In the Media

Daily Telegraph – 10 February 2026

Imagine someone said that Greece should never have been allowed to exist as a country, that its continuing existence is the world’s greatest injustice, and its destruction would be one of the greatest possible achievements for human progress. Virtually any means that help achieve that destruction are therefore justified.

Furthermore, they add, supporting Greece’s continued existence is morally indefensible, and anyone expressing such support should be made to suffer severe consequences for this evil belief. They should be regarded as little better than modern-day Nazis – ostracised, boycotted and made unwelcome in all public forums.

You would almost certainly regard this person as an extremist nut, and you wouldn’t have to love Greece or like its current government’s policies to recognise this. You might also note that their determination to aggressively target anyone who supports Greece’s continued existence could have terrible consequences for the hundreds of thousands of Greek Australians, who naturally almost all support Greece’s continued existence as a nation, and wish that nation well.

Yet all the above claims are characteristic of a mass movement with a large following in Australia – except the target is not Greece or its supporters, but Israel and “Zionists”, meaning supporters of Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. And it is this same movement that is now organising mass protests against visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The organisers of these protests are dedicated anti-Zionists whose goal is destroying Israel, even if they have made up some bogus pretexts, such as absurd claims that an innocuous statement by Herzog amounts to “inciting genocide”.

The “anti-Zionism” movement in Australia has been able to mobilise large numbers to dominate the streets of Australian cities over the past couple of years – even if not everybody who participated in the protests supported the organisers’ full “destroy Israel” program. It’s a movement that dominates much of our cultural elites, and led to repeated boycotts and doxxing of Jewish artists and other creatives on the grounds that they are “Zionists”, and efforts to exclude “Zionists” from university campuses. And it clearly contributed to the explosion of antisemitic incidents – a rise of some 400% – that occurred in Australia since the Hamas mass terror attacks of October 7, 2023 in Israel.

Yet this movement is just as crazy as the hypothetical Greece-hater I describe above.

Sympathisers with this movement will deny any parallel, insisting Israel is different, that, unlike Greece, Zionism and Israel’s establishment are inherently “settler/colonialist”, with their essence being “stealing Palestinian land” and racist views of Palestinians as less than fully human.

These sloganistic claims are not true, as outlined below, but do you know what country these settler-colonialist and stolen land claims describe much more accurately, if a bit simplistically? That’s right, Australia.

• The British colonists who settled Australia had no connection to this land previously. The Jewish people arose in the land of Israel, and there has always been a Jewish population there. Moreover, Jews who descended from those expelled from the land 2000 years ago maintained a daily connection and commitment to that land in all their rituals and traditions since then.
• British colonists viewed Australia as “Terra Nullius”, land belonging to no one, despite the 50,000-year-long indigenous presence here and the deep ties to the land of those peoples. Jews emigrating to what became Israel fully recognised property rights there and bought the land they settled on from the rightful owners.
• The vast British Empire had no real need for more land when Australia was colonised (needing a place to dump convicts doesn’t count). The Jews of the early twentieth century had an overwhelming and undeniable need for a sovereign safe haven, with murderous antisemitism rising in both the Middle East and especially Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, in which most European Jews were murdered.

Yet how many people say Australia is the greatest blight on humanity, which must be destroyed, and anyone who defends its right to exist must be severely punished? Chanting “Always was, always will be” at a demonstration or calling for Australia Day to be moved are hardly the same thing.

“Anti-Zionism” is, of course, heavily linked to antisemitism. Aside from targeting as uniquely evil the self-determination of the Jews alone, activists on both the far left and far right constantly use the word “Zionist” when they want to use traditional antisemitic accusations against Jews: “Zionists” control the media; “Zionists” have all the politicians in their pockets with their money; “Zionists” are behind international immigration and wars; “Zionists” conspire against governments; “Zionists” thirst for human blood.

But even without the antisemitism, anti-Zionism is insanely extreme – making the destruction of one tiny, long-established state, and the demonisation and punishment of all its supporters, the core of a whole worldview. No other contemporary ideological mass movement in Australia compares in terms of its potential for spreading hate, violence, division, and conspiracy theories.

Dr Tzvi Fleischer is Director of Research and Policy at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).