Police target anti-Semitism campaigner Zara Cooper over ‘offensive’ posts aimed at Jewish Council of Australia’s chief Sarah Schwartz
A landmark case will determine whether Victoria Police can gag an Israel advocate because of the ‘threat’ to the leader of a left-wing group.
Victoria Police has taken extraordinary court action targeting an online campaigner against anti-Semitism, declaring her social media posts are a risk to the personal safety of the leader of a left-wing Jewish group, Sarah Schwartz.
Police have applied for a personal safety intervention order on behalf of Ms Schwartz, the leader of the Jewish Council of Australia, alleging Instagram campaigner Zara Cooper’s online commentary is severely affecting her mental health.
Victoria Police’s intercession sets up a landmark legal case, in which officers will seek to convince a magistrate to ban Ms Cooper from publishing anything online which critiques Ms Schwartz, who has previously written about how “the right to protest, free speech and academic freedom are central tenets of a functioning democracy”.
Ms Cooper, who posts under the pseudonym @clammy_fraud, has been repeatedly critical of the Jewish Council, Ms Schwartz, and the group’s legitimacy as a voice for Jewish Australians.
While police and Ms Schwartz – who recently was condemned for presenting a slide titled “Dutton’s Jew” at a Queensland University of Technology anti-racism conference – claim she has been threatened with Nazi comparisons featured on Ms Cooper’s account, Ms Cooper has accused them of misconstruing her posts.
“Police believe the respondent’s actions are severely affecting the protected person’s mental health and the PSIO is necessary to protect the protected person,’’ Acting Sergeant Stuart Hall wrote in the PSIO application, obtained by The Australian.
Ms Cooper, who will fight the order, has criticised Victoria Police for becoming involved “in what is a political debate between two Jewish women who have different views about how to combat anti-Semitism in Australia” and the encroachment on her “right to free political speech”.
According to the intervention order application, police are seeking that a Victorian court prohibits Ms Cooper from going within 5m of Ms Schwartz, or within 200m of where she lives or works.
The order would also stop her from publishing anything online about Ms Schwartz.
The matter will be seen before a magistrate on Tuesday.
Ms Cooper says she has never made a threat against the safety of Ms Schwartz, and has not met her. “I have never met Sarah Schwartz. I have never spoken with her, threatened her, posted private information about her or encouraged others to do so,” Ms Cooper told The Australian. “Her application is based solely on my Instagram posts under the handle clammy_fraud – all of which are publicly available.”
In the application, police say Ms Cooper has been “highly critical of the Jewish Council of Australia of which the protected person (Ms Schwartz) is the executive officer”.
Examples of this, according to the police, included posts showing Ms Schwartz on a train to a concentration camp, and images depicting her as a rat.
Police and Ms Schwartz claim she was “deeply affected” and found it “severely upsetting and offensive” to see her face depicted in Holocaust imagery online.
“In April 2024, the protected person became aware of multiple online comments about her having been posted by the respondent,” the application reads.
“The nature of these posts commenced criticism and belittling of the protected person and the Jewish Council of Australia including posts calling the protected person a Kapo (Jewish Nazi collaborator) and other Nazi references, imagery of the protected person as a rat, imagery of the protected person on a train going to concentration camps and other posts of the protected person’s face circled in photographs.”
In an Instagram story posted in April last year, Ms Cooper questioned why Ms Schwartz had presented the Jewish Council of Australia Instagram “as professional, official and representative of the entire Jewish community”.
At the bottom, she used a gif of a nose next to a cartoon rat which appears to depict the phrase “I smell a rat”.
In another post, in an Instagram story highlight titled “SchwartzCouncil”, Ms Cooper said it was “deceptive” for the Jewish Council of Australia to use the word “Council” and asked others to suggest “a more appropriate name for the Jewish Council of Australia”.
One person replied “Kapo Council” which was then shared to the @clammy_fraud Instagram account. Other suggestions included “The Jew-ish Council of Australia”.
The police application said there had been an escalation of posts made about Ms Schwartz in the past three weeks.
On March 8, Ms Cooper wrote: “Zionism is inextricably linked to Judaism no matter what a tiny fringe minority of Jews led by Sarah Schwartz, pretending to be a legitimate Jewish Council, tell you. Almost all Jewish people are Zionists.”
Three weeks ago, Ms Cooper wrote in an Instagram story shared to “JewishFakecil”: “The Jewish Council of Australia have blocked basically every Australian Jew on Instagram who has ever questioned their self-appointed council state – ie 99 per cent of Australian Jews have been blocked.”
Most of Ms Cooper’s posts about the Jewish Council and Ms Schwartz appear to criticise the group’s positioning on anti-Semitism and Zionism. The Australian has previously written about the concerns held by many in the Jewish community related to the platforming of the Jewish Council of Australia, which has been labelled a “radical fringe voice” after Ms Schwartz was criticised for presenting a slide titled “Dutton’s Jew” at the Queensland University of Technology event.
The university was forced to issue an “unreserved apology” after a superhero cartoon of a character titled “Dutton’s Jew” was displayed during Ms Schwartz’s presentation.
Her presentation stated “Dutton’s Jew” hates “the radical left”, hates Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, was anti-immigrant and thinks of anti-Semitism as the only form of racism.
Ms Schwartz later said she was referring “to the way that Peter Dutton conceives of Jewish people and uses us as political footballs to push his own agenda, not actual Jewish people”.
The unprecedented legal action by police has been labelled as rare, with one legal expert claiming that when Victoria Police normally apply for an IVO on behalf of an individual, the alleged behaviour is normally concerning enough that charges are laid – which has not occurred in this instance.
Legal sources say police, in other similar cases, would urge a complainant to apply for a personal intervention order.
“What (a police-issued IVO) is very much not about is defamation or reputational harm; for that you go and file a concerns notice and you bring an action in defamation,” a source said.
“The only time police get involved is when a matter might spill over into criminal conduct … what is so unusual here is they haven’t laid a charge such as use carriage service to harass, they haven’t laid a stalking charge, and yet they’re still chasing to be involved as the applicant on behalf of Sarah Schwartz – that is highly unusual (and) that is not their general practice.”
According to the application, police did not deem Ms Cooper to be enough of a threat that they did not seek an interim order until this week – a month after the original order was filed.
On Sunday evening Ms Schwartz said she had contacted Victoria Police “about several issues”.
“I went to Victoria Police about several issues. They took a number of different actions to protect my safety of their own accord. This is a matter for Victoria Police,” she said.
She did not provide screenshots of posts made by Ms Cooper that she was most concerned with.
More Coverage
Crisafulli clears first hurdle but is in a race against time and budget
After a series of false starts and U-turns, the Queensland premier had few options to deliver world-class venues in time for Brisbane 2032.
Police seek more time to ‘gag’ Israel advocate
Victoria Police are seeking additional time to gather evidence against Israel advocate Zara Cooper for alleged threats against Sarah Schwartz, as a magistrate considers dismissing their legal battle amid claims of misconstrued online posts.