BY EDWIN WISE & ANTHONY DEFRAINE
"Palestinians are being attacked with rockets and [helicopter] gunships", cried Asem Judeh from the Australian Solidarity Committee for Palestine at an emergency speakout on April 10 at Melbourne's LaTrobe University.
More than 200 students gathered on the campus to call for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied territories. The action was one of many Palestinian solidarity actions held on Australian campuses in the second week of April.
Resistance member Marcus Pabian told the crowd that "the history of Israel is a history of terrorism against the Palestinian people". Pabian asked students to mobilise for April 19 protests in solidarity with Palestine and protests on May 1 (M1). More than a dozen people at the action signed up to the LaTrobe University Palestine Solidarity Network to help organise these events.
Towards the end of the protest, a speaker from the Australian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) attempted to defend Israel's current military offensive, but was unable to finish his speech due to the passionate pro-Palestine chants of the protesters. Earlier in the day AUJS students had distributed material claiming that Palestinians were to blame for the continuing military offensive because they continued to train "10 year old children to be suicide bombers."
"The protest was an important political victory over the Zionist AUJS students", LaTrobe SRC Education Officer and Resistance member Kim Halpin, who chaired the speak-out, told Green Left Weekly. "Since the US began its war of terror, AUJS have stepped up racist intimidation of Palestinian students and their sympathisers. The solidarity shown today will mean more students will be confident to speak out against Israeli human rights abuses."
Students also protested in the week at University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, the Australian National University, the University of Western Australia, the University of Tasmania and Southern Cross University in Lismore.
An April 11 Lismore action was started by 30 students, demanding "Israel out of Palestine", and many students in the lunch-time crowd listened or joined into the discussion.
Matt Egan from Lismore Resistance, Nick Fredman, a member of the Socialist Alliance and Edda Lampis from the Lismore Refugee Action Collective, all called for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and an immediate end to hostilities.
Other speakers condemned the mainstream media portrayals of the conflict, which do not recognise the Palestinian people's right to national self-determination.
The speak-out was closed with a "die in", allowing the crowd to honour those members of the Palestinian community who had lost their lives in the conflict.
For information about upcoming Palestinian campus solidarity actions check the Resistance website at <http://www.resistance.org.au>.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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