“They think they are the masters of the air. We are the masters of the earth” – Lebanese people voicing support for the resistance. They are speaking lines out of Franz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.
The Australian government has banned flags and symbols of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. NSW state police have declared that they will arrest anyone carrying Palestinian/Lebanese resistance flags or pictures of resistance leaders.
The flag of the Arab Revolt of 1922 was subsequently banned by Israel. When it was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, the flag was under attack because the PLO was a proscribed organisation in many countries. Carrying the flag in Palestine can get you shot. Carrying the flag in parts of Europe, especially in Germany is illegal and may render its carrier the victim of neo-Nazi violence as well as prosecution by the state.
When Israel murdered the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat, Western governments were silent. More recently, when Israel assassinated resistance leader, Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran, western governments were silent.
Israel had just killed any possibility of negotiations with Hamas. No hostage release no peace. Then, just last week, Israel assassinated the leader of the Lebanese resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, the West was silent again. Now, Australian authorities want to ban the carrying of images of resistance leaders. The New South Wales government and the prime minister want to ban rallies in support of the resistance. This, despite the ICJ and ICC having indicated complicity in the genocide of Palestinians is unlawful.
Albanese fails to stop Palestinian protest against Israel’s genocide.
The Australian Prime Minister has miscalculated the level of opposition by ordinary people to his support for Israel in its genocide of the Palestinian people. Anthony Albanese is now fully complicit in Israeli terrorism in Gaza, West Bank, and Lebanon. And he is celebrating his complicity publicly at a Zionist rally in Sydney on 7 October 2024. At the same time he has been trying to prevent Palestinian groups from condemning the genocide.
In the space of 10 years, Anthony Albanese has gone from supporting Palestinians to complicity in their genocide by Israel.
At Labor Premier’s instigation, a 19-year-old woman was arrested by New South Wales police for carrying a Hezbollah flag at a demonstration in Sydney.
This is not just a NSW issue, it is a Commonwealth issue. The relevant legislation is the COMMONWEALTH COUNTER-TERRORISM LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (PROHIBITED HATE SYMBOLS AND OTHER MEASURES) ACT 2023 (‘the act’).
Nowhere in ‘the act’ is the carrying of a Hezbollah or Hamas flag proscribed. As Palestinian Action Group organisers in Sydney have argued, no one is advocating terrorism. Nor is it unlawful to carry a photograph of Hassan Nasrallah, Mawan Baghouti, Yahya Sinwar or, for that matter, any of the Palestinian leaders in the resistance against Israeli occupation.
People are engaged in organising rallies, marches and other events protesting against Israeli terrorism. It is Albanese that is attending a Zionist vigil on 7 October. It is Albanese who is complicit in genocide, something that is outlawed in ‘the act’.
On the international front, the ICC is investigating Albanese, Marles, Wong and Dutton for their support of Israel’s genocide. This is an important political argument to make to stop the Israeli genocide. If Israel stops the genocide and there is a permanent ceasefire then the threatened war in West Asia can be stopped. Leaders in the West and dictatorial regimes in West Asia need to understand this.
Ian Curr
4 October 2024
Palestine Action Group condemns bid to ban vigil on October 7 as an ‘attack on fundamental democratic rights’.