Submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU)

Joshua Dabelstein and Movement Against Antizionism

May 11, 2026

Executive Summary

This submission is presented by Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU), an independent grassroots collective providing training, support, and education to individuals and institutions navigating antizionism in Australia. MAAZ AU was formed in response to a recognised failure of existing institutional frameworks to identify, name, and appropriately respond to a contemporary form of anti-Jewish harm.

This submission acknowledges that antizionism constitutes a distinct ideological system – operationally and structurally separate from antisemitism as it exists in popular parlance – through which anti-Jewish harm is currently being produced and permitted. The IHRA definition of antisemitism well encapsulates antizionism. However, it remains of limited use if the institutions that choose to adopt it are unable to discern antizionism from “criticism”.

While most discourse focuses on defining ‘antisemitism’, the word most in need of disambiguation is ‘criticism’. It is the malleability of claims that claim to be engaging in ‘political criticism’ that makes discerning between bigotry and necessary free speech impossible.

Because antizionism is wrongly categorised as political expression, and does not overtly forward display the racial or religious hatred commonly identified as antisemitism, it operates largely outside the scope of existing legal and institutional responses to the abuse, vilification, and violence targeting Australian Jews. This gap is no marginal oversight. It is the primary mechanism through which anti-Jewish hostility is allowed to escalate in Australia today. “Antisemitism” is seen to be a product only of ‘certain types’ of antizionism. This is where all of today’s misconstructions, misdirection, and misunderstanding of reasonable discourse as it pertains to Jews resides.

The submission traces the historical lineage of anti-Jewish permission structures – from anti-Judaism through antisemitism to antizionism – and identifies the common architecture: a constructed moral threat applied to Jews, which justifies exclusion, vilification, and violence. Each iteration is a product of the moral language of its time. Antizionism speaks in the language of anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and humanitarianism. Antisemitism spoke to social cohesion and national unity. Anti-Judaism spoke to theological unity. Each framing renders the persecution of Jews in different eras not merely socially acceptable, but of moral import. As popular, moral crusades, each anti-Jewish libel-system is not institutionally challenged, but institutionally ratified.

The submission draws a clear distinction between criticism of a state – which is legitimate, necessary, and must be protected – and antizionism, which does not engage with what Israel does but with what Israel is, sullying its right to exist with libels about its uniquely evil existence.

A Royal Commission that fails to define antizionism is a royal commission that fails to discern between bigotry and criticism. As it pertains to the vilification of Jews, clear boundaries must be drawn around what does and doesn’t constitute criticism. Our characterisation of antizionism, drawing from the work of Adam Louis-Klein, Naya Lekht, and Andrew Pessin, makes clear what does and does not constitute ‘criticism’. Without this, libels about Jews that stigmatise diaspora populations, marking them for vilification and violence, will only continue to flourish.

Antizionism is not structured as an argument or criticism designed to be engaged with. It is structured as a conclusion, like all common bigotry, supported by recurring libels. These recurring libels – genocide, colonialism, apartheid, white supremacist, fascist, baby-killers – are obsessively repeated. These moral accusations are not advanced as testable claims but as categorical designations of irredeemable wrongdoing. Definitions are tailored to be retroactively fitted to the Jewish state.

Accusations like genocide are not designed to critique, inform, or illuminate, but to prevent discourse and bring any disagreeing interlocutors’ reputation into automatic disrepute. These libels are rhetorically elegant to the layperson – and we are, but for a tiny minority, laypeople in this area. The Australian population has had little capacity to understand the extent to which these libels, instead of providing an analysis of foreign violence, instead create the conditions for homegrown violence.

MAAZ AU draws on direct evidence from training participants and seminar attendees from across Australia and internationally, as well as observable patterns in Australian workplaces, universities, and public discourse. The submission references the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision in Vorchheimer v Tayeh [2026] VCAT 134, which recognised that rhetoric directed at ‘Zionists’ can constitute incitement to hatred against Jewish people - and analyses the significant limits that decision exposes.

The submission makes the following core argument to the Commission: the failure to respond to antizionism is not a failure of will or resource. It is a failure of categorisation.

Existing frameworks look for antisemitism and, when they do not find it, conclude that no recognisable harm has occurred. This is a category error. A new and complementary framework is required – one that recognises antizionism as a distinct permission structure producing real and escalating harm. Without an appreciation of antizionism, our appreciation of anti-Jewish bigotry – referred to by the Commission as ‘antisemitism’ – is not fit-for-purpose in 2026.

This submission concludes with a set of comprehensive recommendations directed at the Commission’s mandate on education, training, legal frameworks, and institutional responses.

Contents

1. Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU)

A. Who We Are and Why We Exist

B. Services Provided

2. What Antizionism Is

3. How Antizionism Operates

4. What This Looks Like in Australia Today

5. The Problem: A Category Error

6. Recommendations

1. Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU)

A. Who We Are and Why We Exist

Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU) exists because current approaches to antisemitism are failing. We are affiliated with, but structurally independent from, the North American based Movement Against Antizionism, founded in 2025 by Adam Louis-Klein with involvement from Dr Naya Lekht (Stop Antizionism) and Dr Andrew Pessin (Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism).

Since the antizionist attacks against Israelis on October 7 – attacks immediately inverted against both Israelis and Jews worldwide – Jewish Australians have experienced a sharp increase in exclusion, vilification, and violence. Most of this hostility is not recognised as bigotry or racism by Australian institutions because it does not satisfy our construction of antisemitism as it exists in both popular parlance and through legal avenues. State and federal laws centre on vilification as it presents through religion or race.

The stigmatisation, ostracism, and dehumanisation of Jews is dismissed, tolerated, or defended as legitimate political expression when presented not as “antisemitism,” but as antizionism. Antizionism is therefore not being responded to adequately.

This pattern is historically established. In Poland in 1968, an “anti-Zionist” campaign resulted in the expulsion of thousands of Jews from public life and the country itself.[1] Across the Middle East and North Africa between the late 1940s and 1970s, approximately 850,000 Jews were displaced under policies justified as opposition to Zionism.[2] The Munich Olympics massacre in 1972 and the AMIA bombing of AMIA (a Buenos Aires Jewish community centre) in 1994 targeted Jewish civilians under the same framing.[3][4] Attacks on Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada were justified as violence against “Zionists.”[5]

More recently, the attacks of 7 October 2023 and the Bondi massacre of 14 December 2025 demonstrate the same structure, in which violence against Jews is rendered intelligible within a moral framework that defines them as legitimate targets. The Online Hate Prevention Institute’s Report into the online discourse surrounding the Bondi Massacre and the London Hatzolah Ambulance Attacks reflects the extent to which Jewish suffering is justified, inverted, and perverted by a pervasive antipathy towards Jews.[6]

MAAZ AU was formed in response to institutions, Jewish and non-Jewish, having failed to diagnose and treat contemporary anti-Jewish bigotry. Contemporary anti-Jewish bigotry presents, metastasises, and produces lethal consequences in ways that post-Nazi social and legal frameworks were not designed to recognise or prevent.

Modern institutional responses focus on a form of bigotry characterised by 20^th- and 21^st-century antisemitism. Those tasked with protecting Jewry from further popular uprisings against Jewish life have concentrated their efforts on a word inseparable from the distinct, socially permissible context in which it arose: antisemitism. While antizionism has grown, largely unchecked in the space left by a near-united Western effort to stigmatise the causal ideology behind the Holocaust, leaders have continued to wield the charge of antisemitism against those whose stigmatisation of Jews rests on an entirely different justificatory schema.

There remains a widespread assumption that antisemitism is the umbrella category through which all anti-Jewish harm must be identified. Where conduct does not clearly meet that definition, it is treated as either acceptable or debatable. There is no framework for recognising harm that operates through a different structure.

In the period following October 7, it became increasingly clear that many of the institutions tasked with responding to antisemitism – both Jewish and non-Jewish – did not understand the form that contemporary anti-Jewish hostility was taking. These institutions are often highly competent at explaining antisemitism as it has historically been understood, and why it is wrong. However, they are far less equipped to identify and respond to the system currently producing harm.

This has led to a situation in which conduct that does not meet the narrow racial or religious thresholds of antisemitism is treated as acceptable, or even as morally justified. Where harm cannot be clearly classified as antisemitic within existing frameworks, it is frequently dismissed as political expression. In the current environment, this has extended further. Conduct that would previously have been recognised as exclusionary or abusive is increasingly framed as courageous, necessary, or morally urgent.

MAAZ AU was formed in response to this failure of recognition.

We are not a traditional advocacy body. We do not exist to defend Israel, to engage in geopolitical debate, or to respond to policy criticism. Our work begins from a different premise: that a significant proportion of contemporary harm directed at Jews is being misidentified – and therefore left unaddressed. We exist to name, analyse, and confront that harm as it actually operates today. We focus on the stigmatisation of Jews worldwide through antizionist libels and conspiracies because, while this stigmatisation marks Jews for vilification and violence, they appear defenceless.

B. Services Provided

Where rhetoric operates as abuse rather than criticism, strategies based on explanation, defence, or clarification are ineffective. Moreover, these responses elevate abuse to the status of criticism, despite the fact that antizionist libels are as impenetrable to logic and reason as antisemitic libels were during the Holocaust. Our focus is therefore on enabling individuals to identify the structure of the rhetoric, recognise the use of libels, and respond without validating the underlying premise.

MAAZ AU provides ongoing training, support, and education to individuals and institutions navigating antizionism in Australia. We run weekly, and often twice-weekly, online training sessions attended by both Jewish and non-Jewish participants in Australia and internationally.

These sessions consist of a 60-minute lecture followed by 30 minutes of questions and discussion, which frequently extend beyond the allocated time. All sessions are provided free of charge, and attract stories of antizionist abuse from attendees of all walks of life.

Since January 2026, we have trained approximately 600 participants. MAAZ AU operates without funding, choosing to remain independent. To date, our work has been supported solely by small voluntary donations from participants.

The core function of these trainings is to help people identify what they are experiencing. We treat explain that antizionism is not as political disagreement, but as a form of abuse – one that operates through libels, conspiracies, and moral framing, and which is widely misidentified as legitimate criticism.

Participants are taken through a structured framework that traces anti-Jewish bigotry from anti-Judaism, to antisemitism, to antizionism. Each is understood as a system that adapts to the moral language of its time while producing the same underlying harms. In each case, Jews are constructed as a moral problem, and hostility toward them is framed as justified.

A significant portion of the training is devoted to response. This is where our approach diverges sharply from most existing institutional strategies.

The prevailing approach encourages Jews to respond to antizionism by explaining Israel, defending Zionism, or correcting misinformation. This treats the rhetoric as if it were criticism that can be engaged with and resolved through better explanation. Antizionism is not produced by argument and does not respond to it. It is a system of libels and moral framing that functions independently of evidence, context, or counter-argument.

Where individuals are dealing with abuse, responding through explanation reinforces the premise that the accusations are legitimate. It shifts the burden onto the target to justify themselves, rather than identifying the conduct for what it is. It would be analogous to responding to a misogynist by “explaining” womanhood.

MAAZ AU trains participants to recognise, name, and refuse the abuse – as opposed to “turning pockets out” for the perpetrators of Jewish stigmatisation and conspiracy mongering. The focus is not on defending or explaining, but on identifying the structure of the rhetoric and responding in ways that do not validate it.

The level of distress expressed in these sessions has been consistent and, at times, overwhelming. On many occasions, participants have become visibly emotional during the question-and-answer portions. People describe prolonged periods of frustration, isolation, and a sense of impotence - of knowing something is wrong, but lacking the language to articulate it. The trainings frequently function as a release point. Participants regularly express relief at encountering a framework that reflects their experience and provides tools that feel usable and relevant.

In addition to these sessions, MAAZ AU provides direct support to individuals experiencing exclusion, harassment, or pressure related to antizionism. This includes people navigating workplace issues, students facing hostility on campus, and individuals dealing with social or professional consequences arising from being identified as “Zionist.”

We are deliberate about maintaining discretion regarding who attends our trainings. What can be stated is that the impact of this work is observable. We have seen shifts in how people articulate these issues – from private conversations and comment sections through to contributions in major newspapers, as well as changes in how Jewish organisations and university lecturers are beginning to frame the problem.

2. What Antizionism Is

A clear distinction must be drawn between political criticism and antizionism.

Criticism of all states is legitimate and necessary. Antizionists regularly accuse Jews of preventing criticism of Israel. This is because an understanding of antizionism is missing from the conversation. Antizionism performs the function associated with antisemitism, but through a vernacular that makes it distinct from antisemitism.

With little public awareness of antizionism, a false binary fills the space. Statements that are not clear-cut examples of classical antisemitism are therefore considered not bigoted, libellous, or harmful. Public officials are accused of antisemitism when their bigotry conforms less to classical antisemitism and more to an evolved, modern, non-racial and non-religious bigotry: antizionism. The consequence is threefold. Anything not overtly antisemitic in its popular, racial and religious constructions is considered, therefore, not harmful. Accusations of antisemitism appear designed to curtail free speech – a perception eagerly adopted by antizionists, most of whom are largely unaware that they are discussing Jewish affairs through a bigoted lens. And most of today’s anti-Jewish harm falls entirely outside the scope of antisemitism as it exists in popular parlance.

This false binary has institutional consequences. When hate speech legislation directed at protecting Jewish Australians was introduced in early 2026,[7] the Australian Greens and Senator David Shoebridge characterised it in a joint statement as a threat to “free political expression and the ability to criticise Israel.”[8] The statement warned against “criminalising criticism of any government” and described the laws as “overreaching and dangerous.”

The framing is instructive and widespread. Laws designed to address conduct that incites hatred toward Jewish Australians were publicly opposed – by elected representatives – on the grounds that they might restrict political speech about Israel. The question of whether Jewish Australians are being protected from vilification was reduced to a question about whether criticism of Israel would be silenced. These are not the same question. That they are consistently treated as the same question is itself evidence of the category error this submission identifies.

This false accusation is only made believable by the conflation of “criticism” with antizionist libels, conspiracies, and abuse.

Criticism involves engagement with the actions, policies, and decisions of a government. It assumes the continued existence of the state as a subject of critique and allows for disagreement, reform, and change. This kind of criticism is essential to a functioning democratic society.

Antizionism operates differently. Antizionism does not engage with what Israel does. It is a bigotry stemming from the fact that Israel is. Israel is cast as a state born in original sin, characterised in antizionist rhetoric as exceptionally evil, simultaneously puppet and puppet-master of the United States. This reductive, libellous characterisation of a facet of Jewish life structurally maps onto prior anti-Jewish libel systems. Antizionism frames the existence of the Jewish state as uniquely illegitimate, morally indefensible, and incapable of reform. Anti-Judaism and antisemitism positioned the Jewish religion and the Jewish ethnicity in the same light. Antizionism, like its forebears, is not a position that can be satisfied through policy change or political negotiation. It is a position that resolves only through elimination, as the state is rendered anathema to the common good.

The president of the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN), in remarks made on Melbourne community radio in July 2023, stated that “the world is a far better place once we destroy Western imperialist control of the world”, that “[t]he power structures that exist in the world all focus upon Zionism. Israel is the domino” and that “the liberation of Earth starts with the first domino - the overcoming and the decolonisation of Palestine and the ending of Zionism.”[9] These remarks were reported in the Australian Jewish press. APAN is a significant lobbying organisation with influence in federal politics.

APAN’s antizionist lobby frames the destruction of the Jewish state as the common denominator of all social justice movements – a unifying cause that recruits participants who may genuinely believe they are engaging in political criticism. A clear distinction between eliminationist extremism and political criticism is therefore not merely analytical – it is politically threatening to the antizionist movement. It is within the antizionist lobby’s interests to insist that classical antisemitism remain the sole determinant for whether hate speech is present. Clarification of what antizionism is would expose a significant portion of what passes as progressive activism.

The term “elimination” is used here in its ordinary sense: the removal of a state through political, social, or physical means, and the exclusion or targeting of those associated with it. It does not require uniform intent or coordinated action. It is sufficient that the framework positions the continued existence of the state – and those associated with it – as unjustifiable.

It is through the conflation of libels and ‘criticism’ that this ideology is allowed to function not as the causal factor in global, snowballing Jew-hate, but as ‘political critique’.

Where criticism assumes legitimacy, antizionism denies it. Where criticism invites engagement, antizionism closes it. Where criticism can be answered, antizionism cannot, because it is not structured as an argument. It is structured as a conclusion, and crosshairs rapidly focus on those who disagree – or who are merely assumed to disagree. When more than 600 Australian Jewish creatives and academics were doxxed,[10] they were not first vetted for ‘political opinions’. It was assumed that a WhatsApp support group of Jewish Australians constituted a threat to those engaged in antizionist activism.

The doxxing was not fringe conduct. It was performed openly by individuals with significant public platforms who saw no reputational risk in their participation and who appear to have experienced the act as morally justified. The founder of the doxxed group, writing in the Australian Financial Review,[11] described members – predominantly progressive Jews, many of them advocates for a two-state solution – being framed as “a sinister cabal of fascists.” A spreadsheet containing members’ personal details and photographs was widely circulated. The consequences included the loss of jobs, reputations, relationships, and a sense of safety. This is the antizionist permission structure in operation: harm performed publicly, without apology, by people who understood themselves to be acting with moral authority.

What makes antizionism dangerous is not its structural similarities to prior forms of anti-Jewish bigotry, but its permissibility. The same public discourse that produced the doxxing continues to circulate unrestrained. The ideological framework that made the doxxing feel justified has not been identified, named, or challenged by Australian institutions.

From Permissible to Proselytising

The conclusions about the moral importance of the elimination of Israel and the hounding of Jews who have not sufficiently proven themselves to be antizionists are produced through the repetition of libels.

Antizionist rhetoric consistently relies on a set of recurring moral accusations: genocide, apartheid, colonialism, white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, infanticide, ‘journocide’, ‘domicide’ and more. These are among the most serious moral charges available in contemporary discourse. Their function is not to describe specific actions or policies, but to define the nature of the object they are attached to.

These accusations are repeated not at the fringes of Australian public discourse but by public officials, academics, artists, and community leaders. They appear in parliamentary statements, university publications, open letters signed by hundreds of prominent Australians, and social media posts by figures with substantial followings. Their repetition by individuals and institutions with standing renders them credible to audiences with no independent basis to evaluate them. This is how libels circulate as established fact.

Once these labels are applied and laundered through institutions as ‘political criticism’, the target is no longer understood as a state that can be criticised. It is understood as an entity that is inherently criminal. At that point, ordinary standards of reasoning no longer apply. Evidence becomes secondary and context deemed irrelevant. The conclusion precedes the analysis, and the framework closes against refutation.

This is why attempts to respond through explanation consistently fail.

When individuals respond to these accusations by defending Israel, clarifying history, or explaining Zionism, they are engaging with the rhetoric as if it were criticism. In doing so, they accept the premise that the accusations are legitimate and require justification.

In many cases, this reinforces the framework.

The structure of antizionism is not built to be resolved through better information. It is sustained through repetition, moral certainty, and social validation. Attempts to correct it are often interpreted as further evidence of wrongdoing, or as participation in the very conspiracy being alleged.

This dynamic is observable across Australian workplaces, campuses, and public discourse, where individuals are required to justify themselves against accusations that are not framed as claims to be tested, but as conclusions already reached.

Existing frameworks, including the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, recognise that hostility toward Israel can, in certain circumstances, constitute antisemitism – particularly where it involves double standards, collective attribution, or the denial of Jewish self-determination.

This submission does not depart from those frameworks. It builds upon them.

Nothing within these frameworks prevents an honest appraisal of antizionism as a contemporary system through which anti-Jewish harm is produced. On the contrary, the principles they articulate – particularly in relation to collective attribution, exceptionalisation, and the denial of Jewish self-determination – are consistent with the analysis set out here.

The limitation is not that these frameworks are incorrect, but that they are incomplete when confronted with a form of hostility that does not consistently present in ways that trigger their application.

Antizionism is able to operate within that space. It is widely misidentified as criticism, and therefore permitted to circulate through institutions, workplaces, universities, and public discourse as something legitimate.

Instead of producing criticism or debate, antizionism produces a moral framework in which Jews, given an assumed proximity to a libellously constructed “Zionism”, are constructed as collective moral threats. Once that construction is accepted, exclusion becomes justified, hostility becomes reasonable, and violence becomes explainable.

This is the condition under which antizionism operates: not as a form of political disagreement, but as a system that converts moral accusation into social permission. This is not about policing criticism. It is about safeguarding debate, and protecting Jews from abuse.

This is a question of whether conduct that marks a group as inherently illegitimate and morally irredeemable is recognised for what it is, or allowed to continue under the protection of political speech.

3. How Antizionism Operates

Antizionism operates through a system of libels, conspiracies, stigma, and social validation that produces a permission structure for hostility toward Jews.

This system follows a recognisable pattern. Libels are introduced and repeated – accusations such as genocide, apartheid, colonialism, and infanticide. These are not advanced as discrete, testable claims. They are applied categorically, defining their target as inherently immoral.

From libel follows conspiracy. Jewish individuals, institutions, and networks are recast as participants in a broader system of manipulation and control. Cultural, political, and economic relationships are reinterpreted through this lens, reinforcing the perception of a coordinated moral threat.

This produces stigma. The term “Zionist” becomes a marker through which individuals are identified, categorised, and excluded. It functions as a proxy label that allows for the social and institutional targeting of Jews without explicitly naming them.

From stigma, violence becomes possible. Not inevitable in every instance, but structurally enabled. Where a group is constructed as inherently harmful, hostility toward that group can be reframed as justified, necessary, or even virtuous.

This sequence is historically consistent. In Poland in 1968, an “anti-Zionist” campaign resulted in the expulsion of thousands of Jews. Across the Middle East and North Africa between the late 1940s and 1970s, approximately 850,000 Jews were displaced under policies justified as opposition to Zionism. The Munich massacre in 1972 and the AMIA bombing in 1994 targeted Jewish civilians under the same framing. Violence against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada was justified as attacks on “Zionists.” The attacks of 7 October 2023 and the Bondi massacre of 14 December 2025 reflect the same structure, in which violence becomes possible once a group is defined as inherently illegitimate.

This sequence – libel, conspiracy, stigma, violence – is not unique to the present. It reflects a recurring structure through which anti-Jewish hostility has historically operated. What distinguishes antizionism is the moral language through which this structure is expressed.

Antizionism speaks in the language of contemporary values. It presents itself as anti-racist, anti-colonial, and humanitarian. By casting the Jewish state as the inverse of these values, hostility toward those associated with it is reframed as ethical action.

This is how a permission structure is formed.

A permission structure is a system of language, belief, and authority that makes harmful conduct feel justified. It allows individuals to adopt positions they would previously have rejected, without experiencing themselves as prejudiced or immoral. It does not rely on explicit hatred. It relies on moral framing.

Every major outbreak of violence against Jews has depended on such permission.

This helps explain why antizionism is widely misidentified. It does not present as hostility. It presents as moral urgency.

It also explains why existing responses have been ineffective.

Where antizionism is treated as political criticism, responses take the form of explanation, defence, and correction. Individuals are encouraged to clarify history, defend Zionism, or rebut specific claims.

These responses fail because they accept the premise that the rhetoric is a form of argument.

In many cases, it is not.

The libels that underpin antizionism are not falsifiable in practice. Their meaning shifts to accommodate the conclusion they are intended to support. Attempts to correct them are frequently absorbed into the system itself, reframed as denial, evasion, or further evidence of wrongdoing.

This produces a dynamic in which the act of responding reinforces the accusation.

This pattern is observable across Australian public life, where individuals are required to justify themselves against accusations that are not open to resolution, but are treated as morally settled.

This misidentification – treating abuse as criticism – is not unique to this context.

In other domains, similar patterns have been recognised and addressed through different strategies.

In the development of workplace protections for women, conduct that had previously been dismissed or normalised was identified, named, and categorised. Terms such as “sexual harassment” and “hostile work environment” did not emerge from abstract theory, but from shared recognition of recurring patterns. Once named, these behaviours could be understood, challenged, and ultimately regulated.

A similar process occurred in racial justice movements, where terms such as “microaggressions” were introduced to describe forms of harm that did not fit earlier definitions, but nonetheless produced real and cumulative effects.

These movements did not succeed by engaging with discriminatory behaviour on its own terms. They succeeded by identifying patterns, naming them, and shifting the focus from the target of the behaviour to the behaviour itself.

MAAZ AU adopts a similar approach.

Our work is based on the recognition that antizionism operates as a system of abuse. As such, it cannot be effectively addressed through strategies that assume good-faith political disagreement. Instead, individuals and institutions must be equipped to identify the structure of the rhetoric, recognise the use of libels, and respond in ways that do not reinforce the underlying framework.

Participants are taught to identify libels, conspiracies, stigma, and denial as they occur, and to respond by naming these elements rather than engaging with their content. This shifts the dynamic. It removes the burden of justification from the target and places attention on the conduct itself.

This approach reflects a broader principle: that effective responses to systemic harm require accurate identification of the system producing it.

Treating all forms of anti-Jewish hostility as if they operate identically – under a single, static model – results in misdiagnosis. While these forms share an underlying structure, they present differently in response to their social and historical environment, and therefore require different strategies.

Where this distinction is not recognised, responses are misaligned with the harm being addressed.

4. What This Looks Like in Australia Today

Jewish Australians are increasingly being treated not as individuals, but as representatives of something understood to be inherently immoral.

The pattern described in the preceding sections is not theoretical. It is observable across Australian public life, with consistency and escalating frequency. What follows documents the domains in which the permission structure is operating.

A. Public Discourse and Political Figures

Antizionism has become normalised in Australian public life to a degree that distinguishes the present moment from any prior period. Its language – genocide, apartheid, colonialism, “Zionists are terrorists” – is now deployed not at the fringes but by figures with significant institutional standing and public followings, who regard this conduct not as bigotry but as moral leadership.

The weekly protests held across Australian cities since October 7 have served as a consistent vector for the public mainstreaming of antizionist rhetoric. These are not fringe events. They are attended by prominent public figures, attract significant media coverage, and have involved chants and placards that – as the Tribunal in Vorchheimer v Tayeh found - cross into incitement to hatred against Jewish people. The legal analysis of that decision, and its significant limitations, is addressed in Section 5.

The doxxing of more than 600 Australian Jewish creatives and academics is among the most documented instances of antizionist targeting in Australian history. It did not originate from fringe actors. It was carried out by individuals with substantial public platforms who saw no reputational risk in their participation and who appear to have experienced the act as morally justified. This is the permission structure operating in practice: harm performed publicly, without apology, by people who understood themselves to be acting with moral authority.

Those who participated in the doxxing have subsequently continued to receive public grants, institutional accolades, and festival platforming. The permission structure that enabled the doxxing has not been withdrawn. It has been ratified.

B. University Campuses

Jewish students are confronted on campus with accusations of complicity in atrocities. They are told they are not welcome unless they disavow Israel’s existence. This pressure is not incidental to campus culture – it has become an institutionalised feature of it.

Documented incidents at Australian universities include a staff member verbally abusing Jewish students on campus,[12] the proliferation of ‘intifada’ postering across university grounds, and accounts from students describing sustained social exclusion and intimidation. A Sydney Morning Herald investigation published in February 2026 documented the experiences of Jewish students across multiple Australian institutions.[13]

University administrations have largely failed to respond to this pattern. Where incidents are reported, they are frequently categorised as political expression rather than harassment, reflecting the same category error this submission identifies at the level of law and institutional frameworks.

C. Workplaces and Daily Life

People are being excluded from workplaces, removed from social and professional environments, and subjected to moral condemnation not for anything they have said or done, but for what they are assumed to represent.

The following testimonials were submitted to MAAZ AU confidentially. They are presented with identifying details changed or withheld at contributors’ request.

RH, Sydney NSW (submitted confidentially)
In August 2024, I attended a consultation with my long-term general practitioner during a period of acute mental health deterioration, including heightened anxiety and depression. I had an established and positive relationship with this doctor, who had treated me for many years. He was aware that I am Jewish.
During the consultation, I sought help for my mental health. While my condition was not caused by the events of 7 October 2023, I explained that the subsequent social discourse surrounding those events, and Israel more broadly, had significantly exacerbated my anxiety. I described feeling increasingly unsafe, socially isolated, and uncertain about who I could trust.
In response, my doctor initially attempted to reassure me, stating words to the effect of: “You don’t have to be scared.” He then added a statement which I recall clearly and as close to verbatim as possible: “I think I’m like most people. I don’t hate Jews, but I fucking hate Zionists.”
This statement was made in the context of a mental health consultation, where I had expressed fear and vulnerability linked to the broader social climate affecting Jewish individuals. Rather than alleviating my anxiety, it reinforced my sense of insecurity and isolation. I felt unable to respond in the moment and withdrew further.
In my view, this interaction represents a serious breach of professional standards. It demonstrates how antizionism can be expressed in ways that directly impact the psychological safety and wellbeing of Jewish patients, particularly when they are seeking care for mental health concerns.
Z, Sydney NSW (submitted confidentially)
Since 2020, I have experienced ongoing anti-Jewish bigotry, exclusion, and intimidation at a university in Sydney and the contemporary arts sector. During my postgraduate art program (2020-2022), I was publicly identified as a “Jewish artist” despite my work not focusing on Judaism. Following this, I felt increasingly isolated, overlooked for opportunities, and subjected to disparaging comments about being “very Jewish.” After discussing my Zionist-informed support for peaceful coexistence and Palestinian statehood with a colleague, I experienced further social exclusion and professional marginalisation, which has intensified since 2023. I have also observed artists and curators use nepotistic selection practices to steer artistic discourse against “Zionists” while normalising and funding expressions of hostile rhetoric toward those associated with Jewish and Israeli life and culture.
I have also encountered discrimination from university staff while teaching. Prior to 7 October 2023, one tutor openly expressed hostility toward Jews, maliciously disrupted my teaching schedule, and made prejudicial accusations involving a colleague’s wife’s Israeli heritage. Following the October 7 attacks, I observed a sharp rise in anti-Jewish and antzionist activism on campus, including self-published Islamist literature and historical “reviews” with misinformation distributed by groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and Socialist Alternative and Students for Palestine, respectively, often with support from staff members and outside actors. This atmosphere has caused severe anxiety, panic, trauma, and agoraphobia that have affected both my work and personal life.
I also know and work with individuals, Jewish and non-Jewish, who have experienced hostility, including harassment and physical assault because of their ties (perceived and real) to Israel and Jewish institutions. Escalating rhetoric and explicit calls for violence against “Zionists” have left me fearing for my safety on campus and at work.
KW, Melbourne VIC (submitted confidentially)
I’m not Jewish. I wear a Magen David to support my Jewish friends and the community. Too many places are now unsafe. I’ve been physically accosted in public, at Victoria Pride, at night venues, abused at live music events, and I’ve been ostracised at my place of work for being a ‘Zionist’. I just think Jewish people have the right to self-determination. I don’t think antizionists care what Zionism really means. If they see you supporting Jews and you don’t agree that Israel is the most evil place in the world, you become evil too. I wanted to share this because of how out of control antizionism has been allowed to become.
DW, Melbourne VIC (submitted confidentially)
Following the events of October 7, I became more publicly engaged, including launching a Substack and participating more actively in online discussions. Since then, I have observed a consistent and overwhelming pattern: any article or public content relating to Jews or Israel attracts a volume of hostile responses that far exceeds ordinary disagreement.
This response frequently includes explicit anti-Jewish hatred. In some instances, it is framed as antizionist commentary, with claims that Israel represents a singular global evil and that ‘Zionists’ are inherently malevolent or deserving of harm.
In my own experience, I have been accused of being paid by Mossad, labelled a genocidaire, and called a ‘baby killer.’ These accusations are made publicly and without restraint.
Beyond direct abuse, the social consequences have been significant. I have experienced a sense of betrayal from individuals and groups I previously understood to be supportive. In certain environments, I have chosen to remain silent due to uncertainty about how I would be received or treated. This has contributed to a broader sense of isolation.
The cumulative effect is a persistent feeling of abandonment and despair. Increasingly, I hold concerns about the long-term safety and future of Jews in Australia.
JMK, Sydney NSW (submitted confidentially)
Antizionism affects me every day. Every. Single. Day.
I see a police patrol car pulling up outside the Jewish daycare. I notice two police walking on the opposite pavement. Further along the road there are two police having coffee at the café. This is not normal. I have lived in this area for over 20 years and this heightened security is part of the response to the December 14th massacre at Bondi, only a couple of kilometres away. No other community in Australia requires this level of protection. This means that antizionism has created an environment that is lethal to a minority group.
A few months ago I was walking our dog early in the morning. No less than seven security vehicles passed us. Police in marked vehicles and unmarked vehicles. CSG who I recognised by their caps and jackets. Seven. Within 30 minutes.
I go to Bondi Beach to deliver a painting for an upcoming exhibition. It is a weekday, middle of the morning. Tourists throng and the beach is busy. There is a huge police presence. Officers in pairs on foot. A large police vehicle in the car park. I appreciate the protection, and I fear the reasons for it.
I want to check something on Wikipedia. I find that our history is being re-written to convey deep antizionist views. Our history is being re-written to reflect a narrative of Jews as evil colonisers. In our ancestral land.
I join a local group of women who meet regularly. Since October 7th, I wear my Magen David and my chai necklaces all the time. Today is my first meeting with this group. I am the only one in the group wearing pendants like this. I sit next to a woman who whispers to me, ‘We are mostly Jewish, there is only one person who isn’t Jewish’. I think about how she feels she needs to whisper. This is just wrong.
There are parts of Sydney I would never enter. I am frightened when I have to have treatment in a public hospital. I no longer go to the city on weekends. I am tired of being told by non-Jewish friends and colleagues that they ‘feel sorry for Palestinian babies’, thereby invoking an ancient blood libel. I am tired of being told that ‘I am not antisemitic, but I am antizionist.’ I am tired of being told ‘the IDF is a genocidal army.’ So I avoid some friendships, some professional relationships.
I have never recovered from the doxxing where I and others were called ‘genocidal maniacs’ and accused of promoting genocide in Gaza. I am still wary of using my social media accounts the way I would like to. To the best of my knowledge, the people who disseminated these vicious antizionist slurs to hundreds and thousands of followers have not faced any consequences.
I haven’t watched SBS news at 6.30 pm like I used to. I stopped when there was a nightly slur in a banner across the screen. The lies are traumatising. I have a form of PTSD as part of my psychosomatic response to the trauma of October 7th, the Opera House demonstrations, and the doxxing. I startle at the slightest unexpected noise or the slightest unexpected movement at the periphery of my vision.
I work in an environment where there are only four Jews and dozens of people who are not Jewish. There is a Palestinian flag in one person’s area - a constant reminder that this person supports people who would kill me. Nobody creates work about the hidden, prevalent antizionist hatred that I and so many other Jews have to manage. Every. Single. Day.
JB, Perth WA (submitted confidentially)
What keeps me awake at night is knowing that in just over two years, my first-born child is likely to confront antisemitism and antizionist bigotry from students and faculty at Australian universities, which are breeding grounds for this hate.
All I can do to prepare my children for this reality is inoculate them with knowledge that will give them confidence to stand up for themselves and others. That’s why they now pass through synagogue security each week to learn about Jewish history, language and culture.
I’ve also completed online training with the Movement Against Antizionism to deepen my understanding of the permission structures and libels that are driving contemporary Jew hatred today. I’m educating my children on how to identify and respond to this strain of anti-Jewish bigotry that will soon greet them on campus.
Behind closed doors we’re talking about taking self-defence classes and which universities are more culturally responsive to Jewish students. To my knowledge, there’s only one in WA that currently falls into that category.
Most of our friends would be shocked to hear we’re having these conversations. We appear to be moving through life like everyone else. But unlike most of them, we’re living with a heavy burden that takes a huge mental and emotional toll on us.
SM, location withheld (submitted confidentially)
When we submitted our proposal to present on Jewish cultural safety at a national mental health convention, it was supposed to be a response to Bondi. Our slot had already been reduced to a half hour, despite originally being invited to take the full hour. Then it was divided with presenters who objected to us on the grounds that Jewish cultural safety shouldn’t be privileged above other traumatised communities. Our work was then rejected as too contextual, too long, and potentially political. Meanwhile, a presentation making unsubstantiated politically charged claims about Gaza was accepted and given a full hour. Antizionist framing had quietly shaped what was considered acceptable to platform. That is antizionism in action.
A progressive non-Jewish therapist friend asked how I felt about a foreign government leader the moment I spoke of my spiritual and existential ties to Israel as part of my Jewish cultural identity. She used feminist theory to tell me I was wrong about my own experience. She called it the elephant in the room but it was never my elephant. I’ve been living and breathing this daily, researching it, even writing about it, and still I am losing therapist friends simply for my Jewishness and connection to Israel. People I trusted to be safe, wise and think critically seemed to be absorbed into a hostile dominant discourse.
I was one of the 600 Jewish Australians doxxed when we wrote in and complained about a media reporter calling rape claims of October 7th a hoax. My name and details were advertised on the internet, which resulted in people visiting my business Instagram and saying things like ‘You’re a Nazi Zionist’ and ‘dirty Zio baby killer’. One person tried to post my details on their Instagram page telling others to find me and make me worry about my safety.
I would be on social media responding to posts about local Jewish businesses having to shut because of antizionist intimidation, and the comments were truly distressing. A content creator with a following of over 300,000 made a video openly sharing misinformation about the IDF. When I complained to her, she said she would litigate me for defamation. Every time I reported the comments I was seeing as hate speech, I was told there was no violation of community guidelines. It is unbelievable how unrestrained this kind of antizionist hate is and how it inevitably ends in Jewish people being targeted.

Social media and everyday exposure

The examples below reflect the daily online environment in which Jewish Australians exist. Antizionists identify accounts belonging to Jews and use their comment sections to spread abuse – comments are often made on posts entirely unrelated to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The language is consistent across all instances: genocide, apartheid, colonialism, “Zionists are terrorists.” These are not being used to invite discussion. They are being used to establish moral certainty about the status of Jews as legitimate targets.

The failure here is not simply one of response, but of understanding. Many institutions remain anchored to the idea that antisemitism is the umbrella category through which all anti-Jewish harm must be identified. Where conduct does not clearly meet that definition, it is treated as either acceptable or debatable. This leaves no room to recognise harm that operates through a different structure.

As a result, large portions of contemporary anti-Jewish hostility are not only unaddressed, but are actively legitimised.

5. The Problem: A Category Error

The problem is not that antisemitism is being ignored. It is that it is being looked for in the wrong place.

Australia’s frameworks are built to recognise antisemitism when it appears as hatred of Jews as a race or religion. What we are dealing with now does not present that way.

It presents as opposition to “Zionists.” It presents as moral outrage about Israel. It presents as politics. And because it presents that way, it is allowed to snowball, sanitised through institutional assent.

This is what is best described as a category error.

The system is assessing language based on what it sounds like, rather than what it produces.

Vorchheimer v Tayeh: What the Law Can and Cannot Do

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision in Vorchheimer v Tayeh represents one of the most detailed judicial analyses yet undertaken in Australia of the relationship between antizionist rhetoric and hostility toward Jews. The Tribunal concluded that the chant “All Zionists are terrorists” would tip many participants “over the threshold into hatred directed towards Jewish people.” It recognised that “Zionist” is widely understood as referring to Jews, that most Jews identify as Zionists in the basic sense of supporting the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and that labelling an entire group as terrorists is conduct that makes them “societally acceptable to hate.”

The judgment also recognised the mechanism of de-individuation – the elimination of individual differences through collective accusation – as a hallmark of racism. And it identified the role of chanting in producing “emotional and impressionistic responses, rather than careful thinking.”

But the judgment simultaneously illustrates why the law, operating within its current framework, cannot adequately address antizionism.

The Tribunal was explicit about the limits of its role. Vice President Tran stated: “it is not my role to determine whether any religious, political or other form of belief is valid, invalid, good, bad, defensible or indefensible.” Anti-vilification law protects people from hatred based on race or religion. It does not adjudicate political ideologies. Courts can determine whether a chant incited hatred toward Jews. They cannot determine whether antizionism itself is legitimate or illegitimate.

This creates a structural paradox. The judgment implicitly acknowledges that antizionist rhetoric can function as racial vilification. But the structure of the law prevents courts from recognising antizionism as the ideological mechanism producing that vilification. The law can address the symptoms of antizionism when they manifest on a case-by-case basis. It cannot address the ideology itself, and therefore fails to attend to the permissibility of antizionism – which is precisely what makes it dangerous.

Several further limitations are exposed by the judgment. The decision relied heavily on the specific context of a mass chant at an emotionally mobilised rally. Different contexts may produce different legal outcomes. The high threshold – conduct must incite “extreme responses, more intense in nature than mere dislike” – means the vast majority of antizionist rhetoric documented in Section 4 of this submission will remain legally protected. The law can intervene at the extreme end. It cannot address the permission structure producing that extreme end.

Vorchheimer is rightly recognised as a significant precedent. But Jews should not have to litigate each instance of antizionist harm individually. The Commission should consider what legislative or regulatory mechanisms could address the ideological framework that produces those instances, rather than leaving redress to costly and uncertain case-by-case litigation.

A useful point of comparison is Victoria’s Summary Offences Amendment (Nazi Symbol Prohibition) Act 2022. That legislation exists because of a prima facie acknowledgement that the Nazi symbol carries irreducible harm – that its public display requires no further contextual analysis before intervention is warranted. The legislation passed nearly 80 years after the Holocaust. Antizionism is a more active and more pervasive avenue for anti-Jewish vilification in Australia today than Nazism. The Commission should consider whether the permissibility of antizionism warrants analogous legislative recognition, and whether the absence of such recognition is itself producing measurable harm.

Despite this, the law is not designed to address the broader framework within which such rhetoric operates. It can intervene in specific instances where the threshold is met. It cannot address the system producing those instances. This creates a structural gap between legal thresholds and lived experience, in which conduct can be widely experienced as harmful while remaining formally unrecognised.

The attempt to resolve this by asserting that “antizionism is antisemitism” has proven ineffective. It collapses two distinct concepts into one and invites dispute at the level of definition, rather than addressing the structure of the harm.

Where antizionism can be argued not to meet the technical definition of antisemitism, it is treated as legitimate. The outcome is binary: either antisemitic, or acceptable. This leaves no framework for recognising anti-Jewish harm that operates outside those terms. This is precisely where antizionism functions. The more effective approach is to understand antizionism as a contemporary permission structure – one that performs the same function as earlier forms of anti-Jewish bigotry, but through a different moral language.

Anti-Judaism framed Jews as spiritually corrupt. Antisemitism framed Jews as racially corrupt. Antizionism frames Jews, through the proxy of the Jewish state, as politically and morally corrupt.

In each case, the structure is the same: a constructed moral threat is used to justify exclusion, vilification, and violence.

Antizionism does not need to become antisemitism to produce anti-Jewish harm. Just as antisemitism did not need to resemble anti-Judaism to produce catastrophic violence, contemporary forms operate within their own framework. The issue here remains a category error. While ‘antisemitism’ monopolises our conception of anti-Jewish bigotry, ensuing, socially permissible variants are defined out of the public’s capacity to consider them as causing vilification or public shootings.

Waiting for antizionism to conform to historical definitions of anti-Jewish hostility has produced a paralysis that leaves Jewish Australians increasingly vulnerable.

Antizionism is not the same thing as antisemitism. That is precisely why it is able to cause harm that antisemitism cannot. Some may be more satisfied with constructing antizionism as a type of antisemitism. This construction is only important should one have an emotional attachment to the construction of antisemitism as a word that must forever define all systems that produce anti-Jewish bigotry. If this is where the Commission lands, this construction neither strengthens nor hinders the arguments for better education and stronger strategies being directed firmly at antizionism.

Efforts to address anti-Jewish harm will continue to fail if the spreading of libels and conspiracies, and the resulting stigmatisation of Jews, is forced to comply with an obsolete framing of anti-Jewish hate as ‘antisemitism’ alone. The hesitation to understand antizionism as an operationally and contextually distinct Jew-persecuting phenomenon leaves Jews impotent and defenceless.

6. Recommendations

The following recommendations arise directly from the diagnostic framework set out in this submission. They are organised according to the Commission’s mandate and address the principal failure modes identified: categorisation, education, institutional response, and legal frameworks.

A. Recognition and Categorisation

• Recommendation 1

That the Commission formally recognise antizionism as a distinct contemporary form of anti-Jewish harm, separate from but related to antisemitism, and not reducible to it.

The submission has demonstrated that antizionism operates through a different justificatory structure than traditional antisemitism as it exists in popular parlance. Forcing all anti-Jewish harm into the antisemitism category produces a category error that allows antizionism to persist unchallenged. Definitions of antisemitism, including IHRA, remain limited in their application if antizionism is not distinguished from what may constitute legitimate political criticism. By establishing that distinction, existing definitions are given the capacity to function effectively in the present. The Commission’s findings should reflect this.

• Recommendation 2

That the Commission recommend the development of a national definitional framework for antizionism, developed in consultation with affected communities, Jewish organisations, legal experts, and educational institutions.

Such a framework should distinguish clearly between criticism of Israel – which must remain protected – and antizionist rhetoric characterised by libels, collective attribution, the construction of a moral permission structure for hostility, and calls for or normalisation of elimination. This framework should be complementary to, not in competition with, the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.

B. Education and Training

• Recommendation 3

That the Commission recommend mandatory antizionism awareness training for all staff in federal and state public institutions, including universities, schools, healthcare settings, public broadcasters, and government agencies.

This training should go beyond Holocaust education and awareness of historical antisemitism. It should equip participants to identify the specific rhetorical structure of antizionism: the use of libels, the manufacture of moral permission, the function of ‘Zionist’ as a proxy label, and the distinction between criticism and abuse. MAAZ AU, as a practitioner organisation with direct experience delivering this training, stands ready to contribute to the development and delivery of such programs in partnership with government and institutional bodies.

• Recommendation 4

That Australian university curricula and staff professional development programs incorporate structured content on antizionism, with particular attention to campus environments where the pattern of exclusion, intimidation, and moral coercion has been most acute.

• Recommendation 5

That the Commission recommend the development of a national educator resource – produced in partnership with organisations with direct practitioner experience – providing schools and universities with tools to identify and respond to antizionist conduct in educational settings.

• Recommendation 6

That the Commission recommend funding and institutional support for community-facing antizionism training programs delivered outside the university and government sectors, including to workplaces, faith communities, and civil society organisations.

C. Institutional Response Frameworks

Recommendation 7

That the Commission recommend that Australian employers be provided with guidance – through updated Fair Work frameworks and workplace discrimination guidelines – on how to identify and respond to antizionist conduct in workplaces.

The testimonials in Section 4 document the pattern of workplace exclusion, professional targeting, and social ostracism experienced by Jewish Australians identified as ‘Zionist.’ Existing workplace discrimination frameworks do not adequately capture this conduct because it does not present as racial or religious vilification in the recognised sense. Updated guidance should address antizionist conduct as a form of targeted harassment capable of constituting a hostile work environment.

Recommendation 8

That the Commission recommend the establishment of a dedicated reporting mechanism for antizionist conduct in institutional settings – including universities, workplaces, and public sector bodies – distinct from existing antisemitism reporting channels, in recognition of the different structure and presentation of each.

Recommendation 9

That the Commission recommend that peak bodies representing Australian universities, employer associations, and professional licensing bodies develop and adopt internal policies that name and respond to antizionist conduct, in consultation with affected Jewish communities and expert bodies.

D. Legal and Regulatory Frameworks

Recommendation 10

That the Commission recommend a review of existing federal and state racial and religious vilification laws to assess whether they are capable of responding to antizionist conduct that produces exclusion, harassment, and incitement to hostility against Jewish Australians.

The decision in Vorchheimer v Tayeh demonstrates that existing law can, in clear cases, recognise that antizionist rhetoric directed at ‘Zionists’ constitutes incitement against Jews. However, the submission has identified a structural gap: the law responds to specific instances that meet threshold, but cannot address the systemic permission structure that produces those instances. A legislative review should consider whether that gap requires amendment – including whether antizionism warrants legislative recognition analogous to the Summary Offences Amendment (Nazi Symbol Prohibition) Act 2022 (Vic).

Recommendation 11

That the Commission recommend the development of prosecutorial and regulatory guidance for complaints involving antizionist conduct, providing enforcers with the conceptual tools to recognise when conduct that presents as political expression is functioning as a system of targeted harassment or incitement.

Recommendation 12

That the Commission recommend that Australian courts and tribunals be provided with educational resources on the structure and operation of antizionism, so that judicial officers are equipped to assess conduct that does not present in the form of traditional antisemitism but produces equivalent or greater harm.

E. Research and Evidence

Recommendation 13

That the Commission recommend the funding of dedicated research into the prevalence, nature, and impact of antizionist conduct in Australia, including longitudinal tracking of exclusion events, workplace reports, campus incidents, and community-level harm.

Current data on antisemitism in Australia does not adequately capture antizionist harm because the category does not exist within existing reporting frameworks. Research that uses antizionism as a distinct analytical category is necessary to build the evidence base required for effective policy response.

Recommendation 14

That the Commission engage directly with MAAZ AU and affiliated organisations as part of its ongoing consultative process, in recognition of the practitioner knowledge these organisations hold.

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These recommendations are offered not as a complete solution but as a necessary beginning. The diagnostic framework in this submission makes clear that antizionism will continue to escalate in Australia unless it is recognised for what it is, named in institutional and legal contexts, and addressed through strategies calibrated to its actual structure. The Commission has an opportunity to initiate that recognition. MAAZ AU urges it to do so.

Movement Against Antizionism Australia (MAAZ AU).

[1] Dariusz Stola, Kraj bez wyjścia? Migracje z Polski 1949–1989 (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2010).

[2] Philip Mendes, “Forgotten Refugees: The Causes of the Post-1948 Jewish Exodus from Arab Countries,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 13, no. 3 (2014).

[3] Simon Reeve, One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000).

[4] Nisman, Alberto. Dictamina: Extended Summary of the AMIA Investigation (English Version). Prosecutor’s Office, Buenos Aires, 2015. https://albertonisman.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Dictamina-Extended-Summary-English_.pdf

[5] Hillel Cohen, “Society–Military Relations in a State-in-the-Making: Palestinian Security Agencies and the ‘Treason Discourse’ in the Second Intifada,” Armed Forces & Society 38, no. 1 (2012): 1–21.

[6] Online Hate Prevention Institute, Bondi Beach Chanukah Massacre (Report, January 2026) https://ohpi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Bondi-Beach-Chanukah-Massacre-small.pdf.

[7] Australian Government, Exposure Draft: Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 (13 January 2026).

[8] Australian Greens (@australiangreens) and David Shoebridge (@davidshoebridge), “Labor’s new hate laws…,” Instagram post, 22 January 2026,

[9] The Jewish Independent, “Leading Australian Palestinian advocate has called for destruction of Israel,” 3 November 2023. https://thejewishindependent.com.au/leading-australian-palestinian-advocate-has-called-for-destruction-of-israel/

[10] For primary reporting on the doxxing of Australian Jewish creatives and academics, see: Times of Israel, “After Oct. 7, mass doxxing has Australian Jews wondering what happened to their country,” 2024; Times of Israel, “NYT reporter linked to leak of Australian Jews’ details which led to doxxing attacks,” 2024.

[11] Kofman, L. (2026, January 16). ‘Abdel-Fattah doxxed me. Outrage over her removal exposes hypocrisy.’ Australian Financial Review. https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/abdel-fattah-doxxed-me-outrage-over-her-removal-exposes-hypocrisy-20260114-p5nu1j

[12] ABC News, “Sydney University staff outburst at Jewish students,” 10 October 2025. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-10/sydney-university-staff-outburst-at-jewish-students/105879074

[13] Sydney Morning Herald, “‘You are a child killer’: Inside the Jewish university experience,” 19 February 2026. https://www.smh.com.au/national/you-are-a-child-killer-inside-the-jewish-university-experience-20260219-p5o3rn.html

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