A New South Wales MP has asked the federal minister for home affairs to investigate whether Israel has breached Australia’s foreign influence laws by authoring a dossier naming him and other politicians as promoting antisemitic and anti-Zionist content.
Anthony D’Adam, a convener of Labor Friends of Palestine, wrote to Tony Burke on Monday, asking him to investigate after the document written by the Israeli government’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs was referenced in the Australian newspaper.
The dossier, published in September, names 25 groups and individuals and describes its purpose as identifying and analysing “key influencers and groups promoting antisemitic and anti-Zionist content”. At other points in the report, it says it is targeting influencers and generators of “antisemitic/anti Israel” content.
The politicians listed are D’Adam, the former federal Greens leader Adam Bandt, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, and independents Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe.
Bandt and Faruqi are named as among the top 10 generators of antisemitic and anti-Israel material.
The paper also names groups such as the Palestine Action Group, Free Palestine Melbourne, Disrupt Wars, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Students for Palestine USyd and University of Melbourne for Palestine.
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D’Adam said he was a critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and a long-time advocate for recognition of Palestine, but emphatically denied that he was antisemitic.
“I reject any assertion that I have engaged in antisemitism,” he said in the letter to Burke.
“The Israeli government, through the publication of this dossier, is seeking to interfere in Australian political discourse by attempting to intimidate and discredit critics of the Israeli Government.”
He said an example of the impact of the report was a story published in the Australian newspaper on 2 January that relied on the dossier to “attack a number of Australian politicians, community activists and non-government organisations”.
“The dossier contains considerable conflation of criticism [of] Israel with antisemitism and attempts to categorise them as one in the same. With respect to politicians, the dossier labels those included, such as myself, as ‘political figures in office who promote antisemitism, whether online or through their official duties’.”
He said there was no evidence in the document of antisemitic statements by him and he was unclear about why he had been included at all.
“To be targeted by a foreign power, it’s concerning,” D’Adam told Guardian Australia.
“This document includes a photo of me and my partner. It’s clearly designed to intimidate.”
The home affairs department’s guide to countering foreign influence says it can come in many forms, but gives the example of attempting to restrict or control critical views expressed in media in Australia, including by censorship of content, or harassing and discrediting journalists, activists or politicians.
“How would we react if it was China or Iran producing this sort of material?” D’Adam said.
“It’s clearly designed to intervene in Australian political discourse. It’s aimed a denigrating and stigmatising individuals and to discourage them from criticising Israel.”
D’Adam said that most of the material about him appeared to have come from public sources, but he asked Burke to investigate whether people in Australia were acting on behalf of foreign governments and whether there was surveillance of individuals named in the dossier.
He pointed to the Israeli government ministry regularly publishing an “Anti-Israel Protest Forecast”, which he said “often categorised without basis these protests as presenting a risk of violence”.
“It appears likely that in collecting this information, the Israeli Government has relied on sources within Australia, giving rise to the possibility that Australian citizens or residents are involved in foreign interference,” D’Adam said.
The Israeli report says of its methodology that it used social media searches, searches of traditional media, proprietary databases of hate speech and political sentiment and direct observation of online activities of the influencers which named in the report.
In response to Guardian Australia, a spokesperson for Burke said: “Correspondence which contains allegations of unlawful conduct is passed on to relevant agencies as a matter of course.”
Bandt, Faruqi, Payman, Thorpe and the Israeli ambassador to Australia have been contacted for comment.
