September 20 Rally for BDS - Sydney

Photos by Kate Ausburn, http://www.flickr.com/photos/treslola/sets/72157631580808970/with/8005982335/

Around 100-150 attended a September 20 rally and march at Max Brenner in Sydney's western suburb of Parramatta, organised by the Palestine Action Group, which I chaired.  The rally was in support of the global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid today. The protest was timed to also commemorate the massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon 30 years ago; the Golani Brigade, which Max Brenner's parent company, the Strauss group, donates care packages to, was involved in those massacres.

Photos by Kate Ausburn, http://www.flickr.com/photos/treslola/sets/72157631580808970/with/8005982335/

After the Muslim protests last weekend organisers were called in by the police and asked to call off the protest; after stating they didn't feel comfortable doing that, the police stated they would come to an agreement acceptable to both parties, while at the same time informing the organisers they had a high court summons for later that night if one couldn't be reached. However, the police do seemed to have learned from the last time they tried to take us to court for the Nakba day demonstration and it backfired; this time, they agreed to allow us the full use of the road for the alloted time, and to keep the riot police back so long as we marshalled the protest effectively. It all went really smoothly, we outnumbered the far-right pro-Israel mob drinking chocolate around 10-1 (as usual), and it was a really pumping experience!

Photos by Kate Ausburn, http://www.flickr.com/photos/treslola/sets/72157631580808970/with/8005982335/

Given the climate and the fact that shock jocks seized on our protest as a "follow up" to the weekend, there was a huge media presence. Of course this wasn't framed in the best way (and they took one of my less sharp moments to quote from, of course), but we got a bit of media from Channel 9. On the night I'm pretty sure 7 gave us a live cross to the news program, and PressTV and ABC Radio definitely got interviews too, although I haven't seen/heard them surface yet.

We also got quite a decent write up beforehand in Sydney's City News, quoting myself from PAG, Haskell from Jews Against the Occupation Sydney, Rachel Evans from Socialist Alliance and a Murdoch Uni academic I don't know. After the interview I assumed they would play the "tapping into Muslim anger" angle (a lot of questions went in this direction) but they actually wrote something extremely favourable, running my quotes regarding Israel's colonial and apartheid occupation of Palestine. W00T!

Photos by Kate Ausburn, http://www.flickr.com/photos/treslola/sets/72157631580808970/with/8005982335/

I'm quite happy with the good work for BDS happening here in Sydney, even with all the Islamaphobia being heaped around we still managed to make a very good, peaceful and vibrant mobilisation, and we're in a great position to keep building this campaign and put some runs on the board in the fight against Israeli apartheid :) I'd like to commend everyone involved in this campaign sofar - Palestinian students, independant activists, socialists from different organisations, we've all been working together very collaboratively and have been well recieved to get real traction.