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250,000 marched across the bridge...At least 90,000 pro-Palestine protesters walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge and into history through the pelting rain, as a larger crowd than expected used the landmark as a symbol, bringing the city to a standstill and leading police to sound the alarm of a potential crowd crush. In the face of the sheer size of the protest against the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza, which organisers say drew between 200,000 and 300,000 people, police were forced to ditch plans for the march to end at North Sydney and redirected the crowd. About 2pm, it was decided that large numbers of protesters be directed to turn back to the CBD to catch trains, while others were encouraged to keep walking northwards to North Sydney. By 3pm, protesters were told to halt and wait for police to direct them off the bridge in stages as scores of protesters were still at Wynyard waiting to begin the march. The bridge reopened for traffic at 5pm. Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees said the march was “even bigger than we dreamt of” after people travelled from across the country to attend. He called the event a “monumental and historic” success. Lees’ estimate of between 200,000 and 300,000 protesters was considerably higher than police estimates. “Today was just a huge display of democracy,” he said. There were “no plans” for another demonstration over the landmark, he said. NSW Police acting deputy commissioner Peter McKenna said the march came “very close” to a “catastrophic situation” and that officers had been forced to make a snap decision to turn tens of thousands around to avoid a crowd crush as people exited for North Sydney. “We had to scramble. We had to make snap decisions. We had to really think about how we could get people safely out of that confined space and back into the city safely, because it came very close to us having almost a catastrophic situation,” he said. McKenna said part of the problem was the organisers’ application to march stated that 10,000 people were likely to attend, not the 90,000 people the police estimated turned up. He said any future march should be organised with much more time than the seven days provided by the organisers ahead of Sunday’s protest. The plan to stage the event dominated NSW politics last week, and the decision to allow the protest to proceed came down to a Supreme Court ruling on Saturday morning. PAG spokeswoman Amal Naser said efforts by Premier Chris Minns and NSW Police to stop the event from going ahead fuelled the huge turnout by members of the public. “The reason why that number quadrupled was because the police and the premier issued a co-ordinated campaign to attack the right to protest, and people took the emergency to come out today. [Minns and NSW Police] gave us more publicity than we could have ever asked for,” she said. McKenna would not specify how much time police required before allowing another march across the bridge of a similar size. About 1000 police were deployed, including mounted police and police helicopters. The last major march across the bridge was 25 years ago, when 250,000 people marched in support of reconciliation. Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Sunday night committed a further $20 million to the humanitarian response in Gaza, taking Australia’s total contribution to about $130 million. The latest funding, which will support humanitarian organisations to provide food and medical supplies, is delivered in co-ordination with Britain. “Australia has consistently been part of the international call on Israel to allow a full and immediate resumption of aid to Gaza, in line with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice. The suffering and starvation of civilians in Gaza must end,” Wong said. “Australia will continue to work with the international community to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the release of hostages and a two-state solution – the only path to enduring peace and security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.” After the march started at Lang Park near Wynyard station, the bridge’s road lanes were turned into a sea of umbrellas, signs and chanting protesters opposed to the Israeli government’s military action in Gaza. The throng of people spanned more than two kilometres. Protesters chanted, “Netanyahu/Albanese you can’t hide. Stop supporting genocide” and protesters carried signs calling for a ceasefire and the end to the starvation of children. Behind a large banner, protesters at the front included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former NSW premier Bob Carr, former federal government minister Ed Husic, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and human rights activist, former Socceroo Craig Foster. Carr said the march had attracted “ordinary people” because of outrage over the “policies of starvation”. “There are a lot of very ordinary people here who wouldn’t have been to a demonstration even any time in their lives, and they’re outraged by policies of starvation enforced by the IDF,” he said. Despite Minns’ opposition to the march, many Labor figures braved the rain including state MPs Jihad Dib, Anthony D’Adam, Cameron Murphy and Lynda Voltz, and federal politicians Tony Sheldon and Alison Byrnes. Husic said Minns couldn’t ignore the public sentiment towards the conflict in Gaza. “I think we had a turning point in the mind of middle Australia. They just don’t want kids to be killed,” he said. Federal Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi and the party’s state MP Sue Higginson were also in attendance. Higginson said the march was a “remarkable moment in our history”. Minns had opposed the protest, saying it would be “disruptive” and that it would cause “real public safety concerns”. There were fears the march would not go ahead, but in an urgent decision on Saturday, the Supreme Court rejected an application by NSW Police for a prohibition order over the protest. The order would not have banned the event, but it would have exposed protesters to potential criminal liability for blocking or obstructing traffic and pedestrians. Justice Belinda Rigg’s decision meant protesters had a limited range of immunities from criminal sanction. Rigg said the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech ultimately outweighed any inconvenience caused by the protest. She rejected a police submission that the court would be “condoning violent scenes, traffic gridlocks, ambulances not getting to where they need to go, and other undesirable consequences”. Rigg said police still had “extensive powers”. NSW Police said ahead of the event they would be targeting unlawful and anti-social behaviour. Liberal MP and shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser, a Jewish Australian, said his concerns went beyond traffic disruption as he issued a statement condemning the Sydney protest. “The Harbour Bridge is more than just a road. It’s a symbol of unity for our city and our nation and should not be turned into a stage for protests that seek to divide us,” he said.
YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE —
Gus Leonisky POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
AND BIBI LISTENED.... GUS AND HIS MATES WERE THERE IN SPIRIT, WALKING IN THE RAIN.... WHILE PALESTINIANS STARVE UNDER BIBI'S RAINING BOMBS — BOMBS SUPPLIED BY DONALD...
ORIGINAL PICTURE AT TOP FROM THE SMH
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death parts...
Canada still arming Israel despite official ban, report finds
In the course of a week, Canada accused Israel of violating international law, announced Ottawa will recognize a Palestinian state, and sent aid to be airlifted to Gaza. But a shocking new report makes clear that the proposed 51st state still arms Israel’s death machine.WYATT REED
Canada sent at least 391 shipments containing bullets, military equipment, weapons parts, aircraft components, and communication devices to Israel since late 2023, despite Ottawa’s repeated claims to have ended weapons deliveries to the apartheid state, a new report has revealed.
By sifting through data from the Israel Tax Authority, researchers at Arms Embargo Now discovered what they called “a continuous, massive pipeline of Canadian weapons flowing directly to Israel” comprising over 400,000 bullets, multiple shipments of cartridges, and a variety of parts for Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets. Since mid-2024, Israel received four shipments of Doppler Velocity Sensors, which provide navigation data needed for the F-35’s target acquisition and weapons delivery systems, five shipments of lightweight composite panels used by the planes, and two shipments of Modular Product Testers, which are used to diagnose problems on Israel’s air force fleet.
Of the 391 deliveries identified, the report’s authors were able to track direct 47 shipments of military gear with detailed commercial shipping records sent by Canadian companies to Israeli companies. 38 of those shipments were sent to Israel’s biggest military firm, Elbit Systems, and its various subsidiaries.
In March 2024, the previous Canadian administration claimed to have halted all permits for arms shipments to Tel Aviv, after the legislature passed a non-binding motion declaring that “Israel must respect international humanitarian law” and that “the price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.” In the following months, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted Canada no longer facilitated Israel’s horrors, going as far as publicly chiding one concerned Palestinian, “we’ve stopped exports of arms to Israel.”
But just before the apparent shift in policy, Ottawa greenlit a massive number of permits for Israeli-bound weapons deliveries, front-loading hundreds of orders in an apparent attempt to preemptively circumvent their own ban. Of the $30.6 million in military equipment sent to Israel in 2023 – the highest yearly total on record – $28.5 million was approved between October and December. Even today, many of those shipments continue to be fulfilled. To date, just 30 permits for military deliveries have been cancelled by Canada, which made that decision following a similar move by the UK in mid-2024 after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel was violating international law.
“The Canadian government appears to have pursued a strategy of rushing through a record-breaking number of arms export permit approvals to Israel prior to publicly committing to pause approving any new ones,” Arm Embargo Now explained in their report. “This was then quietly undermined by a series of exceptions and loopholes,” researchers wrote, suggesting “the government’s policy shifts were… aimed at diffusing public criticism while maintaining material support.”
Other Canadian institutions to have assisted Israel’s genocidal siege include a number of its universities. A separate report published by Just Peace Advocates found that in 2023 up to $100 million went completely untaxed as it was funneled to Israeli universities from their ‘charitable’ arms in Canada. The money went to a variety of schools with strong ties to occupation forces, including Israel’s self-described “academic home of soldiers,” Bar-Ilan University, which took in around $4 million that year.
In addition, nearly $17 million was sent tax-free to Ben-Gurion University in 2023, which bragged of having “transformed itself into a back office for war” in October that year. Months later, Ben-Gurion announced the creation of two new “elite academic programs for future [Israeli military] recruits, as part of preparations for the transfer of IDF technological units to southern Israel.” The university says it works “in tandem” with the Israeli Air Force Flight School and claims to have trained around 1,000 pilots for military service.
Also receiving untaxed funds was Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, which has been described as “the incubator of most nuclear weapons work in Israel.” Weizmann has well-documented ties to a variety of Israeli spies implicated in efforts to steal nuclear secrets, and drew international attention after it was partially destroyed in a retaliatory Iranian airstrike on June 15.
According to Just Peace Advocates, Canadian sources delivered over $36 million to the Weizmann Institute in 2023.
https://thegrayzone.com/2025/08/01/canada-arming-israel-despite-ban/
AND SO DO MANY OF ISRAEL'S FRIENDS — INCLUDING AUSSIELAND, UNDER THE "ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF" DICTUM....
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
not on the BBC...
WHILE IT SEEMS THE BBC HAD NOT A SINGLE NEWS REPORT ON THE ITEM ABOVE — 250,000 OR SO PEOPLE CROSSING THE HARBOUR BRIDGE IN SUPPORT OF THE PALESTINIANS, THE BBC HAD ONE STORY ON OUR BAD WEATHER:
Watch: Australians play in snowy winter wonderlandAustralians made snowmen and enjoyed snowball fights after parts of New South Wales were blanketed with heavy snow over the weekend.
Officials said around 200 vehicles became stranded when areas of the state received the heaviest snowfall in 20 years.
"I've never seen snow before in my entire life," said Brendan Gough, who travelled from Queensland to catch a glimpse of the rare sight.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/crm479410ndo
AND ON OUR FAILED ROCKET:
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cz93xzv3njjo
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
for humanity....
Alison Broinowski
Watermelons in the rainWe knew a thousand police couldn’t arrest 90,000 of us, so the march for Palestine was always going to happen. An 11th-hour decision by Justice Belinda Rigg just made it legal.
Every Sunday since October 2023, pro-Palestine rallies, loudish but always peaceful, with relaxed police making no arrests, have been part of the Sydney scene. For the huge event we’ve just had, they were the warm-up. And just as well, because Sunday 3 August was so cold and wet.
Those who thought the weather would deter the marchers were disappointed. That would have included the Premier Chris Minns and the NSW police commissioner. So they resorted to other tactics and got their way in the end.
But before they did, there was sound, colour and movement all the way from Wynyard, up York street, and onto the bridge. While the sun was out, everything sparkled, and flags in watermelon colours waved. When it rained, on with keffiyehs and up with watermelon-patterned umbrellas. Watermelon-dangle earrings are the current political fashion statement.
Anyone who thought multiculturalism was killed off by John Howard was disappointed too. A wider, more spontaneous representation of Australian society couldn’t have been contrived. The marchers included thousands of old and young, whole families, babies, and people of many origins.
From the middle of the crowd, we couldn’t tell how far we were from the back of the pack — like in City to the Surf — or see how far ahead the leaders were. But it wasn’t a race to the finish, and not even a march, as much as a slow shuffle taking up the whole width and length of the bridge.
We couldn’t see Julian Assange with Bob Carr. Nor Clover Moore in her wet black hat, nor persecuted re-tweeters Mary Kostakidis and Antoinette Lattouf, nor the ALP, Green and Independent politicians who were at the front. Coalition members were even less visible.
So were the police horses, but they left evidence of their presence, which we had to avoid stepping on. A sea-plane from Rose Bay flew over for a look, as did a couple of news helicopters. Trains passed and passengers waved. But the best view was had by bridge climbers, who on a grey misty day could instead watch the whole march from above.
Then we realised the latest helicopters were police, and they were flying low, addressing us. The march kept stopping. Everyone got messages on their phones (how did they have all our numbers? no-one we knew had registered to march). Because of the danger of a crowd crush at the northern exit from the bridge, we read that we all had to stop and go back. Some people were already returning south on the side walkway, like New Yorkers escaping from the World Trade Centre.
We had been walking for two hours and had only just passed the halfway point on the bridge, under the Aboriginal flag. One man who remembered the Vietnam protests, and the Iraq demonstration, said we should all just sit down. My Chinese Australian friend went and demanded an explanation, and police told her it was for our safety.
They made us all turn round, and we did. So the crowd went back, still banging saucepans, still cheerful, still chanting “from the river to the sea” and “we don’t want your bloody war”, etc. But it made me feel a little of what the Palestinians have put up with for decades, being pushed here and there, told to go north, go south, go to a concentration camp.
We were many more than 90,000, according to my statistically-inclined friend Bevan Ramsden, who compares our event with an anti-Vietnam war march on Bourke street in Melbourne on 8 May 1970. Police said there were 70,000 packed marchers, and the organisers claimed 100,000. The length of the march, 500 metres, was the same as the span of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge (eight lanes) is twice as wide as Bourke Street (four lanes), and the official length of the bridge is 1.15km, more than double its span. The length of the Sydney march was even more than that, going back past Lang Park. So Bevan calculates that there were between 280,000 and 400,000 Marchers for Humanity on Sunday.
The march never reached its destination, the US Consulate-General in North Sydney. Public transport was closed all over the CBD, so people walked to wherever they could find a way back to their cars and their dry, warm homes. We all felt we had done something memorable. It was the opposition from government and police to the march that brought hundreds of thousands of us out in the rain. The point we made has clearly registered.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/08/watermelons-in-the-rain/
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
tired....
https://michaelwest.com.au/we-are-sick-and-tired-scam-of-the-week/
“We are Sick and Tired” | Scam of the Weekby Michael West
This week’s Scam of the Week goes to Andrew Hastie, the man “sick and tired” of peace protesters but never sick and tired of defending war crimes.
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
blame....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaS756kDgkQ
Who to blame for the Bondi Beach mass-shooting? Not Muslims, not Arabs, not peace protestors marching on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was the men who fired the bullets.
In the aftermath of the Bondi attack, grief has quickly collided with misinformation and political point scoring. This episode examines what we know, what we do not yet know, and how tragedy is being used to inflame division before investigations are complete. We focus on responsibility, facts, and the real consequences of turning loss into a culture war.
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
responsibility....
George Browning
Blame, grief and responsibility after BondiIn the aftermath of a devastating attack on Sydney’s Jewish community, political leaders must resist the urge to weaponise grief or assign blame.
It is far too early to make any meaningful comment about the utter devastation and cruelty suffered by Sydney’s Jewish community as they celebrated Hanukkah. But it is not too early to respond to the disgracefully self-serving, patronising rant from the Israeli Prime Minister and to a lesser degree from the Israeli president as they sheeted blame for the atrocity on Prime Minister Albanese and Australian leadership in general.
It is not too early for many reasons, but particularly because, again for political reasons, it will suit some voices in Australia to mimic the same political blame game.
We human beings are very complex, sometimes we do not fully understand our own thoughts and actions, let alone the motivations and thoughts of others, least of all cast blame.
Netanyahu has immediately claimed the thought process behind the father and son allegedly responsible was antisemitic.
If this proves to be the case, as seems likely, one must ask what could provoke such an extreme and violent attack.
Netanyahu has insisted that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic. In his rant against Australian leadership he included reference to the fact that Australia has sanctioned Ben Gvir and Smotrich, both of whom have declared the killing of Palestinians a patriotic duty for an Israeli citizen. This sanctioning he claims has contributed to the ‘disease’ of Australian antisemitism. He of course also included Australia’s recognition of statehood for Palestinians as a major cause. (Mentioning that 157 of the 193 members states of the UN recognise Palestine seems irrelevant).
There is indeed rage in Australia about the actions of Israel against Palestinians, rage which I share, but I do not make the mistake of linking Australian Jewish citizens to the actions of the State of Israel and its self-serving Prime Minister.
However, I am not a Palestinian, I do not have family members who have been killed, I do not have property that has been seized, I do not have family members including children in an Israeli jail without charge, I do no look out on an artificial boundary and be told I can no longer enter my land, I am not summarily abused and humiliated several times a day at checkpoints, I do not yearn, as they do, to live with the rights other humans take for granted. There are many Australians who vicariously live in this emotional and spiritual turmoil on behalf of their fellow people.
I am convinced there are few, very few Australians who make the grave error of linking, even blaming, Australian Jewish citizens for the actions of the Israeli government. We now know that foreign interests, notably from Iran, have tried to stir hate and division amongst us.
But if some make this grave error, why do they, what provokes them? Almost certainly there is no cause emanating from the Australia Jewish community, members of whom are highly respected. The cause, the provocation, lies in Israel. The killing of 60,000+ Gazans is provocative. The use of starvation as a weapon of war is provocative. The imprisonment of young children who throw stones is provocative. The alienation of large swathes of Palestinian land in the West Bank is provocative. The removal of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem is provocative. One could go on.
No, Mr Netanyahu, Mr Albanese is not responsible for any antisemitism in Australia, you are. You are similarly responsible for its growing presence in the US, Britain, Europe and many other places throughout the world.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/bondi/
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
butt out bibi....
Butt out Netanyahu. Ugly political point-scoring follows Bondi Beach tragedy
by Michael West
Violence begets violence. Israel’s Prime Minister should butt out of Australian politics. The tragedy at Bondi Beach, writes Michael West, must not be exploited for political points.
While the victims of the horrific massacre at Bondi Beach were still bleeding, Benjamin Netanyahu – wanted war criminal and architect of the genocide in Palestine – squarely blamed Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“I sent PM Albanese of Australia a letter in which I gave him warning that the Australian government’s policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia. I wrote, your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists.”
The man responsible for the killing of 20,000 children went on.
“Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia. You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread. And the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
At least 15 people have been murdered, including a 10 year old girl. We don’t have all the facts yet, but can assume that this is terrorism, that the Jewish community was targeted and that it relates to the genocide.
Sadly, the usual ideologues and political opportunists seized their moment as the horrific news was unfolding last night to score points, to blame Muslims, Arabs, and even peace protestors.
Jillian Segal condemns Bridge peace protestorsJillian Segal, Israel lobbyist and Albanese’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, was quick to issue a statement:
“This did not come without warning. In Australia, it began on 9 October 2023 at the Sydney Opera House. We then watched a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, waving terrorist flags and glorifying extremist leaders”.
This was a peaceful protest by hundreds of thousands of Australian people against the atrocities being perpetrated against hundreds of thousands of other people, the people of Gaza. With Australia and its ally, the US, contributing weapons and weapons parts.
Violence begets violence, and hate, more hate.
Against the backdrop of the turmoil in the Middle East, Australians murdered Australians, and Australians came to the rescue. This is what happened. Peace protestors are not to blame.
Demonising Muslims and Arabs will only cause further grief. It is racial supremacy, bigotry and hatred.
Nobody has done more to fuel hatred than Israel’s Prime Minister. This is the man whose false intel and lobbying gave rise to the US invasion of Iraq, where more than one million died. He has been destabilising the Middle East and the world for decades and is wanted by the ICJ for plausible genocide against the Palestinians.
In the past year, he has bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Qatar and Yemen.
Yet the usual suspects on social media were busy fomenting unrest last night while the bodies of the dead at Bondi Beach were still warm, their loved ones in dreadful shock.
Gun lawsWhile Segal, as an unapologetic champion of the government of Israel, is part of the problem, not the solution, she is right when she says that “This moment requires action”.
“Australia responded decisively after Port Arthur in 1996. This moment requires the same action. Words are no longer enough.” Agree. How did these men get all the firearms? Tighten the gun laws.
Segal: “An attack on a peaceful Jewish celebration is an attack on our national character and our way of life. Australia must defend both.” Correct, all acts of violent must be condemned, including those espoused by the Israel propagandists.
As for Netanyahu’s attack on Albanese, it is patently untrue as well as designed for political mischief and division. “You did nothing … you took no action,” is merely another lie. He changed the laws of the country in the wake of the false flag ‘terror plots’ whose masterminds were never found or prosecuted.
He condemned every alleged act of ‘antisemitist terror’, including the many which turned out to be false flags. He continued to furnish Israel with weapons parts despite the probable breaches of international law.
Iran … again?Under pressure from the Israel lobby, he expelled the Iranian Ambassador, and is yet to furnish any evidence that Iran was behind the purported terrorist attack in Bondi, which led to the expulsion.
And now, Iran is yet again in the picture.
“Israeli authorities are investigating whether state actors, chiefly Iran, were involved in the mass shooting attack against Sydney’s Jewish community at Bondi Beach on Sunday,” according to the Jerusalem Post, which even pointed to Hamas.
“A senior US official told Fox News that if the Islamic Republic ordered the attack, then the US would fully recognise Israel’s right to strike Iran in response. Officials were also probing links to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is connected to al-Qaeda.”
The beying chipmunks on social media are also crying Iran.
This is a bleak time for Australia. In the following days, the tragedy at Bondi Beach on Sunday will continue to be exploited for political gain. Calls are already rising for attacks on peaceful protest, free speech and freedom of assembly.
Jillian Segal’s recommendation that the IHRA definition of antisemitism be introduced – banning criticism of the state of Israel – will only fuel the crisis.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu conflating Australia’s support for the state of Palestine with the atrocity at Bondi Beach only makes matters worse.
Butt out, Netanyahu.
https://michaelwest.com.au/butt-out-of-bondi-netanyahu/
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.
SEE ALSO: https://truthout.org/articles/un-israel-has-committed-10k-violations-in-lebanon-in-one-year-of-ceasefire/
stop lammy's murders....
Stop David Lammy killing political prisoners! Release all Palestine protesters!
International Youth and Students for Social Equality (UK)
The British government is starving to death eight young people it has imprisoned for protesting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and UK complicity in the destruction of Gaza.
Participants in Palestine Action (PA) protests prior to the group’s proscription by the Labour government, they are carrying out a hunger strike demanding immediate bail, the right to a fair trial, an end to censorship of their communications, the de-proscription of PA and the closing of all UK sites run by Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit.
To date, 33 members of PA have been imprisoned for taking part in peaceful direct action against the genocide. This includes the Filton 24 and at least five people imprisoned for dousing an RAF plane in red paint in protest at UK military support for a genocide that has killed over 70,000 people according to official figures, including over 19,000 children, and wrecked over 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings, including virtually all schools and hospitals.
Five of the hunger strikers have been hospitalised. Amu Gib and Qesser Zuhrah have refused food for 44 days, Heba Muraisi for 43 days, Jon Cink 40 days, Teuta Hoxha 37 days, Kamran Ahmed 36 days, Lewie Chiaramello 22 days and Muhammad Umer Khalid 12 days. Death usually occurs after 60-70 days, meaning some could die before the new year.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) condemns the Labour Party war criminals responsible for this savagery and demands the immediate release of all political prisoners.
Labour and British imperialismKeir Starmer’s government is repeating some of British imperialism’s worst brutalities as part of its unprecedented war on the right to protest and free speech. It is following in the footsteps of the vicious measures enacted by the Liberal government of H.H. Asquith, which carried out the mass arrest and imprisonment of Suffragettes as part of its wider war on the labour movement.
From 1909, around 100 people went on hunger strike in the UK after being imprisoned for actions in support of women’s suffrage. Many were force-fed, with some dying from complications afterwards or going on to suffer serious physical and mental health conditions. After four years, in which the issue became the cause of mass popular protest, the government passed the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act in 1913, known as the “cat and mouse” act, allowing for the release of hunger strikers until they were well enough to resume their sentences.
Labour has shown no hint of releasing anyone. Justice Secretary David Lammy has stonewalled attempts by lawyers, medical professionals and politicians to even secure a meeting on the situation.
Lawyers for several of the hunger strikers put the matter sharply in a letter to Lammy sent last week: “should this situation be allowed to continue without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offence.”
Over 50 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion calling on the justice secretary to intervene “urgently to ensure the treatment of the prisoners is humane,” to no response. According to Jeremy Corbyn, a reply from Lammy to his own correspondence read: “Considering the ongoing proceedings, it would not be appropriate for me to meet with you to discuss the situation in any greater detail.”
Starmer’s government has taken the same attitude as Margaret Thatcher’s towards Irish Republicans in the 1980s, most famously Bobby Sands, who went on hunger strike to protest the British government’s revocation of Special Category Status for political prisoners of war. Ten starved to death, even as Sands was elected to the House of Commons, and two other Republican prisoners (one hunger striker) to the Dáil Éireann.
Starmer’s police stateLabour have gone further than Thatcher by not even waiting for a conviction to mete out this punishment. Every one of the hunger strikers and their co-defendants are legally innocent. They are in prison on remand--most of them held for more than a year now, with several months to go--having not been convicted of a single charge. The standard maximum for pre-trial detention is six months.
Conditions have been made worse by the court’s arbitrary and unjust claim that charges against individuals arrested for PA protests have a “terrorist connection”. They have repeatedly complained of ill treatment and unjustified blocks on communication with the outside world.
Even worse has been done to the hunger strikers, with Zuhrah reportedly left lying on her cell floor in Bronzefield with severe chest pains for hours, requests for an ambulance ignored until she lost consciousness. Pentonville prison has blocked Ahmed’s family and solicitor from receiving medical updates from the hospital, requiring them to go through its legal team.
These are the vindictive, lawless actions of a police state. Labour has branded Palestine Action and its supporters “terrorists” to justify swallowing innocent people into the prison system and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment.
Every anti-democratic attack pioneered by the British ruling class in the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, declared a “hi-tech terrorist” by Joe Biden, is now being used against protesters.
Assange was denied basic legal rights and held on remand in life-threatening conditions for close to five years in a maximum security prison. His punishment for exposing war crimes, we wrote, was the “spearhead of a crackdown on opposition to war, in preparation for the eruption of military violence now underway. It was intended to set a chilling precedent that anyone who gets in the way of the war plans of the imperialist powers will be silenced and destroyed.”
It is not the opponents of genocide who are terrorists, but the Labour Party using the repressive powers of the state to frighten and silence its opponents.
Mobilise the working class!Every worker and student’s neck is on the line. The treatment of the hunger strikers confirms the political Rubicon crossed by Labour with its proscription of Palestine Action, as explained by the World Socialist Web Site this July. The transformation of a party which arose out of the fight for workers’ democratic right to organise and strike against their employers into the spearhead of the worst attack on democratic rights in British history:
cannot be attributed to a few bad leaders. Rather Starmer, a former human rights lawyer turned right-wing zealot, and his government are the end product of a fundamental shift within the very foundations of world capitalism…
Capitalism is being driven into an existential crisis by its inherent contradictions, between an interconnected system of production and the division of the world into antagonistic nation states based on upholding private ownership of the means of production. To maintain its rule and immense privileges, the bourgeoisie in every imperialist country must wage trade and military war abroad and class war at home to ensure national competitiveness against their rivals.
This agenda is incompatible with the preservation of democratic rights. They are being torn up first in the case of scapegoated migrants and political protesters, before the same attacks are turned against the whole working class. Starmer’s Labour government is proof that Trump’s drive towards dictatorship in the United States is only the most advanced expression of a forced march to far-right authoritarianism underway internationally.
A counteroffensive in defence of democratic and social rights and against war and genocide cannot be left to the heroic self-sacrifice of a few. Their cause is the cause of the entire working class and student youth, which must be mobilised in their defence. The IYSSE urges students:
● Organise meetings on campus to prepare a cross-campus campaign in defence of the PA prisoners.
● Take the campaign to the workplaces, encouraging and collaborating with workers to mount protests in defiance of their Labour Party-aligned trade union leaderships.
● Contact the IYSSE for assistance and send videos and messages of support to be published on the WSWS.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/16/fajc-d16.html
SEE ALSO:
Australian governments, media target anti-genocide protests over Bondi Beach shooting
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/16/vohd-d16.html
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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.
Gus Leonisky
POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.