Australian judge says IHRA definition ‘does not reflect’ true meaning of anti-Semitism

An Australian court has dealt a major blow to the global campaign to redefine anti-Semitism along political lines, after the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled that a young man’s “F**k Israel” graffiti amounted to political protest, not anti-Semitism. 

The court rejected a government bid to keep the man under strict supervision after his release from prison. Although the ruling was delivered in July, the court’s reasons for the judgment were only published last month.

The judgment undermines years-long efforts by pro-Israel lobby groups to weaponise allegations of anti-Semitism against critics of Israel. As part of its bid to keep the man under supervision, the New South Wales government had sought to invoke the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism — the same definition Israel’s advocates have pushed governments, universities and institutions worldwide to adopt as law.

It was that definition prosecutors tried to apply to Mohammed Farhat, convicted of a vandalism and arson spree in Sydney. He pleaded guilty to 15 offences after spray-painting and setting fire to vehicles and buildings in Woollahra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, in November 2024. The damage exceeded $100,000. Among the graffiti he sprayed was “F**k Israel” and “PKK is coming”.

Farhat was sentenced in November 2025, in the lower court that handles most criminal cases in New South Wales, to one year and eight months in prison, due to expire in October 2026. As his release approached, the New South Wales government sought what is known in Australia as an extended supervision order — a court order used to keep monitoring a released prisoner considered to pose an ongoing risk, typically reserved for terrorism or serious violent offenders.

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The New South Wales government’s application, brought under the Terrorism Act, sought to place Farhat under 55 separate conditions for a year after his release. Such orders can require an offender to live only at an approved address, wear an electronic monitoring device, report regularly to authorities, avoid contact with named individuals, and allow police to inspect or seize his phone and computer at any time. Prosecutors argued the conditions were justified because Farhat’s graffiti showed anti-Semitic motivation and that he posed an ongoing risk of committing a serious terrorism offence.

Justice Desmond Fagan, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, rejected the application. His judgment was delivered on 30 July 2026 and an explanation of the verdict was made public a month later. Fagan found that Farhat had not intended to express hatred of Jews. 

Central to the ruling was Fagan’s rejection of the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism, which prosecutors had relied on to characterise the graffiti as hate speech. The IHRA formulation, he found, “does not reflect the established usage and understanding of the term ‘antisemitic’ in Australia,” and its core text “is so verbose and imprecise that it could not realistically be attributed to the ordinary, reasonably informed member of the Australian public.” 

Adoption of the definition by some institutions, Fagan added, “does not change the established meaning of a word that has been in use in the English language for 150 years”; instead, the IHRA formulation “propounds a concept different from that which ‘antisemitism’ has long been understood to describe and appropriates that word to the novel concept.” 

On the graffiti itself, Fagan ruled that the words “Fuk Israel” “are not antisemitic according to the ordinary understanding of that concept in the Australian community,” and found that the defendant “did not intend to express hatred of Jews.” The label, he concluded, “has been wrongly applied, injustice to the defendant has followed and the misconception has led to the State bringing these proceedings.”

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