Australian MP Georgie Purcell, a member of the Animal Justice Party, is no friend of Israel. You can see for yourself, but to give you an idea, she was among a small group who voted for an amendment acknowledging Gazan deaths during a condolence motion condemning the 7 October Hamas attacks.
Yeah, no friend of Israel.
You’d think that would make her a darling of the Israel-hating community.
Alas, she made a fatal mistake.
You see, her boyfriend is Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns. And, as you may already know, these people often hate Jews.
And Georgie Purcell seems to have learned this the hard way.
Victorian MP Georgie Purcell has unveiled a shocking file of sexualised abuse aimed at her family, including her six-month-old baby.
Her explosive 22-page submission to the royal commission on anti-Semitism and social cohesion includes dozens of shocking screenshots of the relentless online attacks against her and her Jewish partner, federal Labor MP Josh Burns and their daughter, including comments about starving her baby.
In it, Ms Purcell also calls out the dark side of her own progressive movement.
She says criticism of Israel has too often descended into anti-Semitism and that extremist pro-Palestine activists are increasingly mirroring the far right.
“The motivations may be different, but both contribute to an environment where anti-Semitic abuse is normalised or excused,” she wrote.
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Mr Burns will tell the royal commission today that social media platforms allowed, if not exacerbated, the spread of online hate towards his family.
His evidence also includes the tirade of sexualised comments directed at the couple, many referring to their six-month-old daughter.
They include that Ms Purcell was “knocked up by a Zionist” and labelling her a “Nazi c–t”.
“The whore and the joo (sic),” another read.
Others suggested that Ms Purcell’s head should be shaved “like the French did if you f—ed a Nazi officer during the war” and that she had “let a Jew politician” impregnate her.
“Your Zionist Jew baby daddy is on parental leave so why are you with the baby in parliament you f—en (sic) spastic,” another person commented on a photo of her carrying her newborn daughter in the chamber.
In her submission, Ms Purcell said she was sent photos of dead babies in Gaza by pro-Palestine activists and that her relationship was described as “blood soaked”.“And comments were made about my baby being starved,” she said.
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Ms Purcell said Mr Burns had been “caricatured into a villainous figure” in some progressive circles amid the Israel-Gaza war, which appeared to give anti-Israel activists a warped excuse to attack the couple.
he Victorian Animal Justice Party MP pointed to Mr Burns’ St Kilda electorate office being set on fire and graffitied in June 2024, and the “widespread justification on social media” that followed.“It has been difficult because of abuse directed towards my family,” she wrote.
“And it has been difficult because of the growing denial from all parts of society and the political spectrum that anti-Semitism is rising at all.”
The crossbench MP said she believes Zionism and the actions of the Israeli government can be legitimately criticised — points often used as a launch pad by the left — noting she has herself been deeply critical of its attacks on Gaza.
“However, there is an undeniable reality that this discourse is also being used as a Trojan horse for anti-Semitism,” she wrote.
“Criticism that begins as opposition to the actions of the Israeli government too often descends into conspiracies, dehumanisation and collective blame directed at Jewish people broadly, including here in Australia.”
She added Jewish Australians were often forced to prove they were a “good Jew” and that their “morality, legitimacy or social acceptance” was often conditional on their views about Israel.
“It reinforces the harmful notion that Jewish identity is inherently political or suspect,” she wrote.
“This in itself is anti-Semitism in practice.”
I would suggest to Ms Purcell that the reason “criticism that begins as opposition to the actions of the Israeli government too often descends” into antisemitism it because the so-called criticism of Israel is too often motivated by a real hatred of Jews.
Be that as it may, she is not the only far-left politician to (somewhat) start to get it.
Former UK Green Party leader Caroline Lucas is another.
Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has criticised efforts within the party to advance a motion equating Zionism with racism, warning that its wording risked targeting Jewish people rather than the Israeli government.
In a new interview, the former MP for Brighton Pavilion said: “The way in which that motion was worded caused a lot of concern among people across the party.”
She added:”Zionism can be interpreted in so many different ways, and there was a concern that some people thought the motion was talking more about individual Jewish people rather than the Israeli government.”
Speaking to Politics Home, Lucas was asked about attempts to debate a “Zionism is racism” motion at the Green Party’s Spring conference earlier this year.
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“I’m not sure it’s a very helpful debate,” Lucas said. “The way in which that motion was worded caused a lot of concern among people across the party.”
Lucas also said she had no regrets about speaking out before the May local elections, when she raised serious concerns about the party’s vetting processes following a large number of antisemitism allegations against candidates.
Perhaps both Georgie Purcell and Caroline Lucas have begun to recognize what too many on the far left refuse to admit: antisemitism is not an unfortunate byproduct of today’s anti-Israel movement. It is a defining feature.
