University of Sydney academics will hold a meeting this week attempting to thwart the adoption of a definition of antisemitism that aims to protect Jewish and Israeli students on campus which some staff say unreasonably constricts criticism of Israel.
It comes a week after a student meeting to discuss the definition ended in the audience turning their backs on a Jewish speaker while another student effectively called for Israel to cease to exist.
Jewish student Dror Liraz at Sydney University.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
The University of Sydney has been the centre of student protests against Israel since the October 7 attacks – playing host to a sprawling pro-Palestinian encampment of university students and activists as well as long-time supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir – an organisation banned in Germany and Turkey and labelled a terrorist group in Britain.
After pressure to act on antisemitism, the university spent $441,789 on an external review, which proposed new civility rules which asked students to explain exactly what they meant when using contentious phrases.
Additionally, it adopted the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism, along with more than 30 other institutions, which states criticism of Israel is not in itself antisemitic. “However, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel or all Jews or when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions.”
An email invitation about the meeting on Thursday held by Staff for Palestine says: “This definition, which has been imposed on the university community unilaterally, treats criticism of Israel and of Zionism as likely to be antisemitic.”
Staff say the adoption of the definition unreasonably constricts their ability to criticise Israel.Credit: Louise Kennerley
“The definition constitutes a serious obstacle to staff and students’ intellectual freedom, and to our ability to campaign for an end to the genocide in Gaza, for the academic boycott of Israeli institutions, and for justice for everyone in the Middle East regardless of their faith, background or ethnicity.
“Our position is that no one kind of racism should be treated as more serious than others, including by being the object of standalone definitions.”
Dror Liraz, president of the University of Sydney branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, said the adoption of the antisemitism definition had provided a framework the university must adhere to after previously dismissing students’ complaints.
“The only constraint here is you can’t criticise Israel in an antisemitic way. You can have proper criticism. No one’s saying you can’t do that. You just can’t have racist criticism,” she said.
“If I told you China shouldn’t exist … if I told you, any country shouldn’t exist, you’d say I was racist. But how come, when it comes to Israel, it’s not racist?”
She said the adoption came after more than 18 months of intimidating behaviour towards Jewish students on campus.
“We had terrorist flags, we had chants of Intifada – that was very highly ignored by the university. It means blowing up school buses, it means random stabbings, it means bombings at petrol stations, it means shootings at shopping malls,” she said.
”The university [was] saying: Oh, no, this can be used differently in different contexts. And [we’re] saying, ‘OK, but the context is an anti-Israel rally’.“
University of Sydney sociology professor Salvatore Babones said Jewish and Israeli students at the university, and other universities, would reasonably feel threatened.
“The University of Sydney branch has repeatedly passed resolutions critical of Israel through the mechanism of special members’ meetings,” he said, noting similar tactics were at work among the Student Representative Council.
“In both cases (student and staff), the organisations concerned take foreign policy positions overwhelmingly on Israel. The SRC and [the National Tertiary Education Union] are not foreign policy think tanks, but they have been co-opted into becoming anti-Israel mouthpieces.
“The strident accusations of Israeli Jewish misconduct in these resolutions might reasonably be seen as threatening and creating an unwelcoming environment from which Jewish and Israeli students cannot easily distance themselves.
“My personal view, which is not based on my research and scholarship as a sociologist, is that the organised criticism of Israel and the objections made to the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism by the SRC and staff groups are primarily motivated by antisemitism, which I believe to be widespread in elite universities throughout the English-speaking world.”
Student Representative Council president Angus Fisher rejected the notion that students were only interested in taking positions on Israel.
“We discuss things like global issues, like the war in Russia and Ukraine, or domestic issues like sexual violence on campus, the importance of free university, and First Nations justice,” he said.
Dr Nick Riemer said the meeting would give colleagues an opportunity to discuss this new and controversial definition of antisemitism, which he said university management imposed on staff and students without consultation or debate.
“Doing this is particularly important when the charge of antisemitism is regularly used to silence and discredit opponents of Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” he said.
“The meeting’s purpose is to increase awareness of the definition and understanding of why it is controversial. It is open to all staff and students, regardless of whether they agree with the definition or not. If we vote on anything, that vote will be democratic and will reflect the meeting.”
Australasian Union of Jewish Students public affairs co-ordinator Jack Mars attended and spoke at last week’s student meeting.
“There was a lot of discussion about whether we speak because it is a bit pointless. But it is for our own community and other students to see that there is nuance to these issues,” he said.
Since the adoption of the definition this year, he said the situation had improved. “There are still incidents that have occurred this year – they’re fewer. The uni has been more responsive. Initially, we were treated suspiciously and in bad faith,” he said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said a small group of anti-Israel students at that university who wished to further their antisemitic agenda under the guise of academic freedom had made a mockery of these commitments. “As happened last year, a sham meeting featuring overtly antisemitic rhetoric and behaviour has been allowed to go ahead despite the university being warned well in advance of what would be likely to occur,” he said.
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