The Victorian government’s announcement of measures to curtail and criminalise protest is a dangerous attack on civil liberties, aimed at suppressing legitimate public political action by Palestinians and their supporters demanding an end to Israel’s 15-month-long genocide in Gaza.
Premier Jacinta Allan’s rhetoric fuels harmful narratives that delegitimise Palestine solidarity movements and silence public dissent to a genocide that the United Nations and the world’s highest courts have determined requires immediate intervention by third states to halt.
The Premier’s comments also stoke division and misrepresent the diversity of people, including members of the Jewish community, who stand in solidarity with Palestinians and demand an end to Israel’s genocide.
Palestine solidarity and anti-genocide protests are driven by a commitment to human rights and justice, and have overwhelmingly been peaceful actions that have explicitly called out and condemned the systemic and pervasive nature of racism in Australian society.
It is the racism and dehumanisation at the heart of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, coupled with the refusal of governments across the globe to use the considerable political and economic tools at their disposal to end this genocide, that undermine the very values of equality and justice that should unite us.
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