On August 4, its own hearing room produced a demonstration of the very antisemitism it was created to diagnose.
David Ossip, president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, appeared before Commissioner Virginia Bell to describe the fear Sydney's Jewish community lived with after October 7 and the protest he called "despicable," which marched from Town Hall to the Sydney Opera House two days later. Lawyers for the Palestine Action Group and the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, granted leave to cross-examine him, questioned him instead on Israeli airstrike timelines and Gaza casualty figures, alongside Benjamin Netanyahu's public statements.
Ossip is not a representative of the Israeli government. He is a local Jewish community leader.
Accusing Jews of being responsible for the actions of Israel is antisemitic. Yet this line of questioning went on for nearly an hour while the Commissioner allowed it.
There is something seriously wrong here.
Ossip, for his part, said he was unequipped to answer, since he runs a Sydney communal organization, not Israel's defense ministry. He protested that these questions were inappropriate. Commissioner Bell responded that she would make that decision.
Her defense rested on narrow grounds. Ossip's written statement had referenced the timing of Israel's response relative to the Opera House rally, so procedural fairness, she reasoned, entitled counsel to test that specific claim, and she rejected the accusation that her ruling had let the inquiry be hijacked. Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin had used sharper language, accusing the advocacy groups of exploiting a hearing on lethal antisemitism to stage a foreign-policy spectacle.
There has been backlash. Premier Chris Minns called it a disappointing turn away from Australian antisemitism and toward foreign-policy litigation of an Australian citizen. Liberal Senator James Paterson said a commission convened to fight antisemitism had instead facilitated it. Labor MP Josh Burns made the structural point: treating a Jewish communal leader as accountable for Israel's government is the same move as treating any Jew as accountable for it, which is the collective-blame pattern the commission exists to study.
One would think that a commission meant to understand antisemitism would, after months of investigation and research and testimony, have an idea of what the word means. To bend over backwards to accommodate those who support a global intifada over the Jews who are under siege in Australia is beyond obscene. It indicates that the entire commission may be worse than useless.
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