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[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Gloria Steinem on Trump (2016): “He is a ridiculously small insecure man with cotton candy hair and his coat swings open and you see this gelatinous mass. I don’t know where he went wrong in his childhood. It is unforgivable that we have in my country raised him to the level of a presidential candidate. In real life, he should not be elected, he should be hospitalized”

[Mark Ruffalo @MarkRuffalo]

The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract, or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel. To be clear, my views come from my own political convictions and should never be interpreted as hostility toward Jewish people, for whom I have deep love and respect.  Everything I know about acting, activism, and humanism has been profoundly shaped by the Jewish friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have been integral and family throughout every point of my life.

This merger has real consequences for real people, and for the entire country. Scrutinizing the Ellisons, including Oracle’s business built on data, surveillance technology and government contracts, and the serious threat to editorial freedom and the loss of a livelihood for thousands of families, is fair and necessary. The $111 billion deal would hand one family control over CNN, HBO and Warner Bros., backed in part by foreign money whose influence on editorial decisions has never been fully explained to the public. 

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for serious national security review, and regulators still haven’t given the public a real answer. Until they do, the merger shouldn’t move forward. Now is the time to dive boldly into all these issues, not step back or concede.

[Jill Murray @jillethelmurray]

What is Israel’s hold over the Australian government that it can’t even condemn the violent kidnapping of its citizens in international waters? What has become of us?

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal has published a handbook which unequivocally clarifies that her office exists not to protect Australian Jews from discrimination, but to stomp out criticism of the state of Israel.

However bad you’re imagining it is, it’s worse. The handbook, set to be formally launched later this week under the title “Understanding Antisemitism in Australia,” explicitly conflates antisemitism and antizionism with statements like “Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews” and asserting that it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of “apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide.”

It is therefore unambiguously the official position of the Australian government’s appointed authority on antisemitism that it is hateful and abusive toward Jews and their religion to oppose the racist political ideology underpinning the modern state of Israel.

So when Australians hear Jillian Segal and government officials talking about how there’s been an increase in “antisemitism” in our country and saying extreme measures must be taken to stop it, it’s important to be clear that this is the “antisemitism” they are talking about. They are talking about criticism of Israel.

Let’s go through the handbook together and highlight some revealing excerpts, shall we?

The forward in the handbook stresses the importance of the Australian government’s endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which has been opposed around the world for its conflation of criticism of Israel with hateful actions toward Jews. Under the IHRA definition it is considered antisemitic to claim that Israel is a racist endeavor, or to compare Israel’s abuses to those of Nazi Germany — both of which are entirely legitimate criticisms which should be put forward far more often than they are. Much of the handbook follows from the premises of the IHRA definition.

Segal’s office states that the handbook “is intended as a practical resource for schools, universities, public servants, community organisations and anyone seeking to understand antisemitism today.”

Segal’s office says that antisemitism “morphs” over the ages, from the blood libels and “Christ-killer” accusations of the Middle Ages to the racism of Nazi Germany, and has now morphed so that “antisemitic tropes are conveyed and justified in the language of human rights and international legal arguments.”

“For example, sometimes Jews are labelled and libelled as ‘settler-colonialists’, ‘oppressors’, and a symbol of a global system of domination that ‘can seemingly accommodate even the murder of Jews as Jews’,” the envoy proclaims.

Do you see how the subject was moved to lump medieval superstitions about Jews in with entirely legitimate criticisms of the modern state of Israel? According to Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, criticising Israel using “language of human rights and international legal arguments” is not meaningfully different from saying that Jews drink the blood of Christian children.

This, clearly, is stark raving insanity.

“Legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitic,” the envoy concedes, then proceeds to completely negate this concession with everything that follows. “However, there are many examples of antisemitic imagery, tropes, conspiracy theories and propaganda (echoing medieval myths) that have found their way into anti-Israel discourse. It is also increasingly common for the word ‘Zionist’ (or iterations of it) to be us ed as cover or proxy for ‘Jew ’.”

This is completely made up. The claim that critics of Israel’s abuses use the word “Zionist” when they really mean “Jew” is just something Israel apologists started asserting with no substantiation whatsoever a few years ago. They have no evidence for this assertion apart from the frequency and forcefulness which with they assert it.

The envoy defines Zionism as “the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination within their ancestral homeland,” which is misleading at best. That’s not what Zionism is. Zionism is what we see before us today. The genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and nonstop war and abuse. That’s what Zionism is, as evidenced by material reality. The best definition of Zionism is its real-world manifestations. Zionism is what it looks like when you give the Zionists everything they want.

“A new variant of antisemitic atrocity denial emerged in the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks — the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” the envoy writes. “Disturbingly, these atrocities have been met by some with denial, minimisation, justification and distortion — echoing Holocaust denial, minimisation, and distortion.”

Segal’s office is here telling us that it is antisemitic to talk about the glaring plot holes in the narratives about mass rapes, beheaded babies and babies cooked in ovens on October 7, or to talk about the large number of Israelis who were killed by IDF fire under the Hannibal Directive, or to “justify” the attack by pointing out the monstrous Israeli abuses which gave rise to it.

The envoy writes of the importance of “Standing firm against antisemitism parading as ‘anti-racism’,” stressing the IHRA position that framing Israel as a racist endeavor is hateful toward Jews. A flyer saying “We don’t want your two states. We want all of 48” is labeled “antisemitic, because there is only one Jewish country.”

Segal’s office warns of the dangers of “Holocaust inversion,” which is when “Israel and Jews are portrayed as Nazi-like perpetrators of mass atrocities and genocide,” which is bad because it “serves to demonise and delegitimise Israel, Israelis and Jews.”

To be clear, every relevant humanitarian institution on earth has said that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza. These groups include:

1. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory

2. The International Association of Genocide Scholars

3. B’Tselem (an Israeli organization)

4. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (another Israeli organization)

5. Amnesty International

6. Doctors Without Borders

7. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights

8. Human Rights Watch

9. The International Federation for Human Rights

10. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

The list of humanitarian institutions who say Israel is NOT committing genocide in Gaza includes:

1. Nobody

2. No one

3. Zero

4. Nothing

5. Nada

6. Zilch

7. Sweet damn all

8. A complete absence

9. Diddly squat

10. Bupkis

This is not some fringe conspiracy theory. It is a thoroughly established and entirely indisputable fact. Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism is saying that facts are antisemitic.

Some examples cited in the handbook of glaring instances of the antisemitic crime of “Holocaust inversion”:

— Placards of ‘ Well done Hitler would be proud’ and ‘Same shit Different asshole’, the latter with images of Hitler and Netanyahu, both placards making Nazi analogies to Israel

— Three banners of Hitler removing his mask , revealing the face of Netanyahu, making an analogy between Nazism and Israel, on major roads.

— Graffiti of a Star of David, equal sign, and Nazi swastika , and another graffiti of ‘End the Genocide’ on a main road.

We’re meant to believe it should be a hate crime to say the state that’s waging multiple wars of aggression while mass murdering people because of their ethnicity bears some resemblance to another state which did these things. I don’t know about you, but I find that silly.

Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” claims it is antisemitic to say the IHRA definition of antisemitism silences criticism of Israel, arguing that “claims that the leading global definition of antisemitism — which reflects the lived experience of Jewish people worldwide — is designed to intentionally silence criticism echoes antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and control.”

That’s right kids: you can’t criticise Israel because that’s antisemitic, and if you complain that your speech is being suppressed, that’s antisemitic too.

The handbook includes a hypothetical office group chat which includes a coworker making the statement “But what about the genocidal, racist Zionist project that has oppressed the Palestinians? Zionism is a supremacist ideology invented by Theodore Herzl. They’ve done this through apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”

“This is antisemitic,” the handbook argues, dismissing the entirely accurate statement as “Soviet-era antizionist propaganda” and saying it “was antisemitic because it included statements that accused Israel of apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide.”

Saying it’s antisemitic to accuse Israel of apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide is as clear an admission that Segal’s goal is to stomp out all criticism of Israel as you could possibly ask for.

If that wasn’t clear enough for you, the handbook concludes with the assertion that it is impossible to separate antizionism from antisemitism:

“Trying to separate ‘antisemitism’ from ‘antizionism’ ignores the history of misinformation, disinformation and antisemitic propaganda that has shaped narratives about Israel and Zionism,” the envoy asserts. “It also ignores the lived and practical reality that wherever these antizionist narratives have been propagated, it has resulted in discrimination, harassment , vilification, hate and harm towards Jews. For example, Poland’s 1968 antizionist campaign resulted in expulsions and forced emigration of thousands of Jewish Poles.”

“Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews,” the handbook concludes.

So there you have it. That settles that.

Throughout the handbook, the feelings of Australian Jews are cited over and over again as supremely important and of far more urgent a concern than genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and wars of immense geopolitical consequence.

“Feel more isolated… I feel like I am living the life of a Jew from history, rather than the Jew I was 2 years ago,” reads a quote from an unnamed Jewish person.

“I just feel so sad that I need to educate my children in how to respond if they are screamed at in the street,” reads another.

“The silence from friends I have known almost all my life, the constant posting of antisemitic slurs and the public broadcasts of factually incorrect reports has been devastating and makes me fearful of what might happen next. Since October 7, when I speak to someone who hasn’t offered any support, I often ask myself ‘would they hide me’ which is a terribly sad situation in our beautiful country where I have always felt safe,” reads another.

“A tutor in my university class made antisemitic comments very casually which made me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. I am now nervous when entering a uni class,” reads another.

“Being confronted again and again with blind hate towards my people and the place I come from was very painful. It impacted my mood, the way I perceived my community and my place in it, and my daily function,” reads another.

Virtually nothing is said about the real victims. The murdered, displaced and terrorized targets of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran. The war orphans. The child amputees and burn victims who were operated on without anesthesia. The people who will carry the physical and psychological wounds from their holocaust with them for the rest of their lives.

They are not regarded as important by Jillian Segal. The real crisis, in her mind, is people talking about these things and making Jewish Australians feel upset.

Absolutely psychotic. We cannot allow our country to continue to be dragged in this direction.

[Sherele Moody (Femicide Researcher) 🌈 @ShereleMoody]

The incomparable Cathy Wilcox!

[John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews]

The body of the Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was found by rescuers after several hours of digging in the rubble after an Israeli strike. She is the fourth journalist to have been killed by Israeli forces in seven weeks. This is why the word ‘journacide’ is now being used.

[Amnesty UK @AmnestyUK]

Breaking: Today's mass arrests of peaceful protesters in Trafalgar Square under UK terrorism law are yet another blow to civil liberties in this country - and made all the more outrageous by the Metropolitan Police's own U-turn.

The High Court ruled in February that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful.

The Met rightly said it would stop making arrests. It has now gone back to its old, failed policy - mass arrests of people holding pieces of card, including today an elderly woman with walking sticks.

This is not policing. This is the state criminalising dissent.

Take action now with thousands of other Amnesty International supporters and sign the petition to end all prosecutions against these peaceful protesters.

https://t.co/SP57zaMqi2

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

One of Orwell's nightmares materialised would be this: potential war criminals and arm manufacturers implicated in a genocide allowed to roam and operate freely, while citizens get arrested for opposing a genocide.

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

Good heavens ! What on earth has got into the Catholic Church ? Now here’s the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington DC making sense.

[Dr Tracy Westerman AM @TracyWesterman]

Her father, Lang Hancock, said on national television in 1984 that Indigenous Australians he described as “half-castes” should be rounded up and have their water “doped up so that they were sterile and would breed themselves out in the future.” Donnell Wallam — only the third Indigenous woman ever to represent Australia in netball — privately requested that Rinehart publicly denounce those comments. Rinehart refused. Wallam was then denied an exemption from wearing the Hancock logo on her debut, and under unbearable pressure eventually agreed to wear it — at which point Rinehart pulled the $15 million sponsorship anyway, describing the players’ concerns as “virtue signalling.”
This is who funds One Nation. This is the legacy behind the money.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

BREAKING! Amid widespread bombing across Arab regions, Israel approves its largest-ever colonial expansion. Under the "fog of war'', what I warned on 14 Oct 2023 is unfolding: the largest ethnic cleansing/land grab in Palestine, since the Nakba. It’s happening. Under our watch.

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

The United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994.

The deal was simple: Ukraine surrendered its massive nuclear arsenal, and in return, those powers promised to respect its sovereignty.

Everyone needs to remember that

[Mike Carlton @MikeCarlton01]

Don’t know who this guy is. I assume he’s British. But he calls it right every time, with knowledge and facts.

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

If there was any doubt that Australia must urgently decouple from the US and its violent global war-making, coercion and domination then surely it is now. End AUKUS, close US bases and chart Australia’s path in the world, not follow Washington’s.

[Sophie McNeill @Sophiemcneill]

Australia must end AUKUS now & develop an independent foreign policy. We simply cannot continue to be hitched to this unstable fascist in the White House & his growing list of war crimes.

[sarah schulman @sarahschulman3]

Watching Israel move into Lebanon, seizing land, destroying everything, and imposing ethnic cleansing on Shia Muslims- to the extent that Druse and Christian Lebanese HIDE their Muslim neighbors- is like watching Germany roll into Czechoslovakia in 1939, while the world yawns.

[Peter FitzSimons @Peter_Fitz]

MUST watch.
@MikeCarlton01

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

After the right to torture Palestinians, Apartheid Israel claims the right to HANG Palestinians. The shame of the century continues.

Ben Gvir belongs in The Hague.