Australians aged 18 to 34, university students and “supporters of left wing causes” are more likely to agree with negative statements about Jews or Israel, leading racism and ethnic relations academic Andrew Markus has told the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
Markus, a former director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, designed a survey known as CrossRoads25, which gathered data on Australian attitudes to Jews, Israel and antisemitism. He was cross-examined on his findings at the commission on Tuesday.
Four experts were called to give evidence before former High Court judge Virginia Bell as the commission sat for its seventh day of public hearings in Sydney on Tuesday.
Markus said the CrossRoads25 survey, which was commissioned by the Jewish Independent, detailed views within the Australian community. This included a question about the killing of 1200 Israelis by terror group Hamas in the October 7, 2023 attacks.
In the general Australian population, 48 per cent of respondents believed those reports “were broadly true”, 44 per cent were unsure, and 5 per cent believed they were broadly untrue, Markus’s research found.
Markus said it was significant that 44 per cent of the population were unsure about the reality of the October 7 attacks.
“That is a fundamental watershed in the Jewish community’s life in this country, and internationally. And here, when we’re asking the general population, what we’re finding is that 44 per cent of people are not sure (about it),” he said.
Dr Andre Oboler, chief executive officer of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, told the commission that most of his body’s work is dedicated to tracking antisemitism.
“There are a number of reasons for that. One is because it is such a big part of online hate. Another one is that there is actually more energy and work in responding to online antisemitism than there is in other forms of online hate,” Oboler said.
“There just aren’t the same number of conferences, parliamentary hearings, etc, and I am talking globally. I think there has been one meeting of special envoys on Islamophobia, and we were able to connect Australia’s special envoy to the European envoy.
“But you compare that to antisemitism, where there’s regular stuff going on around the world.”
Oboler outlined some search phrases the institute uses to monitor for online antisemitism content, such as “holohoax”, a Holocaust denial term, as well as a more recent term, “kiss the wall”, which is often used when politicians visit Israel and take part in a Jewish religious practice of kissing the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
“This is used as an antisemitic trope to say ‘oh look they went to Israel, they kissed the wall, and therefore they are controlled by the Jews’ so ‘kiss the wall’ as a phrase is something we use as an entry point.”
Oboler told the commission that social media giant X, formerly Twitter, was “behaving very much like the far-right platforms”.
Oboler shared his analysis of the “density”, or prevalence, of antisemitism on social media platforms, where X rated second, only behind free speech fringe platform Gab, which has widely been criticised for hosting hateful content.
Longitudinal data also showed current antisemitism rates across all platforms are higher than the fivefold spike observed immediately after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
Oboler, an Australian envoy to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, said X had “one of the lowest increases” in antisemitism before and after October 7 because “it was already the most prevalent platform for antisemitism to start with”.
Progressive group the Jewish Council of Australia was granted a limited leave to appear before the commission. The council is being represented by barrister Peggy Dwyer, SC, who acted as counsel assisting the coroner in the inquest into the Bondi Junction stabbings.
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