Forty years of solidarity with Palestine in Brisbane

“When you shake the bottle, the same people keep coming to the surface,” said a comrade. “But when it comes to solidarity; well, that’s a two-way street.”

Forty years ago, in 1982, there was a massacre of Palestinian refugees at Shabra and Shatilla [Arabic: مذبحة صبرا وشاتيلا.] camps in Beirut by Maronite militias aided by the Israeli army. In response there was little criticism from the Australian political elite (I mean the elite inside the Labor and Liberal parties and various church leaders). The leader of the Christian Phalange, Gemayel, went to Germany in the 1930s to learn the methods of the Nazis. US diplomats knew this, but still allowed the Phalange into the two camps. As always the US were looking after their strategic interests in the region and cared not for the suffering of the people. In Brisbane the left had already heard of such massacres because Vanessa Redgrave brought a film about a massacre at Tel al-Zaatar to the Regent theatre in Queen Street in 1977.

The siege of Tel al-Zaatar (Arabic: حصار تل الزعتر), or Massacre of Tel al-Zaatar, was an armed siege of Tel al-Zaatar (Hill of Thyme), a fortified, UNRWA-administered refugee camp housing Palestinian refugees in northeastern Beirut, that ended on August 12, 1976 with the massacre of at least 1,500 people.

Despite this, after the massacre at Shabra and Shatilla, there were few demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Australia. In Brisbane the Palestinian Human Rights Group was formed to offer solidarity and support for the victims at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. We tried to organise a political campaign around their demands. This campaign was not the first, nor the last, that people in Brisbane have organised in support of the central demand of the the Palestinian people – the right of return to their homeland.

I remember that, in early 1977, the Australian Union of Students (really it was one local Arab-Australian student at UQ who organised the trip) brought the Palestinian Liberation Organisation representative Ali Kazak to the University of Queensland. Kazak grew up in Syria as a Palestinian refugee. Ali and his mother were separated from his father when Israel was created in 1948 and were prevented from returning home. Ali Kazak did not see his father, who was living back in Haifa, for 48 years. In 1968, while at Damascus University, Kazak was invited to join the Palestine National Liberation Movement (Fateh) and joined its political wing. So little was known or understood about the conflict in the region that when the local Arab-Australian student introduced Ali Kazak to students at the UQU Forum a friend mistook the student for being a New York Jewish radical. In reality the student was born and had grown up in Queensland. Most people at the University were indifferent to the Palestinians and their struggle. Yet the Palestinians persisted and Ali Kazak sponsored a Palestine Human Rights Campaign in Australia. In 1982 Ali Kazak was recognised as the PLO representative in Australia and finally in 1994 as the head of the General Palestinian Delegation.

In 1982 a number of demonstrations were organised by people from the Arab/Australian community and the political left; however the demonstration in King George Square in Brisbane was only small (see gallery of photos). A Palestinian Human Rights group in Brisbane after these massacres had its effect but was small and the committee itself was short lived. Its patron was Senator George Georges.

In 1983 APHEDA or Union Aid Abroad was set up by Cliff Dolan, General Secretary of the ACTU, on the advice of two nurses Helen McHugh and Olfat Mahmoud after the massacre of refugees in Shabra and Shatilla camps in Beirut. Olfat grew up in a nearby camp Bourj el Barajneh. Her family had been exiled from Tarshiha, a village in northern Palestine in 1948.

Dr Olfat Mahmoud is from the Palestinian Women’s Humanitarian Organisation in Beirut. I met Olfat in 2018 at a launch of her book Tears for Tashiha at Trades Hall in South Brisbane. Olfat was born a refugee, her children are born as refugees, her grandchildren will be born as refugees. They are all stateless. UN estimates that there are five million Palestinian people like Olfat’s family.

On the positive side who would not have thought then that in 2006 the US/Israeli war machine would struggle to make ground in its war against the Lebanese and Palestinian people? Who would have thought back in 1982 it possible that such protest would come as did in Brisbane/Meanjin in Queens Park in July/August 2011?

Nevertheless, effective organised resistance against imperialism is still only a dream in Australia as demonstrated by the failure of the protests at the outset of the US/British/Australian (etc) invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In recent years (2020-2022), APHEDA had been hampered by false allegations from the Australian government that it was supporting terrorists. Its funding was suspended while it defended these charges. APHEDA was keen to help The Big Ride for Palestine (Australia) organise events and provide a fundraising platform for the ride.

Now in 2022, looking back we see that awareness about Palestine has grown here in Brisbane and many Palestinians have made their way here. For the most part they keep a low profile, politically. They do not involve themselves in other solidarity struggles nor do they participate in domestic struggles. They are afraid that such activities will result in them not being able to visit family and friends in Palestine.

Solidarity Groups

However when repression escalates in Palestine there are now larger demonstrations with different groups participating. Also there have been a number of social activities like the Big Ride for Palestine (2017-2022) and of course the BDS campaign waged in Brisbane by Justice for Palestine. The Big Ride for Palestine (Brisbane) has received support from APHEDA, Byron Friends of Palestine, Labor Friends of Palestine, and the Gold Coast Mosque as well as other commercial interests and charities like Palestine Fair Trade Australia. Significantly TBR for Palestine has received considerable financial assistance from a number of unions including: the Plumbers Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the CFMEU, and the MUA.

Justice for Palestine was formed in January 2009 to organise the demonstrations against the Israeli massacre in Gaza. It is a broad coalition of organisations and individuals who support freedom for Palestine. Justice for Palestine supports the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against apartheid Israel (www.bdsmovement.net).

Labor Friends of Palestine pursues three main objectives:

1. To promote an Australian Foreign policy that is balanced and in the interests of both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples,

2. To advocate for a just solution to Israel /Palestine impasse within the ALP and broader Labour movement based on the values of adherence to human rights, United Nations (UN) resolutions and international laws,

3. To raise awareness, recruit new members, keep people informed and, to work with like-minded peace and human rights advocates.

Settler Colonialism
What is being done to the Palestinians is that they are victims of settler colonialism. This is distinguished from franchise colonialism (Australia in PNG) which aims to exploit. Settler colonialism aims to annihilate the indigenous inhabitants. There is not an “impasse” between Palestinians and Israelis; the conflict is not caused by a “failure to communicate“. The Israelis are communicating very effectively with the Palestinians with tanks, snipers, bulldozers, phosphorous rockets and missiles and the Palestinians understand this perfectly.

So massacres such as Sabra and Shatila are not mistakes. They are an essential aspect of settler colonialism.

Australia – a settler colony – should understand what is going on in Palestine.  Watching the ongoing brutalities of settler colonialism in Palestine is for us like having a time machine.  We look at the videos on social media and we see what settler colonists do. We watch Rachel Perkins as she reveals the truth of The Australian Wars on SBS and we know that is what we did to the Indigenous people of Australia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

In the film Jenin Jenin there is a scene with a small girl standing in the rubble of her town saying that when she heard that Sharon (Israeli PM) was coming to the camp she was so angry she burst into tears because she had a great desire to take revenge on him. She told us how legendary was the cowardice of the Israeli soldiers who hide inside their tanks when children throw stones and who dropped bombs that fell like rain on her family’s house and nearby houses for two weeks during the devastation of Jenin. “What is my life worth?” she asked as she stood there in the rubble and then tells us that she and all her people will resist and win the struggle for their homes and their lives.

This is not a complete history of solidarity with Palestine in Brisbane/Meanjin. I am happy for people to make their own contributions in the comments section below.

Down the years Brisbane solidarity activists have engaged with both the Queensland Palestinian Association and its successor Falestin Inc.

For a list of solidarity and related groups go to https://apan.org.au/local-groups/

Ian Curr
26 Sept 2022