There’s a habit in modern politics of mistaking the symptom for the cause.

The NSW Government’s response to rising antisemitism is a textbook example.

After months of evidence and testimony, a parliamentary committee landed on a narrow conclusion: consider banning the phrase “globalise the intifada.”

It sounds decisive. It reads well in a headline.

But it completely misses the point.

Because slogans don’t create movements. They signal that a movement is already in place.

If banning a phrase could solve ideological hostility, this would be easy.

Language is interchangeable. Remove one slogan and another appears.

That’s because the slogan is not the engine.

The engine is belief.

And right now, that belief has been shaped by a steady stream of false, distorted, and emotionally charged narratives about Israel and Jewish people that have gone largely unchallenged in Australia.

That is where the real failure sits.

How the Narrative Took Hold

This did not happen overnight.

It built through repetition, amplification, and legitimisation.

When the same claims are echoed across campuses, media commentary, and public platforms, they stop sounding like opinion and start feeling like fact.

Once that shift happens, behaviour follows.

People do not shut........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)