Tens of thousands of Palestine supporters rallied across the country last weekend to protest one year of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Forty thousand people marched in Sydney, 20,000 in Melbourne, and hundreds more in Wollongong, Canberra and Perth. 
In Sydney and Melbourne, people have rallied every Sunday for the past 52 weeks. The streets routinely become a sea of red, white, black and green as thousands of people wave the Palestinian flag. The sound of solidarity echoes through the city with the chants: “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinian” and “Free, free Palestine”. 
Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees addressed the roaring Sydney crowd: “We are here in some of the biggest numbers we have seen this year. We are just getting started”. 
Seeing the genocide play out in real time has compelled thousands of people to join the movement. Many who didn’t know much about Palestine prior to Israel’s invasion are today committed advocates for the cause. Others have been drawn into action by their outrage at the Australian government’s complicity in genocide, from parroting Israel’s lies about “self-defence” in justifying mass murder, to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/israeli-weapons-company-awarded-australian-army-contract/103519558">signing a $900 million contract</a> with an Israeli weapons company.
At the Melbourne rally, Jewish Council of Australia organiser Ohad Kozminsky criticised the Israeli government for weaponizing Jewish identity to whitewash genocide. “We are united in our opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life. We are opposed to the vile prioritisation of the lives and rights of Jewish people over the lives and rights of Palestinian and Lebanese people.” 
Nasser Mashni, president of the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, fired back at politician’s criticisms about our decision to hold rallies on the anniversary. “Will anyone speak of the dead (Palestinian) children, dead women and dead men? It’s shameful that we’re being asked to be respectful when we’ve had 365 October 7’s in the past year.” 
These rallies generate a sense of confidence and strength on our side. By collectively standing with thousands of people demanding an end to the slaughter, we push back against the feelings of hopelessness and apathy which can so easily take over. 
This is even more important because every major institution is stacked against us—from the mainstream media to the universities, cops, courts and politicians. 
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has heightened the stakes. As Palestinian activist and Free Palestine Melbourne member Noura Mansour said in her speech at the Melbourne protest, “We now watch the Israeli violence spill over into the entire region as it targets our brothers and sisters and families in Lebanon”. 
A year on from the invasion of Gaza and we’ve entered a new era of Israeli terror. That means we must continue to push our struggle forward.

Bella Beiraghi

Tens of thousands protest to mark a year of genocide in Gaza

More than 300 students joined a special general meeting for Palestine at the University of Western Australia (UWA) on 2 October, after Students for Palestine submitted a petition with more than 700 student signatures demanding the UWA Student Guild convene it.
Dozens of staff and others from the broader campus community joined the students. Attendance exceeded the venue’s capacity, causing some people to be turned away and forcing others to sit on the floor or in the aisles. 
Students voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motions supporting Palestine, with a small number of Israel supporters speaking and voting against. 
The meeting was one of the key events in the ongoing campaign organised by Students for Palestine to pressure the university to cut its ties with Israel and end its complicity in the Gaza genocide. 
“The ties between the university and Israel are substantial”, recently elected Guild Councillor and Socialist Alternative member Finn Penter told Red Flag. “UWA leads a project that has ‘defence applications’ with L3Harris, a weapons company which supplies over 1600 components for F-35 fighter planes used by Israel. The university also has an exchange program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—which has a campus situated on Occupied Palestinian Territory—and an incoming Chancellor who is staunchly pro-Israel. We want our university to help people, the environment and society—not to help Israel’s genocide in Palestine.” 
Students also voted to call for a free Palestine “from the river to sea” and for an end to the genocide. Before this meeting, the UWA Student Guild, which is dominated by a faction of moderate student independents called Spark, had not taken a clear stand against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The previous year’s Guild Council initially responded to Israel’s attacks on Gaza in late 2023 by moving a motion that simply opposed violence in the “ongoing conflict”. This was followed by another motion passed in May, which condemned “the recent military assault in Rafah” but did not name Israel as the perpetrator.
“It’s a huge shift for the position of the Guild”, Danica Rachel, who chaired a snap rally after the meeting, told Red Flag. “What the Guild has said up to this point has been mealy-mouthed and frankly pathetic. But thanks to the SGM, the Guild can finally take a clear position in favour of Palestinian liberation, with equal rights for all from the river to the sea.” 
Credit for the meeting goes to the socialists, activists and left-wing students who connected with and mobilised the considerable sympathy for Palestine and opposition to Israel among students. 
In the week leading up to the meeting, Israel began its bombing campaign in Lebanon, raising the possibility of regional war. Student activists felt it was crucial to respond to this. They moved an extra motion without notice to “condemn Israel for its drive to war in the Middle East” and to identify “Israel [as] the clear aggressor in the region”. The motion passed to roaring applause. 
In the last twelve months, student activism has exploded in solidarity with Palestine around the world and across the country. With this latest mass meeting, UWA students have decisively joined this movement.

Alevine Magila

Hundreds vote against genocide and war at the University of Western Australia

More than 100 people gathered in Phnom Penh on Thursday evening, 26 September, to express their solidarity with the people of Palestine. At this time every year, over two weeks of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-amXPJFmuF0">Pchum Ben</a>, Cambodians pay remembrance to those who have died. Pchum Ben is a fifteen-day festival in September to October during the lunar month of photrobot, the traditional period for mourning and making offerings to transfer merit to the dead, especially one’s own ancestors. Traditionally, it is believed that special attention needs to be paid to the wandering spirits of those who suffered violent or painful deaths, who need to be venerated and assuaged so that they can rest in peace.
Pchum Ben has heightened significance in Cambodia’s society today. During the 1970s civil war and Khmer Rouge genocide, more than a quarter of the population perished. Families were dispersed across the country, and bodies of those more than 2 million people who died were discarded without ceremony. Most people lost relatives and friends, but do not know where they died, and thus have never been able to perform proper funerals for them.
In 2023, as Israel’s attack on Gaza began, a solidarity ceremony was held in Phnom Penh, launching traditional offerings of rice balls, candles, flowers and incense onto the Mekong River. It is unbelievable that the carnage could have gone on relentlessly day after day until now. As Pchum Ben has come around again, Israel is extending the same horror into Lebanon.
It is in this context that a number of artists decided to stage a “Pchum Ben 4 Palestine” exhibition. Some 70 paintings, posters, photographs and other artworks were displayed, mostly offered for sale along with the traditional Cambodian black and white checked krama scarf, closely resembling the Palestinian keffiyeh. Funds raised will be given to the Palestine Children’s Defence Fund.
More than 100 people crowded into <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FTGalleryPhnomPenh">the FT Gallery</a>—Cambodians and foreign residents from many different countries, faiths and political opinions stood or sat in traditional prayer. A Buddhist monk chanted and gave a brief sermon, followed by speakers from Cambodia, India and Palestine and singers from the Messenger Band, expressing their ongoing solidarity, all noting the parallels between Cambodian and Palestinian suffering.
At the United Nations, Cambodia has voted for repeated General Assembly resolutions <a href="https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/kingdom-votes-for-un-gaza-ceasefire">demanding a ceasefire</a>. The current and former PM have spoken out clearly against the hypocrisy of Western governments preaching human rights, international law and the rule-based world order while condoning and even aiding and abetting genocide in Cambodia in 1975-1979 and again today in Palestine.
First published at <a href="https://forsea.co/">Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia</a>. Helen Jarvis is vice president of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal and a <a href="https://www.aupp.edu.kh/congratulations-dr-helen-jarvis-on-achieving-2021-lifetime-achievement-award/">life member</a> of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

Helen Jarvis

Standing with Palestine in Cambodia

Recently, the spotlight has been on arms manufacturers that profit from Israel’s genocidal practices. But powering colonisation and oppression isn’t done just by weapons companies. Brands that present themselves as green and ethical are sometimes guilty too. 
One example is <a href="https://www.solaredge.com/aus/">SolarEdge</a>, an Israeli company founded in 2006 by former special forces soldier Guy Sella and partly owned by BlackRock, one of the world’s most prominent investors in climate destruction. 
Sella’s motto for SolarEdge was “Legal, moral and profitable”. But the company is based in Herzliya, northern Tel Aviv, one of the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/alharam-sidna-ali-memory-herzliya/5799">first Zionist settlements</a> in Palestine. In 2018, the company built production facilities in the colonised <a href="https://techtime.news/2018/03/07/solaredge-3/">Upper Galilee</a>, and also has offices in Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut, an <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/120859">Israeli settlement</a> in West Bank Palestine <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2012-08-14/ty-article/eu-part-of-modiin-isnt-israel/0000017f-ed65-ddba-a37f-ef6faf060000">considered illegal</a> by the United Nations. 
In his youth, Sella volunteered with the Israeli military’s Sayeret Matkal unit, becoming a team commander. The Sayeret Matkal is nominally considered an “anti-terrorist” unit, though that designation in the context of Israel’s longstanding occupation is questionable. The unit’s involvement in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer">Sabra and Shatila massacres</a> in Lebanon also suggests that it may itself have been involved in terrorising civilians. 
Sella went on to command the military’s Intelligence Corps, ending his career as a lieutenant colonel. Before founding SolarEdge, he was also responsible for establishing <a href="http://www.star-ventures.com/">Star Ventures</a> with several of his former soldiers. Sella died in 2019, but these co-founders maintain involvement in the company. 
One is Lior Handlesman, who was, until recently, the company’s vice-president of marketing and product strategy. Handlesman is also involved in another company, <a href="https://www.grovevc.com/insights/news/in-the-last-two-months-i-have-seen-over-20-startups-in-the-defense-sector/">Grove Ventures</a>, which specialises in “defence start-ups”.
SolarEdge CEO Zvi Lando recently resigned but, under his leadership, the company became Israel’s <a href="https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-solaredge-ceo-zvi-lando-steps-down-1001487628">most valuable</a>, with an estimated US$20 billion market value. Before joining SolarEdge, Lando was a director at Camp Magen (Camp Defence in Hebrew), which was founded to instil Zionist propaganda in both Israeli and American youth and train them in combat techniques. 
Israel already has compulsory service, drafting youth into a military that is primarily deployed to keep the non-Jewish population of Israel in line and to intimidate Palestinian civilians. In this context, Camp Magen should be viewed as an extension of Israeli militarisation.
Not only does SolarEdge have offices based in occupied Palestinian territory, but in 2015, the company supplied parts to solar farms in the illegal Israeli settlements <a href="https://jordanvalleysolidarity.org/news/solaredge-working-in-illegal-israeli-settlement/">Shdemot Mehola </a>and Petza’el in the Jordan Valley, occupied West Bank. Settlements are <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm">illegal expansions</a> of Israeli territory into Palestinian land, usually accompanied by Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and mostly backed by the Israeli state. 
SolarEdge also directly supplies the Israel Prison Service, which currently detains <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/palestinian-prisoners-day-how-many-palestinians-are-in-israeli-jails">9,500 Palestinian prisoners</a>, of whom at least 3,500 are held without charge. This includes 200 children. A dual legal system exists in Palestine, under which <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/6/who-are-israeli-settlers-and-why-do-they-live-on-palestinian-lands">Israeli settlers</a> are held accountable to Israeli civil law while Palestinians are bound by Israeli military law and tried in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/2/26/israels-military-courts-humiliating-charade-for-palestinians">military courts</a> run by Israeli soldiers and officers. Such is the nature of the Israeli <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">apartheid</a> regime.
Adding to SolarEdge’s questionable history, the company’s <a href="https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-blackrock-increases-solaredge-stake-1001335496">major shareholder</a> is BlackRock, the world’s largest investment company, which also holds a <a href="http://blackrocksbigproblem.com/">dubious record</a>. 
BlackRock’s <a href="https://www.responsible-investor.com/esg-funds-maintain-exposure-to-israeli-arms-manufacturer-elbit-systems/">significant investments</a> in the <a href="https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/07/07/blackrock-wall-street-banks-profit-israel-gaza-un/">arms industry</a> include <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/02/29/israeli-weapons-elbit-systems-australian-defence-department-contract/">Elbit Systems</a>, which supplies both the Israeli military and Myanmar’s junta. According to Weapons Free Funds, a website that tracks ethical investments, BlackRock has $78.01 billion in military investments. This year, the United Nations <a href="https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2024/06/21/blackrock-among-scores-of-entities-warned-by-un-experts-to-stop-arms-transfers-to-israel">warned</a> BlackRock to stop supplying weapons to Israel. 
Furthermore, the company has been consistently criticised for crimes against the environment and indigenous communities. The investment fund has one of the world’s most extensive fossil fuel portfolios. US media network CBS valued the portfolio at $US260 billion in 2022, including a 6 percent share in Exxon. 
SolarEdge cannot maintain any claim to sustainability when its major shareholder holds some of the world’s most environmentally destructive investments. And it cannot claim to be “moral” when its business operations are carried out on occupied land and its products are supplied to Israeli settlements.
There is good news, however.
Over the last two years, SolarEdge has been in crisis, its <a href="https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/y1qygmbv2">market value crashing</a> to US$1.6 billion. <a href="https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/y1qygmbv2">Calcialist Tech</a>, a news website, claims this is due to rising US interest rates reducing investment, the global fall in demand for solar power products and an oversupply of materials in Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 
But many Israeli companies are facing a crisis. More than <a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/25882">46,000 businesses</a> closed in six months, and the country’s GDP fell by 20 percent. 
The economic deterioration is related to the war. But the <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds">Boycott, Divest and Sanction campaign</a>, which encourages people and companies to disinvest from Israeli products, has also had an effect. Over the years, BDS has forced companies such as Ben &amp; Jerries and Puma to withdraw major contracts with Israel. 
It should be no surprise that BDS lists SolarEdge as a company that should be boycotted.
An opportunity to raise awareness about SoarEdge is at the Clean Energy Council’s <a href="http://www.all-energy.com.au/">All Energy Australia Exhibition &amp; Conference</a> being held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre on 23-24 October. Billed as the country’s “largest and most anticipated clean energy event”, the two-day meeting showcases new developments in renewable energy technology, hosts workshops and boasts more than 400 stalls from a broad range of international companies and agencies. 
Just last month, the exhibition centre hosted <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-were-right-to-disrupt-land-forces">Land Forces</a>, a military technology conference that showcases the latest in killing machines. The arms conference was met by <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-were-right-to-disrupt-land-forces">protests</a> that resulted in serious police violence. The All Energy conference might claim to be “serious about sustainability”, but don’t be fooled into thinking green capitalism is any more ethical.
SolarEdge is based in and supplies illegal settlements and a prison service that detains thousands of innocent Palestinians, including children. If the company’s morals reflect its founders, then they are those of men who violently pursued the colonisation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. 
Out of Sella’s “Legal, moral and profitable”, we’re left with only “profitable”—but even that has come under pressure. 
Isolating the Israeli economy is one of the most powerful ways that we can help the Palestinian liberation struggle. This means helping to build the BDS movement and exposing companies like SolarEdge. 
Unions should place bans on SolarEdge products, and its presence at conferences like All Energy should be protested.
Tommy Lawson is an electrician in the renewables sector and author of “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organisation”.

Tommy Lawson

SolarEdge: Israel’s dirty green energy company

NSW police tried and failed to ban a rally and vigil commemorating a year of the genocide in Gaza and protesting the new war in Lebanon. After being dragged through the NSW Supreme Court on spurious legal grounds, organisers in the Palestine Action Group have confirmed that both events will go ahead as planned after police withdrew their application to the court. They include a mass rally in Hyde Park on Sunday 6 October and a candlelight vigil on 7 October.
It’s a victory for anti-war activists that police were not able to ban the protests. But the episode shows the lengths the government and police are prepared to go to in order to clamp down on solidarity with Palestine. 
In court, they threw every possible argument at the Palestine Action Group. A protest at Sydney’s Town Hall would be hazardous, police said, because of “the recent addition of over a dozen planter boxes”. As if dangerous flower beds weren’t enough, police also cited the long weekend and NRL grand final as reasons to ban the events. Apparently, democracy must be put on hold whenever people play rugby league half an hour’s drive from the city. 
Police also argued that the Sunday rally should be stopped because it would be too large. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb told the media that the size of recent rallies had triggered safety concerns. In court, Josh Lees from the Palestine Action Group was cross examined over how big he expected the rally to be given the situation. The “situation” is of course that Israel is continuing its year-long genocide while invading Lebanon. There will be huge crowds out on Sunday in response, but the police seem to believe that we only have the right to protest so long as there aren’t too many of us. 
Police attempts to ban the protests were fuelled by a week of anti-Lebanese hysteria. The NSW government and media have waged a dog whistle campaign about the threats posed by Lebanese people at the protests, particularly after a few Hezbollah flags and portraits of assassinated leader Nasrallah were reported. Regardless of what you think of Hezbollah, it is an outrageous attack on free speech that the Australian government has deemed a major Lebanese political party a terrorist organisation and outlawed all its symbols and iconography. This would be like the Lebanese government banning symbols of the Australian Labor Party. Which organisations (and states) are deemed “terrorist” has little to do with the actions they carry out and everything to do with whether they are part of the US-led imperialist alliance. 
Police used these arguments to stoke fear about upcoming protests. Assistant Police Commissioner Peter McKenna told the court: “Since the uptake of the Lebanese community coming into the protest with the Palestinian Action Group, we felt a different undertone within the protest group, it is described to me by the police on the ground as a more aggressive feeling at the moment and we’re very concerned by it”. Police referenced “heightened emotions” in the community that made the protests a “tinderbox”, and cited fears that terrorism supporters will “infiltrate” the rallies. Lebanese people are painted as dangerous extremists, irrationally upset by some “overseas issue”, as McKenna referred to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon with Australian government complicity. 
During proceedings, police concocted yet another way to accuse Palestine protesters of antisemitism. They argued that a synagogue in Sydney, which was not on the planned march route, could be attacked by protesters. We’ve had 51 weeks of pro-Palestine protests in the city without incident, attended by Jewish anti-Zionists and in proximity to the synagogue. The media also ran with the narrative that holding a vigil on 7 October would be “provocative”, and repeatedly asked activists whether they would be mourning the lives of Israelis killed one year ago. As Lees pointed out, no one is asking pro-Israel groups whether their vigils will be commemorating the 42,000 Palestinians murdered by Israel. When Amal Naser, another Palestine Action Group activist, received the same line of questioning on Network Ten’s The Project, she pointed out that Zionist groups have been trying to ban our protests all year, they are not just concerned about the date. “We have every right to gather on October 7 and to mourn the loss of Gazan lives”, she said. 
But activists remained strong in the face of the media barrage. “What happened today was that the police and government, under political pressure, tried to ban our protest, or tried to make it very hard for us to protest”, said Lees outside the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon. “We have resisted these attempts all along. We always said these events would go ahead, regardless of the court outcome.” 
As the Palestine Action Group said in its post announcing that the protest would go ahead: “They tried to silence us, make sure you get there this weekend to make our voices heard! Stop Arming Israel! Stop the Genocide in Gaza! Hands of Lebanon!”

Emma Norton

NSW police fail to ban pro-Palestine protests

Private emails to and from Curtin University management made public via a freedom of information request show what student activists have long suspected: that the university is worried about pro-Palestine activism. The emails also show the degree to which the Student Guild has worked with the administration to contain the Palestine solidarity movement. 
All emails sent to or by vice-chancellor Harlene Hayne and previous chief operating officer Fiona Notley from October 2023 to July this year that mentioned Students for Palestine or two of the most prominent Students for Palestine activists were obtained from the FOI request. 
It was late April when Gaza solidarity encampments started sweeping the US, inspiring Australia’s first encampment at the University of Sydney and fear among university administrations everywhere. As one redacted emailer wrote to Notley on 28 April, “Today I noticed members belonging to the group Students for Palestine on campus which is very unusual for a Sunday. They were not partaking in any activity but my gut feeling say[s] we need to be alert. I just think we need to be prepared for the unexpected” Their suspicions were proven right, Students for Palestine WA initiating a Gaza solidarity encampment the following Wednesday, demanding that Curtin cut its ties to weapons companies arming Israel. 
The emails also show that the university tracked Students for Palestine WA’s social media posts. As one unknown emailer wrote to management early in the encampment, “Just noted the text added to the protest post for tomorrow—‘Protest Curtin Uni Council Meeting’. Attached is the post and the caption form the Students for Palestine WA Instagram. Also screen grabbed a photo shared to their story of them on the road yesterday. Been saving everything to this file”.
A major focus of the email exchanges is the media. Every press release published by Students for Palestine WA is shared, and university responses to media requests carefully crafted. Media commentary about Palestine activism at Curtin and across the country is circulated. On 30 April, “Dear all, please see media excerpts attached from this morning (ABC radio and online WAToday and syndicated)”. On 6 May, “please see transcript from Jason Clare interview today- attached.” On 7 May, “please see clip from 7.30 report last night focus on Sydney Uni encampment ... Commentary on role of Sydney Uni VC”.
When pro-Palestine activists received emails from the university at the start of semester two warning that postering and the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” would be met with discipline, they were leaked to the media. A chain labelled “URGENT” discusses the need to respond quickly. The next email was to Hayne: “Dear Harlene, just providing a quick wrap of the media coverage on the Students for Palestine matter ... On socials - very little audience traffic/engagement: West has posted the article on X (23 comments since yesterday afternoon). Excerpt of comments attached. These have all largely been favourable to Curtin”. The attached screenshot of “favourable” messaging includes the comments “Activists, more that than students. Expel them all” and “Antisemitism should result in immediate expulsion and visa cancellation”. 
The emails further reveal the degree to which the guild and administration were in communication about pro-Palestine activism. The first in the list is one sent by the guild to Notley on 17 April, warning her that Students for Palestine, which is not a guild club (because the guild rejected its application), was planning an unauthorised event. Following the establishment of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus, the guild worked with the administration to help end it. 
In the camp’s fourth week, guild representatives agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the university, behind the backs of the encampment. The MOU did not force the university to cut any ties with Israel, but did require the guild to pull out of the camp. In the wake of a building occupation by more than 100 students led by Students for Palestine, an email sent by Harlene Hayne expresses concern over the encampment’s disruptive escalation, but also notes, “[W]e have continued to work positively with the Guild to reach a Memorandum of Understanding to end the encampment”. Not only did this undermine the encampment’s attempts to pressure the university, but it led to confusion amongst students. 
The guild celebrated its “big win” in an all-student email, taking the wind out of the sails of the campaign to cut university ties with Israel. Interestingly, in a draft communication to students going into second semester, the university decided to cross out the line “[we] are very pleased to have worked with the Student Guild to a peaceful end to the encampment at our Bentley campus”. 
More positively, the final two emails from unknown sources sent to Hayne and Notley object to the repression of pro-Palestine student activists. “Schools no matter what level should be a space where students feel comfortable standing up for what they believe in, and speaking out against injustice. Especially those of higher education, this precedent you are setting of repressing freedom of speech is detrimental to future generations of students”, wrote one. 
These emails show that student action matters to university executives. They may have professional PR teams and disciplinary bodies on their side, but student activism can hold them to account and make social justice something they may oppose but can’t ignore.

Erin Russell

Private emails show impact of Palestine activism at Curtin University

Bec Barrigos is a workplace delegate with the Queensland Teachers Union. She’s spent years building union power and radical politics as a unionist, an activist with the rank-and-file group QTU Fightback and a member of Socialist Alternative. 
Bec successfully moved a motion in solidarity with the CFMEU at the QTU’s quarterly State Council meeting in August. She followed up with this speech to 5,000 striking construction workers in Brisbane on 17 September, explaining what’s at stake for every unionist in the current attack on the CFMEU.
The Queensland and Northern Territory ETU has posted a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02fWg2Fykw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">video of Bec’s speech on its YouTube</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z02fWg2Fykw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> channel</a>. This is a slightly edited transcript.
--------------------
I’m a rank-and-file member and activist of my union, who thought that the most important thing that we could do last month when my state council met—the highest decision-making body of my union—was to move a motion of solidarity with CFMEU. 
I saw it as a responsibility of all unionists in this moment to extend that solidarity. Because this attack that the Labor government has launched on the CFMEU is a precedent-setting attack on democracy and all unionists in this country, and it must be resisted. 
Support for democracy for union members should be unionism 101 in this country, but unfortunately, it isn’t. Honestly, as a rank-and-file delegate, I can say that my union is too wanting on this front, with officials who have been too often prepared to collaborate with bosses, too prepared to accept shitty deals that cut against the interests of our members, too prepared to make excuses for governments that have shown no interest in workers’ rights and to ignore ballots from members for strike action when we need it to fight for our conditions—and that’s a shame.
For decades in this country, workers’ interests have come last in our industrial landscape. Our rights definitely don’t rate in the disgusting scum media! If you needed evidence of that, you can see them opportunistically attacking unions in this country to line up with the bosses and their profits—shame on you! [Cheering and applause]
It’s been the bosses who have been able to set the agenda of industrial relations. And the Labor governments and politicians—when the bosses say we want to attack workers, they just lie down and say how high can we jump for you! Shame on you! [Applause]
They’re meant to be on our side, aren’t they? The truth is that we need more democracy for union members in this country: we need more democracy to safeguard our industrial rights and unions that will defy the bosses and their industrial courts in the interest of our rights. We’re only going to win it if we fight for it, and that’s what this fight is about. 
I’m also extremely proud to say that the QTU is the only teachers’ union that I know of in this country that has put a vote to their members about whether or not we side with the CFMEU. That was me who moved that motion and my members in my union said yes we’re with you all the way! [Applause]
I couldn’t stand before you as a union militant and a teacher militant without recognising that last week there were some disgraceful comments made by women union leaders like Sally McManus [boos] and the so-called federal education union officials of my great industry. Those women unionists shamefully lined up with the administrator using the rhetoric of support for women to attack unions, and attack the CFMEU—shame on you. [Applause]
I’m a unionist from a women-dominated industry, and I can say with confidence that the only way to defend women workers’ rights is to build fighting unions that will challenge the bosses who benefit from our oppression. They benefit from the gender pay gap, they benefit from the poor conditions at work, the conditions that compromise our safety. 
For too long education unions have shied away from a fight for their members’ rights . And we’ve seen our conditions worsen precisely because of what’s at stake now—[because of] class collaboration, obeying the industrial courts and accepting subpar pay offers from our employer, the government.
New South Wales nurses: I want to shout out to them today as well because they’re another women-dominated industry, and this week they’ve gone on strike for the second time this year to demand a 15 percent pay increase they deserve. And those women workers who are prepared to strike—to disobey the official establishment, the industrial courts, the framework of the government and the bosses—they’re showing the way! Because they show us that if we don’t fight, we lose. They show us that bad laws need to be broken, and the only way workers in this country have ever won our rights is where we’ve been prepared to use our industrial muscle, withdraw our labour and strike. [Applause]
And on that note, I want to give a massive shout out to our comrades on the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">Cross River Rail project</a>. [Applause] You comrades have been fighting a battle for months for an agreement to secure equal pay and safe work conditions, to prevent deaths on site. And I want to reiterate the solidarity that was in our motion for the QTU rank and file today, and say we are with you in that fight. Thank you for showing the way. 
We all have a lot to learn from you comrades, because it’s about common interest, isn’t it. That’s what’s at stake. It may not look to a lot of people on the outside—definitely not in the media—like we have common interests. Me and you. White-collar workers, blue-collar workers. Teachers, construction workers. But we do have common interests, make no mistake. 
Public school teachers are workers whose safety is under threat every single day on the job—and our employer, the government, has done nothing to improve those conditions. 
So the solidarity we extend to you is not just words—it’s about recognition that we’re in a common fight to secure the safety of workers in Queensland. That’s a fight that depends on safeguarding our democratic rights to use our industrial muscle and strike when needed, and to elect officials who will pull the trigger and stop work to save their members’ lives—that’s in all of our interest. 
I want to end by saying that the only response to a historic attack on unions has to be a historic battle of resistance. For those of you wondering what I teach, I’m a history teacher as well as an English teacher. And one thing I do know is the history of trade unionism and of workers’ rights in this country shows us: that when we dare to struggle as a class together, we dare to win. And we dare, don’t we? We dare. 
Thanks comrades, solidarity to you.

Daring to win: a teacher’s message of solidarity with the CFMEU

Chants of “One, two, three, fuck the ALP!” rang out across Sydney in late September as several thousand striking construction workers protested in city streets. Around 5,000 workers struck and rallied in Sydney and Brisbane. But the construction unions in Melbourne once again put the biggest crowds on the street—upwards of 25,000, according to police estimates. 
It’s just over a month since the federal Labor government appointed a barrister to take total dictatorial control over the main construction union, the CFMEU. It is the most draconian attack on a union in living memory. All elected positions in most state branches have been replaced with a single unelected administrator who has publicly committed to strict adherence to Australia’s restrictive industrial laws. 
The strikes and rallies in response, and the stationary tower cranes dotting the skyline that formed their backdrop, illustrated a fundamental truth that no amount of spin from Labor ministers or highly paid administrators can wish away: it is construction workers, not overpaid administrators, cabinet ministers or Fair Work commissioners, who keep the whole industry going—and who can stop it in an instant. 
This industrial strength is sorely needed. 
Part of Labor’s attack, via the Fair Work Commission, has been dramatically slowing the approval of new enterprise agreements (EAs) in Victoria. This has sent a signal to employers, some of whom are now clearly dragging their feet about signing and lodging these new EAs. Several thousand Victorian CFMEU members who were already getting the first 5 percent pay increase under the new pattern EA have now had those pay increases withdrawn.
Over the past two weeks, an average of just one new Victorian EA per day has appeared on the dedicated Fair Work Commission <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/work-conditions/enterprise-agreements/find-enterprise-agreement/cfmeu-construction-agreements">web page</a> showing new CFMEU agreements being lodged. This is a fraction of the number usually lodged as a new EA gets rolled out. 
All of this poses a serious threat to a core piece of the architecture of the CFMEU’s industrial strength: the “pattern” enterprise agreement governing the wages and conditions of tens of thousands of construction workers. Without this pattern EA in place, a “race to the bottom” could quickly take hold in the core of the commercial construction industry. 
A battle to get the EA over the line in Victoria will take various forms. 
The last serious attempt to break the pattern EA in Victoria was Daniel Grollo’s ill-fated 2002 attempt to win a non-union ballot at his Grocon company. The CFMEU organised an industry-wide publicity campaign and targeted doorknocking, CFMEU members doorknocking members in their own language. T-shirts with the slogan “I’m not Daniel’s Donkey” were a popular fashion item, off and on the job. 
The union campaign was a huge <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/grocon-workers-say-no-20021219-gduydw.html">success</a>, 75 percent of the workforce voting “no”. Renewing this sort of detailed organising work will be important to defeat any similar employer ballots this time around.
Industrial action, protected or unprotected, aimed at particular employers will also be crucial in forcing recalcitrant bosses over the line—as will further industry-wide stop-works and rallies. The chair of the Melbourne rally, Electrical Trades Union Secretary Troy Gray, got the biggest cheer of the day when he threatened to shut down the industry with a three-day strike if there were “an orchestrated, continued attack on the working conditions and the living standards of Victorian construction workers”.
The rest of us have a stake in this fight as well. 
The break-up of industry bargaining into myriad enterprise-level agreements, pioneered by Labor in the early 1990s and continued by every government since, has fragmented solidarity and allowed conditions to go backwards. 
In contrast, the CFMEU and other construction unions have been more effective than any other private sector industry in maintaining a common standard across different employers. Enforcement is often a problem. For instance, the “finishing trades” such as plastering and painting have been a basket case in Victoria since 2005, even on unionised commercial sites: many workers flying a union flag don’t actually get the union rate.
Nevertheless, the construction unions have demonstrated in practice that it is still possible, despite enormously restrictive industrial laws, to achieve the most basic union goal of taking wages and conditions out of competition by imposing a common standard across the core of an industry. This living, breathing example of effective unionism is what’s now under threat from Labor’s attack.
The government claims its attack is necessary in response to a series of media stories in recent months. These have included serious allegations of corruption and criminal gang involvement in the structure of the Victorian and NSW branches of the CFMEU. We shouldn’t fall for the government’s spin. 
As Red Flag has <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-knives-out-against-cfmeu-workers-rights-on-the-chopping-block">previously noted</a>, these problems can be tackled only by a revival of union democracy: regular election and re-election of all on-site delegates, full accountability to the membership regarding any allegations (and actions taken to address them) and most importantly a revival in the industrial action and politically informed debate that are the lifeblood of any real union democracy. 
But of course, the Labor government moved in the opposite direction—<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-set-to-impose-dictatorial-powers-over-construction-union">abolishing</a>
all democratic rights for CFMEU members in five states, and appointing an unelected administrator with dictatorial powers over the union and with precisely zero obligations to report to any member. 
The only serious “crime” of the Queensland CFMEU branch in the eyes of Nick McKenzie, the main journalist who broke the stories, was <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/cfmeu-members-are-right-to-rage-but-they-re-railing-at-the-wrong-people-20240827-p5k5t9.html">failing</a>
to prevent “ugly scenes in public streets” in Brisbane. This is a reference to a picket at the crucial <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/strike-shows-stakes-for-queensland-cfmeu">Cross River Rail dispute</a> in Brisbane—probably the most important dispute in the country right now. In other words, the real “crime” in the eyes of the political establishment and their mouthpieces is effective unionism.
Whatever the public justification for Labor’s attacks, they have led directly to a growing assault on workers’ wages and conditions—especially in Victoria over the new pattern agreement. 
For decades, many union causes in Melbourne and beyond have benefited from the solidarity of construction union members. Rallies for workers’ compensation or for better industrial laws, pickets large and small for all sorts of workers—all of them have benefited when the CFMEU turned up. Without that practical solidarity, and without that living example of a union that has maintained significant industrial strength when so many have let it peter out, we’d all be that much poorer. 
It’s now our turn to show up for the CFMEU. Anyone who values effective unionism in this country has a stake in this fight.

Jerome Small

High stakes for all workers in construction battle

Students for Palestine activists in the University of Melbourne Student Union are campaigning to donate $19,000—the remainder of their 2024 budget—to a Palestinian popular resistance group in the West Bank. The intended recipient of the funds is the Ni’lin Popular Committee, an activist organisation dedicated to grassroots campaigning against illegal Israeli settler aggression that also delivers aid including food and legal support. Its work is critical to the day-to-day survival of many Palestinians. 
Ni’lin is a West Bank town seventeen kilometres from Ramallah. The 1993 Oslo Accords designated it part of “Area C”, where Palestinians live under Israeli control. Ni’lin is surrounded by the West Bank Apartheid Wall to its west, an Israeli military base to its south, two Israeli settlements—Nili and Na’ale—to the north and a settler-only road to its east. 
Ni’lin made international headlines during the construction of the Apartheid Wall—a wall dividing Palestinian settlements from Israel—in 2008. In response to peaceful protests, Israeli border police shot and killed 10-year-old Ahmed Moussa, spurring on the campaign. Israel continued to respond with violence: rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters, the uprooting and burning of olive trees and even “skunk”, a sewerage water designed for crowd control that causes vomiting when inhaled. 
Like most Palestinian towns in the West Bank, residents of Ni’lin face constant invasion by settlers. These incursions have ramped up tenfold since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, most recently in “Operation Summer Camp”, during which Israel invaded the West Bank and laid siege to the Jenin refugee camp and other cities. Popular Committee organiser Saeed Amireh explains: “There are so many restrictions by Israeli security against us, but we have managed to find solutions in order to continue to help the people with all means we can to survive this genocidal war”. 
By supporting them financially, Melbourne University students want to show those resisting occupation that students in Australia stand with them. This should be an uncontroversial stance for a student union. But the union is controlled by members of the Labor Party, and the current party of government gives political cover to Israel’s aggression. When activists in the Education Department attempted to use union money to fund campaign essentials, such as posters for pro-Palestine events, the Labor students blocked it. Instead, they have spent union money hiring lawyers to help them strategise against Palestine solidarity action, and more recently and absurdly, spent $3,000 on 1,000 elephant-shaped stress toys. 
Students at Melbourne’s Monash University during the war in Vietnam raised funds to donate to the Vietnamese resistance fighters in the National Liberation Front. Politicians and the media at the time deemed them “un-Australian” and “treacherous”, but 1,000 students at Monash nevertheless voted against attempts to discipline the activists. A student representative from Canberra’s Australian National University told the Canberra Times
in 1967, “Australia can either live on the side of reaction as an outpost of US imperialism ... or it can live on the side of change, progress and national independence ... we should support [the Vietnamese resistance] morally and materially”. We should do the same for Palestine. 
Emma is the Environment Officer in the University of Melbourne Student Union.

Emma Dynes

Anti-war students to fund West Bank resistance group

In one of the biggest ever events in solidarity with Palestine at the University of New South Wales, more than 600 students voted for a free Palestine and for our university to cut ties with the weapons industry at a student general meeting on Wednesday, 25 September. 
UNSW has $2.97 million in investments in, and does research for, weapons companies including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. One research partnership is developing control systems with Lockheed Martin for their catastrophic hypersonic missiles. 
For weeks, pro-Israel students tried to convince people to vote against supporting Palestine. They ran stalls and put up posters asking students: “What are you voting for in the SGM? Against peace for all? More antisemitism on campus? Supporting terrorism?”. Despite this, only seventeen students voted against the motion. 
Four of them also spoke against it. Their arguments included accusations of supporting terrorism, and that the pro-Palestine movement is making Jewish students unsafe on campus. The vice-president of the Australian Union of Jewish Students said the meeting was useless, a “flash in the pan” that would help no-one. 
But this meeting, like all the other student general meetings that have taken place across the country in recent months, did mean something. They are drawing thousands of students into the Palestine solidarity movement and putting pressure on our universities not to remain complicit in genocide.
In 2020, when I first got involved with Palestine solidarity activism on campus, the situation was very different. Campus rallies were lucky to attract more than 50 people. Most students I spoke to were hesitant to express an opinion on Palestine, citing the complexity of the issue and their lack of knowledge.
Much has changed since last October. Many young people now support Palestine, and campus solidarity actions are bigger than ever. The student general meeting both reflects this reality and has helped to win over more people.
The campaign in the lead-up to the meeting drew in students who were new to activism. While building the event, they have become steeled in their support for Palestine and gained confidence to convince others that if they care about the issue, they must do something about it. On the day of the general meeting, one student who had never been to a protest and had never handed out a leaflet admitted how nervous and unsure they were about talking to other students. By the end of the night, they were on a megaphone urging people to join the meeting and vote for Palestine. 
From the Vietnam War to South African apartheid, history has shown that we can win when we protest in our thousands and force those with power to accede to our demands. It’s going to take a mass movement on the streets, in our workplaces and on our campuses to make our governments and universities cut ties with Israel. UNSW Students for Palestine are proud to have contributed another step towards that goal.

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Private emails show impact of Palestine activism at Curtin University

Daring to win: a teacher’s message of solidarity with the CFMEU

High stakes for all workers in construction battle

Anti-war students to fund West Bank resistance group

Largest ever mobilisation for Palestine at UNSW

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