The Australian
Government appointed a "special envoy against antisemitism", Jillian Segal, who
produced a plan.
Some of its proposals are a serious threat to academic freedom:
"Key actions:
• The Envoy will develop and launch a university report card, assessing
each university’s implementation of effective practices and standards to combat
antisemitism, including complaints systems and best practice policies, as well
as consideration of whether the campus/online environment is conducive to
Jewish students and staff participating actively and equally in university
life.
• The Envoy will work with government to enable government funding to be
withheld, where possible, from universities, programs or individuals
within universities that facilitate, enable or fail to act against
antisemitism. Working with government and grant authorities, the Envoy will,
where possible, establish that all public grants provided to university
centres, academics or researchers can be subject to termination
where the recipient engages in antisemitic or otherwise discriminatory or
hateful speech or actions.
• A commission of inquiry into campus antisemitism, including the sources of
funding for organised clusters of antisemitism, should be commissioned by the
Federal Government if systemic problems remain in universities by the start of
the 2026 academic year.
• Working with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency the Envoy
will advocate to ensure that systemic action is taken to reverse a dangerous
trajectory of normalised antisemitism in many university courses and
campuses."
A private member's bill
(apparently not to be proceeded with) introduced by Julian Leeser also
threatens academic freedom. Section 6, "Matters for the
Commissioner", includes: "to inquire whether Australian universities
have ... (f) taken steps to ensure that antisemitic content is not included in
course and teaching materials, or delivered during lectures, tutorials and
other classes". This would mean that censors would examine teaching
materials (and maybe academics’ publications?) for what they deem to be
antisemitic content and would seek reports from students about what lecturers,
tutors and other students said in class.
Censoring academic
work will need some definition (or set of assumptions) about what counts as
antisemitic.
Leeser's Bill (sec.
6.3.b) recommends the IHRA
definition of antisemitism (which should properly be referred to as the
“non-legally binding working definition”). The Special Envoy requires the IHRA definition : “The Envoy 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 Universities
Australia have not adopted the IHRA definition but have adopted their
own. The UA definition assumes we know what will count as
"discrimination, prejudice, harassment, exclusion, vilification". Jillian
Segal commented:
"I consider Universities Australia's working definition of antisemitism to
be a positive step [i.e. a first step in what she regards as the right
direction]. My preference remains that the International Holocaust Remembrance
definition be adopted in its entirety". Clearly, she and others will try
to get the Universities to be guided in recognising “discrimination,
prejudice,” etc. by the IHRA definition.
The Australian
Government, in Recommendation 1 of its response
to the Special Envoy's Report, has said: "The Australian Government’s official definition of antisemitism is the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition."
Recommendation 4 of
the Government’s response seems to establish a framework for carrying out the
Special Envoy's program without adquate safeguards for academic freedom.
Similar terms, such
as racism, misogyny, ageism, attribute some bad characteristic (or behaviour
pattern, etc.) to all (or almost all) members of an (involuntary) group, along
with the assertion that having that characteristic is caused by whatever puts them
into that group (e.g. they have it "genetically",
"essentially", "intrinsically").
By analogy, one might define Antisemitism as: "The
attribution of bad attributes to all (or almost all) Jews as such – i.e.
the bad attributes are supposed to belong to them because they are Jews."
The
IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of
Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews…”
“A certain
perception" is vague. The definition gets practical meaning from a set of
examples. The examples include generalisations about Jews that do attribute
some bad characteristic to all Jews, to Jews collectively, or to Jews "as
such" (which fit the definition suggested above), and others that relate to the
state of Israel: "Denying the Jewish people their right to
self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel
is a racist endeavor. ... Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to
that of the Nazis." Thus the definition can be
used to protect Israel from criticism by characterising the criticism as
antisemitic.
The reference to a
"right of self-determination" is of special concern, in my opinion.
(The Universities
Australia definition also contains the assertion that “All peoples,
including Jews, have the right to self-determination.”) The "self" here is the ethnic group. The idea that each ethnic
group has the right to its own state has resulted in much bloody conflict. It
should be rejected. Multiculturalism
should be the norm. See my papers here and here; also Hannum, "Legal Aspects of Self-Determination".
As for drawing
comparisons with the Nazis, obviously anyone has a right to compare anything
with anything: whether Israeli actions resemble the actions of the Nazis is a
question to be decided by evidence and argument, not by a definition.
The Jerusalem
Declaration on Anti-Semitism:
"Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against
Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)." This is pretty close to the definition I suggested above. The Declaration continued with
guidelines and examples, including examples relating to the state of Israel,
including:
·
Holding
Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct or treating Jews, simply
because they are Jewish, as agents of Israel.
·
Requiring
people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism (for
example, at a political meeting).
·
Assuming
that non-Israeli Jews, simply because they are Jews, are necessarily more loyal
to Israel than to their own countries
The declaration also
provides examples “that, on the face of it, are not antisemitic (whether or not
one approves of the view or action” – i.e. it is possible to say
“I disagree with that, but it’s not antisemitic”. These examples include:
· Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism, or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea,” whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.
· Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state….
Thus the statement that “Zionism is a form of
nationalism” -- i.e. that it is an illegitimate claim to appropriate a state to
one ethnic group, making non-Jews second-class citizens – would not be
antisemitic, even though it remained open to debate and rejection.
It seems to me that
the Jerusalem Declaration is to be preferred, and that Universities and other
institutions should deal with all forms of racism and discrimination within the
same framework, without allowing a particular ethnic group to exercise any special
influence.
Robert Manne, “The
wrong way to respond to antisemitism” 18 July 2025 (on the Segal report).
David Brophy, “Universities
and the arts after Bondi: From definitions to ‘ambient antisemitism’”, 9
January 2026.
Go to Palestine and Israel