Antisemitism Envoy Plans to Make All Australians Complicit in Gaza Genocide

As Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese stood beside Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal on 10 July 2025, the public was not merely dumbfounded as to the draconian nature of the plan the ASCECA unveiled, which is supposed to combat antisemitism, but this shock shifted to questions about how the PM had allowed this matter to develop so far.

Since its release last Thursday, the Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism has left many commentators asking how much farther Albanese is going to allow this unelected, taxpayer-funded official, he appointed in mid-2024, to progress this plan that purportedly prevents religious prejudice, but, which on closer perusal, resembles an authoritarian power grab by the local Israel lobby.

A noted lawyer and banking executive, Segal has developed a plan that would systematically shield criticism of the Israeli state, and the genocide it’s currently been perpetrating against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the last 21 months, via the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism across all institutions, which could serve to criminalise any of us.

The adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, or hatred towards Jewish people that is spurred by their faith, is problematic because it conflates antisemitism with the political criticism of Israel, as well as Zionism, which is the 1880s European doctrine that underpins the creation of Israel. 

So, this serves to deflect criticism of Tel Aviv’s ongoing genocide, via the threat of being labelled as antisemitic.

And Segal’s plan carries with it all the hallmarks of the major parities when they’re legislating in respect of national security or being tough on crime, which entails drafting extra extreme laws, so that after “problematic” politicians have had an attempt at whittling the rights-eroding provisions away, then what remains, hopefully, continues to involve a modicum of the laws’ initial overreach.

But as Segal’s 13 recommendations are now released and are apparently being considered by federal Labor, people right across this continent are puzzled as to why the immediate past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which is a Zionist organisation that’s consistently supported Israel in its mass slaughter of Palestinians, has taken on such a prominent local lawmaking role.

Silencing antigenocide opposition

The first key action Segal’s plan recommends is implementiny the IHRA definition “across all levels of government and public institutions”, which is problematic as this understanding of antisemitism doesn’t end with the criticism of Jewish people, but it lists numerous forms of criticism of Israel, such as calling for the country’s dissolution or claiming it exaggerates the Holocaust, as being antisemitic.

Nazi Germany perpetrated the Holocaust against the Jewish population of Europe during World War II. This mass slaughter of 6 million Jews involved excessive dehumanisation perpetrated by a campaign against them. The reason that criticism of Israel can be included in such definition is that the nation of Israel is specifically a Jewish state that’s been created on the lands of historic Palestine.

Since October 2023, Israel has been perpetrating a plausible genocide against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, according to the International Court of Justice, which ruled so in its interim report into the matter in January 2024. 

As has been playing out in the Australian public sphere ever since the onset of the mass slaughter in Gaza, people who do speak out against the killing of Palestinians are then labelled as antisemites, and as this charge carries with it the horrors of the Holocaust, some of those being condemned as antisemitic have had their entire careers ruined due to their outspokenness.

This witch hunt, however, is increasingly being called out by local legal minds and rights-concerned citizens, who are well aware that the same campaign to suppress criticism of Israel’s mass murder in Palestine, is playing out right across the western world. 

Predicated on Israeli “Australian values”

“The plan is grounded in Australian values,” the antisemitism envoy assured the public during a 10 July 2025 press conference spruiking the extreme reform package. “It’s proactive, and it’s adapted to our federal legal framework,” Segal continued. “As we know, as the prime minister said, antisemitism is not new, and it didn’t start with the Hamas terrorist attack on the 7th of October.”

“But we have seen a very troubling – deeply troubling – rise in antisemitic incidents and behaviour at home since then,” Segal continued as she stood next to the prime minister and home affairs minister Tony Burke. “In the space of just one year, reported incidents increased over 300 percent, and that includes threats, vandalism, harassment and physical violence.”

Other key reforms recommended in the report include an overhaul of all laws and law enforcement agencies to root out antisemitism, extending antisemitism education right across all sectors, making institutions, especially universities, accountable for the Jewish hatred they let go unchecked, the monitoring of specific Jewish security needs and the scouring of the internet for antisemitic content.

Since its formation in February 2024, the Jewish Council of Australia has been at pains to establish in this nation’s psyche that there is a difference between antisemitism or prejudice towards Jews, and legitimate political criticism of Israel and its actions, as Tel Aviv has been purposefully exterminating the Palestinians of Gaza in the name of land acquisition at a heightened rate since October 2023.

In Australia, as in Israel

The first article of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide requires all states that have ratified the agreement to do everything in their ability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, which is considered the gravest of all criminal offences and, therefore, carries with it this special obligation that bears upon all people living within signatory nations.

Australia ratified this agreement in July 1949. This means that the requirement to speak out and attempt to prevent the active crime of genocide currently being perpetrated in the Gaza Strip bears upon the entire nation. The reverse side of that equation is that all who refuse to speak out against the ongoing human extermination program are complicit in the atrocity crime.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) has stressed that to adopt the IHRA antisemitism definition tends towards criminalising criticism of Israeli breaches of international law and the doctrine that underpins and advocates for the creation of such a state, which is Zionism, to the detriment of the Palestinians, and this provides cover for the commission of genocide.

“Across Australia, we are witnessing governments and institutions pass laws and policies repressing legitimate political speech to silence protest and prevent assembly,” said NSWCCL president Timothy Roberts, in the wake of Universities Australia having adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in February this year.

“This report, made by an unelected envoy, has many recommendations that do not adequately acknowledge this context, nor does it strike the right balance,” the respected lawyer continued. “If the government does not adequately address these issues, our civil liberties will be undermined and our community only further divided.”

But while these recommendations appear as a major erosion to the rights and the liberties of everyone living on this continent, those who are posed the greatest risk from them are local Palestinian Australians.

As she explained last Friday on social media, renowned Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah clearly set out that what Segal and the Zionist lobby are actually concerned about “is not Jewish life but Palestinian death”, as the plan “first and foremost is to hunt down Palestinians and all who support our irreversible and nonnegotiable will to live with freedom and dignity”.

“What is being demanded by Zionists is that we Palestinians are eliminated from universities, schools, media, the arts,” the award-winning Palestinian author continued. “And just as this government supplies weapons to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, this government is prepared to provide Australia’s Zionists with the weapons to eliminate us here. When I say eliminate, it’s not a metaphor.”