School students hit the street to stand with Palestine
People participate in a Pro-Palestine demonstration in Melbourne on Thursday, November 23, 2023. (AAP Image/James Ross)
The children left school at lunchtime on Thursday, making their way to the steps of Flinders Street Station.
Rally organisers encouraged the demonstrators to make their way onto the major intersection, partially blocking cars and trams.
“We must demand Israel ends its genocide in Gaza,” one speaker told the crowd.
“We demand the government cut all political, economic and military ties.”
The demonstration came as the Melbourne electorate office of federal National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten was splashed in red paint and graffiti reading “dial down the apartheid Bill”.
Mr Shorten suspects the Thursday morning incident was in response to his plea for protesters to “dial down the degree of aggro”, after bloodied replicas of corpses in Gaza were left outside the offices of federal politicians last week.
He believes it was vandalised by the same group.
“Obviously, someone took offence at me saying we should promote social cohesion and dial down the aggro in the confrontation,” Mr Shorten told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
Speaking about the student strike, Mr Shorten said while he understood the merit of protests, the world needed more people with an education instead of missing school.
Education Minister Jason Clare echoed the sentiment.
“There is no make-ups or catchups or redoes,” he told Nine’s Today program.
“If students aren’t school then it will be considered an absence.”
Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll also made a last-ditch plea for students to stay in class, saying it was the safest and best place for them to deal with any vicarious trauma.
“Any protest needs to be peaceful,” he told reporters.
Israeli forces have been at war in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after a bloody incursion on October 7.
Sixteen-year-old rally organiser Ivy believes the war is unjust and says it’s the latest in a “long line of atrocities” committed by Israel towards Palestine.
“We have been contacted by students from dozens of schools across Melbourne and Victoria who are walking out to demand justice for Palestine,” she told AAP.
The organisers accuse the federal government of doing nothing to defend the human rights of Palestinians and are demanding an immediate end to the war, for Israeli troops to leave the occupied territories and an end to military aid to Israel.
Ivy said they won’t be taking any instructions from the “hypocritical” major parties.
“Students who are walking out tomorrow show a lot more courage, principle and moral clarity than anyone in the major parties,” she said.
The Melbourne rally is one in a series of national student strikes for Palestinians.
In Adelaide, pupils will also hold a demonstration at Parliament House on Thursday, while students in Sydney, Wollongong and Byron Bay will turn out on Friday.
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said it was unacceptable for students to skip school to take part.
“We understand people feel passionately about a range of things but you need to be at school,” she told Sydney radio 2GB.
The protest, to be held at Sydney Town Hall, is being jointly organised by high school and Sydney University activists.
Ms Car said the university students should “stay in their lane” and leave high schoolers to focus on their studies.
The president of The Jewish Community Council of Victoria, Philip Zajac, told J-Wire: “We are pleased to see the vast majority of Victorian students took the Premier’s advice and stayed in school, rather than attending today’s misguided rally.
It is highly disappointing that the students who did choose to skip school and attend chanted inflammatory slogans and failed to show the same solidarity with Israeli children murdered or kidnapped by Hamas, as they did for Palestinian children.
We urge teachers and principals to make sure that these hateful and one-sided views are not heard in the schoolyard or classroom in the days to come.
We thank the Department of Education for listening to the concerns of our community and responding with advice to schools and school communities.”
The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Executive Director, Dr Colin Rubenstein, said: “Victorian school kids do not have a full or thorough understanding of Middle East politics and they should be at school.
Concerns that the children would engage in antisemitism, probably unknowingly, were confirmed, with some of them holding signs calling Israel `Nazis’, and chants of `From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free,’ meaning the destruction of the Jewish state, being heard. This will undoubtedly contribute to further feelings of marginalisation among Jewish students, especially any whose classmates participated in the march.
It is unfortunate that naïve school kids are being cynically manipulated and politicised in this way by some teachers and political activists.
Pro-Palestinian political activists should stay out of the nation’s classrooms – and young people should be in class.”
J-Wire checked if any students from major Jewish day schools had attended.
Marc Light, Principal of the King David School, told us: “I am not aware of any students who intend to attend that rally.
AAP
Philip Zajac’s comments confirm the dangers inherent in schoolchildren, without proper knowledge, getting involved in a protest of this kind. Chanting slogans and making statements about Israel that they have no understanding of, these Melbourne school students presented a horrifying scenario. . A very dangerous situation, as they will continue to be used by pro-Palestinian adults in nefarious ways.
It was obvious from film of this afternoon in Melbourne CBD, with so many of them wearing the garb – black scarves covering half the face, keffiyehs – how cool they felt it was, how exciting to root for a cause such as this and brand Israel as evil. When asked about the Hamas massacre on October 7, the girl concerned dismissively replied using the long years of occupation mantra.
I can scarcely believe we have come to this in Australia. Where are our leaders and educators? Children need lines drawn for behaviour and they need responsible information. Instead, they will be treated with a pseudo sensitivity that respects their rights, but fails to point out their responsibilities to learn and grow.
Jacinta Allan thus far has been pathetically weak in response. And the climate for Jews keeps on getting worse.
The so-called demonstrations were in fact an opportunity for the Pro Palestinians masses to celebrate the worst expression of monstrous barbarism well before Israel had a chance to utter any of its intentions to respond to it.
The only victimizers of the Palestinian people are the Hamas puppets of the Theocratic regime of Iran
It’s a tragedy that our kids are been used for propagating such evil doing.