Since the Bondi attack, there has been an onslaught from the media and politicians demanding a crackdown on protests for Palestine and blaming Muslims and migrants. Liberal leader Sussan Ley has explicitly blamed the Palestine movement for the Bondi shootings.
Anthony Albanese has fallen into line, calling a Royal Commission to examine not just the Bondi attack itself but “antisemitism in institutions and society” as well as “religious and ideologically motivated extremism”.
At the urging of Zionist groups Albanese has also pushed through gun laws and sweeping new laws that will allow them to ban some groups and extend Ministerial discretion to cancel visas.
And more attacks are coming. Albanese has agreed to work on implementing all of antisemitism envoy and pro-Israel activist Jillian Segal’s recommendations handed down last year. These targeted opposition to Israel and called for funding to be withheld from universities, cultural institutions and artists through an authoritarian campaign to police speech.
The government is expected to use the laws to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Nazi National Socialist Network on the grounds that they are “hate organisations”. This shows the dangers of the prohibition laws.
It suits the government to lump the Nazis and Hizb ut-Tahrir together. The ban won’t stop the Nazis organising, but the laws will be used to intimidate and silence anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine groups.
While Hizb ut-Tahrir calls for an Islamic caliphate, it is opposed to the use of violence. It is being scapegoated because it is stridently anti-Zionist, not for antisemitism.
Hypocrisy
Anthony Albanese claims to defend “social cohesion” while hypocritically scapegoating anyone who has spoken out against Israel and feeding racism against the Muslim and Arab communities.
What he means by social cohesion is social control—so that anyone who dissents from the Australian government’s support for Israel and the US is silenced by the strong arm of the state.
His decision to invite Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Australia shows just how complicit the Labor government is with the genocide. It is a blatant move to use the tragedy in Bondi to try to bolster support for Israel.
Herzog is a war criminal. His claim that there were “no innocent civilians in Gaza” was cited in the International Court of Justice decision as evidence Israel was committing genocide. He was photographed signing bombs ready to be dropped on Gaza. He also denied that Israel was starving the population of Gaza.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Herzog’s visit is “an important signal… of our relationship with Israel”. That relationship—the use of Pine Gap and the approval of weapons parts for export—has enabled Israel’s genocide.
It is Israel and the US that are unleashing death and destruction across the Middle East and across the world. Donald Trump has not only continued to arm Israel, he is using violence and threats to try to plunder resources and profits from countries such as Venezuela and Greenland.
Albanese will say nothing against this, more interested in expanding Australia’s own military build-up against China and expanding the US alliance through acquiring nuclear submarines and allowing more US bases.
Defiance
But Albanese has badly underestimated the wide community support for Palestine.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and the Adelaide Festival Board dramatically overplayed their hand when they banned Palestinian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from speaking on the grounds that she is anti-Zionist.
Outraged, over 180 authors withdrew from the event in solidarity, forcing the cancellation of the whole Writers Festival. The new festival board was forced to back down, provide an unqualified apology while announcing it would invite Abdel-Fattah to speak next year.
It showed how a defiant stand can beat back the attempts to silence support for Palestine.
Around 400 people rallied in Sydney on 16 February in defiance of the NSW government’s attempt to ban protests, calling for the laws to be repealed, to drop the Herzog invite and sanction Israel.
Placards and t-shirts with “Globalise the Intifada” and “Free Palestine: From the river to the sea”, slogans that the NSW government wants to ban, added to the show of defiance.
Herzog’s visit must be the next show of defiance. There will be nationwide rallies. If the NSW police extend the ban on marches, the anti-Herzog rally in Sydney should defy it.
The NSW police caved into pressure and are allowing the Invasion Day protest to rally in Hyde Park and march through a section of the city.
This follows a deaths in custody rally on 18 January that tried to march despite the laws, and vowed that thousands would return and break the restrictions if they had to on Invasion Day.
That’s a win for democratic rights, but the anti-protest laws have to go completely.
The anti-Herzog march in Sydney is a chance to push back against the laws. Everywhere the marches can put the fight against genocide and to free Palestine back at the centre of politics.
