This week, the federal government joined 27 other nations in condemning Israel’s “drip-feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic need of water and food”. That same government’s own antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, also published a report which proposed that universities, arts organisations and perhaps even public broadcasters should have funding stripped if they “engage in or facilitate antisemitism”.

This raises a question: if the words of the Australian government came instead from an academic, or artist at a festival, would it risk their public funding? The government is making grave allegations against Israel – ones that enrage its Israeli and American counterparts. It’s possible some people could misuse those allegations to bolster their hatred of Jews, especially in the cesspit of social media. Could the government’s words be taken to “facilitate antisemitism” under their own envoy’s plan?

Personally, I think not. Trump and Netanyahu might disagree. And that’s a worry.

The definition of antisemitism Segal wants used to determine when institutions fall foul of it – drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – states “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.

Accordingly, those suggesting the envoy’s report condemns all criticism of Israel as antisemitism overstate the position. But the trouble is it’s very difficult to know by how far. By what criteria, exactly, is someone to determine when anti-Israeli commentary becomes antisemitic? It’s a crucial question when you’re specifically proposing to make research grants terminable if the academic receiving those funds “engages in antisemitic … speech or actions”. Or when you propose to strip charities of their tax deductibility if they “promote speakers” who “promote antisemitism”. Define this too broadly and you silence perfectly legitimate debate. Define it too narrowly, and these proposals have no purpose at all. Either way, it would need to be defined extremely clearly.

The IHRA definition doesn’t quite match this brief in two ways. Firstly, it is deliberately drafted vaguely because it describes itself merely as a working definition: guiding, illustrative and non-binding. Its drafters intended it more for the purposes of data collection than meting out punishment: a filter, not a sword.

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Secondly, the illustrative examples attached to the definition, which outline the kinds of criticisms of Israel that would amount to antisemitism, were not unanimously adopted by those drafting it. One drafter, Antony Lerman, recalls there was so much disagreement about them that they were severed from the part of the definition to be formally adopted, to obtain a consensus. That’s significant because it is in the examples that most of the controversy resides. It leaves a breach, now flooded by the most febrile cacophony, largely because this has become a contest to draw sharp lines to define something that simply cannot be defined that way.

Take one common example, most recently reiterated by the chair of one of Australia’s most influential Jewish advocacy organisations: that it is antisemitic, amounting to a “blood libel”, to accuse Israel of genocide. Fine, if the allegation rests on some trope that Jews by their nature delight in slaughtering children and are merely searching for an excuse to do so. Or if the accusation is so wildly fanciful that only the most prejudiced, conspiratorial mind could entertain it.