Introduction

I want to describe how I am using conversational AI to explore more than fifty years of my own writing and records. This is a summary of a much longer paper I am working on. That paper is in part inspired by the work of Sue McKemmish and others at Monash University where I worked and still have an honorary status, whatever that means. It all leads to deeper philosophical issues on memory culture. Sue wrote a seminal paper 30 years ago*. My paper is an attempt to update some of this thinking to the current era

I began with a practical goal a few weeks ago: to organise a large collection of academic papers, reports, diaries, travel journals, correspondence, community documents, social media posts and personal reflections. This has been after several months of A.I. in a more narrow way, for report writing and traditional research, though I had dabbbled a bit in interrogating my politics, but not in a structured way. In terms of the most recent experience. I expected AI would help me write. Instead, it has helped me read and actively reflect upon my own past in an unexpected, novel, and revealing way.

By active reflection, I mean that as I looked at the screen, I could ask questions, receive responses, ask further questions, and continue exploring and adding the material from different angles at extraordinary speed and with great convenience. With all, there are up to a million words of text, as well as many images ( that I have not yet explored) .

What AI Contributed

By bringing together documents written decades apart, AI helped identify patterns and connections over time that I had never consciously recognised. Projects that I had thought were separate—and had almost forgotten—often turned out to be linked by recurring interests and concerns.

The technology helped reveal long-term themes and changes in my thinking running through my work on archives, technology, communication, social justice, Jewish politics and public policy.

I never believed that AI somehow “understood” me or could discover hidden truths about my life by searching the internet. It could only work with the material I chose to provide and in response to focussed natural language questions. The ideas, experiences and documents were mine.

What AI contributed was the ability to search, compare and analyse a vast amount of material at a speed and scale beyond what I could manage on my own. The kind of archival work I was doing might once have required a major research project, but that was not my purpose. I was trying to understand my own accumulated record of experience as a process of reflection.

The best way I can describe the experience is that AI acted like a microscope and a telescope at the same time. It could examine individual documents in detail while also identifying language patterns and key ideas stretching across decades and across my experiences around the world.

It did not create those patterns. They were already present in the material. It simply helped make them visible.

Three Illustrative Examples

The following examples show how this process worked in practice.

Example 1: Analysing Evidence on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

One example came from work I undertook on a 120 page submission presented to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. This has been the largest piece of work I have undertaken since retirement.

Over many months I examined reports, surveys, witness statements and policy documents produced by different organisations. By comparing these materials, AI helped reveal a recurring methodological issue that became central to my analysis: what many reports described as measuring antisemitism often involved combining very different types of information under a single label.

The insight did not come from any one document. It emerged from comparing many documents at once and identifying patterns that would have been difficult to see manually.

Example 2: Discovering Themes Across a Lifetime of Writing

A second example involved my exploration of more than fifty years of my own writing. I had generally viewed different phases of my life as separate projects: work on information systems, archives, international development, community technology, public policy and Jewish communal affairs.

Yet when these materials were examined together, recurring themes repeatedly appeared. Questions of dialogue, mediation, communication, institutions, memory and social justice surfaced across very different contexts.

What I had experienced as intellectual wandering increasingly appeared as a long conversation conducted through different projects and periods of my life.

Example 3: The Idea of “Assisted Perception”

A third example arose from a simple phrase generated during one of my conversations with AI. While I was trying to describe what was happening, the phrase “assisted perception” appeared.

It seemed exactly right. But I immediately asked where it had come from. The answer led to a deeper exploration of how AI works. The phrase had not been copied from a particular source, nor had it emerged from conscious reasoning. Rather, it arose because ideas such as perception, interpretation, archives, pattern recognition and intellectual augmentation had become strongly connected within the conversation.

What fascinated me was that the phrase helped organise my thinking. It became a small example of the broader process described in the paper: AI generated a possibility, but its significance emerged only because I recognised it as meaningful.

Someone else might not have done so, and that is the key point. AI can help assemble information and present patterns, but human intuition, personality, values and priorities determine what becomes meaningful.

In that respect, it is like a great work of art or literature. A particular detail or phrase may resonate deeply with one person while leaving another unaffected. The human user remains in control.

Conversations with the Past

One of the most surprising discoveries was that my archive contained not only records of events but also records of earlier attempts to understand those events.

Old diary entries, letters and reflections were, in effect, conversations I had once had with myself. Through AI, those conversations became available again. Earlier versions of myself could, in a sense, enter into dialogue with the present.

With the help of AI, diaries, letters, emails, reports, photographs and personal reflections can become more than memories or stored information. They can become starting points for new conversations with our past selves, helping us see patterns, connections and changes that might otherwise remain unnoticed.

Opportunities and Challenges

Work that might once have taken months or years can sometimes be done in hours. This creates exciting opportunities for learning and discovery, but it also raises questions about information overload, exhaustion and the growing pressure to work at machine speed.

I have discovered that after a few hours of working in this way, I am often completely worn out. That is a real warning for anyone engaging in this kind of intensive reflection.

Facing Uncomfortable Discoveries

One final observation is worth making.

When exploring a large archive of personal records, the results are not always comfortable. Patterns may emerge that challenge cherished beliefs about ourselves. Forgotten mistakes may reappear. Contradictions, failures, regrets or embarrassing episodes may become newly visible. Some of the conclusions suggested by the evidence can be confronting.

A brief clarification is necessary. AI systems do not independently determine what is “comfortable” or “uncomfortable” for a particular person. They identify patterns, relationships, inconsistencies, recurring themes and other features within the material being examined. Whether those findings are experienced as reassuring, surprising, embarrassing or confronting is a matter for the human user. In this project I generally chose not to ask the system to avoid potentially uncomfortable topics. My interest was understanding rather than reassurance. The role of the AI was to help identify patterns in the evidence; the task of evaluating their significance, accuracy and emotional impact remained my own.

My own preference has been not to ask the system to filter out uncomfortable material. If the purpose of the exercise is understanding rather than self-congratulation, then it is important to remain open to what the evidence reveals, even when it is inconvenient or unsettling.

This does not mean accepting every interpretation produced by AI. Human judgement remains essential. Suggested patterns must be tested and questioned. But neither should we assume that only positive or reassuring conclusions are worth hearing.

One of the strengths of this approach is precisely its capacity to bring forgotten, neglected or uncomfortable aspects of our lives back into view. Sometimes the most valuable insights are not those that confirm what we already believe about ourselves, but those that challenge us to think again.

In that sense, AI-assisted reflection is not simply a tool for self-discovery. It can also be a tool for self-correction.

Conclusion

We should not fall into the trap of thinking that AI is a replacement for human thinking. Its real value may lie elsewhere. AI can help us explore, connect and reinterpret the records of our lives and work, revealing patterns and relationships that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The thinking, interpretation and judgement remain human. What AI provides is a powerful new way of seeing. Its greatest contribution may not be that it writes for us, but that it helps us discover insights that would otherwise remain hidden.

I also realize that I have entered into the risk zone by uploading so much material others may not be comfortable, but there is really not too much that is embarrassing. I’m not yet too fussed that it is one of trillions of chopped up bits in a data farm. And I can delete it (assuming it actually follows the stated policy). There are bigger issues to be concerned with about A.I. evils. That will be another paper.

*McKemmish , S. (1996) “Evidence of me”, Archives & Manuscripts, 24(1), pp. 28-45. Available at: https://publications.archivists.org.au/index.php/asa/article/view/8543

Note: This was written with A.I. assistance. The image is A.I.

I’ve received some comments in response to the piece I published yesterday, so here is some more detail.

One of the recurring weaknesses in contemporary discussions of decolonization in Israel/Palestine is the tendency to assume that political transformation will naturally lead to social peace. Writers such as Jeff Halper (see the reference below) are stronger than many anti-Zionist commentators in recognising that Israeli Jews have genuine security concerns and that any post-colonial settlement must address them. Yet even Halper’s work leaves largely unexplored a question that has become increasingly pressing in the wake of repeated wars, terrorism, military occupation, October 7, and the devastation of Gaza: how can deeply antagonistic communities be prevented from returning to violence after a political settlement is reached? In fact, I suggest that fear of violence is what blocks so many Israelis from moving forward, and also explains the use of maximal violence). If the conditions that create fear are removed, much can be done.

Halper says in his book that “the project of decolonization now calls for a focus on a strategic and well thought-out program” and that there needs to be joint struggle, but from the rest of the left I see no strategic and thought-out program that acknowledges the dangers of mass violence, nor an acknowledgement of the need for joint struggle against the current structures of oppression. In fact, there is a continuing rejection of the “legitimization” of half the population (the Jews), who are eternally labelled as colonists. That goes nowhere. There are two resident populations. People need to move on, and accept this fact, even in this state of aggressive war by Israel. While it may stick in the craw of many people who see Israeli Jews as devoid of any right to dictate terms, they are actually part of the solution, and must be acknowledged as such. In fact, the kind of Jewish society the emerges in the future in the contested land may be vastly different to that which existed before. But it may take generations.

None of what I am saying below addresses the question of how such arrangements would be implemented in the current geopolitical environment, particularly given the policies of the Trump administration. But assume for the moment that there existed a sympathetic US regime and other international will to move ahead. The Geneva Accord, discussed below, set out in considerable detail the components of an international implementation and monitoring force and other post-conflict steps.

The wider literature on conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction offers some useful insights on where to go. Across a diverse range of cases—including Northern Ireland, South Africa, Bosnia, Rwanda and a range of post-conflict societies studied by the United Nations—a consistent finding emerges. Sustainable peace rarely results from constitutional reform or declarations of equality alone. Instead, successful transitions usually combine several interconnected processes: disarmament and demobilisation of armed groups, reform of military and police institutions, constitutional protections for minorities, power-sharing arrangements, transitional justice mechanisms, and long-term programs of reconciliation and social integration. This must apply to both sides. Simply yelling “de-Zionisation” , “decolonize” or “get rid of Hamas” “No PLO”, are not serious peacebuilding strategies but blockers.

The United Nations has developed extensive frameworks for what is known as Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR). These programs recognise that collecting weapons is only the first step. Former combatants must also be reintegrated into civilian life through employment, education and social support. Otherwise, armed networks and grievances can persist long after formal hostilities have ended. Security-sector reform is equally important. Police, military and intelligence agencies must be restructured so that they serve all citizens rather than a single ethnic, religious or political group. Again, this is as much a challenge for Israel as it would be for Palestine, although the problems confronting each society are very different.

There are other proposals that move in a similar direction. The Aix Group economic proposals stress interdependence and shared development. Various civil-society initiatives such as the People's Voice Initiative and later peacebuilding projects emphasize reconciliation, dialogue and shared institutions. Some scholars influenced by consociational theory have proposed forms of power-sharing modelled on Northern Ireland, Belgium or Bosnia. A number of Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilding organizations have also explored truth-telling, joint education and narrative-sharing processes inspired by South Africa.

The non-government Geneva Accord of 2003, with later updates, one of the most detailed Israeli-Palestinian civil society peace proposals ever produced, for all its faults (including virtually abandoning the right of return for Palestinians) deals with the violence issue. The Accord did not simply divide territory and establish two states (that was the model at the time). It proposed extensive international monitoring, a multinational force, joint security committees, intelligence cooperation, border supervision, phased military withdrawal, restrictions on armed groups, and mechanisms for dispute resolution. It also envisaged educational, civil society and historical dialogue programs designed to encourage reconciliation and mutual recognition. In many respects, the Geneva Accord came closer to the broader peacebuilding literature than many contemporary political proposals. It recognised that peace would require not only a political settlement but also a durable security architecture capable of managing distrust during a long transition.

Yet the Accord also highlights the dilemmas that continue to haunt peacebuilding efforts. One of its most controversial provisions states that Palestine would be a non-militarized state. Critics have long argued that this creates an asymmetry at the heart of the agreement. Israel would retain a conventional military, intelligence services, defence industries and strategic deterrent capabilities, while Palestine would be denied equivalent military sovereignty. From a Palestinian perspective, this can appear less a framework of mutual security than the institutionalisation of a permanent imbalance of power. Supporters of the Accord responded that the provision reflects political realities rather than principles. Given Israeli fears arising from decades of war, terrorism and regional conflict, demilitarization was seen as a necessary confidence-building measure without which no agreement would have been politically viable.

The resulting tension remains unresolved to say the least. At the time, the Accord sought to reconcile Palestinian sovereignty with Israeli security through international guarantees, monitoring mechanisms and joint institutions. Whether such asymmetrical arrangements would now be perceived as legitimate by both communities remains an open question. As well as this the rivalry between Hamas (no one believes that Hamas is finished) and the PLO cannot be hidden as a real problem for the future governance of Palestine, democratic or otherwise. At the same time, there is an important distinction between a limited self-defence capability and the highly militarised apparatus of occupation, control and brute power over others that many critics identify with the contemporary Israeli military. The challenge is not merely whether force exists, but what kind of force exists, under whose authority, for what purposes, and with what constraints.

The experience of Northern Ireland is particularly instructive. The Good Friday Agreement did not simply ask Protestants and Catholics to reconcile. It established power-sharing institutions, reformed policing, reduced the military presence, oversaw the decommissioning of weapons, created cross-border institutions and provided mechanisms for managing ongoing disputes. Violence declined dramatically, yet distrust between communities remains significant more than twenty-five years later. Northern Ireland demonstrates both the possibilities and the limits of political agreements. Institutions can reduce violence, but they do not erase historical memory.

South Africa offers a different but equally important lesson. The transition from apartheid combined constitutional guarantees, integration of former security forces, democratic elections and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Yet even there, unresolved questions of justice and inequality continue to shape political life decades later. Reconciliation proved to be a process rather than an event.

What also strikes me is how underdeveloped these discussions often are within contemporary left-wing debates about Israel and Palestine. The language of decolonization, liberation and justice has become increasingly sophisticated. There is extensive discussion of settler colonialism, apartheid, human rights and historical dispossession. Yet there is often far less attention given to the practical questions that dominate the conflict-resolution literature. How are armed movements transformed into political actors? How are security institutions restructured? How are former enemies protected from one another during a transition? How are cycles of revenge interrupted? How are constitutional guarantees made credible? How are communities persuaded to surrender weapons when trust is absent? These are not secondary questions. In many post-conflict societies they become the central questions.

This is not a criticism of the pursuit of justice. Nor is it an argument for maintaining existing structures of domination. Rather, it is an observation that peacebuilding requires more than a theory of liberation. It also requires a theory of transition. The comparative experience of Northern Ireland, South Africa and other post-conflict societies suggests that the period after a political settlement may be as difficult and consequential as the struggle that preceded it.

What strikes me is how limited the discussion of these issues remains in contemporary debates about Israel and Palestine. Whether one supports two states, one democratic state, a confederation or some other arrangement, the same practical questions remain. How would armed groups be demobilised? How would security institutions be integrated or reformed? What mechanisms would prevent communal revenge and retaliatory violence? How would trust be rebuilt between populations carrying deep collective traumas? What role would international guarantees play in the transition? Would security arrangements be symmetrical or asymmetrical? How would competing historical narratives be acknowledged without reigniting conflict?

These questions do not invalidate visions of decolonization or a shared democratic future. But they do suggest that ending domination, occupation or inequality is only part of the challenge. The problem is not simply whether one supports two states or one state. The harder question is whether any proposed settlement can simultaneously satisfy three objectives that often pull in different directions: justice, security and political legitimacy.

The Geneva Accord remains one of the most serious attempts to balance those competing goals, yet even it reveals how difficult that balance is to achieve. People could have a look and think about it. Maybe others can take up the challenge again rather than engaging in theoretical speculation. The real challenge is how former enemies learn to live together afterwards without returning to violence.

Reading:

Jeff Halper Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, 2021.

Geneva Accord, 2003 https://geneva-accord.org/

[This original synthesis by Larry Stillman drawing upon conflict-resolution literature, the Geneva Accord, and comparative peacebuilding cases, developed through AI-assisted drafting and editing. It also draws upon my online archive of articles and idea that are used in the AI investigation]

The argument in Tim Stosberg’s article “Palestine Will Save Us All” is that Palestine can function as a symbolic object onto which broader political hopes, anxieties and aspirations are projected. The article is interesting and often insightful, but it also engages in a number of simplifications.

There is certainly evidence that, for some activists, Palestine has become more than a specific national struggle. It can appear as a symbol that connects anti-colonial resistance, anti-racism, anti-capitalism, environmentalism and wider aspirations for human emancipation. Palestine is sometimes presented as the linchpin in a global struggle against oppression. As Black American activist Ajamu Baraka has put it, “Palestine is the moral heart of global anti-colonial politics.” Similar themes emerge in the rhetoric of some Palestine solidarity activists who see the conflict as part of a much larger global confrontation with systems of power and domination. A similar perspective was expressed by Michael Shaik of Free Palestine Melbourne in a recent broadcast on 3CR radio in Melbourne, where he suggested that Palestine has become a focal point through which broader questions of justice, power and global political transformation are being understood and articulated. In this framing, local Zionists are to be politically and morally “expunged”.

Stosberg seeks to explain this tendency through a psychoanalytic framework of projection. He argues that Palestine has become an ego-ideal in the Left’s search for a revolutionary subject. What was once the proletariat, and later the peoples of the so-called Third World, is now represented by the Palestinian. In this reading, Palestine becomes a vessel for hopes and desires that activists are unable to realise within their own societies.

There is something to this argument. Palestine is undoubtedly romanticised in some quarters. A striking example comes from the Australian commentator Caitlin Johnstone, whose audience numbers in the millions. She describes Palestinians as uniquely authentic, spiritual and organically connected to one another while depicting Israeli Jewish society as fake, artificial and culturally illegitimate. Whatever one thinks of Johnstone’s motives, this kind of rhetoric does not merely celebrate Palestinians; it delegitimises IsraeliJews . In such narratives Israeli Jews cease to be a national community with their own history and become instead permanent colonisers, cultural imposters and occupiers whose collective existence lacks legitimacy. Her readers reinforce this interpretation in their comments. Such narratives move beyond criticism of Israeli policies and towards a desire for the erasure of the other. This is calling for more ethnic cleansing.

There may be another explanation for some of the symbolic power of Palestine in countries such as Australia. The failure of the Voice referendum and the continuing unresolved relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia may also contribute to the symbolic resonance of Palestine for some activists. Palestine can appear to offer a more clearly defined moral struggle than the far more difficult and unresolved questions of decolonisation at home. In this sense, Palestine may become not merely a cause but a source of political and moral redemption. As some commentators have observed, neither Australia nor the United States has been successfully decolonised. The attraction of Palestine may therefore partly reflect unresolved tensions within settler societies themselves, because it it is a highly (and correctly) moral cause.

Yet Stosberg’s explanation is also too simple. The appeal of the Palestinian cause cannot be reduced to psychological projection, nor to guilt over the failures of decolonisation in Australia. Many people are motivated by concerns about the brutality of displacement, the scale of civilian casualties, and the destruction of Gaza’s social and civic life. Whatever the crimes of Hamas and whatever one’s view of Israel’s security concerns, these realities cannot simply be explained away as projection. To explain solidarity primarily through a psychological framework that ultimately circles back to antisemitism risks overlooking the realities that have generated such concern.

Similarly, there can be an overly simplistic application of settler-colonial theory to Israel-Palestine as a way of explaining the attraction of the cause to many people, particularly if Jewish historical experience and the reasons for Jewish settlement are reduced to a simplistic narrative of European colonisation or blanket statements about Zionism as distinct from an imagined form of “real” Judaism.

But this does not mean that every use of the framework is invalid. The challenge is to determine where it illuminates historical realities and where it becomes an ideological template that predetermines political conclusions. When the category ceases to be descriptive and becomes classificatory, the existence of a living national community can itself become the object of delegitimisation. The issue of state formations, constitutional arrangements and future political solutions should be considered separately. What is striking is that very few other contemporary national communities are subjected to this level of ontological challenge regarding their legitimacy as a people.

The debate here mirrors wider controversies surrounding settler-colonial theory itself. Critics such as Adam Kirsch argue that the concept increasingly functions less as a historical framework than as a moral classification system in which political conclusions follow automatically from historical labels. Historians such as Cyrus Schayegh and sociologists such as Julian Go have similarly warned against allowing settler colonialism to become a master narrative that absorbs other explanatory factors including nationalism, state formation, migration, class and geopolitics. Whether one agrees with these criticisms or not, they raise an important methodological question: at what point does a useful analytical category become a template that predetermines political judgement?

Yet there is another weakness in much contemporary left-wing discussion of Israel-Palestine that Stosberg only partially addresses. Considerable attention is devoted to colonialism, occupation, apartheid, decolonization and historical justice. Far less attention is paid to the problem of future intercommunal violence. The Gaza war has created an enormous new reservoir of grief, trauma, fear and hatred among both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. Communities have been shattered, and mutual trust has deteriorated even further. Any serious discussion of the future must begin with this reality.

It is not enough simply to advocate a one-state solution, a confederation, or some post-Zionist political arrangement. Such proposals may identify desirable constitutional outcomes, but they do not in themselves explain how peaceful coexistence is to be achieved. This is where the work of Nadim Rouhana is particularly valuable. Rouhana recognises that whatever one’s understanding of Zionism, Israeli Jews are now a deeply rooted national community, and Rashid Khalidi has said much the same thing. The challenge is therefore not simply one of decolonization but also one of going down the extraordinarily difficult path of full equality, reconciliation and coexistence.

Yet reconciliation itself is not enough. As James Ron has argued in his discussion of the Balkan wars and state violence, violence is shaped not only by ideology but also by institutions, state structures and systems of accountability. The reduction of violence requires political institutions capable of managing conflict, enforcing rules and protecting minorities. The central challenge is therefore not merely constitutional design but state-building, institution-building and trust-building. Much contemporary left-wing discussion is surprisingly neglectful of this reality. It is not enough simply to invoke “de-Zionization”. Serious political proposals require an account of the institutions, security arrangements, constitutional structures and forms of leadership through which a new order would be constructed.

Rouhana’s emphasis on reconciliation and coexistence also points towards a growing body of work concerned less with historical diagnosis than with political futures. Initiatives such as A Land for All, together with recent Israeli-Palestinian dialogue projects, begin from the premise that neither Palestinians nor Israeli Jews are going anywhere. The question therefore becomes not simply how injustice is to be addressed, but how two peoples can continue to share the same land while reducing the likelihood of recurring violence. This shift in focus—from historical blame to political coexistence, probably because of resistance to compromise and blind anger over Israel’s unrestrained actions—remains underdeveloped in much contemporary debate.

This is where contemporary decolonial narratives can appear incomplete. If the conflict is understood solely through the lens of settler colonialism, responsibility for transformation is often implicitly assigned to one side. Yet Israel-Palestine now contains two deeply-rooted national communities, one of which possesses a powerful and highly institutionalised state. Neither side is going to disappear, despite Israeli attempts to destroy and uproot Palestinians. Any future political order must therefore address the fears, aspirations and collective identities of both, as well as the massive inequalities between them.

The most important question is not only what political and other arrangement should replace the present one. It is what structures, guarantees, institutions and forms of leadership are capable of reducing the likelihood of future large-scale violence. How are minorities protected? How are security institutions constituted? How are competing historical narratives accommodated? What mechanisms exist to manage inevitable future disputes? What about economic justice and reparations? Justice without institutions is unstable; institutions without justice are unsustainable. Any serious proposal for the future must address both. It is no use claiming, as some on the left do, that there is “no conflict”, only settler-colonialism, and remove that, de-Zionise, and the situation is resolved. That is a preposterous non-solution, removed from the reality of relations between warring parties.

The failures of many post-colonial regimes should remind us of the dangers of ideological enthusiasm and simplifications. Problems cannot also simply be attributed to external hostile forces; they may also arise from fractures within the societies themselves. In the case of Israel-Palestine, the divisions within Israeli society—class, religion and secularism, ethnicity and political identity, and its militarization,—and within Palestinian society—class, clan structures, religion and secularism, and competing political and military loyalties—cannot be dismissed as relics of the past. They will become part of any future political order. Oren Yiftachel, for example, has long explored these fault lines through his work on Israeli ethnocracy, citizenship, territory and the position of Palestinian citizens of Israel. His work reminds us that the internal divisions of Israeli-Palestinian society cannot simply be wished away through constitutional change. They will remain part of any future political order.

In any case, Strosberg’s article is least convincing at the end, when it suggests that the Western Left bears substantial responsibility for the current deadlock in Israel-Palestine. Whatever the intellectual influence of Western activists, the conflict remains rooted in the relationship between the State of Israel and the Palestinians living under occupation, blockade or conditions of profound political inequality. To place primary responsibility on activists thousands of kilometers away is to mistake commentary for a bizarre form of causation.

None of this means that antisemitism within anti-Zionist movements should be ignored. Nor does it mean that anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment are automatically antisemitic. Both propositions are false. The task is to distinguish between prejudice and political disagreement, between hostility to Jews and criticism of states, ideologies and policies. That distinction is often difficult, but it remains essential.

Yet for all its faults, Stosberg’s article is worth reading. Its greatest value lies in drawing attention to some of the more romanticised and extreme forms of Palestine solidarity discourse that can, in turn, be used to quash dissenting views. Its weakness lies in treating those forms as more representative than they are and in relying too heavily on psychological explanation where political, historical and moral explanations may be equally important. The article raises important questions about symbolism, projection and political identity, but it is ultimately most persuasive when it analyses those phenomena rather than when it seeks to explain the complexity of contemporary solidarity with Palestine through them alone.

The unresolved question running through both Stosberg’s essay and many of the debates it critiques is not simply how injustice is to be overcome, but what happens the day after. How can future violence be prevented, and what institutions, forms of leadership and relationships of trust are capable of sustaining coexistence between two peoples who have experienced generations of conflict? On that question, thinkers such as Nadim Rouhana and James Ron may ultimately offer more useful guidance than either the romanticism of some Palestine solidarity discourse or the reductionism of some of its critics.

References

Adwan, S., Bar-On, D., & Naveh, E. (2012). Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine. New York: New Press.

Go, J. (2023). “Settler Colonialism Can’t Fully Explain Our World.” Catalyst.
Khalidi, R. (2020). The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Kirsch, A. (2024). On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice. New York: W.W. Norton.

Konya, A., et al. (2025). “Using Collective Dialogues and AI to Find Common Ground Between Israeli and Palestinian Peacebuilders.” arXiv preprint.

Ron, J. (2003). Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rouhana, N. N. (2018). “Decolonization as Reconciliation: Rethinking the National Conflict Paradigm in Palestine/Israel.”

Rouhana, N. N. (2024). “Daring to Imagine: A Future Without Zionism.” State Crime Journal, 12(2).

Schayegh, C. (2024). “Settler Colonial Studies: A Historical Analysis.” Settler Colonial Studies.

Stosberg, T. (2026). “Palestine Will Save Us All.” K. Revue, 4 June 2026.

Veracini, L. (2010). Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Veracini, L. (2015). The Settler Colonial Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Yiftachel, O. (2006). Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Wolfe, P. (2006). “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.

Note: The image is AI generated and AI helped me to generate this based on (literally) the gigabytes of personal corpus of materials. I’m writing about that separately…stay tuned.

No, I am not turning the lights out. I'm taking advantage of the new tools to engage in self-reflection on the million words or so since the 1990s that I have produced.

It has been a very interesting few hours. I uploaded around 15 years of FB material to ChatGPT except for credit cards etc., on top of perhaps 100 files of other writing and academic material going back to about 2005 and even much earlier for some things. It’s around a million words, so there must be something in it. If Monash University had not lost (yes) my backups of earlier materials, that word count would have gone way up, including emails. In some respect, this is like going though through a shoe box of old letters, but rather more like a shoe shop. In fact, it would be an interesting exercise to scan old letters (but I threw most of them out…too much early angst in there), and type-written material. There are lots of letters to the editor, articles in print etc.

I now have a very long analysis of what I have done/not done/and the connecting threads.

Some people devote a couple of years to an autobiography (I think in fact there is a lot of fiction in some), but I am too lazy now for that, not that vain, and I can’t remember anything (the smoke haze). But there IS the archive of bits and bytes to play with. Lots of it. It is a great pity that all the material on early community sites and various discussion platforms has gone missing. The Wayback machine doesn’t have too much. No one thought about storing material for the future back then (or at least, few institutions/services did). Is there any overarching theme? It appears that many matters I thought were separate aspects of my work life and other interests are, in fact, deeply connected. AI is great at identifying patterns.


Languages, texts, identity, politics, technology, education, travel, art and community activism and development all seem to circle around the same underlying questions: how do people make meaning, how do communities remember, and how do people belong without surrendering their independence? Early on I thought I had to commit myself to class analysis and historical materialism, but I never mastered the theoretical arguments details sufficiently and how to apply them to what I was interested in. I have been primarily interested in how meaning, identity, memory, authority and belonging are constructed and contested in social life. That certainly is a common thread in the journey from Melbourne to, Jerusalem, Harvard, Joburg, Dhaka, Italy and back again and again.

Sometimes, almost always, my interests lay outside formal disciplinary and even work boundaries. The result is a more complex picture of a lifelong interest in memory, interpretation, dialogue and the ways people understand themselves and others. The same things come up again and again, even in my attempts to write about art or my interest in bookbinding. I love being able to track the history of a book I am restoring. I started out wanting to become a scholar of ancient languages; and despite different sorts of jobs and a drift into the sociology of IT, and a sort of community advocacy, there is a consistency in trying to understand how human beings preserve, transmit, contest and reinterpret meaning across time and space.

From a Bourdieusian perspective, I became a broker, translator and interpreter between worlds. It's amazing that AI came up with this, because it is something I have explained to people for years about what I think I do best.

This helps explain something that has taken me many years to understand. My goal was never really fame or academic prestige or status. Perhaps that is why I didn't have a great formal academic profile. What mattered to me was influence rather than visibility. Influence occurs in conversations, organisations, archives, projects, teaching, writing and relationships. It appears when ideas circulate, when communities learn from one another, when excluded voices gain recognition, or when a debate becomes more nuanced than it was before. It is something that is increasingly undervalued in a metric-driven society.

The places that most shaped me illustrate this journey. The United States represented a search for scholarly recognition. Israel confronted me with questions of identity, belonging and memory. South Africa taught me that knowledge matters only insofar as it enables participation and empowerment. Bangladesh reinforced the importance of local knowledge and community agency. Italy reminded me that civilisation, beauty and memory are themselves forms of human meaning-making.

So there. The sentences here have been mostly AI-generated. The evidence, experiences, values, memories and intellectual concerns are my own and AI has drawn on them. The result is a collaborative act of interpretation rather than authorship in the conventional sense. AI did not invent new ideas or opinions. Rather, it acted as a kind of analytical mirror, identifying recurring themes, connections and patterns across material I had written over forty years. The words are often its words, but the underlying ideas, experiences, values and concerns are drawn from my own writing and life. In that sense, the process was closer to an intellectual biography or extended interview than to ghost-writing. It's also time that we be honest that AI can, in certain circumstances, be a wonderful tool (I just wish it was all solar powered, however).

The recent K* . article, “Ten Years On: The IHRA Definition Between Celebration and Questioning” by Reut Yael Paz and Niklas Pretsch, is a thoughtful and intellectually serious defence of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of 2016, abbreviated here as IHRA) . Unlike other other articles and frequent polemics, it openly acknowledges both the political controversies surrounding the definition and the risks associated with its application. Indeed, one of its strengths is that it recognises that debates over IHRA and have become deeply entangled with broader conflicts concerning Israel, Zionism, Jewish identity, historical memory and the meaning of antisemitism itself.

This essay has two parts. The first concerns the article itself, and the other concerns the tension between particularist approaches to antisemitism rather than considering it as a problem akin to other racisms. This has been a point of contention in Australia.

I A Distinctive Approach to IHRA. A Critique.

Given that IHRA now occupies a central place in discussions surrounding the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, it is useful to consider the broader perspective offered by this article rather than the debates over Palestine that often surround the definition.

Before turning to criticism, however, it is important to acknowledge what makes this article distinctive. Much contemporary criticism of IHRA comes from pro-Palestinian activists, civil liberties advocates, free speech organisations, post-colonial scholars, or critics of Israeli government policy. This article emerges from a very different intellectual tradition. It forms part of a longer conversation within European intellectual circles—including the Jewish intellectual traditions represented in K. Larevue itself—about the changing nature of antisemitism, the legacy of the Holocaust, and the challenge of sustaining awareness of antisemitism as direct memory of the Holocaust gradually recedes.

Thus, the authors do not attempt to weaponise accusations of antisemitism against IHRA opponents. Instead, they grapple with a genuine dilemma that has occupied European thinkers for decades: how does one recognise and respond to evolving forms of antisemitism when the social and political conditions that produced classical antisemitism have changed? How does one preserve awareness of antisemitism among younger generations for whom the Holocaust is increasingly a historical rather than lived experience? And how does one maintain the specificity of antisemitism without isolating it from broader discussions of racism, colonialism, nationalism and mass violence?

These concerns are particularly acute in Germany, where the authors work as academic legal scholars and where debates concerning antisemitism inevitably intersect with questions of law, historical responsibility and public memory. Contemporary German intellectual life continues to wrestle with the uniqueness of the Holocaust, the place of colonial violence in European history, and the relationship between Jewish memory and other histories of suffering. The article should therefore be understood not merely as a contribution to debates about Israel and Palestine, but as part of a broader European effort to understand how antisemitism ought to be conceptualised and addressed in a society whose political culture remains profoundly shaped by the legacy of the Holocaust.

The authors are acutely aware of the IHRA framework’s limitations. They openly acknowledge its politicisation, recognise the dangers of binary political thinking, and accept that endorsement or rejection of IHRA increasingly functions as a broader political statement concerning Israel itself. It is precisely because the article is so honest on this issue, that its gaps and silences become significant.

Furthermore, the emergence of alternative frameworks such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Document is itself a response to such problems with IHRA. These initiatives did not arise because their authors were indifferent to antisemitism. They emerged from recognition that changing political realities surrounding Israel, Palestine and Zionism had exposed tensions within existing approaches such as IHRA. Their aim was to distinguish more clearly between antisemitic hostility toward Jews and legitimate, even severe, criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Significantly, Paz and Pretsch are not dismissive of these alternatives, though they don’t see them as perfect either. This distinguishes their position from that of some communal leaders and advocacy organisations, particularly in Australia, where the Jerusalem Declaration and Nexus have often been treated with suspicion. Yet the existence of disagreement does not necessarily indicate analytical failure. It may instead reflect the genuine complexity of the phenomenon under examination.

This point becomes particularly important when the article discusses “contemporary, coded, indirect and Israel-related forms of antisemitism.” The recognition that antisemitism can be indirect or coded is entirely reasonable. Historically, antisemitism has often operated through euphemism, insinuation and symbolic language. The difficulty arises when these concepts are extended into the highly contested domain of Israel-related political discourse.

Once certain forms of anti-Israel or anti-Zionist discourse are assumed to be and described as “coded antisemitism”, the classification risks preceding the analysis. Instead of examining context, rhetoric, intent and audience reception before reaching a conclusion, the category itself begins to imply one. Ambiguity can become evidence of concealment.

Research I undertook for a submission to the Royal Commission by the Australian Jewish Democratically Society repeatedly identified problems of category inflation, definitional drift and conceptual boundary instability once Israel- and Zionism-related incidents were incorporated into broader antisemitism datasets. The issue was not whether antisemitism existed, but whether heterogeneous phenomena were being aggregated into apparently coherent categories without sufficient attention to underlying differences.

One of the article’s most revealing observations — and remember, the authors are supporters — is that endorsement or rejection of IHRA increasingly functions less as a methodological disagreement than as a broader political statement concerning Israel itself. The authors further observe that, for many people, endorsing IHRA has come to signify not only opposition to antisemitism but also support for Israel.

This is an extraordinarily important admission. It recognises that IHRA no longer functions merely as a technical definition. It has become a symbolic object carrying broader meanings concerning Jewish security, historical memory, Zionism and political Israel.

If support for IHRA increasingly functions as support for Israel, then criticism of IHRA should not in fact automatically be interpreted as indifference to antisemitism. Being anti-Zionist must not automatically be interpreted as hostility toward Jews. The political field is more complex than such binary oppositions allow.

The Australian experience is particularly instructive in this regard. While the Paz and Pretsch article presents a nuanced understanding of both the strengths and limitations of IHRA, much of the advocacy surrounding the definition in Australia has often been considerably less nuanced. Major Zionist organisations have tended to approach IHRA primarily through the lens of contemporary disputes over local protest rather than through the broader concerns about antisemitism that originally informed the definition’s development.

IHRA emerged in a period when concern focused heavily on Holocaust denial, neo-Nazi movements, classical antisemitic conspiracy theories and the resurgence of far-right nationalism. Its Israel-related examples were intended as contextual illustrations rather than as a comprehensive framework for regulating political discourse. The original working definition was conceived primarily as a practical aid for recognising and understanding antisemitism rather than as what becomes for all intents and purposes, a legally enforceable benchmark.

In Australia, however, the political trajectory of IHRA has increasingly moved beyond these original intentions. Debates over IHRA have become intertwined with broader conflicts concerning universities, public institutions, media organisations and the boundaries of acceptable discourse regarding Israel.

This raises an important question. If sophisticated defenders of IHRA increasingly acknowledge its limitations, ambiguities and need for ongoing revision, why is there often such resistance to similar acknowledgements within public and institutional debates?

The answer may lie less in the intellectual merits of the debate than in the political functions that IHRA has come to perform. Within scholarly discussions it is commonplace to recognise that the definition has limitations and requires contextual interpretation. Yet once IHRA enters the realm of institutional politics, different pressures emerge. It becomes a symbolic resource within broader struggles over legitimacy, representation, communal authority and public policy.

The contrast becomes clearer when compared with the essay of Philip Mendes, writing for the conservative Centre for Independent Studies. Mendes and Paz and Pretsch are responding to a similar phenomenon: the emergence of forms of hostility toward Jews, Zionism and Jewish identity that cannot easily be understood through older models focused exclusively on the far right.

Yet the two approaches differ significantly. Mendes is primarily concerned with demonstrating that significant sections of progressive activism, academic culture and institutional politics have become increasingly hostile to Zionism and to Jews who identify with Israel. Paz and Pretsch are less concerned with establishing the existence of the problem than with interrogating the categories through which the problem is understood.

Some of Mendes’s conclusions depend heavily on particular readings of material and events that remain open to alternative interpretations. This is especially relevant in relation to community monitoring reports and incident datasets, where significant questions already exist concerning the relationship between anti-Israel activity, anti-Zionist activism and antisemitism. As a result, conclusions that may depend upon particular classification assumptions can sometimes appear as settled empirical findings.

These observations do not entirely invalidate Mendes’s concerns. Rather, they highlight a methodological issue that runs throughout contemporary debates about antisemitism. Identifying a phenomenon and classifying it are not the same thing.

Although commonly discussed in terms of its formal adoption in 2016, the intellectual architecture underpinning IHRA emerged from debates and formulations that go back to the 1990s. Since that period, the political and military realities surrounding Israel and Palestine have worsened dramatically. Repeated wars in Gaza, the October 7, 2023, settlement expansion, increasingly explicit and violent forms of Israeli ethnonationalism, and growing international debate concerning allegations of apartheid, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide have transformed the political environment in which discussions of Israel take place, and that discussion even occurs within Israel itself, even questioning its future as a Jewish state.

Crucially, these critiques can no longer simply be dismissed as fringe rhetoric, sloganeering, or antisemitic blood libel. Whether one agrees with them or not, such criticisms are increasingly advanced by mainstream legal scholars, human rights organisations, genocide researchers, and have become the subject of proceedings before international judicial bodies including the International Court of Justice.

The deeper question is whether a framework developed before the current state of the Israel–Palestine conflict can adequately distinguish between antisemitic demonisation and severe political criticism.

Paz and Pretsch appear reluctant to pursue this possibility to its conclusion. One senses not ignorance of the problem but hesitation. The authors repeatedly acknowledge the politicisation of IHRA, the symbolic role it now plays, the dangers of binary political alignments, and the need for ongoing revision and self-reflection. Yet they ultimately reaffirm IHRA as the most coherent framework available, on the grounds that it has been widely adopted but that should not mean it is immutable, given ongoing controversy about its misapplication.

In fact, the deeper challenge identified by Paz and Pretsch concerns not merely Israel or IHRA, but the future of antisemitism awareness itself. As Holocaust memory becomes increasingly mediated through institutions, education and historical narrative rather than direct personal experience, societies must find new ways of recognising antisemitism without reducing it to rigid formulas or symbolic tests of political empathy for a particular state.

The question is not whether antisemitism remains a serious problem. It plainly does. The question is how best to understand it under conditions very different from those that shaped the post-war generation, and particularly in the context of Australia, where other communities are on the receiving end of racist activity, whether violent or otherwise, as well as.

The irony is that the article’s own analysis may point towards the fact that IHRA is outmoded. If IHRA now functions simultaneously as a definition, a symbol of Jewish security, a marker of support for a particular state, a test of institutional legitimacy and a framework for classifying contested political speech, then it is being asked to perform tasks far beyond those for which it was originally designed. The more symbolic and political work the definition is required to do, the less stable it becomes as an analytical instrument.

Paz and Pretsch article sees this dilemma clearly. What it does not fully confront is the possibility that the resulting tensions are not merely problems of application, but evidence that IHRA itself can cause more problems than many of its defenders have yet been willing to contemplate.

II Particularism or Universalism?

A further reflection is that the debate over whether antisemitism should be treated as a unique phenomenon or as one manifestation of a broader spectrum of racisms is not simply a political disagreement; it reflects two different intellectual traditions in the study of prejudice, as well as thinking within the Jewish community itself.

One tradition emphasises the specificity of antisemitism. From this perspective, antisemitism possesses characteristics that distinguish it from many other forms of racism. Jews have historically been represented not as an inferior group but paradoxically as a powerful, hidden, manipulative, or conspiratorial group. Antisemitic narratives often focus on alleged control of finance, media, governments, culture, or international affairs. This differs from many forms of racial prejudice that operate through assumptions of inferiority, exclusion, or biological hierarchy. For advocates of this position, the distinct historical trajectory of antisemitism—from medieval religious hostility to modern racial antisemitism, the Holocaust, and contemporary conspiracy theories—justifies specialised institutional attention and dedicated policy responses.

A second tradition emphasises commonality rather than uniqueness. From this perspective, antisemitism is best understood as one form of a broader family of racisms, prejudices, and exclusionary ideologies. While acknowledging particular historical features, this approach highlights common mechanisms that operate across many minority experiences: stereotyping, dehumanisation, scapegoating, conspiracy narratives, collective blame, exclusion from full belonging, and vulnerability during periods of social stress. Whatever the reason, those working within this more universalist approach argue that policy responses become stronger when they are integrated into broader anti-racism strategies rather than isolated into separate silos. It is also a position adopted by many critics of the terms of reference of the Royal Commission, and one also supported by the perspective of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Critics of the Commission have argued that a national inquiry into antisemitism alone risks implying a hierarchy of racisms or creating the perception that antisemitism receives a level of governmental attention unavailable to other communities facing racism. Some have questioned why there was not a broader Royal Commission into racism, social cohesion, or hate directed at multiple communities. These concerns are not necessarily dismissals of antisemitism itself; rather, they often reflect concerns about institutional equity and consistency.

At the same time, supporters of the Commission have argued that specific inquiries are frequently established when a particular social problem reaches a level of public concern, visibility, or perceived urgency requiring dedicated examination. This is certainly the viewpoint of major Jewish organisations in Australia. In fact, Australian public policy has repeatedly used specialised inquiries to investigate particular harms without implying that other harms are unimportant. Recognising the specificity of antisemitism does not require denying the reality or seriousness of Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, or other forms of prejudice.

Methodologically, there is also an important consideration. A highly specialised inquiry may generate a deep and sophisticated understanding of antisemitism but can sometimes lose comparative perspective. Conversely, a broad anti-racism inquiry may reveal common mechanisms across different forms of prejudice but may overlook features that are historically or culturally distinctive. Both approaches therefore involve trade-offs between depth and comparability.

The evidence presented to the Commission itself certainly reflects this problem. Most witnesses describe antisemitism as possessing unique characteristics linked to Jewish history, the Holocaust, Zionism, and contemporary conspiracy narratives. Yet many of the underlying themes emerging from the testimony—minority vulnerability, perceptions of social exclusion, collective trauma, fear of violence, concerns about belonging, distrust of institutions, and experiences of discrimination—are themes familiar from research on many other minority communities.  Nor are they problems that can be causally attributed to the effects of Zionism or Israel politics. It is something deeper.

 In this sense, the Commission’s evidence can simultaneously support claims of uniqueness and claims of commonality.  But at the same time, there has been almost no exploration as to whether witnesses are conscious of the effects of their strongly held view that the State of Israel is not only the central expression of Jewish peoplehood in our time,  and that this political entity it is the only legitimate expression of Jewish peoplehood. It is this blindness to the effects of such political, cultural and religious mix  and its effects on Palestinians that has infuriated many people.  I have written about this problem, and the fog surrounding how the Royal Commission intends to explore the problem.  I said that the Royal Commission:

"has given no direct indication that the [Royal Commission] will take into account the views of both Jews and supporters of Palestine who put a different interpretation on a number of events. If in fact the RC feels that it has or will take those views into account, then there has been very little transparency and the matter is lost in a legal fog.…This is driving the deep suspicion and outright accusations about the purpose and conduct of the [Royal Commission] ...that it is basically a tool to suppress Palestinian advocacy and free speech. "

Perhaps the most productive position is not to choose between competing perspectives but to hold them in tension. Antisemitism may possess distinctive historical and ideological features that warrant careful examination in their own right, even in Australia which has a different experience to that of Europe, while also sharing important structural similarities with other forms of racism. Recognising specificity need not imply exceptionalism, and recognising commonality need not imply that all racisms are identical.

There is also an important institutional question here concerning the proper role of the Royal Commission itself. The Commission is not tasked with adjudicating the merits of Zionism, determining the legitimacy of Israeli government policies, or resolving the profound political and moral disputes surrounding the Israel–Palestine conflict. Those debates will continue within democratic society and among people of good faith who hold sharply different views.

Rather, the Commission’s responsibility is to identify and respond to antisemitism in ways that are consistent with both the public interest and the principles of a liberal democracy. This requires careful attention to genuine hatred, discrimination, intimidation, incitement and violence directed at Jews as Jews. It also requires recognition that Australian law already places limits on genuinely threatening, harassing, discriminatory and inciteful conduct.

The challenge arises in the large space that exists between unlawful hate and legitimate democratic discourse. Within that space, citizens must remain free to express views about Israel, Zionism, Palestinian nationalism, war crimes, human rights, state violence, colonialism and genocide, however uncomfortable or controversial those views may be. The existence of strong disagreement, moral outrage or political offence cannot in itself become evidence of antisemitism, even though there are those who believe that IHRA should be used to police these things.

(*K. is an online magazine devoted to Jews, Europe, the 21st Century, looking at current affairs from a liberal Zionist and politically variable perspective. I’m not in agreement with a lot of what appears, and sometimes in strong disagreement, but sometimes there is very good material)

Here is a piece in the Jewish Independent taking on a truly awful attempt to accuse universities and the public media (but of course not the Murdoch press), of antisemitism because they won’t enforce a very narrow interpretation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. It appears that some people like what I have said.

”Slonim appears to give insufficient attention to alternative explanations for institutional hesitation toward expansive interpretations of the IHRA working definition. His article tends to assume that resistance reflects an unwillingness to listen to Jews or take Jewish concerns seriously.

Yet the argument moves further than that. It implies that anything short of adopting a particular Zionism-linked understanding of antisemitism undermines the “moral seriousness” with which Jewish rights are treated.”

Professor Andrew Markus’s testimony before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion may prove some of the most politically significant evidence heard so far. Unlike more polemical witnesses, Markus refused to collapse anti-Zionism into antisemitism, even while acknowledging that parts of contemporary anti-Israel politics can overlap with older antisemitic tropes. His evidence suggested something more unstable and complicated: a combustible mix of humanitarian outrage over Gaza, generational political realignment, anti-colonial thinking, distrust of institutions, and social media radicalisation, alongside genuine antisemitic currents. Crucially, Markus repeatedly resisted simplistic conclusions. Asked directly whether strong anti-Zionist sentiment among Greens voters meant they were antisemitic, he answered: “No.” That qualification cuts against much of the rhetoric surrounding the Commission. Yet his evidence also challenges sections of the left by raising uncomfortable questions about conspiratorial rhetoric, moral absolutism, and the dismissal of Jewish fear within some activist spaces.

Professor Andrew Markus’s testimony on May 12 2026 before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion deserves serious attention (The link here is to the transcript, the video can be viewed on the RC website). As one of Australia’s most experienced researchers on public attitudes and social cohesion, his evidence carries considerable intellectual authority. His concern about rising hostility toward Jews after October 7 is real and should not be dismissed.

One of the strengths of Markus’s evidence is that he avoids crude polemics. Unlike some witnesses before the Commission, he does not present antisemitism as a pathology confined to fringe neo-Nazi groups or the far right. Nor does he simply reduce every expression of anti-Zionism to antisemitism. Instead, he argues that antisemitic attitudes can emerge within progressive political cultures when anti-Zionist discourse becomes absolutist, conspiratorial, or morally totalising.

There is substance to aspects of this concern. Conspiracy claims about “Zionist control”, collective blame directed at Jews for the actions of the Israeli state, or rhetoric that dismisses Jewish fear and historical experience altogether are genuine problems. Markus is right to insist that progressive politics is not automatically immune from prejudice simply because it speaks the language of human rights.

Yet Markus’s own evidence repeatedly complicates the far broader claims now circulating in sections of the organised Jewish community and political establishment — namely, that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are effectively interchangeable, or that “the left” has become inherently antisemitic. In fact, Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission, Zelie Heger, probably asked the killer questions for the hearings, ones that go to the core of the political debate over claims that there is a “new antisemitism” based around a fundamental hostility to Israel and Zionism that dovetails with traditional antisemitism. That view has certainly been put forward assertively by other witnesses.

One of the most revealing exchanges in the hearings came during discussion of Greens voters, when Heger noted that Greens voters recorded the “highest percentage of agreement with negative views on that anti-Zionist subscale” among the political groupings examined. But when asked directly whether this meant that “30 per cent of Greens voters are antisemitic”, Markus answered plainly: “No.”

That answer cuts against much of the public rhetoric surrounding the Royal Commission.

Gaza, Generational Politics and the Left

Since October 7, there has been a persistent tendency in some political and communal discourse to collapse hostility toward Israeli policy, Zionism, or the Gaza war into antisemitism itself. Markus repeatedly resisted doing this. Discussing younger respondents who agreed with the statement that “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews”, he described the finding as “very strong”, particularly because agreement rose to 54 per cent among 18–24 year olds. Yet he still refused to reduce this automatically to antisemitism, suggesting instead that such views may reflect humanitarian concern, generational politics, or moral outrage about Gaza.

This is precisely where Markus becomes more interesting — and more politically inconvenient — than some of the Commission’s more sweeping narratives.

His evidence points to something far more complex than a simple resurgence of classical Jew-hatred. What emerges instead is a volatile political and cultural mix shaped by humanitarian identification with Palestinians, generational political realignment, anti-colonial frameworks, distrust of institutions and mainstream media, and the radicalising effects of social media environments. In some cases, these currents may overlap with older antisemitic tropes or conspiratorial narratives, particularly around Jewish power, media influence, or Holocaust instrumentalisation. But overlap is not the same thing as equivalence. Markus repeatedly resisted the claim that anti-Zionism itself is inherently antisemitic.

The broader survey findings further complicate claims of a society consumed by anti-Jewish hostility. Markus noted that 15 per cent of respondents in the Scanlon Social Cohesion survey expressed negative attitudes toward Jews — lower than negative attitudes toward Muslims, which stood at 35 per cent. These are not trivial figures, but neither do they support the more apocalyptic rhetoric that has sometimes surrounded the hearings.

At the same time, Markus’s evidence exposes the conceptual instability at the heart of much contemporary antisemitism discourse. He relies partly on an “anti-Zionist antisemitism subscale” designed to measure attitudes toward Israel and its supporters (whether or not the survey subscale is valid is another question). Yet he simultaneously insists that agreement with anti-Israel propositions does not necessarily make someone antisemitic.

That tension matters. If strong hostility toward Zionism may stem from humanitarian concern, anti-colonial politics, or moral opposition to Israeli state violence, then the classificatory boundaries become far less clear than much public discourse suggests. The danger is that contested political positions begin to slide into narrowly defined categories that ignore more complex realities.

How Zionist Witnesses Might Respond

Many strongly Zionist witnesses, including representatives of organisations that gave evidence, would probably respond to Markus in an ambivalent or even hostile way. On the one hand, his evidence gives empirical support to the claim that hostility linked to Israel and Zionism has intensified, particularly among younger people, university cohorts, and sections of the progressive left. Organisations such as the ECAJ, CSG, AUJS and the Zionist Federation would likely see his findings as corroborating what they describe as a hostile social climate. The same would apply to the Special Envoy Against Antisemitism (ASECA).

In particular, the very high agreement levels among younger respondents on questions comparing Israel with Nazi Germany would likely be interpreted by many communal witnesses as morally alarming and psychologically threatening, regardless of Markus’s caution about classification.

Yet it is likely that many young people have little else to compare Gaza to, propaganda aside. If Israel presents itself as a democratic state, then younger (and even older) observers cannot necessarily be expected to draw parallels with Sudan, Yemen or elsewhere, because those conflicts are not experienced in “real time” in the same way. They reach instead for European historical parallels, though it is a pity that many appear unfamiliar with the Balkan Wars. Even then, had they drawn parallels with ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, it is likely that similar accusations of blood libel or delegitimisation would still have emerged from Israel and local defenders.

Many Zionists would also focus heavily on Markus’s correlations. His evidence that some respondents who endorse strong anti-Israel narratives also endorse classical antisemitic tropes — such as Jewish media power or Holocaust manipulation— would likely be treated as confirming a central argument advanced repeatedly during the hearings: namely, that anti-Zionism can function in practice as a contemporary vehicle for antisemitism.

Yet other aspects of Markus’s testimony may prove uncomfortable for parts of the Jewish community. Throughout the hearings he repeatedly refused categorical equivalence between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. He insisted that context matters, that anti-Israel responses are not necessarily antisemitic, and that humanitarian concern may explain at least some of the attitudes revealed in the surveys.

For more hardline advocates of expansive IHRA interpretations — especially those who regard anti-Zionism itself as inherently antisemitic because it denies Jewish self-determination — Markus’s reluctance to make that leap may appear evasive, insufficiently firm, and politically weak. He treats anti-Israel hostility sociologically and contextually rather than as automatic proof of racial hatred.

This reveals a deeper tension running through the Royal Commission itself. Markus’s evidence partly supports the communal narrative that hostility toward Israel and Zionism has become entangled with antisemitism in some progressive political spaces. But it also places important limits on that narrative by insisting on ambiguity, contextual interpretation, and the legitimacy of at least some anti-Zionist or strongly anti-Israel political positions.

How the Left Might View Markus

Many on the left would likely view Markus in similarly ambivalent terms. Some would acknowledge that he is considerably more careful and intellectually serious than witnesses who simply collapse anti-Zionism into antisemitism. They would note that he repeatedly refuses to classify Greens voters or younger pro-Palestinian activists as inherently antisemitic, and that he explicitly recognises humanitarian concern, anti-colonial politics, and moral outrage about Gaza as important drivers of contemporary political sentiment.

At the same time, many left critics would remain deeply suspicious of the broader framework within which his evidence operates. The very existence of an “anti-Zionist antisemitism subscale” would be seen by some as ideologically loaded, subtly constructing anti-Zionist politics as inherently suspect even while verbally denying simple equivalence. Others would argue that the surveys risk pathologising intense opposition to Israeli policy while paying far less attention to anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, or the political effects of the Gaza war itself within Australian society.

This view certainly appears in arguments that the focus on antisemitism in Australia functions as a diversion from the crimes in Gaza or from other endemic forms of racism that are viewed as equally serious, or worse. However, this response can itself become blinkered. The Royal Commission exists because the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil targeted Jews, not another group. Had it targeted Muslims, one would expect a similarly high-level inquiry, though there would no doubt still be fierce debate over its terms of reference.

Despite this, activists and anti-colonial thinkers would likely reject the suggestion that elevated hostility toward Israel among younger cohorts is evidence of latent antisemitism. Instead, they would interpret it as reflecting a generational political realignment shaped by social media exposure to Gaza, distrust of established institutions, and the growing influence of colonial-settlelr frameworks. From that perspective, Markus’s findings would not necessarily reveal a resurgence of classical prejudice so much as a profound collapse in younger Australians’ willingness to accept older Zionist narratives about Israel and Jewish security, as well as drawing a parallel, between colonization and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Australian history. Anger over here can become anger for over there.

More theoretically minded critics on the left would also probably focus on Markus’s use of potentially woolly correlations. They would argue that overlap between anti-Israel attitudes and antisemitic tropes does not itself establish ideological equivalence or causation. In their view, contemporary political cultures are often shaped by broader anti-establishment distrust, conspiratorial thinking, anger at Western power structures, and polarised online discourse. Markus’s evidence, they might argue, sometimes risks interpreting all such clustering primarily through an antisemitism lens. Similar problems emerge in some of the monitoring and incident reports produced by Jewish organisations.

Yet even many critics on the left would probably concede that Markus identifies something real and politically uncomfortable: namely, that some on the left can, at times, become dismissive of Jewish fear, tolerant of conspiratorial rhetoric, or morally absolutist in ways that blur the boundary between anti-Zionism and hostility toward Jews. While such people may be relatively few in number, some receive disproportionate visibility through social media amplification. It is also worth asking whether all of them should even be described as left wing as distinct from fringe contrarian or nihilistic political actors. These are precisely the kinds of figures Naomi Klein has written about.

The Problem of Classification

In this sense, Markus’s testimony cuts both ways. It lends support to the proposition that antisemitism can emerge within progressive or fringe political environments and that some anti-Zionist discourse can become entangled with antisemitic narratives. But it also implicitly rebukes simplistic or inflationary claims that collapse all intense opposition to Israeli policy into hatred of Jews.

All this has implications not only for debate about the left, but also for the increasing split within Jewish communities here and overseas. If anti-Zionism or radical criticism of Israel is not automatically reducible to antisemitism, or merely a product of Greens-style politics, then Jewish critics of Israeli policy cannot simply be dismissed as self-hating or beyond the communal pale. Perhaps they are operating from defensible moral frameworks, even if the language can sometimes be crude and the proposed solutions unrealistic.

Consequently, the significant problem raised by Markus’s evidence is not whether antisemitism exists — clearly it does — but whether contemporary frameworks, including the allegedly advisory IHRA definition, are capable of distinguishing between fundamentally different kinds of phenomena. Increasingly, political anger about Israel, anti-colonial ideology, online outrage, offensive rhetoric, intimidation, and explicit anti-Jewish hatred risk being aggregated into a single moral and statistical category. That may produce emotionally powerful narratives that mobilise fear and communal solidarity, but it can also blur analytical boundaries and distort public understanding.

Markus himself repeatedly retreats to the language of “patterns”, “correlations” and “context”. That caution matters because surveys do not simply measure antisemitism in a neutral or objective sense. They interpret complex political and emotional responses through classificatory frameworks that are themselves contested. The issue is therefore not simply whether antisemitism is rising, but how contemporary institutions define, categorise and interpret hostility connected to Israel, Zionism and Jewish identity.

The risks are not merely conceptual. Once expansive definitions become institutionalised through universities, government agencies, monitoring systems and public discourse, contested political positions can gradually become reclassified as forms of ethnic or racial hostility. That has profound implications not only for Palestine activism, but also for academic freedom, democratic dissent, and the future boundaries of legitimate political speech in Australia.

Ultimately, Markus’s testimony highlights the central challenge facing the Royal Commission: whether it is capable of distinguishing between antisemitism, political extremism, emotional overreach, anti-colonial ideology, online amplification, and legitimate — if sometimes harsh or offensive — political dissent.

Note: I watched all of Andrew Marcus, but also worked with the hearing transcript and AI in data analysis. The image is AI generated.

I have downloaded the Royal Commission transcripts for 4–12 May, together with witness statements currently available for 4–9 May. Some expert witness materials and transcripts are still missing, including portions of the evidence of Andre Oboler, Andrew Marcus and Dave Rich. Nevertheless, clear themes, assumptions and tensions are already emerging. Note that data analysis and writing have been assisted by AI, but the orientation and final analysis has been determined by me. The image above is AI. All errors are my responsibility.

The first hearing block of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion presented a detailed and emotionally powerful account of Jewish insecurity in contemporary Australia. Across Hearing Days 1, 2, 3 and 5, witnesses described experiences ranging from explicit antisemitic abuse and physical intimidation to online hostility, school bullying, social exclusion and fear following the events of 7 October 2023 and the Bondi attack.

As the hearings progressed, the evidence increasingly forms a cumulative narrative of civic deterioration, institutional weakness and psychological insecurity. This cannot simply be dismissed because many witnesses hold Zionist views, nor does it mean all claims are necessarily accurate. That is precisely what the Royal Commission must assess.

One concern is the lack of clarity about how Justice Bell intends to evaluate the validity and representativeness of the evidence presented. Some expert witnesses, including Andrew Marcus and Dave Rich, were questioned about the relationship between antisemitism and Zionism, but the broader methodological direction of the Commission still remains unclear. Questions also remain about witness selection and what constituencies or viewpoints the hearings are intended to represent.

The witness material nonetheless contains substantial evidence of explicit antisemitism not reducible to debates about Israel or Zionism. Witnesses described swastikas, Nazi salutes, Holocaust mockery, conspiracy tropes and direct anti-Jewish abuse. Schools emerged as a particularly important site of concern. Witnesses recounted students yelling “dirty Jew,” saying “Hitler didn’t finish the job,” performing Nazi salutes during Holocaust lessons and circulating antisemitic memes. Several described weak or inconsistent responses from schools and administrators.

One significant contribution came from a non-Jewish teacher in Tasmania who described casual antisemitic language and Nazi symbolism becoming routine in schools with almost no Jewish students. This suggests that some contemporary antisemitism functions not only through Israel-related politics but also through broader youth cultures of transgression, internet meme culture and symbolic rebellion.

A recurring theme throughout the hearings was identity concealment. Witnesses described hiding Jewish symbols, avoiding public identification as Jewish, changing transport behaviour and concealing synagogue destinations from Uber drivers. Such behaviour reflects anticipatory insecurity rather than merely reactions to direct victimisation. Many Jews already live with a degree of latent concern about antisemitism, something that may surprise non-Jewish Australians.

Holocaust memory and intergenerational trauma formed one of the dominant interpretive frameworks through which many witnesses understood current events. Family histories involving Auschwitz, Soviet antisemitism and refugee migration appeared repeatedly throughout the testimony. For many witnesses, contemporary hostility was interpreted through the lens of historical warning signs and accumulated collective memory.

This helps explain the emotionally heightened and sometimes existential rhetoric that appeared throughout the hearings. Deborah Conway described anti-Zionism as “a genocidal impulse,” while Jillian Segal warned that antisemitism had become “almost fashionable” among young Australians. Other witnesses suggested that “history is repeating” or that Australia may no longer remain safe for Jewish life. Alex Ryvchin reportedly warned, in relation to escalating hostility and violence, “I think that’s the trajectory that we’re on.” Some witnesses spoke of “the writing being on the wall” for Jewish Australians, while others implied that contemporary Australia was beginning to resemble earlier historical periods of societal breakdown and moral indifference toward Jews.

Statements suggesting that anti-Zionism is inherently genocidal, that antisemitism has become culturally fashionable, or that Australia may be approaching conditions analogous to pre-Holocaust Europe involved particularly strong forms of historical and social generalisation. The hearings occasionally moved quickly from:

• personal experiences of hostility;

• to broader claims about Australian society;

• and then toward existential or civilisational narratives.

This does not mean the witnesses were insincere. Much of the testimony clearly emerged from genuine fear, trauma and historical consciousness. However, comparisons with pre-Holocaust Europe or claims that anti-Zionism is inherently genocidal risk collapsing distinctions between:

• localised hostility;

• online amplification;

• political conflict;

• and systemic societal breakdown.

This is where careful evidence becomes essential. At present there is evidence of disturbing incidents, but also a danger of conflating highly different phenomena — from stickers and slogans to violence and terrorism — into a single undifferentiated narrative. What is Justice Bell to make of all of this? It is very unclear.

At the centre of much of the testimony was the relationship between antisemitism, Zionism and Jewish identity. Many witnesses presented Zionism not simply as a political ideology but as deeply connected to Jewish continuity, collective survival and post-Holocaust security. Within this framework, anti-Zionism is often experienced not as ordinary political disagreement but as existential negation.

This strong Zionist orientation is analytically important because it shapes how many witnesses perceive events. Criticism of Israel or Zionism may therefore be experienced as antisemitic even when others interpret it as political or anti-colonial speech. This does not make the witnesses dishonest; it reflects the influence of deeply held historical and ideological frameworks.

The hearings also revealed a major belief that contemporary antisemitism increasingly originates not only from the far right but from sections of the progressive left, particularly within universities, activist movements and Palestine solidarity politics. Many witnesses argued that anti-Zionism had become the dominant contemporary vehicle for hostility toward Jews. Universities and progressive institutions were frequently portrayed as reluctant to confront antisemitism because of ideological sympathy for Palestinian causes or because Jews were increasingly viewed through “oppressor” frameworks.

At the same time, the hearings often moved quickly from:

• specific activist incidents;

• protest rhetoric;

• or institutional failures

to sweeping conclusions about “the left” more broadly. Little attention was given to:

• diversity within progressive movements;

• Jewish non-, anti- or post-Zionist perspectives;

• distinctions between anti-colonial critique and antisemitism;

• or the possibility that some progressive spaces may oppose racism while still producing exclusionary effects.

The hearings also gave limited attention to comparative racism frameworks. Some witnesses acknowledged Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and broader intercommunal tensions, but these perspectives were not central. Palestinian experiences were largely absent except as political context. This produced a hearing structure heavily focused on Jewish vulnerability, Jewish memory and Jewish insecurity.

The hearings therefore risk creating an asymmetrical hierarchy of visibility in which Jewish fear is foregrounded while Muslim and Palestinian experiences and those of others remain peripheral to government concerns. That is not what is needed. It should be made clear that there is an underbelly of racism in Australia, and what is being told is part of a broader problem. With One Nation about to wreak havoc and the Liberals going further to the right, we have good reason to be worried about racism being directed at other communities, and xenophobia in general.

Another major issue concerned online amplification. Witnesses repeatedly described social media environments saturated with hostility, conspiracy theories and emotionally charged content. Yet online environments are shaped by algorithmic amplification and emotion, making it difficult to determine how representative such material is of broader Australian society, distressing as such material can be.

The Royal Commission consequently faces several major challenges.

First, it must distinguish between:

• explicit antisemitic hatred;

• anti-Zionism;

• political protest;

• symbolic intimidation;

• online amplification;

• and subjective insecurity.

Second, it must avoid collapsing incidents of very different severity into a single statistical narrative.

Third, it must balance empathy for genuine Jewish fear with methodological rigour.

Fourth, it must preserve democratic space for legitimate political disagreement about Israel and Palestine while still responding seriously to antisemitic hostility.

Finally, if the Commission genuinely wishes to address “social cohesion,” it will need a broader comparative framework engaging more seriously with:

• Muslim insecurity; anti-Palestinian racism and other racisms;

• intercommunal polarisation;

• and reciprocal dynamics of fear.

Overall, the hearings reveal substantial evidence of genuine antisemitic abuse, institutional weakness and widespread Jewish insecurity. Holocaust memory and historical trauma clearly shape how many witnesses interpret contemporary events. At the same time, the hearings also reveal persistent tensions involving anti-Zionism, symbolic hostility, political generalisation, emotional amplification and empirical classification. The central challenge for the Royal Commission will be determining how to recognise genuine antisemitic harm while maintaining analytical precision, transparency and protection of democratic political expression.

I just wish that Justice Bell made it more clear as to how she is going to account for other viewpoints. It is of particular concern that she has given no direct indication that the RC will take into account the views of both Jews and supporters of Palestine who put a different interpretation on a number of events. If in fact the RC feels that it has or will take those views into account, then there has been very little transparency and the matter is lost in a legal fog.

This is driving the deep suspicion and outright accusations about the purpose and conduct of the RC from elements of the left who believe that it is basically a tool to suppress Palestinian advocacy and free speech. In fact, some of the stuff online is just awful. This anger probably also accounts for the somewhat dismissive view about racism towards Jews, as if the horrors of Bondi can be dismissed because they provide “context” on Australian soil.

There are about 6 months to go for the RC. It’s got the message about how the Jewish mainstream feels about things. Now it needs to also hear from others, whose views are not all the same, either.

What has struck me most so far is the very limited amount of clarificatory or probing questioning in the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion by Justice Bell herself. Is much of this testimony simply being taken at face value? At this point, it is entirely unclear to me what her intentions are.

The only witness who was really subjected to sustained questioning, even mildly, was Jeremy Leibler, and even then he was still largely permitted to go full throttle. Were his statements being treated as fact or opinion? There was little real interrogation. Nor was there any serious exploration of whether the political stance taken by Leibler — and the close alignment of some organisations with the Israeli government — might itself help explain part of the hostility being discussed.

Frankly, a number of witnesses sounded as though they had been coached to deliver almost identical formulations about Zionism, Israel as the eternal homeland, Jewish identity and security. Palestinians were barely mentioned, if at all. Criticising the existence of Israel as a state was frequently treated as effectively equivalent to antisemitism itself.

The repeated attempt by some community leaders and individuals to claim there is no meaningful connection between the organised Jewish community and the actions of the Israeli government strikes me as hollow. The very purpose of many Zionist organisations is to support the State of Israel, and we know there has been fundraising connected to the current war effort. Pretending there is no influential political or institutional relationship at all — or that Australian Jewish organisations have no influence or access — has simply not been truthful. The Lobby was, in fact, on display throughout the hearings, and Leibler himself was quite forthcoming about his relationship with the Israeli government and, unconsciously perhaps, his own privileged status.

Michael Gawenda, the retired and at times somewhat embittered former journalist, was also questioned, though at times his testimony was so meandering that the questioning seemed more about keeping him on track than testing his claims. Given the broad basket of grievances he raised, it is surprising that someone like Louise Adler was not invited to offer a perspective on the cultural industries and the silencing of dissenting voices — even if I do not agree with Adler on everything either.

Similarly, Jill Segal, despite claiming to understand the distinction between antisemitism and opposition to Israel, appeared far too willing to collapse matters such as student protests and encampments into antisemitism simply because they caused distress or disruption. She referred repeatedly to commissioned research reports that, frankly, would struggle badly under peer review. Yet many of her core assumptions passed without serious challenge. She also claimed to have consulted widely across the Jewish community. That was news to me. She also made claims about ״foreign actors״ or “foreigners” on campuses including Iranian funding. It’s the first time I have heard that one. I will need to check the transcript, but the RC is slow.

At the same time, some of the testimony was genuinely disturbing, and I found parts of it deeply distressing — particularly accounts involving isolated Jewish children in schools after October 7, and especially after the Bondi Junction stabbings. The level of fear and trauma described by some Sydney witnesses was palpable. Some people clearly feel danger everywhere now; they are traumatised. I suspect many were children of Holocaust survivors.

Left-wing sceptics who dismiss concerns about antisemitism altogether should actually listen to some of this testimony, particularly witnesses such as Steph Cuneo speaking about antisemitism within progressive circles (conflict of interest: she’s a mate). She was right to raise the lack of solidarity shown towards Jewish progressives , gaslighting, and lack of interest or recognition of the joint Jewish–Palestinian left in Israel/Palestine. Others also spoke about hostility or exclusion experienced in workplaces after October 7. At the same time, with some witnesses it remained unclear whether they were able to distinguish consistently between antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel sentiment.

Furthermore, complain as we might about the need to engage in a Royal Commission into other forms of racism, it is the Jewish community at which murder was directed. That should not be forgotten. Royal Commission or not, we need to understand what is going on to cause this.

None of this justifies stereotyping the Jewish community as a whole or delegitimising Jewish safety concerns. Yet clearly that narrative exists and circulates widely. Overland, for example, has recently published articles that, in my view, ultimately assign Jews a diminished or suspect status as a white settler colonial community with undeserved attention..

I reject claims that Jews or Zionists collectively bear responsibility for the actions of the Israeli government. Nor am I endorsing campaigns against institutions and individuals, some of which have been completely out of bounds. At the same time, I do think there is truth in one point repeatedly raised by witnesses: some anti-Zionist circles have produced an astonishingly simplistic, know-it-all analysis of Jewish history and identity, often displaying little historical understanding or empathy for the awful dilemmas faced by Jews in the twentieth century around the world — notwithstanding the terrible injustices inflicted upon Palestinians in the name of Jewish security. At times this has drifted into antisemitic tropes or broader forms of group stigmatisation.

I am also concerned that, as far as I know, only the Jewish Council of Australia has been invited to present a substantially different or dissenting perspective, apart from perhaps one or two individual witnesses. There are many distinguished people with more complex or heterodox views who do not appear to have been called. Perhaps that will change. I hope so. But at present the range of perspectives feels remarkably narrow. It would seem entirely reasonable, for example, to hear from people such as Dennis Altman or Robert Manne.

There is also little clarity about how the Commission intends to assess the evidentiary merit of the enormous volume of submissions it has received. I suspect many will contain sweeping allegations about schools, universities, media organisations, cultural institutions, and political movements.

At this point, I honestly do not know whether the Royal Commission is capable of distinguishing between verified incidents, subjective or mistaken perceptions, political commentary, and antisemitism — or between statistical inflation and empirical reality, including the flawed datasets repeatedly invoked to blame “the left” as the primary source of the problem.

But large numbers of similar submissions do not automatically establish truth.

What is undeniable, however, is that many people are frightened and distressed by the level of public anger surrounding the Gaza war. Jews who visibly identify themselves — for example by wearing kippot — often feel highly vulnerable. There have been appalling and unacceptable incidents, particularly involving children, alongside traumatic events such as Bondi.

Yet collapsing political anger, ugly rhetoric, stickers, social media abuse, protests, and isolated incidents into claims of a generalised outbreak of antisemitism runs against what social science research — at least internationally — generally tells us about the overwhelming majority of protesters, who are neither antisemitic nor violent.

There has also been aggregation of vastly different kinds of events, ranging from stickers and verbal abuse to serious violence. The number of violent incidents appears relatively small, though still deeply disturbing — with Bondi in a category of its own. But when large numbers of low-level incidents are aggregated together with a relatively small number of violent attacks, the result can begin to look like a massive societal eruption of antisemitism. That may be misleading. Incidents do not necessarily demonstrate broad social pervasiveness or widespread endorsement of antisemitic attitudes.

And then there is the sewer of social media, which should not be treated as representative of society at large. Yet many people increasingly seem to treat it that way, rather than recognising it as an amplifying machine capable of magnifying the worst material imaginable. I suspect the Commission will focus heavily on the responsibilities of social media companies, at least in relation to antisemitism, even though the underlying problem is obviously much broader than antisemitism alone.

The whole dataset needs reassessment, and I genuinely do not know whether the Royal Commission is capable of undertaking that kind of methodological scrutiny. At times there has been remarkably little examination of claims of the sort one might expect in a more rigorous legal or evidentiary setting.

I remain baffled. I hope I am wrong. I hope the next round of hearings involve greater diversity of opinion and a greater willingness to interrogate political assumptions — including recurring claims that the State of Israel is simply the contemporary fulfilment of an ancient yearning. There is an enormous amount to say about that proposition and, above all, about its consequences for Palestinians, which have often been appalling.

So what should people on the left make of all this?

They need to be capable of hearing some of what is emerging from the Commission without simply collapsing into defensive anti-Zionist reflexes or dismissing everything as propaganda. There is a real problem in this country. There are influential elements of the left that have shown little empathy for many Jews who are grieving, frightened, or isolated, and who are not themselves associated with genocide or war.

Grievances about imperialism and settler colonialism have too often collapsed into a generalised hostility towards a labelled Zionism that easily slides into simplistic, patronising, and insulting analyses of the “Jewish Question”. If sections of the left were genuinely serious about opposing antisemitism, it should have been obvious from the outset that they needed to avoid rhetoric and tropes that risked invoking precisely that spectre. Too often they have failed to do so.

Back to the Royal Commission itself: if Justice Bell ultimately hears and absorbs evidence primarily from one side, and if the Commission staff follow that trajectory, then the outcome could become a politically divisive and methodologically flawed mess that may actually worsen the problem it claims to address.

I am fiercely opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza, the occupation, and the broader thrust of the Zionist project. I am equally opposed to campaigns that silence Palestinian voices, punish dissent, or blacklist critics of Israeli policy. I have said so publicly for years and worn the consequences for doing so. But opposition to injustice does not require descending into prejudice or encouraging it. On the contrary, it should make one more alert to it.

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That is why Abdel-Fattah’s speech matters.

In her Jerusalem Prize address, awarded by the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network and republished in Mondoweiss, Randa Abdel-Fattah spoke passionately about Palestinian dispossession, censorship, and the destruction of life and culture in Gaza. Much of that anguish is real and deserves to be heard. But alongside those legitimate themes, parts of the speech also leaned on rhetoric about Jews, communal power, and privilege in Australia.

The implication was unmistakable: that Australian Jews, as a community, are collectively bound up with Israeli crimes and beneficiaries of suspect influence. She says, in a strongly Foucauldian turn, “Zionist hunting operates as a technology of power that seeks to survey, neutralize and ultimately eliminate Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices from public life”.

That is where political critique gives way to something uglier.

“The Jewish community gets millions”

Her blunt takeaway line is this: “The Jewish community gets millions in government funding.”

That is not a critique of a grant program. It is not an examination of policy settings. It is not even serious institutional analysis. It is a communal accusation.

Words like these do not float harmlessly in the air. They create impressions and pictures in people’s minds. They echo old and ugly tropes: Jews as collectively influential, Jews as unusually favoured, Jews as a network able to secure rewards through covert power. One need not utter a conspiracy theory outright. Suggestion and insinuation do the work perfectly well.

Forget about the contested IHRA. She risks crossing lines identified in both the AJDS–APAN statement and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Criticise Israel. Criticise Zionism. Criticise particular lobby groups, donors, governments, institutions — all fair game. But once “the Jewish community” is invoked as a singular beneficiary class or coordinated political actor, one is edging into collective stereotyping. That is not brave truth-telling. It is incendiary politics.

Museums, arts and culture — or a hit list?

One section of the speech turns to museums, arts and culture. Abdel-Fattah notes government support for Jewish cultural institutions, then contrasts that support with the destruction of Palestinian cultural life in Gaza and the need for Palestinians in Australia to rely on crowdfunding.

Jewish museums, Holocaust education programs, a Yiddish cultural organisation founded in 1921, and a proposed local arts precinct are paraded not simply as grant recipients from government and an evil philanthropic family but as evidence of communal privilege somehow morally implicated in Gaza (the same family has given over $200 million to local hospitals and charities). That leap from local institutions to war crimes in Gaza is never properly argued because it cannot be argued.

Public grants are always open to scrutiny. Some may be worthwhile, others wasteful, others debatable. I have my own doubts about aspects of publicly funded Jewish projects. We can also argue about the ethics and politics of philanthropists. But that is an entirely different matter from insinuating that Jewish cultural institutions are tainted because Israel is committing atrocities abroad.

What we see in the speech is not analysis. It is associative guilt.

The $57 million claim — and the missing context

Most revealing of all is Abdel-Fattah’s invocation of the $57 million granted to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a familiar bête noire in anti-Zionist circles, in this discussion of culture. I’ve certainly lobbed more than a few critical words in the direction of the ECAJ over the years.

To cite that amount of money while suppressing the context is no small omission. It is the crux of the matter. The audience’s ears would have pricked up hearing about a $57 million handout with no explanation other than the implication it was for a Zionist organisation, and linked to the hunting down of critics, including Palestinians. Aha!

In fact, she neglected to explain what it was for. That money was emergency security funding distributed across roughly 300 organisations nationwide after escalating threats and attacks. It helped pay for guards, cameras, fencing, alarms, secure entrances, and protection for schools, synagogues, childcare centres, and community buildings. Or are these threats fake and Bondi not to be taken seriously? Even the Australian Human Rights Commission which has been heavily criticized by the ECAJ and others for lack of empathy towards the Jewish community, takes the threats and anxieties of the Jewish community (and Palestinians and Muslims) seriously.

Nor was there any mention in the speech that the National Imams Council and Muslim communities have received or are receiving at least $25 million in comparable security support, alongside other funds for community services. We can argue that amount was insufficient. I would. But omission cuts both ways. If public funding is your evidence of structural bias, then all relevant funding must be on the table. Randa Abdel-Fattah is both a senior academic and a lawyer. She should know about putting facts on the table. She could have checked the funding allocations which are publicly available.

When anti-Zionism becomes something else

Criticism of Zionism, Israeli governments, occupation, settlement expansion, and war crimes is entirely legitimate as is criticism of local Zionist organizations including the ECAJ. Or the Zionist Federation of Australia. I’ve done so for years, and been defamed and vilified for it.

But when “Zionist” becomes catch-all term for moral contamination — applied to vast numbers of Jews and Israelis regardless of what they actually think or do — it stops functioning as political language and becomes a dehumanising label. Jewish institutions become “Zionist institutions”. Jewish donors become “Zionist money”. Criminality as if other donors are not to be associated with blood money. Jewish anxieties become fake “Zionist fragility” that deserve no empathy, as Abdel-Fattah has said elsewhere. Real non-Zionist Jews, persecuted by Zionists deserve empathy. Evil Zionists don’t. Jewish communal life becomes suspect by default.

Jews are not a bloc

Australian Jews are not one machine, one donor network, one ideology, or one-party line. They range across the political spectrum. Many wear multiple hats and hold contradictory views. Many support Palestinian statehood. Many think there is genocide. Many want nothing to do with communal politics at all. Many are alienated and distressed. There are massive splits in the Jewish community. Criticize particular organizations. Get your facts right.

To flatten all that into “the Jewish community” as a singular recipient of money and influence peddler is not merely offensive. It is intellectually shoddy. Yet such a view mirrors the same collective logic anti-racists claim to oppose everywhere else.

Why this matters for the Palestinian cause

Because this speech was published in Mondoweiss, these claims now circulate globally. This was not a stray or accidental remark or a clumsy post dashed off in anger. It was a crafted intervention by a gifted writer.

That should trouble everyone committed to Palestinian rights and anti-racism. The left should be prepared to speak out against this kind of activity.

The Palestinian cause is weakened when legitimate outrage is mixed with racist insinuation. It is weakened when real grievances are wrapped in rhetoric opponents can readily identify as prejudice. It is weakened when solidarity reaches for old stereotypes and collective blaming.

Justice loses credibility when it plays with prejudice.

[AI-generated image]

I spent some today, aided by AI, examining the new Victorian Jewish Community Security Group (CSG) 2024 Victorian Antisemitism Report. As part of this, I read and interrogated the textual contents and I converted the pdf tables of incidents in the report into Excel spreadsheets for analytical purposes.As deeper background, I used other research, including analyses of like and unlike reports and various analytical frameworks that have resulted in 18 variables that can be used to investigate the quality of such reports. Only the AI augmentation device can do that and this has allowed me to interrogate the data more closely and at a speed than would otherwise not be possible. AI can be useful, if used carefully.1

The CSG report also discusses other events such as the incidence of campus antisemitism, but I will leave that for another time because there are also serious methodological issues that limit the utility of that campus-focused research.

I keep the remarks here relatively general, as a full analysis would be considerably longer and take a few days (sorry!) I have don’t have much to say about the reporting of Nazi and related traditional antisemitic hate by CSG. We need this sort of data for obvious reasons. Clear hate against Jews, is on the increase and Gaza or not, it is unacceptable. And I’m sure that some of the perpetrators couldn’t give a damn about Gazans, but just hate Jews. Enough said on that front.

That element of the report is broadly clear and aligns with widely understood definitions of antisemitism.

What’s the problem?

The difficulty arises when the CSG report moves beyond this domain and makes broader claims, particularly in relation to Israel/Palestine and the attribution of incidents to the “far left.” Its data is drawn from incidents reported from a variety of sources across Melbourne and into other parts of the state. Since numbers of incidents of the sort being discussed here outside of a few municipalities, the discussion below only concerns areas Port Phillip, Glen Eira or Stonnington (where most Jews live) and “Northside” municipalities, where there is a lot of left activity.

Whereas prior to October 7, antisemitism related to Israel-Palestine accounted for just 8% of incidents, in 2024 this had ballooned to 59% of all incidents. The 325 antisemitic incidents which explicitly referenced Israel, Zionism or Palestine in 2024 represents a 1,377% like-for-like increase on 2022, illustrating that antisemitic rhetoric has shifted since October 7, 2023. Antisemitism linked to Israel Palestine is now the dominant form of anti-Jewish hate in Victoria. This report does not consider criticism of Israel to be antisemitic.

How to interpret this claim? A diagram helps.

Seeing incidents via this set of boxes, the claims look very different: the “far left” category sits inside a relatively small subset of incidents that have already been selected from a much larger pool through an unseen classification process.

• Outer box (1,883 100%) → all Israel/Jews-related incidents reported

• Excluded (1,558 / 82.7%)→ the majority, classified as not antisemitic

• Included (325 / 17.3%) → those counted as antisemitic

• “Far left” (~297 53.8 %)→ a subset of that Included group.

At first glance the claim “Antisemitism linked to Israel Palestine is now the dominant form of anti-Jewish hate in Victoria” is striking. But this claim has to be unpacked. In fact, the CSG/JCCV report represents an ideological shift in the interpretation of reported antisemitic incident data. The 2023 report provides a useful baseline in this regard: it identified incidents across a range of ideological sources ( roughly Islamist, far right, left etc). but avoided strong claims of dominance or causal transformation. By contrast, the 2024 report advances a much more assertive position—that “far-left antisemitism” is both predominant and a key driver of the overall increase in incidents. The “far left” is, in effect, positioned as the central explanatory category2.

Undefined Left Bashing

But the term “far left” itself, is never clearly defined in operational terms, though it is associated with hate, as in the quote above . But it remains unclear whether “far left” refers to identifiable individuals, organised groups, loosely affiliated protest participants, or broader political environments. Is it Green Left, members of the Greens, ALP Left Faction, various shadowy anarchic groups? Nothing is made clear. No criteria are provided for assigning ideological affiliation/hatred—whether based on self-identification, organisational links, expressed beliefs, or contextual inference. In practice, classification appears to be inferred from context—particularly participation in Israel/Palestine-related forms of discourse—rather than based on verifiable indicators.

This creates a risk of category inflation, where diverse phenomena are aggregated under a single label, and definitional drift, where the meaning of the category expands across stages of analysis. It also reinforces the possibility of perception drift, whereby incidents occurring within a protest setting are taken to characterize the setting itself and this then gets political and media amplification. We can’t mind read the intention of all protesters, particularly at very large events where a wide range of protesters are likely to be present. Thus, if one person holds up an ISIS or flag and another holds a poster of the (now dead) Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as happened on the Sydney Harbour Bridge march, is it possible to claim that all there were associated with extreme hatred? Yet that is what happens. Contrast that with a renegade preacher clearly preaching hate in a prayer hall. The key analytical boundary—between political expression and antisemitism and hatred in different—is has to be judged carefully. Context is everything. At times, it can be opaque, as certainly occurs with certain slogans that while clearly offensive to many, or potentially incitement and politically stupid, are not necessarily antisemitic (I include here Death to Israel, Intifadah Revolution, From the River to the Sea). And as a side note, there is no reference to current Australian legal rulings on hate/political speech in the CSG report. That should be relevant to any future coding activity by any Australian Jewish organisation.

So what are the incidents within the framework they propose? Unpacking the 325 incidents, I came up with:

This diagram shows that most incidents are low-severity* but high-volume, such as verbal abuse, graffiti, and stickering—and these categories account for the largest share of incidents overall. It also shows that the “far left” subset is heavily concentrated within these same categories, rather than in higher-severity incidents like assault or threats. In other words, the apparent predominance of “far-left antisemitism” is driven mainly by how large numbers of lower-level, more interpretive incidents are classified.

* The category of ‘verbal abuse’ is not explained in the report as to what precisely is meant3. Of course verbal violence is a very serious matter but given the considerable controversy over what constitutes political discussion versus antisemitism, there is a possibility that because of the use of IHRA (International Holocaust Alliance) and coding ‘culture’, some of what is claimed as verbal abuse has been in fact been strong, even offensive and distressing, but not necessarily antisemitic protest language. It may not in fact be “politically” severe, distressing as it can be. The issue is highly interpretative, and recent court decisions in Australia underscore this point. Thus for both the Jerusalem Declaration (JDA) or the Nexus Document (JD), strong, even insulting and stupid language isn’t always necessarily antisemitic, however upsetting the political message is.

But this is only part of the story. The report has excluded 1,558 incidents, because they don’t meet the antisemitism threshold. But we are never told what the threshold is. As stated above, we don’t have an explanation of their coding methodology and/or lexicon of acceptable/non-acceptable discourse. In fact, AI was great at prompting me to ask logically - what did the excluded 1,558 likely contain?

There is a clue - once you look at the structure of the included dataset—dominated by verbal abuse, graffiti, stickering, and other low-level, often Israel-related expression—and combine that with the report’s own claim that it excludes “anti-Israel but not antisemitic” material, the shape of the excluded set becomes unavoidable. The excluded reported incidents must consist largely of protest slogans, political criticism of Israel, online discourse, and a significant number of borderline or ambiguous cases where interpretation is doing the work. But this is where the real issue lies: the split between the 1,558 excluded and the 325 included implicitly encodes a decision rule about what counts as antisemitism—and that rule is never made explicit. It is hidden in the classification process itself. The implications are significant. The report’s headline findings do not simply reflect behaviour in the world; they reflect how that hidden rule has been applied. AI came up with this wisdom: AI came up with this wisdom: Change the rule, even slightly, and the composition of the dataset—and therefore the conclusions about “far-left antisemitism”—could look very different.

In fact, the report defines antisemitism through a set of criteria that include anti-Jewish hatred, intimidation of individuals perceived as Jewish, support for extremist ideologies targeting Jews, the use of Holocaust or Nazi comparisons in relation to Israel or Zionism, and anti-Israel hostility directed at Jewish individuals or institutions solely because they are Jewish. All this is based on the IHRA and examples) . IHRA is being used prescriptively if these narrow terms are followed. The interpretive and coding process is nowhere outlined in the report, and what language is in or out. Which leads to a problem. Is calling Israel an apartheid state or genocidal interpreted under one of the above categories. That is really a problem because apartheid and genocide are words that are now very in the public sphere and apartheid (hafradah in Hebrew) has been current in Israel itself for a long time.

Thus some of the examples coded as “far left” are likely to have fallen under the contested categories of IHRA. Yet while IHRA provides a broad conceptual framework, was is not intended as a formal coding instrument and contains contested examples in relation to Israel. As I said the report does not explain how IHRA was operationalised in practice, nor how ambiguity is resolved. Classification therefore appears to rely significantly on subjective judgement, especially in cases involving political speech or symbolic expression. We don’t see a decision-making tree or coding lexicono for types of acceptable/non-acceptable language.

The composition of the dataset further amplifies these concerns. The majority of incidents fall into low-severity categories, such as verbal abuse, graffiti, stickers and online messaging. These categories account for a substantial proportion of all incidents and are also those most sensitive to definitional interpretation.

The heat map analysis based on using the IHRA interpretation of antisemitism demonstrates that these forms of conduct are included under IHRA-based interpretations according to its use by the CSG. Under the JDA or Nexus they would be treated as low to moderate depending on the content and context.

By contrast, high-severity incidents—such as threats and assaults—are more consistently classified across frameworks and are less dependent on interpretation and no definition would have problem with these (or arson, or other dreadful violence).

What I have also done is map this onto the location of incidents. This pattern. is made clear in the following image. In terms of where Melbourne’s Jews live and where the “left” appears to be strongest, the findings are interesting. I suggest that the numbers in Melbourne largely related to protest-related incidents, but in fact, the actual raw data and interpretive process are critical to go any further here. Because numbers are low I have left out other parts of Melbourne and the state.

This combined heat map provides a detailed view of how incident type, location, and ideological classification (“as far left” by the CSG) intersect within the dataset. It makes visible not only where incidents occur, but also how the “far left” designation is distributed across different categories and spatial contexts.

1. Structural concentration in low-severity categories

The most immediate pattern is that the “far left” subset is overwhelmingly concentrated in low-severity (as compared to assault), high-frequency categories, particularly:

• verbal abuse

• graffiti

• stickering

These categories dominate the dataset numerically and also account for the largest share of “far left” incidents. For example, in Glen Eira, the largest single category—verbal abuse (101)—contains a substantial “far left” subset (55). Similarly, stickers and graffiti show both high totals and high proportions of “far left” classification. This indicates that the overall prominence of “far left antisemitism” is driven primarily by expression-based incidents, which are inherently more sensitive to interpretation. But being entirely subjective here, I’m asking readers out there, how active is the “far left” in Glen Eira? Does that help with properly classifying events?

2. Geographic concentration and amplification effects

The distribution is also highly spatially concentrated, with Glen Eira acting as a dominant node across nearly all categories. This concentration is not simply a matter of higher incident counts; it also amplifies the “far left” classification because large volumes of definition-sensitive incidents are clustered in a single location. Secondary clusters in Melbourne and Port Phillip show similar but less pronounced patterns.

This creates what can be described as a local amplification effect: where high-density reporting environments intersect with broad definitional thresholds, producing a disproportionate influence on overall findings. In this sense, the dataset reflects not just incident occurrence but also reporting intensity and contextual dynamics within specific urban areas.

3. Category-specific clustering (Merri-bek case)

Merri-bek provides an important contrast. Unlike Glen Eira, it does not exhibit a broad distribution across categories but is instead concentrated almost entirely in graffiti and stickering. Within these categories, however, the proportion of “far left” incidents is high. This reinforces the point that certain locations are associated with specific types of incidents, rather than generalised antisemitic activity.

This pattern is analytically significant because it demonstrates that the “far left” classification is not uniformly distributed even within locations, but is tied to particular forms of expression that are more likely to be captured under the applied definitional framework.

4. High-severity categories remain secondary

By contrast, higher-severity categories such as assault and threat are:

• smaller in total volume

• less dominant in the “far left” subset

Although “far left” incidents are present in these categories, they do not drive the overall distribution. This reinforces the broader finding that the headline result is not anchored in the most serious or unambiguous forms of antisemitic harm, but in lower-level incidents where classification is more interpretive.

5. Implications for interpretation

Taken together, these patterns support a key conclusion: the “far left” finding is structurally embedded in the composition of the dataset and how data has been classified, rather than emerging evenly across incident types or locations. It reflects the interaction of three factors:

• concentration in low-severity, high-volume categories

• geographic clustering in specific LGAs

• reliance on interpretive classification, particularly in Israel/Palestine-related contexts

In RC terms, this raises clear risks of category inflation and definitional drift, as a large number of heterogeneous incidents are aggregated under a single ideological label.

The report’s headline finding—that approximately 53.4% of incidents are attributable to the “far left”—must be understood in light of this distribution. The “far left” classification is heavily concentrated in these low-severity, high-volume categories where language interpretation and context are always issues. This indicates that the “far left” finding by the CSG is driven less by a broad pattern across all forms of antisemitic behaviour and more by how particular types of incidents are defined and classified.

The treatment of “far-right” incidents in the report also highlights an important asymmetry. Far-right antisemitism is typically identified through explicit symbols and language—such as Nazi imagery—which are stable across definitional frameworks (IHRA, JDA, Nexus). By contrast, “far-left” antisemitism is often inferred from context and association, making it more interpretive and less stable as a category.

Finally, the report introduces implicit causal claims, most notably the assertion that “far-left antisemitism” was the “driving force” behind the increase in incidents. However, the analysis remains descriptive and does not provide a causal framework, test alternative explanations, or distinguish between increases in behaviour and increases in reporting or classification. Given that the “far left” category is itself a product of the classification process, positioning it as a causal driver risks circular reasoning. The causal flaw also links into the issue of inflated political and media amplification.

Taken together, these findings suggest that the prominence of “far-left antisemitism” in the 2024 report is best understood as a framework-dependent outcome, shaped by definitional choices, classification practices, and interpretive judgement, rather than as a stable empirical measure of ideological prevalence. And the political and media amplification of not-quite-right analysis has profound effects.

In terms of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism, it is an example of how carefully community-based data needs to be considered. On the one hand, few of us would have issues with the classification of far-right data. On the other hand, the assumptions behind the “far left” data are very problematic with the particular orientation of the CSG and the assumptions it is using to conduct its work.

Here is the X post that I found a particularly offensive. Her posting lead me to ask why was she doing this? It clearly has nothing to do with the Gaza war, but something to do with posting for information that puts Jews into a bad light. That then led me into thinking about what is her world view as former TV journalist, and a frequent user of X. I then used AI in a very careful way to investigate various aspects of media theory, but as well, the worldview of a certain sort of anti—imperialist. I think the results are very interesting, though I have of course engaged in some editing. I already have a whole set of queries about the left, and he imperialism of various sorts attitudes towards Israel, Palestine, and so on, and I have been able to draw on that to help me. However, the final result is all my responsibility.

I also take up the issue of whether or not her post was deliberately or intentionally antisemitic and the effects on what is clearly an adoring audience, and I also got some help from AI. So you can claim my writing my interest in this topic is fake. My counter claim is that I’ve doing a lot of social science-type-research over the past couple weeks of and I think I’ve got a good handle on what is good and what is weak and what is bad and how to use AI to basically save a lot of grunt work. I’m actually writing research paper about that at the moment, and maybe I’ll put a summary online for you to read at some point point I have already had a rant in a previous post. So here we go

Over many decades, Mary Kostakidis has established herself as a trusted, credible presenter, or as they say, news anchor. She has become a powerful mediator of public understanding in Australia and has been rightly recognised for that. However, such a role can also serve as a potential amplifier of bias or error, Think that at times, because of her political passion and orientation, she has fallen into a bad trap.

The trusted TV presenter derives authority from institutional backing, familiarity, and performance of neutrality. Over time, audiences come to trust not only the information presented but the presenter’s judgement about what matters and how it should be interpreted. The TV anchor in the past was the person to trust for neutrality. Walter Cronkite, in the US, was for decades, the paragon of this kind of role.

But trust can convert interpretation into taken-for-granted reality by viewers and listeners, reducing scrutiny of sources and methods. When presenters move to platforms like X, this trust often persists even as institutional safeguards—verification, editorial oversight, and sourcing transparency—are reduced. Authority shifts from institutional processes to individual choice and perception of credibility, increasing both influence and the potential for error amplification. You are doing your own research advertising and product placement, based on your brand and reputation there is no editor working with you.

Kostakidis’ use of Twitter can now be understood as a form of interpretive, morally-driven practice, shaped in part by a critical, and at times insufficiently self-reflective, anti-imperialist perspective. This refers to a worldview that strongly critiques Western power but does not always apply the same level of scrutiny to non-Western actors or her own assumptions, potentially producing selective analysis. Sometimes, it works well, other times, it fails.

Her style privileges meaning : events are read as expressions of underlying systems of power and inequality. This produces coherence and moral clarity, but also introduces the risk of compression of complexity, where contingent realities are folded into broader structural interpretations without sufficient differentiation. Western power often becomes the primary explanatory frame, sometimes limiting engagement with internal diversity or alternative causal factors.

On social media interpretation and signals become compressed and affectively intensified, often stripped of visible sourcing and conveyed through selection and a few words, and tone rather than extended argument. This increases the likelihood of polarisation, confirmation bias, and misinterpretation, as audiences may be shown strong conclusions or provided with strong signals without clear evidentiary support.

Consequently, though Mary Kostakidis say at the start of her X feed says that posting something doesn’t mean endorsement, the very fact that she as a famous person has posted something means that it is there with a purpose. It to be read and acted upon on some that way. She has chosen it for you. It’s product placement. She can generate income as well. It pays to be provocative.

These dynamics are illustrated the above post where Kostakidis reposted a claim circulated by RT concerning an Israeli Jewish infant contracting herpes following a ritual circumcision, adding only shocked emojis. RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Moscow-based, state-funded broadcaster that positions itself as an alternative to Western media but is widely regarded as reflecting Russian government perspectives and strategic messaging. Reliance on such a source raises questions about editorial judgement and critical distance, particularly given its record of selective and politically inflected reporting.

The post exhibits weak evidentiary grounding. The claim appears in second-order form, with RT summarising a report attributed to The Jerusalem Post, but without direct linkage or verification (The Jerusalem Post report in fact showed revulsion at this practice). ‘Accidentally’ implies deliberately. All this produces an evidentiary chain that cannot be readily assessed. The absence of contextualisation compounds the problem: the report concerns a specific and controversial ultra-Orthodox practice, yet no information is provided about its rarity, internal debate in the Jewish community, or regulatory context. Yet the message is clear: blood sucking sex-abusing Jews. And the image has nothing to do with the story. It is a file photo. And the reference to a Rabbi is erroneous. The procedure was conducted by a ritual circumciser or not a rabbi, but it doesn’t matter because the use of the term rabbi has worse connotations

Framing operates through selection and affect rather than argument. The combination of a highly emotive story—infant, disease, religious ritual, rabbis, whole evil Jewish communities in turn- and shock emojis by Kostakidis encourages a moralised reading while bypassing analytical mediation. This produces “context collapse,” in which a specific incident is implicitly generalised without clarification of scope. The issue is therefore not factual falsity but slippage: sourcing is opaque, context is absent, and emotional signalling substitutes for verification. Outrage at Israel’s conduct (over which I have no issue), is backed up by dredging up a Jewish stereotype. Of course, it’s completely unnecessary to engage in this. Just stick with the fact of genocide in Gaza. Don’t connect it to antisemitic stereotypes This is where Mary Costa Keiters has failed, either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s hard to tell. But one’s psst , as a respected TV anchor, isn’t a sufficient defence.

This is best understood as compression of complexity, where nuanced material is condensed into rhetorically powerful but ethically weak forms. Jewish crimes of the worst sort. Gaza crimes of the worst sort .

Within contemporary antisemitism frameworks, this post occupies a boundary position rather than an absolutely clear case of antisemitism, though my view is that it does fall over the line. Under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, it is not explicitly antisemitic, as it refers to a specific incident rather than making general claims about Jews. However, the combination of emotive framing, lack of contextualisation, and association of disease with religious practice creates a risk of negative stereotyping through inference. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism would be less likely to classify it as antisemitic, as it permits discussion of religious practices absent explicit hostility, though the signalling by Kostakidis and the use of a propaganda site sets the context. The Nexus Document similarly identifies the issue as one of risk and interpretive effect, rather than inherent antisemitic content. Yet Russia has a long history with this sort of material, and cartoons referring to Jewish ritual abuse are all too familiar.

The broader implications are significant. The compression of evidence via X coupled with various signals and the poster’s status means that audiences receive generalised conclusions without transparent reasoning, making evaluation difficult. These dynamics can reinforce echo chambers here it is an echo chamber about Israeli/Jewish moral corruption And the comments to her post demonstrate that.

What to do? I clearly don’t know. The law is a blunt instrument, and she sees herself the victim of Zionist forces, so I think she has a real blind spot In the current environment conviction, probably only inflame the situation and reinforce the view that Zionists control the narrative and and that and accusations are a put up job whether you call her a tankie or a campist it’s going to be pretty hard to get her to change . Maybe others need to talk to her about her problem.

[A scared Dr Syntax and his Robot]

I'm in a state of gobsmackery if there is such a word. For 3 days I have been analyzing a series of published and controversial reports from all sorts of angles, the rigour of thinking, definitions, the tone of language, the rigour of research methodologies. It's the sort of thing that is very familiar to me, that I usually do by marking up documents, coding in some way and so on prior to writing it all up and drawing conclusions -- a kind of literature review/summative evaluation at the desk. But this time around, I have been using generative AI on the reports- all of which I had read or skimmed in the past. And in fact, some of the material, particularly the more advanced statistical stuff, I really don't have a personal handle on, but I do have enough experience to recognise what they are, but not be critical beyond a certain level.

I started working and questioning the quality and so on about one document. Based on the results, I asked for different forms of writeup -- as dot points, narrative, developing explanatory tables and so on.

Then I realized (how stupid of me), that I could work on multiple documents at once, and ask a very complex interdisciplinary and multilevelled question something that is impossible to a human being. Boom. Answers in seconds. And from that, I asked even more precise questions, engaged in a kind of debate and this is the shock, it made suggestions about what to ask next, or alternatives (all based statistically, on other's queries about data). Sometimes I could see errors in the answers, and I told it of the error and to correct, which it did. Or I added in more material or insights to consider. And I drew in some other academic concepts (which I was familiar with) and used that with the material.

The whole exercise has resulted in a powerful explanatory table and some precise explanatory sentences, as well as some pretty good summary documents from the incredibly long explanations i got. It is stuff that might have taken months to discover, and I might never have discovered it. I even got to play around with the style of presentation.

Now, I knew my data set to begin with, and I know a bit about research methodology, but this tool as taken me to a new depth of well, original knowledge -- all based on trillions of bits of data being interrogated for their relationship to each other and then put into line as words. It was easy for me to see when it drifted into bland generalizations because there was not data and it was trying to be helpful. I didn't get hallucinations.

What is original here, what is not? Do we just say, well, it's like running some formula for stats and getting the results and then running another test. Instead of the slide rule or using a calculator you have used the computer. Or is it really of a different quality here, it has done far more than come up with answers to my natural language algorithms? Are they my conclusions or the machines? Is what so offensive is that it more or less talks like us?

All this is outside the questions of putting researchers, writers, editors, out of work or the vast amount of energy it consumes. Or instead, will new forms of work come into being and it will go green? I don't have an answer, but I do know that in my work life the kind of work I did could not have existed before the invention of the internet, and within that period, communication changes also meant new ways of doing things. From duplicated letters stuffed in envelopes (sometimes taking days of work), to emails, to clunky voip, to zoom. Time and space disappear and not just here. It was all present in Bangladesh as well for me. Villagers were online. As much a we can be dystopian about social control and Mammon, we can also be utopian about the opportunities to manipulate it all for social good.

And of course do I paraphrase, and make changes as necessary to what turns up in an instant. This takes time, that valuable commodity. Alternatively, to remain at least textually original, do I use more or less what the box has produced and acknowledge textual non-originality. I suppose if you care about language, you will go for the rewrite, but if you go for the latter, does it matter, as long as you can show that you were the driver, so to speak?

I know that in the academic world there is a lot of thinking going on about this from an ethical point of view, but here, I'm just reflecting on my own experience. How are others coping?

This is a highly significant report from the AHRC. However- it will stand or fall on its rigour, because so many concepts and perceptions are disputed by different parties. A couple of observations.

A generic survey form was used across different ethnic groups. Racism is a complex phenomenon and to collapse its complexity into one final term is bound to mask much nuance. What one person may see as racism may be perceived by another person (even from the same group) as nothing at all. The report admits as much. “Some of the difficulties we encountered are also indicative of a broader issue – the lack of adequate frameworks for collecting data on racism in Australia. Nonetheless, our study had a very strong response rate [76,000 responses ]and the story it tells simply must be acted on”.

The definition of racism is a particular problem when it is applied to discussions of the experience or perception of racism by Jews because there is considerable a dispute over with the term racism can be applied to Palestinian advocacy when exploring the experience of Jewish students and staff should be queried.

That being said, we should not fall into the trap of dismissing concerns about the cultural safety of Zionists as lightweight, manipulative, or irrelevant as compared to the lived experience of other groups. 94% of Jewish respondees report experiences of direct or indirect racism (again, “racism” here collapses many different elements that were measured). Now, it may well be true that this figure conflates traditional antisemitism with the politics of the Gaza war and distress and discomfort by Jews, but dismissing that such a figure may have an element of truth is wrong. Of course, because the research is based on self selection to an online survey the non-scientific samples are going to be biased towards motivated individuals from all communities as distinct from those who didn’t participate. This is a similar problem faced with other similar research. However, the fact that members of various minority groups (including Jews) have come up with a range of figures putting them all on the outer is of deep concern.

However, the accusation that Jews are too sensitive to criticism of Israel and their desire for cultural safety is undeserved cannot be used to dismiss such a high figure outright. The desire for cultural safety in the face of deep anger over the Gaza conflict cannot just be treated as “making an inappropriate request in anti-colonial spaces” (I am making an assumption here that the university is also considered an anti-colonial space). This is jargon devoid of a human connection, and as the report suggests, it downplays psychosocial safety in challenging situations. I have no doubt, there are situations which far exceed an ordinary level of discomfort for Jews that might be expected, politics aside.

Now what would really help in the report if all the different tables for the different groups and answers to questions (for example impact on mental health) could be assembled. This would make comparison of the data much easier. For example,

All that being said, is this experience of difference or racism towards minority groups any different to that experienced in any Australian institution such as the workplace?

The results will be probably be used to unfairly beat up on higher education.

I wrote the original version of this a few days back in response to an article in the Melbourne Age and Sydney morning Harold about how Isaac Hertzog was invited to Australia. I first put it on Facebook where there was a lot of interest. Here it is with a few modifications

This is how it works at the top of the Jewish community. Issac Herzog, understandably distressed at the cold-blooded murder at Bondi first rang Jeremy Lieberman of the Zionist Federation of Australia who is part of a dominant political and business dynasty in the Jewish community in Australia. He wanted to know what he could do. I think we all know the politics of the rest (and the visit is about to happen)

At very top of the permanent elite in the Jewish community it’s natural to get a call from a foreign head of state who happens to be an old family friend and for the local Prime Minister to then end up inviting him. ( I assume Leibler gets to talk to Albo any time).

There’s not the slightest embarrassment at such privilege, it’s what “folks like us” do naturally at the top, and that a favourable political course of action is undertaken That’s entitlement par excellence.

For the rest of us, nahh, not a chance. We are ordinary folks. There are no elections to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and the ZFA serves as a kind of twin. AIJAC involves much the same people. People at the top swap roles and what a surprise, they also get Orders of Australia. Some families have run the show over the decades . The same incestuous relationships lurch across into other organizations and business. It begins at school and university, religious and social networks It’s all very top end of town, a mirror image of how other elites work. If you want to get theoretical, they are engaged in horizontal and vertical (intergenerational) transfer of social, cultural, intellectual & material capital (Bourdieu) . It’s not nothing to do with Zionist conspiracies. It’s just how the elite does its stuff.

The kids & favoured ones get all the phone numbers, contacts & the resources & skills via the networks & families . This is corporate training as they also go into the same workplaces. Such elites are experts in political cultivation & pollies enjoy the rewards (trips, dinners, adoration) .

In the Jewish community, this is the result of a traditional cultural style- deference to the ‘machers’ (the big shots), power, money, intimidation (I’ve copped it), and decades of blind obedience or staying quiet by too many people who should know better than to cower to elites.

Insight into the elite particularly comes through into the fawning biography of Mark Leibler (Jeremy’s father), by Michael Gawenda where Leibler is quite frank about his family. However, it also gives much insight into insider elite influence of the government.

Once again. This is not about Zionist lobby or alleged Jewish power. It’s just the same with other well-resourced groups. Look at the mining lobby and the bad side of the CFMEU.

I note that at two places in the book about Mark Leibler inflammatory assertions were made about me. One was a quote from a letter of Leibler’s that asserted I was an antisemite because I had been critical of Mark Leibler 30 years ago. I tried to take legal action when the book appeared but unfortunately I did not have the resources to follow through on my complaint to the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission which was felt to have merit. What was so interesting is that every defamation lawyer I approached could not take on to the courts because there was a conflict of interest with Arnold Bloch Leibler law firm.

That’s how it goes in a relatively small country in a relatively small community dominated by a few The little guys, the other points of view rarely get a go.

And I always ask, why should the Zionist Federation have a role in Australian politics at all? Shouldn’t it be registered as a foreign lobby?

And of course, there is the whole question of political donations…