Sydney library removes Gaza critique book after complaint from attack survivor

In the weeks after a terror attack killed fifteen people at Bondi Beach in December, a survivor walked into Waverley Library at Bondi Junction and saw a book on the new releases shelf that made them recoil. The title was How to Sell a Genocide. The survivor posted about it on Facebook—the display felt like a wound reopened, they said, for those still grieving. That post, reported by the Jewish news outlet JWire, set off a chain of decisions that would soon have the library removing the book from its shelves entirely.

Waverley Council, which oversees the library, announced the removal within days. A spokesperson explained that the book had been taken down "for review" and that the council would be examining its processes for book selection going forward. There was a caveat worth noting: the council doesn't actually choose its own books. Like most public libraries, it outsources curation and purchasing to external services. The decision to remove How to Sell a Genocide, then, was made by people responding to community distress—but it raised immediate questions about who gets to decide what a public library holds.

The book itself is a media critique. Author Adam Johnson examines what he argues is American journalism's complicity in the destruction of Gaza. When the removal was announced, Johnson pushed back hard. He said the objection seemed to hinge on a single word in his title: genocide. But that word, he pointed out, wasn't his invention. The overwhelming consensus of human rights organizations has characterized Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide. It's a mainstream position among those whose job it is to study and determine such matters. "That it makes some people upset is unfortunate," Johnson wrote, "but reality is often upsetting." He then posed a sharper question: if the library removes books critical of Israel because they upset survivors and bereaved families, would it also remove pro-Israel books that upset Palestinians—of which there are hundreds of thousands who have been killed, maimed, or displaced since October 2023?

The removal sparked a collision of principles. Bart Shteinman, an executive member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, called the decision "deeply alarming." Public libraries, he argued, belong to everyone and should host a range of views—whether about queer families or Israel's widely-condemned military actions. He pointed to legislation passed by the New South Wales government earlier that year, which amended the state's Library Act specifically to protect institutions from book-banning campaigns. If Waverley Council decided to remove the book permanently, Shteinman said, both the mayor and the state's special minister would need to explain how that decision didn't breach the law.

Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, framed the stakes differently. A library's duty, he said, is to provide its community access to a broad range of published works, including those that challenge or discomfort. He spoke of the scale of what has happened in Gaza: hundreds of thousands killed or displaced, engineered famine, hospitals and universities destroyed. The word genocide, he said, is not being used to offend. It describes what is actually happening. And he invoked history: "History has taught us too well what happens when books start getting banned."

David Shulman, the senior commissioning editor at Pluto Press, which published Johnson's book, added another layer. Understanding events in Gaza and media coverage of them is a matter of the greatest public concern, he said. Johnson is one of the sharpest media critics working today, and his analysis is rigorous, meticulous, data-driven. His book should be made as widely available as possible—not least through public libraries, which play an essential role in a democratic society.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies declined to comment. Israel has repeatedly denied committing genocide in Gaza. The Waverley mayor and the state's special minister of state were contacted for comment but have not yet responded. What happens next—whether the council decides to restore the book, keep it removed, or find some middle path—will likely test the new legislation meant to protect libraries from pressure campaigns. The outcome could set a precedent for how public institutions in Australia navigate the collision between community trauma and intellectual freedom.