Understanding Contested Language

What the term means. Apartheid is a crime defined in international law – in the 1973 Apartheid Convention and in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – consisting of an institutionalised system of oppression and domination by one racial group over another. It is a legal term with defined elements that can be argued and evidence that can be tested. It is not a general term of abuse and it is not a comparison to the Holocaust.

How it is used. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem – an Israeli human rights organisation based in Jerusalem – have each published detailed analyses concluding that Israeli policies toward Palestinians meet this definition. A United Nations body published a similar analysis. These findings are contested by the Israeli government and supporters of Israel, and that contest is conducted as legal disputes are conducted: through evidence and argument about whether the elements of the definition are met.

Is it antisemitic? No. A person who says that Israel practises apartheid is making a claim about the conduct of a state, measured against a legal standard. The claim may be correct or incorrect, but its subject is a state, not Jewish people. The term is used in this context by major international human rights organisations and by an Israeli human rights organisation; a standard that treated the term as antisemitic would characterise that work as antisemitic as well.

What the term means. Genocide is the most serious crime in international law. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines it as specified acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Like apartheid, it is a legal standard with defined elements, and it is currently the subject of proceedings before international courts.

The current state of the question. South Africa has brought proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention. The Court has issued provisional measures – binding interim orders – after finding that the case raised plausible issues under the Convention. It has not delivered a final judgment. Separately, United Nations investigators and a number of scholars of genocide and international law, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, have published their own assessments, and human rights organisations have reached their own conclusions. Others, including the Israeli government, reject the characterisation. This is a serious legal question that is currently being determined. However, whether genocide is occurring does not depend on a court decision, and all states are bound to act to prevent genocide wherever there is a risk that it may occur.

Is it antisemitic? No. A person who uses the term 'genocide' in relation to Israel's conduct is taking a position in a serious and current dispute in international law – the same dispute now before the International Court of Justice. Taking a position in that dispute, on either side, is participation in a legal and scholarly debate. Its subject is the conduct of a state, not Jewish people, and many of those who use the term are themselves Jewish scholars and organisations.

Because this is a legal term carrying great weight that has a high threshold, those who use it are making a serious claim, and those who dispute it are entitled to contest it. Neither taking nor disputing the position is, in itself, antisemitism.

What the terms mean. 'Nakba', Arabic for 'catastrophe', is the name Palestinians give to the events of 1947 to 1949, in which around 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from and fled their homes during the terrorisation and war surrounding the establishment of Israel, and were not permitted to return. 'Ethnic cleansing' is the description that many historians, including Israeli historians working from Israeli archives, apply to those events. The historical account is contested, as the history of most foundational national events is contested.

Is it antisemitic? No. When Palestinian Australians speak of the Nakba, they are describing their own family history. An account by a people of its own displacement is not hostility toward another people; it is not about the other people. The historical debate about 1948 is a matter for historical evidence and argument, and conducting it is not hostility toward Jewish people.

What the term means. Settler-colonialism is an analytical framework in academic history and political science describing societies established through the settlement of an incoming population on territory that is already inhabited. It is applied in a large scholarly literature to many countries, including Australia, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and South Africa.

Is it antisemitic? No. Whether the framework describes Israel accurately is a scholarly question, on which serious scholars hold different views. Applying an established analytical framework to a state is ordinary scholarship. The same framework is routinely applied to Australia in Australian universities and public life; a standard under which it became antisemitic only when applied to Israel would be an example of the differential treatment it is important to avoid.

What the term means. Occupation is the standard term in international law for the situation in the West Bank and, in the assessment of the United Nations and most states, Gaza. It is used by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and most governments, including in Australian government usage. In 2024 the International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion, found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory to be unlawful.

Is it antisemitic? No. This is the standard vocabulary of international law and diplomacy, and expression concerning a state's occupation of territory is among the most common forms of international political expression.

What it is. BDS is a campaign, first called for by Palestinian civil society organisations in 2005, that asks governments, institutions, companies and individuals to withdraw economic and institutional support from Israel until, in the campaign's terms, it meets specified obligations under international law. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are long-established, non-violent methods of political pressure. They have been directed at many states, and were central to international opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

Is it antisemitic? No. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are ordinary, non-violent forms of political protest directed at a state and its policies. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism states directly that such measures, in the case of Israel, are not in themselves antisemitic. Choosing not to buy particular goods, or asking an institution to withdraw an investment, is a form of political expression, not hostility toward Jewish people.

When would it be antisemitic? On the same test as everything else: if a boycott were directed at Jewish people or businesses because they are Jewish – rather than at the state of Israel and its institutions – it would be antisemitic. Refusing to deal with a person because they are Jewish, or targeting a business because its owner is Jewish, is discrimination. A boycott of Israeli state institutions or individuals or businesses supporting occupation is not.

What it is. The cultural and academic boycott is a particular form of BDS. It asks artists, writers, performers, academics and institutions not to take part in events, or collaborate with institutions, that the campaign regards as representing or being funded by the Israeli state, until specified international legal obligations are met. In practice it is the form of boycott most often encountered in Australia, through decisions by writers, festivals, unions and universities.

Is it antisemitic? No. Declining to perform at a state-sponsored festival, or to collaborate with a state institution or with a person representing the state of Israel, as a form of political protest, is directed at the state and its institutions. It is a form of political expression. It is contested, and people disagree in good faith about whether cultural boycotts are effective – but that is a disagreement about tactics, not a question of antisemitism.

When would it be antisemitic? Again, on the same test: if an artist or academic were excluded because they are Jewish – rather than because they are representing, or are funded by, the Israeli state – that would be antisemitic. A person's Jewish identity is not a legitimate basis for exclusion. Their choice to represent a state institution is a different matter, and one they can be asked about. The distinction is between a person's identity and their institutional role.

The river is the Jordan and the sea is the Mediterranean; the territory between them comprises historical Palestine – now Israel, and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

What it means to those who use it. The slogan expresses an aspiration that Palestinians throughout that territory live in freedom and equality. Palestinian analysts and scholarly accounts describe it as a call for liberation and equal citizenship. In this usage it concerns who should be free; it does not mean that Jewish people should be removed or harmed.

Why some people hear it differently. A claim expressed over the whole territory can be understood as excluding the other people who live there, and the phrase has on some occasions been used by people who do intend exclusion. Understanding the meaning of the people using it requires context. As used at Australian demonstrations, the slogan is chanted alongside calls for a ceasefire, for equality and for human rights, often by crowds that include Jewish participants. Jewish Australians who attend these demonstrations, including some who take part specifically as Jews, consistently report that the slogan is understood in the sense of freedom and equality.

Two further points assist. First, a closely similar territorial phrase has a long history in Israeli politics: the founding 1977 platform of one of Israel's major parties stated that between the sea and the Jordan there would be only Israeli sovereignty. A formulation used in both settings cannot be inherently antisemitic in one and ordinary politics in the other. Second, where Australian law has recently prohibited this slogan, it has prohibited only the opening words, 'from the river to the sea', separated from 'Palestine will be free' – the part of the sentence that states what is being called for.

Is it antisemitic? In its usual contemporary usage, no. Its subject is Palestinian freedom, not Jewish people. As with any slogan, a speaker who clearly intends expulsion or violence can use it in a way that is objectionable, but that is an assessment of a particular speaker's intent, established by context, rather than a property of the words.

What it means. 'Free Palestine' is the most common and most general slogan of the Palestine solidarity movement. It expresses support for Palestinian freedom from military occupation and for Palestinian rights, in the same way that 'Free Tibet' or comparable slogans express support for other peoples. It is used by a very wide range of people, including governments and international organisations that support Palestinian self-determination.

Is it antisemitic? No. The slogan calls for the freedom of a people. Its subject is Palestinians and their rights; it says nothing about Jewish people. It is among the plainest examples of ordinary political expression, and it is difficult to see how a call for one people's freedom could, in itself, be hostility toward another.

What it means. The word. 'Intifada' is an Arabic word from a root meaning 'to shake off'. It refers to an uprising against oppression and is used across the Arab world for many kinds of popular mobilisation, including non-violent movements. It is not a synonym for terrorism and does not in itself mean violence, in the same way that the English words 'uprising' and 'revolt' do not.

The history that shapes how it is heard. The First Intifada in the Occupied Territories (1987 to 1993) was largely a mass civil movement of strikes, boycotts and protest. The Second Intifada (2000 to 2005) included attacks that killed Israeli civilians, and for many Jewish people the word carries that memory. When some Jewish Australians hear 'globalise the intifada' as threatening, that response relates to the Second Intifada.

What it means to those who use it. In the international solidarity movement, 'globalise the intifada' is used as a call to extend support for the Palestinian cause – through protest, boycott, sanctions and political pressure – beyond Palestine. Expert linguistic analysis prepared for Australian legal proceedings supports this reading of current usage.

Is it antisemitic? No. Its subject is opposition to occupation, not Jewish people, and its usual contemporary usage is a call for solidarity and protest. This is a slogan whose troubled reception is understandable and whose actual usage is, overwhelmingly, a call to political action.

What is means. This slogan states a position on a long-standing question in political ethics and international law: whether, and how, people under military occupation may resist. International law recognises a right of peoples to self-determination and has long considered the legitimacy and limits of resistance to occupation. The same question has been considered in relation to occupied Europe, colonial rule, and apartheid South Africa. Taking a position on it is political argument.

Is it antisemitic? No. The slogan makes a claim about occupation by a state; it does not concern Jewish people.

What it is. The keffiyeh is a chequered scarf, most often black and white, that has become a widely recognised symbol of Palestinian identity and of solidarity with Palestinians. It is a traditional item of dress across the Middle East, and its association with the Palestinian cause dates back many decades.

Is it antisemitic? No. Wearing the keffiyeh expresses Palestinian identity or solidarity with Palestinians. It is a cultural and political symbol, in the way that a flag or a ribbon is, and it says nothing about Jewish people. Treating the keffiyeh itself as a threatening or hateful symbol misreads an item of cultural identity or political solidarity as an act of hostility.

What it is. The Palestinian flag is the national flag of the Palestinian people, recognised internationally and flown at the United Nations. Australia recognised the State of Palestine in 2025, and the flag is a lawful expression of Palestinian national identity.

Is it antisemitic? No. A national flag expresses national identity. Flying or displaying the Palestinian flag is an expression of Palestinian identity or of support for Palestinian statehood, both of which are ordinary political expression. It is not hostility toward Jewish people.

What it is. The watermelon – which shares the red, green, black and white of the Palestinian flag – is used as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, particularly online. It came into use at times and in places where displaying the Palestinian flag itself was restricted, and it has since become a common shorthand for support for Palestinians.

Is it antisemitic? No. The watermelon stands in for the Palestinian flag and carries the same meaning: support for Palestinians. It is among the mildest and most indirect symbols, and it says nothing about Jewish people.

What it is. The red inverted triangle appears in the Palestinian flag. It is also used in footage published by Hamas’s military wing to mark Israeli military forces as targets, and since 2023 it has been used more widely as a symbol of Palestinian resistance and solidarity, including online as an emoji. Like any symbol, it does not carry a single meaning; what matters is how, against whom, and why, it is used.

Start with the law. In Australia, threatening violence against a person is a crime, whoever the target is and whatever cause is invoked. So the first question about any use of this symbol is not whether it is antisemitic but whether it is being used intentionally to threaten violence against a person or people. If it does, it is unlawful and a matter for the police – whether or not it is also antisemitic. The two questions are separate.

When the use is antisemitic. The symbol is antisemitic when it is used to target people because they are Jewish and not for some other reason. The clearest example is its documented use overseas to mark the homes, synagogues and institutions of Jewish people simply because they are Jewish. For example, marking a synagogue as a threat of violence because of its connection to Jewish people is antisemitism.

The why or because is the test. The test throughout this guide is not whether a target happens to be Jewish, but whether the target is chosen because they are Jewish, as distinct from their politics, their support for a state, or their role in an institution. A use of the symbol directed at a military and its forces – its origin – is a statement about an armed force in a conflict; if it crosses into threatening violence against civilians it is unlawful on that ground, but it is not made antisemitic merely because that force is Israeli or its members are Jewish. What determines whether something is antisemitic is the reason for the targeting – the why, not the identity of those targeted.

The right of an occupied people to resist, and its limits. International law recognises that people under occupation have a right to resist, and political argument about resistance to occupation is legitimate expression, not antisemitism. That right is bounded by the same law that bounds all use of force: it does not extend to violence against civilians, and it provides no cover for threats or violence directed at people simply because they are Jewish.

In its ordinary use. As part of the Palestinian flag, or as a general expression of solidarity with Palestinians, the triangle threatens no one and says nothing about Jewish people and is therefore not antisemitic. The same symbol therefore falls on very different sides of these lines depending on how and why it is used.

Because the symbol carries this range of meanings, its use in a threatening context – directed at a specific person or building, or paired with support for violence – is reasonably experienced as menacing, and should be treated seriously. Used on a placard or a flag at a demonstration, in the way the watermelon or the Palestinian flag is used, it is a symbol of solidarity.

What it means. “Zionism is racism” is the argument that Zionism, realised in a state constitutionally defined as the nation-state of one people in a territory whose population includes another people, involves a form of ethnic or national privilege that is inconsistent with full equality. It is a structural criticism of an ideology and a form of state – the same kind of argument made about ethnic nationalism in other settings – and it is contested by those who regard Jewish statehood as a legitimate exercise of self-determination.

Is holding the anti-Zionist position antisemitic? No, and on this question an Australian court has spoken directly. In a 2025 racial vilification case, the Federal Court held that an ordinary, reasonable listener would understand that not all Jewish people are Zionists or supporters of Israel's actions, and that criticism of Zionism is criticism of a philosophy or ideology, not of a race or ethnic group. This is the Australian legal system applying the same test. The same judgment found that certain other statements before the court did amount to unlawful racial vilification – a reminder that the distinction is real and that a line exists.

It is also relevant that Jewish anti-Zionist traditions, and Jewish Australians who take an anti-Zionist position today, are part of the community whose protection is at issue. A definition of antisemitism that characterised those Jewish people as antisemitic would not protect Jewish people.

What it means. Chants that call for the death or destruction of the Israeli military differ from the language above, because there are two readings, one is a call to change or abolish an institution, or two is a wish for harm people rather than making a claim or calling for a freedom. Applying the test: the Israeli military is an institution of a state, not Jewish people, and hostility toward a military institution whose conduct a person regards as unlawful is a recognisable form of political expression.

Is it antisemitic? No. On the test we apply throughout this guide, the target of the chant is an institution of the state, and the chant is not antisemitic in the sense of racial hostility toward Jewish people.

Many Jewish people find such chants distressing, in part because most Jewish Israelis serve in the Israeli military through conscription. Others respond that this is the reason the institution, rather than any individual, is named. What can be said is that a chant may be harsh, alienating and ineffective as persuasion without being antisemitic. These are different assessments, and law and public debate should keep them distinct.

Comparisons between Israeli policy and Nazism are the most difficult case in the other direction, and the one on which we urge the greatest care.

What it means. A historical comparison between the conduct of states, however extreme or offensive, is on its face a claim about states, and the legitimacy of such comparisons has been debated by scholars, including scholars of the Holocaust. Such comparisons are often made for political and rhetorical effect and are not automatically antisemitic. Jewish Israelis, including former senior political and military figures, have themselves compared contemporary Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany.

Where the comparison is used not in relation to the state of Israel but against Jewish people because they are Jewish, not for example, because of an individual's political beliefs or the policies of a particular organisation – directing Holocaust imagery at a Jewish school or a synagogue – its target has moved from the conduct of a state to all Jewish people, and it is antisemitic.

Is it antisemitic? The practical guidance is twofold. When assessing such expression, consider the target: a placard comparing a military campaign to historical events is a political claim, and a contestable one; Holocaust imagery directed at a synagogue is not. And for those who use the comparison: it is experienced by many Jewish people – including Jewish people who are critical of Israel – as directed at them rather than at the state. It is wise to consider if there is a more precise way to express the intended point.

The word 'Zionist' describes a person who holds a political position, and criticism of Zionists in that sense is political expression, as the Federal Court recognised. There is, however, potential that 'Zionist' can be used as a substitute for the word 'Jew' or 'Jewish'. To distinguish between these two uses requires a clear understanding of the context of the speech to determine the speaker's intent.

Is it antisemitic? Where 'Zionist' genuinely refers to supporters of a political position, criticism is legitimate and the answer is no. Where it is clear that the word 'Zionist' has been used in place of the word 'Jew' then it is antisemitism.

What is being claimed. The formula treats any criticism of the founding, or the constitutional character, of the State of Israel as a denial of the Jewish people's right to self-determination, and therefore as antisemitic.

Why it does not follow. Self-determination, in international law, is a right held by peoples – the right of a people to preserve and govern its collective life. It is not, in law, a guarantee of a state of any particular character, and international law is clear that one people's self-determination cannot be exercised at the expense of another's. This has two consequences. First, a person can affirm the Jewish people's right to self-determination and still argue that the particular way the State of Israel was established, or is now constituted, wronged the Palestinian people. Those two positions are not contradictory; treating them as though they were is a logical error, not a finding of racism. Second, the formula is one-sided: it asserts a Jewish right to self-determination while making no mention of the equivalent Palestinian right, which international law recognises in the same terms. Used this way, it does not protect a right – it shields a state from criticism by attaching the language of anti-racism to it.

What this means for the 'racist endeavour' phrase. To call the establishment of a state a 'racist endeavour' is to make a historical and political claim about how that state came to be and how it treats those within it. It is a claim that can be supported or contested with evidence – about land, law and the treatment of non-Jewish citizens and residents – and reasonable people, including reasonable Jewish people, take different views of it. Whether or not the claim is correct, making it is not, in itself, an attack on Jewish people. As one senior legal opinion prepared on this question put it, criticism of the founding circumstances of Israel – including the view that its establishment involved ethnic cleansing or colonialism – is vigorously disputed, but it is not off-limits in a society that values freedom of expression, and its proponents are not automatically or even presumptively antisemitic. It would follow, too, that advocating a single state for both peoples – a position that has had supporters among Jews and Palestinians alike – cannot be treated as antisemitic simply because it declines the premise that the state must remain as constituted.

When would it be antisemitic? On the same test as everywhere else in this guide. If the claim that Israel is a 'racist endeavour' is made as a way of expressing hostility to Jewish people as Jewish people – if it carries the message that Jews, uniquely among peoples, may not have collective political life, or draws on conspiracy or collective-guilt themes – then it is antisemitic. What makes the difference is the target and the motivation, not the subject.

What is being claimed. This framing holds that it is antisemitic to question or reject the claim that Jewish people are indigenous to the land of Israel, on the basis that Jewish indigeneity is the foundation of the right asserted above.

Why it is used to suppress discussion. The historical and cultural connection of Jewish people to the land is real and long. The difficulty is with how the language of indigeneity is then deployed. 'Indigenous' is a contested term when applied to this history, and it is used by serious people on more than one side: some apply it to Jewish people, some to Palestinians, some to both, and some question whether the modern category fits either straightforwardly. When one such answer is made a test of non-antisemitism, the effect is to place an entire scholarly and political debate off-limits, and – because the same framing is used to reject Palestinian claims to the land – to deny Palestinians the ability to describe their own belonging to it. A framing that resolves a genuine historical argument by ruling one side of it racist is not protecting Jewish people; it is foreclosing discussion.

Resolving it. A person may accept the deep Jewish connection to the land and still contest particular claims made in the language of indigeneity, or maintain that Palestinians too belong to that land. Doing so is participation in a historical and political argument. It becomes antisemitic only where it is used to deny Jewish people's history in order to express hostility toward them as Jews – for example, the claim that Jewish people have no connection to the land at all, advanced as a way of erasing Jewish identity. The line, again, is who is being targeted and why.

Defining antisemitism accurately protects Jewish people from genuine hatred and harm. The same precision does something else at the same time: it protects Palestinians from being silenced. These are not competing goals. They are two results of the same careful work, and getting the definition wrong damages both.

When the definition is drawn too broadly, the charge of antisemitism – one of the most serious that can be made against a person – is attached to ordinary Palestinian speech. Australian courts have confirmed that this speech is lawful and not antisemitic: criticising the actions of the State of Israel, opposing Zionism as a political ideology, and advocating for Palestinian rights are political expression, not hatred of Jewish people. Yet an over-broad definition treats them as suspect. The result is that Palestinians can be discouraged or prevented from naming the Nakba, describing what has happened to their own families, wearing the keffiyeh, expressing a political view, or simply asserting that they are entitled to the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. When a definition made in the name of protecting Jewish people is used to place another people's account of their own history and future out of bounds, it has stopped identifying antisemitism and has begun to operate as a form of anti-Palestinian racism. The examples that follow on this page – in Germany, in Queensland, and elsewhere – show this happening in practice.

The harm is not only in what is prohibited, but in the suspicion that precedes it. When any criticism of Israel risks being recast as antisemitism, Palestinian voices are treated as suspect before they have spoken, and Palestinians are effectively asked to prove that their humanity, their history and their claim to equal rights pose no threat to others. No community should carry that burden as the price of speaking. A definition that imposes it protects no one; it trades one injustice for another. Naming a misuse of the antisemitism charge is not the same as minimising antisemitism – the two protections stand or fall together. A definition drawn accurately shields Jewish people from genuine harm and leaves Palestinians free to speak about their own history and future; a definition drawn too broadly fails at both.

Germany has applied this approach more comprehensively than any other democracy. Since 2017 the German state has adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism across government. Parliamentary resolutions have declared the boycott movement antisemitic and withdrawn public funding from organisations regarded as questioning Israel's right to exist; citizenship applicants are now required to affirm Israel's right to exist; and domestic intelligence has classified a non-violent political movement as a suspected extremist threat.

On the evidence of Germany's own monitoring institutions, these measures have not reduced antisemitism. Germany's principal civil-society monitor recorded 8,627 antisemitic incidents in 2024, an increase of 77 per cent in a single year and the highest level in the post-war period. The measures have, however, had other effects. International monitors lowered their assessment of civic freedom in Germany, citing the suppression of pro-Palestinian expression; United Nations human rights experts called on Germany to end the criminalisation of peaceful solidarity activism; and German Jewish organisations critical of Israel have had bank accounts frozen, events cancelled and members arrested at peaceful protests, in each case under measures presented as combating antisemitism. Jewish organisations in more than twenty countries jointly stated that Germany's approach narrows Jewish life to a single issue, the state of Israel. All this despite German police statistics attributing more than 90 per cent of antisemitic offences to the far right.

Australia has begun to apply the same approach. In March 2026 the Queensland Parliament amended the Criminal Code to prohibit the public use, display or publication of two phrases – 'from the river to the sea' and 'globalise the intifada' – with a maximum penalty of two years' imprisonment. The amendments were introduced late in the parliamentary process, with seven days allowed for consultation. Intent is not an element of the offence; the words themselves constitute the offence, and the speaker's meaning is relevant only as a defence raised after a charge is laid.

Within weeks, the consequences became apparent. At a peaceful demonstration in Brisbane in April 2026, 22 people were arrested for using words, rather than for violence, threats or damage to property, and were held for several hours. Among those arrested and charged were Jewish Australians. One, a 73-year-old clinical psychologist and the child of Holocaust survivors, was charged in relation to a shirt reading 'Jews for a free Palestine from the river to the sea', and in relation to a speech in which he advocated harm to no one. A law introduced to protect Jewish people had, within a month, been used to charge a Jewish Australian for expressing his conscience in public.

Constitutional experts have assessed these laws as vulnerable to challenge under the constitutional implied freedom of political communication, on the basis that it is not clear the prohibited phrases meet any threshold of incitement. The broader point concerns consequences rather than drafting. Once it is accepted that Palestinian political vocabulary is inherently antisemitic, the measures that follow – prohibitions, arrests, detention – are applied to protesters, to Palestinians describing their own aspirations, and to Jewish people who support them and dissent from other communal group positions, while the movements responsible for antisemitic violence are not addressed.

The same pattern appears elsewhere. A European legal monitoring organisation has documented many cases across the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria in which the IHRA working definition was used to investigate or penalise expression by academics, students, artists and journalists; a study of 40 cases at United Kingdom universities found that no allegation was ultimately upheld, while those accused experienced months of investigation and reputational harm. In the United States, courts have found that applying such definitions to campus expression breached constitutional protections. An employment tribunal in England found the dismissal of an academic for anti-Zionist views to be unlawful discrimination. The lead drafter of the IHRA definition has, over a number of years, warned against these uses.

The most significant effect is one that does not appear in any complaint. For each person formally investigated, many others – particularly Palestinians speaking about their own history, and Jewish people who dissent from established communal positions – decide not to speak, to organise or to publish, in order to avoid the risk of an allegation. No complaint is recorded, but the effect on expression is real.

Public concern about antisemitism is informed by numbers: incident counts, survey results and measures of online activity. Some of these describe real and serious matters. Data on antisemitism is, however, easy to misread, and four distinctions help in reading it accurately:

• An incident, a survey response and an online post are different kinds of evidence. Verified incidents, perception surveys and online content measure different things, and careful reporting keeps them separate. Figures that combine them, or that scale small self-selected samples to national totals, can appear precise while being very misleading.
• Severity matters. A count in which a serious assault and an offensive sticker are each recorded as one incident does not convey what a reader needs to know. It is worth asking how a total is composed before drawing conclusions from its size.
• Online visibility is not the same as prevalence. Online platforms amplify some content by design, and a small number of accounts can generate a large volume of hostile material. Volume measures amplification rather than the distribution of views across the population.
• Correlation is not the same as cause. Incident counts in Australia rose during a period that also saw large demonstrations concerning Israel, and it is sometimes suggested that the demonstrations caused the antisemitism. The same period saw sustained news coverage, online amplification and far-right activity, and, where attribution data exists, it points away from the demonstrations. The relevant question is who is committing antisemitic acts.

None of this diminishes what accurate data shows: real antisemitic incidents are occurring and are causing real harm to Jewish Australians. It is because the reality is serious that measurement should be careful. Figures that are inflated or combined are of little use to those seeking to address antisemitism, and are readily dismissed by those inclined to minimise it.

If prohibiting slogans does not reduce antisemitism, it is fair to ask what does. Research on how prejudice develops into violence – drawn from comparative history, genocide studies and criminology – identifies a consistent set of drivers: the political scapegoating of minorities; discrimination embedded in institutions; economic insecurity and social fragmentation; online environments that spread conspiracy claims; and the breakdown of solidarity between communities, which leaves each group to face hostility alone. Low-level prejudice exists in every society; it is these conditions that turn it into organised hostility and violence.

The same research points to what is effective: enforcing existing criminal law against threats, incitement and violence; education about racism, including antisemitism and its history in the context of education about all forms of racism; accountability for online platforms that amplify hostile content; addressing the social and economic conditions in which extremism develops; and, consistently across settings, solidarity between communities, in which each community's safety is treated as a shared concern. It is this solidarity that approaches based on the conflation of Jewish people with Israel tend to weaken, by presenting Jewish safety and Palestinian expression and freedom as opposed. The next page sets out what a solidarity-based approach involves.