Protesters were defiant at the April 14 protests in Gadigal/Sydney and Naarm/Melbourne against Israel's genocide. They marked the 27th consecutive week of protests for Palestine.
The same day, Iran's retaliation against Israel's lethal attack on Iran's Damascus Embassy reminded the world of the high stakes in Israel's unrestrained, genocidal warmongering.
A few days before, on April 9, Foreign Minister Penny Wong superficially criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Needing to look tough after the killing of Australian aid worker Lalzawmi Frankcom, she said: “Australia [has] called on the Netanyahu Government to change course including in respect of a major ground offensive in Rafah,” she said. “Again we say, do not go down this path.”
She also appeared to promise Australia would recognise a Palestinian state. However, the next day she told ABC Radio that this was only in “the long term”.
Wong's speech — framed around security for Israel rather than justice for Palestinian victims of genocide — shows that Labor is feeling the pressure from the protest movement.
However, until the government moves concretely to sanction Israel, including ending arms exports, the protests must continue.
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Chloe DS reports from Naarm/Melbourne that Nasser Mashni, President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network led the rally there.
“We've been doing this for 198 days, marching together every week with Palestine and with the struggle for everyone to be free.”
“You don't accidentally kill 20,000 children; you don't accidentally target refugee camps; you don't accidentally kill over 100 journalists and 200 medical aid workers; you don't accidentally target 35 hospitals; you don't accidentally wipe out schools and& universities ... you don't accidentally misplace 2 million people, ”Mashni said.
“This is a planned, methodical genocide.”
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Gumbainggir activist and academic Gary Foley spoke about the 100th anniversary of the formation of the first, modern, organised Aboriginal political organisation — the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association.
Set up in 1924, he said it “treated and fed much of the Aboriginal resistance over the next 100 years”. Foley's great grandfather was the secretary of one of the branches.
By “standing here today”, Foley said he was “keeping up with his spirit” and belief in justice. He acknowledged the young Palestinians and all young people in the crowd, saying that “gives him hope for the future”.
Mashni highlighted the April 17 “Palestinian prisoners' day” as a “connection that we continue to make between Indigenous sovereignty and the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty”.
“The struggle for Palestine is a struggle for all indigenous people and all oppressed peoples.”
War crimes investigator Julie Webb-Pullaman, Victorian Secretary of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union Tony Mavromatis, Palestinian scholar-activist Tasnim Sammak, Victorian Greens' Senator-elect Stephanie Hodgins-May, and Free Palestine Melbourne member Mai Saif also addressed the crowd.
Webb-Pullaman related her work in the Gaza strip, in the basement of the special surgical building of Al-Shifa Hospital, which is now in ruins after a two-week seige.
A global call for a coordinated economic blockade to disrupt the war machine was promoted for April 15.
Pip Hinman reported from Gadigal/Sydney thousands turned out on April 14. While the mood was defiant, it was also sombre due to the possibility of the war spreading, after Israel’s attack on Iran and its retaliation.
Protesters vowed to come back next week, and every week, until there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Peter Boyle added that “racial tension provoked by the right-wing on social media over the tragic Bondi Junction stabbing yesterday may have kept some families away”.
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The mass rallies are only one element of the popular mobilisations for Palestine. The new Palestine Under Siege documentary has screened to packed audiences in Meanjin/Brisbane (April 10 and 11), Djilang/Geelong (April 5), Naarm/Melbourne and other cities.
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Vigils are continuing in Kombumerri Country/Gold Coast (April 13), Gimuy/Cairns (April 12) and Karatha (April 7). A rally is being planned for April 17 in Gimuy/Cairns.
Merri Bek and Northern Suburbs 4 Palestine called a 100-strong protest outside Labor Senator Jess Walsh office in Naarm/Melbourne on April 13.
Seb Hand, childcare worker and United Workers Union member called out Walsh for complicity in genocide. Walsh failed to vote for a Greens motion in the Senate to stop arming Israel.
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Hand said that it was even more shameful behaviour for a previous union secretary to refuse to vote such a motion,
Protesters highlighted the Albanese governments $917 million agreement with Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
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