Roads, rates, rubbish and a touch of Hamas

It seems unthinkably grotesque to link the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians with everyday council issues but that is what activists have done in trying to make the local government elections a Gaza war referendum, writes Joe Hildebrand.

In the bomb-ravaged rubble of Gaza, the residents have just one thought on their minds. What will Waverley Council do to rejuvenate Bondi’s night-time economy?

In Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu is trembling for different reasons. His very political survival is at stake, depending on whether or not Inner West Council supports high-density housing in Balmain.

It seems unthinkably grotesque, doesn’t it? Linking the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians with such banal, local, first-world problems.

And yet it is exactly what activists and vandals have done in trying to make Saturday’s local government elections a Gaza war referendum.

At one polling booth, I heard a voter deadpan “Free Palestine” in response to being offered a how-to-vote card. I thought they meant “Free Sausage Sizzle” but it turned out they were $6.

Meanwhile, Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne’s signs were slashed and sprayed with red paint – like blood, geddit? – and Waverley Labor candidate signs were also defaced, with that mayor saying it was the most toxic campaign she’d experienced.

Waverley mayor Paula Masselos said she disappointed with how dirty the council elections had been. Picture: Supplied

Signs supporting Inner West Council candidates, including incumbent mayor Darcy Byrne, have been vandalised, some with anti-Semitic graffiti. Picture: Supplied

Tellingly, it was the affluent inner suburbs where the bulk of the vandalism seems to have occurred – not the battler outer suburbs where most Muslims actually live.

So while I am loath to racially profile criminal suspects, I would put a fairly hefty sum of money on snot-nosed overprivileged white socialists.

Either way, the insult to the actual suffering of Palestinians is both pathetic and profound.

These activists are apparently so aware and care so much about what is happening in Gaza that they have decided to take action in the most pointless and inappropriate way possible.

Take, for example, the claims of “genocide” plastered across the signage of council candidates.

This is the gravest possible accusation of the gravest possible crime, invoking the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust, the millions of Ukrainians deliberately starved to death under Stalin, the slaughter of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, the ethnic cleansing campaigns in the Balkans and countless other global horrors throughout history.

A wave of ‘zombies’, waving fake body parts, capped off three days of anti-war protests at the Land Forces expo. Picture: Tony Gough

And this person is so deeply and genuinely incensed by it they’ve decided the best course of action is to write “genocide” on a random councillor’s corflute.

It’s like claiming to be so profoundly affected by a mass murder in Arizona that you’ve decided to raise it at a P&C meeting in Gosford.

In other words, if you’re looking for the right place to raise war crimes as an issue, a venue that has kids selling bubble tea is probably not it.

And so, aside from the idiocy, criminality and nastiness of this campaign, it is also deeply demeaning of the suffering of those it claims to be for.

Much like Melbourne protesters who attacked police and their horses because the world was about to end and then took a lunch break, these ugly extremists who claim the supreme importance of their cause in fact trivialise it beyond recognition.

“What did you do to stop genocide today, Juniper?”

“Thanks for asking, Jean-Pierre. I shouted ‘Free Palestine!’ at a stranger and then went to the cake stall.”

Mounted police clash with activists at the Land Forces expo protests. Picture: Jake Nowakowski. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

If these people really wanted to help Palestinians they would be volunteering at aid organisations or studying to become diplomats or perhaps just studying at all so they would at least know what they are talking about.

But they’re not about help. They’re about hatred. How much they hate Israel or hate the government and now – just to demonstrate the fact in all its perverse glory – how much they hate local council candidates.

And yet again there seems to be something uncannily specific about Israel that seems to unlock this vitriol within the activist class. Whatever could it be?

Certainly none of the other foreign conflicts or genocides mentioned above have been thrust to the forefront by campaigners in local government elections.

And Vladimir Putin is oddly untroubled by the rezoning of North Ryde RSL despite his rezoning of eastern Ukraine. Why have council candidates not been targeted over that war and its tens of thousands of dead?

The answer, obviously enough, is because it would be utterly pointless to do so and it would instantly become jarringly clear how insulting and inappropriate it would be to those dead and those staring death in the face.

And yet when it comes to Israel, the rules are mysteriously different – almost every aspect of social, political and economic life is deemed fair game for extremist attack and disruption.

Of course it is impossible for any human being not to be upset by the suffering in Gaza, as with the atrocities of October 7.

But broadcasting or plastering how upset you are in pointless ways to random strangers only proves that it’s not the Gazans suffering that these people really want to project, just their own deluded and directionless outrage.

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