Dissenting Jews add voice to Gaza protest | CPT PPP Coverage

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Co-organiser Keren Rubinstein said she and others who oppose the war in Gaza have been heavily ostracised from Australia’s Jewish community. 

“We’re shut down, we’re demonised, we’re even criminalised, we’re sacked from out jobs, we’re silenced at every turn, both professionally and socially,” she told AAP.

But Israel supporter Yaacov Travitz, who leads a group known as Lions of Zion said those who shared his views were “going nowhere”.

The groups were positioned several dozen metres apart as tensions mildly simmered with both playing music and hosting speakers using amplifiers. 

The action came days after Australian lawmakers passed harsh new penalties aimed at curbing rising anti-Semitic attacks.

Co-organiser and anti-Zionist Jewish man David Glanz said those attacks were “tragic but isolated” and were being used to create a narrative that Jewish were living in fear.

“We stand against the genocide in Gaza … and we reject that the Palestine movement is fermenting anti-Semitism,” Mr Glanz told AAP.

“We think there’s a highly political agenda here, where people claiming to be highly motivated by anti-Semitism are actually motivated to shut down Palestine voices.”

Rally speakers were slated to include Jewish comedian Jacob Sacher and barrister Jeffrey Lowenstein, a former chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission whose parents were Holocaust survivors.

Mr Glanz said those who were pro-Israel claimed to speak on behalf of all Jewish but “there isn’t one form of being a Jew”.

“Anti-Semitism is real but the politicians and media who put such emphasis on it have nothing to say about the rising tide of hatred faced by our Muslim brothers and sisters,” he said.

The rally joined up with a weekly Palestine rally and protesters marched towards Victoria’s State Library more than an hour after it began.

The future of Gaza hangs in the balance after US President Donald Trump’s plan to clear two million Palestinians from their homeland and resettle them in third countries – possibly ending hope for a two-state solution – was panned by Arab nations and others.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the occupied territory did not come up during his first meeting with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth on Saturday.

“We did not go through that,” he said.

“Our position is really clear, it’s what it has always been … what I’m not about to do is engage in a running commentary on the remarks of the president.”

Australia has long maintained its desire for a two-state solution, in which Israel ends its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and allows the creation of a Palestinian state.

Mr Marles declined to say what Australia would do if Mr Trump sent troops to the occupied territory, which has been decimated since Israel’s offensive in response to a major Hamas attack in October 2023.

Mr Trump on Thursday evening walked back talk of US troops entering Gaza while reiterating the US would take control of the strip post-war to create his vision of a “Riviera of the Middle East”.