US-based “Combat Antisemitism Movement” is hosting an all-expenses-paid conference for Australian mayors and councillors, with Jillian Segal keynote speaker. Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon investigate.
In September, hundreds of Australian local government councillors, including mayors and assorted political and religious leaders, will gather on the Gold Coast for a free three-day conference on anti-semitism. Many of them will have accepted a personal invitation from CAM’s Israeli CEO in Tel Aviv. According to the conference website, registrations have now closed.
CAM boasts 900 partners and runs regular conferences. One of its key aims is to integrate what it regards as the ‘gold standard’ International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism at every level of government. The definition has been widely criticised, including by its lead drafter, for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Australia’s Special Envoy for Combating Anti-semitism, Jillian Segal, is part of the Combat Anti-Semitism movement and will be a keynote speaker at the conference. Her own recently released Action Plan reflects CAM’s agenda. If implemented, those identified by the Australian government, per Segal’s advice, as antisemitic according to the IHRA definition, could face serious consequences.
These include the defunding of public institutions and universities, the deregistration of charities,
and the enforcement of certain approved media narratives.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is a partner with CAM in the conference. Its pro-Israel published policies include that it “Reaffirms Australian Jewry’s strong and unshakeable solidarity with Israel and her people”; “Condemns the prevalence of anti-Jewish rhetoric in sections of the mass-media which masquerades as political criticism of Israel”; and condemns the International Criminal Court as antisemitic, following its prosecution of Israeli war crimes.
Segal’s role as ECAJ’s immediate past president was one of the conflicts of interest that some argue made her unsuitable for appointment.
Jillian Segal’s many hats: Special Envoy for Antisemitism and Israel lobbyist extraordinaire
Shortly after her appointment by the Albanese government in 2024, Segal attended a Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism Forum, held in Argentina in July 2024, where 35 countries, including Australia, adopted US guidelines, including the IHRA definition, to combat anti-semitism.
While Segal is best known locally for her role in Australia as an Israel supporter and Zionist lobbyist, she is just as well connected with the international Zionist scene. Just last week, Segal was thanked by the US State Department for hosting an online meeting of Antisemitism Envoys.
This week, the Office of the Special Envoy met with counterpart envoys from around the world. Closer cooperation is vital to ensure safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide.
Thank you, SE Jillian Segal, for hosting this important convening. pic.twitter.com/1d16FKjhB0
— Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (@StateSEAS) July 25, 2025
Trump connection
CAM was founded in 2019 by Republican donor Adam Beren, an oil magnate from Kansas whose family has contributed millions to pro-Trump causes. Beren remains a major patron of CAM. He was appointed by Trump to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council during his first term.
With antisemitic hatred proliferating on American college campuses following October 7th, CAM Founder Adam Beren joined an important @GOPGovs panel alongside FL @GovRonDeSantis and GA @GovKemp for a discussion moderated by @GovernorVA Glenn Youngkin exploring ways to counter this… pic.twitter.com/2gndyXtMOp
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) August 14, 2024
At a CAM roundtable in Tel Aviv last week, CAM Advisory Board Chair and former Israel Deputy PM Natan Sharansky identified “modern forms of antisemitism rhetoric”. This included “branding Israel an apartheid state guilty of ethnic cleansing and genocide” and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which “shape anti-Israel narratives”.
Since Trump’s reelection as US president, CAM has successfully lobbied to pass legislation monitoring and enforcing the IHRA definition into practice for public schools and universities in at least seven US states.
Two of CAM’s advisers are recent graduates from the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the Israeli ministry founded in response to the growing BDS Movement.
Before Sima Vaknin Gill served as Director-General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the Brigadier General was Israel’s Chief Military Censor. In this role, every Israeli news article concerning national security matters required her IDF unit’s approval. Today, Gill sits on CAM’s Advisory Board.
CAM Senior Advisor Revital Yakin Krakovsky served as the Executive Director for Strategy and Communications at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs between 2017 and 2021.
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
CAM is closely connected with and promotes the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The Executive Chairman of the GHF, Reverend Johnnie Moore, is a CAM Advisory Board Member. In June, he addressed CAM’s State Leadership Summit on Antisemitism and Support for Israel. Moore’s speech celebrated President Trump’s support for GHF in ‘providing aid’ to Gaza.
Tweet from US Senator Fine
Within 3 months of GHF’s operations, more than 1000 Palestinians seeking aid have been killed in the vicinity of its aid sites.
Last month, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) honoured Congressman Randy Fine with a baseball bat dubbed “The Hebrew Hammer”. Fine is a Florida representative known for his outspoken conservative views.
He has stirred controversy with his genocidal rhetoric toward Gazans and his blatant Islamophobia, including calls for the streets of Gaza to “overflow with blood”, tweeting “Gaza must be destroyed” and recently telling Gazans to “just starve”.
In July, CAM welcomed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement of American sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, which it described as a “long overdue move to hold [her] accountable for her heinous record of antisemitic conduct and rhetoric!”
Israelis plan Australian conference
Planning for an Australian CAM conference became public in January 2025 when the Deputy CEO of CAM, Yigal Nissel, published a story, “From Paradise to Peril,” in the Jerusalem Post, stating,
“Thousands of [Australian] extremists, spanning the radical left, the far right, and parts of the Muslim community, seized on the conflict in the Middle East as a pretext to unleash their latent antisemitism.”
Nissel, who is based in Israel, announced that a CAM conference of hundreds of Mayors would address the problem. Previously, Nissel was the Israeli ‘emissary’ to the Australian branch of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
JNF’s connections to the speakers, sponsors, and board members of CAM’s planned Australian conference run deep. (See Part 2 for Australian Connections). The JNF, an official National Institution in Israel, aims to develop “the land of Israel, strengthening the bond between the Jewish people and its homeland”.
Since the Nakba in 1948, JNF’s primary activity has been transforming ethnically cleansed Palestinian land into Jewish settlements and national parks. Last year, the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) revoked the charitable status of the JNF Canada on the basis that it had used funds to support Israeli soldiers and build military infrastructure.
In June, Nissel left CAM to become the CEO of Mosaic United, an initiative of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, which protects the interests of Israel. However, Nissel’s involvement with CAM continues with a three-month contract as its advisor on Australian affairs, which will cover the period leading up to the conference.
CAM’s CEO, Sacha Roytman, is an Israeli army veteran who established and commanded the IDF’s Digital Media Unit.
Earlier this year, Roytman won the Zionist Council in Israel’s ‘Hero of Israeli Society’ award in the ‘Public Diplomacy and the Struggle for Israel’ category in recognition of CAM’s pro-Israel advocacy efforts. The Zionist Council in Israel is an arm of the World Zionist Organisation, another National Institution of Israel.
Recently, credible reports from many mainstream media organisations, including the BBC, that Palestinians seeking aid have been deliberately shot by the IDF, Roytman described their reports as a deeply anti-semitic ‘blood libel’.
This morning, a blood libel spread like wildfire. Hamas pushed a lie. The world bought it. Israel is paying the price.
BBC, CNN, and others rushed to report a “massacre” — claiming IDF tanks killed 26 civilians at a food distribution site.
It never happened.
No IDF fire. No… pic.twitter.com/vJzHTzsTdR
— Sacha Roytman (@SachaRoytman) June 1, 2025
Roytman has signed invitation letters offering free attendance at the conference to Councillors around Australia.
Letter received by a NSW councillor from Sacha Roytman, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
Sydney Mayor declines invite
One of the invited guests was the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore. In response to questions, a spokesperson said, “Clover was invited and declined to attend. She has a prior engagement convening the Council of Capital City Lord Mayors meeting.”
The Lord Mayor did attend the peaceful ‘March for Humanity’ across the Harbour Bridge yesterday, which included marchers from several Jewish organisations and a speech from Jewish journalist Antony Loewenstein. But none of this was noticed by CAM’s observers who spied an image of two protesters holding up signs – one said, Never again is now means Never Again for Anyone and another linking comparing the Israel regime to Nazism.
At today’s protest in Sydney, women held signs saying:
“Zionists are neo-Nazis.”
“Never again means never again for anyone.”This is Holocaust inversion one of the sickest forms of antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/QZOCTx1GW6
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) August 3, 2025
This was enough for CAM to declare,
This is Holocaust inversion, one of the sickest forms of antisemitism.
This post ignores the intention of the two women and the explicit repudiation of anti-semitism by the March for Humanity organisers and hundreds of thousands of Australian protesters.
It is also a good indication of the agenda driving CAM’s conference on the Gold Coast.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.
She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.
Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines.
The views expressed by Yaakov Aharon in this article are his alone and do not represent any other individual, entity, or organisation.