The Australian Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism (CAM Summit) will lobby for the widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and support for Israel, including bans on promoting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.

However, hundreds of letters have been sent to local councillors around Australia calling on them not to attend the summit.

Local councillors first heard of the summit earlier this year when they received letters and texts from the Israel-US-based CAM movement, inviting them to an all-expenses-paid national mayors’ summit on the Gold Coast in early September.

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For those who did not respond, there was a follow-up letter signed by CAM’s CEO Sasha Roytman, who is based in Tel Aviv and previously headed a 25-strong Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) team responsible for the IDF’s digital media strategy.

Local government codes of conduct differ, but all caution councillors against accepting gifts or benefits that could lead others to think they could be influenced when making future decisions.

Anyone who glanced at the summit program would know it is all about influencing decisions. Its key goal is to embed the IHRA definition across local government and introduce the Municipal Antisemitism Action Index, which ranks municipalities based on their “effectiveness in combating antisemitism, providing a clear framework to measure progress, identify gaps, and promote best practices in local government action”.

Some councils, including Merri-bek in Naarm/Melbourne and Sutherland in south Sydney, maintain a transparency register that records not only benefits received but also offers that are declined. Other councils only require councillors to register offers that are accepted.

Staff at one council in Sydney sent an email to councillors simply advising them to decline the CAM offer.

There is an exception in some codes for a councillor to accept a “benefit” if approved by council to attend an event as part of official council business. But even then, councillors still need to consider conflict-of-interest situations that could arise in the future.

In this case, potential conflicts of interest are confused because the invitation letters........

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