Antinuclear

Jillian Segal’s ‘Understanding Antisemitism in Australia’: Putting Israel beyond criticism

By Evan Jones | 17 August 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/jillian-segals-understanding-antisemitism-in-australia-putting-israel-beyond-criticism,21427

In the second of IA’s two-part series, Dr Evan Jones examines how Jillian Segal’s antisemitism framework conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and threatens legitimate public debate.

(Read part one HERE)

THE SEGAL DOCUMENT, ‘Understanding Antisemitism in Australia’, claims (p.17):

‘The Jewish people’s connection to their indigenous homeland… was recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 181(II). The resolution reaffirmed the historical and ancestral ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, underscoring the legitimacy of their claim and the importance of their self-determination.’

Resolution 181(II) did no such thing. There is no mention of “indigenous” or “historical and ancestral ties” in the Resolution. This is classic opportunist appropriation of Resolution 181(II), which (in any case) former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion et al immediately proceeded to ignore. Conveniently forgotten is the Resolution’s promulgation for an Arab state in conjunction with a Jewish state, combined economic control and development, and international control of Jerusalem.

Ditto British academic Victor Kattan’s ‘The UN Partition Plan for Palestine and International Law’, also wrongly cited in support of the Zionist cause. Kattan’s work is a detailed, sober outline of the differences surrounding the Partition Plan. The attempted appropriation of this document is an insult to Kattan himself, a part-Palestinian legal scholar with a long-time commitment to the Palestinian cause.

The froth continues (p.17):

‘Jewish self-determination does not exclude Palestinian self-determination or sovereignty.’

Really? Tell that to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

The document continues:

‘In Australia, around 90 per cent of Jewish people believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state — the essence of Zionism.’

Again misleading.

The 2023 survey of Australian Jews on Israel highlighted that 85 per cent of those surveyed agreed to the loaded proposition:

‘…the existence of Israel is essential for the future of the Jewish people.’

Perhaps some or many of those questioned thought implicitly that “Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state”, but that proposition was not in the survey. 

There follows a detailed exposition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) antisemitism definition (p.27ff., further elaborated p.33ff.). Yet the longer the exposition, the more the definition is exposed as fraudulent.

Thus:

‘Example 6: Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.’

Greater loyalty to Israel is a fact for self-appointed “representative” Jewish organisations and for many non-Israeli Jews, which has adverse effects on the integrity of a country’s foreign policy, leading in the global arena to tolerance of Israel’s current criminality.

‘Example 7: Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.’

The Apartheid state of Israel is a racist endeavour. And does this mean that more than half of global Jewry is not yet self-determined?

Later (p.42), Example 7 is elaborated:

‘To selectively deny the Jewish people the right to self-determination in some portion of their ancestral homeland is antisemitic.’

Which portion in particular? As noted above, the “portion” of Palestine allocated to Jews in the UN 1947 Partition Plan was excessive and incoherent, but Ben-Gurion et al wanted the lot, and more of neighbouring countries.

Ben-Gurion’s successors still do.

‘Example 8: Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’

This perennial catechism (elaborated on p.43) is the central tenet of the IHRA definition. Apartheid Israel is not a democracy but an ethnocracy. Israel is a peculiar country, deserving of particular condemnation, so no “double standards” are involved.

‘Example 10: Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.’

If, in surveying the evidence, I think it appropriate to draw parallels between Nazi bestiality and Israeli bestiality, I will do so.

To re-jig a paragraph from the document (p.34):

‘Foremost among the techniques that incite, justify and authorise the killing of [Palestinians] are demonisation and dehumanisation. [Israeli] propaganda exemplifies the depiction of [Palestinians] as sub-human (“Untermenschen”).’

(See Wikipedia’s ‘Dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli discourse’ and this from Al Jazeera in October 2023. If the shoe fits…)

‘Example 11: Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ (Replicated p.33 and p.40.)

Now this one is a doozy. From the conception and inception of Israel, Israeli leadership has constructed Israel as the state of Jewry sui generis. Over half of the global Jewish population declines to live in Israel (to make Aliyah), but all self-described “official” other-country Jewish organisations are pro-Israel in their orientation.

The Israeli leadership and global Zionist Jewish organisations see Jewry as intimately tied to Israel. Is it not conceivable that someone, furious at relentless Israeli barbarity, might make the same connection that official Jewry makes itself?

More, the sentence implies that there might be something questionable about “actions of the state of Israel”. Isn’t it then a sensible course that the official organisations of “diaspora” Jews might publicly distance themselves from Israel; indeed, as Jews, that they might actively criticise Israel and work towards influencing the Israeli leadership towards more human behaviour towards its subject Palestinian population and those of neighbouring countries?

Now we have a “key point” from the IHRA definition in “Jewish collectivity” (p.31):

‘The new antisemitism… is an attack on Jews as a nation seeking to exist like a nation as any other on the face of the Earth with rights of self-governance and self-defence.’

August 21, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized