The Daily Telegraph and their stuntman from Sydney’s Jewish community did their utmost to create an antisemitic moment that they could film and catastrophise on February 14.
Ofir Birenbaum donned his Star of David cap and went into Newtown’s pro-Palestine Cairo Takeaway, hoping to cop some abuse. Instead, he was politely served and otherwise ignored.
The Daily Telegraph team, who had come to film the hoped-for incident, was sprung, leaving Birenbaum looking very foolish.
You may recall the Instagram reel in April last year of the Jewish woman at Yale University standing in the middle of a pro-Palestine sit-in with a T-shirt brandishing the single word “Jew”.
She was hoping to provoke an antisemitic sentiment. But there was none.
Then there was the episode in Britain, again in April, when Gideon Falter, head of Campaign Against Antisemitism, tried multiple times to walk across a huge pro-Palestine demo wearing a yarmulke.
The police suggested he leave or wait until the protest had passed. They correctly inferred he was deliberately trying to stoke controversy. None eventuated.
Then, last week, Israeli influencer Max Veifer actually succeeded in entrapping a couple of young health workers in a call, where they end up making remarks threatening to kill Israelis.
Veifer, a content creator using online video chats, acknowledges that he works to “expose people”. This time, the bait did its job.
I do not seek to excuse the words of the two nurses, who naively walked straight into Veifer’s trap. It is one of those cases, where people who sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians lapse into antisemitism or, in their case, make a specific reference to killing Israelis should they be in their care.
Sadly, there is some level of inevitability about this when Israel has carried out an apocalyptic, livestreamed genocide over 15 months, all the while claiming to represent all Jews.
The question has to be, when there is a rise in real antisemitic incidents, why make shit up?
Rise in antisemitism
In recent weeks, we’ve seen the arson attack and spray-painting of antisemitic graffiti on a childcare centre in Maroubra, attacks on the former home of a prominent Jewish individual in Sydney, which involved the destruction of cars with fire and antisemitic graffiti; and the vandalism of two Sydney synagogues in one week, which were both graffitied with swastikas.
Despite the growing body of evidence that points to those involved either being paid by unknown forces, or the increasing concern about the rise of far-right elements that openly embrace Nazism, there appears to be a growing push to blame the pro-Palestine movement with the rise in antisemitism.
Government efforts to silence this movement are leading to genuinely terrifying attacks on our most basic democratic right to protest.
We’ve seen efforts to shut down protests in Gadigal Country/Sydney and Naarm/Melbourne.
Students have been disciplined, suspended and threatened with expulsion from their campuses for taking part in protests for Palestine.
We’ve seen surveillance technologies being used to record and identify students and staff participating in political protest.
At Condell Park high school, a student was denied the right to attend his school formal because he wore a keffiyeh to his graduation ceremony.
A memo was issued last week to all school teachers in Western Australia, warning them not to talk about antisemitism or international conflicts of a “polarising nature”.
This is all beginning to feel quite dystopian.
Meanwhile, Israel is upping its propaganda war. In December, the government announced that this year it will spend an extra $150 million on what it described as “consciousness warfare”. That is a 20-fold increase in its hasbara crusade — all with the goal of reshaping global perceptions about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Israel says the funds will primarily target United States university campuses, social media platforms and the international media, with coordination from Jewish organisations in the US and the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
There is no question that we must oppose and fight antisemitism — in all its forms.
However, its weaponisation — specifically in relation to anti-Zionism — is now so pervasive that it underlies every attempt to shut down the movement for Palestinian rights.
How often must we say it? Supporting Palestine is not anti-Jewish. It’s pro-Palestine.
It is saying that genocide and ethnic cleansing are unacceptable and we want governments to stop aiding and abetting the Israeli state. Not Jews. The Israeli state!
Parliamentary inquiry
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights tasked with inquiring into and reporting on antisemitism in Australian universities has just released 10 recommendations, at the core of which is a proposal that complaints be measured against a clear definition of antisemitism that aligns closely with that issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
The IHRA definition, developed in 2005 by the American Jewish Committee, has been used to cement the conflation of Judaism with Zionism.
In doing so, it actually promotes antisemitism, because it gives credence to the idea that all Jews are responsible for the violence committed by Israel.
While the definition itself is vague, it is accompanied by 11 examples that include: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination e.g. by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
If enacted, what would this look like? It would deny Palestinians the right to talk about the experience of their history and lives.
Palestinians and their supporters, including anti-Zionist Jews, who speak of occupation, of Israel being an apartheid state, of illegal occupation, of genocide and ethnic cleansing would run afoul of the IHRA definition and be accused of antisemitism.
If adopted, this will constitute a very serious assault on the political rights and freedoms of all university staff and students.
It will be used to shut down protest, to discipline and expel students and staff.
In short, it is designed to silence us all; it would act as a giant gag on the movement for Palestinian rights and freedoms.
Is this the way to fight racism?
Listening to governments today, you would be forgiven for thinking that racism only takes the form of antisemitism.
In fact, research says otherwise. The Scanlon Foundation’s recent “Mapping Social Cohesion” report confirmed that while there’s been a rise in antisemitism from 9% in 2023 to 13% in 2024, Islamophobia is far higher — up from 27% to 34% in the same period.
Have we heard about that?
The media is much less interested in someone planting a homemade bomb on someone’s utility truck that was flying the Palestinian flag in a Sydney home, or in a truck in Naarm belonging to a man of Palestinian heritage being set alight.
It is not at all interested in the number of Islamic women having their hijab ripped off in the street, being spat at or experiencing death threats and abuse when going about their daily business.
How often have you seen the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia interviewed and quoted compared to the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism?
I’m no data analyst but I can safely say there is no comparison.
While governments and their corporate media continue to promote fear and xenophobia, blaming migrants for taking our jobs and homes, warning that we must block Gazan refugees because they may be terrorists, and introduce new laws that pave the way for deportations and expand ministerial powers to overturn protection decisions, racism will persist.
Max Kaiser, from the Jewish Council of Australia, wrote in Crikey on December 12, 2024, that: “The continued exceptionalisation of antisemitism, treating it as a standalone or special type of racism … is a recipe for the continued use of Jews as political footballs by both major parties and the entrenchment of anti-Jewish attitudes.”
Let’s get on with fighting racism in all its many forms and in winning a world free of war, injustice and hate.
[Janet Parker is a member of the Socialist Alliance, and is active in Jews for Palestine WA and Jews Against the Occupation ’48.]