Australia is in the midst of a major enquiry into antisemitism- a Royal Commission- following the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach. The community has been invited to make submissions. Below, I share mine. It is analytical rather than personal and represents my attempt to understand the links between anti-Zionist protest and harms to the Jewish community.

I write as an Australian Jew.

I am writing entirely in my personal capacity and do not represent any Jewish communal, political or Zionist organisation. I am an engaged member of the Jewish community and regularly attend a local “egalitarian orthodox” synagogue.

I am a child of holocaust survivors. My father survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps and death marches; my mother was hidden in a convent for the latter part of the second World War. All four of my grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.

I strongly support the right of Australians to advocate for the welfare, human rights and self-determination of both Jewish and Palestinian communities. I have been involved in inter-communal dialogue both in Melbourne and in Israel-Palestine and am commited to a just outcome in Israel and Palestine.

I am a medical specialist in the public hospital system and an associate professor at at Melbourne University.

Aims of this submission

I am writing primarily to reflect on, and critically evaluate, common claims made in reference to the relationship between pro-Palestinian advocacy and harms affecting the Australian Jewish community.

My primary contentions are that:

The adverse impacts of the protest movement need to be understood as a systemic and cumulative phenomenon- this includes chronic low level psychological harm, social exclusion and the generation of an atmosphere associated with a heightened risk of sporadic violence

The heterogeneity of participants and their motivations, the ill-defined targets (Israel, Zionists or Jews), and the ambiguity of protest language and symbols, together make attribution of harm and intent difficult. This ambiguity and heterogeneity allow a protest environment that tacitly fosters exclusionary, vilifying and even violent behaviour while allowing protest spokespeople plausible deniability.

Consequently, the courts and relevant legislation, which assess the protest movement on a “slogan by slogan” or “event by event” basis -that is, through the lens of individual cases – cannot adequately “see” the broad environment as experienced by the Jewish community. It is a case of forest and trees.

The attack on December 14, 2025, was the worst act of antisemitic violence ever committed on Australian soil. Fifteen people were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach.

Some have drawn a straight line between the Bondi massacre and anti-Zionist incitement, particularly focusing on the slogan “Globalise the Intifada”. Anti-Zionist advocates, in contrast, attribute blame to the shooters’ ISIS connection and the influence of radical Sydney clerics, insisting that the Bondi shootings have nothing to do with peaceful anti-Zionist activism.

Yet this murder was, in the perpetrators own words, intended to condemn “the acts of ‘Zionists”. It seems implausible that this targeting of Zionists was entirely unrelated to two years of inflammatory anti-Zionist rhetoric or that hate speech played no role in pushing perpetrators, primed by fundamentalist influencers, to cross some threshold to action.

Most Jewish Australians view Bondi against a backdrop of over two years of escalating incitement and a hardening anti-Jewish atmosphere. The Opera House protest in October 2023 marked a turning point. Reported chants, including “Where are the Jews?” and “F*** the Jews”, suggested a real shift in what could be said about Jews in public, seemingly without consequence.

Since then, high-profile incidents, such as arson attacks on synagogues, have attracted significant media attention.  Less visible are cumulative, psychologically harmful effects of effects of chronic “low level” stigmatisation.

Many find it hard to avoid the conclusion that this environment may have lowered the threshold for violence. A long-standing vulnerability has been brought into sharper focus, prompting calls for a precautionary response, including greater restraint in protest language.

The Bondi tragedy has produced grief, fear and anger within the Jewish community, alongside shock and sympathy across the wider Australian society. The subsequent critical national conversation has led to the present Royal Commission. Could we, as a nation, have done more to counter antisemitism and ensure Jewish safety? Why did our security services fail?  Was anti-Zionist activism a contributing factor for Bondi?

If so, do we need constraints on forms of protest? Should constraints be established through legislation or, at a deeper level, through education and cultural change?

Debate over public discourse and anti-Jewish incidents

Palestinian advocacy organisations have condemned the violence at Bondi and expressed sympathy for the victims. However, Jewish expressions of fear or calls for reassurance and safety have typically been dismissed as “weaponising antisemitism”, silencing debate or even “defending genocide”.

Anti-Israel groups like US Jewish Voice for Peace and the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network insist their activism is guided by justice and human rights and rejects racism or violence. Those claims are in their mission statements. Jewish anti-Zionist commentators and groups have denied any possible relationship between the language of protest and the attack.  “Zero evidence”, according to one commentator.

Consequently, they have criticised Jewish calls for safety and protections, and government proposals to restrict aspects of protest, as overreach or an attack on free speech rather than an attempt to provide community safety.

This insistence that no restrictions be placed on the language and forms of protests is accompanied by several claims that warrant critical evaluation:

That the pro-Palestinian movement is peaceful and simply protesting injustice (including alleged genocide)

That the language of protest, including terms such as “Globalise the intifada” is inherently non-violent;

That public protest is directed against Israel and Zionists and not against Jews;

That consequently activist speech cannot be linked with violence, or harms more broadly, affecting Jews

That the imputation of violent connotations is simply an attempt to stifle free speech.

How might we reconcile this Jewish experience of harm with claims by Palestinian advocacy groups that the movement is non-violent and explicitly rejects antisemitism?

Below, I address a number of key questions and issues in turn.

1.The pro-Palestinian movement is a complex ecosystem and not accurately characterised as entirely peaceful

Palestinian advocacy groups stress that their activism is grounded in human rights. They claim that violence against Jews cannot be attributed to a movement that explicitly rejects antisemitism or the use of violence. This is a superficially reassuring but incomplete framing. It fails to acknowledge the range of actors (and agendas) within the pro-Palestinian advocacy community and beyond it, not all of whom necessarily share these peaceful ideals.

This heterogeneity is even reflected in the several labels used to describe the movement: pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. While they may be used interchangeably, they represent very different agendas and targets: supporting the rights of a people, opposing the policies of a state and opposing, and often vilifying, those who can be linked with that state- that is, Jews.

A 2014 study of over 20 Palestinian civil society groups by the General Delegation Of Palestine in Australia captures the heterogeneity of the groups – likely a fraction of the number of groups active in 2026.

The study notes that Palestinian organizations “often have multiple desired outcomes and target audiences and undertake different kinds of activities.” The study explicitly distinguishes “advocacy groups” and “activist groups”. The former are the public facing, suit and tie wearing (my words) groups, that speak the language of human rights and engage in, to quote the study, “persuasion, lobbying and negotiation”.

“Activist groups”, in contrast, are described as “denunciative” engaging in “protest, street demonstrations, strike actions, public meetings” and whose desired outcomes are “diffuse and not necessarily … within defined policy and political parameters”. They “articulate messages in different forums, to different audiences” with different “tone, tenor, and language of the message”… “in language that resonates with their niche constituencies.” Of course we are now also increasingly aware of Islamist (and) influences in Australia which we now know to have been connected to the Bondi massacre.

Beyond explicitly Palestinian groups lies a wider ecosystem. It includes direct-action networks, unaffiliated vandals, right-wing extremists, Islamic fundamentalist groups and “old school antisemites”. They often mobilise around the same events, language and grievances or share physical and online spaces with non-violent advocacy groups. Their presence may shape how protests are experienced by those on the receiving end.

Speaking at the Lowy Institute lecture ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess observed that activist groups are often not “centrally controlled” or “uniformly motivated,” and may include “individuals who are increasingly willing to embrace or threaten violence to achieve their goals.”

This heterogeneity within the activist community allows for plausible deniability when violent or threatening behaviour is observed For example, after chants of “F-ck the Jews” and “where’s the jews” were reported at the Opera house protest, Fahad Ali of the Palestinian Action Groups dismissed this as reflecting a “small group of troublemakers” The same disavowal was made regarding a pro-Palestinian bikie group. This allows spokespeople to claim entirely benign aims while wider affiliates of movement take a more aggressive approach to members of the Jewish community.

To put it simply: claims that the Palestinian advocacy community is entirely peaceful is a very incomplete description of reality.

2.The language and forms of protest are not unambiguously peaceful, but rather contain phrases and symbols with the potential to be interpreted as violent by elements in the protest movement and broader society

The language and symbolism of protest span a wide range. Some slogans are political and entirely unobjectionable: “Stop the war,” “Free Palestine”.

Then there are the explicitly or implicitly violent slogans and symbols that often accompany protest. They include phrases such as “where’s the Jews”, “f*** the jews” “death to IDF” and  “by any means necessary” as well as symbols (terrorist flags, pictures of the Ayatollah, the Jewish Star of David in rubbish bins)  Symbols of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran can be understood as implying support for their violent and eliminationist goals (described here, here, here, here, here). This celebration of violence was evident immediately after the Hamas massacre at the Opera House protest and the Lakemba celebration (and indeed there was further language of celebration and an anniversary event at Lakemba a year later.)

Slogans such as “Zionists are baby killers” and “all Zionists are terrorists” are clearly intended to, or can reasonably be expected to, incite hatred towards those who support Israel’s existence or are affiliated with Israel, regardless of their views on the conduct of the war.

In between are phrases whose meaning is contested, such as “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada.” Many have expressed concern that such phrases are coded calls for violence or for the elimination of the Jewish state. Palestinian advocates have emphasised the innocent meaning of “river to the sea” and “Intifada” (here, here, here) and some go so far as to argue that attributing violent intent to such slogans is Islamophobic.

It is frequently explained, for example, that “intifada” simply means........

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