30 July 2025

ALAN HAYES

 

THE genocide in Gaza, or more to the point the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, has allowed a ‘lighting rod’ of authoritarianism to descend upon Australian society under the guise of anti-Semitism.

 

Enter Jillian Segal, the Federal Government-appointed-special-envoy, who has produced a report that is shocking in its authoritarian overreach and, if approved, could damage Australia's democracy. It is a series of measures that represent an anti-democratic assault on freedom of the press and freedom of expression generally.

 

Last week the Grapevine exposed in 'Stifling Free Speech’  the extent to which the special envoy, Jillian Segal, wants the government to change the law but also revealed that she opposed Australia’s support for a United Nation’s resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

 

It was also reported in last week’s Grapevine that Segal’s family donated to Advance Australia, a far-right group that has promoted racism, including conspiracy theories, and anti-Palestinian racism.

 

The Grapevine can now reveal that Segal’s anti-Semitism plan is tissue thin and that her ambitious report targets schools, universities, the Department of Home Affairs, cultural institutions and public broadcasters, saying she would like to "monitor media organisations to encourage accurate, fair and responsible reporting" and to "avoid accepting false or distorted narratives." Curiously, however, among the media targeted, it is only the public sector broadcasters that are in the firing line. Why? There is a hint early in the plan where Segal insinuates that they perpetrate incorrect or distorted narratives or representations of Jews. There is not a shred of evidence in the report to support this. When she was challenged on it by Sarah Ferguson on the ABC’s 7.30 Report, Segal could not name a single example.

 

Nothing excuses anti-Semitic attitudes, speech or actions, and for centuries it has lain just under the surface in many countries, including Australia. It takes little provocation to bring it out, and the impact nowadays is magnified by the hate machinery called social media. But Segal’s plan is to quash any criticism at all about the atrocities being committed by the Israeli Government.

 

As we have previously reported, in Australia, there are already laws in place to protect places of worship from defacing and destruction,  which include shrines, monuments, and statues located in public areas. These laws carry penalties like fines and potential community corrections orders. Additionally, there are penalties for offenses like blocking access to places of worship and enhances police powers to address demonstrations or protests near these locations.

 

Australia also has laws in place to address religious vilification, which is the public act of inciting hatred, serious contempt, or severe ridicule of a person or group based on their religion.

 

Freedom of speech at risk

 

Since the publication of ‘Stifling Free Speech’ and ‘Dystopian Blue; violent crime and draconian laws’, the Grapevine has received an enormous amount of feedback in support of those two stories.

 

There is little doubt that our society agrees on one common thing: The October 7 events last year by Hamas should appall us all, and the responses since that time by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) are also, even more so, appalling and nothing should excuse the grotesque and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians.

 

Likewise, the actions of the NSW police force to brutally attack our citizens, peacefully protesting the actions of the Israeli government, is unacceptable.

 

Shades of McCarthyism in 1950's America has now become part of Australian policing. And when just about anything that happens these days is labelled ‘anti-Semitism’, even without adoption of the proposed and ridiculous expanded definition supported by the Segal report, further destroys the fabric of our society.

 

The alleged wave of anti-Semitic attacks in NSW, such as the Dural caravan hoax, have been found not to be anti-Semitic at all but done for other criminal purposes. This information has hidden from the public, allowing NSW Premier Chris Minns to introduce draconian anti-protest laws.

 

Three weeks ago, the Grapevine reported on the peaceful protest at Belmore, where Hannah Thomas, a former Greens candidate for the seat of Grayndler at the last Federal election, was punched in the eye by a police officer.

 

Ms Thomas said, “I attended a peaceful protest where a male NSW police officer punched me hard enough to rupture my right eyeball so severely that it resembled a deflated football.

 

“Against the odds, and because of two exceptionally skilled surgeons and their teams, I am now hopeful of saving the eye and regaining some vision — the extent of which I won’t know for months.

 

“The officer had no need to punch me, so it’s reasonable to conclude that he simply wanted to. Why, I can only speculate, but NSW Police, like police forces throughout this colony, is rife with racism and misogyny, and is used to getting away with gratuitous violence, particularly if its victims aren’t white.

 

“And this officer had good reason to think he’d get away with it, as indicated by how unfazed his colleagues were by my mangled face, and the way senior cops and politicians quickly closed ranks around him.

 

“Assistant commissioner McFadden reviewed the body-worn footage — presumably the same footage which my lawyers and police sources say shows a male officer punch a defenceless woman — and went on radio to say he saw nothing wrong with his officers’ conduct.

 

“Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke victim-blamed me by suggesting I was engaged in unlawful conduct, in disregard of my right to a presumption of innocence. Burke is also the MP for Watson, the Western Sydney electorate where the protest occurred and where the relevant police officers are stationed. It should disturb him that such violent police prowl his racially diverse community and that all involved remain on duty, armed with guns, tasers, batons and OC spray in addition to their fists.

 

“Unfortunately for NSW Police, it hasn’t been able to sweep things under the rug because I have the benefit of a (teeny) profile here and in Malaysia, and more importantly, the invaluable support of the Australian and NSW Greens, a formidable legal team, and the dogged work of a handful of journalists.”

 

None of the violence that day — and Hannah wasn’t the only one who experienced it — happened in a vacuum. All of it was a foreseeable result of the Minns government’s draconian anti-protest laws and demonisation of Palestine protesters, which have emboldened police to violently crackdown on them and act with even more impunity. In fact, the Minns government was warned of this very outcome.

 

So, how far down into the mire have we, as a society, sunk when an act of state violence against peaceful protesters is sanctioned as being acceptable? Is a police officer punching someone in the face now the status quo? But such acts of rigour and brutality, it would seem, are now part of the new ‘boot-kicking’ method of so-called law enforcement.

 

So, are Australians now expected to quietly accept the erosion of free speech, nay democracy, and be subjugated by the ‘Leather boots of Authoritarianism’?

 

The overlooked story

 

Hannah Thomas and her cohorts have been martyred by their peaceful actions at Belmore – drawing to the attention of the Australian public our governments undeniable, unambiguous and absolute complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

 

The 650 days of ever-escalating genocidal depravity by Israel — from bombing schools to blowing up hospitals, to assassinating journalists, to mutilating children, to murdering aid workers, to disappearing doctors, to obliterating refugee camps, to manufacturing mass famine, to turning food lines into firing lines, and the setting up of concentration camps – is a blight upon those world governments who sit idly by and do nothing.

 

Yet Israel's embassy in Australia has claimed there is no starvation in Gaza, echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric and defying reports by the World Health Organization (WHO) and others that malnutrition, in the words of the WHO, is “on a dangerous trajectory in the Gaza Strip, marked by a spike in deaths in July”.

 

Amir Meron, Israel's second-highest-ranking diplomat in Australia, suggested claims of starvation in Gaza amounted to Hamas propaganda and that “false pictures” were being used to misrepresent what was happening in the Palestinian territory.

 

Australia joining with twenty-four other nations in a letter to condemn Israel’s genocide is not enough – Netanyahu continues to exterminate Palestinians.

 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, however, last Sunday accused Israel of a “breach of international law”, saying the halting of food deliveries “was a decision that Israel made in March”.

Palestinian child in Gaza suffering from malnutrition.

Reacting to images of an emaciated infant suffering from malnutrition in Gaza, Albanese said: “I'm a supporter of Israel and Israel's right to defend itself, but that boy isn't challenging Israel's right to existence, and nor are the many who continue to suffer from the unavailability of food and water.”

 

Yet while French President Emmanuel Macron’s has committed to recognise a Palestinian state as a way forward to end the genocide in Gaza, Anthony Albanese reaction has been tepid.

 

Albanese’s main objection to Macron's way forward is that recognition must be part of a broader process - one that does not threaten the existence of Israel. "We will do it as a way forward if the circumstances are met,” Albanese said.

 

The problem is, the circumstances will never be met. Netanyahu has repeatedly demonstrated he wants to keep the war going for as long as possible.

 

So, making recognition of Palestine contingent on Israel entering a peace process is tantamount by default to cooperating with Netanyahu’s strategy - delivering a historic victory to the most extreme, racist Israeli leader in history.

 

It’s now time for Anthony Albanese to step up – call Israel’s actions against Gaza for what they truly are: genocide and ethnic cleansing. It’s time for Australia to sanction Israel and its war machine, ending the two-way weapons trade, expelling the Israeli ambassador, joining the Hague Group, banning Israeli cargo ships from docking at local ports, and taking action against Australians fighting in the IDF.

 

Hannah Thomas said: “The Albanese government is exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, signing $900 million contracts with Israeli weapons manufacturers and shielding Israel from accountability, most recently by funding attempts by Jillian Segal to silence dissent and quash Palestine advocacy.”

 

Senator David Shoebridge, Greens spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, said: “For too long, the Albanese Government has refused to act, and placed no pressure on the Israeli Government to end the genocide.

 

“We know what action looks like, we have seen it done before. We need to see it again. There is mass starvation in Gaza, and thousands of children are hours away from death. Inaction was never an option; it is not now.

 

“It is good that after two years of denial, the Albanese government is now acknowledging the horror occurring in front of our eyes. The Prime Minister must now impose sanctions, follow the words with action and end the two-way arms trade.

 

“The Albanese Government’s position that there is nothing it can do to put pressure on the Israeli Government is a weak attempt to distract the public from its complicity.

 

“The Albanese Government will claim they are waiting for other countries to act so they can follow, but the Albanese Government has failed to impose sanctions on Israel to the level of other countries.

 

“Despite the spin from the Albanese Government, it is not in dispute that the Government has allowed weapons and weapon parts from Australia to be sent to Israel.

 

"The Canberra-made R400 remote weapon system was used in Israel early this year.

 

“We stopped the arms trade with Russia. We can do the same with Israel,” Senator Shoebridge said.

 

The Federal Government has also failed to sanction the Israeli Security Cabinet, which is responsible for carrying out the genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of the West Bank.

 

It’s time for the Albanese Government to act forcefully against the atrocities being committed by Israel and to pulp Jillian Segal’s anti-Semitism plan – starting over again with an anti-racism framework that brings all Australians together and understand that the peaceful protests against the Israeli Government’s genocide in Gaza are not protests against the Jewish people.

 

To reiterate the Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Max Kaiser's words from last week's story: The Segal report is a “blueprint for silencing dissent”. The “emphasis on surveillance, censorship and punitive control over funding” was “straight out of Trump’s authoritarian playbook”.

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