The Envoy’s Proposal to Adopt the IHRA Antisemitism Definition Is a Threat to Free Speech

The suggestion is that the Albanese government is now contemplating the draconian plan that it’s so-called “antisemitism expert” put on the table a month ago, which includes as it centrepiece the recommendation that the nation adopt a definition of antisemitism that conflates political criticism of Israel with prejudice towards Jewish people, and ultimately, sacrifices free speech to do this.

The first “key action” that Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal raises in her report is that she “will work with state and federal governments to require the IHRA working definition of antisemitism to be used across all levels of government and public institutions to inform their practical understanding of antisemitism”.

The IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) adopted this working definition of antisemitism in 2016. This definition is controversial as it recognises criticism of Israel and its policies as being antisemitic, or prejudicial towards Jewish people and the religion of Judaism, and in doing so, it criminalises and silences legitimate criticism of a political entity under the guise of racism.

Right now, criticisms of apartheid Israel are rising globally, as it has been perpetrating a genocide in Gaza for 22 months, and despite attempts by western governments and media to supress this, the understanding  that a mass murder is now underway has become ubiquitous, and the imposition of the IHRA definition would mean that Australians can’t speak out about the atrocities taking place.

Segal’s proposal for the nation to place this constraint on free speech and the implied freedom of political communication would not only result in the institutionalisation of this one lie throughout the entire Australian system, but, like a cancer, its imposition will result in uncountable falsehoods produced in order to cater for the original lie, whilst Israel gets on with its genocide in peace.

Shackling academia

To consider that federal Labor would refuse to insert a grievous falsehood that serves to shield an apartheid regime that’s attempting to exterminate a specific people into the heart of this nation’s institutions is to ignore the fact that Universities Australia, the peak body representing 39 Australian tertiary educational institutions, recently adopted a version of the IHRA definition.

In a 27 February 2025 Statement on Racism, Universities Australia explained that its “39 members have agreed to the recommendation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to adopt a clear definition of antisemitism that aligns closely with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition”.

So, the nation’s main bastions of knowledge now appear to be operating under a definition that stipulates that criticism of Israeli policies and practices is “not in and of itself antisemitic”, but “criticism of Israel” “grounded in harmful tropes” or calling for the elimination of the state are considered antisemitic, which is where interpretations of what constitutes prejudice can start to blur.

The use of the phrase “Fuck Israel” in arson and graffiti attacks on Gadigal land across Sydney’s eastern suburbs during the 2024/25 summer highlighted where IHRA definition issues can start to come into play, as incidents that featured graffiti that said “Fuck Israel” were labelled as antisemitic acts, even though Israel was perpetrating an illegal mass slaughter of civilians at the time.

And the adoption of this working definition by most Australian universities will mean that certain topics and subjects will be off-limits, such as the Gaza genocide, the occupation of the Palestinian territory and even the creation of the Israeli state, or otherwise, when they do become the focus of academic scrutiny, the resulting research will be a distorted version of the reality of matters.

A political stranglehold

The IHRA definition that serves to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism was developed early this century, on the back of a tactic that Zionists have been purposely propagating since the 1970s, according to US academic Judith Butler, who explained during a 2024 forum in Paris, that this conflation serves to silence condemnation of Israel’s dispossession and oppression of Palestinians.

Zionism is the late 1880s political doctrine espoused by Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, which advocates for the establishment of a Jewish state on the historical lands of the Palestinians. The doctrine is basically a European settler colonial policy that led to the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, at the same time as dispossession of the Palestinian people from their land.

Since the 1970s, Zionists have been asserting on the global stage that criticisms of the colonial expansionist doctrine of Zionism and any human rights violating actions or policies of Israel are all examples of hatred towards Jews. And the most extreme outcome of this conflation is the silencing of people criticising the wholesale killing of Palestinians as someone reflecting Jewish prejudice.

So, the Albanese government is now seriously contemplating adopting this distorted definition as part of local law, so that calling for the upholding of international law, the demanding that Palestinian civilians not be starved and the insistence that Palestinians might live freely and be able to determine their own futures would all be criminalised and prohibited under our nation’s hate crime laws.

The dehumanisation of Palestinians

Sydney city is still basking in the success of its March for Humanity that saw over 100,000 locals march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on 3 August 2025 in opposition to the Gaza genocide, and the scenes of starvation coming out of the region. But if the IHRA definition was already at play, this would have seen the action opposing mass murder considered an act of hate.

The organisers of the event, Palestine Action Group, are now currently consulting with pro-Palestinian advocates in other states so that a nationwide demonstration can take place on Sunday 24 August. Yet, at the same time that this civil society campaign is underway, it’s to be understood that federal Labor are seriously contemplating laws that would prohibit all this behaviour.

The reason why the charge of antisemitism is so grave is that the antisemitism or the dehumanisation that Nazi Germany subjected the Jewish people of Europe to during Second World War, permitted that state to mass murder over 6 million Jewish people with the assistance of other Europeans whom the fascist regime was occupying.

But the major issue of the current moment is not the dehumanisation of Jewish people, as it’s rather the dehumanisation of the over 2 million Palestinians of Gaza, who are the subject of the Israeli state’s mass slaughter and starvation program, which continues on in full view of the entire planet.

The Netanyahu government has just announced its plans to invade and fully occupy the Gaza Strip, as it is threatening to exterminate all Palestinians in the region that refuse to leave their homelands for good.

The adoption of the IHRA antisemitism definition on Segal’s recommendation would really serve as federal Labor’s seal of approval in regard to the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip and as Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah has set out what this would too result in is the erasure of Palestinian identities from Australian society.

“What is being demanded by Zionists is that we Palestinians are eliminated from universities, schools, media, the arts,” Abdel-Fattah made certain in the wake of the plan’s release. “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.”