Two years into the genocide, Australia’s Palestine solidarity movement is a beacon of resistance

Over the last two years, Australia has become home to one of the most enduring movements for Palestine anywhere in the world. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, Australia ranks second only to Yemen in the number of mass demonstrations (protests of more than 10,000 people) held in opposition to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Between 7 October 2023 and 5 September 2025, more than 40,000 Palestine solidarity events took place globally, more than 900 of which were in Australia. The figures tell a story of extraordinary resilience and mass political commitment. But the numbers alone can’t capture the depth of this movement, its organisation, its determination and the thousands of lives it has transformed.

For nearly two years, tens of thousands of people have attended protests, fundraisers, teach-ins, film screenings and organising meetings. We’ve stood in the pouring rain, in blistering summer heat and under threats of repression, wrapped in keffiyehs, demanding an end to Israel’s genocide and a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

We have marched through every capital city, and in regional towns from Wollongong to Albany. We’ve blockaded arms manufacturers, tried to shut down highways and ports, occupied university campuses and corporate headquarters. In the process, we’ve built a movement that refuses to back down.

The explosion of support for the Palestinians since October 2023 has drawn thousands of people into political life, many for the first time. In suburbs and schools, on campuses and in workplaces, entire layers of society have begun to organise. New groups have sprung up everywhere: Students for Palestine, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Academics for Palestine, Teachers for Palestine. Muslim and Arab community organisations have mobilised at a scale not seen in decades, while long-time socialists and anti-war activists have played critical roles in sustaining the momentum. There have even been strikes for Palestine in Victoria, taken by workers in the Australian Services Union.

Some people have dedicated every spare moment of their lives to this campaign, organising rallies, making placards, fundraising for medical aid in Gaza, pushing for union motions or simply talking to friends and colleagues about why Palestine matters. People who never thought of themselves as political are waking up to the reality of the world.

A few months ago, one of the educators at my daughter’s school revealed that she couldn’t sleep because she was so distressed at what was happening in Gaza. She said she had never been political before. She is one of many whose world view has been changed because of Israel’s genocide.

Along the way, people have learned important lessons.

They’ve learned about the brutal history of Zionism and the Nakba. They’ve learned about 75 years of colonisation, displacement and resistance. They’ve learned to challenge the media’s distortions and to see through the propaganda of Western regimes.

But perhaps just as importantly, they’ve learned a lot about Australia—about the deep and bipartisan loyalty our rulers show to Israel and about the hollowness of their democratic pretensions.

The genocide in Gaza has been enabled by Western governments, including our own. While Labor politicians offer mealy-mouthed statements about “peace” and “restraint”, they have continued to supply weapons components to Israel, to trade intelligence with its military and to lend diplomatic weight to its crimes.

Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong want to present themselves as global humanitarians. The latest declaration of support for a Palestinian state is their attempt to pretend they care. The reality is they are complicit, actively and knowingly, in a campaign of mass slaughter. They have shown time and again that they are more interested in preserving Australia’s alliance with the United States and Israel than listening to the hundreds of thousands of people in this country demanding an end to the bloodshed.

The movement has also learned that words are cheap. Politicians may express “concern”, but what matters is what they do—and what they have done is repress the movement and slander it at every turn.

From the first weeks of protest, we have faced a campaign of lies and defamation. The media accused us of antisemitism, without evidence. A Sydney protest was falsely reported as chanting antisemitic slogans, a claim subsequently debunked by a police investigation. But our leaders have never let facts get in the way of a good story.

In workplaces and cultural institutions, expressing support for Palestine has been treated as a disciplinary offence. People have lost jobs or funding simply for opposing genocide.

When actors at the Sydney Theatre Company wore keffiyehs on stage, the company condemned them, and donors threatened to withdraw funding. The ABC fired journalist Antoinette Lattouf for sharing a Human Rights Watch post about Gaza. The cricket commentator Peter Lalor was axed by SEN Radio for criticising Israel’s war crimes. The State Library of Victoria terminated contracts with four writers—citing “child safety” as a cover for political censorship—after they expressed solidarity with Gaza.

These attacks are not isolated. They are part of a broader ideological offensive aimed at delegitimising our movement and silencing dissent.

And it doesn’t stop at smear campaigns. Across the country, legal restrictions on protests have increased. In New South Wales, the state government introduced harsh anti-protest laws, using them to threaten organisers with massive fines and arrest. Police have tried to shut down peaceful protests, including attempting to block a Palestine rally on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

University managements have also tried to repress student encampments, with threats of disciplinary action, police eviction and public vilification. In the wake of last year’s Palestine camps, universities have gotten away with the most egregious limits to freedom of expression. At the Australian National University, students are no longer allowed to put up posters. At the University of Western Australia, student lecture announcements have been banned—as has handing out leaflets outside of a very small prescribed area. At Melbourne University, the administration spied on students and staff who support Palestine. McCarthyite-style repression reigns supreme across our universities.

But none of it has broken our movement.

Despite everything—despite the lies, the job losses, the censorship, the police repression—we are still here.

This resilience is not just a matter of determination, though we have plenty of that. It’s political. People are not marching week after week because it’s easy or fashionable. They are doing it because they are outraged, at the genocide, yes, but also at the complicity of our own government. They are doing it because they see through the hypocrisy of the “rules-based order”. And because they want to live in a world where justice isn’t defined by imperial interests.

Our movement is one of the most powerful expressions of anti-imperialist politics in this country in decades.

The genocide in Gaza continues. But so too does the resistance. What the raw numbers show is that we have built something enduring.

We have refused to be silenced. We have stood with the Palestinian people in their darkest hour. And we will continue to do so until Palestine is free.

This movement is not going away. And neither is our rage, our solidarity or our hope.