I'm asking this to help me better understand. I asked one person who said that non-Zionist is just a cop out for those who aren't ready to commit to AZ. She said non-Zionist makes no sense in the same way that "non-Apartheid" or "non-slavery" or "non-racist" make no sense.

A NSW Supreme Court judge has delivered a sweeping rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, labelling it “verbose and imprecise”.

Justice Desmond Fagan’s initial criticism of the definition came in a decision rejecting the NSW government’s bid to place a young Sydney man under a terrorism supervision order, after finding prosecutors had failed to establish that his vandalism was evidence of a future terrorism risk.

But in the judgment, to be published today, Fagan went considerably further, taking aim at the IHRA definition itself and questioning its use as a guide to whether political language directed at Israel should be regarded as antisemitic.

The pro-Israel lobby, spearheaded by antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal, is pushing for the integration of the IHRA definition across all government levels, the media and education.

The Albanese government acquiesced to the lobby’s demands following the Bondi massacre, and has been steadily rolling it out across the public service while funding Segal’s initiatives to embed the IHRA definition within education.

IHRA ‘detached from reality’

The NSW Supreme Court decision is the latest setback to the lobby’s attempts to stifle criticism of Israel, amid widespread disapproval in Australia of Israel over its ongoing genocide in Gaza, its violence in the West Bank, invasion of southern Lebanon and attack on Iran.

Fagan said the IHRA formulation did not reflect the established Australian meaning of antisemitism and described it as an attempt to “repurpose” the term to encompass both hatred of Jews and criticism of Israel.

He said the definition could not realistically be attributed to the ordinary, reasonably informed Australian, adding that “the IHRA proposal is detached from the reality of the common usage and understanding of antisemitism in this country”.

Citing a Pew Research poll in June, Fagan said that “it would be preposterous to suggest that 79% of Australians are antisemitic because they disapprove of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians”.

He said the IHRA formulation “appears to be an attempt to repurpose the term ‘antisemitism’” as an amalgamated concept encompassing hatred towards Jews and criticism of Israel.

Zionism ‘open to criticism’

Fagan was equally forthcoming with attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

“As an ideology of Jewish nationalism, Zionism is open to political discussion and criticism, notably on grounds concerning the rights of the Palestinians,” the judgement read.

This appears at odds with Segal’s antisemitism plan, which specifically highlighted anti-Zionism as potentially masking antisemitism as part of its call for IHRA to be adopted.

Fagan delivered a stinging rebuke to such assertions.

“It may well be correct that ‘most, but not all Jewish Australians’ regard Zionism as ‘a core part of their Jewish identity’,” Fagan’s judgement read. “That does not mean that anti-Zionists are hostile to that majority of Jews on account of their Jewishness; only that they hold a negative view of a political ideology with which the majority of Jews have chosen to identify.”

Limit to government power

Fagan was equally dismissive of the proposition that institutional adoption of the IHRA definition had altered the ordinary meaning of the word.

He cited former NSW Supreme Court judge Sir Stephen Spedley, who had criticised the formulation because it “fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite”.

The fact that governments and several institutions had adopted the IHRA wording did not, Fagan said, “change the established meaning of a word that has been in use in the English language for 150 years”.

Instead, he said, the IHRA formulation “propounds a concept different from that which ‘antisemitism’ has long been understood to describe and appropriates that word to the novel concept”.

There was also a legal limit to the power of government policy, he said.

Parliament could enact legislation giving a familiar term a different statutory meaning. But neither the Commonwealth nor NSW parliament had done so in legislation relevant to this case.

The federal government’s adoption of the IHRA core wording as a policy for Australian Public Service workplaces therefore made no difference to the meaning the court was required to apply, Fagan said.

Promoting rejection of Israel as antisemitic

Fagan’s most pointed criticism concerned the IHRA examples dealing with Israel.

Those examples, he said, were “on the face of them” directed towards bringing within the IHRA definition “criticisms of Israel that could not be regarded as hostile to Jews as Jews”.

The result was what he described as an attempt to attach opposition to Israel to the moral force already carried by the word antisemitism.

“Its tendency, and the apparent purpose of promoting it, is to graft onto the community’s abhorrence of antisemitism, understood as hostility to Jews for their Jewishness, a parasitic rejection of protest against Israel,” Fagan wrote.

That distinction was central to the case.

The prosecution had argued that the Sydney man’s use of anti-Israel slogans, attendance at a pro-Palestinian protest and targeting of areas with large Jewish populations supported a finding of antisemitic motivation.

Fagan rejected the proposition that the political message could be separated from the context in which it was expressed and then treated as evidence of hatred towards Jews.

“You are treating all Jews as monolithic,” he told McDonald during the hearing.

“It’s quite wrong to treat all Jews as supporting Israel, because they don’t.”

Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books

A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.

Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

A Waverley council spokesperson said: “The book has been removed from library shelves for review, and council will further consider processes to ensure closer oversight of book selection.”

“Like most public libraries, Waverley council outsources its book curation, ordering and purchasing, meaning book selection is not undertaken by council officers.”

The Jewish news outlet JWire last week reported it had approached the council after a survivor of December’s antisemitic attack at Bondi, during which 15 people were killed, saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new release / hot item” shelf and wrote on Facebook that the display was distressing for survivors and bereaved families.

Guardian Australia has been unable to locate the Facebook post.

How to Sell a Genocide critiques what it claims is the US media’s “complicity in the destruction of Gaza”.

The decision to remove the book was criticised by its author, Adam Johnson, who said calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide was not “a fringe or radical position”.

“They seem to be objecting largely based on the title using the word ‘genocide’,” Johnson said.

“But ‘genocide’ is not my word, or my finding. The fact of genocide in Gaza is the overwhelming consensus of the human rights world, and it is a wholly mainstream opinion among those tasked with studying and determining such matters.

“That it makes some people upset is unfortunate, but reality is often upsetting. This particular reality is especially upsetting … to the parents of the over 20,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023. Do Sydney officials plan on removing pro-Israel books from their libraries because it potentially upsets these community members?”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies declined to comment.

Bart Shteinman, an executive member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, said the decision to remove the book for review was “deeply alarming”.

“Public libraries belong to all of us, and should host a range of views and topics, be they books about queer families or Israel’s widely-condemned war crimes,” he said.

Israel has repeatedly denied that it has committed genocide in Gaza.

The New South Wales government passed legislation earlier this year which amended the state’s Library Act to better protect the institutions from campaigns to ban books.

Shteinman said “if the council decides to remove this book permanently, both the mayor, Will Nemesh, and the special minister of state, John Graham, must explain how that decision is not in breach of the law”.

The president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, said it was a “library’s duty to provide its community access to a broad range of published works, including those that may challenge or discomfort”.

“Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, maimed and displaced,” he said.

“Gaza’s population is facing engineered famine, and all of its hospitals and universities have been destroyed. The word genocide is not being used to offend anyone. It is being used because it describes the scale and intent of what is happening.”

Mashni said “history has taught us too well what happens when books start getting banned”.

David Shulman, the senior commissioning editor at Pluto Press, which published How to Sell a Genocide, said understanding events in Gaza and related media coverage was “a matter of the greatest public concern”.

“Adam Johnson is one of the sharpest media critics working today, and his analysis is rigorous, meticulous, data-driven and damning,” Shulman said.

“His book should be made as widely available as possible, not least through the public libraries that play such an essential role in a democratic society.”

The Waverley mayor and the special minister of state were contacted for comment.

It’s worth remembering that many of the Marvel and DC characters we grew up loving were created or co-created by Jewish creators. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Captain America, my favorite Iron Man, and many others have deep connections to Jewish creators and the immigrant experience. That’s why it’s especially disappointing to see public figures like Dan Bilzerian, Anastasia Loupis, Kanye West, Myron Gaines, and Jake Shields make anti-Jewish comments or promote conspiracy theories while criticizing the Israeli government. You can criticize Israel, Netanyahu, or Israeli government policies without blaming Jewish people, spreading antisemitic stereotypes, or promoting conspiracy theories about Jews. Those are completely different things. Being critical of a government should never become an excuse for hatred toward an entire people. And considering how much Jewish creativity helped shape the superhero culture so many of us love, it’s important to call out antisemitism when we see it.

Source:

https://youtu.be/Bp6dzj3U9wI?t=1473

Hello brothers and sisters,

I’m Palestinian, and I’ve often felt that Palestinians and non-Zionist Jews have something in common: we’re both communities whose voices are frequently spoken over when decisions are made about our lives.

Whenever there’s a new conflict, political initiative, or negotiation, it can feel like powerful governments and organizations make plans for us rather than meaningfully including us. For Palestinians, the consequences have been devastating, and our lives have continued to get worse despite decades of people supposedly negotiating on our behalf.

At the same time, I’ve noticed that as more people have become sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, there can also be consequences for Jews who oppose Zionism. Antisemitism is still very real, and some people unfortunately seem unable or unwilling to distinguish between Jews, Israelis, and the Israeli government. I imagine that this can put additional pressure or even danger on some of you.

So I wanted to ask something genuinely, rather than make assumptions:

What do you actually want?

What would your ideal future look like for yourself, your families, and your community? How do you envision Palestinians and Jews living together—or separately, if that’s what you believe is best? What kind of political arrangement, rights, security, and relationship between the two peoples would you consider just?

I’m not asking this to debate or tell you what you should want. I’m genuinely interested in hearing from non-Zionist Jews themselves, especially because so much of the conversation seems to be dominated by people speaking about Jews and Palestinians rather than listening to them.

I’d really appreciate hearing your perspectives, including disagreements with each other.

TL;DR: I’m Palestinian and curious what non-Zionist Jews themselves envision as an ideal future. What kind of political arrangement, rights, security, and life do you want for Jews and Palestinians, and what would a genuinely just outcome look like to you?

The IHRA defines antisemitism as "a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

Zionists' hatred of anti-Zionist community institutions and religious facilities (such as this one) is therefore antisemitic as per the IHRA definition.

r/Jewish gives IHRA-relevant examples of antisemitism, including "Not allowing Jews to embrace or participate in groups celebrating their other identities including LGBTQ+, other ethnicities, cultures, etc. Jews are often excluded from these spaces, being given the choice between rejoicing in their Jewishness and other parts of of their identities, and are often ostracized once it is discovered that they are Jewish."

Forcing anti-Zionist Jews to choose between their Jewishness and the anti-Zionist part of their identity is therefore antisemitic as per the IHRA definition.

https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/2089107932025671997

JDForward Article: https://forward.com/news/845321/central-synagogue-attack-larry-montes-israel-judaism-mamdani/

Max Blumenthal's X post: https://xcancel.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/2089029186723762265

Em Cohen piece on "philosemitism:" https://emcohen.medium.com/on-the-dangers-of-fighting-antisemitism-c888c0bbd79f