The Massive Scale of Rabbinic Opposition to Israel’s Proposed Death Penalty Bill

Michael Zoosman

January 26, 2026

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The thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty – a group that I co-founded – has advocated vociferously against Israel’s proposed death penalty bill for terrorists since National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir first presented it in the Knesset. L’chaim is but one of many Jewish organizations standing firmly against this bill and the death penalty as a whole. Just as there have been proponents of the death penalty since time immemorial in the Jewish tradition, there are, of course, those among them who support this bill now. In the malaise of debate over this bill, it is easy to lose sight of the scope and scale of the specifically rabbinic voices currently in opposition to the death penalty. Upon closer examination, this number is prodigious and is worthy of review in this liminal moment for Israel and the Jewish world.

The Current Context: Responding to a Recent Op-Ed

In a recent op-ed in the Times of Israel entitled “On Ben Gvir’s death penalty law controversy,” Dr. Alex Sternberg and David Levine, formerly of the Jewish Defense League, singled out this author and Rabbi Yitz Greenberg for our public advocacy against this bill. They disparagingly referred to us as “two liberal and woke voices.” The writers disapprovingly referred to Rabbi Greenberg as “a rabbi no less” when they cited his and my references to some of the statements of Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides or the Rambam (1138-1204), regarding the death penalty. They erroneously asserted that we “opined that capital punishment is not ‘Jewish’ and [that we] failed to state that there were numerous examples where the Talmud and the Torah mandated the death sentence in specific circumstances.” They added that we “need to relearn the Rambam and the other Jewish sources [we] misquoted.” The authors later stated that they  “fear that Messrs. Zoosman and Greenberg are naïve in their worldview,” asking at one point: “Has Zoosman thought this nonsense out?” They conclude that “the death penalty is just. It is definitely Jewish. This law must be approved,” and that “confusing compassion with justice undermines society’s fabric. The Rambam understood this. Messrs. Greenberg and Zoosman do not.”

All personal attacks aside, these comments merit a response that clarifies a few significant points. First and foremost, while I cannot speak for Rabbi Greenberg, I can certainly convey that he is much more than what the authors seem to dismissively refer to as “a rabbi no less.” Rabbi Yitz (Irving) Greenberg is a prominent American Orthodox rabbi, theologian, and activist known for pioneering Holocaust theology and fostering Jewish-Christian dialogue. He is a Harvard-educated historian who founded CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadershipand led efforts to establish the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I am honoured that the authors would deign to couple me, who is “a cantor no less,” with this highly prominent modern rabbinic voice.

Beyond the lack of proper kavod (respect) due to Rabbi Greenberg, the authors falsely claim that he and I seem to believe that Jewish tradition has never allowed for the death penalty. This could not be farther from the truth. We have made clear that there can be no doubt that Jewish tradition did create space for a death penalty, both in the Torah and in various places in the Talmud. It is equally clear, however, that Chazal (חז”ל)  – Chachameinu Zichronam Livracha (חכמינו זכרונם לברכה – “Our Sages, of blessed memory”) – provided such prodigious safeguards over the implementation of the death penalty as to render it virtually impossible to carry out. This pattern reflects the fact that Jewish tradition places the highest possible value on human life. It was for this reason that our sages erected those extraordinary barriers around the use of the death penalty, teaching that a court that executes even once in seventy years is considered destructive. This moral caution reflects a foundational Jewish commitment to the sanctity of life.

Readers might gain the impression from the author’s op-ed that Rabbi Greenberg and I – being, as they write, “two liberal and woke voices” – are in the minority on our views about the death penalty among Jews and – in the case of Rabbi Greenberg – rabbinic authorities. There are indeed many rabbis – and cantors like myself – among the 4,300+ members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. There are likewise many rabbinical voices among the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, both of which have been longstanding opponents of the death penalty. Still, these are not specifically rabbinical organizations. A reminder may be in order, then, of just how many rabbinic voices stand against capital punishment.

Reform and Conservative Judaism

It is well-known that “the major Jewish movements in the United States all have specific policies supporting either abolition of the death penalty, or a moratorium on its use.” Since 1959, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), which currently encompasses 2,200 rabbis  – “no less” – and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) have formally opposed the death penalty, considering it a “stain upon civilization” and morally unjustifiable.” Conservative Judaism also generally opposes the death penalty, urging its abolition. The Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the international association for Conservative rabbis, has approximately 1,500 to 1,700 members who look to the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) for rulings on various issues of Jewish law. On October 15, 2013, by a vote of 20 in favor, none opposed, and none abstaining, the CJLS approved Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky’s seminal teshuvah (responsum) entitled “Participating in the American Death Penalty.” Like Rabbi Greenberg and me, Rabbi Kalmanofsky concluded that “given the weight of precedent, it would be false to assert that Jewish law forbids capital punishment.” However, this fact did not stop the committee from ruling that “we urge the American federal and state governments to renounce capital punishment except in the rarest cases. Religious Jews should advocate for that position as the superior moral stance and best public policy.” Votes in favor included Rabbis Aaron Alexander, Pamela Barmash, Miriam Berkowitz, David Booth, Elliot Dorff, Baruch Frydman-Kohl, Susan Grossman, Joshua Heller, David Hoffman, Adam Kligfeld, author Jeremy Kalmanofsky, Gail Labovitz, Amy Levin, Jonathan Lubliner, Daniel Nevins, Paul Plotkin, Avram Reisner, Elie Spitz, Barry Starr, and Loel Weiss.

Closely related to Conservative Judaism, the Masorti Movement generally opposes the death penalty, aligning with a long-standing rabbinic tradition that makes its application effectively impossible and morally repugnant. Like Conservative Judaism, while acknowledging that the Torah allows for capital punishment, the Masorti movement emphasizes that the sages of the Talmud added so many stringent conditions—such as requiring specific witnesses and explicit warnings—that it became a “fantasy” or legally impossible to carry out.

Orthodox Judaism

There are approximately 1,000 members of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), which is affiliated with The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, more commonly known as the Orthodox Union(OU). The OU acknowledges the theoretical legal basis for the death penalty. Still, like millennia of rabbinic voices before them and their rabbinic peers, they have expressed concerns about human fallibility and have called for a moratorium on the death penalty “pending the implementation of appropriate reforms”  — among them, steps to address issues of fairness in the judicial system, in particular allegations of racial bias in administering the death penalty.

Modern Orthodoxy specifically, while acknowledging the theoretical biblical validity of capital punishment, overwhelmingly opposes its practical application in the modern era. While it does not hold a uniform official policy against it, the Modern Orthodox Jewish community generally supports abolition or moratoriums. This position stems from the extreme procedural restrictions in Talmudic law that made executions nearly impossible and the belief in allowing maximum time for repentance. Many emphasize that evidentiary requirements—such as the presence of direct, qualified witnesses and a formal warning immediately before the crime—were designed to be impossible to meet. A concern that many Orthodox rabbinic opponents also convey is that the death penalty denies an individual the necessary time for teshuvah (repentance). Many authorities further argue that capital punishment cannot be carried out without the Sanhedrin (the supreme religious court) and the Beit Hamidrash (the Temple), which do not exist today. Many Orthodox thinkers argue that the modern justice system is too flawed to authorize the taking of life. The prevailing trend within Modern Orthodoxy, therefore, leans toward abolition, viewing it as inconsistent with Jewish values in the current era. An illustrative example is Death Penalty Action Advisory Board Member and Modern Orthodox Rabbi Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, who has spoken out publicly about the need for Judaism to support death penalty abolition. In 2017, Rabbi Yanklowitz spearheaded astatement signed by over 100 rabbis that called for the end of the “cruel practice” of capital punishment. As the op-ed authors know well, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg himself identifies as a Modern Orthodox rabbi. Rabbi Greenberg has, of course, openly articulated his opinion in the Jerusalem Post that the death penalty debate places the inherent “Jewish reverence for life” against death penalty bill-architect Justice Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s “cheapening of life.” Rabbi Greenberg added that “in degrading terrorists and criminals, Itamar Ben-Gvir is trashing Jewish religious values and cheapening everybody’s life.”

Reconstructing Judaism

Reconstructing Judaism (the central organization of the Reconstructionist movement) and its affiliates strongly oppose the death penalty, urging its abolition in the United States and elsewhere. This organization is affiliated with more than 350 Reconstructionist rabbis serving nearly 100 congregations and various other roles across the movement. Their position on capital punishment is based on the movement’s commitment to evolving Jewish tradition, which emphasizes that the preservation of life is the highest value and that capital punishment, while mentioned in the Torah, should be considered a practice to be left in the past. TheReconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) has formally gone on record opposing the death penalty in all circumstances. Like their Reform counterparts, the movement rejects the death penalty because it is a “stain upon civilization,” is prone to irreversible mistakes, and often produces racially disparate outcomes. While acknowledging that the Torah and Talmud contain provisions for the death penalty, Reconstructing Judaism follows the tradition of the sages who made the application of capital punishment virtually impossible. The movement emphasizes the capacity for teshuvah and rehabilitation, arguing that society should focus on rehabilitating individuals rather than executing them.

Jewish Renewal

Similarly, rabbinic members of the Jewish Renewal movement, which is generally characterized by a commitment to social justice, pacifism, and progressive, transdenominational, and mystical approaches to Judaism, often take a strong stance against the death penalty. The Jewish Renewal movement includes OHALAH, the Association of Rabbis and Cantors for Jewish Renewal, which has over 200 members, including rabbis, cantors, and rabbinic pastors. Renewal’s ALEPH Ordination Program has ordained over 220 rabbis as of recent counts. While the Renewal movement has not issued an official statement on the death penalty, many of its rabbis align with the broader, liberal, and progressive Jewish community in advocating for the abolition of capital punishment. This opposition is rooted in the belief that all life is sacred and created in the Divine image, leading to a focus on rehabilitation and repentance (teshuvah) rather than vengeance. Similar to the Reconstructionist, Reform, and many in the Conservative movements, many Jewish Renewal rabbis view the death penalty as an outdated, cruel, and inhumane practice that should not be part of a modern legal system. As an active member of OHALAH myself, though I have not met all members over the years, this author has yet to personally encounter one rabbinical colleague who supports Israel’s death penalty bill.

Modern Israeli Rabbinic Voices

Many rabbinic death penalty abolitionist voices in modern-day Israel draw upon these rabbinic voices in opposition to the death penalty. Rabbi, lawyer, and Member of the Knesset Gilad Kariv is a leading opponent of the bill to impose the death penalty on terrorists in Israel, characterizing it as a “populist,” “unconstitutional,” and “extremist” measure that will lead to the intensification of terrorism rather than its eradication. He has argued that the legislation is unbefitting of a democratic state and that it constitutes a “racist law”.  Kariv has consistently opposed the proposed bill initiated by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other right-wing members. He has been removed from Knesset National Security Committee sessions multiple times for clashing with Ben-Gvir and for protesting the behavior of proponents who wore symbols representing different methods of execution.

I personally witnessed many other Israeli rabbinic abolitionists when I had the profound honor of representing L’chaim members at a powerful gathering of Israeli and Jewish human rights groups for a webinar focused on the proposed bill to impose the death penalty on non-Jewish terrorists. Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel (RHR) hosted an online Hanukkah event titled “We Will Drive out the Darkness by Increasing the Light.” Representing RHR were its Executive Director – and October 7th terror attack survivor –  Rabbi Avi Dabush, as well as Rabbi Kobi Weiss. Both rabbis have passionately spoken against the death penalty bill in the Knesset recently. They were joined by Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights for a most enlightening conversation that framed the death penalty within Jewish law and the lighting of the Hanukkah candles. Rabbis for Human Rights has 100-170 members, including ordained rabbis, rabbinical students, and rabbinic leaders from various denominations. T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, in turn, represents a network of more than 2,300 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism across North America, as well as members in Israel. The contemporary rabbinic voices in these groups merit serious consideration for anyone evaluating the death penalty from a rabbinic lens.

Heeding L’chaim’s Call

As the various rabbinic sources above demonstrate, there are indeed mul­tiple reas­ons for Jews to oppose the death penalty. Not all rabbinic voices will agree on the reason, but many do indeed concur that Israel’s death penalty bill must not come to fruition. A forthcoming Jewish communal statement from various partnering Jewish and communal organizations will soon reflect this truth. As for L’chaim, we have outlined many of these reasons for supporting abolition – and others – in a recent Hanukkah post that enumerated “8 Reas­ons to Vote Against the Death Penalty this Hanukkah.” Beyond the religious arguments cited above, the death penalty – first and foremost – would incite martyrs and invite murders in Israel. It furthermore viol­ates the human right to life, always con­sti­tutes tor­ture, risks execut­ing the inno­cent, is racist in its applic­a­tion, and – from Adolf Hitler to Don­ald Trump to Ben-Gvir – has been used as a polit­ical tool, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing elec­tion cam­paigns. L’chaim has also illus­trated how many exe­cu­tion meth­ods are dir­ect Nazi legacies, includ­ing fir­ing squad, gass­ing, and lethal injec­tion. Famed death pen­alty abol­i­tion­ist Elie Wiesel best artic­u­lated L’chaim’s stance when he said of cap­ital pun­ish­ment – in the shadow of the Holo­caust – that “death should never be the answer in a civ­il­ized soci­ety.” Members of the Knesset – and all death penalty proponents –  should heed Wiesel’s mes­sage and the thousands of rabbinic voices that stand with him in recog­nizing that executions are not the answer – and that Israel’s proposed death penalty bill should not be the answer now.

Australian lawmakers back stricter gun, hate crime laws

By AFP
January 20, 2026


Australia is debating stiffer laws on gun control and hate crime after the Bondi Beach shooting - Copyright KCNA VIA KNS/AFP STR

Australian politicians voted in favour of tougher hate crime and gun laws Tuesday, weeks after gunmen targeting Jewish people on Bondi Beach killed 15 people.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives backed the legislation in response to the December 14 shooting at the famous Sydney beach.

Sajid Akram and his son Naveed allegedly targeted a Jewish Hanukkah celebration in the nation’s worst mass shooting for 30 years.

The attack has sparked national soul-searching about antisemitism, anger over the failure to shield Jewish Australians from harm, and promises to protect the country with stiffer legislation.

The hate crime and gun control legislation must still be approved by the upper house Senate, which was expected to vote later in the day.

“The terrorists had hate in their hearts, but they also had high-powered rifles in their hands,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament.

“We’re taking action on both — tackling antisemitism, tackling hate, and getting dangerous guns off our streets.”

Legislative reforms on guns and hate speech were voted on separately.

The hate speech legislation would toughen laws and penalties for people seeking to spread hate and radicalisation, or to promote violence.

It creates aggravated offences for offenders who are preachers, other leaders, or adults seeking to radicalise children.

The reform would also make it easier to reject or cancel visas for people suspected of terrorism or espousing hatred on the basis of race, colour, or origin.

On firearms, Australia would set up a national gun buyback scheme, tighten rules on imports of firearms and expand background checking for gun permits to allow input from intelligence services.

The legislation was debated in a special session of parliament, ahead of a national day of mourning on Thursday for the Bondi Beach victims.

Gunman Sajid Akram, 50, was shot and killed by police during the Bondi Beach attack. An Indian national, he entered Australia on a visa in 1998.

His 24-year-old son Naveed, an Australian-born citizen who remains in prison, has been charged with terrorism and 15 murders.

Police and intelligence agencies are facing difficult questions about whether they could have acted earlier.

Naveed Akram was flagged by Australia’s intelligence agency in 2019, but he slipped off the radar after it was decided that he posed no imminent threat.

AUSTRALIA

Festival of Cowardice: The Cancellation of

Randa Abdel-Fattah

by Binoy Kampmark / January 13th, 2026

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Boards of directors are a funny bunch. Often lacking expertise, claiming knowledge they do not have and insight that never illuminates, its members can make the cockup the stuff of legend. Instead of minding their own business and leaving the Adelaide Writers’ Week to take place without incident as part of the 2026 Adelaide Festival, an act of oafish meddling took place. The meddling centred on removing one invited author from the speaking schedule: the Australian-Palestinian writer and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was to discuss her novel Discipline.

The Festival Board’s statement explaining their decision began with a note of gravity. “As the Board responsible for the Adelaide Festival organisation and the Adelaide Writers’ Week events, staff, volunteers and participants, we have today [January 8] advised scheduled writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah that the Board has formed the judgment that we do not wish to proceed with her scheduled appearance at next month’s Writers’ Week.” Then came the note of pure cowardice, framed in the bankrupt language of middle-management. “Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah or her writings have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, given her past statements we have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”

Abdel-Fattah’s views on the war in Gaza had evidently proven so salty as to require her deprogramming. These were not specified, though various social media remarks and public statements attacking “this murderous Zionist colony” and claiming that Zionists had “no claim or right to cultural safety” were bound to have featured. Her removal was heartily approved by Norman Schueler of the Jewish Community Council of South Australia and the South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.

If this decision was intended to reflect balance, intellectual awareness and understanding about the shootings on December 14, 2025 that took place at a Bondi Beach event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, it failed on all counts. It ignored the fact that the two shooters had been allegedly inspired by Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh), an obscurantist group indifferent to Palestinian statehood and hostile to Hamas. (The repeated comparison of Hamas to ISIS by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has always been erroneous to the point of mendacity.) It imputed a degree of responsibility to Abdel-Fattah as a Palestinian, a representative of a people systematically butchered, dispossessed and starved by the Israeli campaign. It implied that any discussion about Israel’s conduct in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, one deemed genocidal by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and a number of known human rights organisations, was insensitive. Only the meek of opinion would be permitted, the impotent or inert celebrated.

A glance at some of the Board’s membership reveals corporate blandness and brand merchants versed in the nebulous world of “consultancy” and “communication”. No literary figures of note can be found, let alone historians, sociologists or anyone animated by what might loosely be called the liberal arts. There are – or least were, given several resignations – such figures as the now ex-chair, Tracey Whiting, adept in “strategic marketing, audience development and community engagement”. Leesa Chesser’s description sounds like that of an educated canine “trained in health economics and business”. Brenton Cox is all triumph and skill as managing director of Adelaide Airport. Daniela Ritorto is obviously less a journalist than a consultant about journalism, versed in “strategic communications advice” and, it would seem, “a sought-after master of ceremonies and panel moderator”. As with Australia’s innumerable and atrocious university managers, the country’s cultural and artistic governors cannot be accused of having a shred of aesthetic, let alone cerebral sense for the area of expertise they purport to control. It’s all show, and a rotten one too.

In a pugnacious statement, Abdel-Fattah called the decision to scratch her attendance “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship and a despicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre.” Her very presence would be construed as “‘culturally insensitive’”, that she, as a Palestinian having nothing to do with the Bondi atrocity was “somehow a trigger for those in mourning”.

The Festival Board seemed to suffer the same maladies that had afflicted the organisers of the Bendigo Writers Festival last August. At the penultimate moment, they thought it wise to make writers and panellists subscribe to a Code of Conduct in what could only be seen as a nasty fit of Zhdanovism. Terms such as “Zionist” or “Zionism” were to be avoided, along with “topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful.” Many writers recoiled and withdrew.

Cancellation fever, however, remains very modish in Australia when talking about the destruction of Gaza or Israel’s adversaries who must, by definition, be seen as playdough freaks of demonology. When pianist Jayson Gillham took issue with the brutality of Israel’s Gaza campaign during a 2024 recital, his contract was cancelled by invertebrate officials at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. (The matter is before the courts.) The artists Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino fared somewhat better, being first cancelled by Creative Australia from representing Australia at the Venice Biennale only to be reappointed after much cutting indignation.

For Abdel-Fattah, solidarity among the scribblers abounded. Of the initial 124 participants, some 100 have withdrawn. Among them are former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Adern, British author Zadie Smith, former Greek Finance Minister and rabble rouser Yanis Varoufakis, and Australian historian Clare Wright. Wright expressed shock and insult as a Jewish Australian that the Board had exploited “the tragedy of Bondi to weaponise its much loved and respected literary festival.”

Leaving aside the palpable implosion of an event that would have otherwise gone the way of most writers’ events, one lost in fine print and chatter, a supreme irony emerges. Abdel-Fattah, as with many writers, is not immune to the cancellation bug when it comes to those she does not like. In 2024, she added her name to a letter addressed to Adelaide Writers’ Week requesting the removal of Thomas Friedman from the schedule for his remarks in the New York Times analysing the Gaza War through the prism of the animal kingdom (the US, predictably, a lion, if old; Iran, a “parasitoid wasp”; Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, caterpillars; Benjamin Netanyahu, a sifaka lemur). Friedman has made a life of grand, insensitive readings of the human condition, fashioning revenue out of such cowpat efforts as The Lexus and the Olive Tree, but that’s hardly a reason to cancel him. People like that need to be paraded as treasures of ridiculous tripe, not kept hidden to wither.

To their credit, the Festival Board then, unlike now, held firm. Even crass stupidity should have a platform. “Asking the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week to cancel an artist or writer is an extremely serious request,” came the response from Whiting. “We have an international reputation for supporting artistic freedom of expression.” Much like Whiting herself, that reputation has gone.

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

The Politics of Premature Adjudication: The Bondi Royal Commission

by Binoy Kampmark / January 9th, 2026

Royal commissions are often held to confirm the obvious and squeak for modest change. They offer no binding remedies, have no compellable powers against the government of the day, and can, despite claiming to be independent, be susceptible to interest groups. They are also expensive, laborious, often lengthy, and serve as a pacifying agent, absorbing pressure and enabling the governors of the day to delay action. Scott Prasser, a scholar long versed in the pitfalls of public administration, suggests that such commissions “are most effective when the central problem is a deficit of legitimacy rather than a deficit of information.”

The hankering, bleating insistence on holding a royal commission into the Bondi Beach attack last December, a vicious shooting attack on those celebrating Hanukkah, leaving sixteen dead, including one of the shooters, is not free of the usual criticisms.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese initially resisted it, opting for an Independent Review into Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, to be led by former domestic intelligence director-general Dennis Richardson. The review’s primary focus is on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and Australian Federal Police in terms of performance, appropriate powers, systems, processes, and procedures, including information-sharing protocols.

Albanese’s resistance to a commonwealth royal commission was also in part because the New South Wales government was already running its own version, one that the Albanese government promised it would support with necessary resources and heft. But the PM, not exactly burning with conviction, showed that he was for turning. After much bleating and many open letters by public figures from politics to sports, Albanese announced the creation of Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion to be led by former High Court Justice Virginia Bell.

Even in its infancy, the commission is already facing problems. Certain public figures in the Australian Jewish community were hoping for a sympathetic, possibly even philosemitic voice to steer it. The question was not whether the appointee would be sympathetic to the evidence but sympathetic, even partial, regarding the sentiments of an interest group. In other words, any sense of objective fairness or stern distance from the subject matter would be a secondary consideration.

Showing his specific, parochial understanding of how such a commission would work, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip told The Australian Financial Review that it was “the time to deliver more unity, not less” after “two long years of division in Australia”. This meant finding consensus on the choice of royal commissioner, a crude way of saying that the most appropriate person would need the seal of approval from members of the Australian Jewish community. “The royal commission, which will examine what led to the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history and the crisis of antisemitism, must have the confidence of the Jewish community.”

It’s hard not to read more into this, suggesting that Ossip confuses consensus with tinkering, slanting, and premature adjudication. As long as the lobby agrees, then there will be consensus, followed by the appropriate findings.  The president of the Zionist Federation, Jeremy Leibler, is even more direct, bringing a dose of identity politics into play: “Any royal commission must be structured, in terms of reference and the identity of the commissioner, [in such a way that it] has to have the confidence of the community most affected by the attack, which is the Jewish community, as well as the broader community, in order to achieve its purpose.”

Without a foundation, the choice of commissioner has come in for some castigation. Albanese, moaned former Coalition treasurer Josh Frydenberg, “has been told directly by leaders of the Jewish community that they have serious concerns” regarding Bell. “After more than two years of unprecedented hate, harassment and violence directed towards the Jewish community, culminating in Australia’s deadliest terrorist attack at Bondi Beach it is unthinkable the Prime Minister would choose a commissioner that did not have the total confidence of the Jewish community.” Appoint, appealed Frydenberg, “the right Commissioner whose leadership will provide the answers and solutions our country so urgently needs.”

This begs a troubling question. What would an appropriate commissioner for Frydenberg be?  One approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? A figure who openly embraced the definition of antisemitism arrived at by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance?  One who had rejected the view, one accepted by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, along with a bevy of civil society and human rights organisations, including the Israeli-based B’Tselem, that Israeli actions in Gaza have been genocidal?

A report by the ABC, attempting to identify those shadowy concerns regarding Bell’s appointment, cites perceptions that “she was associated with the political left.” There was also a “lack of trust between the community and the Albanese government as a contributing factor in the fear that his eventual royal commissioner pick would not examine elements of the antisemitism issue important to them.”

A bureaucratic, costly bonanza is in the offing. To Richardson’s review will be added the federal royal commission linking arms, presumably, with the NSW royal commission. There will be duplication galore. The premature adjudicators will be hoping for favourable findings to further trim the wilting tree of free speech in Australia while muzzling criticism of Israel’s policies against the Palestinians.

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.