Sidoti says Royal Commission must confront racism, not just antisemitism

 Chris Sidoti

 November 9, 2026

Former human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti argues in his submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that Australia’s long history of racism in all its forms, must be the focus, not antisemitism alone.

The importance of the Royal Commission

The murders of 15 innocent people at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025 constituted an atrocity. The attack targeted a Jewish religious gathering to celebrate the feast of Hanukah. Of the 15 persons murdered, 13 were Jewish. Although the trial of one of the alleged shooters is still to be held, it is reasonable to conclude on the evidence currently available that the attack was based on antisemitism. It certainly challenged and threatened social cohesion in Australia. The events that day were of such seriousness that they required a Royal Commission to investigate what had happened and how it had happened and to make recommendations that will help the Jewish community and the nation to recover and to ensure that everything possible is done to prevent anything like it again.

The Royal Commission’s role is especially needed because the work of the Australian Government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism has been so weak. The Special Envoy is to “assist and advise Government by:

• Providing advice to the Prime Minister and to the Minister for Home Affairs to inform policy development, legislation, campaigns … and programs that will go to effectively combatting antisemitism and social cohesion factors that drive the behaviour across online and social media, traditional media, and within education, arts, culture and industry sectors
• Promoting public awareness and understanding of the impacts of antisemitism by highlighting diverse Jewish Australian identities, the ongoing contributions of Jewish Australians to the building and progress of Australia, and combatting stereotypes and misinformation in communication channels
• Engaging with public and private sector stakeholders across whole of society and utilising research and data to identify the drivers of antisemitic behaviour
• Supporting efforts to address systemic and interpersonal racism (including antisemitism), hate speech, discrimination and divisive language through public education and awareness, through engaging in media opportunities, facilitating roundtables and participating in public discussion with the support of the Department of Home Affairs
• Identifying ways to strengthen broad social cohesion, including fostering inter-faith dialogue, for all Australians…”

The Special Envoy has failed to address adequately the majority of these Terms of Reference. For example, she has not identified and addressed ‘antisemitism and social cohesion factors". She has not “highlight[ed] diverse Jewish identities”. She has not engaged “stakeholders across whole of society”. Importantly she has not sought to “address systemic and interpersonal racism” beyond antisemitism and even in relation to antisemitism her analysis is superficial. She has not identified “ways to strengthen broad social cohesion”.

The Special Envoy’s most fundamental failure is her failure to “utilis[e] research and data to identify the drivers of antisemitic behaviour”. The only research conducted by the Special Envoy seems to have been related to Australian attitudes, with an online sample survey followed by qualitative focus groups. The survey itself is problematic. It builds criticism of Israel into its definition of antisemitism. By merging anti-Jewish prejudice with views critical of Israel into one score, it blurs the line between racial hatred and political expression. The result is then cited as proof of an antisemitism crisis, helping justify restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and potentially exacerbating the problem it claims to measure.

The Special Envoy does not indicate that she has undertaken any original research into the nature of antisemitism or the most effective means of addressing antisemitism. There seems to have been no examination of international experiences, including examining what works and what does not work in combating antisemitism. As a result of this failure, the special envoy has been unable to produce thorough evidence-based, analytical reports.

The major report of the Special Envoy, The Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, describes itself as a “policy-oriented framework”. It is that at most. It is a very short document, about 20 pages of text, with no evidence base, no analysis, no examination of international experience and no presentation and evaluation of options. It is an opinion, with no research findings and no argument, based on the political position of uncritical support for the actions of the State of Israel. The Terms of Reference recognise “diverse Jewish Australian identities” but the voices and views of these diverse identities are not found in the Special Envoy’s work. This is not what the government sought when it established the position and gave it terms of reference discussed above. I suspect that the weakness of the Special Envoy’s work is the reason why the government failed to respond to her Plan until it was forced to do so following the Bondi Beach massacre.

Under these circumstances the work of the Royal Commission is especially important. The Royal Commission is needed to fill the void left by the inadequacy of the Special Envoy’s work. It must address those issues in the Special Envoy’s Terms of reference that the Special Envoy has failed to address. I rely on the Royal Commission to undertake the investigation and analysis of drivers of antisemitism nationally and internationally and to identify and evaluate the national and international experiences with actions taken to address antisemitism. I look to the Royal Commission to make strong, clear, evidence-based recommendations to all Australian parliaments and governments and to the broader community.

The definition of antisemitism

One of the most significant failures of the Special Envoy’s work has been her insistence, without evidence, that all Australian governments and institutions adopt the definition of antisemitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (the IHRA definition). She gives no basis for this other than the fact that some Australian and other governments have adopted it. She does not discuss this definition, consider other definitions or analyse their different strengths and weaknesses. The insistence on the IHRA definition is no more than polemical.

The IHRA definition was developed as a “working definition”, as it itself indicates. IHRA describes it as a “non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism”. It was developed as such, to be non-legally binding and a working definition. It was adopted by IHRA in 2016. Since then, however, it has been used more as a weapon against critics of the State of Israel than as a useful way to understand what constitutes antisemitism.

Kenneth S Stern, an American Jewish scholar who was one of those leading the development of the IHRA definition, has said that it was never intended to be a legal definition of antisemitism but a guide. He commented on how it has been used politically.

If the proponents of the IHRA definition were completely honest, they would tell you that the debate about the definition is really about how to treat pro-Palestinian speech, not antisemitism writ large. The history of the abuse of the IHRA definition demonstrates the desire is largely political – it is not so much a desire to identify antisemitism, but rather to label certain speech about Israel as antisemitic. And this effort harms our ability to identify actual antisemitism.

Academic research and discussion on a definition of antisemitism have moved on since the adoption of the IHRA definition. In 2020–2021 eminent scholars in the fields of Holocaust history, Jewish and Middle East studies, and international law developed and adopted the Jerusalem Declaration, releasing it in March 2021. It was initially signed by 210 scholars and now has around 370 signatories. Another recent initiative, also released in 2021 and updated in 2024, is the Nexus Document, developed under the auspices of the Nexus Project in the United States.

The Royal Commission’s decision to adopt the IHRA definition at the commencement of its work was understandable at that time. It explained that this was the definition adopted by the Commonwealth and the states and so it “makes evident sense” for the Royal Commission to use it. The Royal Commissioner also noted “that it is uncontroversial that criticism of the policies that may be pursued by the government of Israel from time to time is not, of itself, antisemitic.” The Royal Commission could not afford to delay its work with a lengthy inquiry into how to define antisemitism. However, this opening statement should not be the Royal Commission’s last consideration of definition. The IHRA definition is only a non-legal working definition. It is outdated. It has been weaponised and is not widely accepted beyond the political context of defence of the State of Israel. The Royal Commission should examine other definitions, in particular the Jerusalem Declaration and the Nexus Document, and should endorse a definition that is better, more contemporary, more appropriate and more widely accepted.

Antisemitism and racism

Antisemitism is not the only form of racism in Australia. Nor is it, or racism generally, a recent phenomenon in Australia. If antisemitism is to be addressed effectively, it must be addressed in the broader context of racism in Australia.

Racism and racist violence have been evident in Australia since the arrival of the First Fleet. In fact, Australian history can be described in part as a history of endemic racism and racist violence. That history is evident in:

• the Frontier Wars against First Nations peoples from the time of the arrival of Europeans throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and into the 20th century
• the anti-Chinese riots, murders and discriminatory taxes and policies on the gold fields in the 1850s and 1860s, culminating in restrictions on Chinese immigration
• the discrimination and violence against Pacific Islanders in the cane fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
• discrimination against First Nations peoples in the Australian Constitution
• the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and the White Australia Policy
• the policies of removal of First Nations children from their families and communities throughout most of the 20th century
• discrimination, and at times violence, against immigrants during the 20th century
• Indigenous deaths in custody and rates of imprisonment and detention of Indigenous peoples, especially children
• treatment of asylum seekers, including mandatory detention, indefinite detention and offshore detention in conditions at times amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
• the denial to First Nations peoples of a constitutional Voice to Parliament

and so on. There was the race riot in Cronulla, NSW, in December 2005. Early this year cricketer Usman Khawaja, in announcing his retirement from test cricket, referred to the racism he had encountered, just as Adam Goodes did over a decade ago in announcing his retirement from Australian Football League competition.

Racism and racist violence, including based on antisemitism, have been endemic in Australia for over two centuries and remain so today. The atrocity at Bondi Beach in December 2025 that resulted in the murders of 15 people, as outrageous as it was, was not the largest racist massacre in Australian history. The last officially sanctioned massacre was the Coniston massacre in the Northern Territory in 1928 when up to 200 Aboriginal people were murdered.

Many good reports on racism and racist violence, including antisemitism, have been produced and ignored. The then race discrimination commissioner Irene Moss conducted a national inquiry in 1991–1992 but successive governments ignored her report and recommendations. More than 30 years later, in November 2024, the current Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman delivered the National Anti-Racism Framework with 63 recommendations which have also been ignored.

Any attempt to address antisemitism in isolation will fail. Antisemitism can only be addressed effectively in the context of racism more broadly. Like other forms of racism, antisemitism has its specific characteristics and particular experiences that need to be recognised. However, we will never succeed in combating antisemitism in Australia if we fail to combat racism generally, in all its forms.

The Terms of Reference of the Royal Commission, in the commissioner’s Letters Patent, enable the commissioner to deal with racism broadly, including antisemitism. They enable her to “make any other recommendations … that would contribute to strengthening social cohesion in Australia and countering the spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia”. Doing so would ensure that the Royal Commission makes a lasting contribution to ensuring Australia is a far better place for all its people, a country based on justice, peace, cohesion and inclusion.

 

• Note: This is a personal submission to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion based on my experience in undertaking research and advocacy for human rights over the past 40 years. I was Foundation Secretary of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (now the Australian Human Rights Commission) from 1987 to 1992, including when that Commission undertook its National Inquiry into Racist Violence. I was Human Rights Commissioner from 1995 to 2000, during which time the Commission undertook its National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families and produced the Bringing them home report. In 2007–2008 I was the independent international chair of the United Kingdom Government’s Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum. I was a Commissioner on the United Nations Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar, which examined, among other things, the atrocities committed against the Myanmar Rohingya people based on race and religion. Since 2021 I have been a Commissioner on the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. All these experiences have involved me in investigations into the nature of racism and racist violence, discrimination based on race and religion, and the undermining of social cohesion. My comments in this submission are drawn from these experiences. I confine my comments to only three issues.

The full submission along with references is available from the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion

https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/11/sidoti-says-royal-commission-must-confront-racism-not-just-antisemitism/