Vile equivalence spotted on Greens banner

The office of The Greens sole lower House MP has told The AJN that a sign attached to her gazebo in Brisbane last Sunday equating Israel with Nazi Germany was unsanctioned.

The banner on Member for Ryan Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s marquee, reading “Zionist Israel = Nazi Germany; equally as EVIL or worse?” was displayed adjacent to another banner that said “Zionism has hijacked true Judaism and evangelism”.

The portable gazebo was installed in a Brisbane park as part of nationwide anti-Israel protests that took place on Sunday. Organisers said an estimated 50,000 people attended the Brisbane demonstration, while 100,000 each turned out in Melbourne and Sydney. Police put the numbers at 10,000 in each city.

In Brisbane, protesters flew the flags of Hamas, the Shahada, long associated with al-Qaeda, ISIS and other radical Islamist groups.

“These are not symbols of solidarity. They are symbols of death, violence and terror,” Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies (QJBD) president Jason Steinberg said, adding that the Jewish community “was sickened” to see so many Queenslanders “support terrorism, antisemitism and hate”.

“This was not a protest for peace or humanity. It was a rally that glorified extremists and vilified Jews,” Steinberg said.

“Equally appalling were the banners hung and endorsed by the Queensland Greens, including Federal Member for Ryan Elizabeth Watson-Brown, which equated Israel and Zionism with Nazism. This is one of the most poisonous forms of antisemitism imaginable.”

Watson-Brown’s office told The AJN, “Those banners were put on our marquees without our permission, and our team took them down as soon as we saw them.”

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said of the individual with the Hamas flag, “It’s just horrendous, and that individual should bear the full force of law.

“That is provocative, it’s inciteful, it’s antisemitic, and it’s the kind of behaviour that we don’t see in this state, in this nation.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin told Sky News, “When you have people calling for death, holding signs of terror leaders, this is an unsafe environment that should not exist on our streets.

“You won’t hear the word peace in these protests,” he added, noting that the demonstrations “drain social capital in the country, pit community against community”.

Protesters in Brisbane had applied to march over the city’s Story Bridge, but unlike with the Sydney Harbour Bridge three weeks earlier, had their application blocked by the court.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday that NSW Police have spent $11.3 million patrolling protests.