'Extraordinary overreach': anti-Semitism report blasted

A plan to combat anti-Semitism including suggestions funding may be stripped from arts bodies and events amounts to overreach, a pro-Palestinian writer says.

The recommendation to axe support for publicly funded institutions and festivals that promote or fail to effectively deal with hate speech is part of Australia's anti-Semitism envoy Jillian Segal's report.

The federal government is considering the advice as it examines ways to combat a surge in discrimination against Jewish Australians.

Writer and activist Omar Sakr said adopting the recommendations would lead to further silencing people who supported the Palestinian cause.

The report's suggested measures were so wide-ranging they amounted to "extraordinary overreach", he said, arguing pro-Palestinian artists were already treated unfavourably by the sector.

"It's beyond clear that the end goal of this strategy is a kind of cultural apartheid and it aims for a total stigmatisation and erasure of Palestinian culture," Sakr said.

He was one of a group of writers contracted to provide teen workshops at the State Library of Victoria in 2024 before their agreements were cancelled following an examination of their political views, including his criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza.

Ms Segal's report, released on Thursday, also suggested deporting and cancelling the visas of people involved in discrimination against Jewish people.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was already taking those steps, pointing to the decision to block controversial US rapper Kanye West from entering the country after he released a song titled Heil Hitler.

"We screen people ... when they apply for visas it's something that we make sure that we represent Australia's national interests," he told reporters on Friday.

Criticism of the report has also focused on Ms Segal's recommendation Australia adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism.

Some detractors - including the original author of the definition, Kenneth Stern - argue it conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Jewish Council of Australia executive officer Max Kaiser labelled the report a "blueprint for silencing dissent", saying the emphasis on surveillance, censorship and punitive control over funding was "straight out of Trump's authoritarian playbook".

Ms Segal said those criticisms misunderstood the definition.

"(It) clearly says if Israel is criticised, that's absolutely fine - and indeed, so many Israelis are criticising the policies of their own government," she told ABC Radio.

She said the Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive organisation, was a small group that did not represent the nation's broader Jewish community.

Several other Jewish groups called for her recommendations to be adopted in full.

They include embedding Holocaust education into school curriculums and strengthening legislation against hateful conduct, in addition to terminating or withholding funds from universities, broadcasters and cultural institutions that fail to address anti-Semitism.

National Union of Students president Ashlyn Horton questioned the way widespread pro-Palestinian student encampment protests were portrayed as targeting Jewish people.

"Conflating actual anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel is a massive, massive concern," she said.

Universities Australia has committed to considering the report's recommendations.

Walkley Award-winning journalist Jan Fran said Israel had killed nearly 200 people in Gaza since Tuesday, while it was also ordering Palestinians into what critics have labelled an internment camp.

"If the anti-Semitism envoy's plan stifles criticism of Israel for these actions, particularly at public broadcasters and in media organisations broadly, then we are headed down a very dark path," she said.

Ms Segal's report found threats, vandalism and physical violence against Jewish Australians tripled between October 2023 and September 2024.

Australia's government-appointed envoy to combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, said he would soon provide "comprehensive" recommendations to the prime minister.