Major Australian city considers boycott of Israel amid explosion of antisemitic hate

Among the companies singled out by the measure was Hewlett-Packard, a US-based company that has a government contract with the city and has invested over $100 million in building data centers there.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

A major Australian city may soon adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel amid a surge in antisemitic incidents there.

The city council of Sydney — one of Australia’s largest and wealthiest cities — on Monday passed a motion calling on lawmakers to review its investment portfolio to determine whether it is linked to companies that provide arms and other services to the state of Israel.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who is not formally affiliated with any political party, backed the idea.

“Leaders must strive to break the cycle of violence in this region and ensure that neither Israelis nor Palestinians live in fear and at risk of harm or death. Now more than ever, we must use our voices to call for peace,” Clover said in comments quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald.

“If the city’s voice in this campaign can put additional pressure towards a ceasefire and an end to the humanitarian crisis, then I think we should carefully review our investments and suppliers.”

The passing of the motion — reportedly initiated by Green Party councilor Sylvie Ellsmore, Labor Party councilor Linda Scott, and Yvonne Weldon, another independent — was met with a burst of acclamation from anti-Zionist activists who attended the session in which it was considered.

Among the companies singled out by the measure was Hewlett-Packard, a US-based company which has a government contract with the city and has invested over $100 million in building data centers there.

Australia’s Jewish community expressed outrage at the city council’s decision to pursue a potential boycott.

“Elected officials should not to be peddling in racism and hatred. They can attempt to hide behind deceptive language, but their actions must be called out for what they are: racism and Jew-hatred,” Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory said in a statement.

“Of course, nobody in the Middle East will take notice of some entitled local councilors inserting themselves into an international conflict. What the Jewish community will take notice of, is that this is the latest in a series of actions hostile to the Jewish community taken by Mayor Clover Moore. We thank the Liberal councilors for being the only ones on Council to stand with the Jewish community and against this ugly hatred.”

The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.

The pro-BDS effort in Sydney came as anti-Jewish hate crimes in Australia continued to spike amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, the number of attacks on Jews — digital, political, and physical — has skyrocketed in Australia since Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.

In just the first seven and a half weeks after the Oct. 7 atrocities, antisemitic activity in Australia increased by a staggering 591 percent, according to a tally of incidents by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

In one notorious episode in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas onslaught, hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters gathered outside the Sydney Opera House chanting “gas the Jews,” “f—k the Jews,” and other epithets.

The explosion of hate also included vandalism and threats of gun violence, as well as incidents such as a brutal attack on a Jewish man in a park in Sydney.

In late October, an elderly Jewish man was walking through a children’s playground in Arncliffe when he spotted an advertisement for a pro-Palestinian rally that had already been held and was mostly torn, according to Sky News Australia.

He “absent-mindedly” tore the rest of it down, the report noted, but a father at the children’s playground saw him and approached, asking if he supported Israel and threatening, “I will murder you.”

Frightened, the man called the police, but they did not arrive before an anti-Israel mob of men and women quickly encircled him, shouting slurs and insults.

Someone reportedly thumped him on the back of his head, knocking him to the ground. Then, three men joined in and proceeded to punch and kick him while calling him a “pro-Jew dog” among other names.

In another incident in December, far-left Australian politician Jenny Leong spread conspiracies about the “tentacles” of a so-called “Jewish lobby” and “Zionist lobby” influencing policy, an insidious expression of antisemitic demagoguery that was once limited to the fringes of the political spectrum but has now become mainstream in the pro-Palestinian movement.

“They [the Jewish and Zionist lobby] rock up to every community meeting and event to offer that connection because their tentacles reach into the areas that try and influence power and I think that we need to call that out and expose that,” Leong proclaimed at a Palestine Justice Movement forum in Sydney.

Video of Leong’s comments surfaced in February, forcing the lawmaker to apologize for her remarks.

Jewish students at the University of Sydney have also been targeted by pro-Hamas groups, a pattern of behavior that is reportedly the subject of a forthcoming class action lawsuit.

This month, The Daily Telegraph reported that a law firm in the city is seeking potential witnesses for a complaint alleging that Jewish students were victims of “sustained and toxic” antisemitism during a pro-Hamas group’s occupation of campus — on which it erected a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” where members lived and refused to leave unless school administrators commenced a boycott of Israel — at the end of the academic year.

“We have received numerous, concerning reports of anti-Jewish intimidation and harassment on campus. Instead of removing the hate encampment, the university has surrendered to the camp’s demands,” Gregory told The Telegraph, commenting on the news.

“It certainly doesn’t surprise me that legal action is being contemplated, but it is upsetting that the University of Sydney has allowed the situation to deteriorate this badly.”

Pro-Hamas sentiment has also led to vandalism. Earlier this month, the US consulate in Sydney was vandalized and defaced by an unidentified man carrying a sledgehammer who smashed the windows and graffitied inverted red triangles on the building.

The inverted red triangle has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies.

The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked, and anti-Israel protesters on university campuses have been using the symbol in their demonstrations.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”

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