Opera House ‘stay away’ warning to Jewish people shames Sydney and the Minns government
As Israelis were being slaughtered and fighting for their right to live in peace in the Middle East, Jews were told by NSW Police to stay locked up and out of sight to prevent trouble, writes James Morrow.
NSW
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Lighting the sails of the Opera House after a far-away tragedy has become a sort of civic ritual.
It may not do anything to help people practically, but it is an act that sends the message that we as a city are on the victims’ side.
Of course, the point is missed if the community affected is told to stay away from the Opera House lest their very presence cause trouble and make them victims themselves.
Yet to Sydney’s great shame, and the shame of the Minns government, on Monday night NSW Police told Jews to stay away from Sydney’s most internationally iconic structure when it was lit up in the colours of the Israeli flags to show solidarity after the weekend’s horrific terrorist attacks. Why?
Because a group of thugs, whom the cops allowed to set off flares and scream “f..k the Jews”, wanted to vent their bile on the forecourt of the Opera House.
What a terrible message to send to the city and the world.
Think about it.
As Israelis were being slaughtered and fighting for their right to live in peace in the Middle East, Jews in a country that took in so many of their number after the Holocaust were told by NSW Police to stay locked up and out of sight to prevent trouble.
This would be the same police force that appeared to have made no arrests of pro-Palestine screamers but who did earlier in the evening forcibly manhandle a counter-demonstrator with an Israeli flag away from Town Hall, lest he provoke the mob.
What message does that send about who can speak and who cannot, and to whom the rules do and do not apply and ultimately who gets, in practice, to make them?
What could Chris Minns, whose instincts are normally very common sense (think mobile phone bans in schools, restoration of speed camera signs, that sort of thing), have been thinking?
At the very least Minns and his police minster, Yasmin Catley, should be made to explain just why Jews and anyone else who wanted to attend the lighting of the sails for a moment of quiet reflection and solidarity could not be kept safe.
Sadly, the answers are not likely to be pretty.
Nor are some of the other questions that must be asked.
Questions like, did the government and police leadership fear public confrontation with potentially violent meatheads who came out to celebrate – let’s be really clear here – the mass slaughter, torture, kidnapping, and rape of innocent civilians by Hamas terrorists?
It’s not hard to put one’s self in the boots of frontline cops forced to watch Monday night’s display and stand stoically in the face of wanton lawbreaking (lighting flares and religious vilification, among other things, being illegal in NSW).
How demoralising.
Likewise, did the Minns government not want to get off-side with Lebanese-Australian and other western Sydney communities where local leaders have praised Hamas’s actions?
If so, what a way to undermine the logic of official multiculturalism, and force to the forefront questions about just how much tolerance really exists when you scratch the surface of this gorgeous mosaic.
And then there is this: Did the Minns government want to avoid provoking further outcry from the Greens on their left flank who have taken the side of the Palestinians?
One of the weirdest features of modern politics must be the alliance between radical urban Greens and the Palestinian cause.
After all, the Greens stand for the rights of every sexual minority under the sun and view traditional religion with all the enthusiasm of a vampire for garlic.
Meanwhile in Palestine, gays are thrown off rooftops and one of the biggest supporters of the cause is homophobic, theocratic Iran.
Hatred of the West sure makes for strange bedfellows.
Yet anyone who spent time on social media Monday saw the way the Greens hive-mind seemed to coalesce around support for Palestine and table-thumping outrage at any expressions of support for Israel.
Newtown Greens MP Jenny Leong – to take one example of many – blasted the federal Labor government for condemning Hamas and the state Labor government for lighting up the Operea House in support of the Jewish state.
After Defence Secretary Richard Marles tweeted about the “unprovoked attacks from Hamas militants” (again, they’re terrorists, but we’ll give him a pass), Leong went off.
“Unprovoked?! This is a disgraceful statement from Defence Minister Richard Marles. It is also appalling that tonight the Opera House will be lit up in support of Israel - what about all of the Palestinian lives lost since occupation?”, she tweeted.
“Apparently lighting up the Aust(ralian) Parliament and Sydney Opera House in support of those bombing Palestinian people in Gaza into oblivion is legit. Disgraceful to see political leaders fail to recognise the complexity and reality of this human rights and humanitarian crisis.”
When the unspeakable brutality of Hamas, which is on display for anyone to see who cares to look, is blurred into “complexity”, we are in strange times.
When Jews are told not to gather on the Opera House forecourt in solidarity, I fear, we are in dark ones as well.
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