Election 2025: Greens in bed with anti-Israel protesters

A University of Sydney pro-Palestine encampment leader has been selected by the Greens to run for the Senate.

Ethan Floyd is a Senate candidate for the Greens. He was a leader in the University of Sydney encampment protest in 2024. Picture: Instagram

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A University of Sydney pro-Palestine encampment leader has been selected by the Greens to run for the Senate as the minor party seeks to take advantage of figures who came to prominence during anti-Israel protests over the past 18 months.

Ethan Floyd has been selected in fifth position for the NSW Greens’ Senate ticket. Mr Floyd was a leader of one of the main factions in the encampment that was pitched on campus for almost two months in the first half of 2024 and was a frequent figure at the weekly pro-Palestine protests in Sydney’s CBD.

He is one among a number of Greens candidates running on personal profiles boosted by the wave of pro-Palestine protests since the October 7 terrorist ­attacks in Israel.

Pro-Palestinian writer Omar Sakr has also been selected to run for the Greens in the western Sydney electorate of Blaxland, seeking to unseat Labor Education Minister Jason Clare.

Mr Sakr has previously drawn attention for inflammatory social media comments, including a post in 2024 in which he said the “overwhelming majority of ­Israelis are genocidal racist scum”.

Rhonda Garad, an academic at Monash University and Greens candidate for Bruce in Victoria, has previously said on social media that Israel’s treatment of the Gaza Strip was “straight out of (Hitler’s) playbook” and that Hamas’ terrorist attack “needs to be viewed with the broader context”.

The University of Sydney ­encampment was rocked by allegations of anti-Semitism and revelations that extreme Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir was implicated with the Muslim students faction of the encampment.

Mr Floyd, when contacted for comment, declined to answer questions about his thoughts on the involvement of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the encampment and about the role he thought his leadership in the encampment played in his selection, instead directing questions to the state branch.

Mr Floyd, who identifies as an Indigenous Australian, said he chose to run for the Senate ­because “conditions for ordinary people have got to improve”.

“Communities have to be ­empowered to do that themselves, and we can’t rely on billionaires and the political class to do it for us,” he said.

The NSW Greens did not ­respond to questions about Hizb ut-Tahrir and a spokeswoman instead said: “Ethan is a strong voice for action on the issues students care about, from unlimited rent increases, soaring student debt, and an end to the genocide in ­Palestine.” The Greens’ Blaxland candidate, Mr Sakr, has previously made inflammatory statements online, including that “the overwhelming majority of Israelis are genocidal racist scum who approve of the mass starvation of 2 million people”.

“I don’t give a damn what they think is viable, or what they think at all. Boycott, divest from, and sanction this sick apartheid state.”

The overwhelming majority of Israelis are genocidal racist scum who approve of the mass starvation of 2 million people. I don’t give a damn what they think is viable, or what they think at all. Boycott, divest from, and sanction this sick apartheid state. https://t.co/VUYuYLItGx

— Omar Sakr (@omarsakrpoet) February 25, 2024

On another occasion, he claimed that by inverting the logic of some Israeli officials, it was “really ­clarifying for everyone that the Hamas attack on Oct 7th was justified”.

“As you can see here, and from the comments of various Israeli officials and politicians, ‘there’s no such thing as uninvolved ­civilians’.”

He also said he did not care if he was labelled “anti-Semitic”.

“I do care about not inhabiting or performing such,” he said. “Zionism actively fosters anti-Semitism to try and make their murder colony palatable to fearful Jews, and while calling out their bullshit, we need to be clear that militant white supremacy is also on the rise.”

Ms Garad, head of education and research translation at ­Monash University’s centre for health research and implementation, has been selected to run as the Greens candidate for Bruce in southeast Melbourne, currently held by Labor’s Julian Hill.

In 2024, responding to a post on X that the “response from ­Israel is not proportional” but that “what Hamas has done is ­deplorable”, Dr Garad responded: “What Hamas has done needs to be viewed with the broader context.”

In another post, she said: “Just watched this doco on Hitler and it seems Palestinian genocide straight out of his playbook.”

The Greens have also selected Remah Naji – an organiser for the Justice for Palestine protest group in Queensland – to run in Moreton, and Avery Barnett-Dacey to run in Bendigo, where she was an organiser for a pro-Palestine ­protest group.