Tayeh guilty over ‘All Zionists are terrorists’ chant

Pro-Palestinian activist Hash Tayeh, the former owner of the Burgertory restaurant chain, has been found guilty of using insulting words in public over his chant of “all Zionists are terrorists”, after the constitutional challenge that had stalled the verdict failed.

The court is now hearing argument on the penalty to be imposed.

Menachem Vorchheimer, the Jewish community activist who has pursued a series of proceedings over the chant, confirmed the decision to The AJN by phone from the courtroom during a short recess on Wednesday.

The finding closes a question that had been left open since June, when the court found that the phrase, chanted at a rally on 30 March 2025, was insulting within the meaning of the Summary Offences Act 1966, and that Tayeh had said the words intentionally.

In the ordinary course a finding of guilt would have followed at once. It did not, because Tayeh had signalled he would argue that punishing the chant would breach the implied freedom of political communication, a constitutional limit on laws that restrict political debate rather than a general right to free speech.

With that argument now rejected, the finding of guilt has been entered.

The 30 March 2025 chant was one of five counts police brought against Tayeh following complaints over statements at pro-Palestinian rallies in Melbourne’s CBD. He was acquitted of four charges arising from an earlier rally, after the court found it had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that he held the necessary criminal intent on those occasions, though the language was found to be offensive on all five.

The criminal finding is separate from a civil ruling in February, when the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that Tayeh’s leading of the chant at a rally on 23 March 2025 breached the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 and amounted to racial and religious vilification of Jewish people.

Vorchheimer, who brought that civil case, had predicted the constitutional challenge would fail. After the June finding he said the case drew “a distinction between protesting about a foreign conflict and using language that dehumanises a segment of the population, the Jewish people, by virtue of their Jewish identity”.

He pointed to the weight the court had placed on the word “terrorist”, noting its view that the term “conjures up extreme emotions” and describes someone “who can be overcome by force if necessary, and even killed”. Labelling all Zionists as terrorists, he said, “created a permissive environment”.

This is a developing story and will be updated.