Reject Jillian Segal鈥檚 racist, colonialist pro-genocide plan

July 16, 2025
Issue 
The mass pro-Palestine protests have been peaceful, despite what Jillian Segal says. Photo: Peter Boyle

Jillian Segal, appointed by Labor last year as the misnamed Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, produced an action plan that gives the government what it wanted; her 13 proposals will allow it to more easily repress pro-Palestine solidarity.

Since Segal is the immediate past president of the pro-Israel Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), this is exactly what the government intended by her appointment.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was again standing by Segal, literally, on July 10, when she presented her plan. The PM鈥檚 backing will to move more draconian laws to repress the pro-Palestine movement.

Segal has form.

While she claims she is not responsible for the tens of thousands of dollars her husband and brother-in-law donated in 2023鈥24 to the racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Palestinian Advance Australia and Liberal Party, it is a stretch of the imagination that she did not know, or approve.

Perhaps a couple who have owned multiple properties valued altogether in the tens of millions of dollars don鈥檛 bother to discuss such amounts? But the standard for reasons to consider she might be biased cuts in at a lower level.

Nor can Segal get marks for originality: Her authoritarian approach is Trumpian.

Segal鈥檚 specific proposals overlap those put by ECAJ co-chair Alex Ryvchin at the Murdoch-owned Sky News鈥 antisemitism 鈥渟ummit鈥 in February.

Segal鈥檚 plan, which is , starts from her earlier September report in which her examples of antisemitism included anti-Israel posters and stickers, and accusations that the Israeli state practices apartheid.

That is how Segal tries to overcome her contradictions.

She told the that her proposals do not stop criticism of Israel 鈥渓ike any other country 鈥 but if you are calling for the elimination of the state of Israel, then that is antisemitic.鈥

But it is incumbent on everyone who opposes Israeli apartheid to campaign to eliminate that state structure. That is how democratic peoples have, for centuries, opposed tyranny.

What is remarkable about the Palestine solidarity movement, throughout its intense mobilisation over the last 21 months, is its efforts to .

Segal denies that, telling the same ABC interviewer, 鈥淲e have seen extraordinary violence on our streets鈥. She then motivates more laws against 鈥渋ntimidating protest activity鈥.

But it is precisely on the streets, especially the big pro-Palestine rallies, as well as on university campuses, where there has been no violence. There have, however, been police assaults on smaller protests, like that at the recent protest outside SEC Plating, where Hannah Thomas and other activists were assaulted.

Segal, however, will not have that. She will 鈥渄evelop guidance鈥 for officials and institutions, such as judges and the police. The public will also be educated in Segal鈥檚 more 鈥渢horough鈥 understanding of antisemitism.

Segal is demanding that government, education and other institutions, and corporate and social peak bodies, adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

This is despite its lead author, Kenneth Stern, rejecting its weaponisation such that the Jewish Council of Australia has condemned its use 鈥渢o silence legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism鈥.

Segal鈥檚 response to the ABC鈥檚 questions was that 鈥渢hat train has moved on鈥 and the JCA is 鈥渁 very small group鈥. But her plan admits the opposite. It discusses what she considers unfavourable 鈥渄ifferences in attitude 鈥 to the existence of the State of Israel鈥 among people under 35 compared with the rest of the population.

Segal plans to聽 which fail to promote, or try to stop dissent against Zionism. She hopes to slow the oncoming train of dissent to Israel鈥檚 genocide in Gaza.

Segal puts public funding for broadcasters, charities, cultural institutions and teaching and research at universities under question. She claims, without evidence, that 鈥渁ntisemitism 鈥 has become ingrained and normalised within academia and the cultural space鈥.

In fact, these institutions鈥 managements, often encouraged by Israeli state supporters, are ramping up repression of people with pro-Palestine views, as the Antoniette Lattouf unfair dismissal case shows.

Segal offers her office as a monitor of media organisations 鈥 establishment, or critical and independent, against 鈥渇alse or distorted narratives鈥.

Yet, she opined in her ABC interview that Gaza-based journalists, working under the ever-present threat of Israeli assassination, are unreliable.

Overall, Segal reinforces irresponsible government and media efforts to suppress pro-Palestine solidarity.

Only a mass social force, grounded in anti-racist principles, will create the power to counterpose these and the settler-colonialist attitudes Segal and Albanese defend at home and internationally.

[Jonathan Strauss is a member of the National Executive.]

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