Pro-Palestinian Protesters March to Albanese’s Home
Image: Image: Free Palestine Melbourne/Facebook
This morning, Free Palestine Naarm, one of Victoria’s main Palestinian activism groups, hosted a protest at the Mary Booth Lookout Reserve in Kirribilli. The protesters gathered around 8:30 am in the park, located in one of Sydney’s most affluent neighbourhoods, before marching towards Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s official secondary home, Kirribilli House.
The protest coincided with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which is a UN-organized observance held on November 29.
“The People stand united to protest ‘Australia’s’ complicity in the historical and continued injustice of Palestine,” the Free Palestine Coalition of Naarm stated.
Some protesters gathered in Melbourne on Thursday night and drove to Sydney for the morning’s protest.
Organisers of the protest have demanded “accountability from the Australian government for its role in the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people”.
The protest invited guest speakers Labiba Abdellatif, protest chair and member of Wollongong Friends of Palestine, Ihab Abu Ibrahim, founder of the Sit-Intifada, Nour Salman of Free Palestine Melbourne/Naarm, and Markela Panegyres of the National Tertiary Educators Union.
The protest also coincided with the anniversary of the UN Resolution 181, which proposed separate Jewish and Arab states in 1947, leading the protesters in a chant of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
Speakers decried, while standing in front of the Aboriginal, Palestinian and New Caledonian flags, that only “after 14 months of massacre” did the International Criminal Court issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yaov Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
At the protest, the attendees chanted “5, 6, 7, 8 Israel is a terrorist state.”
Beginning their march to Albanese’s residence, the crowd of activists young and old chanted “there is only one solution: Intifada, revolution!”
A bystander yelled to the crowd “let the hostages go” as protesters shook their heads and continued to march.
Palestinian activist and organiser Nour Salman, while standing in front of Kirribilli House, called for action despite the “piss-weak morality” of the government, arguing for sanctions and divestiture of Israel.
“We must sanction Israel now. We must boycott, we must divest, we must sanction,” she said. “BDS works, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Salman condemned the police for “smirking at a genocide”, as the crowd erupted in shouts of “shame.”
“We are long past condemning, we are long past being sorry, and we don’t even get that from our government,” said Salman.
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Support was also shown to senator Lidia Thorpe, who was suspended from the Senate after tearing up a motion by senator Pauline Hanson and tossing the paper towards her.
On Thursday morning, despite her suspension, Senator Thorpe entered through the press gallery and shouted, “Free Palestine” during a parliamentary hearing.
“We stand by Lidia Thorpe always,’ said Salman. “White colonialists fear Indigenous women.”
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