Viral footage showed protesters chanting ‘gas the Jews’. Nobody can verify it

Content warning: this article contains mention of subjects some readers may find distressing.

The original source of videos appearing to show pro-Palestine protesters chanting “gas the Jews” has shared a new video of the protest as police and independent fact-checkers have been unable to verify whether the chants happened.

On October 9, pro-Palestine protesters gathered in front of the Sydney Opera House as it was lit in blue in solidarity with Israel after the October 7 Hamas attack. At least two men were arrested after allegedly clashing with police at the rally, where some members of the crowd shouted anti-Semitic chants such as “fuck the Jews”, according to multiple reports. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong condemned the protests.

Other videos shared by conservative Jewish group the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) taken during the protest purports to show some attendees also chanting “gas the Jews”. This account is significant as the “gas the Jews” chant is likely to meet the criminal threshold for threatening or inciting violence (unlike the other anti-Semitic slogans that were chanted) and because the viral footage has become totemic of the rising wave of anti-Semitism in Australia and around the world.

The morning after the protest, the AJA shared two videos to X, formerly known as Twitter, both consisting of multiple shots of the protest cut together along with captioned audio saying “gas the Jews”. The first is a 25-second video shared with the text “Sydney, 2023 Muslim mob of 100s chant ‘Gas the Jews’ ”. The second is a 59-second video with the description “UNCUT VERSION — SHOCKING ‘Gas The Jews’ on the steps of the Sydney Opera House”, and has been viewed more than 6 million times.

Based on these videos, news outlets around the world published reports of the “gas the Jews” chants, including Reuters (which noted that the video was “unverified”), the New York Post and Fox News. 

In the aftermath of the protest, NSW Police rejected an application for a subsequent pro-Palestine protest. Premier Chris Minns declared that activists would not be allowed to “commandeer our streets” — although future protests were approved and have taken place — and his government introduced legislation to “strengthen” hate speech laws by making it easier to prosecute people who threaten or incite violence against protected groups. 

But despite the enormous amount of attention and considerable response to the reports, third parties have been unable to verify the “gas the Jews” claim, and further footage corroborating the chants has failed to emerge. Crikey has reviewed other footage from the protest captured by other attendees but has been unable to find any corroborating the AJA’s claim.

NSW Police told Crikey that no charges hade been laid relating to the alleged chant more than two months after assistant commissioner Tony Cooke told a press conference it was reviewing footage of the protest.

In late November, The Sydney Morning Herald first reported that NSW Police had sent footage of the protest to an independent expert for analysis, but would not confirm what footage had been provided. On Monday, a spokesperson told Crikey it has since sent off additional footage for further scrutiny.

Soon after the protest, organiser Fahad Ali posted on X that he had heard “anti-Semitic chants from a group of idiots who were in a minority”, and who he asked to leave. A further post from the organiser Palestine Action Group’s Facebook page also acknowledged that a “group of young boys, mostly in their teens chant[ed] ‘fuck the Jews’ “. 

Ali confirmed to Crikey this week that he heard the other chant but did not hear “gas the Jews”, nor had he seen any evidence it was chanted.

Barrister Mahmud Hawila, who has represented pro-Palestine protest organisers, shared minutes with Crikey from a meeting with deputy commissioner Mal Lanyon that took place on November 21 that show Lanyon saying NSW Police had “no evidence that those words were said”. Hawila also said he showed the AJA’s videos to police in October.

Hawila told Crikey he welcomed the news that NSW Police was consulting with an independent expert: “I think it is very important for the public to know the status of this long-winded investigation as it currently stands.”

The NSW premier’s office did not directly respond to Crikey’s questions about whether the “gas the Jews” chant specifically prompted the reforms to hate speech or whether it had investigated the footage. Instead, a Minns spokesperson gave Crikey a generic statement about the reforms: “If you’re going to have a law saying threats and incitement of violence are banned in NSW, that law needs to be fit for purpose.”

A follow-up email from a Minns spokesperson said the premier’s comments that a subsequent pro-Palestine rally was “not going to happen” was based on the protest’s lack of authorisation from NSW Police — a decision reportedly made because organisers didn’t give seven days’ notice.

However, Minns has previously seemingly given credence to the “gas the Jews” chant claim. Earlier this month, The Australian Jewish News reported that Minns “slapped down” fellow NSW Labor MP Stephen Lawrence for raising questions in Parliament about the veracity of the AJA videos when discussing the government’s hate speech reforms. The premier said he didn’t “endorse these views or these comments” by Lawrence, but that to him “it certainly sounds like a despicable and racist chant”.

Analysis of the AJA videos by verification experts at RMIT CrossCheck found a number of signs that suggest audio was edited. This review seen by Crikey notes that the audio is often out of sync with the video, that a section of audio was repeated during a clip, and that some audio was repeated while different clips were being shown. These suggest that additional editing was done beyond splicing different video clips together.

RMIT CrossCheck’s analysis by itself does not confirm or debunk whether the chant was heard during the rally. However, it does cast doubt on the AJA video’s credibility as the sole source of these claims. The report suggests that verifying whether the chants happened would require obtaining the original footage, locating other footage or obtaining eyewitness accounts — none of which has happened to Crikey’s knowledge.

The only footage that appears to show the chant has come from the AJA. The posts on X do not credit who filmed the various pieces of footages, who edited it together and who captioned the video. Crikey repeatedly called and emailed the AJA with questions about the footage, including who filmed it and how it was edited. 

On one occasion, a woman answering the phone at the AJA said, “Why would we tell you where we got that footage from?” The following day, a man who answered Crikey’s call declined to answer our questions. “We are too busy,” he said.  

After the publication of this piece, Sky News’ Sharri Markson shared a new video of the protest that includes a single shot with chanting protesters, captioned “gas the Jews”.

NSW Police did not answer questions about whether it had seen this footage, instead referring Crikey to a previous statement saying that its investigation is ongoing.

Update (15/12): This article has been updated to include the development that new footage of the protest has emerged after publication and NSW Police’s response.