Muslim students at Monash found their men’s prayer space vandalised earlier in March. Slogans including “Fuck Islam”, “Death to Palestine”, “You will Never Win” and “USA, USA, USA” were scrawled on the walls of the Religious Centre, along with a drawing of the Israeli flag. Photos of the vandalism were posted on social media by the Monash University Islamic Society.
Judging from Monash University’s numerous statements against racism, you’d think this attack would be at the top of their list to address. You’d be wrong. Instead, the university painted over the graffiti, hoping to move on as though nothing happened. The Monash University Islamic Society (MUIS) reported on social media that no communication was sent out to the Muslim students until almost a week later. Only when Monash was called out online by MUIS, Students for Palestine, and the Monash Student Association, did university authorities feel at all obliged to make a public statement.
This is not the first of such attacks either. The men’s prayer space was previously trashed in October 2024, and a video of the damage posted by MUIS on Instagram. The video showed rubbish strewn all over the floor and what appears to be light fixtures ripped out. Several other anti-Palestinian, pro-genocide slogans across Monash’s Clayton campus have previously been painted over by the university, with no further action or investigation undertaken.
Compare this to how Monash has thrown its institutional weight behind the right-wing campaign against supposed “antisemitism” on campuses. The university has adopted the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism and publicly supported the Royal Commission into Antisemitism announced earlier this year. When a student put up a sticker on campus depicting an Israeli flag with a cross through it, the student was dragged out of class by security and questioned. What was clearly a political statement against the actions of Israel was deemed “offensive” by the university, and potentially antisemitic.
Many more pro-Palestine students, including Students for Palestine activists, have likewise been subject to disciplinary procedures because of their public opposition to the Gaza genocide. Nine students were threatened with discipline for their role in organising the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in 2024, on the basis that the protest was a threat to Jewish students’ “psychosocial safety”. No such concern has been shown about the psychosocial safety of Muslim students who are expected to remain quiet about attacks on their spaces by pro-Israel activists.
Monash’s cover-up of the anti-Palestinian attack on the Monash Religious Centre shows how hypocritical its anti-Palestine smear campaign is. While Muslims and Palestinians are subjected to increasing violent racism, Monash University sweeps it under the rug, and joins the rest of the higher education sector’s battle to fight the students calling for an end to genocide. One form of racist hate is legitimate, while pro-Palestine activity is disingenuously labelled as racist hate, scrutinised and punished.
The campaign against antisemitism on campus is not a response to an actual rise in bigotry, because for all the investigations the university has done, no evidence has been found of antisemitism on the part of those accused. Discipline has had to be dropped for this reason. The real objective is to stifle criticism of Israel and its crimes, because Israel is in the same Western imperial bloc as Australia.
The message is clear: the mass murder of Palestinians is acceptable and attacks on Muslims should be quietly ignored. The real victims are those made uncomfortable by opposition to genocide. “Death to Palestine” isn’t just a slogan on a wall, it’s what’s been happening in real time. And Monash is aiding this, not just by persecuting Israel’s opponents, but also by contributing research and know-how to the Western war machine. So long as this complicity goes on, student activists will fight to end it.
