Israel Lobby Continues to Conflate Jewish Australian Identity with Criticism of the State

Numerous inquiries have determined that what’s been taking place in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 is an Israeli state perpetrated genocide, whilst over that same time, the Israel lobby has been attempting to hijack the narrative in the Australia public sphere, which includes unelected officials normalising the idea that criticising the political state of Israel involves censure of Jewish Australians.

The 9 July 2026 testimony of Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is a case in point. The unelected official last week complained that in their reporting on the mass murder, Australia’s national broadcasters have been overly critical of Israel, and this has been negatively impacting Jewish Australians.

While on the day prior to Segal’s testimony, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, penned a piece in The Australian, in which he claimed that over all his decades as an Israeli diplomat, he has never seen “such level of hatred of Israel and of Jews”, as he’s experienced and witnessed in Australia. Again, Newman is implying that criticism of Israel necessarily involves critiquing Jews.

But in the Australian public sphere it has not been established that critiquing a foreign nation over its commission of some of the gravest criminal offences on the books automatically translates as criticism of sections of the local population who share the same religion as the country being condemned over its human rights abuses.

Indeed, such a conflation doesn’t readily exist in the public mind as it doesn’t follow that criticism of a political entity is the same as being prejudicial towards those who hold a particular religious belief, and this appears to be the reason that Segal and Newman are hurriedly attempting to propagate this conflation as a public truth, as it serves to shield Israel from criticism of its genocidal behaviour.

Basic coverage equals prejudice

In response to a question put by counsel assisting the commission Richard Lancaster SC about ABC Gaza coverage, Segal said, “During the period that we are speaking of – the Gaza conflict – it is the perception of the Jewish community that they are constantly being faced with reporting about the Middle East, about Gaza, about Israel in a way that paints Israel constantly in a negative light.”

“My view is that the reporters and the hierarchy of the ABC don’t have an understanding of the conflation issue,” Segal continued. “I say later that we can correct that with a bit of education, which hasn’t happened. I believe that it would help to actually understand the IHRA definition. That is a good tool. It is not seeking to control what people say and do, but as an education tool.”

The antisemitism commissioner here is seen to conflate Jewish Australian identity with the political entity of Israel. She posits that when Australian Jewish people turn on the television and see the ABC reporting on Israel’s actions in Gaza, that this reflects negatively on local Jews.

But in the same way that criticism of Indonesia’s occupation of the Melanesian region of West Papua is not considered a slight against Islam or Indonesian Australians or Muslim Australians, the general public understands that reporting on Israel Defence Force actions has no bearing on the reputation of or comprises any criticism of Jewish Australians.

Instead, on watching the 75-minute-long exchange, Segal appears to be the one conflating Jewish Australian identity with ABC reporting on another country. And further, when council assisting suggested that a similar number of complaints about ABC reports being biased against Palestinians exists, she dismissed this as illegitimate as there are less Israeli supporters in the community.

Disseminating the conflation

The Israeli ambassador commences his oped in The Australian by making the same conflation. Newman begins by saying that “it is sad to say this, but the truth must be said. Throughout my 26-year career as an Israeli diplomat, I have never seen such levels of hatred of Israel, and of Jews, as I experience and witness here in Australia”.

Newman was appointed Israeli ambassador to Australia in February this year, and he’s been causing a stir precisely because he’s been making loaded comments like this one. The ambassador complains that there is excessive “hatred” locally in respect of the state of Israel, which is a nation committing genocide, and he then links such criticism to prejudice towards Jews or antisemitism.

The prejudice towards Jewish people that Australia is currently plagued by, according to this unelected official, is a “modern” form of antisemitism that “disguises itself as virtue”. Here, Newman is suggesting that local support for “some humanitarian cause”, or Palestinian self-determination more precisely, is a ruse, as such criticism of Israel’s genocide is rather concealed antisemitism.

“Hatred of Jews and hatred of Israel, the one and only majority Jewish state,” Newman continues on, with some free form conflating of Jewish identity, including that of Jewish Australians, with the Israeli military-industrial complex, which has been committing a mass slaughter for close to three years now. Yet, to criticise this mass killing of fellow human beings is to express “the world’s oldest hatred”.

Again, when the ABC, SBS or some other commentary in the Australian public sphere critiques Jakarta’s ongoing attempt to erase West Papuan culture and destroy its environment, nobody in Australia raises this as being Islamophobic, despite Indonesia being the largest majority Muslim nation on the planet. No one considers such criticism to be a slight against Muslim Australians either.

The illusory truth effect

During her 9 July 2026 testimony to the Royal Commission, Segal suggested that the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) working definition on antisemitism ought to be taken up by the national broadcasters to assist their staff in understanding how the conflation of Jewish identity with the Israeli state is, in her opinion, serving to compound rising antisemitism.

Segal doesn’t, however, point to the controversy around the IHRA definition, which involves two lines explaining that antisemitism is prejudice towards Jewish people, accompanied by eleven examples of this hatred and seven of these actually serve to conflate criticism of the Israeli state with prejudice towards those of the Jewish faith. This definition is applied to purposefully create the conflation.

The antisemitism commissioner developed a plan to combat prejudice towards Jews in the community, which was officially adopted by Canberra last December. At its heart, this plan serves to insert the IHRA definition into all Australian institutions in order to curb criticism of the Israeli state’s apartheid system and its commission of genocide.

In his opinion piece, Newman further asserts that the form of antisemitism that is sweeping the nation is that which is the “anti-Zionism version”. Zionism is the doctrine that advocates for the creation of a Jewish state, Israel, on the historic lands of the Palestinians. So, the ambassador posits that if an individual critiques this settler colonial project, then they hate Jews.

“What we see on the streets of Australian cities is not legitimate criticism of policy decisions, it is pure antisemitic hatred. Hostility once directed at individual Jews is increasingly transposed on to the collective Jewish national experience – that is, on to the state of Israel,” the Israeli ambassador wrote last week, as he attempted to blur religious prejudice with the rejection of a political doctrine.

“When Israel and Jews become the object of disproportionate hostility, fixation or moral obsession, this is a sign,” Newman further set out in his piece, which ultimately served to promote the conflating of Jewish identity with Israeli policies to produce the antisemitism that he is railing against.

“When Israel is judged by standards applied to no other nation or when Jewish self-determination (Zionism) is considered uniquely illegitimate, this is a sign,” the ambassador continued on with his conflating project.