https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/11/02/jillian-segal-report-antisemitism-free-speech-abc-sbs-ihra-definition/

Independent experts commissioned by the United Nations declared on October 26 that Israeli forces in the West Bank were committing torture, rape and crimes against humanity, even as the genocide in Gaza continued. That’s the background against which Jillian Segal, Anthony Albanese’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, has released her new report, which proposes extensive state-backed measures to deter criticisms of Israel.

Ostensibly, the report lays out priorities to combat antisemitism. Yet Segal pays only the most cursory attention to the rapid growth of the far right, even as genuine neo-Nazis like Thomas Sewell and his White Australia friends reach audiences (online and IRL) unthinkable even a decade ago. She pledges instead to combat what she calls “modern”, “progressive” antisemitism, which, she claims, manifests “through the language of social justice and human rights”.

To that end, Segal wants, among other things, a special ombudsman to monitor the ABC and SBS; new codes of conduct for cultural organisations; restrictions on the use of grants for arts, sports or research; the operationalisation in higher education of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism; a review of the school curriculum; and “continual review and reform by … governments of gaps in the legislative framework”.

All this is warranted, she says, because “the language of human rights and its greatest crimes — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc. — has increasingly been appropriated” against Israel. On that basis, Segal seeks the institutional adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, explaining that “criticism of the Israeli government” should only be considered legitimate if “the level and standard of scrutiny applied is equivalent to the standards to which one would hold other governments in similar circumstances”.

There is a roll call of experts accusing Tel Aviv of genocide: a partial list includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Middle East Studies Association, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

In the name of Segal’s vaunted equivalency, we might expect to find Israel listed alongside the other regimes Australia currently sanctions for human rights violations (beyond individual ones directed at Ben-Gvir and Smotrich). You’ll be shocked to learn that this is not what Segal seeks. The scrutiny she considers appropriate was demonstrated back in 2023, when Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong had the temerity to suggest Israel might “cease the attacking of hospitals”.

In response, Segal, then president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, cosigned a statement condemning Wong’s remarks that said they “only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters”. The same logic dominates her report. Segal argues that claims Israel has committed genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid “allow for the depiction of anyone who associates or aligns with Israel as complicit in its purported evil”. But when confronted by genocide, most of us do not worry that our condemnations might upset those who “associate or align” with the perpetrators.

In Segal’s report — a document in which the word “Gaza” appears only once — the feelings of Israel’s supporters take precedence over all else. For her, “the Palestinian cause” represents a “gateway issue, of sorts … used by far-left activists to magnify their appeal and prominence and to attempt to introduce traditionally moderate Australians to radical and anti-Jewish propaganda”.

It’s crazy, conspiratorial stuff.

The report warns that “references to “Zionists” can function as a proxy for Jews, particularly where Jews in Australia are treated as collectively responsible for the actions of Israel (acts of conflation)”. That’s certainly true, which is why organisations like the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) make the distinction between Judaism (a religion and ethnic identity) and Zionism, urging the recognition of “the political and religious diversity of the Australian Jewish community”.

Segal does the opposite. Instead of echoing that distinction, she insists that “Jewish identity is inherently linked to the land of Israel central to the existence of Jewish people, the Jewish religion and culture”. This is not an accident. The JCA notes that the “conflation of Jewish identity with Israel” is something that “the State of Israel and its supporters have long cultivated”, with, notoriously, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming to speak not just “as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people”.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia illustrated how this plays out in practice. Protest leader Josh Lees — the epitome, one would think, of the modern progressivism identified in Segal’s report — publicly rejected any association between Herzog and Judaism. “Isaac Herzog is a politician,” he said. “He does not represent Jewish people any more than the heads of the Saudi or Iranian regimes represent Muslim people.”

By contrast, Anthony Albanese defended Herzog’s tour by insisting that “when the Jewish community asked for their head of state to visit, I think it is appropriate that people be allowed to mourn and to do so respectfully”. Albanese’s antisemitic conflation (their head of state!) went almost unnoticed — because, of course, it was made in defence of Israel.

The same might be said about Segal’s report. As the JCA’s Sarah Schwartz says, Jillian Segal wants the Australian government to enforce “a particular political understanding of Jewish identity” — in explicit opposition to the “many Australian Jews reject the suggestion that our Jewish identities are inseparable from Zionism or the actions of the Israeli state”.

The Gaza atrocities have dealt the global liberal order a blow from which it may never recover, undermining long-established conventions on human rights, international law and the conduct of war. Not surprisingly, some 79% of Australian respondents to a recent survey hold an unfavourable view of Israel. Now Segal seeks government backing to suppress that sentiment, quell opposition to genocide, and buttress institutional support for an apartheid regime.

With free speech and democratic rights receding everywhere, it’s hard to overstate the danger of Segal’s Trumpian scheme.