GetUp! told not to campaign on Palestine to avoid upsetting pro-Israel donors

Former head of GetUp! warned CEO and chair that commenting on Gaza would "alienate" Israeli or Jewish donors

The progressive campaign group, GetUp!, was cautioned against taking a public stance on Gaza as early as October 2023, raising concerns over the influence of pro-Israel donors, internal communications obtained by Deepcut reveal.

On October 18, 2023, former GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh emailed then-CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts and GetUp! chair Glen Berman, warning that "making public commentary on the issue is likely to be quite tokenistic" and that "it feels like it's for others to intervene".

"In the context of the very limited role that Australia plays on this issue, it feels like very little change could be affected by GetUp! members despite the pressure to 'say something'," the email reads.

Sheikh then warned that GetUp! taking a public stance on Gaza risked "alienating" donors with Israeli or Jewish family heritage.

"Obviously as I'm sure you both know, there is a large group of GetUp! donors who have family in Israel and/or a Jewish family heritage. I find these groups of donors fall into two categories – one who are emotionally affected by this moment but still stand behind a two state solution and another group who are progressive on all issues other than this one and take their lead from Zionist leaders," Sheikh said.

"Alienating these donors in my view would only make sense if there was actually an impact that GetUp! members could make. It would have to be a big impact to given the risks of getting involved and in this campaign, making an impact is, in my view, impossible."

GetUp! has been in the spotlight for a perceived silence on what UN experts, human rights organisations and genocide experts have all deemed as a genocide in Gaza. A Deepcut investigation in May revealed that GetUp! mentioned Gaza in its emails to members just four times between October 2023 and May 2025.

The email Simon Sheikh sent to GetUp! leadership in October 2023.

GetUp! denies following Sheikh's advice

Responding to questions, Berman denied that GetUp! had acted on Sheikh's advice, despite the organisation's relative silence on Israel's human rights violations in Gaza for much of the last 21 months.

"GetUp!'s team makes campaign decisions based on feedback from our members and our analysis of opportunities for members to have impact on issues important to them," Berman said.

Sheikh was GetUp!'s national director from 2008 to 2012, leaving to co-found Future Super, a superannuation firm of which he is managing director. In 2013, he unsuccessfully ran for the federal Senate as the Greens candidate for the Australian Capital Territory.

In a statement to Deepcut, which Future Super requested be published in full, Sheikh said:

“What is happening in Gaza is heartbreaking and morally reprehensible. That email was sent 10 days after the horrific October 7 attacks where it seemed there was little we could influence from Australia and I was keenly aware of the emotional fallout from the attacks. The situation has worsened significantly since that time and therefore I support GetUp!’s decision to campaign on this issue over the past two years.

"I believe we can speak truth to power without inciting hatred. We can have deep empathy, while remaining focussed on mobilising the international community to stand up to the destructive acts that have gone far beyond self-protection. The loss of life in Gaza is abhorrent. However, violent acts in our own streets in Australia targeted at the Jewish community are surely not part of the answer. We all need to be careful that the language we use doesn't incite this sort of behaviour.

"As progressive minded Australians, our job is to lead from a place of empathy. We can't be fearful of the reactions of certain individuals, but we must also be respectful in the language we use and the actions we take.”

GetUp! also denies claims made to Deepcut anonymously by GetUp! staff that the organisation's leadership vetoed plans for the organisation to campaign on Gaza after Baldwin-Roberts appeared on the ABC's Q+A in October 2023.

In an internal email sent to all staff the day before the publication of the Deepcut investigation, GetUp! deputy chair Alan Wu stated that "no one from the Board has obstructed or vetoed campaign work on Gaza".

"In October 2023, when the CEO appeared on Q+A, the Board reviewed and approved her key messages. Around that time, we also contributed to and approved the statement GetUp! released, and similarly approved the ceasefire petition we shared with members," Wu said.

"In May 2024, the Board's Strategy and Campaign Subcommittee approved a proposal to use staff capacity to support partner organisations working on the issue. Apart from these instances, no other proposal for Gaza-related work has come to the Board."

GetUp! defends slow response to Gaza

As evidence of GetUp!'s public stance on Palestine, Berman pointed to two videos featuring the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni that were published on GetUp!'s Instagram and YouTube in June and July 2024, and more recent emails and social media posts.

"We have launched a number of actions calling for an end to Israel's genocide in Palestine," Berman told Deepcut. "Most recently, on 28 July we emailed our membership with a call to contact their MPs to demand a stronger government response, including sanctions on Israeli officials. This call to action was supported by social media posts. In the 24 hours since sending that email, 3400 members have taken action – with more members taking action every hour."

In its July 28 posts, GetUp! states that "Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and Australia can't keep looking away". The posts direct readers to a GetUp! campaign page where people can email their local MP with a series of demands, including that the Australian government "recognise the State of Palestine, as France and others have done; halt the export of weapons or parts that may contribute to war crimes; impose sanctions on Israeli officials responsible for the atrocities; [and] demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire".

The posts came on the same day that two Israeli human rights organisations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, receiving widespread media coverage.

Besides a tweet on October 23, 2023 calling Israel's actions "collective punishment, a breach of international law, and an impending genocide," the July 28 posts appear to be the first time GetUp! has publicly described the atrocities in Gaza as a genocide.

This stands in contrast with Palestinian and international human rights organisations, experts in international law, genocide scholars and United Nations Special Rapporteurs who began warning of a genocide in Gaza as early as late 2023. And in January 2024, 18 months before GetUp!'s public posts on genocide, the International Court of Justice ruled a plausible genocide was taking place.

‘Prioritising donor comfort over human rights’

Mashni told Deepcut that Sheikh's comments in October 2023 were "deeply disappointing" and "reflect a broader failure among many other so-called progressive organisations and 'human rights champions' to respond to Israel’s genocide with the urgency, clarity and principle it has always demanded".

"His suggestion that GetUp! stay silent to avoid alienating donors with family in Israel, and his claim that speaking out would be 'tokenistic', betrays a disturbing willingness to prioritise donor comfort and money over human rights, moral courage and international law," Mashni told Deepcut. "Progressive movements and organisations need to do better than this.

"We’re glad that GetUp! has now joined the many voices calling Israel’s actions what they are: genocide. But the delay in doing this, and the reason behind that delay, speaks to a deeper issue of moral clarity being overshadowed by caution and political calculus."

Responding to Mashni's comments, Sheikh said, “I’ve had the privilege of hearing Nasser speak powerfully on this topic in a private forum recently, and his words deserve to be heard and reflected on by all organisations.”

Sara Saleh, who sat on GetUp!'s board from 2016 to 2023, told Deepcut she was "deeply disappointed by GetUp!’s silence on Gaza until now", which "has limited their impact and cost them the trust and energy of many who once believed in both their vision and their potential to speak truth to power – especially in moments like this".

"The shift in GetUp!’s position is not only a missed opportunity to take a principled, anti-colonial stance – it feels like a betrayal of the broader public sentiment, particularly among young people, progressives, and many in the Jewish community who are deeply critical of Israel’s genocidal actions," Saleh told Deepcut.

"Assuming that Jewish people would automatically support Israel is itself a harmful conflation – one that is offensive, antisemitic, and dismissive of the growing number of Jewish voices speaking out for Palestinian liberation."

Baldwin-Roberts declined to comment.