COMMENT BY GERARD HENDERSON FOR THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN – SATURDAY 11 OCTOBER 2025

On Monday October 9, 2023 I watched the opponents of Israel’s right to exist within secure borders march down Phillip Street en route to the Sydney Opera House. It was a noisy affair with much chanting and beating of drums.

This was an unauthorised procession. A protest meeting at Sydney’s Town Hall had developed into a procession to the Opera House. This was after the terrorist organisation Hamas, which was the government of Gaza, invaded southern Israel – murdering children and adults and raping women. And it was before Israel retaliated by waging war on Hamas and invading Gaza.

Of the greatest surprise to me was that the NSW Police’s riot squad was at the end of the unauthorised march – effectively protecting its rear. Later on, debate developed as to whether some of the Islamists and radical leftists outside the Opera House had chanted “Where’s the Jews?” or “Gas the Jews”.

I heard the latter. Others the former. It was a meaningless debate since, whatever the chant, it was a verbal attack on Jewish Australians. The protestors had declared that they either wanted to locate (and presumably harm) Australian Jews and/or gas them. In any event, it was a threat of considerable violence. There were no arrests at the Opera House.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has been the Australian political leader who has best handled the outburst of anti-Semitism two years ago. He apologised for the failure of NSW authorities to adequately defuse the situation and promised that NSW would improve its handling of such situations.

It is worth remembering that the Opera House protests were a mere manifestation of anti-semitism which had been on the rise in Australia since the turn of the century. Since 2001, there have been attacks on Jewish schools and synagogues along with the businesses of Jewish Australians.

There is now a level of anti-Semitism which never existed in Australia before – and which resembles that which prevails in some Western European nations. That’s bad enough. But there are individuals who do not present as anti-Semitic but who are in denial about what has happened in what until recently was regarded as a tolerant and accepting multicultural society.

Take, for example, recent comments by several Greens senators. Last Sunday, the political party’s leader Larissa Waters was interviewed by David Speers on the ABC TV Insiders program. During the course of the interview, Speers asked Waters whether the recent murders outside a synagogue in Manchester “has changed your view at all about the danger and threat posed by anti-Semitism”.

Waters replied with the expected “my heart goes out to the families of those people”. But she quickly moved to accusing Israel of “conducting a genocide” and berating the Albanese government for “selling weapons to Israel”. Speers tried a second time and questioned Waters about her attitude to anti-Semitism. Once again, her heart went out to the families of the murdered Manchester men but she added that “we’ve got to stop selling weapons components that are dropping bombs on 12-year-olds collecting water”.

Speers went back again. And Waters threw the switch to repeat, condemning “sending weapons” and “genocide”. And then there was a moment of moral equivalence stating, “What we need to see is an anti-racist approach to anti-Semitism, to Islamophobia, to all of it – none of it is acceptable”. After which Speers said, “Okay, I understand that point”. I didn’t.

Last Monday, Greens senator Barbara Pocock was interviewed by Sally Sara on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program. Like her leader, the South Australian senator failed to directly focus on the Manchester murders.

Pocock stated: “Events like those in Manchester, which are so appalling to us, the loss of life, anti-Semitism, anti-Islamicism [sic], the attacks, Islamophobia, are utterly unacceptable”. And then she returned to the “genocide” in Gaza.

And now for some facts. An Australian company sells components to Lockheed Martin which makes F-35 fighters. The planes are purchased by many nations, including Australia. No component made in Australia will necessarily end up in an Israeli fighter jet.

The accusation against Israel of genocide was popularised by the release on September 16 of the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It was compiled by Chris Sidoti (Australia), Miloon Kothari (India) and Navanethem Pillay (South Africa).

The UN is invariably hostile to Israel and this report was no exception. It found that Israel has committed genocide – despite the fact that it stated that “the crime of genocide covers acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”.

In the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli Defence Forces has gone out of its way to advise Gaza residents of forthcoming attacks by air. This is a long way from acts committed with an intention to kill. David Marr is no fan of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But on ABC Radio National Late Night Live on September 16, Marr put it to Sidoti that his comments indicated “an animus in you, a set hostility to Israel and its policies”.

It’s notable how many Australian leftists and Islamists complaining about Israel’s alleged genocide are silent about Hamas’ murders before, during and after October 7. Hamas not only kills Jews, it also kills Palestinians who object to its totalitarian rule over Gaza – as described in these pages recently by Moumen Al-Natour.

On Thursday, the NSW Court of Appeal, in a unanimous judgment, prohibited a public assembly and procession from Sydney’s Hyde Park to the Opera House scheduled for Sunday October 12.

The protest, proposed by the Palestine Action Group, declared that the purpose of the march was “to oppose the war on Gaza and call for a stop of the bombing, end to the siege, withdrawal of Israeli troops and for the Australian government to enforce sanctions on Israel and an end to the two-way arms trade”.

The PAG made no call on Hamas, which commenced the war, to surrender or to end its totalitarian rule in Gaza. Do not expect any change if there is another unauthorised march to the Opera House on Sunday. If it still takes place after the peace deal.

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Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

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