The Sydney City Council passed a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) motion against companies operating in the West Bank and east Jerusalem on Monday, according to councilors and local Australian sources.
The council meeting allegedly saw Mayor Clover Moore introduce a new set of recommendations to supposedly replace the BDS components of the motion, but Australian Jewish groups, anti-Israel organizations, and pro-Palestinian politicians perceived the item’s passing as a BDS victory.
The “Report on City of Sydney Suppliers and Investments in Relation to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaigns,” which had been unanimously recommended by the Corporate, Finance, Properties, and Tenders Committee last Monday, was supported by all but one city councilor at Monday’s meeting.
The city acknowledged that it had no investments or contractual relationships with Israeli and non-Israeli companies operating in the disputed territories listed in a United Nations Human Rights Council register and that the city had preexisting policies in place to “ensure our investment and procurement practices avoid supporting socially harmful activities, including abuse of human rights.”
Sydney Jewish leaders said that while the council believed it had removed the BDS component of the report, it still referred to the UNHRC register.
The original report called for monitoring of the UNHCR register for city compliance and to review all procurements to ensure that they are acting in according with the database.
The review of the city’s connections to Israeli companies came after June 24 council decision that the chief executive officer prepare a report on the means to impose restrictions on investments and procurement related to human rights and weapons related to BDS.
The June motion was initiated by the Sydney Greens Party, according to Councilors Matthew Thompson and Sylvie Ellsmore, who praised the report’s passage on Instagram Monday.
“This is a crucial first step in ensuring our community is not complicit in funding human rights abuses against Palestinians, and we hope it will inspire others to follow,” said the Greens politicians. “Boycotts are a powerful, peaceful tool to bring positive change because they stop funding going to those complicit in violence, oppression and other injustices. We hope this important step will inspire broader, sweeping reforms and strengthen the movement for peace, justice and freedom for Palestine.”
Thanking Palestine advocacy
The councilors thanked pro-Palestinian advocacy organizations, including Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, which maintains a toolkit on how to pass local council motions supporting Gaza.
BDS Australia praised the motion on social media, saying that it paved the way for councils across the country to exclude “companies complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation.”
Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory said that the proposers of the motion had “an exaggerated sense of self-importance” because local council politics didn’t have an impact on the Middle East conflict and the report was not in the interests of residents.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said Sunday ahead of the vote that it was extraordinary that the city council was focused on alleged issues in the West Bank when there were real and incontestable human rights abuses in the world.
“The Council has associated itself with the disgraced ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign’, a disgraced antisemitic movement that is opposed to Israel’s very existence,” said Wertheim, who called for new leadership and cultural change.
Gregory also said that “this boycott Motion will however isolate Jewish residents, fuel antisemitism in Australia and waste ratepayer money. At a time of heightened antisemitism and with Sydney experiencing regular anti-Jewish attacks, this needlessly divisive proposal will add fuel to the fire.”
With the motion, the council condemned “the alarming rise in antisemitic, Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian attacks” as part of a broader rise of racial and faith bias violence.”
While Moore reportedly implemented changes to make the resolution more palatable, Gregory said that since October 7 the Sydney mayor had not supported the Jewish community and “engaged in anti-Israel activism.”
Wertheim noted that the motion followed Moore’s refusal to participate in a February 6 greater Sydney area mayoral roundtable against antisemitic violence. According to The Australian, Moore rejected the bipartisan and cross-faith roundtable because her demands were not met. Allegedly she would support a joint statement condemning antisemitism if it equally addressed Islamophobia, and if it made it clear that she was the only Sydney mayor.
The move led to the Sydney Great Synagogue issue a critique of the mayor, accusing her of failing to support the Sydney Jewish community in the wake of rising antisemitic arson, vandalism, and violence. Not only did the Jewish congregation leaders slam Moore for failing to make a statement on the problem, they said that she had failed to communicate with the community after the January 19 foiling of a potential mass casualty terrorist attack against Australian Jewish targets.
Moore has also not commented on Wednesday’s viral video of Sydney area nurses claiming to have killed Israeli patients and threatening to kill more.
The synagogue’s leaders met with Moore last Tuesday, but there reportedly has been no progress, with Moore not committing to specifically combat antisemitism in Sydney.
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