By Caitlin Maloney and Zac Nikolovski
An antisemitism summit attended by 250 mayors, councillors and community activists had little to do with antisemitism, but was actually an attack on pro-Palestine activism, an Inner West councillor has said.
The Australian Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, organised by the Israel-linked and US-based Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) in partnership with local Jewish organisations, wrapped up on the Gold Coast on Friday.
Many prominent political figures were in attendance, including Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.
Inner West Greens Councillor, Izabella Antoniou said the contents of the summit, including pamphlets handed out labelling watermelons and keffiyehs as antisemitic and Segal’s refusal to speak out about the presence of Neo-Nazi’s at the August 31 ‘March for Australia’ highlighted the “true intentions of the event”.
“This focus on fruit rather than fascists calls into question their interest in supporting diverse and vulnerable communities,” she told Central News. “It is clear that this was always about quashing pro-Palestinian activism at the local government level.”
She added: “I’m incredibly concerned about CAM’s agitation for councils to adopt the IHRA working definition, which has been widely criticised for its conflation of Zionism and Judaism, and its ability to silence, and potentially criminalise, critiques of the Israeli state.”
Among the attendees was Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne, who delivered a speech in which he cited the recent antisemitic firebombing of the Newtown Synagogue, memes and vilification sprayed on buildings, and the alleged harassment of Jewish citizens in council meetings.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne. Photo: Sarah Goff-Tunks.
However, in his address to the summit he also defended peace protesters and criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“When I decided to come here today, some people said that I had to choose between resistance to antisemitism and opposition to the atrocities that are being committed against Palestinian civilians,” he said.
“But I say that these two principles are not contradictory. In fact, they are both central pillars of upholding human rights, at a time when human rights are increasingly threatened.
“I want to be straight with everyone at this summit. I know that many here won’t agree with me. I believe profoundly that citizens such as myself, who oppose Netanyahu’s vicious regime, also have an obligation to stamp out antisemitism and racism in our own country.
“And furthermore, this must be said: any accusation that the majority of citizens who protest peacefully against the abominable death toll in Gaza are perpetrating antisemitism is just plain wrong.”
Long-time anti-war activist and Inner West local Pip Hinman accused the summit’s organisers of pushing councils towards political positions that many locals did not support, such as adopting IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism, and of having ties to weapons manufacturers responsible for backing the Israeli government’s “genocide”.
“A lot of people from the Inner West went on the Harbour Bridge walk, calling for sanctions, and a lot of them have been going to the weekly or fortnightly protests for Palestine as well,” she said.
“For many residents, his [Byrne’s] appearance at this conference runs counter to what they want him to do, which is actually to mount pressure on the federal government to impose sanctions, just like it imposed sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.”
Hinman wrote an open letter calling for Byrne not to attend the event, which over 850 people signed, over half of them Inner West residents.
“Anyone signing on to this letter is also against antisemitism. We hate racism in all its forms, just as we hate anti-Muslim racism,” Hinman said.
“There’s a lot that we can do to combat all forms of racism, but going to this conference gives it a legitimacy which has flow-on effects, including our right to criticise the Israeli state just as it’s committing a genocide.”
It concerns me that when very real criticisms were brought to the table, they were not listened to.
Inner West Greens councillors submitted their own letter calling for Byrne to withdraw from the event, as well as Hinman’s open letter and a letter from Jewish Voices for Inner Sydney. Antoniou said the Greens did not receive a response.
“It concerns me that when very real criticisms were brought to the table, they were not listened to,” said Antoniou. “This threatens to break the trust people have in their elected officials, particularly if they feel they’re out of touch with the community’s legitimate concerns about an ongoing genocide.”
Byrne’s attendance at the summit was funded by the Inner West Council, and Antoniou claimed accepting CAM’s offer to cover flights and accommodation would have been against the council’s Gift and Benefits Policy.
Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell also addressed the summit about the council’s graffiti removal policy that cleans graffiti off the city’s streets within an hour.
“Over the last 12 months, 3,000 pieces of graffiti have been removed under that protocol. That’s 3,000 pieces of antisemitic material that never saw the eyes of the public, that were never allowed to share that vile message with, and that is a good thing,” she said.
“In addition to that, every week after the protest, hundreds of stickers and posters are removed, and I was so proud to hear from someone who’d walked through the city after a protest who said you could see no evidence of it. But the reality is in Victoria we operate with one hand behind our backs when it comes to protests.”
Campbell said the council were the “frontier” and that out of everyone in the audience, they were “probably the people who care about this the most”. They have made multi-million dollar investments into CCTV camera instalments in the city.
“We want to make sure that people know there is no tolerance for antisemitism on our streets,” said Campbell.
Also in attendance at the summit was Sydney of City Council’s deputy mayor Zann Maxwell, whose presence was criticised by activist group City of Sydney for Palestine.
In an Instagram post, the group demanded Maxwell not attend the summit and provide a disclosure of who funded his attendance and a statement on how it aligned with the Councillor Code of Conduct.
“Sydney deserves leaders who stand for transparency, accountability, and justice not foreign-funded lobbying events that undermine equity and community trust,” said the group.
Maxwell did not respond to Central News’ inquiry, but did add a comment to City of Sydney for Palestine’s Instagram post:
“As Deputy Lord Mayor I regularly attend events in my own right, and unless I am formally representing the Lord Mayor & City … I am concerned about both antisemitism and the terrible situation in Gaza,” he said.
Maxwell added: “To me, issues of antisemitism and social cohesion are too important to be monopolised by any one perspective, or for progressive voices to absent themselves from the conversation. Having diverse voices at the table matters.”
City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore was invited to the event, but declined. She had a prior engagement according to a spokesperson.
“She did not request any other councillor attend on her behalf, nor is there a council resolution about any Councillors attending. As such the City of Sydney has no formal representation at the event,” said a spokesperson for the Lord Mayor.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne and Combat Antisemitism Movement were both approached for comment, but neither responded to our inquiries.
Main image by Central News.
