Sydney’s Waverley Council, which includes Bondi Beach within its boundaries, has removed a book on the war on Gaza, titled How to Sell a Genocide, from its library shelves, pending review. This followed a complaint from a survivor of last year’s Bondi Beach massacre.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported the council received “multiple complaints” about the book by media analyst Adam Johnson, which centres on a detailed critique of the United States mainstream media and its “culpability” in shaping public perceptions of the war in Gaza.
The president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, told the Guardian it is a “library’s duty to provide its community access to a broad range of published works, including those that may challenge or discomfort”.
It’s not surprising that a survivor was “distressed” by the prominent display of a book with genocide in the title, especially displayed on the “new release / hot item” shelf. Was it thoughtless or insensitive, in a council area that is home to one of Australia’s largest Jewish communities, close to the site of the December 2025 massacre? Many may think so.
But should the book, currently being reviewed, be permanently removed from the collection at Waverley library at Bondi Junction? That’s a hard “no” from me. It would counteract the library’s stated aims to provide “something for all ages and tastes”, including “non-fiction titles in all subject areas”.
We trust libraries for difficult things
In my research for a book published last year, I surveyed and interviewed close to 200 people, mostly in Australia, about their use of and relationship with public libraries.
Libraries are democratic civic spaces – and a major source of information. Denying people access to that information deprives them of the ability to learn with and from each other. This is against the principles of Australian public libraries, as set out by Australian Libraries and Information Association.
My research shows people trust libraries to help them navigate the world and all its challenges: from access to digital services, to learning about government or world events. (Particularly the ugly, knotty events.)
One person told me “their” library “signifies the essential goodness in society, upholding and defending the right to learn, and the value of knowledge being freely accessible, as a cornerstone of a progressive society”.
Waverley Council was at pains to say its book curation is outsourced, in a statement to the Guardian. Book curation is usually done by a council’s librarians. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, some libraries outsource selection and purchasing of books to specialist suppliers that deal directly with publishers. It’s unclear at this stage exactly how Waverley sources its books.
It should be noted that regular reviews of a library’s collection are standard practice. A review does not mean that this book will be discarded from the collection.
Public collections are at the heart of what a library provides: in Waverley as elsewhere. They influence public programs and service the needs of their specific community’s diverse interests and tastes. The library is the keeper of the public’s memory. We should keep this in mind.
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
‘A place of learning’
What libraries represent in Australia is persistently linked with democracy and freedom of thought. People I spoke to for my research insisted the library is a “place of learning, a safe place for free exchange of ideas beyond political, religious, or ideological boundaries”. They also said it gave them a sense of belonging. “Made me part of Australia.”
Some members of Australia’s Jewish community are understandably feeling isolated from the broader Australian community. The title of the book under review is confronting, given the recent deaths of 15 people in the antisemitic attack on Bondi Beach.
Pluto Press
However, How to Sell a Genocide is based on careful documentation of some 12,000 articles and 5,000 television clips.
As journalism expert Jeff Sparrow said in his review, the International Association of Genocide Scholars describes the Israeli war on Gaza as meeting the legal definition of genocide. Almost all the major human rights organisations and NGOs agree.
In Australia meanwhile, a 2024 report noted the number of people using libraries had increased by 10% on to the previous year, to 88 million. Use of library collections is at an all-time high. As one young interview subject told me:
The thing about the internet is it’s too specific … it kind of forces you to be in your own head, right? … But the Library, you can just come across something spontaneously […] then you’ll be intrigued and look at it. I like that.
