“Flagrant”. Court finds Israel activist breached Cairo Takeaway settlement
· Michael West
The Federal Court has found pro-Israel activist Ofir Birenbaum breached his Cairo Takeaway settlement deed. Stephanie Tran and Wendy Bacon report.
The Federal Court has found pro-Israel activist Ofir Birenbaum breached the confidential settlement that resolved his high-profile defamation dispute with Sydney restaurant Cairo Takeaway after he and his solicitor made public statements portraying the outcome as a victory.
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In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, Justice Bromwich declared that Birenbaum breached the settlement deed by publishing statements on social media and by statements made on his behalf by his solicitor, Rebekah Giles.
The court also found Birenbaum breached the deed after Giles told Sky News that Cairo Takeaway had paid him compensation.
The parties entered a settlement deed on 26 March 2026 and issued a joint statement on 30 March.
Highly misleading
However, Justice Bromwich found that “the Joint Statement was completely overwhelmed by public statements attributed to Mr Birenbaum and by Ms Giles, which cast a very different complexion on the nature of the resolution of the proceeding”.
The judge said that aspects of the public statements were “highly misleading and even deceptive” when compared with both the settlement deed and the agreed joint statement.
He found that the statements made by Birenbaum and Giles “in material ways misrepresent what has been agreed upon” in the settlement.
Justice Bromwich said Birenbaum
“was not an impressive witness”.
“He would have had real difficulty in coping with protracted cross-examination, having a somewhat evasive and non-responsive manner. It was very much to his benefit that the trial is not proceeding such that cross-examination of that kind will not occur,” the judgment read.
The judge noted that if the case had gone to trial, “a competing characterisation … that Mr Birenbaum engaged in an act of unjustified provocation” would likely have been raised.
Wording up Sky News Australia
The court found Birenbaum and Giles had orchestrated a coordinated media strategy surrounding the settlement, providing briefing notes to Sky News journalists Sharri Markson and Caroline Marcus, as well as a number of right-wing commentators, before the publication of the agreed joint statement.
Justice Bromwich concluded the evidence supported the respondents’ submission that Birenbaum, “through his own conduct and via Ms Giles, deliberately set out, in a planned way, to undermine and overwhelm the contents and effect of the Joint Statement”.
“Ms Giles was closely involved in the conduct of the proceedings and the settlement process, including, as I have already inferred, the preparation of the Briefing Note and the preparation and publication of the Giles Statement and the Birenbaum Statement. She was not a bystander to the strategy to undermine and overwhelm the Joint Statement; she was a key implementer.”
He found the conduct of Birenbaum and Giles constituted “at the very least” a breach of parties’ duties under the Federal Court Act because it represented “a reasonably flagrant departure from the overarching purpose” of facilitating the just and efficient resolution of disputes.
Cairo Takeaway stunt. Building antisemitism one caper at the time