State Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has vowed to criminalise the phrase “Globalise the intifada” if a Coalition government is elected in November, saying it is among several phrases used by pro-Palestinian activists that contributed to a wave of rising antisemitism in Australia and led to the Bondi terror attack.
Wilson made the commitment at an event at the Caulfield Shule on Sunday afternoon, even as a similar state ban introduced in Queensland is being challenged in the High Court, and as legal experts warn such a ban could ultimately be struck down.
Speaking to a large audience in the heart of Melbourne’s Jewish community to launch the book Bondi Terror, written by Executive Council of Australian Jewry chief executive Alex Ryvchin and News24 host Sharri Markson, Wilson said the “frequency and intensity” of antisemitism in Australia had become normalised since October 7, 2023.
“That in itself is a deeply disturbing reflection of where we have found ourselves as a country,” she said.
She drew a direct line between protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, launched following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, to the massacre of 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach last December.
“When governments, at both a state and a federal level, allow hatred like ‘All Zionists are terrorists’, and ‘Globalise the intifada’, to be spewed and normalised on our streets, at our universities and online, Bondi is the result,” Wilson said.
“That’s why, under my leadership, we will expand bans on speech that amounts to incitement to violence, like ‘Globalise the intifada’.”
Intifada is an Arabic word meaning “uprising” or “to shake off”, and has been used to describe Palestinian campaigns of peaceful civil disobedience as well as periods of violence in which Palestinian militants launched attacks targeting Israeli civilians.
Many pro-Israel Jewish groups say the phrase is a call for violence against Jews. But Palestinian activists and their supporters reject the claim, and argue the slogan is instead a call for liberation.
It was widely used during the weekly pro-Palestinian protests in Melbourne’s CBD against the war in Gaza over the past three years.
A NSW parliamentary inquiry launched after the Bondi massacre recommended banning the phrase, but only when it was clearly used to incite hatred, harassment, intimidation or violence.
In March, Queensland banned the slogans “From the river to the sea” and “Globalise the intifada” under hate speech laws that carry a maximum penalty of two years’ jail. More than 20 people have already been charged over use of the phrases.
However, a group of protesters is challenging the laws in the High Court, and leading constitutional experts have argued bans are likely to be struck down for breaching Australia’s implied freedom of political communication.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said he would also ban “Globalise the intifada” if Queensland’s laws survived the High Court challenge.
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network vice president Hiba Farra said Wilson’s pledge was the latest in a “broader and concerning pattern of restricting freedom of speech and expression when it comes to Palestine”.
She said the term was a call for support of Palestinians through non-violent means such as protest, boycotts or political pressure on governments’ policies towards Israel.
“It’s a call for taking the Palestinian struggle, metaphorically, beyond Palestine and building international solidarity against oppression, apartheid and illegal occupation,” she said.
Leading constitutional expert Professor Anne Twomey warned in her submission to the NSW inquiry that banning specific political slogans, even those that offended or damaged social cohesion, would probably conflict with Australia’s s implied freedom of political communication and be struck down by the courts.
Wilson also said on Sunday that a Coalition government would introduce “move on” laws, require protesters to obtain permits to hold demonstrations, and withdraw taxpayer funding from organisations that promote antisemitism.
“We cannot put a ring fence around the Jewish community and expect the more fundamental poison of antisemitism to simply go away of its own accord,” she said.
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