10:00 am WEDNESDAY 1st NOVEMBER 2023
Anti-Zionist Jewish activists have led an occupation and staged a ritual inside the office of
Defence Minister Richard Marles at 90-92 Broughman St. Geelong. A number of protestors
have secured themselves by their necks in the office’s reception using bicycle locks and are
refusing to leave. Others have blockaded the office’s main entrance and raised banners
reading ‘Stop The Genocide’, ‘Not In Our Name’, ‘Disarm Israel’, and ‘ALP Supports Ethnic
Cleansing’.
The group – made up of members of Jewish, Aboriginal, and other communities – demands
that Marles and the Federal Labor Government withdraw diplomatic, economic and military
support for Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine. They call upon Marles to condemn
Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza and the West Bank. In the words of Jewish
demonstrator Nevo Zisin:
“I condemn the use of Jewish grief and trauma as justification for committing a
genocide against another people. The ongoing occupation and ethnic cleansing of
Palestinian people goes against my Jewish values”.
Antimilitarist activist Zelda Grimshaw also took part and had this to say:
“The ALP’s Richard Marles acts as a broker for major international weapons deals.
Taxpayer dollars should not be funnelled into the pockets of giant weapons
corporations. Australian-made weapons should not be trained on the people of
Gaza.”
Noemie Huttner-Koros, a Jewish artist and writer, said:
“As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I refuse to let Israel’s far-right government
weaponise our grief, pain and fear for the purpose of war crimes, invasion and
genocide. We want to show Jewish people in the diaspora that we can speak up.
Jews & Palestinians can and do live together. I see it as my ancestral duty to fight for
justice, peace and liberation for all.”
Another Demonstrator said:
“As an anti-Zionist Jew from a lineage of non-Zionist Jews, speaking out against
racism and settler-colonialism honours my Jewish ancestors. Jewish resistance to
Zionism is older than the Israeli regime itself.”
For further comment and media, please contact:
Dr. Shoshana Rosenberg: 0452 205 028; shoshana.k.rosenberg@gmail.com
Noemie Huttner-Koros: 0432 925 664; noemie.hk@gmail.com
Declan Furber Gillick: 0488127993; management@declanfurbergillick.com
Zelda Grimshaw: 0407757367; zelda@wagepeaceau.org
Senator Fatima Payne: The killing of innocent civilians in Israel should be condemned and we condemn it. The killing of innocent civilians in Palestine should also be condemned and we must condemn it. The international community loudly and proudly condemned Russia’s occupation of Ukraine when it started attacking Ukraine in 2014 yet today the world watches as the state of Israel deprives the entire population—men, women and children—of the basic necessities of life: food, water, electricity, gas and medicines. We must condemn it.
Israeli missiles strike residential dwellings, civilians, multistorey apartments, health facilities as well as places of worship, indiscriminately killing men, women and children. We must condemn it. Human Rights Watch confirms that Israel is using white phosphorous in Gaza. That violates the international humanitarian law prohibition. We must condemn it.
The price tag of Israel’s right to defend itself cannot be the destruction of Palestine. Israel’s right to defend its civilians cannot equate to the annihilation of Palestinian civilians. I hereby call for an immediate ceasefire to come into effect, alongside many world leaders and experts. Food, water, medicine and humanitarian aid need to be allowed to get through and reach the victims. Mediation and talks need to start, as obviously violence has not solved anything for the past 75 years, and a just and long-lasting solution needs to be sorted out.
I roll some more marbles, drop some more fantasy units in the games that I play quite passively with twitch streamers, in the other window I scroll through tweets, playing speeches by world leaders, interviews of ordinary people. People excuse the genocide of the Palestinian people, saying they literally did this to themselves, of course.
I just want to buy a Palestinian flag marble, there’s an Israeli one. Consume my way through this. Like buying a Kuffiya with purple in the weave to wear this summer to keep the sun off my pale skin, Or in solidarity at at Rally, a rally they try to scare us off from going to with threats of random searches or fines and imprisonment. Because order is more important in so-called Australia than justice, be it social or climate. Keep the peace, keep the status quo, however racist that may be.
Israel bombed a hospital. 500 to a thousand people dead. Patients, homeless, internal refugees, doctors, nurses, teachers, the disabled who had nowhere else to go.
But what if Hamas were hiding under there?
What if?
Whatif Hamas were hiding in your town. Holding a meeting at the Workers Club, storing weapons in the highschool hall. Sure, wipe out your city, your town, It’s for the overall good, what’s 500 more brown lives.
Oh but this is where I have to condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the kidnappings of Israeli civilians. And I do. Hamas should not have done that. They should also not have been able to sneak in under the gaze of the most technologically advance military in the world. Australia buys its Centrelink surveillance tech from Israel, they don’t need our military aid.
Hamas aren’t the good guys. But neither is the state of Israel.
(I pause to hang out my washing inbetween rain showers)
I curse that the kids bring out all their plates and cups to wash at once, but am pleased to have running water to wash with, food to feed them, a safe place for them and the baby to sleep. “First world problems” we say as we deal with out day to day mental health or cost of living pressures, holding baby Emery tight while babies are bombed evacuating as directed by their oppressors.
We voted against the Voice to parliament. The least we could do, give Blak people an advisory voice to the colonial government. My electorate voted over 70% no. I’m not surprised. One booth, Wollombi, yoted majority yes. I voted yes in a referendum we shouldn’t have had a say in.
But what do you expect? They say the voting pattern was similar to that of the 1999 republic vote that I missed out on by a year, the same seats leaning yea and no, The spread very similar, the same people voting for the status quo. The same people being blamed for being uneducated and poor, The same people being fundamentally happy with being a British colony, and even if we do think we should move forward from that, it’s not the pressing thing that people who are living day to day care to debate.
Yes, we are a racist country. If was the racist no, not the sovereign no, or the disengaged no that won on the day. You see this here in the gloating in the facebook groups, the Blak kids being followed in the supermarkets, the white people claiming they’re just as discriminated against as Aboriginal people.
But the disinformation comes through. I was waiting at the foodbank for the afternoon free pies, there was a small group discussing the referendum and how the new world order had something to do with it. How Covid was a conspiracy to make someone money, how this one guys was beaten up in school by black kids so that means they can’t be racismed against.
“It’s okay to be white” was a motion in our parliament, just as “Israel has a right to defend itself” too precedence over condemning their war crimes. Nazi’s in Melbourne get an armed escort home on the train while they harass and intimidate anyone not white. They take the chance to yell anti-Semitic slurs and graffiti while also calling the Palestinian protestors terrorists.
I just go back to making my cupcakes and doing my little chores.
