How to Recognise Antisemitism

Israel is a country, with a government, a parliament, courts, a military and other institutions. Jewish people are a diverse global community, most of whom are not Israeli citizens, living across every continent and holding every kind of political view. Criticism of a country's conduct is criticism of a country, its government or institutions.

Collapsing this distinction is itself a recognised form of antisemitism. Holding Jewish people everywhere responsible for the actions of the Israeli state – for example, directing hostility at an Australian synagogue in response to events overseas – treats Jewish people as answerable for a foreign government. Any definition of antisemitism that identifies Jewish people with the state of Israel does not protect Jewish people from this conflation; it repeats its central assumption.

Zionism is a political position: the view that there should be a Jewish state, realised historically in the establishment of Israel. It is political because its central concern affects other people – Palestinians. Like any political position, it has both supporters and opponents, and both groups include Jewish and non-Jewish people.

Many Jewish people are Zionists. Many are not, and have never been. Opposition to Zionism has a long history within Jewish religious and political thought, including religious traditions that opposed the founding of a Jewish state and secular movements that locate Jewish life in the countries where Jewish people already lived. Today a significant and growing number of Jewish people in Australia and elsewhere are critical of Israel or do not identify as Zionist, and Jewish-led organisations advocating for Palestinian rights exist in many countries.

For this reason, the statement that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism” is not correct. Anti-Zionism is disagreement with a political ideology; antisemitism is hostility toward people because they are Jewish. Treating the two as the same mistakes a political position for racial hostility. A further indication that the equation is mistaken is that it would characterise as antisemitic a substantial number of Jewish people, and long-standing Jewish anti-Zionist religious and political traditions.

Criticism of countries, their government or institutions is often forceful, and democratic societies expect it to be. Australians express strong views about the governments of many countries, including their own, in parliament, in the media and in public. Hostility toward any state is not understood as racism against that state's people.

The same standard applies to Israel. Criticism of Israel's government, laws, military, other institutions, conduct or founding – however strong, sustained or, in the view of some, mistaken, exceptional or unbalanced – is expression about a state. As the Federal Court of Australia observed in a 2025 judgment, political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jewish people in general.

Applying the ordinary standard – who is targeted, and why – to expression about Israel is not special treatment. It is the same standard applied to expression about every other state.

This includes criticism directed at a state’s founding or its “right to exist.” Questioning whether a particular state should exist, or should exist in its current form, is a recognised kind of political argument; it is heard in Australia in other contexts, including from First Nations people in relation to the Australian state. Applied to Israel, such criticism concerns a state and its arrangements. It is antisemitic only if, on the test set out above, it targets Jewish people because they are Jewish – for example by holding Jewish people in general responsible for that state, or by using antisemitic stereotypes.

Freedom, justice, equality and self-determination are rights. They are recognised in international human rights law and are held by all peoples, including Palestinians, however imperfectly they are realised or enforced. Advocating for these rights for Palestinians is not an attack on Jewish people. How Palestinian statehood should be realised – its form and borders – is contested in international politics, but the underlying rights do not depend on that debate being settled. Self-determination, in particular, means that it is for Palestinians themselves to determine their own political future; it is not for others to prescribe the form it should take.

When Palestinian Australians describe their own history – displacement, the killing and detention of civilians, military occupation, life under blockade – they are describing their own experience. This guide has already said that Jewish people should not be presumed to be dishonest about their own history. The same respect applies to Palestinians: an account by a people of its own history is not reduced to opinion to be debated, and describing that history is not hostility toward Jewish people, because Jewish people are not its subject.

Because such speech is legitimate, wrongly labelling it antisemitic causes harm. It silences Palestinians expressions of their own culture and descriptions of their own history, wearing the keffiyeh, or advocating for their own rights – and a definition of antisemitism that has this effect is no longer identifying anti-Jewish hatred, but operating as a form of anti-Palestinian racism. Accurate identification of antisemitism protects against both harms at once, as this guide sets out in more detail.

This distinction is about how the test applies when speech about Israel or Zionism is experienced as uncomfortable even verging into feelings of intimidation. Political expression on this subject can cause genuine discomfort, including for Jewish Australians who feel a strong connection to Israel. Discomfort, however, is not the test of antisemitism. Speech does not become antisemitic because it is uncomfortable to hear; it is antisemitic only if it targets Jewish people because they are Jewish.

Nor is disagreement the same as hatred. A person may believe that a particular claim about Israel is factually wrong, historically unfair or expressed in excessive terms, and still recognise that making the claim is not an act of racism. Political expression does not need to be correct in order to be legitimate. Where a claim is believed to be false, the appropriate response is evidence and argument. Describing it instead as racism does not answer it.

Jewish people are diverse. Any act that treats all Jewish people as one thing is antisemitism.

Statements that start with “All Jews are …” or just “Jews are …” will almost always meet this test and will be antisemitic even when the statement appears to be flattering – for example “Jews are smart” or "All Jews are good with money”.

For clarity: like any large group, some Jewish people are wealthy or hold positions of influence, and some Jewish organisations, including advocacy and lobbying groups, are influential including by working together to achieve goals. Observing that a particular person or organisation is wealthy or influential is not antisemitic. What makes the conspiracy theory antisemitic is the move from particular people to Jewish people as a whole – the claim that Jewish people, as a group, secretly hold or coordinate power because they are Jewish.

• Physical violence, or threats of violence, against people because they are Jewish.
• Harassment, abuse or intimidation of a person because they are Jewish.
• Damaging, defacing or destroying synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish cemeteries, kosher businesses or other Jewish property because it is Jewish in order to frighten Jewish people.
• Displaying Nazi symbols, or celebrating the Holocaust or Hitler, to threaten or demean Jewish people as a group.

• Claims that Jewish people as a group secretly control governments, banks, the media, or world events.
• Claims that all Jewish people act together to harm or exploit others.
• The medieval Christian European "blood libel" and similar inventions – false claims that Jewish people ritually harm others. This may take modern forms like in the Qanon conspiracy theories but is clearly distinct from descriptions of war crimes by Israel's military.
• Describing Jewish people, in general, as dishonest, disloyal, greedy or malevolent.

• Denying that the Holocaust happened, or that Jewish people were its principal victims.
• Grossly minimising the number of victims, or claiming the Holocaust is exaggerated or invented.

• Treating a Jewish person less favourably in employment, education, housing, services or public life because they are Jewish.
• Excluding Jewish people from an activity, a space or an organisation because they are Jewish.
• Holding all Jewish people worldwide responsible for the actions of the state of Israel, or of any individual Jewish person.
• Requiring a Jewish person to condemn Israel, or to state their political views, as a condition of being included, employed, or treated fairly.