Supporters of Palestine rallied in several cities on the day marking Al-Naksa (the set-back) on June 7.
Al Naksa refers to the 1967 Six-Day War, during which Israel defeated combined Arab armies and captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
The crowd in Gadigal Country/Sydney heard from the Australian flotilla activists Zack Schofield, Juliet Lamont, Anny Mokotow and Gemma Bean O’Toole. Ibrahim “Bob” Mouammar, Jann Alhafny and Yasmine Johnson also spoke.
Alhafny, who was hospitalised after the NSW Police assault at the February 9 protest against Israeli President Herzog demanded that NSW Premier Chris Minns resigns over his anti-protest laws and actions.
Mouammar, who has participated in the nearly three years of Palestine actions waving Palestine flags and drumming, related his recent harassment by NSW Police while working in Double Bay. He was wearing a keffiyeh and had entered a Bunnings store. “This was terrible for me, but this is nothing compared to what people in Gaza experience every day.”
Schofield reminded the crowd that “nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners remain in torture camps, conditions similar to or worse than Ktzi’ot Prison”.
“Australia continues to support Israel materially and politically, including supplying F-35 parts, steel alloys, political backing at the United Nations and explosives used in attacks on civilians in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, with potential targeting of Egypt, Turkey and Jordan.
“We have to keep resisting Minns on Palestine and issues like Waterloo, where they’re displacing public housing tenants.”
Lamont said the movement has to “keep targeting weapons companies in Australia”, getting the Israeli ambassador removed and forcing the government to be accountable. “We need to end all support to Israel—including non-military aid, like food and air conditioning.”
Mokotow, a member of Jews Against the Occupation ‘48 said, her experience as part of a non-Zionist family, meant that she had “long been aware of Israel’s project to draw the world into its xenophobic, Machiavellian and megalomaniac perspectives”.
“I have seen how our government, regardless of party politics, has become hostage to the Zionist agenda, how politicians have been literally bought and wedded to Zionist ideology and how aspects of our civil society and cultural heritage are being prescribed by Zionist thuggery.”
O’Toole relayed a moving incident of solidarity on the Israeli warship, where flotilla participants were being tortured, where they had a chance to join in prayer with our Muslim friends. “It was led by a kind man who had a green rifle light fixed on his forehead the whole time.”
Palestine Action Group Sydney is planing a rally outside the NSW Labor Conference on July 4.