University managements are launching a McCarthyist offensive against the Palestine solidarity movement, with a new antisemitism definition that threatens academic freedom and freedom of speech.
This comes after a transgender international student at Sydney University (USyd) was threatened with suspension or expulsion for writing pro-Palestine slogans on uni whiteboards, putting her at risk of immigration detention.
Melbourne University has also banned protests indoors in response to the sit-in at Mahmoud’s Hall (the Arts West Building) last year that demanded it cut ties with Israel.
The dangerous new definition of antisemitism, drawn up by Universities Australia (UA) on behalf of all 39 Australian universities, is aimed squarely at silencing critics of Israel.
Amnesty International condemned it as a, “direct attack on fundamental freedoms, stifling freedom of speech, expression, assembly, academic debate, and protest,” and stated, “It dangerously conflates legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism.”
Already Palestinian-Australian academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has been smeared as antisemitic for her opposition to Zionism, has had her research funding suspended at the behest of Federal Education Minister Jason Clare.
The National Executive of the university staff union the NTEU has opposed the new definition, saying it, “is likely to have the effect of suppressing academic and intellectual freedom”.
Branches of NTEU at UTS, La Trobe Uni and Sydney Uni have voted to support a National Day of Action alongside student activists on 26 March opposing the new definition. It has also been rejected by the Australian National Imams Council and the Alliance of Australian Muslims.
It is modelled on the widely criticised International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition. Group of Eight universities chief Vicki Thomson describes it as, “ostensibly an Australian version of IHRA”.
The new definition states that, “criticism of Israel can be antisemitic … when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”. This targets opposition to Zionism, the political ideology behind Israel’s existence as a state that privileges Jewish people above others.
Israel is defined as “the national home of the Jewish people” to the exclusion of Palestinians under its basic law, the equivalent of a constitution.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explained, this means, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens”, institutionalising discrimination against the Palestinian minority inside its 1948 borders.
Palestinians under Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza are not even citizens, cannot vote and are subject to military law. Yet Israeli settlers there are governed under civilian Israeli law.
Israel’s discrimination and violence against Palestinians amounts to a system of apartheid, according to Amnesty International.
There is nothing antisemitic about criticising Israel’s apartheid state and calling for its replacement with a state where Jews and Palestinians have equal rights.
The definition also wrongly seeks to conflate Zionism with Judaism, claiming that, “For most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity.”
But as the anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia argues, “Zionism is a political ideology of Jewish nationalism, not an intrinsic part of Jewish identity. There is a long history of Jewish opposition to Zionism, from the beginning of its emergence in the late-19th century, to the present day.”
Repression of protest
University bosses are desperate to put an end to the protests for Palestine that have set up encampments on their manicured lawns, occupied buildings and shone a light on how Australian universities are complicit in genocide.
Universities play a crucial role in legitimising Israel through exchange and research partnerships, and by silencing criticism of Israel on campuses.
Universities like USyd, the ANU, and Melbourne University have already implemented a raft of anti-free speech and anti-protest policies.
In June, USyd enacted the Campus Access Policy (CAP), demanding that students and staff give management three days’ notice for any demonstration on campus, and that no banner or informational stall could be set up without permission.
The ANU similarly has tight restrictions on what posters can be put up on poster boards around campus.
It is possible to defeat this repression. USyd was forced to drop CAP rules that demanded university management be notified 72 hours prior to any demonstration on campus, and get permission to use megaphones outdoors.
This is a result of students and staff consistently defying the policy.
Prominent Muslim cleric Sheik Wesam Charkawi was sacked by the NSW Education Department after he criticised “selective outrage” and Islamophobia behind the response to the video of Sydney nurses who threatened Israeli patients.
Wesam was reinstated after significant community pushback, including two student protests at Granville Boys High School where he works.
This is the kind of resistance that’s needed to stop universities silencing the Palestine movement.
By Luke Ottavi
