My government has taken a series of actions to crack down on anti Semitism.
Last week the Prime Minister Anthony Abernezi announced the results of his government's approach to tackling antisemitism.
And one of the things that we did last year, a year ago it was to appoint Jillian Siegel as a Special Envoy to combat anti Semitism. And can I thank Jillian very much for one taking on the position and secondly for the extraordinary work that she has done.
The report that the Envoy Jillian Siegel produced recommends the monitoring of media organizations and that government funding be withheld from universities and cultural institutions if they don't stop antisemitism.
The plan's not about words. It is about actions by government, by regulators, by business, by universities and by institutions.
But critics say that what she is proposing could backfire. You're listening to seven Am.
I'm Ruby Jones.
Today human rights lawyer and executive officer at the Jewish Council of Australia Sarah Schwartz on the rise in anti Semitism and what would stop it. It's Wednesday, July sixteenth, So Sarah, I wanted to start with the attacks that we're seeing. Arson attacks on synagogue's anti Semitic graffiti are forcing a need for more security at Jewish schools. So this rise in anti Semitism, what is the impact on Jewish Australians.
I think these incidents have a really significant impact on Jewish people living here. You know, Jewish people have never been more visible. I think these anti Semitic incidents receive a lot of media attention and coverage, and it's still a lot of fear within the Jewish community.
Melbourne Synagogue has been hit by an arsen attack, is out aults and children were having a Schubert meal inside.
A group of twenty masked pro Palestine protesters stormed Israeli restaurant Miss Non in hardware lane, chanting, hurling chairs and traffic cones and overturning tables. Words free Palestine spray painted a number of times across this synagogue.
Along We've also seen quite a number of anti Semitic
actors capitalizing on this moment. We've seen, you know, recently, I think just this week it was revealed that in regard to the Newtown Synagogue attack, the organizers and the culprit of that attack weren't actually committing this act of violence necessarily because they had some hatred of Jewish people, but because they wanted police to believe that they had valuable information that could be exchanged for assistance on drug related about it so an entirely unrelated purpose, and I
think that that shows there are a lot of bad actors who are capitalizing on this hyper visibility of Jewish people to spread out of hatred but also for their or in purposes. I would also say we currently are in a context where it's not just anti Semitism that is rising. We've also seen huge rises in Islamophobia, in anti Palestinian racism, but also in racism against First Nations peoples. But now it seems like our entire political class is sort of rowling behind anti Semitism as sort of being
the most important form of racism. I think that's hugely damaging. I think that creates di vision and we know that actually tackling racism involves collaboration and working with all racialized communities because it is interconnected and it can only be tackled by us working together.
Let's talk more about the special envoy into anti Semitism chosen by Anthony Albanezi last year.
JILLN.
Singal's report has just come down. But before we talk about the report itself, can you tell me a bit about her, who she is, how she was chosen.
So I guess this is information that we don't necessarily have at hand, and that's part of the problem. Julian Siegel was appointed through a very opaque process. There was no consultation with diverse voices in the Jewish community, certainly no consultation with Jewish people who don't support Israel. The envoy that has been selected is the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jury, an organization that has
been lobbying quite viciferously for Israel. She's also the former chair of the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce, and in those roles she's someone who has opposed a cease fire, called for the continuation of Israel's all which we know
has devastated Palestinian life in Gaza. She's denounced to actors for wearing the kafir, pushed for prominent Palestinian voices to be excluded in the media, and also promoted this view of the Jewish community as being uniform as being a community that stands with Israel, that will always stand with Israel, and in doing so, she doesn't represent a significant portion of the Jewish community and a grow portion of the Jewish community who are opposed to Israel's violence against Palestinians.
So my concern is that this appointment was a political appointment that was pushed by pro Israel groups to sort of insert their agenda into these discussions around anti semitism and racism. And the person who's been selected has no expertise in actually tackling racism and reducing incidents of racism and anti semitism, and I think that this report really shows lack of awareness and understanding about the drivers and
how to combat racism and anti semitism. Instead, this report and the envoys work has for the most part been about trying to stifle criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian human rights, and that's very concerning.
Well, let's talk about what's in the report. It calls for the government to adopt a specific definition of antisemitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. It's one that's used by dozens of countries around the world world, but it is contentious, particularly because of some of the examples of anti semitism that it provides, things like saying that it's anti semitic to call Israel a racist endeavor. So tell me what your concerns are with this definition.
So the IATIRA definition is a very contested and controversial definition of anti semitism. We can make very critical claims about the state of Israel without verging into anti semitism, because we're talking about a nation state. It's very dangerous. What this IRA definition does is that it equates Jewish identity with support for the state of Israel. So, for example, one of the examples in the IRA definition is saying that it's anti semitic to draw comparisons between contemporary Israeli
policy to that of the Nazis. Now, I don't like those comparisons either. But currently what we're seeing is that Israel's government has announced a plan to concentrate Palestinians into zones. What it's calling is a humanitarian city. But we know that Palestinians are being concentrated and that they're being shot
while seeking aid. There are many international Israeli scholars and international law scholars, including Holocaust scholars which are drawing comparisons between these concentrated zones that are being proposed and how the Nazis concentrated Jewish people into zones now making those analogies, however uncomfortable they may be, and however unstrategic, you might argue that they are doesn't mean that they are anti Semitic.
After the break, what the Envoys Report would mean for universities, Sarah. The Envoys Report says that universities that enable or fail to act on anti Semitism should have their funding cut. This, of course comes after we've seen pro Palestine encampments at universities, where protesters have changed things like from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free. Of course, one reading
of that change is that Israel should not exist. So where do you think the line is on freedom of political expression at universities.
I think for universities, it's critically important that they are spaces where we can have critical discussions that make people feel uncomfortable. You know, I'm someone who growing up, I thought that support for Israel was almost assumed, and I was someone who went to university, you know, feeling very uncomfortable about discussions around Israel, feeling like these discussions were
sort of and a tap on my identity. But it was the fact that I was able to hear critical perspectives, to engage in discussion, even though those discussions made me feel very uncomfortable, day really challenged me and led me to having the views I have today. I think it would be so devastating if our universities become space is where these views can't be challenged, where we can't have
these critical discussions, particularly in this moment now. In in regard to phrases like from the river to the Sea, I would say, yes, I think that, you know, some might interpret that phrase is calling for an abandonment of the State of Israel as it currently exists, because we have to acknowledge that currently the State of Israel controls the entire region from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in a number of sort of legal regimes that prioritize
the rights of Israeli Jewish people over and above the rights of Palestinian people. And so when we have this context of unequal treatment of people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a call from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, you know, should be interpreted as a call that everyone living between the river
and the sea have equality and freedom. Now, of course people might mean different things when they say this slogan, but they don't think that you can operate in the diversity space just by sort of playing whack a mole and trying to stifle different types of speech that you feel uncomfortable with. I think that kind of goes against the very purpose of a university is a place of critical thinking.
And one of the reasons that Gillian Siegel said that she made the recommendations that she did is because she says that her research shows that people under thirty five have very different views on both Jewish people and the existence of the State of Israel. So what do you make of that reason?
I guess the first thing to say is that this report or this anti Semitism plan doesn't have any referencing or footnotes in it. We don't know what research to anti semitism Envoy has relied on. I mean, I would say that, you know, if that statistic is correct, which it may very well be, I think you could probably identify one main driver of this as being the fact that the State of Israel is currently committing I think are widely acknowledged as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Whilst flying a flag that has a Jewish symbol on it, the Star of David. You know, it is using Jewish symbolism and Jewish identity to commit war crimes. And I think particularly younger people are seeing this play out in real time, and so I would say that that could be one potential driver of anti Semitism, and that people are making this conflation between Jewish identity and the war crimes that Israel is engaging in. Now that's not to say that that form of anti Semitism is okay. It's not.
But if we're actually talking about ways to tackle that form of anti Semitism where Jewish people are being blamed for the actions of the State of Israel, then you would think that a project to combat that would involve, you know, promoting, within our political and media landscape in particular and from our leaders, a view that really separates Jewish identity from support for the State of Israel. And that's not what we're seeing.
If there is this conflation, as you say, happening between the actions of the State of Israel with Jewish people, that is a problem as you say, particularly if it's driving anti Semitic attacks. So can you tell me a bit more about what you think would work to change that view.
Yeah, absolutely, so. I think really critical to that is that we say, our political leaders the media draw a real distinction between Jewish identity and support for the State of Israel. And that's something that I think the Jewish Council is really committed to. We're committed to using our voices to both, you know, speak out in favor of Palestinian human rights, but also to draw that distinction between Jewish identity and the State of Israel. Because we know
that Jewish identities go back over three thousand years. We have diverse histories and cultures. There's no one single Jewish community. And Zionism is an ideology, is a fairly new ideology, and it's one that has, you know, at different times, received a lot of criticism from people within the Jewish community. You know, when Zionism emerged as an ideology, it wasn't supported by most of the Jewish community. And so we
know that these two things aren't interleaked. And I think in drawing out these histories of diverse expressions of Jewishness which is something that the Council is aiming to achieve that that really helps to tackle that form of anti Semitism.
I would also like to see the government consulting and making sure they're taking into account diverse Jewish voices, you know, not simply highlighting the louder pro Israel Jewish voices within our community, because again, that sort of just promotes this view of the Jewish community as a monolith, which I
think drives anti Semitism. We need leadership in this moment for our politicians to say, you know, actually we're going to tackle this issue at its core, rather than sort of funding cuts to universities and the media and all these things which we know will actually just stoke the flames of division.
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you so much for having me Ruby.
We sent a list of questions raised in this interview to the Special Envoy Jillian Siegal's office. They were not able to provide responses by our deadline. We've also invited Jillian Siegal on seven AM. We hope to bring you an interview with her soon. Also in the news today, more than eight hundred additional children should get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, according to the Victorian Chief Health Officer.
The recommendations come after police release the names of four more childcare centers where Joshua Dale Brown worked in twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. Brown is being investigated by the Sexual Crime Squad and is facing more than seventy charges for his alleged abuse of children. On July one, police urged the families of one thousand, two hundred children to seek testing for sexually transmitted infection after they were
identified as having been at centers where he worked. And a landmark case brought by Torres Right community leaders against the federal government has been dismissed in.
The federal court.
The class action argued that the government has a duty of care to protect the torrest Rate Islands from climate change. In handing down his finding, Justice Michael Wigney did not find the government responsible, but said there could be little, if any doubt that the torrest Rate Islands face oblique future if urgent action is not taken.
I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.