Zionism

Doxing or in the public interest? Free speech, ‘cancelling’ and the ethics of the Jewish creatives’ WhatsApp group leak

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Not all of members knew they had been added to the group at first, and many didn’t participate in the conversations that resulted in the leak.

Key Points: 
  • Not all of members knew they had been added to the group at first, and many didn’t participate in the conversations that resulted in the leak.
  • Last week, a transcript from the group chat was leaked and uploaded onto social media by pro-Palestinians, including the writer Clementine Ford.
  • The leak gives rise to a complex tangle of contemporary ethical issues, including concerns with privacy, doxing, free speech and “cancelling”.


Read more:
Israel-Hamas war: What is Zionism? A history of the political movement that created Israel as we know it

Privacy and public interest

  • The WhatsApp group was a private one, where group members would have had a reasonable expectation that their conversation would not be made public.
  • Violating people’s privacy (especially through leaking information onto the forever-searchable internet) is always a moral cost.
  • But sometimes that cost must be paid, particularly if the exposure is in the public interest.
  • It could be argued that revealing the WhatsApp group’s activities was in the public interest.

The ethics of doxing

  • It is usually done without the person’s consent, and aims to expose or punish them in some way.
  • A statement from those behind the release asserted no links had been made to members’ addresses, phone numbers or emails, which were all deliberately redacted.
  • However, the release of people’s identities is still a form of doxing and a serious moral concern.
  • Read more:
    What is doxing, and how can you protect yourself?

What was the WhatsApp group doing?


The WhatsApp group conversations were wide-ranging, and some members made statements many might find offensive or upsetting. One part of the group’s activities involved organised letter-writing, including to the employers or publishers of writers or journalists they felt crossed the line into anti-Semitism.

  • Letters can be used to raise awareness of ethical concerns, to share information and ideas, and to persuade.
  • But letters can also do other things, and an innocuous practice can sometimes gradually progress into more fraught territory.
  • They can also try to get people to act in ways that are morally concerning — such as having someone sacked for their political views.

Should artists be protected?


Before the story broke in the media, but after extracts from the group chat began circulating on social media, the Australian Society of Authors Board published a letter noting its “growing concern” that artists and authors in Australia were facing repercussions for expressing their political positions publicly or in their work. The society stated its commitment to freedom of speech (within the limits set by law) and its opposition to attempts to silence or intimidate authors.

  • The society also opposed attempts to intimidate or silence people through hate speech, explicitly noting antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab rhetoric.
  • Hate speech, racism and bigotry, and harmful disinformation or stereotyping, should be stopped, and speakers should face the consequences of their wrongdoing.
  • What we perceive as dangerous misinformation or harmful speech (like antisemitism or Islamophobia) will inevitably be coloured by our cultural, political and moral worldviews.
  • But it is precisely those who think differently who will disagree with us about what counts as harmful or wrongful speech.

Ethical worries

  • Punishing, undermining and silencing others on the basis of our political beliefs gives rise to two potential ethical worries (both arise with respect to the modern phenomenon of “cancel culture”).
  • Each side declares: “We are a support group nobly taking a stand against harmful bigotry and hate.
  • Now, I have reason to push back against you – to no longer tolerate your speech.
  • Tragically, some isolated individuals – not necessarily connected to the pro-Palestinians – felt justified in going further, even to threats of violence.


Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Russia’s fanning of anti-Israeli sentiment takes dark detour into Holocaust denialism

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 8, 2024

The war in Gaza isn’t only challenging the geopolitics of the Middle East: It is also complicating matters in Ukraine, as Russia seeks to capitalize on growing anti-Israeli sentiment in the Global South.

Key Points: 
  • The war in Gaza isn’t only challenging the geopolitics of the Middle East: It is also complicating matters in Ukraine, as Russia seeks to capitalize on growing anti-Israeli sentiment in the Global South.
  • Russia was slow to condemn the Oct. 7 attack in Israel and has hosted a succession of Hamas delegations in Moscow.
  • As an expert on modern Russia, I see deeper dynamics at work.

‘A century of antisemitism’

  • The Gaza war erupted at a crucial moment in the conflict in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 had stalled, while Republicans in the U.S. Congress blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to send more aid to Ukraine.
  • At no point during her lengthy remarks, which ran to 1,500 words, did Zakharova mention that Jews had been among Hitler’s victims.
  • The omission led to criticism that Russia is deliberately downplaying if not denying the Jewish Holocaust.

Weaponizing hate

  • This is not the first time that the Russian foreign ministry has opened itself to accusations of antisemitism.
  • (That Zelensky is Jewish) means absolutely nothing.
  • And Lavrov soon returned to the theme of equating the actions of perceived enemies with those of Nazis.


This rising tide of state propaganda spilled over into some actual acts of mob antisemitism. In October 2023, at an airport in Dagestan, a Muslim-majority province in southern Russia, a a crowd hunted for Jewish refugees after a flight landed from Israel. Moscow has been accused of doing little to rein in such manifestations of antisemitism.

Distorting history

  • Zakharova’s remarks can be seen as a continuation of the Soviet tradition of Holocaust denial.
  • As the Soviet Union drew into closer alliance with the Arab world in the 1960s, the Soviet Union became increasingly hostile to U.S.-backed Israel.
  • For example, Moscow was a sponsor of the controversial United Nations Resolution 3379, which denounced Zionism as a form of racism.
  • The resolution, seen by critics as fueling antisemitism, passed the U.N. General Assembly in 1975 but was revoked in 1991.

Putin’s flirtation with antisemitism

  • During the first years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, he had a very positive attitude toward Israel.
  • In 2005, he was the first Russian leader to visit Israel.
  • However, after 2021, as Russian officials started making absurd claims about neo-Nazis being in power in Kyiv, the relationship with Israel cooled.

Putin’s ploy may backfire

  • Russia’s ploy to link the wars in Gaza and Ukraine may win it a few more friends in the Global South.
  • But it risks alienating influential players such as India, which under Narendra Modi has become increasingly pro-Israel.
  • The strikes by Houthi militants on ships in the Red Sea are of concern to India and others who see their international trade disrupted.


Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Explainer: what is the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 6, 2024

However, the two-state solution is now further away than it has ever been, with some even proclaiming it “dead”.

Key Points: 
  • However, the two-state solution is now further away than it has ever been, with some even proclaiming it “dead”.
  • But what actually is the two-state solution and why do so many see this as the only resolution to the conflict?

What is the two-state solution?

  • The first attempt at creating side-by-side states occurred before the independence of Israel in 1948.
  • More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from the new state of Israel, fleeing to the West Bank, Gaza and surrounding Arab states.
  • This would mean the new Palestinian state would consist of the West Bank prior to Israeli settlement, and Gaza.
  • How Jerusalem would be split, if at all, has been a significant point of contention in this plan.

Why is statehood so important?

  • The kind of statehood referred to in the two-state solution, known as state sovereignty in international politics, is the authority given to the government of a nation within and over its borders.
  • The vast majority of people on Earth live in or legally fall under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state.
  • More than 160 members of the UN now recognise Israel; those who do not include Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
  • As such, the self-determination of Palestinians through the creation of a sovereign state has been a cornerstone of Palestinian political action for decades.

The closest the two sides got – the Oslo Accords

  • Negotiations began largely as a result of Palestinian uprisings across the West Bank and Gaza.
  • In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat met in Oslo and signed the first of two agreements called the Oslo Accords.
  • The Oslo II Accord was signed in 1995, detailing the subdivision of administrative areas in the occupied territories.
  • And over the next few decades, the two-state solution has only become harder to achieve for various reasons, including:


the rise of conservative governments in Israel and lack of effective political pressure from the US
the shrinking political influence of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and the rise of Hamas in Gaza, which caused a political split between the two Palestinian territories
Hamas’ vows to annihilate Israel and refusal to recognise the Israeli state as legitimate
the continued growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which has turned the territory into an ever-shrinking series of small enclaves connected by military checkpoints
dwindling support among both Israelis and Palestinians for the model
continued political violence on both sides.
And of course there is Netanyahu – no individual has done more to undermine the two-state solution than the current Israeli leader and his party. In 2010, a leaked recording from 2001 came to light where Netanyahu claimed to have “de facto put an end to the Oslo accords”.

What alternatives are there?

  • There aren’t many alternatives and all of them have significant problems.
  • Although Arabs already make up around 20% of Israel’s current population, the one-state solution would not be politically feasible.
  • According to Zionist ideology, Israel must always remain a majority Jewish state and granting Palestinians citizenship in the occupied territories would undermine this.


Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gaza war: Israeli assassinations draw fiery rhetoric from Iran and Hezbollah – but regional escalation is unlikely

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East.

Key Points: 
  • He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East.
  • He had been the right-hand man of General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards’ branch for operations outside Iran.
  • On January 2, an Israeli drone fired into a building in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah is based.
  • They are telling Hamas, the Iran military and Hezbollah, “We can hit you anytime, anywhere,” and asking, “What are you going to do about it?”

Tough poses meet tougher realities

  • Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi postured in a photo opportunity with Mousavi’s family.
  • “This crime will definitely not go unanswered and the Zionist criminals will pay for this crime,” he said – without offering any specifics.
  • The near-paralysed Lebanese government, with no president and 12 intermittent and inconclusive parliamentary sessions, could finally dissolve into anarchy.
  • Asked by Amwaj Media if there would be retaliation for the assassinations, a “senior Iranian source” reflected: “Difficult decision.

Fighting the indirect war

  • Meanwhile the world, if not the Israelis, can be unsettled by “indirect war”.
  • Yemen’s Houthi insurgency, with political and military backing from Iran, are attacking civilian vessels in the Red Sea.
  • But there is always a risk of a chain reaction that, response by response, will wind up in the second-front war that no one wants or intends.


Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gaza war: Israeli assassinations draws fiery rhetoric from Iran and Hezbollah – but regional escalation is unlikely

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East.

Key Points: 
  • He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East.
  • He had been the right-hand man of General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards’ branch for operations outside Iran.
  • On January 2, an Israeli drone fired into a building in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah is based.
  • They are telling Hamas, the Iran military and Hezbollah, “We can hit you anytime, anywhere,” and asking, “What are you going to do about it?”

Tough poses meet tougher realities

  • Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi postured in a photo opportunity with Mousavi’s family.
  • “This crime will definitely not go unanswered and the Zionist criminals will pay for this crime,” he said – without offering any specifics.
  • The near-paralysed Lebanese government, with no president and 12 intermittent and inconclusive parliamentary sessions, could finally dissolve into anarchy.
  • Asked by Amwaj Media if there would be retaliation for the assassinations, a “senior Iranian source” reflected: “Difficult decision.

Fighting the indirect war

  • Meanwhile the world, if not the Israelis, can be unsettled by “indirect war”.
  • Yemen’s Houthi insurgency, with political and military backing from Iran, are attacking civilian vessels in the Red Sea.
  • But there is always a risk of a chain reaction that, response by response, will wind up in the second-front war that no one wants or intends.


Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

#ENDJEWHATRED TO HOST SOLIDARITY RALLY AND SYMBOLIC CHANUKIAH LIGHTING

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, December 7, 2023

TORONTO, Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The international grassroots civil rights movement #EndJewHatred is hosting a solidarity rally and the symbolic lighting of a Chanukiah on Sunday, December 10 in front of the Indigo Store, 55 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M4W 1A5 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Key Points: 
  • TORONTO, Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The international grassroots civil rights movement # EndJewHatred is hosting a solidarity rally and the symbolic lighting of a Chanukiah on Sunday, December 10 in front of the Indigo Store, 55 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M4W 1A5 at 1:00 p.m.
  • The event is in response to rising Jew-hatred across Canada and the increase of antisemitic boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses in the country.
  • "We do not accept being targeted for being Jewish - or having our businesses targeted for being Jewish.
  • As a community, Canada's nearly 400,000 Jews are committed to addressing these challenges head on.

Israel, Palestine and the Labour party history that has made Keir Starmer's position so difficult

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, November 8, 2023

I can’t think of any colony or mandate that was as demanding intellectually and emotionally as Palestine.

Key Points: 
  • I can’t think of any colony or mandate that was as demanding intellectually and emotionally as Palestine.
  • I said: “I found the British still very emotional about Palestine.
  • Why?” And he said: “It’s associated, don’t you think with partisanship with one side or the other.
  • I can’t think of any colony or mandate that was as demanding intellectually and emotionally as Palestine.
  • Mayhew, a staunch anti-communist, found himself out of sync with the zeitgeist and abandoned Labour for the Liberal Party.

Internal rivalries

  • There has thus been a powerful tendency for the antagonisms of the Arab-Israeli conflict to map onto Labour’s own internal rivalries and the factional battle for control over the party.
  • Between 1945 and 1967, this usually manifested itself as a clash between a pro-Zionist left and an anti-Zionist right.

Starmer’s predicament

  • Keir Starmer’s political positioning on the 2023 Gaza conflict is shaped by his experience of the more recent chapters of that history.
  • He has sought to rebuild trust with the British Jewish community and distance the party from what many see as the toxic image it acquired under Corbyn.
  • These are all pressures and dangers that can be expected to grow as the Gaza conflict intensifies and its human costs mount.


James Vaughan is affiliated with the Jewish Labour Movement

Despite its inflammatory rhetoric, Iran is unlikely to attack Israel. Here's why

Retrieved on: 
Friday, October 27, 2023

Iran has warned Israel of severe consequences from “multiple fronts” if it does not halt its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Key Points: 
  • Iran has warned Israel of severe consequences from “multiple fronts” if it does not halt its relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
  • This warning is widely interpreted as a declaration of intent for Iran to enter the conflict via its allies and proxies.

Military and political repercussions

  • As a result, Iran has been maintaining a difficult balance between its ideological rhetoric and political expediency.
  • Anti-Israel and anti-US venom is a staple of political discourse for the hardline faction that governs Iran under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi.
  • Not only could there be an Israeli military retaliation on Iranian facilities, but also political repercussions for a regime increasingly unpopular with its own citizens.
  • Given this, a military confrontation with Israel could have unpredictable political consequences for the regime.

A hostage of its own rhetoric

  • After the US assassination of celebrated war hero Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, for example, Iranian authorities were enraged and promised “harsh retaliation”.
  • Iran is a hostage of its own inflammatory rhetoric.
  • Just because Iran has trained and sponsored Hezbollah, we cannot automatically assume Tehran has full control over all of its levers.
  • Read more:
    With Iran purportedly capable of making a nuclear bomb in a matter of months, what will its leaders do next?


Shahram Akbarzadeh has received funding from Australian Research Council and Gerda Henkel Foundation. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Middle East Council on Global Affairs (Doha).

Universalism or tribalism? Michael Gawenda's memoir considers what it means to be a Jew in contemporary Australia

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, October 26, 2023

Like Gawenda, I am the son of Jewish refugees, although I grew up in a totally secular home.

Key Points: 
  • Like Gawenda, I am the son of Jewish refugees, although I grew up in a totally secular home.
  • I think of myself as Jewish, although on the census forms I tick “no religion”.
  • I am also friends with several of the people he criticises, particularly Louise Adler and Peter Beinart.
  • Gawenda came out of a specifically left Jewish tradition, that of the Bund, which was secular, socialist and, in its origins, opposed to Zionism.
  • Most of his examples revolve around left hostility to Israel, which as we have seen recently can too easily turn into crude antisemitism.
  • He is particularly critical of former foreign minister Bob Carr, whom he claims exaggerates the power of the Israeli lobby.
  • While Carr may be prone to exaggeration, my own experience suggests the most active supporters of Israel in Australia are capable of bullying and intimidation.
  • Gawenda claims many on the left lack “a genuine and consequential commitment to Israel’s survival as a Jewish majority state”.

An age of tribalism

  • Gawenda taps into the underlying anxiety all Jews feel whenever debate about Israel moves into antisemitism, as happened in very ugly ways in the past few weeks.
  • Of course, Israel also has some strong defenders among people who are antisemitic, such as sections of the American Christian right.
  • There is hard evidence antisemitism is growing in Australia and I wish Gawenda had spent more time analysing it, rather than relying on overseas examples.
  • Currently, our universities are arguing about which definition of antisemitism to adopt, rather than thinking through how best to tackle the root causes of antisemitism and racism.
  • My Life as a Jew is so focused on opposition to Israel it passes over the more pervasive low-level antisemitism we encounter all too often.
  • As Freud observed: “Only in logic are contradictions unable to coexist; in feelings they quite happily continue alongside each other”.


Dennis Altman received a small ARC grant forty years ago to research the deabtes about Israel within the Australian student movement

And I have acknowledged my connections to several people criticised by Gawenda, which should also have included Bob Carr

Jewish denominations: A brief guide for the perplexed

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 15, 2023

As a scholar of modern Jewish history, religion and politics, I am often asked to explain the differences between Judaism’s major denominations. Here is a very brief overview:Rabbinic rootsAfter the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., one main group, who called themselves “rabbis” – sages or teachers – began to dominate.

Key Points: 


As a scholar of modern Jewish history, religion and politics, I am often asked to explain the differences between Judaism’s major denominations. Here is a very brief overview:

Rabbinic roots

    • After the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., one main group, who called themselves “rabbis” – sages or teachers – began to dominate.
    • What we now know as “Judaism” grew out of this group, technically called “Rabbinic Judaism.” Rabbinic Judaism believed that God gave Jewish teachings and scriptures to Moses at Mt.
    • This corpus became the foundation of rabbinic literature.

Historic turning point

    • For example, starting in the Middle Ages, a Jewish group called the Karaites challenged the rabbis’ authority by rejecting the oral Torah.
    • Still, Rabbinic Judaism remained a more or less united religious community for some 1,500 years – until the 19th century.
    • Meanwhile, thousands – eventually millions – of Jews moved to the United States, which likewise offered equal citizenship.

Three major groups

    • Each group claimed that they followed the best or most authentic traditions of Judaism.
    • The first modern denomination to organize was Reform – first in Germany in the early 19th century, but soon in America as well.
    • Orthodox Judaism soon organized in reaction to Reform, rallying to defend the strict observance of Jewish customs and law.
    • In practice, most Conservative Jews tend not to be strict about even major rituals, like observing Sabbath restrictions or kosher food practices.

From Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox

    • Of all the Jewish denominations, the Orthodox groups are perhaps most misunderstood.
    • They all share a commitment to Jewish law – especially regarding gender roles and sexuality, food consumption and Sabbath restrictions – but there are many divisions, generally categorized on a spectrum from “modern” to “ultra” Orthodox.
    • The ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand – sometimes called “Haredim” or Haredi Jews – advocate segregation from the outside world.
    • Not only has Orthodox Judaism innovated many rituals and teachings, but people today have greater awareness that other types of life are available – creating a firm break with the traditional world Orthodoxy claims to perpetuate.

Becoming a nation

    • Inspired by nationalist movements around them, they claimed that Jews constituted a modern nation, rather than just a religion.
    • Reform Jews and even some early Orthodox Jews worried that defining Jews as a “nation” would undermine their claim to equal citizenship in other countries.
    • Still, most ultra-Orthodox Jews today continue to oppose Zionist ideology, even as they hold right-wing political views on Israel.
    • Either way, Orthodoxy is going to continue to play a very important role in Jewish life for many years to come.