The Labor and Liberal parties teamed up with One Nation and Zionism in a not-so-veiled effort to condemn freedom of speech on May 15.
Labor supported a motion from Simon Birmingham, opposition leader in the Senate, to condemn the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as “antisemitic”.
When you’ve lost hearts and minds in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, as the major parties have done, the next step is to move to the culture wars.
They are preparing the ideological ground to try and eradicate the student encampments that have sprung up across the country as an expression of students’ support for the people of Gaza.
The major parties’ insistence that this chant is antisemitic exposes their support for Israel having a right to remain an apartheid state with one law for Jews and another for Arabs.
As many have pointed out, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — من النهر إلى البحر — refers to the aspiration for everyone who lives between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be liberated, decolonised.
The growing numbers of anti-Zionist Jews at the many protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, joining in the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” gives the lie to the claim that the chant is antisemitic.
The Liberals successfully wedged Labor: the motion said the phrase “is frequently used by those who seek to intimidate Jewish Australians via acts of antisemitism”, but gave no proof.
Penny Wong, government leader in the Senate, said Birmingham was “right to raise this — how people are feeling”, adding that Labor supports a two-state solution and that “From the river to the sea” is “not consistent with a two-state solution”.
Birmingham also asserts, as Labor does, that it is antisemitic to call for Israel not to exist, because that means Jews should not exist.
This is also wrong.
Just as the global campaign to end apartheid in South Africa was not a call to eliminate white South Africans, the call to abolish the apartheid state of Israel is not antisemitic.
The major parties want to stop the pro-Palestine rallies, now heading into their 32nd consecutive week, and the student encampments that are growing across the country each day.
But after more than seven months of Israel’s genocide, the Zionist attempts to brand this mass movement as in any way antisemitic have lost any skerrick of credibility.
And cracks are also beginning to appear inside Labor.
Western Australian Labor Senator Fatima Payman challenged her party on Nakba Day, May 15. “How many lives does it take to call this a genocide?” she asked, after having addressed a rally out the front of Parliament House.
“How many human rights laws does Israel have to break to say enough is enough? … How many lives need to be lost before we say enough?
“What is the magic number?
“How many mass graves need to be uncovered before we say enough?
“How many images of bloodied limbs of murdered children must we see?
“How many horrors need to be repeated before we feel that this should end?
“How many Palestinian lives are enough to call this violence against them terrorism?
“How many lives does it take to call this a genocide?
“I ask my colleagues, how many?”
She bravely called on her colleagues to “stand for what is right” before demanding action.
“We can do something. We can sanction. We can divest. We can stop trade with Israel. We can call for a permanent ceasefire. We can call for the establishment of the Palestinian state. We can be on the right side of history, so that when the young read about us they can be proud Australians, knowing that their country at a time when it was needed had the moral clarity to do what is right.”
Payman ended by saying, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a call for peace, with justice, for all those who live in historic Palestine.