'BDS victory' as Sydney Festival halts foreign government funding after Israel embassy money scandal

The board for one of Australia's biggest cultural festivals announced on Tuesday the immediate suspension of investments from foreign governments, a year after the event was rocked by controversy over funding from the Israeli embassy.

The Sydney Festival board announced the decision after it commissioned "an independent review into the role of international government investment", according to its statement.

"Sydney Festival has today announced a range of important measures to improve the decision-making process around partnerships and sponsorships ahead of the Sydney Festival 2023 Program Launch," the statement read.

"This includes an immediate suspension of investment from international governments and their cultural agencies."

The boycott of the 2022 edition of the Sydney Festival began last December after it was revealed that the three-week event had received tens of thousands of dollars of funding from the Israeli embassy in Australia.

The funding was meant to help pay for a dance production choreographed by an Israeli.

Israel had been listed as a "star partner" on the festival's website due to the sponsorship.

Pro-Palestine activists slammed festival management for its decision to approve the funding and called for a boycott of the event.

More than 20 acts pulled out of the festival over the funding.

Do Better on Palestine, the group that called for the boycott, welcomed the foreign government funding suspension.

"This result is not only a victory for Palestinian human rights, which Israel arbitrarily breaches, violates and denies – it is also a victory for human rights globally," the group said in a statement.

"Artists and audiences have demonstrated that they will not support any cultural event or organisation that does business with apartheid."

The 2023 edition of the festival is set to take place in January.