The Hasbara Royal Commission and the Erasure of Palestinian Australians

The establishment of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is likely the most significant threat to forging truth in this nation, with the last hope to resist this onslaught of hasbara being a respected former High Court Justice, while the recent removal of a vital Palestinian Australian voice from a writers’ festival, is a clear sign of restrictions already in place in the local public sphere.

The massive campaign that had involved a treasure trove of past popular figures wheeled out to pressure the reluctant Albanese government into holding a Royal Commission appeared on the surface to be all about staging an official inquiry into the 14 December 2025 Bondi Beach massacre, but instead, as the terms of reference were read out, it was found rather to be about antisemitism.

As prime minister Anthony Albanese walked out before the press to deliver his party’s determination to proceed with the inquiry being championed by the Zionist lobby, the Coalition and the Murdoch Press, he was first followed out to the podium by the unelected Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal, and then by the Australian attorney general and the home affairs minister.

Hasbara, or Israeli propaganda, involves the dissemination of ideas designed to control the narrative around the Israeli colonisation of historic Palestine. The PM too in the wake of Bondi, announced that the nation is adopting Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, and key to this is the imposition of the IHRA working definition on antisemitism that serves to deflect criticism of Israel.

Yet, this shift towards inserting Israeli propaganda to hide its settling mission into the public sphere is already underway, as on the same day as Albanese announced this official assault on truth, the Adelaide Writers’ Festival disinvited Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from its list of scheduled speakers, citing her presence as being “culturally sensitive” post-Bondi.

Ferreting out Israeli critiques

“Just 25 days ago, two gunmen armed with high powered weapons went to Bondi Beach on the first night of Hannukah and they murdered 15 innocent people,” said Albanese, on announcing the Royal Commission on Thursday, 8 January 2026. “This was an antisemitic terrorist attack aimed at Jewish Australians inspired by ISIS: the deadliest that has ever occurred on Australian soil.”

A key issue raised by the prime minister as to why a Royal Commission, with its special powers to compel evidence, should not be held in the wake of the Bondi mass murder was in terms of one of the Bondi killers, Naveed Akram, now awaiting his trial in respect of a massive indictment, and the legal rule of sub judice prevents public discussion of details that could prejudice a jury at trial.

The PM announced the four terms of reference for the Royal Commission, which include examining the “nature and prevalence of antisemitism” and its “key drivers”, as well as making recommendations for authorities to deal with antisemitism, looking into the circumstances surrounding the Bondi killings and making recommendations on strengthening social cohesion.

Albanese further said in response to a question that the inquiry also “recognises or acknowledges the Australian government has adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism”, which conflates criticism of Israel with prejudice towards Jewish people, and it can be wielded in such a way as to put a stop to criticism of the policies of the UN-recognised apartheid state of Israel.

The key fear amongst those who are sceptical about the ultimate aim of the antisemitism inquiry is that it is predicated upon a two-year-long campaign propagated by the local Zionist, or pro-Israel, lobby that seeks to create social conditions that prevent any robust criticism of Israel in the public sphere, precisely at this moment when it is perpetrating a genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.

The one hope that critics of the inquiry have is that Albanese has appointed former High Court Justice Virginia Bell to the position of chief commissioner, which has stirred controversy from those pushing for the Royal Commission apparently because of the rights-forward rulings she has made in the past. But this is exactly why Bell is our last hope.

Snake oil for sale

Unelected envoy Segal then addressed the crowd on the antisemitism inquiry, and she conveyed that its establishment “does reflect the seriousness of the growth in antisemitism and its impact on our country and our democracy”, and she went on to add that there has been a spike in antisemitism since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, but further added that it was also an issue prior.

The general understanding is that antisemitic incidents have risen since late 2023, yet then again so too have Islamophobic ones. The type of antisemitism involved in the attack at Bondi has come from extremists, however despite this, the conflation of the killers’ motives with the nonviolent and secular pro-Palestine protest movement has been progressed as a political move to appease Israel.

The PM appointed Segal to the new position of antisemitism envoy in July 2024, apparently due to the rise in hatred towards Jewish people in this country, yet it has since come to light that the antisemitism envoy system exists right across the western world, and their mission appears to be pushing for the implementation of the IHRA definition. The US envoy was first established in 2004.

As Oxford University PhD candidate Jamie Stern-Weiner’s 2021 report The Politics of a Definition sets out, the IHRA working definition on antisemitism comprises of a two line definition and eleven examples of antisemitism, seven of which involve criticising Israel, not Jewish people. This definition is now readily understood by non-Zionist lobby-types as being adopted to deflect criticism of Israel.

The key recommendation of Segal’s July 2025 released plan to combat antisemitism is that the IHRA definition is adopted at all levels of Australian government and its institutions. The envoy’s 12 further recommendations are about ferreting out antisemitism, or criticism of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, from educational institutions and across the mediascape.

The nation was told during last Thursday’s announcement that unelected official Segal will be playing a key consultative role in respect of the Royal Commission, and the concern is that with her input and the terms of reference, the official inquiry will turn into another excuse, just like the combatting antisemitism plan, to inject prohibitions on criticism of apartheid Israel into the local public sphere.

Israeli apartheid down under

Sydney Criminal Lawyers had already been flapping up and down about the implications of the combating antisemitism plan, when it came across a message by Randa Abdel-Fattah about its chief concern not being preserving “Jewish life” but propagating “Palestinian death”, as well as clamping down on Palestinian Australians “and all who support our irreversible and nonnegotiable will to live”.

But on reading Abdel-Fattah’s warning that the combatting antisemitism plan would translate into the attempted erasure of Palestinian Australians in the public realm, SCL had not considered that so blatant an example of this would be on display just six months later to the point that a well-known Palestinian figure would be removed from a public forum specifically for being Palestinian.

The UN Human Rights Office released an assessment last week that found Israel is an apartheid state. Last Thursday’s disinviting of Abdel-Fattah from the list of speakers at the Adelaide Writers Festival is a clear example of Israeli apartheid now operating in the Australian public sphere, prior to any full implementation of the plan to combat antisemitism or the outcome of the Hasbara Commission.

Prominent Jewish intellectual Lousie Adler has resigned her position as festival director, after the South Australian Malinauskas government pressured the event to dump Randa. And around 100 writers have boycotted and four board members have since resigned from the event. But while these pullouts are welcomed, the Zionist lobby’s will to silence Palestinian voices is still underway.

The cancellation of renowned writer Abdel-Fattah is the clearest example that the dissemination of the conflation of antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli state has commenced in the public sphere, while another is the shift in commentary on Sky News post-Bondi, where criticisms of the Israeli state equating to prejudice or hatred towards Jewish people is already operating as gospel.

The incorporation of the Israeli framework of prejudice against Palestinians into the Australian setting is not only highly contentious because it seeks to dehumanise these civilians, but it comes at a time when this nation has been grappling with how to embark upon a process of truth-telling in respect of the Australian settler colonial project and its dehumanisation of First Nations people.

So, as the Royal Commission into Antisemitism is not set to report back until 14 December this year, it would seem that the next 11 months will reveal further restrictions on criticism of Israel and attempts to silence Palestinian voices in public, prior to former justice Viriginia Bell’s decision on whether this nation needs to officially incorporate Israeli hasbara to prevent another Bondi.