Most people have been appalled or sickened by the images coming from Gaza, of flattened cities, rows of shrouded corpses, dead or dismembered children, mangled babies, emaciated children, lists of journalists and health-workers targeted. In the western world, people have been demonstrating in their many thousands against this genocide in Gaza. So what do governments do? They are more concerned with placating Israel and stopping the protests than stopping the genocide, even to the point of criminalised protesting1.
Why would they do this? Because Zionists use the ‘antisemitism’ slur to attempt to conflate taking a stand against the murder of thousands of Palestinians, with hatred of Jews, and antisemitism still has the stench of death camps about it. While most people realise this conflation is abject bullshit, it was explained more eruditely in Australia by a federal court judge, Justice Angus Stewart in the recent Federal Court case against Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad, whose posts it was ruled were antisemitic because he had conflated Zionism and Judaism1.
Stewart stated that: “Criticising Zionism or the actions of Israel is not antisemitic.” This landmark ruling confirms what so many have said for years, Zionism is a political ideology, not a race or religion. To conflate the two is both dangerous and dishonest. The judgment draws a definitive line between Judaism and Zionism, and that line cannot be ignored.
His findings were as follows:
1. “Political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity.”
2. “Disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group.”2
The Albanese government appointed Jillian Segal as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in 2024, and her report is supposedly a plan to assist the government in addressing rising antisemitism. As former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and chair of the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (NSW), Segal has long been at the heart of local Zionist lobbying, and this is clearly why she was chosen for the role3.
Segal’s report is a compilation of bogus assertions and policy “solutions” to problems for which laws already exist. She claims, without evidence, that antisemitism “has become ingrained and normalised within academia”, or that it’s driven by “manipulated narratives in the legacy media”. She must be reading different legacy media to what I read, as there is limited coverage of the genocide in Gaza and the language used to describe Israeli actions is relatively innocuous. Her proposal that the definition of antisemitism be based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition is also problematic, as it includes certain criticisms of Israel as being antisemitic3.
Segal also wants to be able to be able to monitor universities, cultural organisations and the media such that all public funding agreements with cultural institutions or festivals should allow “for the efficient termination of funding where the institution or festival promotes, facilitates or does not deal effectively with hate or antisemitism”. This, of course, would be in accordance with her definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism of Israel. She also wants to oversee the provision of visas, and to have judicial inquiries into student activities3. These are all very Trumpian in their tenor.
The depth of Segal’s depravity in supporting Israel can be gauged by her labelling of Adam Bandt’s criticism of Israeli violence in Gaza as antisemitic, and her call for the complete banning of pro-Palestinian protests3.
On top of this is a layer of irony in that Segal’s husband, John Roth, who with his brother Stanley Roth run Henroth Investments Pty Ltd and have donated $50,000 to the anti-immigrant group Advance Australia. They have posted disgusting stuff online which is anti-immigration and islamophobic, and they were a major player in the ‘No’ campaign for the voice to parliament, and used antisemitism slurs against supporters of Zoe Daniel in her electorate of Goldstein. Goldstein residents who displayed Daniel’s corflutes in their yards were accused of “hating Jews” and such displays of the corflutes were said to be reminiscent of “early Germany”5. Daniel lost to the Liberal spiv Tim Wilson. Jillian Segal states that she had no involvement in her husband’s donations4. So, no pillow talk then?
Another layer of irony is that while the genocide continues in Gaza, Israelis are leaving Israel and many are ending up in Melbourne. I presume that Advance Australia is only concerned about Palestinian immigrants and not with Israeli immigrants6. Sounds a bit islamophobic again.
Justice Angus Stewart’s findings should put paid to the conflation of antisemitism with Zionism in Segal’s report. If the government gives Segal any power over the functions she requests, then they will be guilty of running cover for the murderous activities in Gaza, and preventing free speech in support of Palestinians, and that will be unforgiveable.
Sources
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-01/federal-court-sydney-wissam-haddad-lectures-social-media/105480506
- https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/kostakidis-to-go-before-court-after-judiciary-recognises-anti-zionism-is-not-antisemitism/
- https://nickfeik.substack.com/p/envoys-in-glass-houses
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/antisemitism-envoy-denies-involvment-in-husbands-trust-donation-anti-immigrant-group/8wd84orr9
- https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/melbourne-mornings/disturbing-election-letter-in-goldstein/105228218
- https://www.facebook.com/YeniSafakEnglish/posts/growing-numbers-of-people-are-leaving-israel-with-many-choosing-melbourne-as-the/731543665929123/
