jerusalem met his definition of antisemitism, Keller responded: “It depends ... for example, are they considering or at least listening to what are the Jewish concerns about that, I mean Jews in Israel?”
Liat, a student at the Australian National University, told the commission that she felt vilified when a professor raised Israel’s bombing of Palestinians:
“He said, ‘Well, Israel’s dropping bombs on heads”. Um, and then I said, ‘That’s not particularly relevant’, you know, as a Jewish Australian and as an Australian Israeli, like, I don’t think that’s necessarily the appropriate thing to say.”
A former UNSW tutor, using the pseudonym ACJ, told the commission: “Anti-Zionism has nothing to do with Israel but is just about bullying—just about bullying Australian Jews”.
Andy Smidt, a former University of Sydney staff member, was shown a photograph she had taken of graffiti at the campus and submitted as evidence to the commission. At the top of the image was the phrase “from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea”. Smidt had captioned that section, “This is reasonably interpreted by Jewish students and staff as a call for Jewish genocide”. Below, red handprints were accompanied by the text, “Mark Scott, your hands are red”. She captioned this: “bloody handprints which represent the lynching of IDF reservists in Ramallah in October 2000”.
And despite confirming that there was not a single complaint of antisemitism arising from the Gaza solidarity encampment, University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Mark Scott gave credence to the idea that it was anti-Jewish.
“I still felt the risk of the encampment blowing up by forcibly ending it”, he said. “Police in riot gear taking students away could have seen an encampment 10 times the size the day after. But I can see that our Jewish students and staff paid a price for that.”
Counsel representing the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, the Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism and other pro-Israel groups repeatedly tried to push vice-chancellors to go even further in equating opposition to Israel with antisemitism, inventing hypothetical situations and invoking “psychosocial safety”.
Together, the pro-Israel groups, students and staff carried out a concerted strategy of portraying the oppressed and their supporters as racist bullies. Israel’s ardent defenders choose this method because they know that their opponents are those with empathy and conscience. They’ve decided to portray us as what we hate.
In the end, Keller was the most honest. Doyle brought up a sticker showing the Israeli flag with the text “babykillers”, which had been included in Keller’s submission as evidence of antisemitism. Doyle asked him if it might refer to the deaths of children in Gaza.
Keller: “That’s possible, except for the fact that when you say we stand with killing babies, what you’re basically saying is that we, the Israeli nation, which is half the Jewish population, stand with the idea that we are killing babies in the sense that we approve of it, that we agree with it, which I don’t think, which I think does not capture the real tough decisions that people are actually facing when it comes to what it means to be engaged in a conflict and dealing with harm.”
Doyle: “Sorry, what tough decisions?”
Keller: “I’m saying the tough decisions that happen, that, that happen when it comes to how do you respond…”
Doyle: “Tough decisions made by whom?”
Keller: “What was that?”
Doyle: “Tough decisions made by whom?”
Keller: “Tough decisions by the Israeli government.”
Rationalising the mass killing of children, in Keller’s world, seems to be perfectly reasonable. To oppose it, on the other hand, is racist. Only antisemites could point out that five-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab was a victim of Zionism when the Israeli military killed her entire family by shooting into their van 355 times.
The commission exists to listen to people like Keller—not Jewish people in general, but men and women willing to call the mass killing of Palestinian children a “tough decision”. As I previously wrote, the commission was always going to be a show trial of the Palestine movement. In truth, it’s become something more. Because in attempting to put us on trial, Israel’s fanatics have exposed themselves to all those with a conscience.
