The panicked messages starting bouncing through the large Jewish community in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield on Friday afternoon, hours before the violent street clash between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups that night.
“Highly unprecedented and threatening,” said one. “Can you believe they are coming to Caulfield?” said another, adding: “escalating quickly.”
Caulfield is the nation’s Jewish heartland, with Jews accounting for 41 per cent of its 20,000 people, many of whom are still grieving Israeli friends and loved ones lost in the Hamas massacre of October 7.
The notion that hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters would choose to hold a rally in Caulfield was highly provocative and based on a dubious premise.
The stated reason for holding a rally there was the destruction by fire on Thursday night of a local burger shop in Caulfield called Burgertory, owned by a Palestinian Australian Hash Tahey who has been prominent in pro-Palestinian protests in Melbourne.
Police said before the rally they were “very confident” the blaze was not racially or politically motivated but pro-Palestinian supporters ignored that advice and labelled it an anti-Palestinian hate crime.
I watched from the side of the road as the demonstration at Princes Park along Hawthorn Rd adjacent to a synagogue in South Caulfield started off peacefully but soon turned angry.
The Palestinian side, numbering several hundred, quickly went beyond calls of “free Palestine” and “Free Gaza”, to more provocative chants including “Israel, USA, how many kids did you kill today”, and “From the River to the Sea”, which is a call to destroy Israel.
Several musclebound hotheads from the Palestinian side went further, abusing some Jewish women standing nearby who had wrapped the Israeli flag around their body.
One started throwing homophobic slurs at Jewish onlookers and at one point raised his arm in what from a distance looked like a Nazi salute. Cries of Allahu Akbar, meaning God is Great, rang out atvarious times.
As the noise from the protest became louder, the local synagogue was evacuated for safety.
“People inside their homes having Shabbat dinner terrified hearing the chants of Allahu Akbar,” said one message sent by a Jewish community member. “Synagogue evacuated.”
As the demonstration progressed, an ever-larger group of pro-Israel supporters began to gather directly across the road as word spread through the community.
Many of them returned the insults that were being shouted at them by the Palestinian side.
The police, outnumbered and poorly prepared for what was about to happen, lined up along both sides of Hawthorn Rd to try to keep the warring parties apart.
Cars carrying pro-Palestinians drove down Hawthorn Rd between the two groups, with some yelling obscenities and raising the finger to the Israeli crowd.
Eventually the rally ended with the Palestinian side conducting a mass prayer while the Israeli side sang the Israeli national anthem and other patriotic songs.
But the end of the protest only inflamed the situation more because the Palestinian protesters did not go home. Instead, they goaded the Jewish side with abuse and more slogans.
With both sides screaming at each other, several Palestinian protesters suddenly broke through the police cordon and rushed at the Israeli side.
Mayhem unfolded as punches were thrown and police fired pepper spray at the brawlers.
One pro-Palestinian protester was thrown onto the road handcuffed and led away while shouting “Free Palestine motherf..kers” to the pro-Israeli supporters.
Someone from the Palestinian side threw several rocks at the Israel side, hitting a man and causing a deep cut and bruising on his lower leg.
A Jewish neighbour opposite the park opened up his house and took in those Israeli supporters who had been pepper sprayed and also the man hit by the rock.
A Jewish doctor who just happened to be on site rushed in to treat people, aided by several police who instructed the injured on the best way to reduce the effects of pepper spray.
By the time it was all over the Jewish community was incensed. “They’re animals – why did the police allow this. Allahu Akbar in Caulfield?” one wrote.
“Appalling that they let it happen like this – a punch in the guts for us seeing Palestinian flags in Princes Park,” said another.
“Can you hear (police) helicopters from where you are? I’m sitting in my bedroom in Elsternwick and all I hear is helicopters. I cannot believe it,” wrote another.
Politicians weighed in with Liberal leader Peter Dutton slamming the Palestinian protesters for “a deliberate act of incitement” while Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the violence was “unacceptable”.
Free Palestine Melbourne eventually apologised for holding the protest near a synagogue but not for holding it in Caulfield.
Yet the damage was done. The deliberate provocation to invade the heart of Jewish Melbourne got the response that they must have expected. And Melbourne was the poorer for it.
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