Pro-Palestine Protest Triumphs Over NSW Police Attempt to Sow Social Discord

Thanks to the negotiating skills of Palestine Action Group Sydney organisers and their legals, the attempt by the NSW police commissioner to stop a rally and a candlelit vigil marking a year since the Israeli state commenced a coordinated genocidal onslaught upon the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip from going ahead this long weekend has failed.

As the 12 month anniversary of this mass atrocity is upon us, tensions have soared over recent weeks as the Netanyahu government has now turned its war machine on the people of southern Lebanon using the same ferocity that it’s been applying in Gaza over the past year, which involves a complete rejection of international humanitarian law, so the killing of civilians appears to be its main focus.

The last week has seen state and federal authorities in a dog whistling tither following the display of Hezbollah flags at last Sunday’s Palestine protest on Gadigal land in Sydney, as well as at the rally in Naarm-Melbourne, which occurred during an outpouring of grief over recent Israeli attacks on Beirut that levelled six apartment blocks to assassinate Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.

The NSW state law enforcement attempt to close down the 52nd such rally in a row was withdrawn on Thursday afternoon, amid negotiations between protest organisers and NSW police, while a NSW Supreme Court hearing was underway. And the Sunday rally will now commence at Hyde Park North, with the 7 October candlelight vigil to be held at Sydney Town Hall on Monday.

Pro-Palestinian events proceed

“This is a good moment for democratic rights, as well as the fight for Palestinian liberation,” Palestine Action Group member Amal Naser said outside the Supreme Court of NSW on Thursday afternoon, following the successful negotiations. “We ultimately got everything we wanted. We had a strong case, and we were going to win anyway.”

“We’ve reached a good outcome, and it’s what we’ve been saying all along,” the Palestinian lawyer made clear. “We have the right to protest, and we need to protest now more than ever. The route we are marching is a route we have marched dozens of times before, and it’s a route we are happy with.”

NSW police commissioner, “haters-gonna-hate”, Karen Webb applied to the NSW Supreme Court to have the two events banned, citing “the safety of participants and the wider community” as a concern, and a key additional reason local police gave organisers as to why the events should not take place at Sydney Town Hall is “the recent addition of over a dozen planter boxes”.

State law enforcement argued in court that the Sunday event, as planned, was set to walk past the city’s Great Synagogue, suggesting this could be problematic and another concern raised by police was an apparent growing aggression at the protests. But a comprise was reached, which will now see the 52nd weekend rally in a row continue and the small vigil on Monday will too proceed.

“What happened today was that the police and the government, under political pressure, tried to ban our protest effectively, or tried to make it very hard to protest. We resisted that. All along we said that the rally would go ahead,” Josh Lees from Palestine Action Group told the press post-court.

“Today, we got a very good outcome which was everything we wanted,” the successful protest organiser added.

Silencing mourning constituents

More than 30,000 protesters rallied before Sydney Town Hall last Sunday afternoon in the immediate wake of the uptick in the Israeli military assault upon Lebanon, which commenced with two terror attacks upon the Lebanese public two weeks prior, while last week saw large assaults that culminated in the massive attack on Beirut last Friday night.

Much of the recent furore was due to the display of Hezbollah flags in city centres last weekend. However, the assertions from senior major party politicians that the 7 October vigil for the over 42,000 killed in Gaza over the past 12 months, and the 1,000 killed in Lebanon over the last month, were somehow a celebration, were obvious attempts to demonise protesters.

In response to a question put by Radio National’s Patricia Karvelas suggesting that there was something suspect about the 7 October vigil for the Palestinian and Lebanese victims of Israel over the past 12 months, Lees said, “I wonder if you are putting the same question to those organising memorials for the Israeli victims of October 7.”

As it stood on Thursday afternoon, the Form 1 lodged with NSW police to notify of the Palestine Action Group’s Sunday rally remains submitted and has now been authorised to go ahead, while the Form 1 that had been lodged in respect to the 7 October vigil has been withdrawn, and despite initial media reports that the event would no longer go ahead, it will proceed.

“You don’t need a permit to hold a standing vigil,” Naser told The Project on Thursday night. “Palestine Action Group, over the past 12 months, has held numerous vigils without a Form 1. We just put one in place out of good faith. We’ve decided to withdraw it. You do not need a permit for a vigil.”

Section 23 of the Summary Offences Act (NSW) requires that a written notice addressed to the NSW police commissioner informing that a protest march will take place, with its location and expected numbers, must be lodged for a rally to take place. Known as a Form 1, the notice must be submitted 7 days prior to an event, and if nothing is heard back in response, it is authorised.

The banning of Palestine protests was also an issue in Victoria, as premier Jacinta Allan lamented the fact that her state does not have a protest permit system in place, like NSW, and therefore, she could not stop planned events proceeding. Indeed, Sydney Criminal Lawyers was told by Victorian activists in June that they fear that the state is considering a permit system, so it can crack down on protests.

Attempt to sow social discord

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties issued a statement on Thursday evening underscoring its disappointment in NSW police seeing fit to use its limited resources to curtail a public protest. And it further called out the fact that protest organisers learnt of the court proceedings via media reports and that law enforcement had actually raised “flower pots” as a reason to ban the event.

As for the prime minister Anthony Albanese and his monthslong crusade for social cohesion, which many have surmised actually infers the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices altogether, he told ABC Radio on Wednesday that “anything that seems like a celebration” would cause “disharmony” and therefore, would pose a threat to multicultural social cohesion.

But the attempt by the NSW Police Force to ban this Sunday’s protest, if successful, would have resulted in social division, as the authorities were effectively telling a part of the constituency not to mourn the needless killing of over 43,000 Palestinian and Lebanese people by the rogue state of Israel, and this would have been especially divisive to do right upon the rally’s year anniversary.