At 1:30pm on Sunday 25 February, the Palestinian Action Group (PAG) held their twentieth consecutive protest at Hyde Park, demanding an immediate ceasefire and end to Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
This protest occurred against the backdrop of an imminent full-scale offensive by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) on the designated ‘safe zone’ Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Palestinian woman Jana Fayyad co-chaired the event alongside PAG’s Josh Lees. Fayyad , who spoke about being forced to watch her people massacred whilst global leaders stood by silently, said that she “stand[s] in front of [us] today as a broken woman, but I am not ashamed of that.”
Fayyad referenced recent news from the UN Special Procedures panel over reports about the sexual assault of Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention, expressing horror over the prevalence of sexual violence as a military tactic by the IDF. “Where are all the white feminists now?” Fayyad asked, calling out prominent feminists who have stayed silent about Palestine. “You have lost the right to call yourselves feminist,” Fayyad said.
Fayyad also reminded attendees that Gaza was not the only place under attack. Fayyad noted that the West Bank and Lebanon have both been recipients of Israeli military offensives, with over 87,000 people displaced by Israeli attacks in Lebanon since October 8.
Mohamad Zarob, a Palestinian man from Khan Younis, spoke about his family; 70 of whom have been massacred in Palestine. He criticised overtones of racism and Islamophobia in political criticisms of the protest, asking attendees “why are [politicians] enraged and surprised by our basic human reaction to the insurmountable grief of genocide?”
Without action, Australia will be “legally complicit in genocide” Zarob asserted, referencing the 127 Australian scholars who wrote an open letter calling for immediate action from the government.
Palestinians are literal people, Zarob told the crowd. “Our most famous dish is called ‘upside-down’, because when you make it you literally flip it upside-down.” So, Zarob continued, when a Palestinian tells you they “will not bow down to tyranny,” you should know they “will not bow down.”
PAG’s Josh Lees and Greens Senator David Shoebridge both spoke about the Australian government’s complicity in the genocide, condemning Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s decision to halt funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The halt to UNRWA funding occurred after Israel brought allegations of staff affiliation with Hamas to the UN, despite a recent US intelligence report into these claims casting doubt on their validity.
Lees and Shoebridge also deplored the Foreign Minister’s refusal to acknowledge the $10 million in weapons exports Australia has sent to Israel (such as the ‘Australian spike’ missile production at Varley Rafael Australia).
Ethan Floyd, a Wiradjuri Wailwan student activist (and former Honi Soit editor), focused on the “parallel existence” of First Nations Peoples in Australia and Palestinians, both the victims of settler-colonial violence, “marginalised in our own countr[ies]”. Floyd said the stories of suffering in Gaza were reminiscent of the stories on the Australian frontier, of having “our families torn apart and our traditional way of life smashed”. “We are the artists and the storytellers, struck by the iron hand of empire, and we have buckled but we have never broken, we will never be broken,” said Floyd.
17 year old Noura Hussein, a Palestinian activist with Students for Palestine, asserted that the Albanese government has abandoned the Australian Palestinian community by refusing to act to prevent the murder of 15,000 children. Hussein said that these were children who “will no longer put their school uniforms on” or “stand outside the school gates as their parents take photos”.
The poetry collective Halal Collab performed their piece lambasting the biased, Islamophobic coverage of the genocide in Western media and juxtaposing it with the coverage of the cost of living crisis. “The cost of your living is a lot cheaper when your headlines cheapen the lives of others,” they said.
Hussein encouraged everyone to attend the National Day of Action for Palestine this Thursday (February 29); high school and university students are staging walkouts and meeting at 2pm at Town Hall. The USyd contingent will be meeting at 1pm on Eastern Avenue.
Palestine Action Group will host their twenty-first consecutive rally at Hyde Park at 1:30pm on Sunday, March 3.
