Waverley Council is helping a wealthy US-based, pro-Israel lobbying organisation influence how Australian local governments operate.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) is working with Australian councils to embed the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism into local government policies, staff training and decision-making, with consequences for Australians' freedom to criticise Israel.
The Imperial Hotel on the Gold Coast provided the lavish backdrop for CAM’s 2025 Local Government Summit.
Waverley Council develops a model for other councils to adopt IHRA
Waverley Council develop the model CAM wants other councils to adopt and is now helping promote it nationally, effectively assisting a foreign lobbying organisation to embed its preferred policies across Australian local governments.
CAM’s Senior Advisor for Australia, Alex Polson
Critics worry that it will be used to accuse people of antisemitism for questioning a system that grants Jewish Israelis greater national rights than Palestinians, or condemning Israel's history of Palestinian displacement, dispossession, discrimination and massacres.
CAM doesn't need Parliament to pass a national censorship law. By persuading councils across Australia to adopt IHRA, it can help build a system where criticism of Israel's conduct in Gaza is treated as discrimination rather than legitimate political debate.
Councils already control public libraries, community venues and funding. By influencing the policies that govern these spaces, CAM can help restrict political expression without changing a single national law.
This is foreign political influence reaching directly into Australian local government, with consequences for Australians' freedom of political expression.
Australian councils are elected to represent their communities. They should not be allowing an international organisation with an explicit political agenda concerning Israel to determine how Australians can express themselves about that country.
Censorship doesn't need to come from Canberra. It can start at your local library.
Some Australian councils are already penalising people who speak out against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. They have cancelled events, restricted access to public spaces and even withdrawn funding from an environmental group over a member’s social media post criticising Israel.
Not every example below involves the IHRA definition, but they show how local councils can use their powers to silence criticism of Israel.
WAVERLEY COUNCIL REMOVES BOOK CRITICAL OF ISRAEL
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP LOSES $285,000
LIBRARY CANCELS TALK ON CHRISTIAN ZIONISM
MEMORIAL TO DEAD PALESTINIAN CHILDREN CANCELLED
The Combat Antisemitism Movement is a conservative, pro-Israel US lobbying organisation founded by oil magnate and major Republican donor Adam E. Beren.
Its CEO, Sacha Roytman, previously commanded the Israeli military's New Media unit before overseeing international pro-Israel messaging and digital campaigns for the World Jewish Congress.
CAM's operating foundation reported US$12.5 million in revenue in 2025, while much of its donor funding remains publicly undisclosed.
NSW Premier Chris Minns’ government has also committed $100,000 in taxpayer funding to this year’s CAM summit in Bondi, through a grant to the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.
Philosopher Judith Butler argues that societies don't treat every human life as equally worthy of grief. Some victims are remembered by name, their faces shown, their families and shattered dreams brought to life. Others are reduced to statistics, their deaths justified, normalised or barely acknowledged.
The CAM summit will devote considerable attention to the 15 victims of the 2025 Bondi massacre, against the backdrop of the roughly 1,200 people killed in Israel on October 7, 2023. Their lives will be remembered, their stories told and their suffering recognised. And rightly so.
But the more than 74,600 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, including over 21,000 children, will receive no such recognition. Nor will the thousands still buried beneath rubble, or those whose deaths from starvation, exposure and treatable diseases remain uncounted.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Explore the original documents, council records, financial disclosures and reporting behind this article.