Pro-Israel lobbyist who said ‘there are no civilians’ in Gaza testified at Royal Commission
Here are some past statements made by Arsen Ostrovsky
Arsen Ostrovsky heads the Sydney office of one of the nation’s most prominent pro-Israel lobby groups – the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
Last week, he was among several pro-Israel supporters to provide testimony to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. The Commission has come under fire for its indulgence of pro-Israel perspectives, while refusing Palestinian voices despite anti-Palestinian sentiments expressed by several witnesses.
Ostrovsky is a prolific social media user and has been a vocal supporter of Israel, with 396,000 followers on Elon Musk’s X.com. He was injured in the Bondi shooting last December, sharing shortly after that a “bullet grazed my head” with an image of his bloodied face. Following the attack, the image was altered using AI to promulgate a conspiracy theory – since debunked by AAP FactCheck – that Ostrovsky had faked his wounds.
In February this year, Ostrovsky addressed a US conference of the frequently-criticised pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, where he “spoke about defending the Jewish state in global forums – from the United Nations and The Hague to the media and digital battlefield”.
He told the Commission about the online abuse he endured after the Bondi attack:
“... the effect does take considerable emotional toll. To be told that you do not have the same rights, to be told that you are not a victim, to be told that you deserve this in some way, it not only dehumanises you, it not only tries to erase what happened to you, but what it does do is effectively incites (SIC) any further violence, and I feel like there are things that would be said in public and would not be acceptable, yet somehow are allowed to persist online.”
However, Ostrovsky himself has a past record of controversial online statements, including content that was flagged for potentially dehumanising Palestinians. Here are a few:
‘No civilians’ in Gaza
On January 30, 2025, Ostrovsky tweeted a video of an Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swap, saying that he had difficulty empathising with “any ‘civilians’ of Gaza” and that they were “indistinguishable from the savages of Hamas”. The tweet received 1.2m views.
On February 22, in a now-deleted tweet, Ostrovsky said there were “no civilians” in Gaza. The tweet received 166,000 views.
On October 13, 2023, Ostrovsky tweeted an image of a cockroach with the head of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, under a boot emblazoned with “IDF”. The post’s visibility was subsequently limited by X.com, with a warning that it “may violate X’s rules against Violent Speech”. The warning highlighted its dehumanising content.
“Throughout history dehumanisation has played a key role in the perpetration of atrocities.
“The specific use of imagery to depict a people as ‘bugs’ or ‘insects’ is textbook Nazi propaganda – as popularised by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf against the Jewish population,” the warning read.
In the International Court of Justice’s finding in January 2024 that Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, it cited a UN committee report noting “the sharp increase in racist hate speech and dehumanisation directed at Palestinians since 7 October”.
Beheaded babies
Ostrovsky also repeatedly pushed the later debunked narrative that babies were beheaded on October 7 at Kfar Aza. An April 2025 investigation by Le Monde found that while the “unfounded allegation” may have emerged organically, “Israel had done nothing to fight it and has more often tried to instrumentalise it than deny it, fuelling accusations of media manipulation”.
The source of the rumour is widely attributed to members of ZAKA, a voluntary ultra-Orthodox organisation in Israel which assists in the recovery of bodies in line with Jewish practices post-disasters.
On October 11, before the story had been debunked, Ostrovsky retweeted a news report from i24 that received 1.1m views.
Later that day, he tweeted:
On October 15, 2023, he condemned a pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne for aligning with those “who behead babies”, despite the allegation at the time being unsubstantiated and later found to be unfounded.
On October 30, 2023, he cited the beheading claim once more to oppose calls for a ceasefire. At the time, according to the UN, Israeli forces had already killed 8,309 Palestinians in Gaza, 70 per cent of whom women and children:
Ostrovsky’s testimony received substantial mainstream media coverage in Australia, with an ABC report leading with his remarks to the Commission without providing context of his past statements or his pro-Israel advocacy. Other prominent pro-Israel figures such as Steven Lowy (son of billionaire Frank Lowy), Dr Lee Koffman and MP Josh Burns appeared last week, alongside several experts on online hatred.
The Royal Commission continues.
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