The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion held a one-day hearing block on protests and policing on 4 August. Like the rest of the commission, it was more a prosecution than an inquiry: the Palestine solidarity movement was on trial, and its opponents were invited to act as judge, jury and witness.
The commission has already been filled with unsubstantiated and unchallenged testimony from so-called lived experience witnesses, often from pro-Israel lobby organisations. It is a platform for those wishing to slander the Palestine movement as antisemitic. In this hearing block, the fix was in from the beginning. Despite nearly three years of protests involving many thousands of people, the commission declared that just two protests would be discussed: a Sydney protest on 9 October 2023 that marched to the Opera House and a Nazi rally held by the National Socialist Network outside NSW Parliament on 8 November 2025.
The latter barely warranted a mention in the commission. It was fitting, given that one of the key, and outrageous, arguments pursued by pro-Israel organisations is that the left, rather than the far right, are the antisemites. This is in keeping with Israel’s alignment to extreme right-wing governments and parties around the world. Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal, whose family has bankrolled far-right organisation Advance Australia, failed to put out a single statement of condemnation of the Nazi rally. The Nazis weren’t the subject of the hearing: they were props in an argument about the left. The point of including this rally was not to confront the far right, but to attempt to tarnish the Palestine movement by association.
The main purpose of this block was to re-air the lies told about the 9 October Opera House protest, and to rake the police over the coals for “transferring control of the CBD to protesters”. The main two witnesses called were not people who had actually witnessed anything that night. One was David Ossip, president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, a pro-Israel organisation. The other was the assistant commissioner of NSW Police, Peter McKenna. Not a single protester or protest organiser was invited to give evidence. Despite all this, proceedings did not go exactly as planned.
Ossip argued that the protest was “appalling” because it took place while Israeli civilians were being killed following the Hamas attack on 7 October. He apparently couldn’t understand why anyone might want to protest, given that Israel had not even begun any military operations by that time. This claim has been made several times at the commission, supposedly showing that people were not really protesting against occupation and a coming genocide, but celebrating the gruesome deaths of Israelis. The problem is that it is not true, and this was pointed out to Ossip in cross-examination by lawyers for the Palestine Action Group (PAG) and the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN).
Prior to the attack in October, 2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians living in the West Bank since records began, with more than 200 killed in racist pogroms by extremist settlers and Israeli soldiers. For this reason, PAG had already organised five demonstrations by this point in 2023.
By the evening of 7 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already declared war, promising “mighty vengeance for this black day ... We will target all of Hamas's positions. We will turn Gaza into a deserted island. To the citizens of Gaza, I say. You must leave now. We will target each and every corner of the strip”. Two hundred and thirty Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on that day alone. By 9 October, more than 400 had been killed in Gaza, a total blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies had been imposed, and Israel was openly preparing a ground invasion. Incredibly, when confronted with these facts, Ossip doubled down on his false claim that Israel had not commenced military operations.
The right has responded to Ossip's evidence with outrage. Not outrage that he would double down on false claims, under oath, in order to demonise a mass movement against genocide, but outrage that he could be challenged on his false claims at all. Alex Rychvin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, who has appeared before the commission multiple times and has made the same false claims about the protest on 9 October, complained in the Australian newspaper that the commission was “hijacked” by Palestinian organisations.
These attacks led to a deluge of racist abuse against APAN's senior counsel, Ragni Mathur. NSW Premier Chris Minns also piled on, saying, “the idea that the focus shifted from antisemitism in Australia to testing a witness on foreign policy by the lawyers representing PAG and APAN is disappointing and doesn’t reflect the purpose of these hearings”. The purpose, evidently, is to be able to lie with impunity, to ignore or deny the genocide in Gaza and to smear anyone who has opposed it.
This hearing block took place on the first anniversary of the historic March for Humanity, when 300,000 people marched across Sydney Harbour Bridge in torrential rain to demand an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and sanctions on Israel. A recent Pew Research poll shows that 79 percent of Australians have a negative view of Israel, while only 4 percent have a strongly positive view. The response of the ruling establishment to this popular outpouring has been to keep selling weapons to the genocidal regime and to concoct a show trial of its opponents—one in which the defendants are not even allowed to appear.
