Antisemitic incidents including assaults, vandalism, threats and intimidation had surged more than threefold in Australia in the year after Hamas attacked Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal reported.
Synagogues and cars have been torched, businesses and homes have been graffitied and Jews have been attacked in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities where 85% of the nation’s Jewish population live.
A year after the Jewish lawyer and Sydney-based business executive was appointed envoy, Segal provided the government with a range of recommendations in her report.
‘We cannot hope to abolish antisemitism'
“Given its age-old heritage, we cannot hope to really abolish antisemitism, but we can push it to the margins of society,” Segal told reporters.
A major priority of the report was to ensure public institutions, particularly universities, were held accountable for addressing antisemitism.
Australian universities have been the center of several pro-Palestinian protests.
Segal would work with government to withhold funding from universities that fail to act against antisemitism, the report said.
More broadly, public funding would be denied to cultural institutions, artists, broadcasters and individuals that “implicitly endorse antisemitic themes or narratives,” the report said.
People living in Australia who were not citizens and were involved in antisemitism should be deported. Potential immigrants should be screened for antisemitic views or affiliations, the report said.
