Hundreds joined protest vigils in Sydney and Melbourne on 22 December to reject the effort to blame the Palestine movement for the horrific antisemitic terror attack at Bondi, and to oppose further restrictions on protest.
Over 300 gathered in Sydney following NSW Premier Chris Minns’ plan to ban Palestine protests.
Minns recalled NSW Parliament to pass new laws that would prevent any protests in designated areas following terrorist attacks. They allow the NSW Police Commissioner and NSW Police Minister to ban protests for a period of 14 days that can be continually extended for up to three months.
He also wants to ban the phrase “Globalise the Intifada”, labelling it hate speech.
Adam Adelpour, representing Stop the War on Palestine, explained, “[Intifada] in Arabic means revolution, shaking off, uprising—banning a word in Arabic but not in English is racist.”
The word intifada has been applied not just to the two Palestinian Intifadas that began in 1987 and 2000, and involved resistance of all kinds including mass protests, strikes and boycott campaigns, but also mass movements in Iraq in the 1950s and even the 2011 Arab revolutions.
The crowd defied Minns by chanting “Globalise the Intifada,” led by multiple speakers from the platform.
Minns’ new anti-protest laws are not only an attack on the Palestine movement. If the Sydney CBD is designated as a restricted area, then the annual Invasion Day march on 26 January, which regularly draws tens of thousands to protest in support of Aboriginal rights, could be banned.
“[Minns’] government has deliberately used this moment to progress what has been a longstanding agenda to oppress protest and speech,” said Tim Roberts from the NSW Council of Civil Liberties.
A coalition of pro-Palestine groups have since announced a legal challenge to Minns’ new anti-protest laws.
Since the Bondi terror attack, which was carried out by two gunmen who appear to have been inspired by Islamic State, the racist right have sought to seize the moment to push their Islamophobic, racist, anti-migrant agenda.
The response of Anthony Albanese and the NSW Labor government has encourage police to step up the surveillance and harassment of the Muslim community. Police violently beat and detained several young Muslim men who had travelled from Melbourne to Western Sydney. They were later released due to the NSW Police having no evidence they were planning any kind of terrorism or violence.
On top of Minns’ new anti-protest laws, Albanese has announced that the federal government would adopt the recommendations of so-called “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal. These include enshrining the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which targets criticism of Israel and Zionism.
“It is this relentless conflation of Israel’s genocide and occupation with all Jewish people that leads to more antisemitism,” said anti-Zionist Jewish activist Ell, “Normalising genocide is what sows the seeds of terrorism, protesting a genocide does not.”
In Melbourne around 150 people joined a speakout in front of Parliament House organised by Anti Zionism Australia. The event went ahead despite being denounced in the media as “divisive” amid calls for it to be banned.
Opening the event, rally chair David Glanz said, “What happened in Bondi was an antisemitic attack of horrific proportions, one that we share total condemnation of.”
“Why we are here today is that unlike many of the people who jumped on the Bondi bandwagon and politicised the issue, we are not in favour of blaming the Palestine movement, we are not in favour of restricting the right to protest.”
The rally heard from five anti-Zionist Jewish speakers, four of them born and raised in Israel who have come to reject Zionism and reject support for the state of Israel.
“We’ve been demonised in the news and called antisemitic,” Israeli-Australian Dr Keren Rubinstein told the crowd. “Don’t believe the news, don’t believe the antisemitism envoy, don’t believe the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. Divisive policies such as these are eroding democracy here.”
“Judaism and Zionism must be separated. Not all Jewish people support Zionism, an ideology of Jewish so-called self determination, because it is clear it is a settler colonial project that has come at the expense of Palestinian people.”
“Insisting that all Jewish people support a genocidal apartheid state is antisemitic.”
In both Melbourne and Sydney, sections of the Palestine movement such as the Palestine Action Group and Free Palestine Melbourne, as well as union leaders like Luke Hilakari of Victorian Trades Hall, have argued against holding vigils or protests in the wake of the Bondi attack.
But Chris Minns, Liberal leader Sussan Ley and supporters of Israel have not held back from zealously politicising it to slander those who have marched for Palestine and attack the movement.
Calling off our events accepts the lie that the Palestine movement is a source of violence and division, rather than Israel’s genocide and Australia’s support for it.
In NSW, lying low in the face of repression is no way to avoid Minns’ attack on the right to protest. It will send a message that the Palestine movement can be intimidated into silence.
It is essential that the Palestine movement continues to mobilise. We need to reject the smears of antisemitism, and we need to challenge the latest extreme anti-protest laws in NSW, as well as Labor’s adoption of Segal’s recommendations.
By Maeve Larkins
