23 July 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Tucker Carlson, who is easily the top opinion-leader of Trump’s political base, was interviewed on July 19th for two hours by BILD (or “Picture”), which is the far-right (pro-imperialist and militarist), pro-CDU/CSU and pro-Likud, German newspaper that’s allied with Israel’s far-right newspaper Israel Hayom, which is owned by the far-right Israeli-American mega-billionaire Miriam Adelson, who was a top megadonor both to Trump and to Netanyahu and wants all Gazans eliminated from Gaza (though she is not so stupid as to have said it explicitly and publicly).

To my knowledge, the only other time when Carlson was publicly interviewed was by Lex Fridman on 27 February 2024, but this 19 July 2025 interview of him by BILD was far more revealing about Carlson personally — he explained his political views, and their roots in his personal background. This interview of him thus provides perhaps the most broadly representative statement of the world-view (ideology) that Trump’s voting-base hold, so that Trump’s voting-base can be understood — how they see the world. (This isn’t necessarily Trump’s world-view — he often lies — but it is instead the world-view that is broadly held by the individuals who vote for him. To the extent that Trump is being honest with his voters, it represents also his own world-view.)

Highlights below show the conflict between the views by Carlson (who is anti-imperialist) and the views by BILD (which totally supports U.S. imperialism), and also logical contradictions within the views by each of the two sides (because both of the participants here base their beliefs upon the Bible, which rampantly self-contradicts and thus can be interpreted in many self-contradictory ways and actually leaves no other real guidance for ethics than the proverbial “Might makes right,” or “The Almighty alone determines what is right and what is wrong” — what philosophers call the “Divine Command Theory”, and that theory underlies both Carlson’s and BILD’s views, which is why both men are called “conservative.”). So: this is to understand BOTH Carlson’s views (which are anti-imperialistic) and the views (which accept and endorse U.S. imperialism and Israeli imperialsim) of the individuals who run Germany and virtually all of the EU (but the interview ignored Israel except in passing references to Trump’a bombing of Iran — there was nothing at all about the Palestinians):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZJTFnRKxMM

“Exclusive: Paul Ronzheimer meets Tucker Carlson | RONZHEIMER.”

19 July 2025. 232,567 views. Paul Ronzheimer is BILD’s deputy editor-in-chief.

Transcript

2:45

I think the promise of

2:47

America is the first amendment, is freedom of speech. It’s, it’s not simply just a bullet point on a list of rights

2:54

in our system. It is considered a God-given right and the purpose of government is to protect that right.

2:59

[Actually, the U.S. Constitution was written before there were ANY Amendments to it, and makes no reference to any god — nor does any of its Amendments. Furthermore, its opening, its Preamble, says that the U.S. Government will serve the American People, not any god — certainly nothing in the Christian Bible, which Carlson falsely places as being a higher authority in America than our Founders’ 100% secular Constitution. Carlson thereby implicitly denigrates America’s Founders for their non-sectarianism, their secularism, our Founders’ transcendance of mere faith (which any religion relies upon and is based upon) and he by-passes and contradicts the Constitution itself and relies directly upon the 613 Commandments in the first five books of the Bible, and especiallly upon the Ten Commandments — some of which are violated (contradicted) by others of the Bible’s Commandments (such as Deuteronomy 20:16-18) as being the foundation of his own personal ethical viewpoint. He even admitted at 2:18, “I’m a not very self-aware person”; so, his internal contradictions — self-contradictions — aren’t of much interest to him.]

…

3:18

Certain rights as our documents are

3:21

describing are inaliable. They cannot be taken away. You’re born with them because you’re created by God and God [NOT the U.S. Constitution]

3:27

bestowed those on you. And so the only purpose of government is to protect those rights. That is the American

3:32

system in a sentence. And I believe in it.

3:35

…

3:48

And I completely believe in our

3:50

system. I think it’s been distorted and corrupted, of course, as all human systems are. But I think um Americans

3:57

are basically good people in the most beautiful place on the planet. I’ve been

4:02

everywhere. I can say that. I think it’s the prettiest place. And um and I think we have the best system. And so my

4:10

goal is to try to preserve that system simply by exercising the core right it

4:16

bestows, which is the freedom of speech. That’s it. 

4:19

…

32:04

I look at the leaders, especially on your continent, which I can’t overstate. I

32:07

mean, my ancestors are from Europe, but I love Europe and I spent a lot of the year in Europe. And I look at your leaders, Starmer, your absurd leader in

32:15

Germany [Merz], all these little tiny people. BILD: You mean Friedrich Merz, or you mean Olaf Scholz [his predecessor]? We have a new leader.

32:20

CARLSON: Oh, I I follow it and I know that [about] both of them. I would say all I don’t want to single anybody out because I consider

32:27

them all midgets, but more — BILD: but Trump likes him. They have

32:32

a good connection. CARLSON: Who knows what Trump thinks of him? I’m just saying he’s absurd. BILD: Why? CARLSON: Because if you think that the

32:40

answer to Germany’s many and growing problems is fighting a war with Russia, you’re an absurd human being. If you

32:47

can’t even defend your own, first of all, if you’re allowing foreign troops on your soil, you have no self-respect at all. We have 35 33 35,000 American

32:55

troops on German soil. They’ve been there for 80 years. BILD: Well, I would say how are they doing that? What would we have done without US

33:00

troops? I would say. CARLSON: I mean, what are you talking about? BILD: Well, they saved us. CARLSON: The Soviet Union fell in the summer of

33:06

1991. You tell me what American troops are saving you from. American troops. And I love American troops. I am

33:12

American. Okay? I’m not against American troops. I know a lot of American troops. I’m merely saying foreign troops from

33:19

another nation on your soil is degrading. It’s totally degrading. And

33:24

that is a like basic fact that everyone knows in one of the reasons we had a revolution in this country and threw off

33:30

the colonial yoke of England was because British troops were stationed on our soil dating our daughters, degrading us.

33:38

And that is like a very basic fact that has been consistent through all history.

33:44

When you have foreign soldiers on your soil, you do not have sovereignty. And it’s very hard to have self-respect. And

33:50

the fact that no one in Germany can say that, no one in Germany can say, “Wait a second, Russia got eliminated in 1947

33:59

by the United States, Great Britain, and Stalin.” And we’ve never reconstituted

34:04

it. The heart of Germany. We we’re we’re so embarrassed. And I’m saying this as someone who loves the Germanic people. I

34:10

am a Germanic person. I don’t understand how any German leader

34:16

could put up with the level of humiliation that Germany has put up with for 80 years. There’s no one living in

34:22

Germany was responsible for the crimes of the 1930s and 40s. I don’t understand why you’re continuing to pay

34:28

reparations [to Israel], continuing to allow your country to be occupied [by U.S. forces]. I

34:34

don’t understand why you don’t assert sovereignty. And the truth is the German, Germanic peoples and I’m including you

34:40

know the Dutch and the Scandinavians and a lot of the English as sure you know all Germanic. It’s all Germanic.

34:48

They are what makes Europe great. Actually they’re the hardest working, the smartest, the tidiest, the cleanest,

34:54

the most punctual. Those are values that I think are important. Actually I don’t mock those. Those are real. I don’t know

35:01

how people who did everything the Germanic peoples did could allow themselves to be degraded and could

35:06

internalize the hate and allow it to become selfhate. And whenever you bring even now I’m talking to you, I can tell

35:11

it’s making you uncomfortable I’m saying that. BILD: No, I don’t have selfhate. Russia, it’s like I don’t have selfhate. CARLSON: But what what happened to Prussia? I

35:19

don’t understand. That’s Berlin. Like what? How could you allow a foreign power to say you can no longer have a

35:25

region? And no one in the subsequent years has ever said, “Wait a second. this is our country. We’ll we’ll call

35:30

our regions whatever we want to call them. We’re going to call this Prussia and we’re going to boot out foreign troops. Doesn’t mean we’re going to

35:35

invade anyone or be invaded. We are a great country. So any leader who doesn’t say that has my contempt.

35:42

…

35:49

BILD: If we talk about the situation right now, I would say that many Germans are happy

35:54

that there is American troops on the ground. CARLSON: Sure they are. They’ve [Germans have] been brainwashed.

36:00

BILD: Well, they’re afraid. There’s people who are afraid of Russia and of Russian troops. CARLSON: I’m sure your whole country is afraid of

36:05

Russia and Russian troops. That’s the sad thing. But you’re not afraid of millions of migrants [from the lands that have been laid waste by U.S. coups and invasions] who are wrecking your country. And it’s a kind of weird

36:11

massochism with the Germans. And it bothers me because they don’t deserve it because they’re inherently impressive

36:16

and have been for since they took down Rome. BILD: Who took down Rome? CARLSON: The Germanic tribes because they’re amazing

36:22

people. I don’t think they should sack Rome. I’m not saying that. I think what happened obviously in your country in 80

36:28

years was disgusting. I hate all that. Of course I hate all that. It’s anti-Christian, anti-semitic. I hate

36:35

everything about it. However, that doesn’t mean that your culture is worthless or that you should give it up

36:42

to people from nobody Africa. Like, what are you doing? And it’s wrecking your

36:47

country. And no one can say anything about it. What it does is like, oh, you’re a Nazi. I’m not a Nazi. I’m a

36:53

German. I want German. Germany for Germans. Like, why is that bad to say

37:00

when you’re at dinner with a German? And I’m like, what the hell is going on? Why are you letting all these people into

37:05

your country to live on the street, rape people, trash your country? They’re like, they can’t talk about it. They get

37:10

so like, shut up.

37:12

…

48:56

BILD: Putin is a bit different. No, I mean he’s he was an intelligence officer. He knows how to control emotions. CARLSON: They’re

49:02

all in. You know, that’s what I’m not defending Putin, who I think has done a great job for Russia. Much better job than any German leader. That’s for sure.

49:09

Your country is going down. Russia’s going up. You should be mad at your own leaders. You’re mad at Putin instead.

49:14

Makes me laugh. BILD: Putin is a war criminal instead. CARLSON: War criminal, right? BILD:  Who? CARLSON: Well, Angal Merkel wrecked your country through mass

49:20

migration. But she’s not a criminal. How does that work? She literally wrecked your country. It will not

49:25

recover in your lifetime or mine. But she’s cool because why? BILD: I didn’t say she’s cool, but I mean — CARLSON: she’s a criminal,

49:31

She let millions of people into your country didn’t and it hasn’t worked.

49:36

…

54:32

What is Ukraine? Is it a sovereign country? No. It exists at the

54:37

pleasure of NATO. And that would be two main countries, the United States and Germany, its most important NATO ally.

54:44

Now there is a provision in the NATO agreement which is often invoked in conversation that says when a NATO ally

54:52

is attacked the other nations of NATO the signitories to the treaty defend that

54:58

nation. So here you have a situation where

55:03

Germany was attacked in the largest act of [U.S.] industrial sabotage [blowing up the Russian-German-owned Nord Stream pipelines] in human history was also the largest man-made CO2

55:11

emission in history. By the way, I thought we were worried about the climate. Apparently not. And the United States did that. Now, whether they did

55:17

it through the Norwegians or through the Ukrainians, it doesn’t matter. The Biden administration said they were going to do it and they did it and they never

55:23

denied it. And Germany sat there and allowed its main NATO ally to attack it.

55:28

And then whenever you bring it up, as I have many times like, “Hey, German guy I’m having dinner with.” Like, “What the

55:34

was that? Why did you allow your NATO ally to destroy your main source of

55:40

cheap energy?” And they’re like, “Oh, shut up.” And it’s like, “Get some

55:46

self-respect. Demand baseline treatment that any human being would

55:52

demand. Don’t lie to me. Don’t sabotage my economy. Don’t pretend to be my ally when you’re actually hurting me.” Like,

56:00

the world would be a lot safer and happier and more prosperous. I mean, Germany leads Europe. Germany is Europe. That’s that’s my position as a

56:06

non-European. It’s like that is Europe. Then if Germany dies, if its economy dies, and it’s dying, as you know,

56:12

everyone’s lying about it, but it is, then Europe is gone, and Europe is the

56:17

light of the world. It’s the light of the world. Everything from the printing press to democracy, everything that we

56:24

care about comes from Europe. And it’s lost confidence in itself. 

56:27

…

59:26

The whole people’s standard of living is declining really fast. As you know, people are not having children. That’s the clearest sign of

59:32

civilizational collapse, obviously. So, there’s a lot of pent-up rage and in

59:38

Germany, a lot of it, as I’ve said 10 times, is self-hatred. There’s a lot of rage in Europe, and I feel it every time

59:43

I’m there. And so, the Russia Ukraine war is a perfect

59:48

safety relief valve for European leaders to be like, “No, no, it’s Putin’s fault.” 

59:54

…

1:15:21

Ukraine is the loser. Now I feel sorry for Ukraine. I feel sorry for Ukrainians who like many populations around the

1:15:27

world have learned the hard lesson which is you follow the kind of fickle and mercurial dictates of the US government.

1:15:34

…

1:33:42

You’re not allowed to have certain opinions in Germany. They’re illegal. They’re against German law. You just said that. And that tells me

1:33:49

conclusively that you do not live in a democracy. No matter what you tell yourself, it’s a democracy. We’ve we elect people, lawmakers, we’ve got our

1:33:55

chancellor. It’s not a democracy unless the average person, the average citizen, the average Drummond can say what he

1:34:01

thinks. If he’s not allowed to say what he thinks, then he has no power. He has only fake power. If you can’t say what

1:34:07

you really think, what really matters to you, what you actually believe, whether I agree with it or not, then you are not

1:34:12

a citizen. You are a slave. No different than German citizens were slaves at other periods in German history. And I’m

1:34:19

just saying it’s important if you’re going to pretend to be a democracy to actually be one. That’s all I’m saying.

1:34:25

——

The issue of Germany’s providing 30% of the weapons for the extermination of Gazans and for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from the West Bank was not raised, nor was America’s providing 69% of Israel’s weapons (and much of the planning for Israel’s attacks). Furthermore, the U.S., under Trump, has accelerated its participation in the extermination of the Gazans by allowing Israel to increasingly replace what had been U.N. food deliveries to Gaza by instead private ‘charities’ that are controlled by the U.S. Government which use their food supplies as bait (like “baiting the hook” in fishing) in order to more efficiently slaughter Gazans — bring them together for mass-slaughter. Here are highlights from two recent U.N. reports about this:

——

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165396

https://archive.ph/9DoFC

“Gaza: 875 people confirmed dead trying to source food in recent weeks”

15 July 2025

“As of 13 July, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food; 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites,” said Thameen Al-Kheetan, OHCHR spokesperson, referencing the US-Israeli run private organization which has bypassed regular humanitarian operations.

The remaining 201 victims were killed while seeking food “on the routes of aid convoys or near aid convoys” run by the UN or UN-partners still operating in the war-shattered enclave, Mr. Al-Kheetan told journalists in Geneva.

Killings linked to the controversial US and Israeli-backed aid hubs began shortly after they started operating in southern Gaza on 27 May, bypassing the UN and other established NGOs. …

“Our teams on the ground – UNRWA teams and other United Nations teams – have spoken to survivors of these killings, these starving children included, who were shot at while on their way to pick up very little food,” said Juliette Touma, UNRWA Director of Communications. …

“We’ve been banned from bringing in any humanitarian assistance into Gaza for more than four months now,” she said, before pointing to a “significant increase” in child malnutrition since the Israeli blockade began on 2 March.

Ms. Touma added: “We have 6,000 trucks waiting in places like Egypt, like Jordan; it’s from Jordan to the Gaza Strip it’s a three-hour drive, right?”

In addition to food supplies, these UN trucks contain other vital if basic supplies including bars of soap. “Medicine and food are going to soon expire if we’re not able to get those supplies to people in Gaza who need it most, among them one million children who are half of the population of the Gaza Strip,” Ms. Touma continued.

West Bank: ‘Silent war is surging’

Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, Palestinians continue to be killed in violence allegedly linked to Israeli settlers and security forces, UN agencies said. …

“It is causing the largest population displacement of the Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967,” Ms. Touma continued.

——

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165457

https://archive.ph/QiauW

“Gaza: UN staff now fainting from hunger, exhaustion; WHO worker detained”

22 July 2025

“Doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them UNRWA staff, are hungry…fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” said Juliette Touma, Director of Communications with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. …

The development comes as the UN human rights office, OHCHR, announced on Tuesday that more than 1,000 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israeli military while trying to get food in the Strip since the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) started operating on 27 May. 

“As of 21 July, we have recorded 1,054 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food,” said OHCHR spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan. “766 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites and 288 near UN and other humanitarian organizations’ aid convoys.” 

Mr. Al-Kheetan noted that the finding came from “multiple reliable sources on the ground, including medical teams, humanitarian and human rights organizations. It is still being verified in line with our strict methodology.”

The foundation’s hubs are supported by the US and Israeli authorities and started operating in southern Gaza on 27 May, bypassing the UN and other established non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

“The so-called GHF distribution scheme is a sadistic death-trap,” UNRWA’s Ms. Touma said. “Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they’re given a license to kill.” 

Quoting a statement by UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini, Ms. Touma called the scheme a “massive hunt of people in total impunity”.

“This cannot be our new norm. Humanitarian assistance is not the job of mercenaries,” she added. …

“We at UNRWA have stocks of hygiene supplies, including diapers for babies and for adults waiting outside the gates of Gaza,” Ms. Touma stressed, insisting that the agency has 6,000 trucks loaded with food, medicines and hygiene supplies waiting in Egypt and in Jordan to be allowed into the enclave.

——

Also on July 22nd, America’s own National Public Radio headlined “Agence France-Presse says it wants to pull its hunger-stricken journalists out of Gaza” but hid — said nothing about — the U.S. Government’s participation in this exterminate-the-Gazans operation. The unconcern about it by Trump’s voting-base, and the merely hypocritical concern about it by America’s liberal colonies (‘allies’), such as Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden, will then have created the world’s first-ever genocide that is demonstrable in real time but univerally allowed notwithstanding the blatancy of its violating international laws.

However, this blatancy is destroying the U.N. I have elsewhere described how I think that the U.N. ought to be replaced, or else its Charter Amended, in order to end America’s hegemony over the world without a nuclear war that would kill half of the world’s populations within two years after the explosions.

America’s Democrats respond to all this by blaming the Republicans, and its Republicans instead blame the Democrats, but BOTH American Parties are controlled by America’s approximately 1,000 billionaires, and their only differences from one-another concern how blatantly their agents should rule the country on behalf of the billionaires. Of course, none of that was mentioned by Carlson. He always ignores this reality. As he said, “I’m a not very self-aware person.” He thus supports Trump, who appointed as America’s top General in Europe a man who now is threatening, and is planning, to invade Russia, in order to take a region of Russia. Blaming Democrats is just as stupid as blaming Republicans. Both Parties are intensely neoconservative — fascist-imperialist. Both are controlled by their megadonors. Carlson ignores that reality.

If anyone here knows Carlson and can send this commentary to him, I would much appreciate it, because I would like to discuss these matters with him, not just write about them.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

https://theduran.com/tucker-carlson-insulted-germanys-chancellors-to-bild-newspaper/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

ROBERT MANNE

On Jillian Segal’s Report into Combating Antisemitism

Several excellent critiques of Jillian Segal’s “Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism” have appeared, by Louise Adler (The Guardian), Henry Reynolds (Pearls and Irritations), Nick Feik (substack), Guy Rundle (substack) and Jeffrey Loewenstein (Pearls and Irritations). I would like to add a few additional words.

Segal suggests, at the very least by inference, that antisemitism is the most dangerous form of racism in contemporary Australia. Accordingly, her report calls for action against antisemitism in ways that go beyond any protections offered any other group. This “privileging” of antisemitism is absurd. The most dangerous form of racism in Australian history and in contemporary Australia is anti-indigenous racism, something one still reads about every day.

The settlement of Australia involved the near-destruction of Aboriginal society. By contrast there is probably no country in the world—including even the United States—where Jews have been treated more justly and equally than Australia. Isaac Isaacs, a Jew, was one of the original High Court judges. Later he became Australian Governor-General. Our most revered soldier is probably John Monash, a Jew. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, following the vicious anti-Jewish action in Germany, “Kristallnacht”, and the German annexation of Austria, Australia offered refuge for up to 15,000 refugees from Germany and Austria. The chief sponsor of this offer was the Australian High Commissioner in London, the former old-fashioned “liberal” Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce. Both my parents, who met in Australia, were beneficiaries.

If I might speak personally, even though I was involved in two controversies that concerned Australia and the Jews—the Helen Demidenko Affair and the question of the Hawke Government’s War Crimes legislation—I have experienced antisemitic attacks in my life only twice.

The first occasion occurred when I was in my late teens. I part-owned a rental house. One of the tenants, who was a criminal, called me a “Jewboy” when I came around to collect unpaid rent.

The second occasion occurred in 1989 when I was co-editor of Quadrant. After I wrote “Left of the Urals”, a short article opposing the Hawke Government’s War Crimes legislation, principally on the grounds that Japanese war criminals were excluded, I was accused of being a (Jewish) antisemite by Isi Leibler, the most powerful figure in the Jewish community at that time.

I know from talking to Jewish friends that others’ experience of antisemitism was greater than mine. Nonetheless I’m sure that the antisemitic-free air I have breathed in throughout my life in Australia was by no means unique. The most reliable index of social attitudes in Australia—the Scanlon Report—shows that following October 7 and its aftermath negative images of Jews have risen from 9% to 13%.

It is obviously true, as the Segal report suggests, that over the past twenty months there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents. The putatively most important instance of post-October 7 antisemitism was a hoax. The two other important actions so far have been two arson attacks on synagogues. Thankfully, so far as I am aware, there has not been even one case of a physical attack on a Jew. What however is remarkable about the Segal report is that in its entirety there is not one word about the cause of this rise in antisemitic incidents following the Israeli response to the vicious Hamas-led attack on Israelis of October 7 2023.

On October 7 1200 Israeli Jews were murdered and 250 taken as hostages. In response the Israeli armed forces have slaughtered at least 60,000 Gazan Palestinians, and more likely 100,000, the majority of whom were entirely innocent women and children and also men. More than double that number have been seriously wounded with only the slimmest hope of medical aid. The modus operandi of the Israeli armed forces, the self-congratulatory supposed “most moral army” in the world, has been ratios of 20 or 50 innocent Gazans killed, as regrettable “collateral damage”, in pursuit of one member of Hamas. Food, fuel, water, medical supplies have been cut off for significant periods of time. Seventy percent of buildings in Gaza, including hospitals, universities, schools and administrative facilities have been systematically reduced to rubble.

Australians have been able to observe what Israel has done to Gaza on social media and on their television screens, even though journalists are forbidden entry into Gaza, for their protection of course. The more politically engaged or savvy among them will have noticed that not one of the many powerful Jewish organisations in Australia—including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry on whose Board Jillian Segal once served as President—has condemned or even questioned the almost unbelievably pitiless brutality of the post-October 7 Israeli destruction of Gaza.

Having failed to mention the self-evident cause of the relatively modest rise in antisemitic feeling, antisemitism is treated in Segal’s report as the most dangerous and insidious form of racism in contemporary Australia. Accordingly, the Segal report suggests measures whose censoriousness goes beyond anything in Australian legal history.

Australian law outlines powerful and once controversial protection against all forms of hate speech in article 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. This is not sufficient protection according to Segal. What she proposes is not only individual but also organisational responsibility for any antisemitism in speech or action discovered on their turf. According to her proposal some unidentified body, perhaps made up of members of the Jewish community, should monitor both public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, and every university and cultural institution in Australia, for any instance of antisemitism. Segal proposes that some of their government funding be taken away from public broadcasters or universities (including protests) or cultural institutions if some so far unidentified body decides that in action or speech such an incident has occurred. So far as I am aware, nothing like this has ever before been proposed in Australian history. It comes straight from the contemporary playbook of President Donald Trump.

There is no suggestion in the Segal report that government funding should also be stripped from universities, public broadcasters and cultural institutions if instances of First Nations’ racism, Islamophobia, misogyny or homophobia are discovered there. The choice Segal offers is stark. Either the only form of bigotry to be monitored and punished in universities, public broadcasters and cultural institutions by loss of government funds is antisemitism, or bigotry directed against indigenous Australians, Muslims, women and gays should also be monitored in publicly-funded institutions and where appropriate punished. According to Segal either antisemitism is the only truly serious form of bigotry in Australia, or universities, public broadcasters and cultural institutions will become subject to a regime of censoriousness without parallel in Australian history.

As we have recently discovered because of the investigative journalism of the independent online media platform, The Klaxon, the man to whom Jillian Segal is married is the partner with his brother of a Trust that in 2023 and 2024 donated $50,000 to “Advance”, the most significant mainstream far right movement in Australia, that led the campaign against the indigenous Voice to Parliament and that has described Prime Minister Albanese as “weak, woke and broke”. Taking cover behind political correctness, Segal has claimed she had nothing to do with her husband’s political activities or he with hers, and that it was outrageous to suggest otherwise. She refused to tell The Guardian whether she knew about the $50,000 donation or what she thinks about “Advance”.

Segal’s thoughts about “Advance” and her husband’s $50,000 donation matter. Segal’s desire to monitor the ABC and SBS and to strip funds from them if they are found to have allowed antisemitic content onto their programs is consistent with one of the most conspicuous perennial demands of the mainstream far right in Australia, the attack on the ABC. I am now a devoted listener to the most politically sophisticated arm of the ABC, Radio National. In several years I have not even once encountered a program that could even remotely be regarded as antisemitic.

How will the existence of antisemitic content be discovered? Here we arrive at another novel and extraordinary suggestion. Segal believes that a 2016 definition of antisemitism, developed at a conference in Bucharest—"the IHRA non-legally binding definition of antisemitism”—should become mandatory for all individuals and organisations in Australia. So far as I am aware we do not live in a totalitarian country. Accordingly, we are free to decide for ourselves our own definition of what constitutes antisemitism and even to decide that definitions are not the best way of deciding whether an antisemitic incident in speech or action has occurred.

As it happens, the IHRA definition, which was drafted six years before October 7 and its aftermath, is replete with references to the relation of antisemitism and Israel. The definition concedes that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”. However it then asserts that it is antisemitic to claim that Israel invents or exaggerates the Holocaust; that it is antisemitic to claim that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the country where they live; that it is antisemitic to compare the actions of Israel to the actions of the Nazis; and that it is antisemitic to deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.”

In general, I agree with these claims and the other parts of the definition. However, I believe that it is wrong to make such a definition mandatory on individuals and organisations and to go beyond the 2016 Bucharest conference participants by rendering the definition “legally binding”. There is more than enough wriggle room in the IHRA definition to allow a clever lawyer to present a case that an entirely legitimate discussion about Israel in general and, in particular, Israel-in-Gaza is antisemitic.

Let one example suffice. There are scores of genocide scholars who believe, as I do, that since the Hamas atrocity of October 7 2023 Israel has been carrying out policies of both ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian peoples of Gaza.

By slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children; by withholding altogether or restricting radically supplies of food, water, fuel, medicines and medical supplies; by reducing to rubble most of the buildings in Gaza—what Israel is telling the Palestinians of Gaza by its unmistakable action is: you have no future in Gaza. President Trump’s fleeting fancy about transforming Gaza into the Middle Eastern Riviera was music to Israeli ears. The current ethnic cleansing fantasy action plan is to collect all the Palestinian people of Gaza inside a massive tent city on the ruins of Rafah where they might find food and medicine and freedom from bomb attack but from where, until transported to another country, they would not be permitted to leave. Even as it pulverises Gaza, Israel prides itself on having the world’s “most moral army”. In a rare example of black humour, Israel’s great oppositional newspaper, Ha’aretz, recently described this latest means for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza as “the world’s most moral concentration camp”.

The second half of this claim—the overlapping claim of genocide—is also strong. According to the international convention, the crime of genocide occurs when a state attempts to eliminate or destroy a nation, race, ethnicity or religion “in whole or in part”. The Palestinian nation is principally concentrated in two localities—in Gaza and on the West Bank. To eliminate Palestinian existence in Gaza involves the destruction of the Palestinian people “in part”. Unlike ethnic cleansing, the charge of genocide relies on intentions as well as actions. For the crime of genocide to be proven what must be demonstrated is that beyond the actions taken to ethnically cleanse Gaza the intention to destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part can be found. Especially in the early days, following October 7, the President, Isaac Herzog; the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; the Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant; and the two far right members of the Cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, all spoke in ways that unambiguously suggested genocidal intent, as did scores of Israeli commentators. The Israeli public was now frequently reminded that God had required his people to exterminate the enemy of the Israelites, the Amalekites.

Because concentration camps and genocide are (wrongly) associated in the public mind almost exclusively with the Holocaust, I believe a clever lawyer would be able to use one detail of the mandatory IHRA definition—“Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”—to “prove” that anyone who argues that Israel is establishing concentration camps in preparation for ethnic cleansing in Gaza or that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is an antisemite.

Another kind of discussion, one concerned not with the IHRA definition but with the difficult issue of “balance”, might lead to a similar outcome. During the debate about climate change a seminal article showed how “balance” could be “bias”. Similarly in a discussion of, say, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, balance does not mean putting the case for Russia and for Ukraine in equal measure. It involves condemnation of the unprovoked Russian invasion. Balance does not rest on false equivalences but on judgment. In my judgment, any discussion of October 7 and its aftermath which denied the evil of the Hamas attack on the Israeli Jews and that concentrated exclusively on the Israeli actions since the Hamas atrocity could reasonably be said to lack balance and even be open to the charge of antisemitism. However, an unvarnished discussion of the evil that Israel has done to the innocent people of Gaza following but also preceding the horror of October 7 is not antisemitic but the truth. These include the occupation policies of 1967 to 2005; the short military interventions that Israelis call “mowing the grass” after their supposed departure in 2005; and the ethnic cleansing and the genocide post-October 2023 in the war/slaughter against Hamas. It is the evil of these policies that climaxed following the horror of October 7 that Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism is trying to deny, with the apparent support of most of the organised Jewish community in Australia. If her report is adopted by the Albanese Government, it will not only strike the most serious blow against both freedom of speech and academic freedom in Australia in recent decades. It will also almost certainly strengthen rather than combat the post-October 7 growth of antisemitism in Australia.

Hannah Arendt once confessed that the crimes and mistakes of her own people, the Jews, were more painful to her than the crimes and mistakes of others. That is how I feel. The former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, who is certainly no dove, recently wrote that the actions of Israel-in-Gaza caused him to feel “heart-broken and ashamed”. That is also precisely how I feel.

Robert Manne AO, FASSA, is Emeritus Professor of Politics and a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University. His most recent book is A Political Memoir: Intellectual Combat in the Cold War and the Culture Wars (La Trobe University Press).

https://robertmanne.substack.com/p/on-jillian-segals-report-into-combating?

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

Segal’s antisemitism plan takes us down a path we should fear to tread

This week, the federal government joined 27 other nations in condemning Israel’s “drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic need of water and food”. That same government’s own antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, also published a report which proposed that universities, arts organisations and perhaps even public broadcasters should have funding stripped if they “engage in or facilitate antisemitism”.

This raises a question: if the words of the Australian government came instead from an academic, or artist at a festival, would it risk their public funding? The government is making grave allegations against Israel – ones that enrage its Israeli and American counterparts. It’s possible some people could misuse those allegations to bolster their hatred of Jews, especially in the cesspit of social media. Could the government’s words be taken to “facilitate antisemitism” under their own envoy’s plan?

Personally, I think not. Trump and Netanyahu might disagree. And that’s a worry.

The definition of antisemitism Segal wants used to determine when institutions fall foul of it – drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – states “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.

Accordingly, those suggesting the envoy’s report condemns all criticism of Israel as antisemitism overstate the position. But the trouble is it’s very difficult to know by how far. By what criteria, exactly, is someone to determine when anti-Israeli commentary becomes antisemitic? It’s a crucial question when you’re specifically proposing to make research grants terminable if the academic receiving those funds “engages in antisemitic … speech or actions”. Or when you propose to strip charities of their tax deductibility if they “promote speakers” who “promote antisemitism”. Define this too broadly and you silence perfectly legitimate debate. Define it too narrowly, and these proposals have no purpose at all. Either way, it would need to be defined extremely clearly.

The IHRA definition doesn’t quite match this brief in two ways. Firstly, it is deliberately drafted vaguely because it describes itself merely as a working definition: guiding, illustrative and non-binding. Its drafters intended it more for the purposes of data collection than meting out punishment: a filter, not a sword.

Secondly, the illustrative examples attached to the definition, which outline the kinds of criticisms of Israel that would amount to antisemitism, were not unanimously adopted by those drafting it. One drafter, Antony Lerman, recalls there was so much disagreement about them that they were severed from the part of the definition to be formally adopted, to obtain a consensus. That’s significant because it is in the examples that most of the controversy resides. It leaves a breach, now flooded by the most febrile cacophony, largely because this has become a contest to draw sharp lines to define something that simply cannot be defined that way.

Take one common example, most recently reiterated by the chair of one of Australia’s most influential Jewish advocacy organisations: that it is antisemitic, amounting to a “blood libel”, to accuse Israel of genocide. Fine, if the allegation rests on some trope that Jews by their nature delight in slaughtering children and are merely searching for an excuse to do so. Or if the accusation is so wildly fanciful that only the most prejudiced, conspiratorial mind could entertain it.

But in just this past week alone, Omer Bartov – an Israeli genocide scholar who once served in the IDF – published an essay in The New York Times arguing genocide is now the only label that fits Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Meanwhile, former British Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption examined Israel’s most recent words and actions in a cover story for The New Statesman and argued that, while it is debatable, “a court would be likely to regard that as genocide”.

Many pro-Israeli readers will take issue with these arguments. But there isn’t an antisemitic trope among them. They are precisely the kinds of arguments that would be made about another state behaving as Israel is. Dispute them, by all means. But to dismiss them – by definition – as simple blood libels is to expand the definition of antisemitism beyond tolerable limits.

To apply something that elusive to institutions of public debate such as universities, the arts, or public broadcasters is therefore hugely fraught. Indeed, if you believe Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition, it would be a “disaster” for Australia to do so. Not because the definition is bad, but because it wasn’t designed for this purpose. To “go after speech”, he says, undermines democracy and “blinds us to how antisemitism works”. It is also, he notes, unworkable if you begin to apply it to other forms of prejudice similarly. It proposes a standard for policing antisemitism that isn’t universalisable.

What would happen if the same applied for Islamophobia, or anti-Palestinian racism? Would an academic be defunded for saying pro-Palestinian protesters are doing Hamas’ work? Or would an organisation like the Australian Jewish Association lose its tax-deductible status for saying a Palestinian state is a “fabrication”, and that the Palestinians don’t even exist as a people except as a political strategy cooked up by the KGB?

Or what if these proposals were made in the name of a range of other prejudices: transphobia, homophobia, anti-Indigenous racism, sexism? Would we defund any researcher who adopted a biological definition of a woman? No doubt some would welcome this – though those people would likely be aghast at Jillian Segal’s proposals. And no doubt many would rail against it as rampant wokeism, drastically undermining free speech – though many of these people are now silent, and certainly not criticising the Segal plan for embodying some kind of woke logic.

The only way these competing claims could cohere would be to shrink each one back to such a minimal position we would end somewhere like where we started: with discrimination, vilification and hate speech outlawed, and courts determining cases at the margins. Laws that have seen a man convicted of antisemitic hate speech, and a woman compensated for being unjustly fired for her pro-Palestinian commentary.

Much more than that, and it quickly becomes a matter of which group’s experience of prejudice is deemed most important. That’s not a road a multicultural liberal democracy can walk. It’s also not a road a country like ours has ever really walked before.

Waleed Aly is a broadcaster, author, academic and regular columnist.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/segal-s-antisemitism-plan-takes-us-down-a-path-we-should-fear-to-tread-20250723-p5mhc1.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.