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Fagan this week found that key evidence was also not tendered to the magistrate, including a page of Farhat’s bank statements which showed money had been transferred to his account, which Fagan accepted was proof of his recruitment. Fagan noted the state also claimed that because the slogans were spray-painted in an area with a concentration of Jewish residents and there was criminal damage the words “Fuk Israel” took on an antisemitic meaning “in context”. “I do not accept that,” he said. “The political nature of the curse was not changed by the circumstances.” Fagan was heavily critical of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been formally endorsed by the Australian government and is the accepted definition of the ongoing royal commission into antisemitism established after December’s Bondi beach terror attack that killed 15 people during a Hanukah festival. “The IHRA proposal is detached from the reality of the common usage and understanding of antisemitism in this countr,” Fagan wrote, noting he was “not the first to have criticised the inept drafting of the IHRA formulation”.
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