Anti-Semitism Gets a Police Escort
Peter O’Brien
In 2022 I attended CPAC in Sydney. When I arrived at the Sydney Convention Centre at about 8.00am on the Saturday morning, I reckon there were at least 30 police officers in attendance. It seems they were worried that this group of ‘far right activists’ would, by their mere presence in a controlled access conference, provoke a violent reaction from sensitive victims from the Left. As it turned out, there was a small protest faction but World War Three didn’t break out. Nigel Farage dealt with them pretty comfortably. Nonetheless, CPAC was presented with an invoice for services rendered by NSW Police to keep the peace – a task which would seem to me to be within their taxpayer-funded remit.
Fast forward to October 21, 2023, when I again had the privilege of observing our boys and girls in blue keeping the peace.
I was staying at the Hyde Park Inn in Elizabeth St., Sydney and had returned from a shopping trip just in time to see the pre-approved pro-Palestinian march in full swing on its way from the Town Hall to Belmore Park. It was reported that 10,000 participated. That could well be true because I watched and filmed it for 10 minutes or so, then realized I could be more gainfully employed by finding an isolated spot on the sidewalk and ostentatiously turning my back on it, which I did until it finally petered out some 15 minutes later.
As it happened, the march was quite peaceful, and you wouldn’t need to be Einstein to figure out why. It was reported that 800 police were required to monitor this event. I can believe it. Apart from all the police manning every street junction within a bull’s roar, there was a police officer every 10 metres either side of the road, all marching to keep pace with the protestors. I must say they did a good job. I didn’t hear any hate speech cries of ‘F*** the Jews’ or ‘Gas the Jews’. Just benign chants of ‘Intifada!’ and ‘From the river to the sea palestine will be free’. And some placards accusing Israel of genocide.
I wonder how much that police presence cost? A small fortune, I imagine. And I wonder how the organisers of this rally, and the one last weekend, and the one proposed for next weekend, are ever going to raise such an amount when they get their invoice. It must be a great strain on their supporters, on top, of course, of what I’m sure they already send to support Gaza..
These people are now getting obscene publicity. Yes, the plight of innocent civilians in Gaza is something to be deplored. But what I find despicable and inexplicable is that all this current rodomontade commenced when Palestinian supporters were allowed to gather at the Sydney Opera House to celebrate – yes, celebrate – the slaughter of 1300 innocent men, women, children and babies. Not as collateral casualties in a military operation but as designated targets of a terrorist attack. That was sickening. I find it hard to think of anything that, in 75 years on this earth, has outraged me as much as that spectacle. And the sight of one courageous Jewish man being arrested for attempting to display the Israeli flag. And the video footage of a couple of Jewish kids being threatened with death for the same crime.
These people do not belong in any Australia that I recognise.
And it is beyond me how Muslim MPs Ed Husic and Anne Aly could have the chutzpah (irony intended) to demand the Opera House be similarly lit up in the face of this depravity. On Sunday morning I heard some woman on Sky News telling us those who support Palestine are not supporting Hamas, just the innocent victims of violence. Well, those outside the Opera House two weeks ago were certainly supporting Hamas. How many of Saturday’s 10,000 were also in that cohort, or would have been given the chance?
We are told the residents of Gaza are as much victims of Hamas as the Israelis, that they have no agency in these unfolding events. If that were true, how many of them would it take to overthrow Hamas in their own interest? How many, I wonder, would have refused to join their cheer squad outside the Opera House?
The overwhelming impression left by the weekend’s spectacle, which included a huge number of people not of middle-eastern appearance, was that this was above all anti-semitism at its most blatant.
Where are these useful idiots when it comes to the oppression of Uighur or Ukrainian or Burmese or Iranian or North Korean people? Or women and homosexuals in Iran?
And where the hell are our supposed leaders? Yes, we must preserve free speech and the right to protest, but if free speech isn’t free for conservatives, why should it be any different for those supporting murderous thugs in the Middle East?
Nelle's journey 