The FrontJewish groups are condemning what they say was antisemitism and racism on a university campus. University of Sydney students have voted to reject a new definition of antisemitism - and turned their backs on Jewish peers. Today: what one fiery meeting tells us about the mood on campus.
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This episode of The Front is presented and produced by Claire Harvey, and edited by Joshua Burton. Our team includes Kristen Amiet, Lia Tsamoglou, Tiffany Dimmack, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombes and Jasper Leak, who also composed our music.
From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, May sixteen, twenty twenty five. Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi is on his way to Rome for Pope Leo's inauguration mass. It's the PM's first overseas trip since being re elected. Slater In Gordon's former Chief people officer, Murrie Ruiz Mathison, is suing for negligence after she was falsely identified as the culprit behind a malicious email attack that revealed the salaries of hundreds of employees. She says the law firm didn't come to her defense quickly enough when the true alleged offender was identified. Those stories alive right now at the Australian dot com AU. Jewish groups are condemning what they say was anti semitism and racism on a university campus after scores of students turned their backs on their Jewish peers during a student meeting. University of Sydney students voted to reject a new definition of antisemitism.
Today, how the scenario.
Unfolded and what it says about free speech on campus. It's a Wednesday afternoon at Sydney University.
Angus.
I'm the SRC president for this year.
The purpose of this meeting.
A couple of hundred students file into Electure Theater for a student General meeting where a protest group, Students Against War, has an important motion to push.
And be their ray to vote, gret to fight for palesestign gree to reject the university's new definition of anti semitism that says, a we.
Can't criticize Israel or their ties that legitimize it as the genocidal apartheid state. See there, they're angry because the university, led by Vice Chancellor Mark Scott, has and other tertiary institutions in signing up to a federal government endorsed definition of antisemitism. Here's how the ABC reported the definition when it was adopted by Sydney University.
The definition says that calling for the elimination of the State of Israel is anti semitic, as is holding Jewish individuals responsible for actions taken by the State of Israel. The definition also says that criticizing Zionists people who support the creation of the State of Israel may also be anti semitic. Now that's a criticism.
One of the students leading the meeting set out the ground rules.
All speakers will be heard in silence.
If you are not happy with what somebody is saying, do you not helple, do not shout, you just be silent.
You ignore them.
I will accept people standing up and turning their back on the speaker.
I will not accept jurian I will not expect shouting.
Pointing, and then student angus dermody from students against war stood up so on that I.
Call the mover of the fire motions angustimotive.
Answer ticking out of this meeting. It's a very very important meeting. So it's really good that we have hit the quorum. Then there are two hundred of.
Us, see it. We're here.
And because for the past year and a half Israel has committed a relentless order in Gaza, there is no question that Israel is guilty of genocide in his children.
Thomas Henry is a journalist with The Australian and he was at the meeting.
It was a real mixed bag. You have people who have just left class and a jeans and a T shirt. Then you have more members of the Socialist Alternative in their Kafirs and in Berets.
Here's angus dermity again.
Israel has no right to exist in Every student should be able to say that without fear of suspension or disciplinary action.
Another student vieve, can't you stood up?
This is not a war, this is not a conflict.
This is a genocide.
This new anti semitism definition has nothing to do with combating racism or predicting Jewish students use in management used this policy to threaten to suspend a transgender Starlum's Eco student, Luna, which put her at risk of deportation for the crime and writing from the River to the Sea on a.
Whiteboard with a non whiteboard marker.
And then two Jewish students stood up to speak defending the definition of antisemitism is okay.
Look, I'm here as a representative of Forges, the Australasian of Jewish Students.
This is an undergraduate called Jack Mars.
I just want to point out as well, I don't really want to be here. Jewish students have undeniable experience a horrific rise in antisemitism on our cannuis. I don't think anyone here is really trying to deny that that's not what this meeting is abouts.
It appeared as though he hadn't prepared as much as the other speakers. He was kind of speaking from experience, speaking from how he and presumably the Jewish students he represented, feel about campus safety and about anti Semitism on campus.
Some of the experiences that I've been pretty to are you know, the physical, they're violent, they're polittaling because someone's identified the Jewish, who's had religious icons ripped from people's university dawns. So there's no real denying there's a problem on campus here. This was an attempt. The definition was an attempt to solve that problem. Right, you want to criticize Israel, go for your life, all right. I'm half Israeli, my dad's born in Israel, I have family in Israel. I've been to Israel twice. Criticizing Israel is a national pastime in Israel. All right, Look at the hundreds of thousands of Israelis that do it. Okay. This definition does not stop you from criticizing Israel.
It does stop you.
From using anti Semitic trucks when.
You do that.
Okay. The only way you know how to criticize Israel is by using Holocaust inversion, by using Nazi rhetoric, by using cartoons with trucks in them, or by calling for the entire elimination of the state. I'm sorry, you're not interested in criticizing Israeli policy. You're not interested in criticizing living and Yahoo.
You're interested in.
Making Jews feel unsafe. You're interested in vilifying the head. So you know, John your life, criticized the policy, criticized the government, But calling for the complete destruction of a country, I don't think that's legitimate.
The room heard both Jewish speakers quite respectfully speak on the first motion. It then got to the second motion, which was on a call for a single secular state across all of historic Palestine. Members of the crowd progressively stood up. It wasn't all at once, but the large majority of the crowd stood up when a postgraduate Jewish student condemned Harmas and made comments about Gaza lacking any sort of democratic process. The majority of students by this had stood up and turned their backs, and some were chatting where their friends. Others were dancing. It was a very clear sign that they did not agree and did not have respect for the speaker. It was a clear indication that what this Jewish Israeli postgraduate student was saying was completely unpalatable.
Coming up how students at this elite tertiary institution voted after hearing the pleas of Jewish students. All this, of course, arose after October seven, twenty twenty three, when Hamas militants swarmed into Israel and murdered and raped civilians and soldiers and took hundreds more hostage. Israel, in response, began a fearsome military attack by land and air on Gaza with the aim of eliminating Hamas leadership. It's been bloody and dispiriting, and here in Australia the controversy has manifested in street protests, encampments at universities including Sydney, and deep fear in the Jewish community about a rising tide of antisemitism. At the meeting on Wednesday, Pro Palestine speakers invoked Jewish people, saying even many Jews disagreed with the very existence of Israel.
The way that they managed to convince so many.
Jewish people to flee to Israel after the horrific Holocaust was to fear among.
Them that they would never be safe anywhere else, and how is that not anti Semitic that the founder of political Zionism were saying that fundamentally.
Jewish people are not like the rest of them, are not like people who are not Jewish, and thus they will never be.
Safe with them.
They argue, to be anti Zionist, that is, to reject Israel's right to exist, is not the same as to be anti Semitic, that is, to hate Jews. One of the Jewish speakers at the meeting took issue with this.
Anti Designism currently takes all of the evils of the world, like colonialism, white supremacy, and genocide and projects them.
Onto the Jewish people.
This has been done throughout history, whether during the Black Death in the fourteenth century or during the economic downturn in the nineteen twenties in Germany. The Jews were always to blame. If you are not part of the Jewish community, you should stop and take a moment to consider why is that you deserve a louder voice, if any, On the topic of defining what is or isn't anti Semitism.
All five motions passed virtually unanimously. The small group of Jewish students who were there really voted against. Saw all motions passed virtually with no opposition, Please raise the first of which was to reject the new definition of anti Semitism adopted by Australian universities. The second was to endorse the call for a single secular democratic state across all of historic Palestine, and the third was for USID to end its complicity in Israel's apathead regime, which basically entails cutting tires with universities in Israel and weapons companies which they deem to have a hand in the conflict between Palestine and Israel. The other two motions were related to a new camps access policy that USID has committed to, which they view inhibits on their right to protest. And then the final motion was a demand that the university financially provide resources to support the previous motion past.
I think all of us have been to UNI, have been at a few meetings where there are lofty demands being made by a protest group. Is Sydney UNI in any way required to this stance taken by the students.
No.
I think the university has generally been very dismissive of the sc and its demands. I think its view is that the Student Representative Council is actually representative of a very small part of the student body. Previously, they've distanced themselves from statements made by the SRC. I don't think this obliges the university to do anything at all.
You spoke to some of the Jewish community groups, what have they had to say?
They viewed the material leading up to this student meeting and the meeting itself as pretty open examples of anti Semitism on campus, and they think this is a perfect example of why the definition for anti Semitism is needed and why Jewish students on campus feel so unsafe.
Thomas Henry is a journalist with The Australian. You can read his story and all our coverage of Israel, Gaza, anti Semitism and more right now at the Australian dot com dot au
