Envoys in glass houses

Jillian Segal’s position as antisemitism spokesperson is untenable

If Anthony Albanese was indeed genuinely seeking to restore “social cohesion” by appointing a special envoy to combat antisemitism, he couldn’t have made a poorer choice than Jillian Segal. It seemed foolish to think her involvement would do anything other than inflame local passions over Gaza, Israel and antisemitism, and so it has come to pass.

Segal was appointed Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism last year, and her report was purportedly a comprehensive plan to work with government in addressing rising antisemitism. But in keeping with so many of Segal’s public statements since she was appointed, her report has been controversial. She represents a particularly pro-Israel perspective, one that not only sets her at odds with parts of the local Jewish community, but also with a growing number of Australians who abhor Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza. Increasingly it looks as though Segal has taken advantage of her appointment to try to formalise an Australian definition of antisemitism that suppresses criticism of Israel.

As former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and chair of the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (NSW), Segal has long been at the heart of local pro-Israel lobbying, and this is clearly why she was chosen for the role. Albanese was faced with growing pressure to address the rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia (related to protests at events in Gaza), and chose the safest route, as he always does. He fell in line with the institutional, pro-Israel power base of the Jewish community and appointed a prominent representative. On one level this is understandable; he wanted this important community onside. On the other hand, it’s unforgivable in such a febrile environment to hand a powerful public role to a patently partisan player. Antisemitism ought not be a political football.

Make no mistake: Albanese has lent the authority of government to an envoy who seeks to shape public policy for the advantage of the pro-Israel Jewish community over others. In a week that the Yoorrook Justice Commission found a genocide had taken place in Victoria, and the NT coroner found the territory police was rife with (potentially fatal) racism, Albanese ignored both and instead chose to appear with Segal in the presentation of her plan. He owns the furore that followed, and the mess it has become.

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The Segal report itself is a grab-bag of broad and often troublesome assertions, alongside ill-formed policy “solutions” to problems that aren’t proven or for which laws already exist. There’s no evidence provided for her claim that antisemitism “has become ingrained and normalised within academia”, or that it’s driven by “manipulated narratives in the legacy media”. Her proposal that the definition of antisemitism be based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition is highly contentious for its inclusion of certain criticisms of Israel.

Bernard Keane in Crikey points out that Segal’s proposals are also comically inept – completely unenforceable and out of step with how policy is actually made.

Some of her report is downright ludicrous: “In February 2025, ASIO Director General Mike Burgess declared antisemitism Australia’s leading threat to life.” To life?! Has she not heard of cancer, climate change, domestic violence, heart disease…? For what it’s worth, this isn’t what Burgess said. He said that in terms of threats to life in Australia, antisemitism is ASIO’s top priority, which is quite different.

Worst among Segal’s proposals is that she be given a role in monitoring universities, cultural organisations and media, and that “all public funding agreements with cultural institutions or festivals (allow) for the efficient termination of funding where the institution or festival promotes, facilitates or does not deal effectively with hate or antisemitism” – according to the envoy’s proposed definition, of course. Furthermore, she writes, “funding agreements or enabling legislation should be drafted to ensure that public funding can be readily terminated where organisations or individuals engage in or facilitate antisemitism.”

Genuine antisemitism is a scourge and not to be tolerated in any society. But laws against it already exist. Segal has a particular perspective on this matter, and is attempting to prosecute further political objectives. Two months ago, she labelled Adam Bandt’s legitimate criticisms of Israeli violence in Gaza as antisemitic. She has called for the banning of lawful pro-Palestinian protests in our cities. Both statements are important context to her report.

Bizarrely, she praised Elon Musk’s X for its efforts fighting antisemitism. This is the same Musk who made a Nazi salute on stage, supports a German neo-Nazi party, posts neo-Nazi memes, makes Nazi jokes, re-engineered his Grok AI to make it more like a Nazi, and changed X’s algorithm to make it more amenable to right-wing extremism.

When Segal was asked by Sarah Ferguson on ABC’s 7:30 last week to provide evidence for her assertion that the ABC and SBS were presenting “false or distorted narratives” which inflamed antisemitism, she couldn’t provide a single example. As Ferguson pointed out, Segal was seeking special powers from the government to influence and monitor the broadcasters, yet couldn’t provide any factual justification.

Earlier this year, speaking to Sally Sara on ABC radio, Segal cited the bombing of a hospital in Gaza as an example of false reporting. (The ABC ombudsman cleared the broadcaster of fault in this case. Even so, it’s brazen to criticise the reporting of one hospital bombing when the IDF has deliberately attacked and near-destroyed every single hospital in Gaza.)

The Jewish Council of Australia, an alternative group that supports Palestinian freedom and justice, warned that the newly released envoy’s plan “risks undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas.

“The report is riddled with misinformation and claims about nefarious funding sources for protests and universities that verge on conspiracy theory.”

It also warned “that some of the recommendations — including visa powers and judicial inquiries into student activity — risk censoring criticism of Israel, deepening racism, and failing to meaningfully address the root causes of antisemitism.”

Albanese and state Labor leaders have nevertheless chosen thus far to ignore these alternative Jewish voices, instead putting themselves firmly in the camp that seeks to suppress and criminalise protests and intimidate critics of Israel’s human rights abuses.

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It’s one thing to call for an end to antisemitism. It’s quite another to wield antisemitism as a weapon to smear and attack critics.

Ever since October 7 we have seen a trend towards the latter that has become profoundly disturbing, all the more so because federal and state government and most mainstream media have tacitly endorsed it. I wrote recently about the damage to our culture and institutions that these attacks represent. The Segal report seeks to formalise this trend. The organised lobbying efforts by pro-Israel groups that resulted in the devastating cases of Antoinette Lattouf, Khaled Sabsabi and numerous others will find an official representative and formal imprimatur in this plan.

There’s a strange double game at play in these efforts. On the one hand, local representatives of the Jewish community commonly insist that they shouldn’t be forced to defend what Israel does, cannot speak for Israel, don’t need to justify its actions, and deserve to be left in peace in Australia. To be clear: I basically agree with these assertions.

However all of these arguments crumble if the same representatives lend active and concerted support to Israel as it commits war crimes; or they try to influence local politics in favour of Zionism; or use Australian institutions to punish opponents of Israel; or call critics of Israel antisemites or terrorist sympathisers without evidence.

On the one hand, according this stance, you can’t be held to account for the actions of another state. On the other hand you privately use every means at your disposal to impose personal views upon the public domain.

As it stands today, the private views of local pro-Israel organisers are fiercely protected in politics and the media: they are rarely enquired about, let alone challenged. We all know Lattouf’s name; those who lobbied to have her removed remain anonymous. This is the strategy. Jillian Segal is a rare example of a lobbyist becoming a public figure – and her report a rare example of these particular political objectives being openly stated. But it’s an incomplete document, in that it ignores the elephant in the room: Gaza.

If Segal is to have an outsize influence on our public politics, we are surely entitled to know what, in her professional opinion, constitutes antisemitic criticism. It’s terribly unclear from her report. Are we even sharing the same facts? Are critics justified in stating that mass starvation is happening and is a war crime? Can protesters call out the IDF’s destruction of all hospitals and holy places in Gaza, or is that a dangerous kind of activism? Is the ongoing collective punishment of women and children by Israel illegal, as stated in international law? What is genocide, if not the deliberate destruction of all conditions of life and forced transferral of citizens? Can this word be used in relation to Israel, or is that antisemitic? The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert recently said that the proposed massive concentration camp in Gaza would amount to ethnic cleansing, and that anger at Israel over Gaza is not all down to antisemitism. The Segal report gives the strong impression that the special envoy would disagree, and that the voicing of such criticisms should face censure in Australia.

Every advocate for Palestinian rights, powerless as they are, is routinely asked how they justify violence and whether they condemn its perpetrators. We rarely ask the same of Israel’s advocates.

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In an astonishing development two days after the release of Segal’s report, it emerged (courtesy of independent journalist Anthony Klan) that Segal’s husband was responsible for a large donation of the family company’s money to the far-right campaign group Advance. This nasty race-obsessed organisation fought against the Voice proposal for Indigenous representation, labelled Greens and other pro-Palestine activists as being “on the side of terrorists”, and regularly runs advertisements about Muslim and non-white immigrants coming to ruin Australia.

In a normal public service role, such a donation would be an obvious conflict-of-interest issue, but Segal distanced herself from it in a two-line response: “No one would tolerate or accept my husband dictating my politics, and I certainly won’t dictate his. I have had no involvement in his donation, nor will I.”

Home Affairs minister Tony Burke defended Segal, saying “it’s a long time since we’ve been in a country where you would blame a woman for decisions of her husband”, and that he believed she didn’t know about the donation. (Sidenote: it’s a bit rich to mount a feminist defence of a woman when she’s arguing she has no involvement or knowledge of family finances.)

It’s inconceivable that she didn’t know about the donation, not least because it was actually first reported in the Guardian five months ago. Or that Albanese’s office didn’t know about the donation when her appointment was announced.

There’s a curious overlap between the Advance campaign and Segal’s own contributions to the antisemitism debate. Advance also seeks to silence “protests”, targets Greens and activists as antisemites, and blames the media, universities, human rights groups and “elites” (read, arts and cultural organisations) for rising antisemitism, without evidence.

Furthermore Segal still hasn’t condemned the donation or Advance, and she hadn’t previously disclosed it. Australia’s arbiter of hate speech seems to have given her own family business a free pass.

So believe this, if you will: she had no influence at all when the family company donated to a hate-speech group, and wouldn’t judge it; yet she assumes the right to dictate what is acceptable conduct in all Australian public spaces, cultural institutions, universities and media. As the old saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn’t, um, turn a blind eye when their husbands throw stones.

It’s all too reminiscent of the private/public dynamic described earlier, in which influence is exerted privately, and no responsibility is accepted publicly. On the rare occasion such efforts are exposed publicly, we have a responsibility to think and talk about them.

In my opinion, Segal’s selective condemnation of hate speech thoroughly undermines her position. The Lebanese Muslim Association has called for her resignation over the donation, and criticism of her plan has spread through community groups, human rights organisations, and legal and academic circles. So much for social cohesion. If she doesn’t step down, Albanese should – but likely won’t – request her resignation.