Exclusive: pro-Israel group to train federal prosecutors on cultural awareness
Several CDPP staff said to be "shocked, frustrated and disappointed" that a lobby group has been invited to speak
A leading pro-Israel group has been invited to provide cultural training to staff in the same department prosecuting Bondi shooter Naveed Akram.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) will deliver a session titled ‘Understanding Judaism: cultural and religious awareness training for staff’ to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) on Friday, May 1.
An internal email obtained by Deepcut encourages staff to attend and outlines the training session. The program specifically covers a history of antisemitism, Zionism and “the difference between being anti-Israel and antisemitic”.
Deepcut understands, according to a source who wished to remain anonymous, that a number of CDPP staff members were “shocked, frustrated and disappointed that a lobbyist has been invited to speak”.
What’s the big deal?
ECAJ is considered one of the peak pro-Israel organisations in Australia. Although it is not technically registered as a lobby group, it is among an ecosystem of groups that advocate a pro-Israel position.
According to Bart Shteinman of the Jewish Council of Australia, “You can define the Israel lobby by looking at organisations who see it as part of their role to publicly advocate for the state of Israel and political Zionism”.
As revealed in a recent Deepcut analysis, ECAJ has over the past two decades consistently pushed for an expansion of hate speech laws that encroach on political expression.
The CDPP is also the office prosecuting Akram for the Bondi shooting that killed 15 people last December.
Akram has been hit with numerous charges and faces a life sentence.
What’s the wider context?
ECAJ has been a longtime supporter of the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism, which critics say conflates criticism of Israel and Zionism – an ethnonationalist, supremacist political ideology – with antisemitism.
Its former president and current antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, last July called on the Australian government to adopt “the IHRA definition across all levels of government, public institutions and regulatory bodies” in a widely-criticised plan to combat antisemitism.
The Albanese government initially balked at Segal’s proposals amid concerns of draconian overreach, but adopted the plan immediately after the Bondi shooting.
CDPP’s cultural and religious awareness training, steered by a pro-Israel group that endorses the IHRA definition, fits within the context of the Labor government implementing Segal’s plan.
Critics such as the Jewish Council, however, say that the IHRA definition is an effort to “explicitly target critics of Israel” and wrongly conflates “Jewish identity with support for Israel”.
Comment has been sought from CDPP and ECAJ.
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