The Israel-Hamas War rages in the Middle East: hundreds have died or been displaced in Israel and the Gaza Strip since Saturday. Across Australia, pro-Palestinian rallies are being held, protesting Israel’s “complete siege” of Gaza – its retaliation for Islamist organisation Hamas’s attack, described by Israel Defense Forces as “the worst massacre of Israeli civilians in Israel’s history”.

One rally will take place in Garema Place on Friday evening, calling on Canberrans to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

The rally’s organisers, the Palestine Action Group Canberra, want an end to Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and to the siege on Gaza. They demand that Australia cuts ties with Israel, that the United Nations apply international law to protect Palestinians, and that a war crimes tribunal prosecute Israeli “decision makers who have incited and ordered mass murder, genocide and war crimes”, spokeswoman Diana Abdel-Rahman OAM, president of Australian Muslim Voice, said.

“The rally is to let the people of Palestine know that we, the everyday citizens of Australia, have not forgotten them, because the international western leadership have turned their backs on them,” Ms Abdel-Rahman said. “Secondly, we are shaping public opinion and reminding the government that we do not agree with their blind support of the apartheid (apartheid is a crime against humanity) state of Israel.”

The rally has four speakers: one Jewish, two Palestinian (one from Gaza), and one of Lebanese background. Ms Abdel-Rahman expects a few hundred people to attend.

The ACT Greens have publicised the event, angering many who are appalled both by Hamas atrocities and by celebrations of the attack.

The United Nations has accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes.

The Israel-Hamas War

Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israel on Saturday, a day after the 50th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur War.

Saturday’s assault caused the most deaths from a militant attack in Israel’s history: more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, including 260 attending a music festival, and the villagers of Be’eri and Kfar Aza; women were raped; the elderly murdered; and babies and children tortured and killed. Palestinians captured around 150 people as hostages, and threatened to execute them if Israel strikes hit civilian homes in Gaza without warning.

“Hamas announced they have captured many apartheid soldiers and placed them all over Gaza,” the Palestine Action Group Canberra posted. “The fascists decision to continue bombing Gaza will kill their own.”

For the Palestine Action Group, the Israelis are “fascists” and Hamas “freedom fighters”. In its opinion, as expressed in several Facebook posts, Hamas’s attack means that “The tables have turned.”

“A group of people in hang gliders and motor bikes takes on the fourth largest nuclear armed army in the world with F16s, tanks, and navy vessels, and fully supported and paid for by the US,” Diana Abdel-Rahman said.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had “never seen such savagery in the history of the state”, nor “since the Holocaust”. The Hamas attack was widely condemned by world leaders, including US president Joe Biden, French president Emmanuel Macron, and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese.

In Iran, however, there was rejoicing in the streets, as Iran International reported. The US suspects Iran was “complicit” in the attack, but has reportedly found no evidence yet.

Hamas claims the invasion was justified by the increased expansion of Israeli settlements and violence against Palestinian civilians. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said the operation was a “decisive response to Israel’s continued occupation and a message to those seeking normalisation with Israel” (i.e., Saudi Arabia).

The Australian Government, United States, and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organisation. Its goal is the creation of a Palestinian state under Sharia law. Its 1988 Covenant called for a jihad against Israel and the slaughter of Jews. “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The next iteration, the 2017 charter, called for the liberation of Palestine from the Zionists. A recent article in The Atlantic compared the covenant to Mein Kampf.

Israel declared war on Hamas, retaliating with airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, bombing both military targets and residential buildings, universities, schools, hospitals, offices of aid organisations, and mosques. It has blockaded Gaza, cutting off food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies.

“We condemn the airstrikes on the largest open air prison refugee camp in the world, where for the last 15 years the apartheid state controls what goes in and what goes out of Gaza, even counting the number of calories in food intake they allow,” Ms Abdel-Rahman said.

“It is a slow genocide. They are now ramping up that genocide by denying water, electricity, and food. It is a war crime.”

The Israel Defense Forces say they have killed more than 1,500 terrorists. According to Hamas, at least 900 civilians have been killed, including 200 children, while the Gaza health ministry says that more than 4,000 have been wounded. The United Nations states that more than 200,000 civilians (10 per cent of the Gaza population) have been displaced. The UN is concerned that Israeli military operations are targeting civilian infrastructure.

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), a national coalition for Australians concerned about Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians, condemned the reprisals.

Its president, Nasser Mashni, said Israel’s “brutal airstrikes” had “terrorised two million people who are locked in Gaza, with no place to run or hide”. He said the Palestinian deaths must be stopped immediately, and accused Israel of disregarding international law and committing genocide against Palestinians. He called for international intervention “to stop Israel completely destroying the lives and infrastructure of the people in Gaza”.

APAN believes the Australian government should apply sanctions on Israel, particularly in military trade and settlements, which it views as complicit in oppressing Palestinians. However, APAN denounced antisemitism, and emphasised its commitment to “the rights of all people to live in freedom, safety and equality, including citizens of Israel”.

The Palestine Action Group Canberra also views Palestine as the victim of Israeli aggression.

“Israel has declared war on Gaza,” it stated. “Israel is launching a full-scale war on Palestine for the humiliation it suffered today when Palestinians tore down apartheid walls at a Gaza border, and began to enter ’48 land that is rightfully theirs.”

(In 1947, the UN recommended that British Mandatory Palestine be divided into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under international administration. The Jewish leadership accepted this plan, but Arab leaders rejected it. When the State of Israel was established in May 1948, five neighbouring Arab nations – Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon – declared war. Israel obtained 60 per cent of the area proposed for the Arab state, and almost 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees.)

“This comes in the context of the deadliest year ever for Palestinians with Israel electing its most right-wing government ever, which includes openly fascist settlers,” the Palestine Action Group continued. “There were three Israeli attacks on Palestinians per day for the first eight months of 2023. Israeli settlers only recently stormed Al Aqsa Mosque.”

This year, before the attack, Israelis had killed nearly 250 Palestinians, while Palestinians had killed more than 30 Israelis. After Netanyahu’s government was elected last year, Israeli settlements in the West Bank increased, displacing Palestinians. Last week, Al Jazeera reported, ultranationalist Israeli settlers attempted to perform Talmudic rituals in the Islamic holy site, and prevented Muslims from entering the mosque.

“It is the responsibility of everyone who stands for justice, freedom, against apartheid, colonialism and imperialism to stand up for Palestine,” the Palestine Action Group Canberra said.

Jew-hatred at earlier rally

The first rally, held in Sydney on Monday, was marred by antisemitism. Organised by the Palestine Action Group Sydney, it took place outside the Sydney Opera House, which was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flag. Protesters chanted: “Resistance is justified when Palestine is occupied”. Others shouted: “Gas the Jews”, “F— the Jews”, and “F— Israel”.

The Palestine Action Group Sydney said the “vile antisemitic” teens and young men chanting were not part of the main group; the Group itself was anti-racist and anti-colonial.

Elsewhere in Sydney, AAP reported, large crowds celebrated Hamas’s attacks on Israel as acts of “courage” and “resistance”. Groups chanted “Occupation is the crime” and “Palestine will be free”. Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun, a prominent imam, called the attacks “a day of courage, a day of pride, a day of victory”.

The protest and the comments were condemned by Australian political leaders, including prime minister Anthony Albanese, foreign minister Penny Wong, and federal opposition leader Peter Dutton.

Despite the anger in Sydney, and similar rallies around the world, Athol Morris, spokesman for the ACT Jewish Community, did not believe antisemitism had increased in the Canberra community.

“There probably will be; eventually, there always is some sort of swing back. But at the moment, I think it’s all very positive support. Having said that, the world is a flexible place and a fluid place. And I don’t expect that to last.

“Am I concerned? You’re always concerned about any negative feelings about anything. I don’t like anti-Arab feeling. I don’t like anti-Jewish feeling. I don’t like anti-Chinese feeling. In a perfect world, people wouldn’t be negative about things. But if I can use the Latin phrase: s— happens.”

ACT Greens share protest information

The ACT Greens shared information about the rally on Facebook – an action triggering angry (and sometimes unprintable) reactions from several commenters, who accused the Greens of being out-of-touch Marxists who support Hamas.

“We support people’s democratic right to peaceful protest,” party leader Shane Rattenbury said. “We often share events and activities which may be of interest to our members.

“Sharing an event is not an endorsement of the range of views of those who may attend. As we all seek peace and end to the war crimes and fighting, there is no place for antisemitism or racism.”

ACT Green MLAs would not attend the rally, Mr Rattenbury said.

The ACT Greens condemned Hamas’s attack on Israel, he said.

However, the Australian Greens’ position is that Israel must remove settlers and security and military forces from all the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, after the Six-Day War, including the Golan Heights and the West Bank. The Greens consider that Israel is practising apartheid against Palestinians; support boycotts and sanctions against Israel; and believe the rise of right-wing extremism in Israel has intensified repression and violence, and worsened the humanitarian situation for Palestinians.

Senator Jordon Steele-John, federal Greens spokesman for foreign affairs, has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and then for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Other ACT politicians expressed concern over the ACT Greens posting about the rally.

Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee said: “The behaviour we have seen around the country at similar events which celebrated Hamas and the deaths of innocent people; and promoted antisemitic views were abhorrent. For the ACT Greens to promote and support a similar rally in Canberra is a disgrace.

“There is no room in the ACT for this type of behaviour. Shane Rattenbury must front up and explain why the ACT Greens are promoting any event that seeks to celebrate the atrocities we are currently witnessing in the Middle East.”

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said: “I don’t think this is a matter in which people should be taking sides. No-one should be bombing anyone. It’s as simple as that.”

The Palestine Action Group Canberra welcomed the Greens’ support.

“The Greens will be testament in the books of history for standing up for what is right in the face of injustice,” Diana Abdel-Rahman said. “Like those who stood up for black South Africans against its apartheid white supremacist regime while everyone else cowered and followed the status quo at the time …

“Right now, the [federal] government’s support and its silence of the ethnic cleansing and genocide being undertaken by the fourth largest army in the world has given tacit green light to the apartheid state to commit war crimes. In so doing, the Australian government takes part of the responsibility.”

Nor did the ACT Jewish Association have any problems with the Greens’ post. Athol Morris thought it “perfectly fine to promote a rally in any way you possibly can. What you don’t do is tell [people at the] rally what to think. You don’t say to them: ‘Guys, the Jews are going to be saying this, they’re really bad, so make sure you stand up to them.’” As happened at the “unfortunate” rally at the Sydney Opera House.

“The UN established Israel as a valid country,” Mr Morris, a lawyer and international mediator, continued. “It’s been accepted as an actual country. It’s not an artificial construct. And whilst it’s regrettable that there have been disagreements about where it is, and who should be in it, that’s not an excuse for unleashing violence and terror against its people.

“If you want to hold a rally against the state, by all means, you’re free to talk. What you’re not free to do is to either go around shooting grandmothers and children who are non-combatants, just ordinary people getting on with their lives. And equally more so, you’re not free to glorify those people in a rally in another country.

“Do we have sympathy for Palestinians? Yeah, we do. We’ve got no problem with Palestinians wanting to validate their own existence, just like the Jews do. Do we have any sympathy for Palestinians who take up arms against innocent civilians to do it? Not a bit of it. We want to see them put down like the dogs that the Israeli government says they are, because that is a completely invalid way of responding.”

Mr Morris said that the Palestinians had been given many chances over the last half-century to have a state of their own. (For instance, the Oslo Accords of 1993; the Camp David Summit of 2000; the Road Map for Peace of 2003; and the Annapolis Conference of 2007.)

“They’ve come awfully close to it, but they’ve always ultimately declined.”

He suggested that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had stopped Israel and the West from establishing a Palestinian state. Without proper statehood, Mr Morris argued, the Palestinians lacked a role in negotiations and representation – “an equal mouthpiece” – on par with Israel. He believes that despite being recognised as a people, Palestinians lacked the necessary attributes of a state.

“No amount of recognising them as a people is going to make them valid, because at this point they’ve rejected the need to be valid; they want to be rejected; they want to be accepted as effectively a non-government rabble that has the same responsibilities as something like Australia, and it just doesn’t.

“You need to have proper statehood before you can be treated as a state. That’s what they’re missing. And to some extent it’s their own fault, because they’ve been given the opportunity to have land and respectability, and they’ve declined, preferring to be what they are,” Mr Morris said.

Canberra Daily is keen to hear from you about a story idea in the Canberra and surrounding region. Click here to submit a news tip.