If Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and NSW Premier Chris Minns manage to make law of their proposed new plans to combat antisemitism, they will be following a global pattern of tougher hate speech penalties enacted since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Terrorism offences would attract a minimum of six years in jail under the Coalition’s proposed laws, while those displaying terrorist organisation signs, Nazi symbols or performing a Nazi salute would face at least a year behind bars.
Minns has said hate speech laws are expected to be strengthened when the NSW Parliament reconvenes in February, despite a nine-month-long review headed by Law Reform Commission president Tom Bathurst concluding the reforms may not be the most effective means of combatting antisemitism.
“Our government is going to … strengthen laws, so that if someone’s preaching hatred in the community, it doesn’t manifest itself two or three months later in a firebombing, an attack or something worse,” Minns said. “No stone will be left unturned.”
While some Jewish groups have welcomed the tougher laws, other groups have raised questions about whether measures like mandatory sentences will reduce incidents.
The proposals come in response to a series of antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. In recent weeks, cars were torched and graffitied with antisemitic phrases in Sydney and red swastikas were spraypainted on synagogues, and in December, the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne’s south was firebombed in an attack condemned by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other leaders.
The latest incident came in the early hours of Tuesday, when a children’s daycare centre in Sydney’s eastern suburbs was torched and an offensive slogan about Jews was spraypainted on a wall next to the blaze.
On Tuesday evening, Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw said investigators were looking into whether “overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs” and whether there were payments involved.
New legal frameworks
There has been a “sharp rise” of antisemitic attacks and hate speech around the globe since the current war in Gaza began, United Nations high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk said last year.
“People have been attacked. Lives have been threatened … this is unacceptable, and we must tackle it together in all its forms,” he said in an address in September.
A number of countries have proposed or enacted new laws over the past 15 months:
United States
The House of Representatives passed a bill that would “establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws” in response to university protests over the Israel-Hamas war. The bill would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin, the Associated Press reported.
In late December, Jewish Insider reported progress on the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify “a Trump-era executive order declaring that antisemitism is a prohibited form of discrimination in schools and universities”, had ground to a halt in the Senate, where it was destined for the “cutting room floor”.
Some progressives believe the IHRA definition inappropriately declares certain criticism of Israel to be antisemitic, and 70 Democrats opposed the legislation in the House. Some conservatives have also expressed free speech concerns, reported the Jewish Insider, and some specifically claim that the definition is anti-Christian.
France
In France, a bill that would deny citizenship and residency to foreigners convicted of discriminatory acts against people because of their origin, race or religion passed the National Assembly in December, Jerusalem Post reported. The “bill to combat antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia”, proposed in response to a 300% rise in recorded antisemitic incidents in the first half of last year, according to the representative who carried it, will need to pass the Senate before becoming law.
Germany
A “large cross-party majority” of German Bundestag representatives passed a resolution in November that would “make public grants for culture and science projects dependent on adherence to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism”, Deutsche Welle reported.
The public broadcaster noted the bill had been met with “vehement opposition” by “legal experts, civil society groups and prominent Jewish intellectuals”. According to Amnesty International Germany, while the aim of combating antisemitism and racism was welcome, the resolution “not only fails to achieve this goal, but also raises fears of serious violations of fundamental human rights and legal uncertainty”.
Netherlands
In November, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised “far-reaching measures” against antisemitism following violence on Amsterdam streets against Israeli soccer fans and tourists, and anti-Palestinian chants and violence by some of the visiting Israeli fans. However, the news agency Agence France-Presse reported the announcement of a strategy to fight antisemitism had been postponed as Justice Minister David van Weel, who said he needed “more time” to get it ready.
United Kingdom
In the UK, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she’s committed to reversing a Tory decision to downgrade the monitoring of non-criminal hate incidents in relation to antisemitism and Islamophobia. But in September, The Telegraph reported Cooper’s plan, which came in response to a surge of post-October 7 antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks, was being challenged by free speech advocates who said they were ready to take the government to court.
On Monday, the UK non-profit Runnymede Trust published a study that said antisemitic incidents had “spiked” since the October 7 attacks, while arguing that “discussions around antisemitism have become highly politicised in ways that have been detrimental to Jewish communities’ safety and wellbeing”.
‘It leads to injustice’
Jewish Council Australia executive officer Max Kaiser told Crikey he and his colleagues had felt a noticeable rise in antisemitism in the past 14 months.
“From our point of view, we get a lot of antisemitic abuse, fairly constantly — and if you spend any time scrolling X, you see a lot of Nazi content,” he said.
“What we’re concerned about is treating this as solely a law-and-order issue of individual antisemites that can be solved by police and longer prison sentences. That doesn’t get to the heart of the issue, that antisemitism is part of a broader problem of racism in Australian society.”
Spokesman for the Australian Lawyers’ Alliance Greg Barns SC said Australian authorities should focus on prevention and making sure communities are safe, rather than imposing mandatory sentences such as those proposed by Dutton.
“There is no evidence that mandatory sentencing has any deterrent effect on those who might commit offences, [and] it leads to injustice because it hamstrings the courts in being able to exercise their discretion to ensure just sentencing in each case,” he told Crikey.
“Because it’s an ineffective means of dealing with offending, it means that resources aren’t allocated to prevention, in other words, to ensuring that particularly younger people who might be tempted to engage in terrorism offences can be steered away from that by their peers and by their community.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim was among those who expressed support for Dutton’s proposal, arguing a coordinated response between national, state and territory governments was needed.
“[These attacks] are not just a matter for the Jewish community, they are attacks on all Australians, on our way of life, and on our values,” he said, according to The Australian Jewish News.
— With AAP
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