The right-wing backlash to Sydney University’s Gaza encampment
A right-wing backlash to Sydney University’s Gaza Solidarity Camp is in full swing. The camp, established on 23 April and inspired by similar encampments at US universities, is calling for the university to cut ties with weapons companies and Israeli academic institutions—very reasonable demands in the context of the genocide in and destruction of the Gaza Strip.
Yet Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott has sent an email to all students and staff alleging that the camp is responsible for “unacceptable violations” of the student code of conduct. These include accusations that members of the camp graffitied offensive slogans on the walls of the quadrangle building and that a non-student supporter of the camp spat at a security guard.
No evidence has been provided to substantiate the allegations. According to student activists, the university’s security guards, who patrol the camp 24/7, have acknowledged that the encampment had nothing to do with graffiti in the Quad.
Scott’s email, which claims that police are investigating the encampment, marks a significant change in tone from the university administration.
“Initially, management emphasised that we have the right to protest peacefully on campus”, Students’ Representative Council Vice-President Deaglan Godwin told Red Flag. “Now, they are trying to claim that our protest is responsible for harassment of students and staff. We’re concerned that they are looking for an excuse to shut it down.”
The university’s attitude shift is perhaps related to the expansion of student encampments across the country, including at universities in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and Wollongong. As the student movement has grown, so too has the reaction from right-wing media and politicians, who have, like their counterparts in the United States, put university administrations under increasing pressure.
In a recent interview with right-wing radio presenter Ray Hadley, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called the protests racist and anti-Semitic. Hadley went so far as to claim that they were the “same type of thing” as the 1938 Kristallnacht Nazi pogrom in Germany, when Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, and hundreds were killed.
Liberal media outlets have mirrored the political right’s narrative that the protest camps are anti-Semitic and must be shut down by university administrators.
On Thursday, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an opinion piece by Sydney University media lecturer Catharine Lumby, who, in a false and defamatory claim, said that protesters are calling for the expulsion of Jews from all of historic Palestine.
Last week, the SMH carried the headline: “‘No-go areas for Jewish students’: Pro-Palestinian university camps grow”. This was despite numerous Jewish students participating in and leading the camps! If you want to talk about anti-Semitism, perhaps start with corporate press insinuations that Jewish students who oppose genocide aren’t “real Jews”.
Government ministers have also condemned the protests. Education Minister Jason Clare denounced a teach-in for children by Macquarie University academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, describing it as “shocking”. He said that it was “never okay to involve children in things like this”. Clare is a proponent of children participating in Anzac Day ceremonies, however. So it’s a case of “commemorating old war for empire = good education”, “opposing current genocide = horrible indoctrination”.
On Friday, Zionist groups Together with Israel and StandWithUs rallied at Sydney University against “anti-Israel extremists and Hamas supporters”. Their mobilisation of 200 people was far outnumbered by a rally organised by Students for Palestine.
“We will not be intimidated”, Yasmine Johnson, an anti-Zionist Jewish activist and convenor of Students for Palestine at the University of Technology, Sydney, told Red Flag. “We intend to continue our protest until our universities cut all ties with weapons companies and institutions complicit in genocide.
“In the last week, we have witnessed extreme police repression in the US. Although we are yet to witness anything like that in Australia, all the powerful institutions in our society—from the government to the media to our universities—would rather vilify our peaceful protest movement than engage in a debate about our demands.”
