How Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese built an unelected censorship apparatus for Jillian Segal without a vote, a bill or a debate, while the Coalition demanded more was covered in Part One. It ended with a question polite Australia refuses to ask. Today, in Part Two is the answer. Andrew Brown reports for Michael West Media.

COMMENTARY: By Andrew Brown

The architecture would be scandal enough on paper. It did not stay there. Antisemitism Commissioner Jillian Segal took an oath at a Royal Commission.

Segal conceded regulators had found little inaccuracy in ABC and SBS reporting on Israel and Gaza. The journalism was true.

Her objection was that the truth made Israel look bad. Her remedy was another oversight body and more positive stories about the amazing startup nation

• READ MORE: The Segal State 1 – the public office Australia never voted for
• The Segal State 2 – the mask, the children, the money and the answer

A taxpayer-funded official told a Royal Commission, under oath, that accurate reporting is a problem the state should fix with pressure for flattering coverage.

Under oath, the mask came off
Show the starving children of Gaza if you insist, then cut to a cheerful Israeli tech segment for balance.

There are countries where officials talk like that. None of them are democracies. And the Prime Minister kept her in office anyway.

Then she reached for the children

University students, Segal observed, are relatively fixed in their ideas. Younger children are more open. Education, she said, is a tool for building ideas, cohesion and culture.

An advocate surveyed the population, identified the audience least capable of arguing back, and proposed to begin there.

She unveiled a National Centre for Education Against Antisemitism to train government, business and police at scale and capture the hearts and minds of Australians. Her phrase.

The Gonski taskforce runs from early childhood to university. Something in the curriculum, Segal mused, might have to come out.

Jewish history and the Holocaust belong in every classroom. So do Islamophobia, anti Palestinian racism, the frontier massacres and the stolen generations.

A curriculum organised around one contested political definition does not teach children to think. It teaches them which conclusions are safe. Australians have a name for a state programme built to capture the hearts and minds of other people’s children. It is not education.

The $50,000 question
Twelve days before Segal’s appointment, Henroth Investments, directed by her husband, gave $50,000 to Advance Australia. The same Advance that torched the Indigenous Voice for being too much power for one group of Australians.

Segal denies involvement. The Klaxon documented the couple’s record of joint donations, down to a photograph beside a plaque naming both as donors.

Perhaps she knew nothing of a $50,000 gift from her own household’s company on the eve of her elevation. Any other appointment, this donation triggers an inquiry by Friday. This one drew a shrug. Albanese is not neutral. He benefits from the question never being asked.

The answer
Now the question you carried overnight. Why one form of racism and not the others?

In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody delivered 339 recommendations. Both parties let them rot for three decades while the death toll passed 590 First Nations people. No envoy. No machinery.

In 2025, Segal delivered 49 actions. The Commonwealth adopted every one within months, put her in charge, and stood a $130 million Royal Commission behind her. Muslim Australians, mosques attacked, got an envoy for show.

Palestinian Australians burying entire families got lectures about tone.

So ask the questions underneath. Which cause has a professional, funded, decades old lobby behind it, and which buried its peak body by Act of Parliament? Which flatters the US alliance, and which indicts the Crown? Which form of justice costs the Treasury nothing, and which costs it the continent?

And that lobby did not merely ask. After October 2023, it campaigned, through ECAJ, AIJAC and the Murdoch press behind them, and Anthony Albanese capitulated.

Then he kept capitulating.

He adopted the plan entire. He kept Segal in office after her testimony. He will not touch the donation. For this Prime Minister, capitulation is not a moment. It is a method.

Follow those questions to the end and you reach the ugliest truth in Australian public life. This state does not fight racism. It prices it.

The cheap kind gets a ministry. The expensive kind gets an anniversary. That hierarchy of harm is now official Commonwealth policy. Nobody voted for it. Nobody was asked. It was imposed. And Segal is that policy made flesh.

The lobby’s president turned the nation’s umpire.

Minns, the enforcer
The state tier belongs to Chris Minns. His government rammed hate speech and protest laws through Parliament, with Coalition votes, while the Dural caravan was waved at a frightened public. Police then established the plot was a fabricated criminal con. A premier who legislates on a hoax and keeps the laws when it collapses has told you what they were for.

Segal’s definition, Minns’s truncheon, opposition applause. A pincer on political expression, built in 18 months, and not one voter asked.Tear it out

This is Australia in 2026. Speech graded in Canberra. Protest policed in Sydney. Children next. An open society has one rule that cannot bend. No unelected hand on the levers of speech. Segal’s office breaks it by existing.

Albanese built this office, hid its costs, ignored the donation on its doorstep and shielded its occupant. Every excess is his. So is the precedent. The apparatus does not dissolve when Segal departs. It sits waiting for the next government, and the Coalition is not planning to dismantle it. It is waiting for the keys.

End Segal’s appointment. Abolish the office.

Repeal the NSW laws passed on a hoax. Open a parliamentary inquiry into its creation, its costs and its occupant’s household donations. Replace the wreckage with one national rights framework protecting every Australian from every form of racial and religious hatred, equally.

No envoys. No favourites. No exceptions.

So make it the question of the next election. Put it to every candidate, of every party, at every doorstop, until they answer. Will you vote to abolish the Segal State? Watch who squirms. Vote accordingly.

Australia needs protection from racism.

All of it, for all of us, or it is not protection. It is patronage. And Australia does not need the Segal State.

COMMENTARY: By Andrew Brown

Apparently antisemitism simply fell from the sky. Fully formed. Immaculately conceived.

Entirely unrelated to anything happening in Gaza.

That is the finding Australia has pre-purchased for $131.1 million, confirmed at Senate Estimates in February, with $91 million alone for staffing, property, lawyers and security.

• READ MORE: Other Bondi Royal Commission reports

Every single dollar buys theatre.

Measure the obscenity. The banking royal commission, which gutted an entire industry’s misconduct, cost $75 million. Aboriginal Deaths in Custody cost $50.2 million.

This inquiry outspends both combined. Meanwhile there is no royal commission into the domestic violence killing a woman most weeks, none into Islamophobia, now soaring.

Australia found $131 million for the one inquiry designed never to ask an obvious question.

Blame where it belongs. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote the answer into the question.

His Letters Patent instruct the Commission to find the drivers of antisemitism in extremism and radicalisation, the war deleted from the terms of reference before Commissioner Virginia Bell was even sworn in.

The Albanese government wrote the verdict into the terms of reference, then spent more than the banking royal commission to have a judge read it back. Here is what the money is buying.

Commissioning an alibi
Albanese promised the inquiry would deliver, in his own words, the right outcome. A Prime Minister announcing the right outcome in advance is commissioning an alibi.

This is the government that will gesture at recognising Palestine while refusing to utter the word genocide, that ships F35 components into the supply chain of the slaughter, that sanctions two Israeli ministers and calls it courage.

It needed a grand national explanation for collapsing social cohesion that never once mentions its own complicity.

For $131 million, it has bought one.

The process delivered. In the first three days of hearings, 23 of 36 witnesses characterised criticism of Israel, opposition to Zionism or Palestine advocacy as antisemitic.

Jewish organisations opposed to Zionism were refused leave to appear. Palestinian voices were excluded for lacking a direct and substantial interest.

The accused were barred from the courtroom so the prosecution could run unopposed at public expense.

The grievance parade
And the substance? A grievance parade.

The ABC and SBS hauled in to answer for Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal’s strong perception, her phrase, that their Gaza coverage lacks balance, then interrogated for declining the contested IHRA definition Bell waved through as uncontroversial.

Keffiyehs, flags, watermelon art, chants of Free Palestine, student encampments and fundraisers for maimed children tendered as exhibits of hate. Protest. Tents. Journalism.

Every place an ordinary Australian expressed solidarity with a people being exterminated, recast at public expense as a crime scene. Australians are not being investigated for hating Jews.

They are being investigated for objecting to a genocide.

The complainants were welcomed like royalty. Alex Ryvchin of the ECAJ, who called the anti-Israel movement indistinguishable from neo-Nazism, testified at length while his silk objected to opposing counsel merely uttering the word genocide, a finding the International Court of Justice considered plausible back in January 2024.

Robert Gregory of the self-appointed Australian Jewish Association, which the ECAJ itself calls unrepresentative, told the Commission the government egged on antisemitism, fresh from blaming Bondi on visas for Palestinians fleeing the bombs.

Sky’s the limit
Sky News completes the circuit, wheeling Gregory out to demonise protesters, then feeding its own segments back into the panic as evidence.

The outcomes are as predetermined as the terms.

Come December 14, expect IHRA stamped across the public service and pushed onto civil society, work Segal has begun.

Expect ABC oversight its own ombudsman rejected. Expect protest reframed as policing, and regulators monitoring speech the way AHPRA already does, having admitted under oath it watches nurses and doctors for criticism of Israel after Segal’s pressure.

Expect everything blamed but the war.

And expect antisemitism not to fall, because you cannot cure what you refuse to diagnose. Every recommendation will manufacture the resentment it claims to fight, and Labor will call the wreckage cohesion.

For almost three years the world has watched a genocide live-streamed by a state claiming to act in the name of the Jewish people, while its Australian cheer squad defended, excused or denied every atrocity.

Now they ask why anger grows.

None of this excuses antisemitism. Not one word of it. The Bondi gunmen murdered Jews for being Jews, and the law should fall hard on every bigot who follows them.

Fifteen dead Australians deserved a fearless inquiry. They got a pantomime, their graves deployed as a shield for a foreign state and the government that armed it.

The elephant is blocking the doorway and eating $131 million of paperwork, yet everyone keeps peering around it, declaring there is nothing to see.

This Commission will not defeat antisemitism. It will deliver the most expensive whinge in Australian history, commissioned by a government purchasing its own absolution with public money.

Andrew Brown is a Sydney businessman in the health products sector, former Deputy Mayor of Mosman and a Palestine peace activist.

The Supreme Court of New South Wales has struck down the state’s draconian anti-protest laws, ruling they impose an “impermissible burden” on political communication and are invalid.

In a landmark decision yesterday, the court declared key provisions of the anti-protest laws introduced after the Bondi terrorist attack unconstitutional, finding they gave police sweeping powers to shut down protests across large parts of Sydney without sufficient justification.

“The impugned provisions infringe the implied freedom of political communication,” the court found.

• READ MORE: Other Australian anti-protest laws reports

The court held that the laws were “not compatible with the maintenance of the constitutionally prescribed system of representative and responsible government.”

Not constitutionally legitimate
“It is not a constitutionally legitimate purpose to seek to discourage all forms of public assembly across a nominated geographical area to preserve social cohesion, on the grounds that the very act of holding public assemblies is apt to cause tension and division in the community,” the court found.

The challenge centred on a suite of laws rushed through on Christmas Eve under the Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (NSW), in the aftermath of the Bondi attack that killed 15 people.

The laws allowed the NSW police commissioner to issue sweeping “public assembly restriction” declarations across broad areas.

Once in force, those declarations effectively shut down protests by preventing them from being authorised under the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW), cancelling existing approvals and enabling police to disperse gatherings using expanded powers under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW).

In its reasoning, the court stated:

“peaceful protest is indispensable to the exercise of political sovereignty by the people of the Commonwealth”

and the laws imposed “substantial burden” to this right.

It rejected the government’s argument that the measures were necessary to preserve “social cohesion”, finding the scheme was disproportionate.

The system of government “does not permit the state … to impose such a sweeping and indiscriminate restriction on all public assemblies,” the court said.

The constitutional challenge was brought on behalf of Blak Caucus, Palestine Action Group and Jews Against the Occupation ’48.

‘A big win for everyone’
Josh Lees, a spokesperson for Palestine Action Group Sydney, said the ruling was “a big win for everyone who cares about the right to protest”.

“These laws were terrible. They were so wide-ranging, and that is what the court has found today, that they unfairly and disproportionately burdened our rights to political communication,” he said.

Lees said the laws had been used by NSW Premier Chris Minns to violently suppress protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and called for Minns to “take accountability” and resign.

The challenge came against the backdrop of heavily policed protests in early 2026, including the violent crackdown on the Sydney Town Hall protest against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Enabled police violence
Nick Hanna, solicitor for the plaintiffs, said the laws had enabled “the most violent crackdown … against protesters in decades”.

“Today’s decision makes clear that, in my view, it is inevitable that prosecutions of every single person who attended that protest will be unsuccessful, and they will be found not guilty if they proceed to hearing,” he said.

“The maintenance of these prosecutions is untenable, and it’s time for police to do the right thing and discontinue them.”

Hanna is currently representing a number of protesters who were arrested during the Herzog protest.

Chris Minns responsible
NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson said the ruling raised serious questions about police conduct during those protests.

“What we saw … was police brutality on a scale we have not seen for decades in this state,” she said.

“I hold Chris Minns responsible for that violence because it was his unconstitutional laws upon which the police acted.”

Higginson said the state could now face “tens of millions of dollars in civil liability claims” arising from the policing of protests under the invalid laws.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Michael West and Stephanie Tran

Amid revelations of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, the Australian government and media have entirely lost control of the Israel narrative.

As thousands massed around the country tonight to protest against the visit of President Herzog, the government’s claims of fostering “social cohesion” are a shambles.

The mainstream media, too. Any remaining shred of credibility shattered.

• READ MORE: Herzog’s visit to Australia builds conflict not social cohesion – Wendy Bacon
• Jonathan Cook: The criminal elite exposed in the Epstein files are burying the truth about Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

Amid the soft-shoe interviews published over the weekend, did any of them bother to ask Herzog whether he was the Herzog in the email from Jeffrey Epstein?

The Herzog “coming to the island this weekend” with former Israel PM and Epstein confidante Ehud Barak?

It appears not. What of the “ceasefire” in Gaza, where dozens are still being slaughtered daily, or the destruction of UN infrastructure, West Bank land theft, allegations of organ harvesting of Palestinians, and prison torture? Any questions?

There is no record of it from the “journals of record”.

Instead, blatantly peddling the tired rhetoric of the government and Israel lobby, critics of Herzog are branded by Herzog in the Murdoch press as

waging a brainwash campaign against Jews.

While in the Nine papers, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald debunked critics as “futile fury” and had the Israel president calling for a new dawn which would “reignite the passion and love between our nations”.

The plain fact of the matter is that Australians, like most people in the world, don’t like genocide.

They don’t like apartheid either, or lies.

By the time Isaac Herzog turned up at the International Convention Centre (ICC) this evening for “an evening of light and solidarity”, hundreds of thousands of Australians were protesting across the country.

How long can politicians and lobbyists continue to peddle the line that the protesters are tearing up the social cohesion, not themselves?

Herzog sponsors – IDF links
Sponsoring tonight’s dinner at the ICC are Australian charities involved in funding the IDF, which is in turn accused of myriad war crimes and genocide.

Founded in 1927, the ZFA describes itself as the peak body representing Zionist organisations in Australia, with more than 200 affiliated groups. It is the Australian branch of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO)

In its 2024 financial report, the federation said it was dependent on funding from the WZO and Keren Hayesod for “the majority of its revenue used to operate the business”. The ZFA also maintains an office in Israel.

The WZO has long played a role in Israeli settlement policy.

Israeli advocacy group Peace Now says the WZO’s Settlement Division, funded by the Israeli government, has since the 1970s helped plan, finance and manage illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank, including administering land transferred to settlers.

Ties to UIA and JNF
The ZFA’s constitution commits it to supporting the fundraising of two bodies it calls the “National Funds”: Keren Hayesod — United Israel Appeal (UIA) and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael — Jewish National Fund (JNF).

It states that one of the Federation’s objects is “to support the fundraising activities of the National Funds”, and that state Zionist councils must take steps to ensure the “maximum success” of United Israel campaigns.

An investigation by Michel West Media found that UIA and JNF have been funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to Israel, where some of these funds are used to fund the IDF and illegal settlements.

The ZFA is also the organisation behind the racial discrimination case against journalist Mary Kostakidis over social media posts relating to the genocide.

The federation has publicly rejected United Nations and International Court of Justice (ICJ) findings critical of Israel.

It described a UN Commission of Inquiry finding that Israel committed genocide in Gaza as “a baseless and biased assault on truth and justice”, and rejected the ICJ advisory opinion that Israel has committed a “plausible” genocide in Gaza as “politically driven” and “deeply flawed”.

The ZFA did not respond to requests for comment.

Scope for Herzog arrest
“There is both a legal scope and a moral duty to arrest Isaac Herzog on arrival,” said Chris Sidoti, a Commissioner on the UN Commission of Inquiry into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem and Israel, in a live broadcast on The West Report.

Despite these concerns, Herzog’s visit has proceeded as planned. When asked about Sidoti’s remarks and the ICJ’s findings on genocide, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said, “President Herzog is being invited to Australia to honour the victims of Bondi and to be with and provide support to Australia’s Jewish community.”

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

Stephanie Tran is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.

On the eve of his Australian tour, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog faces huge opposition to his visit.

In a “National Day of Protest”, hundreds of thousands are expected to march in 30 cities around Australia, including every state capital city tomorrow evening.

Herzog’s visit has been opposed by the Australian Greens and several Labor and Independent MPs, some of whom are expected to join the marches.

• READ MORE: Anti-genocide movement says: ‘Herzog out!’
• Isaac Herzog is accused of inciting genocide in Gaza. He shouldn’t be welcomed to Australia
• Pro-Palestinian group vows protests in 24 cities against Israeli president’s Australia visit
• Jonathan Cook: The criminal elite exposed in the Epstein files are burying the truth about Gaza
• Speech by Labor MLC NSW Cameron Murphy
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The NSW Minns government has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop the Sydney protest by declaring it a “major event” under the Major Events Act. The organisers, Palestinian Action Group, will challenge the validity of this action in the Supreme Court tomorrow before the protest.

Herzog’s visit follows the anti-semitic massacre in Bondi on December 14 when 15 people were killed and many more injured by two allegedly Islamic State-inspired gunmen. One gunman was killed and the other is now facing multiple charges of murder.

The idea of bringing Herzog to Australia originated with senior Australian Zionists, including the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia Jeremy Liebler, who is a personal friend of Herzog.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese then invited Herzog to make an official visit “to support the Jewish community at what has been a very difficult time”. He has justified his decision as reflecting a “need to build social cohesion in this country.”

Conflict rather than unity
In fact, the visit was always likely to create conflict rather than unity in Australia.

Scores of community and activist groups, including the progressive Jewish Council of Australia and NSW Council for Civil Liberties, have condemned the Herzog visit.

Amnesty International Australia urged the Australian government “to comply with its international and domestic legal obligations and investigate Herzog for genocide… As President of Israel, Herzog has overseen and legitimised Israel’s genocide and has made statements amounting to genocidal incitement.”

Federal Labor MP Ed Husic, who was previously a Minister in the Albanese government, told The Guardian that he was “uncomfortable” with the visit and did not think it would build social cohesion. He pointed to findings by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry that Herzog and other Israeli officials were “liable to prosecution for incitement to genocide” for comments made after the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023.

Australian human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti was a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry; he told Michael West Media that:

“There is both a legal scope and a moral duty to arrest Isaac Herzog on arrival.”

Among his actions that have stirred widespread criticism of him in the Australian and global media are images of him signing bombs to be dropped on the children of Gaza.

Adding to the controversy over his visit, President Herzog will bring with him Doron Almog, a retired Israel Defence Forces major-general. Almog, who is currently chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, has formerly faced arrest warrants over allegations he committed war crimes in Gaza in 2002.

A coalition of legal groups has asked the Australian federal police to investigate and arrest Almog over war crimes allegations.

War crimes challenge
Members of this coalition, including the Australian Centre for International Justice, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights have lodged a submission with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) arguing that Almog should be investigated for crimes committed during his time as an IDF Commander between 2000 and 2003.

“Under his command, the Israeli military was responsible for countless and extensive human rights violations and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions inside the illegally occupied Gaza Strip,” the submission alleges.

The AFP has referred the submission to its Special Investigations Command. Almog has previously denied the allegations and a UK warrant for Almog’s arrest was previously withdrawn.

The Zionist community is meanwhile celebrating Almog’s visit.

According to a Zionist Federation of Australia promotion, Almog was due to arrive before Herzog and appear at a conference at a Sydney Synagogue yesterday alongside Zionist Liberal MP Julian Leeser to discuss anti-semitism education.

3500 police to flood Sydney’s CBD
Tension is high in Sydney where Premier Chris Minns has announced a “massive policing presence” to flood the CBD with 3500 armed police during the Herzog visit.

Premier Minns has warned Sydney’s residents against travelling to the CBD even for work tomorrow, predicting disruption and even riots, despite the fact that hundreds of pro-Palestinian protests over more than two years have been uniformly peaceful.

Despite his warnings, many thousands are expected to attend a protest at Sydney’s traditional weekday protest place Town Hall Square at 5.30 pm tomorrow, from which they plan to march to Parliament House.

Popular 2021 Australian of the Year and campaigner against sexual assault Grace Tame and Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi are among the advertised speakers. NSW Labor MP barrister Stephen Lawrence is also expected to speak.

The NSW government tried to deter the protesters by using unprecedented laws passed in late December to declare that no protest permits will be granted to a large swathe of Sydney which includes Town Hall Square. The ban has been in place since the laws were passed.

Although the ban does not stop people peacefully assembling, it grants the police full powers to make “move on” orders to disband protests and prevent marches.

These powers were used when mounted police prevented hundreds of peaceful Deaths in Custody campaigners conducting a short march on the pavement last month.

A coalition of groups including the Palestinian Action Group and Jews Against Occupation 48 has challenged the laws as unconstitutional.

‘Major event’ status
With support for the march growing despite Minns’ warnings, his government took a further extraordinary step yesterday and declared Herzog’s visit a major event under the Major Events Act. The legislation is typically invoked to manage crowds during sporting events or very large festivals.

The act gives the police powers to issue directions to people not to enter an area, and to search people.  Anyone who fails to comply with police directions may face penalties, including fines of up to $5,500.

But the Act states that it is not intended to be used against political protests. Today, the Palestinian Action Group announced that it will make an urgent application to the NSW Supreme Court tomorrow to declare the “major event” declaration invalid.

While in Sydney, Herzog and his delegation will visit families whose family members were killed in the Bondi massacre and will attend an invitation only “Solidarity and Light” event at the ICC centre in Darling Harbour.  He will then travel to Melbourne and Canberra.

On Friday, the independent media outlet Lamestream reported that  Prime Minister Albanese had invited him to visit Parliament although he is not expected to address Parliament.

Wendy Bacon is a Sydney investigative journalist and retired journalism professor, and contributes to many publications, including Michael West Media. She is also a committee member of the Asia Pacific Media Network.

COMMENTARY: By Chris Sidoti

It’s not too late for Anthony Albanese to withdraw the invitation to the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. It should be withdrawn for three reasons.

The first is institutional: The President of Israel is a constitutional role that is head of state but not part of the political or military chain of command. The office is similar to that of Australia’s Governor-General, though with somewhat more power.

As head of state, the president embodies and represents the state of Israel.

• READ MORE: Pro-Palestinian group vows protests in 24 cities against Israeli president’s Australia visit
• Jonathan Cook: The criminal elite exposed in the Epstein files are burying the truth about Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found that Israel unlawfully occupies the Palestinian territories, has unlawfully purported to annex parts of the Palestinian territories and unlawfully plants, encourages and maintains unlawful settlements in Palestinian territories.

The court is also trying a case in which Israel is accused of genocide.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The same court is investigating other senior Israeli military and political leaders on similar charges.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory has found evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal intent by Israeli leaders and recommended their prosecution. Israel is a rogue state whose head of state, its supreme representative, should not be permitted to visit Australia.

The second reason is about Herzog himself: The Commission of Inquiry has found that Herzog has incited genocide. Herzog made the statement that all Palestinians, “an entire nation”, are responsible for the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023.

The commission found that, because as president he is not part of the political or military chain of command, he was not responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity. But the crime of incitement to genocide stands outside the chain of command. It can be committed by any individual. The commission recommended that he be investigated and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

Herzog denies this and has qualified his statement, saying “there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree” with the actions of Hamas. But the UN commission said it viewed that as an effort “to deflect responsibility for the initial statement”.

He has been a vocal head of state and his words have been taken and repeated by Israeli soldiers. Someone who incites genocide does not satisfy the good character test for entering Australia. On the contrary, a person who incites genocide should be arrested on arrival and tried under Australian law and international law for the crime.

Traditionally, a head of state has a special immunity when visiting another country. However, there is now strong legal argument that this immunity does not apply in relation to atrocity crimes, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Australia should not apply immunity in relation to these crimes.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has previously rejected the commission’s report as “distorted and false”, and Herzog has said his comments have been taken out of context, noting he also said Israeli soldiers would follow international law.

The third reason for withdrawing the invitation relates to us, Australia, and our current situation: The Hanukah massacre on 14 December 2025 has shaken us all. It was an atrocity. Immediately political leaders across the spectrum expressed concerns for “social cohesion”. They said steps were needed to restore social cohesion and called for national unity at a time of crisis.

Eventually a royal commission was appointed for this purpose. And yet it’s hard to imagine a single event at this point in time more likely to harden national division and undermine social cohesion than a visit by the Israeli president. It could be the most divisive state visit to Australia since that of US president Lyndon B Johnson in October 1966 when the Vietnam war was at its height and Australian soldiers were being killed.

What was the Prime Minister thinking when he invited Herzog? In the days after the massacre, he no doubt thought inviting Herzog was a good way to express support for the traumatised Jewish community.

But Herzog is a political leader, not a religious leader. He is divisive in Israel and his visit could be divisive in Australia. If the Prime Minister wanted to support the Jewish community, he would have done better to invite a respected Jewish religious leader.

For reasons of law, ethics and social cohesion, this divisive political visit should be stopped.

The prime minister is widely acclaimed for his willingness to recognise mistakes and change course before it’s too late. He should recognise that he made a terrible mistake, in the emotional, traumatic days after the massacre, in inviting Herzog to visit.

It’s not too late to correct the mistake.

Chris Sidoti is Australian and a Commissioner on the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. Republished from The Guardian on 5 February 2026 and from Pearls and Irritations today with permission from the editor.

Social cohesion is a national responsibility, and everyone, including the media, should support government’s efforts, according to Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor in Pacific Journalism at the University of the South Pacific.

While the news media are often accused of exacerbating conflict by amplifying ethnic tensions through biased narratives, media could also assist social cohesion and unite people by promoting dialogue and mutual understanding, said Dr Singh.

He was the lead trainer at a two-day conflict-sensitive reporting workshop for journalists, student journalists, and civil society on reporting in ethically tense environments.

• READ MORE: The Pacific Media 2024 conference
• Other Fiji journalism education and training reports

The training, organised by Dialogue Fiji at the Suva Holiday Inn on November 12–13, included reporting techniques, understanding Fiji’s political and media landscape, and building trust with audiences.

Watchdog journalism
Dr Singh said media played an important public interest role as ‘society’s watchdog’. The two main strengths of Watchdog Journalism are that it seeks to promote greater accountability and transparency from those in power.

However, he cautioned reporters not to get too caught up in covering negative issues all the time. He said ideally, media should strive for a healthy mix of positive and what might be termed “negative” news.

Dr Singh’s doctoral thesis, from the University of Queensland, was on “Rethinking journalism for supporting social cohesion and democracy: case study of media performance in Fiji”.

He discussed the concepts of “media hyper-adversarialism” and “attack dog journalism”, which denote an increasingly aggressive form of political journalism, usually underpinned by commercial motives.

This trend was a concern even in developed Western countries, including Australia, where former Labour Minister Lindsay Tanner wrote a book about it: Sideshow, Dumbing Down Democracy.

Dr Singh said it had been pointed out that media hyper-adversarialism was even more dangerous in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings, as it harms fledgling democracies by nurturing intolerance and diminishing faith in democratically-elected leaders.

“Excessive criticism and emphasis on failure and wrongdoings will foster an attitude of distrust towards institutions and leaders,” he said.

Conflict-sensitive reporting
According to Dr Singh, examples around the world show that unrestrained reporting in conflict-prone zones could further escalate tensions and eventually result in violence.

The number one aim of conflict-sensitive reporting is to ensure that journalists, are aware of their national context, and shape their reporting accordingly, rather than apply the “watchdog” framework indiscriminately in all situations, because a “one-size-fits-all” approach could be risky and counterproductive.

Journalists who adopt the conflict-sensitive reporting approach in their coverage of national issues could become facilitators for peaceful solutions rather than a catalyst for conflict.

“The goal of a journalist within a conflict-prone environment should be to build an informed and engaged community by promoting understanding and reconciliation through contextualised coverage of complex issues,” he said.

A rethink was all the more necessary because of social media proliferation, and the spread of misinformation and hate speech on these platforms.

Challenges in maintaining transparency and accountability in journalism
According to Dr Singh, in many Pacific newsrooms today journalists who are at the forefront of reporting breaking news and complex issues are mostly young and relatively inexperienced.

He said the Pacific media sector suffered from a high turnover rate, with many journalists moving to the private sector, regional and international organisations, and government ministries after a brief stint in the mainstream.

“There is a lot of focus on alleged media bias,” said Dr Singh.

“However, young, inexperienced, and under-trained journalists can unknowingly inflame grievances and promote stereotypes by how they report contentious issues, even though their intentions are not malicious,” he said.

Dr Singh emphasised that in such cases, journalists often become a danger unto themselves because they provide governments with the justification or excuse for the need for stronger legislation to maintain communal harmony.

“As was the case in 2010 when the Media Industry Development Act was imposed in the name of professionalising standards,” said Dr Singh.

“However, it only led to a decline in standards because of the practice of self-censorship, as well as the victimisation of journalists.”

Legislation alone not the answer
Dr Singh added that legislation alone was not the answer since it did not address training and development, or the high rate of newsroom staff turnover.

He said the media were often attacked, but what was also needed was assistance, rather than criticism alone. This included training in specific areas, rather than assume that journalists are experts in every field.

Because Fiji is still a transitional democracy and given our ethnic diversity, Dr Singh believes that it makes for a strong case for conflict-sensitive reporting practices to mitigate against the risks of societal divisions.

“Because the media act as a bridge between people and institutions, it is essential that they work on building a relationship of trust by promoting peace and stability, while reporting critically when required.”

This article was first published by The Fiji Times on 24 November, 2024 and is being republished from USP Journalism’s Wansolwara and The Fiji Times under a collaborative agreement.

Australians are being urged to stay united following the horrific events in Sydney last week, reports the ABC’s Saturday Extra programme.

Five women and one man were killed in a mass stabbing at Bondi Junction last Saturday by a man with a history of mental illness, and a nine-month-old baby baby was among the eight people wounded.

The attacker was shot by a police officer and died at the scene.

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Two days later at a church in Wakeley, a suburb in Western Sydney, controversial Assyrian Orthodox preacher Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel suffered lacerations to his head when he was attacked during a sermon that was being live-streamed. Nobody was killed.

Three other unrelated knife attacks took place in Sydney this week. Only the Wakely church attack was officially described as a “terror” attack although there had been widespread media speculation.

Those attacks coupled with anger and division caused by the war on Gaza as well as the polarising impact of the Voice referendum last year and Australians are seeing their sense of community and social cohesion challenged.

The ABC has spoken to a panel of analysts about the solutions to staying united and their comments were broadcast yesterday.

The panel included Khairiah A Rahman, an intercultural communications commentator from Auckland University of Technology who is also secretary of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and a member of Muslim Media Watch.

The programme highlighted New Zealand’s experience in March 2019 when an Australian gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch and killed 51 people while they were praying.

Asked what her message had been to the New Zealand government through the Royal Commission established to look into the mass killing, Rahman replied:

“Overall, social cohesion when we think about it has got to do with the responsibility of all people and groups at all levels of society. So we can’t actually leave it to the government or the leaders, the Muslim leaders.

“At the end of the day, the media also had a hand in all of this and my research had to do with media representation of Islam and Muslims prior to the attack. One of the things I found was unfair reporting, so pretty much what you have experienced in your media reporting of Bondi.

“The route that extremists take from hate to mass murder is a proven one, and you need to report fairly and stay calm in a society.”

Interviewees:

Dr Jamal Rifi, Lebanese Muslim Community leader, Sydney

Tim Southphommasane, Australia’s former race discrimination officer

Khairiah A Rahman, intercultural communications researcher, Auckland University of Technology

Producer: Linda LoPresti