The hundreds of thousands who marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge show the scale of support for action on Gaza. There is growing pressure on Anthony Albanese.
Israel’s brutal starvation policy and relentless war crimes have produced a dramatic step change in public sentiment.
It was Sydney’s largest protest since the massive march against the Iraq War in February 2003. Organisers of the Harbour Bridge march put the turnout at 300,000—and in driving rain.
The turnout was so big that half of the march didn’t even get to other side of the bridge. Police decided to cut the protest in two and turn a section of the crowd back to the starting point.
NSW Premier Chris Minns’ immediate call to stop the protest, made almost as soon as it was announced, meant the media gave it saturation coverage in the lead-up and made hundreds of thousands determined to attend.
Momentum was building all week, with hundreds of organisations endorsing the idea including 11 unions. Five NSW Labor MPs spoke out against Minns and pledged to attend the march.
Starvation in Gaza has reached a horrific crisis point. But Albanese’s response has simply been to spout platitudes while continuing to allow the export of weapons components being used in the genocide, alongside normal diplomatic relations and trade with the Israeli terror state.
He told ABC’s Insiders that Israel’s withholding of aid was “quite clearly” a breach of international law, and its claims there is no starvation in Gaza were “beyond comprehension”. But he is still refusing to take the kind of action against Israel that would impose real pressure to end the genocide.
When Foreign Minister Penny Wong was questioned by The Greens about the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, she repeated the absurd claim that Australia only exports “non-lethal” parts for the jets.
Yet Israel’s F-35s would not be able to drop bombs on Gaza without the bomb bay doors and other parts Australia supplies.
Israel still enjoys access to intelligence and targeting information from the Pine Gap spy base in the NT. This puts the lie to Albanese’s claims that “Australia is not a participant” in Israel’s genocide.
And Albanese has refused to impose any of the kind of sanctions on trade or weapons exports imposed on countries such as Iran and Russia.
Israeli ambassador Amir Meron reportedly told journalists that photos of starving Palestinians were “false pictures” and part of a “false campaign that is being [led] by Hamas”. Albanese should expel the ambassador and cut diplomatic ties to help isolate Israel globally.
The UK, France and Canada have now announced they will recognise a Palestinian state, alongside Israel. This is not the self-determination that Palestine needs, but Albanese is unwilling to take even this small, token step.
Make Israel a pariah state
The scale of the Harbour Bridge march, along with growing protests across the country, will give confidence to everyone who supports Palestine.
But we know from the historic bridge march for Indigenous Reconciliation in 2000 and from the Iraq war rallies that one major protest, however phenomenal, is not enough to force change.
We need to draw more people into active organising for Palestine.
The wide endorsement for the Bridge march showed the kind of coalition in support of Gaza that exists. Mobilising this support again will require systematic effort.
A national day of action on Sunday 24 August is the next immediate focus.
We need to build maximum pressure on Albanese to impose comprehensive sanctions and to enforce our own “people’s sanctions” against Israel.
Union activists need to raise workplace and branch motions to push their unions towards adopting bans on the production and transport of weapons, steel and coal to Israel.
The struggle for boycotts must spread everywhere that ties to Israel exist. In June delegates representing 80,000 NSW nurses and midwives voted to boycott Israeli medical companies profiting from the public health system, including IDF supplier Syqe.
UTS staff and students forced their university to end a ten-year partnership with Israeli university the Technion earlier this year. Campaigns have ended student exchange partnerships with the Hebrew University at University of WA, Ben Gurion University at Curtin Uni and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design at Sydney College of the Arts.
A union day of action for Palestine on 10 September has been backed by NTEU divisions in NSW and Victoria. This is an important opportunity to strengthen the ties between unions and the Palestine movement. The widest possible support must be built for it in every union and workplace.
The party’s Victorian state conference in early August passed a raft of motions calling on Albanese to act. The movement also needs to build on efforts to amplify dissent within the Labor Party, including by putting Labor speakers on protest platforms.
Israel is a genocidal state and it must be turned into a global pariah. We have to break the starvation siege and keep fighting until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.
