Surprisingly Good Coverage From 7: Protests are Set to Sweep the Nation when Israeli President Isaac Herzog Visits Next Month
By Jamie Mcintyre
Surprisingly good coverage from 7:
“Protests are set to sweep the nation when Israeli President Isaac Herzog visits next month.
Herzog will visit Australia for five days from Sunday, February 8, at the invitation of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following the Bondi Beach terror attack late last year.
“There will be mass protests across the country when Israel’s war criminal president is toured through our cities and welcomed with open arms by our political establishment,” Students for Palestine National Convenor Jasmine Duff told http://7NEWS.com.au.
“We will flood the streets in cities and towns across the country, carrying photos of the children his government has murdered, photos of the schools and hospitals his government has bombed, and photos of the journalists his government has deliberately targeted and killed.”
The backlash follows a UN Human Rights Council inquiry into the conduct of Israel in Gaza, which found Herzog had “incited the commission of genocide”.
The council found comments made by the Israeli president following the October 7 terror attack were evidence, but Herzog said his comments, including that an “entire nation is responsible” for the Hamas attack, were taken out of context.
The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) joined Australian and Palestinian lawyers in making a formal request to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for an investigation once he lands in Australia.
“At a time when the Federal Government is criminalising hate speech, a person who is alleged to have incited hate to commit the ultimate crime, genocide, must not be allowed to enter Australian territory without facing accountability for these serious allegations,” ACIJ executive director Rawan Arraf said.
“There is a compelling basis for the AFP to commence an investigation.””
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“The Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) said it also directly invited Herzog to Australia, and welcomes the visit, which the group said “shows, at the highest national level, that Australia stands with its Jewish citizens”.
But Australian Jews who do not share the ZFA’s political beliefs say they were not considered in the decision made in a “dangerous” conflation of Judaism and Zionism.
The Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) expressed “outrage” about Herzog’s visit, saying it is “completely inappropriate and offensive and will rightly spark mass protests”.
“Inviting a foreign head of state who is implicated in an ongoing genocide as a representative of the Jewish community is deeply offensive and risks entrenching the dangerous and antisemitic conflation between Jewish identity and the actions of the Israeli state,” JCA executive officer Sarah Schwartz said.
“This does not make Jews safer. It does the opposite.
“Growing numbers of Jews in Australia and globally oppose the actions of the Israeli government and reject its attempts to speak in our name. We refuse to be ignored or silenced.”
“Conflating Judaism with the policies of a state accused of genocide and crimes against humanity erases our voice and fuels antisemitism rather than combating it.”
