Visiting Bondi, ADL chief slams anti-Israel protests

The head of the world’s oldest antisemitism watchdog has urged the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion to recognise anti-Israel protests as “pro-hate” as it prepares to examine the role of demonstrations and the hateful behaviour that can arise at them.

Speaking at Bondi Beach on Monday, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said the inquiry should use “the right language” to characterise the protests that have raged since October 7, 2023.

“We need to shed this illusion that these protests are anti-Israel. They are not. They are pro-hate. They are pro-incitement,” he said. “Does anyone still maintain the fiction that somehow these protests are focused on a peaceful resolution of the conflict? They are not. They are pro-conflict, because they bring the conflict here.”

Greenblatt, whose organisation has fought antisemitism for more than a century, said the pattern was global. “We see it in North America, we see it across Europe, and it’s sad and tragic that we’re seeing it here in Australia,” he said.

He pointed to the protest outside the Sydney Opera House days after the October 7 attack, and to the arrest of a Jewish man who confronted demonstrators with a flag. “If that is not an inversion of justice, I don’t know what is,” he said. “I’m glad the Royal Commission is looking at these protests. They are pro-Hamas. They are pro-hate, and they are wrong — wrong by any moral calculus.”