Jewish Group Files Complaint After Australian University Student Club Says Zionism Is ‘Inherently Antisemitic’

Benjamin Kerstein

Signs at a pro-BDS protest in New York following the US decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Photo: Reuters/Carlo Allegri.

A student club in Australia is now the object of an official complaint after it engaged in a series of anti-Zionist and antisemitic social media posts, including the claim that Zionism is “inherently antisemitic.”

The bizarre claim was made by the Students for Humanity club at the University of Technology-Sydney (UTS) in a series of Instagram and Facebook posts, the Australian Jewish News reported.

The club also claimed “Zionist mercenaries” committed bombings against the Iraqi and Egyptian Jewish communities to induce them to move to Israel, and that Israel then oppressed them when they did so.

“Zionism=anti-Semitism” declared one of the posts.

The Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) filed the complaint against Students for Humanity with ActivateUTS, which oversees clubs at the university.

The campus AUJS chapter said Students for Humanity violated the Clubs Code of Conduct against harassment and discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity.

AUJS public affairs coordinator Daniel Elberg said, “The club’s post was filled with historical revisionism, hurtful accusations and antisemitic tropes. To accuse the Jewish community of antisemitism is an incredible example of mental gymnastics and [UTS] must take action.”

Elberg and AUJS UTS President Lir Adani said, “To accuse the vast majority of Jewish people of being antisemitic is profoundly offensive and defamatory.”

Yallah, a group that advocates for Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, said, “It is deplorable that the UTS Students for Humanity society have denied our history and persecution in order to weaponize it for their political agenda.”

“If Students for Humanity is attempting to advocate against antisemitism … the only thing that they succeeded in doing is rewriting, erasing and undermining our history,” the group added.

Lesli Berger, President of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, said Students for Humanity’s posts were “patently false and profoundly offensive, and we call on the UTS authorities to enforce their own Code of Conduct to ensure that the students involved are appropriately disciplined.”