NSW inquiry chair says ‘globalise the intifada’ should be banned while Jewish groups want other phrases prohibited | New South Wales politics

The head of the New South Wales inquiry into whether the phrase “globalising the intifada” should be criminalized says his draft report will recommend banning the controversial slogan, while leading Jewish groups have also called for “river to sea” and “death to the IDF” to be banned.

Labor MP Edmond Atalla said the state parliamentary inquiry into “measures to ban slogans that incite hatred” would not publish individual submissions. The investigation was closed to public submissions last week and there will be no public hearings.

The NSW opposition has accused the government of conducting a “hasty” investigation without public transparency following the bondi beach terror attack in mid-December.

The legal and security committee was asked to review hate speech and impose a special requirement on the “globalization of the intifada”.

Intifada, which means uprising or “total shake-up” in Arabic, is used by pro-Palestinian supporters to refer to the uprisings against Israel in 1987 and 2000. Members of the Jewish community said it was a call to violence against Jews.

Atalla said his personal opinion was that it was “not unreasonable” to ban the phrase. He said that as president he would recommend banning the phrase in his draft report.

The labour-majority committee can then decide whether to make changes to the report before it is tabled at the end of the month.

“I speak Arabic and I know exactly what the word is. [intifada] Atalla, who was born into a Coptic Christian family of Egyptian origin, said this has meaning and historical significance.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the Bondi massacre was an act of intifada… [alleged] Terrorists against Jews.”

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Atalla told Guardian Australia that only expert and organizational presentations would be published on the committee’s website. About 150 To date, six have been uploaded, marked as confidential and inaccessible.

In its submission, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies proposed creating a new hate speech offense for phrases such as “globalising the intifada”, “river to sea” and “death to the IDF”. The board said the statements were “so hateful in nature that they call for violence, ethnic cleansing or death.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jews (ECAJ) approved the panel’s recommendation, which allows the accused to claim he had a “reasonable excuse” for using or displaying a “hateful expression”.

University of Sydney constitutional law expert Prof Anne Twomey said the proposal to ban certain political chants raised “difficult legal issues that are not yet fully developed in areas of jurisprudence”.

Twomey advised the NSW government to adhere to “content-neutral legislation that is closely linked to preventing specific, serious harm to society”.

In its presentation, the Palestine Action Group said that it did not lead the slogan “Globalize the Intifada” in rallies held after October 2023. The group rejected “any suggestion that this hymn or any hymn associated with it is threatening in any way.”

The Progressive Jewish Council of Australia said the term “intifada” “has been associated with violent acts in some historical contexts” but that this was “one of the interpretations of the term, not its inherent or specific meaning”. It was also stated that the phrase “river to sea” was “often mistakenly used as hateful.”

Individual applications contain many “pro forma” responses, Atalla said. When asked if they were mostly against banning the phrase “globalization of the intifada,” he said, “most of the individual views that I mentioned are against banning any kind of slogan.”

Damien Tudehope, the NSW opposition’s legal affairs spokesman, told the ABC last week that the investigation “risks becoming a lawmaking exercise” and that he had “serious doubts” about the government’s ability to outlaw the expression without a constitutional challenge.

Tudehope told Guardian Australia Atalla’s comments suggested there was a “predetermined outcome” of the investigation. He called for all submissions to be published and for Labor to embark on a “genuine, well-considered reform process”.

Atalla denied that the committee had already formed an opinion, stating that it was “my opinion, not the committee’s” to ban the “globalization of the intifada”.

“I will present that position to that committee, and then it is up to the committee to accept that position or have a different position,” he said.

In its submission, the Australian National Council of Imams argued that measures banning certain expressions would disproportionately affect Arab and Muslim Australians and that the word intifada has different meanings in different contexts.

Atalla said: “I do not accept that this affects the Islamic community, because ‘globalizing the intifada’ is a direct attack on the Jewish community. It is not an attack on the Islamic community.”

The committee consists of four Labor members, two crossover candidates and one National MP. The final report is expected to be delivered to the government by January 31 for a vote on the legislation when the parliament convenes in February.

NSW premier Chris Minns has repeatedly called for the phrase “globalise the intifada” to be banned following the Bondi beach attack.

Greens state justice spokeswoman Sue Higginson, who participated in the investigation, said international legal precedent showed that pro-Palestinian statements were not “inherently anti-Semitic”.

“If government MPs on this committee bother to hold a single public hearing, any constitutional lawyer would tell them that their quest to outlaw political slogans will fail in the courts and act as a shameless political distraction from evidence-based solutions to tackling the roots of antisemitism and racism,” Higginson said.