Posted on Sunday, 4 January
In the wake of the terrible massacre at Bondi Beach, the political right have launched a campaign to crack down on civil liberties, the left and the Palestine movement.
Writing in The Nation in the immediate aftermath of the attack, Dave Zirin, a Jewish socialist, predicted what was to come:
The dead have one use to these people: They exist to justify Israel’s conquest of Gaza and the Palestinian blood that now will surely be shed. Facts be damned.
Sure enough, in the wake of Bondi Beach, Netanyahu set a land-speed record in finding a camera to stand in front of to blame the massacre on the Australian government’s recognizing a Palestinian state. The New York Times’ Bret Stephens published an article the next morning, while the rest of us were still in shock, titled “Bondi Beach Is What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like.” David Frum did the same at The Atlantic with “The Intifada Comes to Bondi Beach.“
In the days that followed we saw Pauline Hanson, Bob Katter, Andrew Hastie, Sussan Ley and the full gamut of the right-wing media argue that the Pro-Palestine movement was to blame, alongside un-assimilated migrants, for the shooting:
By Monday, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie had published a short video manifesto: “The prime minister has failed this country ... What we need to talk about is immigration”. The same day, Pauline Hanson claimed on Sky News that her decades-long attack on “multiculturalism” had been vindicated, demanding a “hard look at our immigration” D. Taylor wrote in Red Flag.
It is not just the right who are using this moment to crack down on the movement that stands against genocide in Palestine. Chris Minns’ Labor government in NSW has passed new laws that restrict the right to assemble and protest. In Victoria, Jacinta Allen has pledged to introduce laws similar to those passed in NSW.
Federally, the Albanese government has invited the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, to Australia. Herzog, alongside Netenyahu and Yoav Gallant, were found responsible for war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people, by a United Nations commission. Albanese has also announced they will fast track implementing recommendations from Jilian Segal, the anti-semitism envoy with relationships to the anti-semitic far right. These recommendations will lead to restrictions of pro-Palestine sentiment on university campuses, by directing universities to implement the IHRA definition of anti-semitism which links criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.
These legislative changes and the political campaign by the media are discussed in The Party Line Podcast, hosted by Victorian Socialists members Anneke Demanuele, Omar Hassan and Jordan van den Lamb. In the latest episode they were joined by Amy Remeikis, journalist with The New Daily, who authored this piece on the extraordinary positioning of the Liberals. Listen here.
It is clear that the campaign from the political right and the legislation being introduced by Labor governments have little to do with the terrorist attack in Bondi. The racist killing of 15 people is being used as an opportunity to smash up the Palestine movement and incite racism against muslims and migrants.
Victorian Socialists stand against these cynical attempts to ban protest and restrict political speech on university campuses. Our civil liberties were hard fought for by working-class people, and we have to defend the right to assemble, march and criticise. We stand against the conflation of a movement for justice and peace with a terrible terrorist attack. We oppose the invitation extended by Albanese to Isaac Herzog.
Join us at 12pm, Sunday 11th of January at the State Library of Victoria to stand with Palestine and against the attacks on our movement.