Criticising Israel in Australia? Get ready to lose your free speech
The silencing of pro-Palestinian voices has become a test for Australian democracy, with the stakes higher than ever
Originally published on The New Arab.
Artists and journalists have been sacked, academics and students targeted amid a sweeping crackdown, and draconian laws passed that curb free speech and the right to protest. No, this isn’t Trump’s America. Since October 2023, Australia has witnessed an ongoing witchhunt against those who have dared draw attention to the unspeakable suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The list of those targeted is exhaustive – from journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s sensational sacking by ABC for sharing a Human Rights Watch post on Gaza, to award-winning artist Khaled Sabsabi’s unprecedented axing from the Venice Biennale by the nation’s arts body.
All share a similar pattern of being at the receiving of attacks combining pro-Israel lobbyists, pro-Israel politicians and legacy media outlets.
It was revealed shortly after Lattouf’s dismissal in December 2023 that a WhatsApp group of pro-Israel lawyers orchestrated a wave of complaints to the ABC in order to get her sacked. And their efforts appeared to have found a sympathetic ear. When then-chair of the ABC, Ita Buttrose, took the witness stand in February this year in Lattouf’s unfair dismissal trial against the ABC, Buttrose openly labelled Lattouf an “activist” for being “critical of Israel”.
It was also revealed that Lattouf’s sacking had been leaked to the right-wing media outlet, The Australian, before Lattouf had even returned home after being evicted from the ABC building.
In the case of Sabsabi, his brazen dismissal came shortly after the arts minister, Tony Burke, called Adrian Collette, the CEO of the government-funded peak arts body, Creative Australia, to discuss Sabsabi’s work. Burke denies interfering in the decision despite expressing support for the sacking of the well-renowned Lebanese-Australian artist.
The list goes on. Just last month, Brisbane City Council stripped the Queensland Music Awards of funding after an award recipient, pianist Kellee Green, urged protests and boycotts over the Australian government’s support for Israel in her acceptance speech.
Longtime cricket commentator, Peter Lalor, was also sacked in February from sports radio station, SEN, for social media posts on Gaza.
And Palestinian-Australian academic and anti-racism expert, Randa Abdel Fattah, has faced an endless smear campaign due to her advocacy for Palestinian rights. In February, education minister, Jason Clare, called for an investigation into Abdel Fattah’s $870,000 research grant for a project which, ironically, aims to improve social cohesion through an examination of Arab and Muslim Australian social movements since the 1970s. The grant was subsequently suspended.
The establishment’s seemingly coordinated crackdown on criticism of Israel has brought the question of Palestine from a peripheral issue in national discourse to the forefront as a hot domestic issue. Palestine has become the litmus test for the strength of Australian democracy, and the nation is failing.
Defending Israel is destroying Australian democracy
Australia, more so than its Western peers, has a demonstrable aversion to dissent that critiques the powerful. The Gaza genocide has only expedited a dangerous Australian drift away from democratic values.
Much of this has centred around confected accusations of a dramatic uptick in antisemitism in Australian society. According to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), in the year that followed the October 7 attacks, there was “a 316% increase in the overall number of reported antisemitic incidents in Australia”.
This is despite the reputable Scanlon Institute noting in its annual social cohesion report that it captured only a 4-point uptick in negative attitudes towards Jews, from 9% of Australians surveyed to 13%. This pales against the one in three Australians, or 34%, who hold negative views of Muslims.
It is also notable that the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) – a community body that promotes human rights and racial justice – labelled ECAJ in a June 2024 Senate hearing as a “right-wing Zionist group” that has collaborated with far-right groups. ECAJ rejected the right-wing charge.
JCA, while noting that antisemitism has increased, also questioned the reporting of antisemitic incidents that overlap with criticism of Israel, calling it a “really dangerous” conflation.
That has not stopped the media and political establishment from centring Jewish safety in the national conversation around Gaza, effectively sidelining the mass slaughter of Palestinians as an inconvenient afterthought.
And the crackdown goes beyond attempts to harass and ruin the careers of individuals speaking up for human rights. After a spate of incidents targeting synagogues in Australia in 2024 – that were later found to be a hoax – federal and state governments swiftly passed more laws that further stifle free speech and the right to protest.
In February, the Labor government in collusion with the conservative Coalition passed mandatory sentencing laws for hate crimes. Except what determines a hate crime now threatens to encompass legitimate political speech. A person guilty of displaying “prohibited symbols” at a protest will be slapped with a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment.
This is despite experts, including the Law Council of Australia, warning that “this has the potential to disproportionately impact vulnerable groups”. This was a position echoed by the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, which said in a submission to a 2024 Senate inquiry into the hate crimes bill that it should not “criminalise legitimate free speech and protest” and expressed concern “that the enforcement of vilification offences may disproportionately affect vulnerable groups”.
ECAJ also made a submission regarding the hate crimes bill, and at the time argued that it was “modest” and “[did] not go far enough”. The pro-Israel lobby ultimately got its wish, and the laws were strengthened to include mandatory sentencing.
In New South Wales, the staunchly pro-Israel Labor premier, Chris Minns, rushed through controversial laws after a caravan laden with explosives was found on the outskirts of Sydney in January with threats directed at the Jewish community. The laws gave police broad powers to restrict protests near places of worship and criminalised people making racist remarks in public.
This was before police eventually revealed that the spate of antisemitic incidents in Sydney were a hoax, and the premier potentially knew of that fact before rushing through the laws.
Minns is now facing a parliamentary inquiry as to whether he misled parliament but has refused to repeal the anti-democratic laws.
In Victoria, the state Labor government there also recently awarded police expanded powers to stop and frisk individuals for no reason in a designated zone over a six-month period, ostensibly to target those entering the city centre of Melbourne for weekly pro-Palestine protests.
The Human Rights Law Centre slammed the new police powers as “a dangerous erosion of our fundamental rights”. And Victoria Police have drawn on vaguely worded laws to target protest figureheads, such as Hash Tayeh, who was charged last month for using “insulting words” in a “public place”. The insulting words? Leading a chant at a pro-Palestine rally that called Zionists terrorists.
Silencing the truth
This demonisation of pro-Palestine voices in Australia and the clipping of democratic rights continues to ripple through society. In February, 39 universities agreed to adopt a definition of antisemitism that draws on the controversial IHRA definition that includes criticism of Israel.
Universities Australia, in representing the 39 tertiary institutions, conflated Zionism – an ethno-nationalist, extreme political ideology that is fuelling the current genocide in Gaza – with antisemitism, stating that “Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity. Substituting the word 'Zionist' for 'Jew' does not eliminate the possibility of speech being antisemitic”.
The National Tertiary Education Union criticised the adoption as “likely to have the effect of suppressing academic and intellectual freedom”.
All that has passed since October 2023 points to a concerted effort by the pro-Israel establishment to create a climate of fear around criticising Israel, Zionism and Australia’s support for Israel.
When the powerful lose the narrative, rarely do they surrender to their fate. In Australia, as throughout the West, the establishment has stood firmly behind Israel as it conducts genocide in Gaza.
While these efforts have succeeded, to an extent, in stifling public discourse that centres Palestinians, it has not put an end to weekly protests that still draw thousands in Australian cities nor has it shifted public opinion – according to an October 2024 poll, only 19% of Australians thought Israel’s genocide was justified. It is worth noting however that the media establishment have conducted few polls on public sentiment towards Israel and Palestine.
What is clear is that, much like in other Western nations, a schism has emerged between large sections of the community energised in disgust at Israel’s genocide, and Australia’s complicity in it, and an establishment refusing to yield its pro-Israel stance, even at the cost of the nation’s democratic foundations. The war for the survival of the Palestinians has also become a battle to save Australian democracy.