Never Again is Now rallies against antisemitism are not what they seem

The first Australian Never Again Is Now (NAIN) rally was held in Sydney in mid-February, headlined by former prime minister Scott Morrison. A second rally, with Liberal MP Simon Birmingham as a speaker, was held in Adelaide on Sunday, March 3. More events are planned in Canberra, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart.

Self-described as “a Christian grass roots [sic] movement educating and mobilising Christian’s [sic] to actively stand against most ancient of racial hatreds, anti-Semitism”, NAIN pledges it is “committed to ensuring that no such evil finds a home in our beautiful country of Australia. We stand on Australian values of respect, compassion, freedom, truth and love.”   

On the face of it, these rallies against antisemitism might seem progressive. Who could have a problem with fighting this growing problem? Gatherings calling for the end of any form of racism are usually something to get behind. Scratch the surface, however, and you’ll find that these rallies are part of a movement across the Western world that actually supports the institutions of racism and white supremacy. 

The term “Never Again is Now” invokes the horrors of the Holocaust, implying that we are at risk of a new genocide if we do not take a stand. This might be understood as calling for an end to Israel’s current actions, which the International Court of Justice has found to be a plausible case of genocide.

But it is clear from the organisers, speeches and attendees that these rallies do not seek to prevent mass violence against Palestinian people — they invert reality by labelling those trying to stop this violence, Palestinians and their allies, as the real racist threat. The NAIN public Facebook page describes pro-Palestinian protests in Adelaide as “evil” and “radical hate” and key organisers have declared Palestinian support as “despicable” and “celebrating terrorism”. 

We know what it’s like to be the subject of antisemitic attacks

The NAIN rallies are just another example of why we formed the Jewish Council of Australia in recent months. We’re a collective of volunteer Jewish academics, policy workers, lawyers, writers and teachers who are experts in racism and antisemitism. Our formation came at a pivotal juncture: the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza has contributed to both a rise in antisemitism and a rise in anti-Palestinian racism justified through “Jewish safety”, particularly in Israel, the US, the UK, Germany and Australia. 

The Jewish Council aims to provide an alternative Jewish voice in Australia for those who oppose Israel’s current actions, support Palestinian freedom and do not feel represented by mainstream organisations. We do not claim to speak on behalf of the Jewish community, but we wish to highlight that there are multiple Jewish communities with increasingly diverse views on Israel and Zionism. 

There is antisemitism on the left, and it needs to be challenged. But there is much more widespread and serious antisemitism among the right-wing groups supporting Zionism, and even among Zionists themselves. Their conflation of Jews and Israel is itself antisemitic. Many target and attempt to intimidate non-Zionist Jews, and some lobbyists’ ongoing attempts to influence institutions and silence debate reinforce existing prejudices. 

Like all critics of Israel, we have long received targeted hate messages, harassment and attempts to intimidate us. Palestinians, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, non-white Jews and others face more intense attacks.  

Many on the Jewish Council are currently victims of direct antisemitism. Most alarming is that it comes from two different cohorts, often difficult to distinguish based on their messages and actions. 

Neo-nazis identify our family members, tell us we are warmongering globalists, say that Hitler should have finished the job, and send antisemitic messages about our noses. 

Zionists, including some leaders of mainstream Jewish organisations, call us kapos, frauds and traitors (“the Jew Haters Council” or “the Judas Council”) and some tell us they would have pushed us into the gas chambers first. 

When these two groups are using antisemitic tropes to attempt to silence and intimidate those speaking up against Israel’s actions, it raises an important question: why are they on the same side? And why do Jewish representative bodies remain silent about this — or contribute directly?

How the far right is weaponising antisemitism

The reality is that the current hyper-fixation on antisemitism on the left is not helping end any form of racism. 

While antisemitism is a problem in all areas of society, including among some sections of Palestinian solidarity movements, this fixation is giving the growing violent threat of the far right a free pass. It intentionally conflates antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel in ways that contribute to rising hatred through the relentless dehumanisation of Palestinian people and the association of all Jewish people with Israel’s current crimes. 

As well as painting legitimate support for Palestinian liberation as antisemitic, it prioritises and exceptionalises antisemitism, delinking it from other forms of racism such as Islamophobia. In fact, some groups and individuals supporting the NAIN rallies, such as the controversial Australian Jewish Association (AJA), have engaged in rhetoric labelling Islamic people as a threat.

An unlikely alliance

These events, like the “anti-antisemitism” rallies in the UK, US and Europe, are organised by Christian Zionists (a term describing evangelical Christians who strongly support Israel based on their reading of the bible) and attended by groups who have campaigned against civil rights. 

For example, Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) CEO Michelle Pearse spoke at the Sydney rally. The ACL supports conversion therapy for queer teens, opposes abortion and gender-affirming medical care for trans people, and was a key lobby group behind the “No” campaign for marriage equality. 

Not only is the “never again” cry selective and disingenuous — privileging Zionist feelings of safety irrespective of material conditions — it is an umbrella sheltering Islamophobic, anti-trans and anti-LGBTIQA+ viewpoints. Most fundamentally, it invites people to participate in Palestinian dehumanisation by ignoring Israel’s indiscriminate violence in Gaza, resulting in more than 30,000 civilians being killed by Israeli forces and a humanitarian crisis leading to mass starvation. 

Some Zionists have formed strategic coalitions with evangelical Christians, many of whom hold antisemitic beliefs, because of their common support for the state of Israel. This support is expressed by a huge flow of donations from these Christian groups to Israel every year. 

As historian Walker Robins observed, this relationship is deep and long-standing: “Israel’s former ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, made waves in May 2021 when he publicly suggested that Israel should prioritise its relationship with American evangelicals over American Jews. Dermer described evangelicals as the ‘backbone of Israel’s support in the United States’.” 

This alliance has now extended to include openly far-right and fascist groups. The French National Front, the UK’s Tommy Robinson, Alternative for Germany, and Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni have all participated in rallies denouncing antisemitism and expressed support for Israel.

Defining antisemitism

Rallies like Never Again Is Now explicitly reference the Nazi genocide of Jewish people, but the antisemitism they denounce is not the far-right kind that actually killed Jews in the Holocaust. Instead, they strategically and deceptively conflate criticism of Zionism with antisemitism to silence opponents of Israel’s ongoing violence. They lean on legitimising tools such as the politicised and inaccurate International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism. 

This definition was extensively quoted by former prime minister Scott Morrison (a conservative Christian politician with a long history of support for Israel) at the Never Again is Now Sydney rally, but is highly controversial and deeply contested by academics, activists and human rights groups around the world.  

This weakens the label of antisemitism to the point that it becomes almost meaningless (as seen in the AJA’s self-declared “Merry Ham-mas” Christmas ham bag scandal), at a time when we need to be able to call out actual antisemitism.

Israel commits atrocities in the name of Jewish people, and last week a government minister declared in the Knesset that she was “personally proud of the ruins of Gaza” and that “every baby, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did”. 

None of this makes Jews safer. Given the story of the inevitable persistence of global antisemitism is a fundamental justification for Israel’s continued existence as an ethnonationalist state, we might ask whether all Israel lobby groups are actually interested in the safety of Jews around the world. We know that the people they hang out with are not.