Australia’s Right Wants to Ban “Globalize the Intifada”

State governments in Australia are trying to outlaw the phrase “globalize the intifada.” It’s an act of censorship that is willfully ignorant of the slogan’s meaning and connection with the Palestinian liberation movement.

Pro-Palestinian Supporters Amass For Protest And Vigil In Australian Cities

The Australian political establishment and pro-Israel lobby groups want to ban the slogan “globalize the intifada.” (Roni Bintang / Getty Images)


In Australia, the Parliament of New South Wales (NSW) is considering whether to ban the slogan “globalize the intifada.” This follows moves in the UK to criminalize the slogan, and the NSW government has similarly justified the push by arguing that the slogan “is hate speech and encouraging of violence in our community.” Their argument implies a causal link between calls to “globalize the intifada” and acts of anti-Jewish violence such as the atrocity committed at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025.

The alarmist public discourse essentially asks Australians to believe that in calling to globalize the intifada, pro-Palestine demonstrators are inciting violence against Jewish people. Certainly this is how many Zionist organizations interpret the phrase. As David Ossip from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies puts it, “Globalizing the Intifada means killing a Jew wherever you find one.”

For commentators like the Sydney Morning Herald’s David Crowe, the historic fact of Palestinian suicide bombings is enough to deem any use of intifada as a call for violence. “It is true that many interpret the term more broadly,” he acknowledges, “but the link to those attacks is indisputable.”

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