How Does One Be an Antisemite? Claim Antizionism!
How does one be an antisemite in 2026 without openly admitting it?
Simple. Claim you are not an antisemite while proudly calling yourself an antizionist.
Zionism is a simple concept: the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and a homeland in their ancestral homeland, where Jewish history stretches back more than 3,500 years.
Nothing more than that.
It does not mean supporting every Israeli government or agreeing with every military operation. Israelis themselves fiercely criticise their governments. That’s democracy.
But opposing a particular Israeli policy is not the same as opposing Israel’s existence.
That distinction matters.
When Jews alone are denied the right to national self-determination, while that right is supported for everyone else, we should ask whether “antizionism” is really as harmless as its defenders claim.
So when I say the rhetoric and actions of politicians such as Greens senators Mehreen Faruqi and Nick McKim, along with others on the Left, raise serious questions about antisemitism, allow me to explain.
Mehreen Faruqi has been photographed alongside imagery depicting Jews being thrown into rubbish bins. She has stood chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “by any means necessary”, among others.
We are told these are harmless calls for Palestinian liberation.
If Palestine is to exist “from the river to the sea”, what happens to the millions of Israeli Jews living there?
And when someone says “by any means necessary”, does it include terrorism? Murder? Expelling Jews from Israel?
Those questions cannot simply be dismissed by labelling anyone who asks them a Zionist.
The irony is that Faruqi and others call for Israel to be “decolonised”, as though Jews suddenly arrived there in 1948.
Jewish history is embedded in the land. Archaeology documents thousands of years of Jewish civilisation, kingdoms, religious life and connection to the region.
Israel’s history did not begin in 1948, nor did the Jewish connection to the land.
Then there is Senator Nick McKim, who has accused the Albanese government of being “captured........
