An Australian judge has rejected the International Holocaust Remeberance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in a ruling in a terrorism case relating to anti-Israel graffiti.
Antizionist vandal Mohommed Farhat, 22, was jailed in 2024 for spray-painting buildings and cars in Woollahra, Sydney, with slogans such as “f*** Israel” and “PKK coming,” as well as torching a car.
The Kurdistan Workers Party, better known as the PKK, is a Kurdish Marxist-Leninist and antizionist paramilitary group that operates across Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
Farhat was arrested at Sydney International Airport and jailed for one year and eight months after pleading guilty to 15 offences in November 2024, and was subsequently denied parole last December.
He claimed that he was manipulated into the crimes, motivated by promises of AU$4,000 (around £2,000) and an unspecified quantity of drugs.
He also insisted he did not know the meaning of “PKK”, had just been following instructions, and that the graffiti did not reflect his ideology.
However, the court heard that he has a Hezbollah tattoo and another of the number 313, both on his neck, the latter being, according to prosecutors, a reference to a hadith that states that 313 men will join Imam Muhammed al-Mahdi, a messianic figure in Islam, to “kill the enemies of Allah”.
Earlier this year, the New South Wales (NSW) government applied to the state’s supreme court for an extended terrorism order over Farhat, which would see him subject to an Extended Supervision Order and 55 conditions restricting his liberty following his release.
But Justice Desmond Fagan dismissed the request and rejected the validity of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in a written ruling released on August 17.
Fagan concluded that Farhat was not likely to commit a terror offence once released. When considering the significance of Farhat’s Hezbollah tattoos, Fagan ruled that there is no open-source evidence that Hezbollah is “inherently antisemitic, as opposed to being militantly hostile to Israel”.
He also wrote that “the IHRA core text is so verbose and imprecise that it could not realistically be attributed to the ordinary, reasonably informed member of the Australian public”.
The IHRA definition describes antisemitism as a “perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and contains eleven examples of antisemitism, which include making comparisons between contemporary Israeli policies and those of Nazi Germany, and denying the right to Jewish self-determination.
Fagan criticised the definition as an effort to “change the established meaning of a word that has been in use in the English language for 150 years” and claimed it did “not reflect the established usage and understanding of the term ‘antisemitic’ in Australia,” which he described as “prejudice against or hostility towards Jews as Jews”.
The judge asserted that people who criticise Israel “have freedom to express their views.”
Both Australia and New South Wales have officially adopted the IHRA definition but, in his judgement, Fagan disputed that IHRA examples have been adopted as part of the policy.
The judgment asserted that because Zionism is distinct from Judaism, therefore antizionism is distinct from antisemitism. One aspect of the IHRA definition of antisemitism states that “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic.
Fagan acknowledged in his ruling that Farhat had been aware of a hospital called Jewish Wolper Hospital in the area of his crimes, but accepted that Farhat was unaware of the “Jewishness” of the area, dismissing the idea that Farhat’s actions had conflated Sydney’s Jews with the state of Israel.
Farhat subsequently wrote a letter of apology to the Sydney Jewish community, which stated: “I have never held any hatred towards the Jewish people and in fact, until recently, I had never even met anyone Jewish.
“At the time that I engaged in this despicable behaviour, I did not realise the gravity of my actions and the effect it would have on others, especially the Jewish community.”
Fagan also stated in his judgment that Israel achieved its independence in 1948 by the “forcible expulsion of 750,000 indigenous Palestinians” and that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry called for the ruling to be judicially reviewed, and argued it avoided “the community impact” of Farhat’s crimes.
Co-chair Alex Ryvchin said that the decision to target a “Jewish neighbourhood” was antisemitic, rather than simply political protest.
He said: “Whenever someone wants to muddy the waters and prevent us from actually looking at curing antisemitism, they drag us back to this discussion about the IHRA definition.”
An NSW government spokesperson said that the attorney general, Michael Daley, was “seeking urgent advice about the prospects of an appeal”.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.