It was all kefiyehs and umbrellas at the big Palestine protest in Sydney that was headed across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Christians joining the “March for Humanity” protesting the war in Gaza tell The Other Cheek why they are marching.
Stuart, from Balmain Uniting Church, and Sydney Friends of Standing Together – a support group for a network of Jews and Palestinians.
“Jesus speaks about love as a basic commandment. We ‘love one another as I have loved you.’ So essentially as a Christian, I feel justice and peace is at the heart of the gospel message. You know, turning the other cheek is central to the Christian message.
“As someone also who’s volunteered in Israel and Palestine and live with Jews and Palestinians in a peace village, [I am] compelled to ensure that the safety of those friends that I’ve made in Israel and Palestine and trying to make sure that justice for one is justice for all.
“The Palestinians very much like the Aboriginal community in Australia, where Australia and Palestine, Israel have a common origin where the British conquered Australia, the British conquered Palestine [and] imposed a political system which wasn’t just, and it was contrary to the interest of the local population. The local population resisted and it doesn’t justify the violence, but we can understand why people resist.”
Suzan Wahhab, President, Palestine Christians in Australia.
“Well, because I’m a Palestinian and I’m a Palestinian Christian. And the reason I’m here is because I want to say that what is happening in Gaza is not right.
“The salvation, the total destruction of the whole country. Our families are still in the churches right now. No one knows about what’s happening for them. They’re suffering. There’s no medicine at all. People are slowly, we are hearing stories of people slowly dying from diabetes, from things that could be preventable, illnesses that could be preventable just because there’s no medicine.
“There’s also no money, no water, no food. Even if it’s a war and whoever is wrong or right, it’s what they are not doing for the civilian population. And we are here to say that that is not acceptable.
“And also to tell the Australian government that Australia should not be part of this genocidal strategy to drive people out, to throw them into the Sinai, to make sure they don’t have any homes to go back to because I’m a granddaughter of refugees, my grandparents were also driven out of their homes in what is now Israel.
“So they cleaned us, my grandparents out from their villages and towns, and now they’re doing the same thing for Gaza and slowly, slowly clearing Palestinians from our land.”
“I want to ask the Christians to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people because we have been slowly, since 1948 being driven out from our villages, our towns, our cities, slowly. And what is happening in Gaza right now is just a continuation of the ethnic cleansing that started in 48.”
Kate, from St. Declan’s Penshurst social justice group.
“I couldn’t be anywhere else with what’s going on. I just felt like how could you not be here with what’s going on in Gaza?
“At this particular moment I’m [here] because of what’s going on at the moment with the starvation and shooting of people on lines and all that stuff.
“But I went to the Holy Land about 11 years ago and my eyes were opened and I was a vast of how the Palestinians are treated in the Holy Land and couldn’t believe it. I’ve had emails from Bethlehem University regularly since and kept an eye on that.
“So my concerns [go back] longer than October [7}. I hate what happened in October. Don’t believe in Hamas, what they’re doing. But settlements and the treatment of people in the Holy Land, I couldn’t believe. And I met people that were 25 in Bethlehem who were saying, ‘I’d really love to see the sea.’ And I was thinking, isn’t this awful? Ive come all the way from Sydney, Australia or over there. I’m walking around all these holy sites. I’m going and seeing the Red Sea, bathing in the Dead Sea. And you’ve never seen the sea, you’ve never been to Jerusalem. They’re not allowed to go up that street. I couldn’t believe it. So the injustice is what’s got me.”
Image: Protestors stream out of Wynyard station
Thx John, you are brave accepting comments!
My question to the marchers in general is: given that children and others have been starving and brutally suffering in other wars and situations pre-Gaza why do you only care about this suffering to march in such numbers now? Your ‘pro-palestinian’ actions inevitably support Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organisation, one that proudly proclaims itself as such, ‘From the river to the sea.’ Why does this suffering evoke your compassion to this degree and so much other suffering apparently not?
Toby Leach asks a fair question. Where have the marchers been while the Saudis rampage through Yemen and many children die of malnutrition? Or the intra-Muslim dispute in Sudan that is killing thousands? It all seems a bit selective and at best politically naive to link yourself with a march like this. Especially when Muslim health professionals in Sydney have been targeting Australian Jews.
Hi John – just a thank you off the record – I wasn’t really expecting you to publish my question – I regard its publication as a great example of free speech and good journalism.
Toby, I range broadly, including covering rallies organised by your namesake, Mark leach of Never Again is Now.