Latest news with #Segal
The Australian
43 minutes ago
- Politics
- The Australian
Anthony Albanese to unveil plan to combat anti-Semitism with special envoy
A new strategy to combat hate will be unveiled by Anthony Albanese and his special envoy on anti-Semitism after a resurgence of attacks on the Jewish community over the weekend. Jewish leader Jillian Segal is working on a comprehensive set of proposals for Labor to consider, following the alleged attempted firebombing of a synagogue and the trashing of an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne. The Prime Minister on Tuesday said he was committed to working with Ms Segal to end the 'scourge' of anti-Semitism, but dismissed Sussan Ley's call for an emergency national cabinet to discuss the hate-crime crisis. 'Jillian Segal has been doing a terrific job, and over the coming days we'll have more to say. But, of course, we have responded substantially with increased security for synagogues, for Jewish schools, for community organisations,' Mr Albanese said in Hobart. 'We'll continue to engage constructively with the community to make sure that they get the support that they need. Anti-Semitism is a scourge. It has no place in Australia. And what we saw in Melbourne with the attacks that occurred are reprehensible, deserve condemnation and the gentleman concerned at the synagogue has been arrested and he should face the full force of the law.' The Australian understands Ms Segal's plan will incorporate elements of an Executive Council of Australian Jewry blueprint on combating anti-Semitism, which was released in February. Sources close to the process believe the Segal proposal will not adopt all 15 points of the ECAJ plan, which includes a clampdown on violent anti-Israel slogans at protests, a new strategy to stamp out bigotry in classrooms, and a tightening of visa rules to keep anti-Semites out of Australia. But ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin on Tuesday said he was pleased Mr Albanese was working closely with Ms Segal to 'implement the policy responses the community has called for'. 'The events in Melbourne have, yet again, shown that we are confronted with a violent ideology that not only chants 'death to Zionists' but threatens the police, elected officials and public safety,' Mr Ryvchin told The Australian. 'They want to turn our CBDs into no-go zones and to pit groups of Australians against each other. They have infiltrated campuses, schools, cultural institutions. The intifada is being globalised exactly as promised. 'We await the government's announcement on how it intends to restore public order and drive anti-Semitism back to the dark peripheries of society.' Mr Albanese on Tuesday appeared to oppose the suggestion of a cross-jurisdictional taskforce on anti-Semitism when asked about merging state and federal police efforts. 'We have a task force and what we do is take on security issues, we take advice from security agencies,' he said. 'That's precisely what we have done.' He nonetheless said that he had been receptive to requests by Jewish leaders about stemming rising anti-Semitism. 'I spoke with Jewish community leaders on Saturday,' he said. 'Every time there has been a request, it has been met, expeditiously, and that has occurred.' The Opposition Leader on Tuesday welcomed the government's 'sensible' indication it was prepared to enhance education about anti-Semitism but demanded more action on the rest of the ECAJ's plan. 'It's actually one of the points in the 15-point plan to combat anti-Semitism, I'd like to know whether the government is looking at the other 14 points,' the Opposition Leader said. 'But, of course, this is not just about the security in place that we've heard about and that we see around us with this rising tide of anti-Semitism. It's about much more than that. 'It's about education. It's about the governance of our universities, it is about what happens in schools, and it's about social media, and it's about national security responses.' Standing outside the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation synagogue, which was targeted in an attempted arson attack on Friday, Ms Ley pledged not to 'look away'. 'Hate can never be normalised,' she said. 'It can never be excused. It can never be explained away. 'We stand with the Jewish community in Australia today and every day. 'We won't look away. We will be here to see this through. It's very important with these events that we don't just come today and say the things that we'd be expected to say and then walk away. We will never do that. We never have done that.' Victorian Jewish leaders also sat down with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, representatives from Victoria Police and Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece late on Tuesday for the first meeting of an anti-hate taskforce established in the wake of the spate of attacks on the weekend. Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the Jewish community recognised the 'strong, immediate response' taken in response to the recent spate of anti-Semitic acts, and highlighted the need for a bipartisan response. Read related topics: Anthony Albanese Education Australia's $90bn education system faces a stark reality check as NAPLAN results show students from poor families and regional schools are falling further behind top-performing students in the cities. Politics Communications Minister Anika Wells will announce YouTube's inclusion in Labor's social media ban for under-16s, reversing a prior exemption and paving the platform to threaten a High Court challenge.
Sydney Morning Herald
7 days ago
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Call to strip arts institutions of funding over antisemitism raises alarm bells
'These are artists who are getting cancelled mostly by small venues who say 'we can't afford to get cancelled by the pro-Palestinian mob on social media'… [venue owners] who are deeply apologetic, but this is a real problem.' At the same time, several high-profile pro-Palestinian voices have been penalised: Jayson Gillham at the MSO, Antoinette Lattouf at the ABC, and Khaled Sabsabi, who was invited, uninvited and then re-invited to represent Australia at next year's Venice Biennale. Commissioned by the Albanese Government, Segal's 16-page report says antisemitism has become 'ingrained and normalised within academia and the cultural space' but does not include examples. This is problematic, says Louise Chappell, Scientia Professor, Australian Human Rights Institute, Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales, who argues reports of this nature usually provide evidence to support such claims. She says Segal cites a 700 per cent increase in antisemitic hatred without documenting a source, or a baseline from which that figure was extrapolated. It appears to have come from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and to reference complaints to Jewish-based organisations, Chappell says, not official complaints to the police or Australian Human Rights Commission. Segal's office confirmed the figures quoted are from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry report into antisemitism 2024 by Julie Nathan, which categorises, itemises and lists each incident in reverse chronological order to show the increase. Chappell says it's important to know who collated the data and detail about the incidents. 'Is it that you saw a pro-Palestinian encampment at Syd Uni and you walked past and felt uncomfortable, or someone made a direct anti-Jewish slur, or set fire to a Jewish Synagogue and demonstrated direct hatred towards a Jewish person or the community,' she says. 'They are very different things.' Leibler disagrees with criticisms of the report, saying Segal has undertaken a very thorough body of work and most that of the recommendations clearly resonate with the experiences that the Jewish community has had since October 7, 2023, and before. There's no one silver bullet to addressing antisemitism, he says, and education is a large part of the solution. 'It needs to be addressed at multiple levels – it can't just be fixed by government, it can't just be fixed by academia, it can't just be dealt with by the arts. We need to get all parts of civil society aligned on wanting to stamp this out.' The report argues that public funding for cultural institutions – arts festivals, galleries and organisations and artists – 'is not to be used to support or implicitly endorse antisemitic themes or narratives' and says funding should be terminated in such instances. But several sources take issue with Segal's suggested definition of antisemitism, which comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Loading Greg Barns SC, spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, says '[the report's] words invite conflation of the criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It has rightly been condemned by numerous human rights groups … it will have the effect of censorship.' Chappell agrees that although it's not spelt out directly in the report, there is a conflation between being antisemitic and being anti-Israel. 'It's very clear through the use of the IHRA definition whose examples include criticism of Israel or anti-Zionism as antisemitic speech,' she says. 'It's not only a huge problem for universities, but freedom of speech expressed through the arts is also at risk – we've seen with the Creative Australia debacle just how damaging it can be.' Leibler rejects these claims. 'I have been genuinely shocked by the response from certain quarters who have misrepresented what the recommendations involve, particularly this suggestion that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is somehow a highly controversial definition. It's nationally recognised as a definition … by leading experts,' he says. While the government doesn't have a codified definition of anti-semitism, in 2021 the IHRA definition was endorsed by the then-Morrison Coalition government and Labor, under then-opposition leader Anthony Albanese. Barns cautions the government against adopting the report. 'The Segal review recommendations concerning tying funding for arts and cultural organisations to efforts to prevent antisemitism is dangerous and will lead to self censoring,' he says. 'Many cultural and arts organisations rely heavily on government funding so the temptation to refuse to allow works because they are highly critical of Zionism and Israel will be ever present.' According to Barns, current legislation provides protection and there is no need for any further law reform in the hate speech area. 'Ms Segal seems unaware of major hate speech criminal offences reform passed by the Federal Parliament in February. These laws expand when hate speech is said to occur,' he says. 'There is a balance between ensuring that hate speech does not occur and allowing for strident language and representations in the context of protest against human rights abuses.' Chappell says the current climate is already fraught and that several high-profile examples illustrate that. 'It is becoming very toxic in the arts just as it is within universities, the same thing is happening in both. There's a silencing, and it's having a chilling effect on all sides, all people are feeling they can't express themselves. It's very hard to find a place where you can have difficult, straightforward discussion about these issues,' she says. Loading 'It's dividing faculties, and it's dividing arts funders, it's dividing boards as demonstrated by people resigning. High-profile cases such as the Jayson Gillham/MSO case and the ABC with Antoinette Lattouf. It is touching on every key part of our cultural life and wherever freedom of speech and expression is meant to flourish.' Chappell also asks why the report was not released at the same time as its equivalent into Islamophobia, which is due out next month. Context is important, she says, arguing it would have been far better to release both simultaneously, to assure the relevant communities that the government is equally concerned for their well-being. Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, commends Segal's work. 'Jillian has done a phenomenal job. She took her her time and consulted widely both in Australia and abroad with stakeholders within the community and far beyond,' he says. Recent antisemitism didn't come from nowhere, he says, so placing education at the heart of the plan is critical. He argues antisemitism has become normalised and even glamorised in some sectors, including in social media and in the arts. 'Our arts and our cultural festivals, they don't merely reflect Australian culture, they help shape it. I don't think that's a question. They play a vital role in our society in presenting the best of Australia, asking hard questions and showcasing our talents. But ultimately when you have viewpoints that are extreme in any direction, on any particular issue, and they're run through the arts, there's a problem with that and particularly with the treatment of Israel and to some extent with antisemitism, I think that has been an issue. 'There's a clear distinction to be drawn between government policies and politicians in the conduct of the war, no one seeks to stifle that,' Ryvchin says. 'But when that calls for the destruction of Israel and a demonisation of its people that presents something quite different.' 'I think it reveals a different motivation,' he says. Sarah Schwartz, executive officer at the Jewish Council of Australia, doesn't believe the report would stand up to any form of academic scrutiny. 'It's very unclear what research has been relied on. There's a headline that says 'Drivers of antisemitism' but there's no real engagement with the drivers of antisemitism except for these vague references to extremist ideologies and antisemitic narratives and the sort of language that verges on conspiratorial,' she says.
The Age
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Age
Call to strip arts institutions of funding over antisemitism raises alarm bells
'These are artists who are getting cancelled mostly by small venues who say 'we can't afford to get cancelled by the pro-Palestinian mob on social media'… [venue owners] who are deeply apologetic, but this is a real problem.' At the same time, several high-profile pro-Palestinian voices have been penalised: Jayson Gillham at the MSO, Antoinette Lattouf at the ABC, and Khaled Sabsabi, who was invited, uninvited and then re-invited to represent Australia at next year's Venice Biennale. Commissioned by the Albanese Government, Segal's 16-page report says antisemitism has become 'ingrained and normalised within academia and the cultural space' but does not include examples. This is problematic, says Louise Chappell, Scientia Professor, Australian Human Rights Institute, Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales, who argues reports of this nature usually provide evidence to support such claims. She says Segal cites a 700 per cent increase in antisemitic hatred without documenting a source, or a baseline from which that figure was extrapolated. It appears to have come from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and to reference complaints to Jewish-based organisations, Chappell says, not official complaints to the police or Australian Human Rights Commission. Segal's office confirmed the figures quoted are from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry report into antisemitism 2024 by Julie Nathan, which categorises, itemises and lists each incident in reverse chronological order to show the increase. Chappell says it's important to know who collated the data and detail about the incidents. 'Is it that you saw a pro-Palestinian encampment at Syd Uni and you walked past and felt uncomfortable, or someone made a direct anti-Jewish slur, or set fire to a Jewish Synagogue and demonstrated direct hatred towards a Jewish person or the community,' she says. 'They are very different things.' Leibler disagrees with criticisms of the report, saying Segal has undertaken a very thorough body of work and most that of the recommendations clearly resonate with the experiences that the Jewish community has had since October 7, 2023, and before. There's no one silver bullet to addressing antisemitism, he says, and education is a large part of the solution. 'It needs to be addressed at multiple levels – it can't just be fixed by government, it can't just be fixed by academia, it can't just be dealt with by the arts. We need to get all parts of civil society aligned on wanting to stamp this out.' The report argues that public funding for cultural institutions – arts festivals, galleries and organisations and artists – 'is not to be used to support or implicitly endorse antisemitic themes or narratives' and says funding should be terminated in such instances. But several sources take issue with Segal's suggested definition of antisemitism, which comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Loading Greg Barns SC, spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, says '[the report's] words invite conflation of the criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It has rightly been condemned by numerous human rights groups … it will have the effect of censorship.' Chappell agrees that although it's not spelt out directly in the report, there is a conflation between being antisemitic and being anti-Israel. 'It's very clear through the use of the IHRA definition whose examples include criticism of Israel or anti-Zionism as antisemitic speech,' she says. 'It's not only a huge problem for universities, but freedom of speech expressed through the arts is also at risk – we've seen with the Creative Australia debacle just how damaging it can be.' Leibler rejects these claims. 'I have been genuinely shocked by the response from certain quarters who have misrepresented what the recommendations involve, particularly this suggestion that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is somehow a highly controversial definition. It's nationally recognised as a definition … by leading experts,' he says. While the government doesn't have a codified definition of anti-semitism, in 2021 the IHRA definition was endorsed by the then-Morrison Coalition government and Labor, under then-opposition leader Anthony Albanese. Barns cautions the government against adopting the report. 'The Segal review recommendations concerning tying funding for arts and cultural organisations to efforts to prevent antisemitism is dangerous and will lead to self censoring,' he says. 'Many cultural and arts organisations rely heavily on government funding so the temptation to refuse to allow works because they are highly critical of Zionism and Israel will be ever present.' According to Barns, current legislation provides protection and there is no need for any further law reform in the hate speech area. 'Ms Segal seems unaware of major hate speech criminal offences reform passed by the Federal Parliament in February. These laws expand when hate speech is said to occur,' he says. 'There is a balance between ensuring that hate speech does not occur and allowing for strident language and representations in the context of protest against human rights abuses.' Chappell says the current climate is already fraught and that several high-profile examples illustrate that. 'It is becoming very toxic in the arts just as it is within universities, the same thing is happening in both. There's a silencing, and it's having a chilling effect on all sides, all people are feeling they can't express themselves. It's very hard to find a place where you can have difficult, straightforward discussion about these issues,' she says. Loading 'It's dividing faculties, and it's dividing arts funders, it's dividing boards as demonstrated by people resigning. High-profile cases such as the Jayson Gillham/MSO case and the ABC with Antoinette Lattouf. It is touching on every key part of our cultural life and wherever freedom of speech and expression is meant to flourish.' Chappell also asks why the report was not released at the same time as its equivalent into Islamophobia, which is due out next month. Context is important, she says, arguing it would have been far better to release both simultaneously, to assure the relevant communities that the government is equally concerned for their well-being. Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, commends Segal's work. 'Jillian has done a phenomenal job. She took her her time and consulted widely both in Australia and abroad with stakeholders within the community and far beyond,' he says. Recent antisemitism didn't come from nowhere, he says, so placing education at the heart of the plan is critical. He argues antisemitism has become normalised and even glamorised in some sectors, including in social media and in the arts. 'Our arts and our cultural festivals, they don't merely reflect Australian culture, they help shape it. I don't think that's a question. They play a vital role in our society in presenting the best of Australia, asking hard questions and showcasing our talents. But ultimately when you have viewpoints that are extreme in any direction, on any particular issue, and they're run through the arts, there's a problem with that and particularly with the treatment of Israel and to some extent with antisemitism, I think that has been an issue. 'There's a clear distinction to be drawn between government policies and politicians in the conduct of the war, no one seeks to stifle that,' Ryvchin says. 'But when that calls for the destruction of Israel and a demonisation of its people that presents something quite different.' 'I think it reveals a different motivation,' he says. Sarah Schwartz, executive officer at the Jewish Council of Australia, doesn't believe the report would stand up to any form of academic scrutiny. 'It's very unclear what research has been relied on. There's a headline that says 'Drivers of antisemitism' but there's no real engagement with the drivers of antisemitism except for these vague references to extremist ideologies and antisemitic narratives and the sort of language that verges on conspiratorial,' she says.
Sydney Morning Herald
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Defining antisemitism is no threat to free speech. Without a definition, we are adrift
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism was adopted in 2016 as an educational and data-collection tool. It is deliberately non-legally binding and begins with a clear, universal sentence: 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.' Thirty-plus democratic governments, the European Parliament, the UN secretary-general, and tech giants such as Meta, have endorsed or incorporated the definition. Australia's special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, grounded her national plan released this month in the same wording, citing a 316 per cent surge in antisemitic incidents. All 39 Australian universities have endorsed or adopted a similar version to the IHRA definition. The universities do not include some of the IHRA's specific examples of antisemitism but do refer directly to criticism of Zionism as potentially being antisemitic, unlike the IHRA definition, which does not mention Zionism. The definition has become the world standard because it provides 11 practical illustrations that police, teachers and human rights watchdogs can map onto real-world cases – swastikas on playgrounds, synagogue bomb threats, or, yes, demonisation of Israel when it slips into Nazi analogies. Since Segal released her plan, there have been several recurring objections: 'It chills free speech.' Amnesty International warns the plan 'threatens people's rights to freedom of expression and assembly'. 'It stifles criticism of the Israeli government.' Labor MP Ed Husic has said the 'definition instantly brings into question whether or not people will be able to raise their concerns of the actions, for example, of what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza.' 'It will be weaponised to defund universities and media.' Headlines warn of an 'inappropriate definition' used to strip funding from institutions. 'Weaponising antisemitism insists on the exceptionalism of the Jewish community'. Some argue that the 'Jewish establishment' is insidious in using antisemitism for nefarious ends. At first blush, these arguments sound like principled liberal concerns. Probe a little and they dissolve into a curious double standard that leaves every minority except Jews entitled to define the hatred they face. Why the 'free speech' objection misfires is because the IHRA definition is diagnostic, not punitive. The document itself states it is 'non-legally binding.' No one is jailed for foot-faulting it. While the special envoy has called for punitive action if patterned institutional antisemitism is not dealt with, the IHRA definition itself does not demand sanction. It is a working guide to what anti-Jewish racism looks like.
The Age
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Defining antisemitism is no threat to free speech. Without a definition, we are adrift
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism was adopted in 2016 as an educational and data-collection tool. It is deliberately non-legally binding and begins with a clear, universal sentence: 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.' Thirty-plus democratic governments, the European Parliament, the UN secretary-general, and tech giants such as Meta, have endorsed or incorporated the definition. Australia's special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, grounded her national plan released this month in the same wording, citing a 316 per cent surge in antisemitic incidents. All 39 Australian universities have endorsed or adopted a similar version to the IHRA definition. The universities do not include some of the IHRA's specific examples of antisemitism but do refer directly to criticism of Zionism as potentially being antisemitic, unlike the IHRA definition, which does not mention Zionism. The definition has become the world standard because it provides 11 practical illustrations that police, teachers and human rights watchdogs can map onto real-world cases – swastikas on playgrounds, synagogue bomb threats, or, yes, demonisation of Israel when it slips into Nazi analogies. Since Segal released her plan, there have been several recurring objections: 'It chills free speech.' Amnesty International warns the plan 'threatens people's rights to freedom of expression and assembly'. 'It stifles criticism of the Israeli government.' Labor MP Ed Husic has said the 'definition instantly brings into question whether or not people will be able to raise their concerns of the actions, for example, of what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza.' 'It will be weaponised to defund universities and media.' Headlines warn of an 'inappropriate definition' used to strip funding from institutions. 'Weaponising antisemitism insists on the exceptionalism of the Jewish community'. Some argue that the 'Jewish establishment' is insidious in using antisemitism for nefarious ends. At first blush, these arguments sound like principled liberal concerns. Probe a little and they dissolve into a curious double standard that leaves every minority except Jews entitled to define the hatred they face. Why the 'free speech' objection misfires is because the IHRA definition is diagnostic, not punitive. The document itself states it is 'non-legally binding.' No one is jailed for foot-faulting it. While the special envoy has called for punitive action if patterned institutional antisemitism is not dealt with, the IHRA definition itself does not demand sanction. It is a working guide to what anti-Jewish racism looks like.
