Successful BDS wins for the Palestine movement
Bezalel Arts University/USYD
On Tuesday February 11th, USYD confirmed a long-standing exchange program between the Sydney College of the Arts and Israeli institute Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design will not be renewed, following the conclusion of their contractual agreement in September 2025.
This comes after student and staff campaigned against its renewal. An open letter gathered more than 200 signatures of SCA students, staff and supporters. Activists spread the word about the exchange program by walking through the SCA building on campus and approaching students and staff from the faculty. Following this a grouping of SCA students and Palestine activists began to organise small demonstrations – including a speak out at the 2024 graduation art show to build awareness.
Management has tried to deny that campaigning played any role in its decision, saying that students had not accessed the program since 2015. But this is a result of BDS campaigning for over a decade and growing student recognition of the reality of Israel’s apartheid state. We should celebrate this as a step forward for efforts to cut all ties with Israel across university campuses.
Students Against War member Angus Dermody said “USYD dropping the exchange program with Bezalel is a great victory for the Palestine movement on campus.” He further called remaining partnerships with Israeli institutions “shameful” and “demanded Albanese and Labor immediately sanction apartheid Israel” and “end the repression of Palestine protests on campus.” – HoniSoit report
Technion/UTS
In June 2025, The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) officially ended its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion), following almost a year of consistent pressure, campaigning, and coordinated actions by students and staff.
Technion has been a core part of Israel’s military and weapons development since 1948. It is deeply enmeshed with the Israeli arms industry, contributing to the ongoing genocide in Gaza through helping Israeli weapons companies such as Elbit and Rafael develop military technology. Technion helped develop the remote controlled D9 bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.
Since 2010, UTS had quietly maintained an MOU with Technion, facilitated by the Faculty of Science. The partnership involved student exchange programs, joint research, and use of UTS facilities. It was due for renewal in June 2025.
There were several days of action organised by the UTS Student Association (UTSSA), the UTS Palestine Society (Palsoc) and UTS Staff for Palestine. The UTS NTEU branch also adopted a formal position of support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign at a meeting in September 2024.
Khaled Sabsabi for Biennale
In a major about-face, Creative Australia reinstated artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as representatives of Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale. The board had rescinded their invitation in February in a blatantly racist and politically motivated decision that sparked community outrage and widespread pushback from artists, community members and arts workers, including some at Creative Australia.
The decision to reinstate the pair is a powerful sign that community pressure can win, even when institutions are determined to shut down political expression amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The avalanche of community support for Sabsabi and Dagostino forced an independent review, which finally led the board to reverse its decision. This is a great example of how we can resist the repression of pro-Palestine voices.
Removal of Sheikh Wesam at Granville Boys high School (February 2025)
A student support officer at Granville boys high school was barred from working on the premises. Thanks to a mass protest by students and parents, he was reinstated. His removal followed a comment he made on social media about the government’s selective moral outrage.
VIVID Sydney Airbnb sponsorship (May 2025)
Over 20 artists from the 2025 Vivid Sydney program released a statement calling for an end to the festival’s sponsorship deal with Airbnb.
AirBNB is listed in the OHCHR (UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) database of companies linked to illegal settlement in the West Bank. It is also listed by the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a pressure target. There are over 320 Airbnb listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
As the statement notes “The International Court of Justice has declared these settlements illegal under international law, obliging member states – including Australia – to sever ties with any company conducting business there”—such as Airbnb.
The ICJ’s July 2024 ruling declared Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza illegal, saying that it was imposing measures there that constitute racial segregation and apartheid.
Antoinette Lattouf’s court victory (June 2025)
Journalist Antoinette Lattouf won her unlawful termination case against the ABC and was awarded at least $70,000 in compensation. Lattouf had been terminated in 2024 following an instagram post she made sharing a Human Rights Watch report that starvation was being used by Israel as a weapon of war.
Lattouf: Palestinian children are still being starved, emaciated, skeletal, scavenging through the rubble for scraps. This unspeakable suffering is not accidental, it is engineered. Deliberately starving and killing children is a war crime. Today, the court has found that punishing someone for sharing facts about these war crimes is also illegal."
Bendigo Writer’s Festival (August 2025)
More than 50 writers and moderators withdrew from the Bendigo Writers Festival in August, resulting in the cancellation of the opening night gala and 21 individual sessions over the 3 day event. This followed the festival’s last minute introduction of a code of conduct, which told speakers to discuss "sensitive topics" with "balance and respect".
For La Trobe University-sponsored events, participants had to comply with guidelines on antisemitism and Islamophobia enshrined in the university's anti-racism plan.
Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, whose most recent book 'Discipline' deals directly with issues surrounding the conflict in the Middle East, notably withdrew, saying "At a time when journalists are being permanently silenced by Israel's genocidal forces, it is incomprehensible that a writers' festival should also seek to silence Palestinian voices.”
Infected Mushroom Tour of Australia (October 2025)
Israeli psytrance duo Infected Mushroom’s Australian tour was supposed to take place over 3 weeks, visiting Gadigal Land/Sydney, Gimuy/Cairns, Arakwal Land/Byron Bay, Meanjin/Brisbane, Kaurna/Adelaide, Boorloo/Perth and Naarm/Melbourne.
In July 2025, the band pulled out of Earth Frequency Festival (QLD) after refusing to sign the festival’s “ethical artists policy”. This tour is being met with calls to boycott and protest their events by musical and activist communities in various cities around Australia.
SWOP led a protest at the Sydney gig at the Home Venue in Darling Harbour. The band was forced to postpone their performance until later in the evening and subsequently, 5 other performances in the tour were cancelled. There was also a protest in Melbourne at the group's show venue that got a lot of media attention.
The band have displayed full support of Israel’s military:
- They have publicly supported every major assault on Gaza in recent years - including Israel’s current genocidal war.
- The cover of their 2023 single ‘Dance Forever’ featured an Israeli flag blanketing all of historic Palestine.
- One half of the duo Amit Duvdevani claims that supporters of Palestine are “brainwashed”.
- A regular collaborator Skazi comments that his fans should “dance on the ruins of Gaza”.
- Continued donations by the duo to the Tel Aviv Foundation, which has ties to the IDF, along with Tribe of Nova, whose co-founder launched an intelligence platform that supplies intelligence to the Israeli military.
Israel export ban (November 2025)
A small number of Australian firms received advice from the regulator about the newest ban to take effect on November 4th. Licence holders would no longer be allowed to send approved goods to Israel. This is great news for the BDS campaign and again is at odds with the government’s lies of “we do not sell arms to Israel”. The department of defence has kept quiet.
See our factsheet for more on Elbit Systems and the Department of Defence.
Superannuation Funds
HESTA divested from Israeli banks in September 2025. Vision Super is divesting from all Israeli-domiciled stocks and bonds as of November 2025. These wins show that our collective pressure is working and the tide is turning.