‘Jews should feel uncomfortable’: UTS launches investigation into comments by academic Peter Slezak
A Jewish anti-Zionist professor, who says he was citing fellow academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, told a rally ‘it’s our duty to make them uncomfortable’.
University of Technology Sydney has launched an investigation into an academic’s comments that “we have a duty to make Jews uncomfortable” during a campus pro-Palestine rally.
It comes as universities tackle a rise in anti-Semitic incidents across the country.
UNSW Honorary Associate Professor Peter Slezak, introduced as a “proud anti-Zionist Jew”, told the rally that “Jews in particular should feel uncomfortable, and it’s our duty to make them uncomfortable, and that includes the fellow over there,” gesturing towards a UTS student wrapped in an Israel flag standing about 20 metres away.
Dr Slezak said he was citing Macquarie University academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, whose $870,000 Australian Research Council grant was suspended after The Australian revealed she told an anti-racism symposium she “refused to cite anybody who has remained silent over Gaza, no matter how authoritative and big they are in their fields”. She has indicated she will oppose the suspension.
The peak body for Australian Jews, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, sent complaints to UTS and UNSW about the “anti-Semitic conduct” on Thursday.
It is the second time Dr Slezak has caused public ire over this phrase, telling a UNSW rally in September that “She [Randa Abdel Fattah] says – and I endorse this feeling – that Jews should feel uncomfortable, it’s our duty to make them uncomfortable, and I think that’s exactly how we should behave.” He has said similar comments in speeches at Gaza rallies in Hyde Park.
The Australian understands UNSW spoke to Dr Slezak about the comments after it received a complaint in September.
In the complaint sent to UTS Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, seen by The Australian, ECAJ’s Head of Legal Simone Abel writes: “This wording is vilifying, and the ‘fellow’ that Mr Slezak is referring to is Jewish student Daniel Melamet, who had the traumatic experience of being jeered at last year at the rally at UNSW, where the crowd shouted ‘go back to Europe’, only to have recently transferred his studies to UTS, where he has again been singled out in public this way.”
Ms Abel asked UTS to “make a public statement that it condemns the wording used by Peter Slezak, as well as any other anti-Semitic conduct that took place at the rally, so as to draw a line in the sand on this type of unacceptable behaviour.”
“It is important that leaders at the university exercise their free speech to condemn and disassociate from such conduct, which has impacted Jewish students’ psychosocial safety,” she said.
Dr Slezak told The Australian that “criticising Israel is not hate speech and not anti-Semitism … It’s not criticising Jews for their identity, it’s not for their Jewish-ness, it’s the fact that they are supporting crimes in their name”.
“The Palestinians are grieving and we have to worry about Jewish discomfort because we’re talking about it,” he said.
Dr Slezak said “we are supposed to avoid pointing out the moral responsibility of a Jew holding the flag of a nation accused by leading international human rights organisations and courts of apartheid and genocide but we are not allowed to display the flags of Hamas or Hezbollah. Perhaps that’s a reason to make Jews feel uncomfortable?”
The student holding the Israeli flag, Mr Melamed, said this was the most “extreme thing that has happened on (the UTS) campus since October 7”, which has been mostly immune from encampments and protests.
He said those comments “don’t make you feel good at the end of the day”.
“As an Israeli and as a Jew on campus I can’t just let them say things like resistance is justified, I can’t let them say that Jews need to be made to feel uncomfortable. I’m not going to be made to be silent anymore, this is how the Holocaust happened originally. I’m sick of being silent.”
A UTS spokesperson said the school was aware of concerns raised as a result of Wednesday’s rally.
“Vice-Chancellor Professor Andrew Parfitt has been clear and continues to make very clear to all staff and students, that while UTS supports the right for students and staff to discuss and debate contentious issues, this should not be at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of others,” the spokesperson said.
“The university has zero tolerance for any form of racism or discrimination. An investigation into comments made at the rally is underway.”
UNSW said Mr Slezak was not a current member of staff but they had referred the complaint to Human Resources.
Much of the protest on the main UTS lawn on Wednesday centred around rejecting the Universities Australia’s anti-Semitism definition, which notes that “substituting the word ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’ does not eliminate the possibility of speech being anti-Semitic.”
Head of the UTS NTEU branch Sarah Attfield said the union was “very concerned about the prospect of a potential new definition of anti-Semitism that has been (sic) around by Universities Australia. We feel that it is totally unnecessary”.
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