Janet Parker from Jews for Palestine gave the following speech to the protest against Isaac Herzog on February 9 in Boorloo.
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I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet; this land never ceded. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
I want to acknowledge the links between the occupation and colonisation of Aboriginal land and the occupation and genocide of the indigenous peoples of the lands of Palestine.
Both peoples have experienced mass cultural erasure, land theft and colonisation and the genocide continues.
The two struggles are written in blood and great injustice.
What is the last thing you would do when you want to calm a situation of fear, anxiety and division?
Answer: Drop a political bomb in the middle of it!
That is the impact of Anthony Albanese’s invitation to the genocide inciting Isaac Herzog and the war criminal Doron Almog.
I want to be very clear; we extend our full solidarity to the victims and survivors of the horrific massacre at Bondi. We condemn the senseless, indiscriminate killing of civilians in all circumstances.
But let us dwell for a moment on our slogan that emerged in the days after the Bondi killings: “Wrong in Bondi, Wrong in Gaza”.
In addition to condemning the killing of 15 Jewish civilians at Bondi on December 14, we condemn:
• The killing of 72,000 Palestinians (and we know it to be thousands but not yet found and identified);
• The killing of 20,000 children;
• The killing of 234 journalists, deliberately targeted;
• The killing of 1600 healthcare workers, again deliberately targeted;
• The killing of 224 humanitarian aid workers, once more, deliberately targeted; and so the list goes on.
Who, we must ask is bringing comfort to the Palestinian community — in Gaza, in the West Bank, in the diaspora — who is bringing comfort to the Palestinian community here in Australia at a time where it is estimated that many have lost whole generations of family members?
If it were not enough that the Albanese government has refused to condemn Israel’s actions, refused to impose military, trade and diplomatic sanctions, it then parades two men who have actively incited and facilitated the genocide of Palestinian people as special guests.
Has it really never occurred to them that to bring out two men supposedly to comfort to Jewish Australians is to say to Palestinians living in Australia – your lives are worth nothing?
Is this what they mean by “social cohesion”? Even as political theatre, it is obscenely offensive!
Yes, Zionist Jews identify with Israel. But Australian Jews are not wards of the Israeli state. Some of us receive no comfort at all from the visit of a foreign head of state charged with inciting genocide; in fact it makes us sick with anger.
Jews for Palestine extends its love and solidarity to the Palestinian community, express our deepest condolences and our ongoing commitment to fight this horror with everything we’ve got.
Jews for Palestine are among a rising tide of anti-Zionist Jews – in Australia and around the globe, who condemn the actions of the Israeli state and say Israel does not speak for us.
You may have seen the full-page ad that appeared in The Age and SMH today saying just this. The statement was signed by over 1000 Australian Jews.
How is it that despite our loud and repeated protestations, we are ignored or dismissed in much of the media? There is a diversity of political opinions among Jews, just like all communities.
What gives The West Australian the right to decide which Jewish voices will be heard, and which will be ignored? Is this not antisemitic?
We say again: To be Jewish is not to be Zionist! To be Jewish is not to swear an unswerving allegiance to a colonial-settler, apartheid, militaristic ethnostate that commits mass murder in brazen and unapologetic fashion. And we recognise that its actions – combined with this dogged insistence on the conflation of Jewishness with Zionism is in reality, the greatest threat to Jewish safety today.
To be Jewish is not to imagine that one Holocaust can justify another. Because that is what we see today – the genocide being wrought on the Palestinian people today is a holocaust of our time.
What was the real purpose of Albanese invitation to Herzog?
Perhaps, in the first instance, it was to appease the attack dogs in the Murdoch media. But when they smell blood they just want more. Predictably, The West Australian’s primary purpose is to once again dishonestly smear criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
In the second half of last year, public opinion — reflected in the prop-Palestine massive marches across Australia — started to shift against Israel as the scale of the genocide became obvious. The opinion-makers in the corporate media started to panic as they lost control of the narrative.
Even though the Bondi shooters had absolutely nothing to do with the peaceful mass movement in support of basic universal human right for the Palestinians, these pro-Israel ghouls seized on the tragedy and now seek to use it as a weapon to shut us down and shut us up. That’s not going to happen! We can’t let it happen! We won’t let it happen!
Was the lesson of the Nazi Holocaust not “Never Again”? That meant never again for anyone, anywhere!
From the River to the Sea; Palestine will be free!