ECAJ Research Director Julie Nathan on the line between Israel criticism and antisemitism

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]The most criticism of Israel, even though it's a lot of it is incredibly offensive, um we don't treat it as anti-Semitic. So, I have very strict guidelines to determine when something that's anti-Israel is is anti-Semitic. So, for example, if if it uses older anti-Jewish tropes, you know, such as the blood libel or um Jews are satanic.

[00:00:26]You know, they might say Israel's satanic. So, then that kind of feeds into that. If they use um Nazi analogies, such as Israel is now the new Nazi Germany and enacting like, you know, the Nazis treated Jews. Or or if they're um saying that Israel as as a state of the Jewish people should be destroyed. So, I consider that anti-Semitic. So, it's fairly strict guidelines and it's fairly simple in most cases um to decide. I mean, there are other things such as, for example, Israel the accusation that Israel is committing genocide. Now, that may be in graffiti, online, um in posters and placards or wherever. So, even though that in itself is a lie, cuz Israel is not committing genocide, I don't actually count that as anti-Semitic. I mean, I'm not looking at what's in their hearts for why they would say that. I'm just looking at what the actual wording is and the and the context of that wording.

[00:01:26]>> And you adopt the same approach for what might be described as pro-Palestinian material. That is, you don't count it as anti-Semitic unless it includes those anti-Jewish themes that you outlined earlier.

[00:01:38]>> No, so so I don't count anything pro-Palestinian as anti-Jewish unless, for example, um if there's a a free Palestine sticker and it's stuck on a synagogue or outside a Jewish school. So, those, if they're using pro-Palestine um material to target Jews, that in itself then becomes anti-Semitic. So then those particular stickers will be anti-Semitic because of where they've been placed or or the graffiti or the So we're very Yeah, we have these guidelines and we're very careful to stick with them. And does the same apply to anti-Israel material? Is that your approach?

[00:02:18]>> Yeah, and and context is important. So you know, you can have I mean it gives Israel is a state like any other state and just as we in Australia are free to criticize our government, our country, and everyone should have the right to criticize any government or any country in the world.

[00:02:37]And so we accept that and even though people may lie about things or may um use offensive language.

[00:02:48]So we accept that as being, you know, political discourse or political language.

[00:02:53]It's only when it crosses the line into anti-Semitism, that's when we will count it as anti-Semitic.