Platforming genuine antisemitism is always a mistake

Michael West Media has been valiant in its consistent work to hold Australia's civil society actors to account for our role in enabling Israel's crimes. This interview taints that record.

Michael West and his news platform have been an invaluable and unrelenting voice in the coalition of independent media actors working to hold our governments, legacy media and civil society organisations to account for Australia’s role in helping arm, and launder messaging for, Israel as it commits genocide on the Palestinian people.

There is one major line that good faith actors must never cross when working to try to end this crime against humanity. We harm the Palestinian people’s cause when we allow genuine antisemitism to be spread. Bad faith actors’ claims that any speech that defends Palestinians’ right to live in safety, freedom and with self-determination is antisemitism must not be given weight.

Musician and cameraman Joshua Barnett on The West Report has given a platform, with his organisation’s consent, to a Christian Nationalist front group. Giving standing to such a voice is a questionable choice. Allowing this interview to proceed without any pushback to questionable assertions and genuine antisemitism is a mistake that will likely harm the brand West has worked so hard to build.

Apparently this is one in a multi-part series “looking into lobbying and social media content creators.”

The framing of the interview does not dwell on any of the ways that this extreme Christian voice is scandal-plagued. Tory Shepherd at The Guardian reported on Turning Point Australia’s founding that: “Joel Jammal, says the organisation was set up on the recommendation of Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, with the blessing of [Charlie] Kirk.” Byline Times in the UK has covered extensively the connections between Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon and, after the files’ release, Jeffrey Epstein in their concerted efforts to mobilise a radical rightwing coalition across Europe.

The Guardian UK reported in 2019 that “Nigel Farage discussed the idea of fronting a global alliance of populist and far-right politicians being put together by the controversial former White House strategist Steve Bannon, it has emerged.” This was called the Movement. Jammal’s claim puts TPAus within that larger project.

Cam Wilson at Crikey shows the links with powerful strategists on the Australian fringe Right.*

Just this week there has been a further scandal involving TPAus. Far right, conspiracist content creator Candace Owens was due to visit Australia on a TPAus sponsored speaking tour. The bankruptcy of the tour company that has “links to” Turning Point Australia means the tickets will not be refunded.

I make no claim that Jammal is financially implicated in Rockman’s dealings or the bankruptcy. I do condemn an organisation that continually works to promote speaking tours by some of the US and UK’s most hateful influencers. Barnett asked about neither of these points.

Owens is regularly condemned for her genuine antisemitism. This report is from 2023, but Owens is one of the far right commentators who has been exploiting growing disgust across the mainstream with Israel’s relentless violence against Palestinians, and its neighbours in the region, to grow her audience.

Shepherd’s reporting on TPAus also covers Jammal’s partner George Mamalis: “Mamalis refers to [SA Senator Alex] Antic as ‘the King’ and ‘the real leader of the Liberal party’ who wants to ‘eradicate all the moderates’ from the party to ensure it is comprised of ‘ultra-conservative Christians’".” Shepherd reports also that Mamalis is critical of the strategy choices of Australia’s neo-Nazi movement.

In The West Report interview, Joel Jammal claims that he has been offered $300,000 a month to speak in favour of Israel or interview Jewish people. There is no evidence that this is true. It might well be, but it is poor practice to platform such a claim as a mere assertion.

In that context, Barnett frames TPAus as a colleague in resisting dark money amongst Australian voices, placing TPAus and Michael West Media together against actors such as NewsCorp with real estate, and other organisations with gas projects. Indeed, Barnett describes Jammal’s declared refusal to take Israel-supporting money as “a breath of fresh air.”

We do not know whether TPAus funds the free distribution of its hard copy newspaper, The Light Australia, through fan contributions as claimed. This is a question Barnett could have tackled.

In the interview Jammal asserts that he has had no funding from Turning Point America, nor has he paid for the licensing of the name.

I give the following quotations in as much detail as possible, with verbal noise removed for clarity. I believe in this way I make a good faith effort to reflect that Middle Eastern Christians have valid reason to be sad, angry, frustrated at Israel. Note that at no point did Jammal express any recognition of, or sentiment regarding, Palestinian deaths and displacement.

“I’m a Middle East Christian. I can’t support Israel. Look what they are doing to southern Lebanon. Look at the land grab… I am Lebanese-Syrian. My family wouldn’t be in Australia if Israel was never created. How could I support the creation of a country that is literally the reason why so many Christians are being dispossessed from the Middle East.”

Barnett asks Jammal about the term “Judeo-Christian values.” Jammal replies that “When you delve into it a bit deeper, the first Christians were Jews. It is baked into the name Christian. The idea of ‘Judeo-Christian,’ it’s a bastardisation of the history of the Church. It is not a thing.” Paul “was one of those Judeo people that were hunting down Christians until Jesus intervened on the road to Damascus. And so it’s such a bastardisation of Church history and it’s such a disgusting phrase to the history of all the martyrs that died for the name Christian. ” He jokes that an early kind of Zionist lobby led to Jesus being crucified. “That doesn’t mean all Jews are bad.”

“I am semitic… I’m from the region.” Arabic and Aramaic are semitic languages. “The idea that you’re going to demonise and come in and parasitically almost take over this identity of people in the Middle East and just take over their land and set up settlements in southern Lebanon. This is a big problem for Middle East Christians and for all Christians that proclaim to be Apostolic Christians, people of the true faith. People that are OG orthodox Catholic Christians.”

Barnett replies, “It’s interesting to see the separation there because quite often you don’t get that in the modern political discourse. They try and squeeze Zionism and Christianity together. Not Judaism, Zionism.”

In response to returning to the claim of offers of big money from pro-Israel voices, Jammal says, “Satan is the King of this world you know, he’s, sorry, the Prince of this world… You’re not going to get away with it… This stuff, it only works in the short term, but it’s not good for a marathon. People work it out… That’s why they buy things like TikTok… They try to shut this stuff down.”

Barnett concludes with a promise to invite Jammal back on the show.

Jammal has not always been so resistant to working with pro-Israel activists.

The classic antisemitic trope that led Christians to centuries of persecution of Jewish people lie in that accusation that the Jews killed Jesus. Jammal’s depiction of early Jewish people “hunting down” Christians is toxic. It sounds like Jammal is saying that Jewish people not converting to Christianity is a problem. He links pro-Israel money, at the very least, to Satan as the Prince of this world. He describes Israel’s activity as parasitic. That has echoes of the dehumanising insect-linked language that has been used against Jewish people for centuries.

So many of us are outraged at the crimes and land theft that Israel is perpetrating. There is only harm to be gained, however, by linking that rage and pain to old antisemitic tropes. Both Jewish people and Muslims are endangered in this era of far right radicalisation. None of us should be party to encouraging such bigotries.

Barnett does not contextualise the troubled body, nor tackle any of the hard questions that need asking. He grants a soft interview without challenge. He depicts TPAus as a body showing transparency. And there is no excuse for legitimising one of the Christian Right astroturf groups that is aiming to place their god and their bigotry throughout our governments.

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*The links with Andrew Cooper are interesting. Cooper founded Libertyworks, the Atlas Network partner behind CPAC Australia. His LinkedIn positioned that as happening while he was at the Australian Institute for Progress (AiP) in charge of special operations. (He has since removed that listing.) The AiP is an Atlas Network partner and is connected to coal and tobacco money. Rebel Media, also mentioned below, is a far right operation firmly connected with far right Zionist messaging operations and donor Robert Shillman who uses it to support Islamophobic influencers.

Turning Point America and Charlie Kirk were connected to the Council for National Policy (CNP) which is the Christian extremist/free market network that overlaps with the Atlas Network. The CNP was the Moral Majority and produced the Trump era of Project 2025 politics. Turning Point’s role in the networks was youth mobilisation.

Dirt Unit Podcast has an interesting episode on Ricardo Bosi and his interaction with the Camerons, mentioned in the first screenshot from Wilson’s reporting. The clips of Bosi’s different registers of speech are thought-provoking.