Tens of thousands join anti-Israel march

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched across Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge on Sunday to call for increased aid deliveries to Gaza and sanctions on Israel.

Participants in the so-called “March for Humanity” ranged from the elderly to families with young children. Among them were Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former NSW Premier and Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr.

Many carried umbrellas amid heavy rain. Some waved Palestinian flags and chanted “We are all Palestinians.” Members of the crowd also chanted, “Long live the intifada,” a reference to the violent uprisings by the Palestinians that killed hundreds of Israelis, according to videos from the demonstration.

Alongside Palestinian flags and anti-Israel placards – including signs depicting Israeli flags superimposed with swastikas and images of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a Hitler-style moustache – an Al Qaeda flag was also spotted, while at least one person carried a photo of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler noted that Khamenei is a”dictator who jails women, executes gays, funds terror, and calls for Israel’s destruction”.

“This wasn’t a march for justice. It was a mask drop,” he said.

The march was organised by Palestine Action Group (PAG) Sydney. The group posted on Facebook ahead of the protest that its demands were to remove restrictions on aid into Gaza; for an “Immediate Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal” from the enclave; and for Israel to be subject to sanctions and an arms embargo. The Facebook post did not mention Hamas or the 50 Israeli hostages the terror group is holding in Gaza.

The NSW Supreme Court green-lit the march on Saturday after organisers challenged a NSW Police ruling that it could not proceed.

Justice Belinda Rigg said PAG had “ensured that people’s safety was a priority” on previous protest days, according to The Australian.

She said the evidence from PAG organise Josh Lees “indicates that the timing and the lodging of this proposed march and its location is directly responsive to the dramatic increase in the known suffering of Gazan citizens over the last weeks”.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin noted “there is a lot of dismay in the community and wider society that a single judge has overruled a decision of the police and the elected government made in the interests of public safety”.

“The court has allowed a professional protestor who has cost the state millions of dollars to now paralyse our city,” Ryvchin said. “The organisers may have branded this to be about ‘humanity’ and the judge clearly accepted this, but the organisers are the same group that held a pro-Palestinian rally even as the October 7 massacre was still unfolding.”

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said, “There is no question that allowing this protest to take place on the Harbour Bridge, and effectively paralyse our city, sets a very troubling precedent.

“At a time of already-strained social cohesion, an iconic Australian symbol and key arterial road should not be used to bring a divisive foreign conflict onto our streets.”

New South Wales police said up to 90,000 people attended, far more than expected. Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Peter McKenna said more than a thousand police were deployed and the size of the crowd had led to fears of a crush.

“No one was hurt,” he told a press conference. “But gee whiz, I wouldn’t like to try and do this every Sunday at that short notice.”

Police were also present in Melbourne, where a similar protest march took place.

WITH TIMES OF ISRAEL, REUTERS