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The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) cautiously welcomed Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s decision to prohibit a “Globalize the Intifada” forum that was to be held at the East Sydney Community and Arts Center on Tuesday night, while also expressing concern about the belated nature of the move.
Lord Mayor Moore’s announcement on Monday came only after a prolonged public outcry from the Australian Jewish community, including family members of victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, as well as a CAM billboard campaign.
The event in question was organized by the “Stop The War On Palestine” group.
“Cancelling this event was the right decision,” CAM Senior Advisor for Australia Alex Polson said on Monday. “It should also have been the easy decision, and it should have been made the day the booking was brought to the Lord Mayor’s attention. Instead, it took weeks of pressure and the opening of a Royal Commission into Antisemitism for the city of Sydney to act on what was obvious from the start — a council-owned venue is not the appropriate place to platform a slogan that has been linked to violence against Jews around the world, and that the Bondi terrorists’ own ideological inspiration explicitly endorsed.”
Polson noted that Lord Mayor More’s hesitation stood in stark contrast to the Queensland Parliament, which voted in March to outlaw the public display of the “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” phrases, and to municipal councils such as Hunter’s Hill, which earlier this year adopted a formal Strategy to Combat Antisemitism aligned with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.
Antisemitic incidents in Australia have risen to nearly five times pre-October 7th totals. In the state of Victoria alone, 564 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2025 — the highest on record, averaging more than one a day across 30 local government areas.
Antisemitic attitudes in Australia’s adult population have risen from 14 to 20 percent, while antisemitic content on major online platforms has surged by thousands of percent since October 2023.
CAM Public Affairs Advocate for Australia Sheina Gutnick — daughter of the late Reuven Morrison who was murdered on the Bondi Beach attack — testified at the first hearing of Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Monday in Sydney.
“On the same day I told the Royal Commission what hatred took from my family, the City of Sydney finally accepted that a slogan celebrating violence against Jews has no place on council property,” Gutnick commented. “That should never have been a difficult decision. The question now is whether every other Australian leader, in every other council and parliament, will act before the next attack — or after it.”
In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the now-banned “Globalize the Intifada” event, CAM issued the following call for action for:
— the City of Sydney to immediately review its venue-hire policies so council-owned facilities cannot be used to promote slogans associated with terrorism against Jews, and to formally adopt a Strategy to Combat Antisemitism aligned with the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism.
— the New South Wales government to expedite the hate-speech reforms recommended by the parliamentary inquiry.
— all Australian municipal councils to follow the lead of Hunter’s Hill, Gold Coast, and others by adopting the IHRA definition, and engaging with CAM’s Mayors Summit framework, ahead of the second Australian Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism, to be hosted in Bondi in the lead-up to the first anniversary of the massacre.
— all Australian political leaders to engage seriously with the testimony being heard at the Royal Commission, rather than treating antisemitism as a problem to be managed only after lives are lost.
Read more:
Daughter of Bondi Massacre Hero Joins CAM Australia to Fight the Hate That Killed Her Father
