Hostage wall defaced again
"These extremists seek to intimidate the community through the darkness of night. They are gutless cowards," says Caulfield MP David Southwick.
A to-and-fro struggle over a wall of Gaza hostage posters has broken out in the Melbourne bayside suburb of St Kilda.
The wall was defaced by pro-Palestinians last Monday, restored the very next day by members of the Jewish community and then defaced again on Thursday.
The posters were torn down and replaced with a large “Free Palestine” slogan after dark following Monday’s disruptive protests.
Around 60 members of the Jewish community plus political leaders gathered at the wall on the Tuesday afternoon and put the posters back up.
Zionist Federation of Australia CEO Alon Cassuto said, “What we saw overnight [was] a group of radicals vandalise this wall, deface it, and allow no room for an alternative voice. The message here is that Jewish lives, the lives of Israeli hostages, don’t matter, you can deface them; and that’s not on.”
He told the crowd they were there to reclaim the wall and put back up the faces of our brothers and sisters who are hostage in the terror dungeons of Hamas in Gaza.
Caulfield MP David Southwick said, “These extremists seek to intimidate the community through the darkness of night. They are gutless cowards.”
He said the monument for peace had been turned into hatred and an attack on the Jewish community.
Macnamara MP Josh Burns told the crowd that they could stand with their heads held high knowing that it is the right thing to do, saying the hostages should be brought home.
“What sort of humanity does [this defacement] represent? To rip that down, to rip down the message that those who have been taken hostage should be returned home? We stand here for humanity,” he said.
Victorian state Liberal MP Georgie Crozier condemned the defacement of the posters, saying it was not something we want to see in Australia.
After the speeches, everyone joined in putting the hostage posters back up and writing personal messages of support for them on the wall.
Following the second round of overnight defacement on Thursday, security measures have been put in place to protect the remaining posters. At last report, the most recent vandalism has been painted over with a moving portrait of the Bibas family being taken into captivity in Gaza, with the slogan “Let My People Go”.
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