A great divide: Protesters and counter-protesters bring Melbourne to a standstill
By Bianca Hall
The 500 metres across the Bourke Street intersection in front of the Parliament of Victoria had never seemed larger. On Sunday, it looked like a gulf.
On one side were several hundred Jewish protesters, waving Israeli, Australian and Lions of Zion flags and blasting music. The atmosphere was upbeat and defiant. One man sported a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.
Police were taking no chances during the protests, moving on anyone who ventured into the intersection.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
On the other side of the divide was a larger, pro-Palestine protest, which called for “anti-Zionist Jews” to stand against genocide and racism. Protesters on that side of the intersection had little time for US President Donald Trump: one man brandished a sign bearing a photograph of Trump pursing his lips, accompanied by an uncomplimentary slur in Greek.
Since October 7, 2023, pro-Palestinian protesters have staged weekly rallies and vigils outside the State Library of Victoria, calling for a permanent ceasefire and for Israel to leave the Occupied Territories.
After Jewish activists organised a spin-off protest outside state parliament to show support for Palestinians on Sunday, other Jewish groups, including the Lions of Zion, organised a counter-protest.
As protesters gathered on each side of the intersection, separated by police barricades and dozens of police officers, some pro-Israel protesters took it upon themselves to police the event themselves.
The politics is personal: counter-protesters in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Draped in Israeli flags, several young men physically blocked older pro-Palestinian protesters from moving through the crowd towards their own camp, forcing them to walk several blocks around the no-man’s land outside parliament as police watched on.
Lions of Zion member and co-organiser Isaac Balbin said that since October 7, Jewish Australians had not felt safe in Melbourne’s CBD. Now, he said, the community had had enough.
“We tried writing letters and doing things like that, but we simply haven’t seen change getting enforced. And so if you want something to happen, you’ve got to be willing to make that change happen yourself. So today we’ve come [to the CBD],” Balbin said.
“As a community, we bring peace and love and joy, entrepreneurship and all these great things, but we can’t do that if we’re living in fear. So some of us have to make that first stand.”
On the pro-Palestinian side, about 1300 protesters rallied outside parliament for an hour before marching down Lonsdale Street to meet the usual weekly protest outside the State Library, where the crowd swelled to more than 2000 people.
On that side, too, there was anger and defiance. Some within the crowd expressed anger at the media. Several journalists, including from this masthead, were heckled to “tell the truth” and accused of being “Zionist puppets”. Small groups of protesters attempted to push media workers out of the protest crowd.
Outside the State Library, rally organiser Basil El-Ghattis told the crowd: “Zionists want to intimidate this movement and intimidate us so that they can get some words that they can use in the media to enact the proposed laws of antisemitism.”
El-Ghattis said there was nothing antisemitic about standing up for Palestinians having the right to decide their own fate.
“We’re not here to attack the Jews. Just before this rally, in front of the parliament, our Jewish brothers and sisters have organised the rally ... and this shows you that this movement [is] ... nothing to do [with] religion. It’s not against the Jews. It’s not about the Christians, not about the Muslims. It’s not about any other religious or ethnic group.”
For Balbin and his fellow protesters on the other side of the divide, the use of “Zionist” as a slur by pro-Palestinian activists is unforgivable.
“If you deny the Jewish people the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, you’re being a racist,” he said.
“Quite frankly, all people on this Earth have the right to self-determination.”
On the last point, at least, both sides of the divide would agree.
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