Australia protests war criminal Herzog’s visit

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hoped to gain sympathy for Israel by inviting President Isaac Herzog to visit, but his efforts were thwarted as tens of thousands took to the streets in protest against Herzog’s visit this week.

Herzog’s invitation was framed as an attempt to comfort Jewish people following the horrific mass shooting at Bondi beach. But people rejected Albanese’s attempts to weaponise the antisemitic attack, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

Paddy, a member of revolutionary socialist group Solidarity, spoke to Socialist Worker about the protests. He attended a protest against Herzog’s visit in Sydney where activists were met with extreme violence and brutality by police.

“There is real outrage here. There is a feeling in the movement that Albanese’s government has underestimated us,” he said.

“They’ve overplayed their hand by inviting Herzog here given the central role he has played in the genocide in Gaza. The movement has shown it will not accept it and it will not be silenced.”

Immediately after the Bondi attack the premier of New South Wales state, Chris Minns, introduced restrictions on protests. Ahead of Herzog’s visit, he announced additional “major event” powers effectively giving police authority to shut down areas of the city and move on protesters.

“In the wake of the horrific massacre at Bondi beach, we’ve seen a relentless attack on the Palestine movement. We’ve seen measures imposed to restrict our civil liberties and our right to protest,” Paddy said.

Minns has disgracefully and explicitly said that “words lead to action” to try and implicate the Palestine movement as somehow responsible for the attack at Bondi.

Australia’s Labor government is resorting to repression because it is deeply committed to supporting Israel as part of an imperialist alliance with the United States. The escalation in state violence and repression is because it is losing credibility.

Paddy told Socialist Worker that demonstrators showed up knowing that they risked arrest if they joined the protest at Sydney Town Hall as it fell within an area authorities designated as a protected area during Herzog’s visit.

“It was very brave for people to come at all given that it was in direct contravention with the ban. We estimate that 20,000 people turned up on the night, an achievement in itself,” said Paddy.

But when the furious crowd began to push for a march, police seized a chance to go on a violent rampage. There were 27 arrested and a number of protesters were taken to hospital to be checked for head injuries, with one suffering four broken vertebrae.

“This an unprecedented attack on the street movement,” said Paddy. “People were pepper sprayed, elderly men and women were beaten and thrown to the ground.”

The racist nature of the police came to the fore. “Protesters were racially abused,” he said. “A group of Muslim men and women who had left the rally to find a quiet place to conduct their evening prayers were attacked by police just for being there.”

Paddy told Socialist Worker that these authoritarian protest laws had been most effectively challenged by the Aboriginal rights movement.

“At the protest, the call to defy the ban and to march came from Aboriginal activists. They told the crowd that they would not sign up to this regime. They would not be told they could not march, saying this is our land.” said Paddy.

The Aboriginal rights and Palestine movements are anchored in a long history of solidarity based on shared experiences of settler-colonialism, land dispossession and ongoing resistance.

Paddy argued, “The task for us now is to unite and push for some accountability. Unions and activists and groups on the ground need to come together against the crackdown on people speaking up for Palestine.”

The kind of mass, collective defiance seen against Herzog’s visit is the best way to do this–and to keep fighting to end the Australian government’s complicity.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli