Witnesses who have given evidence into a hate inquiry sparked by the Bondi terror attack have since borne the brunt of hundreds of abusive online posts, which are largely still online.<\/p>\n
Some of the hateful posts have included calls for the reinstation of Holocaust gas chambers. <\/p>\n
CEO of The Dor Foundation Tahli Blicblau revealed on Tuesday at the Royal Commission on anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion that data collected by the not-for-profit organisation suggested a minimum of 26 witnesses in the first hearing block had been attacked online in 275 posts across seven platforms. <\/p>\n
Ms Blicblau also revealed preliminary findings suggested there had been 70 further examples of online hatred toward the five witnesses who presented at the commission on Monday. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The CEO said the comments sought to \u201cdelegitimise\u201d the witness testimonies by comparing them to \u201ccockroaches, vermin and parasites\u201d, sharing \u201cHolocaust glorification\u201d and asserting that the individuals \u201cwere crisis actors\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a whole body of examples in the Annexure that relate specifically to the Bondi terrorist attack being \u2026 fake, staged or self-inflicted.\u201d <\/p>\n
The online hatred involved sexually degrading abuse, accusations of pedophilia and calls for Australia to be \u201cthe 110th country to expel their Jewish population\u201d. <\/p>\n
A report by the Dor Foundation found many code words or deliberate misspelling techniques to avoid posts or comments being reported. <\/p>\n
As of the middle of June, Ms Blicblau said only five out of the 150 posts reported to Facebook had been removed, with two others pending amid investigation. <\/p>\n
Ms Blicblau said the horrific abuse witnesses have been subjected to online included calls for violence and direct harm as well as calls for the \u201cextermination and expulsion of Jews\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is dehumanising, it is degrading,\u201d she told reporters outside the commission on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe response from the platforms has been grossly inadequate and in most cases non-existent. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of documented examples of anti-Semitism online remain there today. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey include direct calls for violence and harms and despite multiple reports to platforms they have not been removed.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2018Arenas of hate\u2019 <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Victorian MP Joshua Burns has described social media platforms as the \u201carenas of hate\u201d and says more needs to be done to stamp out horrific instances of anti-Semitism online, an inquiry has been told.<\/p>\n
Mr Burns told the commission on Tuesday that he could count \u201con one hand\u201d the instances of Jewish hate he experienced prior to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. <\/p>\n
However, \u201csomething dramatic shifted\u201d in October 2023, he conceded. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut never did I grow up thinking being Jewish would be something I would have to hide or something that would prohibit me from reaching any part of Australian society or reaching any of the goals that I would have for my life or for my family,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mr Burns told reporters outside the commission that he wanted people to be able to express themselves online, criticise government policy and have a robust democracy and debate. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut unfortunately, where that descends and disintegrates into abuse and vilification is when people leave the discussion around policy and start making attributes to particular individuals based on their race, religion, gender and ethnicity,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, social media platforms are the arenas of hate \u2026 and they are the platforms in which people can spread messages of dehumanisation, racism and vilification.\u201d <\/p>\n
Social media platforms needed to \u201cprove\u201d they were not \u201camplifying\u201d hate, Mr Burns added. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut they are using the conflict and the vilification that is occurring from one group to another in order to attract people and put people online,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause to me that\u2019s what it seems like they\u2019re doing. That they are designing their algorithms in a way that is sending content that is only being reacted by the most inflammatory and awful responses in order to keep people on their platforms and I think they have a lot of air to breathe.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shocking anti-Semitism targets schoolgirls <\/p>\n
Mr Burns said on one occasion while in Canberra he had a group of year 9 girls from a Jewish school visiting. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I said to them \u2026 put up your hand if you\u2019ve experienced anti-Semitism. And they all put up a hand,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI said, all right \u2026 well, let\u2019s dissect that, put up your hand if you\u2019ve had someone shout at you, and barely a hand went down. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese are year 9 girls who are distinctly dressed in \u2026 school uniforms that have a modest and religious design to them \u2026. being screamed at because they\u2019re Jewish.\u201d <\/p>\n
Representing the largest Jewish electorate in Victoria gave Mr Burns a front-row view into the \u201ccomplete dehumanisation\u201d of his faith. <\/p>\n
In 2024, he said it was \u201csurreal\u201d to watch media footage of a group of at least five people destroying his St Kilda electorate office, graffitiing horns on his image and setting telecommunications pits on fire.<\/p>\n
The politician said if \u201csmashing up (his) offices was going to bring about peace in the Middle East\u201d he would have done it himself. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll it did was just cost $100,000 to fix and scared a lot of people.\u201d <\/p>\n
The \u201cproud Australian\u201d said the bigger problem is when people draw more subtle links and start \u201cjustifying\u201d anti-Semitic attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like being stabbed twice; once for the anti-Semitism and once being blamed for being stabbed in the first place,\u201d he told the commission. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe criticism is that somehow Jewish people are loyal and held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Black hole\u2019 for anti-Semitic reports<\/p>\n
Having experienced thousands of online attacks involving vilification of his character and violent threats, Mr Burns said he had felt \u201cgreat frustration\u201d with the reporting process of social media platforms. <\/p>\n
\u201c(They) drive traffic to the darkest society, where the people that are the most antagonistic are sent the content that they are likely to be abusive on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He described the process of complaints just \u201cdisappear(ing) into a black hole\u201d after only three of his 44 Instagram reports resulted in posts being taken down.<\/p>\n
Jewish band inappropriate<\/p>\n
Musician Ben Adler described the injustice of being told his Jewish band Chutney was no longer an \u201cappropriate\u201d headliner for a Victorian folk festival a month after the October 7 attack. <\/p>\n
Shortly after the Hamas terror attack that killed 1200 people, Mr Adler said organisers arranged for the group to instead \u201cperform behind closed doors\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe subtext being there was that the path of least resistance for them was to just remove the Jews from the public space to prevent any kind of outrage boiling over on social media or in other spaces that would threaten their festival,\u201d he told the commission. <\/p>\n
Ahead of their gig, the band experienced firebombing threats and constant negotiation with organisers to regain their position amid the doxxing of a Jewish WhatsApp group, of which Mr Adler was a member. <\/p>\n
With one particular post threatening to \u201cfinally do something with \u2026 molotov cocktails\u201d, the musician reported the incident to police in September 2025. <\/p>\n
However, Mr Adler was left \u201curgently and desperately want(ing) some clarity\u201d months later without any clear police response. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was reflecting on what could have been if a molotov cocktail fit had actually proved real for a thousand Jews lining up on Collins St in Melbourne. Who knows \u2026 it could have been another Bondi.\u201d <\/p>\n
Threads hate campaign <\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe (Hitler) was right\u201d was just one of the many \u201cvenomous\u201d comments Randwick City councillor Daniel Rosenfeld received when sharing his identity as the grandson of Holocaust survivors. <\/p>\n
In a 2026 Threads post, Mr Rosenfeld said he was \u201chonoured\u201d to attend the Evening of Light and Solidarity which was attended by Israeli president Isaac Herzog. <\/p>\n
The politician subsequently suffered through a social media hate campaign likening him and other attendees to the devil. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very insulting, being called evil \u2013 it\u2019s probably one of the worst things you can be called,\u201d he told the commission. <\/p>\n
\u201cI found it bewildering that a platform like Threads would allow so many of these comments to be made and \u2026 to not be taken down.\u201d <\/p>\n
The commission resumed this week for its third block of hearings after receiving more than 20,000 submissions.<\/p>\n
It was set up in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack in Sydney\u2019s east that killed 15 innocent people who were celebrating Chanukah on December 14.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s final report is due to be handed down in December, a year on from the Bondi attack.<\/p>\n
The inquiry continues. <\/p>\n
More to come. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Witnesses who have given evidence into a hate inquiry sparked by the Bondi terror attack have since borne…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11021,161,22,21,32992,379],"class_list":["post-41575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-object-object","tag-161","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-false","tag-newswire-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}