Premier calls on pro-Palestinian protesters to end weekly rally

Premier Jacinta Allan has urged pro-Palestinian protesters to abandon their weekly demonstration in central Melbourne in light of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

In a hardening of her government’s position against the CBD protests – staged every Sunday since Hamas’ October 2023 atrocities that provoked Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza – Allan said the ceasefire deal should end the disruption on Melbourne’s streets.

Demonstrators during the pro-Palestinian rally in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday, hours before the Gaza ceasefire came into force.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“There is hurt on both sides here,” she said on Monday. “What does not heal that hurt, what does not do the work to mend our social cohesion, is continuing to bring that sort of disruption to our streets.

“If they can find a space for a ceasefire in the Middle East, surely we can find a space for these protests to come to an end in Melbourne.

“If the guns can be silenced in Gaza, then surely we can have peace brought to the streets in Melbourne, in Sydney, right around the country.”

The shift in the premier’s rhetoric was welcomed by Jewish community groups frustrated at a perceived reluctance by the state government to take on a protest movement which they believe glorifies Hamas and fuels anti-Jewish sentiment.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion, a Melbourne barrister, has spoken publicly about feeling unsafe wearing a yarmulke in the CBD.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Philip Zajac said: “A broad coalition of councillors, CBD business owners, CBD residents and the Jewish community have been asking for more than a year that the Victorian government act to free up Melbourne’s CBD.

“Victoria Police has long maintained its officers are doing what they can with the laws that are available. It is only the government that can change laws to create a safe and accessible CBD.”

Allan’s plea to protesters to lay down their placards failed to convince Palestinian community leaders.

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said that notwithstanding the respite of a ceasefire, the protests would continue.

“Our protests, which take many forms, continue unabated because this ceasefire is not the end – it is a pause in Israel’s ongoing genocidal violence,” he said.

“The Australian government must act – cut military ties, impose sanctions and meet its international legal obligations to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. Our fight for Palestinian liberation is far from over.”

The Melbourne protests, which swelled at their peak to many thousands of demonstrators, have been largely non-violent.

Some protesters have adopted symbols from Hamas, flown Hezbollah flags and called for the eradication of Israel as a Jewish state.

The protests are supported by influential unions, the Greens and other left-wing groups.

Jewish groups, small businesses that operate in Melbourne’s CBD, Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece and residents have all pushed for the Sunday protest to be shifted from outside the State Library of Victoria to a nearby public park or suitable site that would cause less disruption to city traders and intimidation of Jewish people.

Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, a politician with strong ties to Jewish communities, signalled the shift in government approach on Sunday when he expressed hope that the cessation of fighting in Gaza would lead to a de-escalation of local protest activity.

Allan, speaking on her first day back at work on Monday after a summer break, welcomed the US-brokered ceasefire but decried the surging antisemitism that culminated in an arson attack at a Melbourne synagogue by suspected terrorists and torching of cars in a Jewish neighbourhood in Sydney.

“There have been some in our community who have chosen to use the cover of this conflict to inflict some of the most evil acts we have seen for some time,” she said.

“It is a cancer that we must cut out.”

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