It tells you a lot about the system we live under that twelve activists on a small yacht called Madleen have done more to try to halt the famine being suffered by 2 million people in Gaza than all the rich and powerful governments of the world. The attempts by Israel’s defenders to attack and discredit Greta Thunberg and her crew mates—Suayb, Sergio, Baptiste, Rima, Yasemin, Thiago, Reva, Marco, Omar, Yanis and Pascal—only speak to the power of their brave protest against the most profound moral crime of this century. 
When Greta was abducted by the IDF on Monday, the Israeli foreign ministry was quick to deride as a mere joyride on a “selfie yacht” her and her eleven mates’ heroic attempt at delivering aid to the Gazans the Israeli state is systematically starving. Switched-on observers might wonder how this tallies with Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’ previous attempts to paint Greta as a menacing antisemite and “Hamas propagandist”. The Israeli government wants to have it both ways: the Madleen crew are dangerous terrorists while they’re trying to deliver baby formula to the infants of Gaza, then foolish Instagram activists whom it’s best not to pay too much attention to once the IDF has forcibly prevented them from doing so. 
The contradiction hasn’t bothered the centrist commentariat, who have swiftly latched on to the “selfie yacht” line to dismiss the Madleen crew’s stand against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Perhaps the most nauseating of these was Suzanne Moore’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/activists-like-greta-thunberg-care-more-about-fame-than-facts-20250610-p5m674.html">article</a> “Activists like Greta Thunberg care more about fame than facts”, initially published by the London Telegraph and subsequently reprinted by the Sydney Morning Herald

As far as Moore is concerned, Greta is a light-minded attention seeker, hopping from cause to cause in search of exposure. Never mind that Greta’s principled stance in support of Palestine has cost her support from the liberal establishment, caused<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/10/16/greta-thunberg-became-a-danger-when-she-began-to-speak-up-for-palestine/"> her to be</a><a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/10/16/greta-thunberg-became-a-danger-when-she-began-to-speak-up-for-palestine/"></a><a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/10/16/greta-thunberg-became-a-danger-when-she-began-to-speak-up-for-palestine/"> </a>classified as a “danger” and banned from pro-Palestine events by police in Germany, and now moved her to risk life and limb in the name of breaking Gaza’s deadly siege. 
Some of the attacks in Moore’s article are rehashes of familiar old arguments any Palestine activist would be familiar with—for instance, sneering that Greta’s progressive politics “would not be tolerated by Hamas”. What would Moore prefer? We all stay silent about the shooting, bombing and starvation of Palestinians? Some are examples of the stock sexist belittlement that Greta is no stranger to, like Moore’s description of her as a “cute eco-warrior in shorts”. (Moore <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/greta-thunbergs-defiance-upsets-the-patriarchy-and-its-wonderful">once celebrated Greta for unapologetically rebuking</a> the very same sexist belittlement in a 2019 Guardian article.) And some are facile accusations of hypocrisy of the hackneyed “you criticise capitalism, yet use an iPhone” variety. 
But the worst is Moore’s assault on the very concept of solidarity between struggles. The problem with Greta and the left today, Moore argues, is that we campaign around too many “disparate causes”, like “eco stuff, trans rights and Free Palestine”. Ignoring the supposed “contradictions” between them, these different issues become “bundled together as an omnicause ... a moronic vacuum where analysis goes to die”. It’s a view that denigrates the instinct towards solidarity and collective resistance as crude “tribal loyalty”.
Precisely what makes Greta such a hero is that she has embodied the principled politics of solidarity, even when it has meant risking her popularity, her career prospects, or her personal safety.
It’s not true, as Moore claims, that there is no strategy or internal logic to showing solidarity. One of the great strengths of socialist politics is that it allows us to identify the through line between the fights for a liberated Palestine, for climate action, against oppression and for workers’ rights. The common thread is that an advance on any of these fronts strengthens the collective fight of workers and the oppressed against whose who rule over and profit from our sick social order. 
It’s the ruling class whose control over trade routes and valuable commodities in the Middle East is being guaranteed through their no-holds-barred support for the genocidal Israeli state. It’s the ruling class who profit from steadily expanding the fossil fuel industry, even as the evidence mounts that the climate crisis is already destroying the lives of thousands of ordinary people. It’s the ruling class whose unjust and unequal social order is propped up by structures of brutal violence and oppression. And it’s our side of the class divide who pay the price as we are collectively dehumanised every time they’re allowed to get away with these crimes.
Greta has never let the bastards get away with it. That is what makes her, as has been remarked previously in Red Flag, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-greta-thunberg-cooler-you">cooler than almost all of us</a>. Whether it’s the climate criminals copping a glorious Greta serve at their greenwashing conferences, or the world’s pro-Israel governments copping an excoriating moral reckoning at her hands, her refusal to shut up and let the ruling class get on with business as usual has reliably produced fist-pumping moments of political vindication and inspiration for lefties around the world for years. 
Moore isn’t the first to criticise or question her pro-Palestine stance. Why not just keep quiet and stay in the pigeonhole of everyone’s favourite teen eco-warrior? Greta put it best herself: “It’s so weird to me that people are separating caring about the environment with caring about humans. I care about the environment and the climate because I care about human and planetary wellbeing. Those are the same thing in my view”. 
Greta also said it best when explaining the vitriolic campaign marshalled against her by Israel and its supporters in politics and the media. Asked why so many governments are ignoring Gaza, fresh off her deportation flight from Israel, her argument was clear: they are “desperately trying to defend a destructive deadly system that puts short-term economic profit and maximis[ing] geopolitical power over the wellbeing of humans and the planet ... right now it’s very, very difficult to morally defend that, it is impossible, but still they are desperately trying”.
Of course, Greta and the Madleen crew were not naive. Of course they knew that one small boat’s worth of supplies could not on its own end Israel’s starvation of Gaza. Of course they knew that they were likely to be attacked by the IDF before they made it to Gaza—like the crew of the Mavi Marmara before them, ten of whom were murdered by the IDF in 2010 while en route to Gaza. As Greta has endlessly reiterated, their action was not just a humanitarian mission, but a protest against the complicity of the world’s governments in the Gaza genocide, and a call to action against it. 
And the world’s Palestine supporters, following our own strong commitment to solidarity, answered the call. Tens of thousands of us were once again inspired by Greta Thunberg to hit the streets, demanding freedom for the crew of the Madleen and an end to the horror in Gaza. If we’re serious about the fight for a liberated world, it’s acts of mass solidarity like that—and many more of them—that are going to pave the way.

Eddie Stephenson

Her critics may sneer, but standing in solidarity is what makes Greta a hero

The internet adage “pics or it didn’t happen” refers to the fact that, since about 2010, almost nothing important has happened in a public space without someone pulling out their phone and taking a photo or video of it. 
And yet, if we are to believe a SafeWork NSW report, details of which were published by the Australian, pro-Palestine activists at Sydney University managed to burst into lecture halls chanting antisemitic slogans and carrying banners that read “Jews not allowed”, without a single photo or video of these alleged incidents in existence. 
Similarly, no-one thought to snap a pic and post about the time when, according to the report, Sydney University student activists “put up a billboard with all the names of Hamas terrorists on it” at a protest.
The report also claims that the eight-week Gaza solidarity encampment, which began last May, created “a workplace of fear, anxiousness and a fear of retribution towards Jewish workers and students because they were Jewish people”. Multiple reports and investigations into the encampment, including this one, have failed to provide any evidence of this. But if you repeat something often enough, it can start to seem true. 
The SafeWork NSW report is the result of an investigation instigated by a complaint from 23 staff and students claiming that Sydney University had breached its responsibility to provide a safe working environment for Jewish employees. SafeWork, the government agency tasked with regulating workplace health and safety, concluded based on interviews with the complainants and two site visits that the university “failed to take reasonable actions to manage, reduce, and eliminate active antisemitic conduct on campus”. 
But the report contains no credible evidence of antisemitic activism linked to the Palestine solidarity campaign. The main examples from the report, which the media have used to try to slander pro-Palestine activists at Sydney University, fail to provide this. Some are clearly fabricated, as in the above examples, which have not been corroborated with any evidence. Others are stock standard features of the campaign to support Palestine: posters and flyers advertising rallies and campus meetings, “Gaza will be free” tagged in the campus graffiti tunnel and the slogan “Palestine will be free” being chanted at a campus protest. There is not a shred of antisemitism in any of this.
That these gestures of staff and student support for the Palestinians form the basis for “psychosocial harm” to employees at Sydney University is a politically charged false assertion. 
In putting together this report, SafeWork makes a mockery of the idea of workplace health and safety. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the agency is known for taking a soft touch approach to bosses who endanger their employees’ lives at work. In 2022, SafeWork NSW was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/workplace-safety-scandal-auditor-general-launches-six-month-investigation-into-failings-20221013-p5bphh.html">investigated</a> over allegations that workers had experienced injury and even death on sites where inspectors failed to follow up complaints adequately due to political interference.
While serious infringements of workplace health and safety have gone unpunished, and the number of workers fatally injured at work continues to <a href="https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/media-centre/news/key-work-health-and-safety-statistics-2024">rise</a>, the government agency tasked with regulating this is instead being misused as a weapon to come after pro-Palestine activism on university campuses. 
On this front, SafeWork is only following the lead of many other institutions that have tried to stifle Palestine solidarity under the guise of combating antisemitism. 
State Labor Premier Chris Minns spent months linking a “<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/the-great-antisemitism-con-job">great tsunami of high-profile antisemitic attacks</a>“ to weekly pro-Palestine street marches in Sydney, passing repressive anti-protest laws on the back of these claims. The NSW Police later revealed that these incidents had been almost entirely the work of petty criminals, linked to the same common source as the Dural caravan hoax. 
Universities have also used “concern for antisemitism” as justification to introduce anti-protest policies and procedures. Indeed, despite what the SafeWork report alleges, Sydney University has been leading the charge on quashing pro-Palestine activism. Over the last year, Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott has pushed through multiple policies designed to crack down on student and staff rights to protest and express political dissent. The new <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/free-speech-under-attack-at-sydney-university">Campus Access Policy</a> bans forms of protest that have been part of university life since the campaign against the Vietnam War, while policies introduced just this month impose punitive rules regarding posters on campus and total bans on students making lecture announcements before their classes. 
As Israel intensifies the genocide in Gaza and the war crimes pile up, the pro-Israel camp continues to find new ways to slander and silence the activists standing up for justice. But we won’t stop campaigning for Palestine.
Shovan Bhattarai is the vice-president of the University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council and a coordinator of the campus Students for Palestine collective

Shovan Bhattarai

SafeWork NSW’s report on antisemitism at Sydney University is fake news

The University of Melbourne has expelled two student activists and indefinitely suspended two more for a 2024 occupation of the office of university academic and pro-Israel campaigner Steven Prawer. The expulsions follow a pattern of management attacks on Palestine solidarity activism. 
Since 3 March, the administration has banned indoor protests, those at building entrances and any that are “unreasonably disruptive”. The university previously tried to intimidate nineteen students by issuing misconduct notices after the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last year. When students camped out in the Arts West building to demand divestment from Israel and arms manufacturers, the university secretly spied on their movements via the Wi-Fi system. 
Management also threatened to defund the student union if it paid Palestinian speakers at a forum raising awareness about conditions in the West Bank. As well, in 2022, the university condemned the union for adopting a pro-Palestine and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions position. 
To legitimise its crackdown on campus free speech and activism, the administration has cynically weaponised the issue of antisemitism. In 2023, the university adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism. The definition is hotly contested because it includes, as an example of antisemitism, “criticism of the state of Israel”. 
Like the government and media, the university deliberately conflates support for Palestine and an end to the war in Gaza with hatred of Jewish people. There are several anti-Zionist Jewish organisations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States, that vocally oppose Israel’s war in Gaza. Indeed, JVP’s slogan at demonstrations is “not in our name”; a pointed rejection of the idea that Israel acts in the interests of Jewish people when it starves and massacres Palestinians. 
Recently, the university published an “Anti-Racism Action Plan”, supposedly to combat antisemitism on campus. Twelve complaints of antisemitism were lodged with the university, it says, “concentrated in Semester 1 2024 ... during the period of the encampment and occupation [and] largely related to posters, slogans and stickers which could not be attributed to a specific person”. 
The only evidence provided of antisemitism is pro-Palestine slogans and protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza. Under the guise of fighting racism, the university has punitively targeted anti-war and anti-genocide student campaigners. 
Universities are attacking freedom of speech and anti-war protesters in part because they are a key pillar of defence research in Australia. The University of Melbourne alone collaborates with thirteen weapons companies, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems. 
It aims to cement its place in weapons research by establishing a <a href="https://www.thecitizen.org.au/articles/at-fishermans-bend-university-of-melbourne-angling-for-defence-contracts-relationships">weapons research hub at the new Fisherman’s Bend campu</a>s, currently under construction in Port Melbourne. The university will partner with Boeing, Siemens, and the Australian Department of Defence. The administration has already spent $2 billion on the project and is attempting to establish more contracts with other weapons companies. 
The decision to discipline students coincides with the devastating escalation in Israel’s war. Israel is systematically starving Gazans. In the past week, a US “aid” organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has repeatedly gunned down Palestinians desperately seeking food at distribution sites. Israeli politicians boast openly of making the Gaza Strip so unliveable that Palestinians will “voluntarily” leave. It’s open ethnic cleansing. And at this moment, the university administration has come out stridently on Israel’s side. 
The expulsions set a dangerous precedent for free speech and the right to protest on campus. But they can be challenged. Last year, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/how-deakin-university-tried-to-trample-on-students-rights-and-failed">a Deakin student was suspended</a> for her involvement in the Deakin Gaza Encampment, but was reinstated on appeal. Similarly, <a href="https://honisoit.com/2024/09/pro-palestinian-anu-student-wins-expulsion-appeal/">an ANU student won their expulsion appeal</a> after being disciplined. Those cases show that it’s possible to challenge university discipline and win civil liberties on campuses. The movement won’t be cowed or intimidated by those trying to silence us.

Emma Dynes

Melbourne University expels Palestine solidarity activists

Reconciliation Day in Canberra last year was ice cold, the air thick with fog. For 232 days, Israel had been indiscriminately bombing the people of Gaza. For 28 days, hundreds of students and staff had maintained a protest encampment on Kambri lawns, the heart of the Australian National University campus, demanding that the administration cut ties with Israel and condemn the genocide. ANU managers had spent the month slandering the protest and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-16/act-palestine-anu-gaza-encampment-members-ordered-to-vacate/103858184">suspending student activists</a> involved in the encampment. 
It was Monday morning, 27 May; the university bosses finally decided that they could no longer tolerate the encampment in such a prominent position. Their official justification was that we were blocking a fire evacuation point, and the backup evacuation point just would not do. In truth, they wanted the protest out of sight. 
Dozens of security guards and a handful of police officers arrived to serve the students with an evacuation notice. Those awakened by this order initially complied. Ambushed and outnumbered at 7am, they began dismantling the tents. The media soon arrived to witness the supervised self-destruction. 
Yet, as the morning fog cleared and the sun came out, a handful of students sat down in defiance and began chanting: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” More spontaneously joined, sitting around the camping gear, which had now been packed down, linking arms and chanting. The circle of hi-vis security guards retreated as supporters surged closer to the first movers and joined in the chanting. 
More police arrived. Blue and white chequered vans, cars and motorbikes pulled up across the creek to establish a “command centre” about a hundred metres away. Security was no longer fit for the task, so ANU had called in the cavalry. 
Meanwhile, the students had now convened a meeting. Did we want to stare down the police, risking arrest, to defend the camp? After a brief discussion, we took a vote. The decision was close to unanimous—we would not move. 
Some volunteers sifted through the crowd to write the phone number of a supportive lawyer on the arms of everyone willing to get arrested. Those who preferred not to face arrest stepped off the grass and formed a human chain around the camp. About a hundred sat ready to be dragged off in a divvy van, and a few hundred more stood with their arms linked in an unbroken chain around the perimeter. People with megaphones were stationed throughout the picket line, leading songs and chants to keep spirits high. 
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water
We shall not be moved.
But after several hours, the ultimatum finally came. Two of us were given the job of police liaisons. We walked to their “command centre” next to the creek and were told that the university was prepared to offer a second location for the camp, a few hundred metres up the path. If we refused to move there by 3pm, we would be arrested. We went back to the camp and relayed what the officer had said. We took another vote. “Knowing what we just told you, who is committed to staying?” Everyone cheered. I passed their message back to the officer. 
The deadline came and went. We kept checking our watches. Eventually, at 4pm or so, an officer marched to a spot across from the camp and placed a small speaker on the ground to announce an official directive: that everyone must vacate Kambri lawns by 11am Tuesday or face arrest. 
We had forced the police to back down—for now. Every cop van, car and bike left the campus, and we were left to debrief. We fought the law and, for a moment, we won. 
Later, we heard that the university had issued a directive to all students to avoid the Kambri precinct the following day, and that businesses in the precinct were instructed to shut down in preparation for a major police operation. But we also heard from some unionists that workers on ANU construction sites were organising to walk off the job in solidarity with us. 
We put a call out to every community group we could think of to mobilise the next day and support us against mass arrests. The university managers were preparing to escalate the situation—but we had won once, and the mood was that we could win again. 
Yet, after hours of debate, several votes and a thinning out of people in the camp, the scared and tired few who remained at around midnight finally voted to accept the university’s directive. The anticipated showdown never came. Construction workers still walked off the job. Students, community members and reporters still showed up the next day in expectation. But the police didn’t need to return—they scored their victory through intimidation. 
This wasn’t the end, however. The camp continued in its new location for 83 more days. By the end of the year, there had been several general meetings, countless rallies, a referendum and one of the longest campus protest encampments in the country—all demanding divestment from Israel and weapons companies supplying the Israeli military. 
Under pressure, the university reversed the suspensions and expulsions of student activists and <a href="https://www.woroni.com.au/news/anu-to-divest-from-controversial-weapons-manufacturers-but-questions-remain/">promised to divest</a> from “controversial weapons companies”. Exactly which companies were “controversial” was never clarified, and no updates have been provided since that promise was made. They have not yet condemned the genocide in Gaza or cut ties with Israel.
The fight for a free Palestine continues, but the strength of our side is nourished by small acts of defiance and partial victories like the one we scored last year on Kambri lawns.

Nick Reich

When Palestine solidarity protesters defied police at the ANU

To stifle growing pro-Palestinian activities on Australian campuses, university authorities are developing and applying disparate techniques of control. Consequently, the university as a place of free speech, political activism and the right to protest is under attack.
The universities of<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/21/university-of-sydney-criticised-for-plan-to-ban-protest-banners-being-displayed-without-prior-permission"> Sydney</a>,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/03/university-of-melbourne-two-students-expelled-pro-palestine-protest-ntwnfb?utm_term=683e574093202591af7057f2c5ad560f&amp;utm_campaign=GuardianTodayAUS&amp;utm_source=esp&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;CMP=GTAU_email"> Melbourne</a> and<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/university-of-wa-bans-statements-that-cause-harm-disciplines-student-for-defending-free-speech"> Western Australia</a> are particularly punitive. The intricate intrusiveness and hyper-vigilance of their techniques of control are well known and widely criticised. 
All these techniques have been identified by members of Educational Researchers for Palestine—a group I belong to. Such patterns are evident in the views and material we have gathered from universities and from our own experiences, observations and communications with other staff and students. While the following techniques are not equally evident in all universities, various combinations are evident in many.
1. Control through double-speak
Universities claim to uphold free speech and academic freedom. But on matters related to Israel/Palestine they shut both down. They also claim to balance free speech with their anti-racism agendas. But these agendas are selective. Antisemitism is their focus. Anti-Palestinian racism, including their own, is not. Anti-<a href="https://apan.org.au/media_release/apan-aman-report/">Palestinian</a> racism involves “actions that silence, exclude, erase, stereotype, defame, or dehumanise Palestinians and their narratives”. 
They say they balance free speech with ensuring a safe environment. But their main concern is the political backlash associated with purported complaints about the safety of Jewish students and staff. In contrast, the university itself creates an unsafe environment for Palestinian staff, students and their allies including their Jewish allies. 
2. Control through distraction
By focusing on antisemitism, universities distract attention from anti-Palestinian racism on campus and from Israel’s dreadful treatment of the Palestinian people. This distraction involves endless debates about what constitutes antisemitism. And universities’ ambiguous definitions of antisemitism allow them flexibility in classifying hateful and threatening speech. 
In February 2025, Universities Australia released its highly ambiguous “working definition of<a href="https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/statement-on-racism/"> antisemitism</a>”. This was endorsed by all 39 members. How individual universities will embed their endorsement is not yet clear but further distraction is guaranteed. 
3. Spatial control
Restrictions are placed on the spaces where Palestinian supporters might gather to prepare banners and posters, distribute materials and hold events. Students are not allowed to announce events in classrooms or lecture theatres, to leave fliers on desks or posters on walls. These who don’t “belong” to the university are prohibited from involvement in protests on university grounds and threatened with trespass. 
4. Language and image control
The campus is to be cleansed of posters, fliers, flags, chalked messages. Almost any image, phrase or slogan may be deemed antisemitic. Hence, all images of Palestine or messages of Palestine advocacy or solidarity can be defined as contravening university rules. 
5. Political control
Student and staff activities relating to Palestine are strongly discouraged—clubs, film screenings, speakers’ forums, petitioning, distributing leaflets, chalking—even fundraising. University approval can be sought but such approval is largely a delaying and censorship ploy involving microscopic bureaucratic hurdles. 
Some academic staff are expected to become agents of the university’s political control in their classrooms. They must ensure that nothing is said or seen that is unrelated to their immediate teaching topic. 
When linked to Palestine/Israel, certain research, teaching and learning are considered dangerous—justice and ethics, human rights, international law, settler colonialism, apartheid, imperialism and the history and geopolitics of the Middle East. Those pursuing such “dangerous knowledge” may feel the need to water down their curriculum and research. 
6. Technological surveillance
In some cases, if they are to use a university account, staff and students must agree to being monitored. Whether they agree or not, technology is used to monitor pro-Palestinian activities, to identify “ring leaders” and participants. Pro-Palestinian activists may also have their technology use restricted, thus making it difficult to share information. Certainly, over time, universities have increased their surveillance of all staff and students—usually with little or no follow-up. However, their surveillance and follow-up have intensified in response to pro-Palestinian activism.
7. Discipline and punishment
Students and staff are subjected to various forms. Their self-defence is time-consuming, costly and emotionally draining. 
Peaceful events are often redefined as potentially threatening and violent. Hence security staff and police are used to “keep the peace” and to identify and report “leaders” and “troublemakers”. They have been used to shut down encampments and protests. At encampments, they have not protected students from violent attacks by extreme right-wing groups. Their presence is implicitly threatening, and their behaviour is sometimes physically violent. 
Undergraduate and graduate students have been “spoken to”, warned, suspended, fined and expelled. Staff have also been “spoken to” and warned, had their teaching and other activities monitored and reported by pro-Israeli/Zionist students and other staff. They have had their research questioned and some have had their grants suspended. 
8. Climate control
A climate of fear and distrust is created. It has a chilling effect on everyday university activities and relationships. Fear causes self-censorship. Events are relocated or re-badged. 
Staff feel their opportunities for jobs, tenure, promotion and academic leave are at risk. Students feel at risk of suspension and expulsion. They often don’t know if their peers, lecturers or supervisors will support or report them. Palestinian, Muslim and Arab staff feel extra visible and vulnerable. 
The result: universities of bad faith and ethical emptiness.
They have allowed themselves to be intimidated by politicians and special interest groups. They have tried to bury the discussion of an inexcusable tragedy involving genocide. They have sacrificed the notion that knowledge must be free and fearless—corrupting truth and undermining trust and collegiality. Timid and small-minded, they implicitly encourage staff and students to be the same. 
Were they not so ethically empty, universities could have practised an ethic of care, courage and compassion in response to the ongoing horrors visited by Israel on Gaza and the West Bank. They could have developed this into a sector-wide ethos. They could have responded to the desperate <a href="https://www.gazauniversities.org/">calls</a> for help from universities in Gaza. They could have explored, with staff and students, ways to help Gaza recover from the educational obliteration of <a href="https://euppublishingblog.com/2025/05/27/scholasticide-memory-power-of-pedagogy/">scholasticide</a>. They could have mobilised their knowledge and expertise to contribute to an understanding of the issues and to consider how university members might help alleviate the Palestinian people’s terrible suffering. 
Could have? Should have.
First published by the <a href="https://blog.aare.edu.au/these-are-deeply-disturbing-patterns-of-censorship-across-australian-universities/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup">Australian Association for Research in Education</a>. Jane Kenway is an elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, emeritus professor at Monash University and professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Jane Kenway

The patterns of censorship across Australian universities

Starving Palestinians forced to walk kilometres under scorching heat in a desperate search for food are crowded into metal cages. Drone broadcasts direct civilians to aid distribution points, where Israeli forces open fire on them. The situation is so desperate that many decide to brave the gunfire and attempt to gather food for their families.
“People fought over five pallets. They told us to take food—then they fired from every direction”, Mansour Sami Abdi, a father of four, <a href="https://msf.org.au/article/project-news/gaza-dozens-massacred-us-israel-backed-food-distribution-sites">told Doctors without Borders</a>, a humanitarian organisation, earlier this week. “I ran 200 metres before realising I’d been shot. This isn’t aid, it’s a lie.”
Massacres occur almost daily. On 1 June, at least 30 Palestinians were murdered like this. On 3 June, there were another 27. Who can now deny that Israel is waging a war of extermination? As the horrific results of the Zionist state’s project are laid bare, the collaborators—politicians, media organisations and “respectable” capitalist institutions—are searching for alibis. 
Last month, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada for the first time <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-from-the-leaders-of-the-united-kingdom-france-and-canada-on-the-situation-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank">issued a joint statement</a> criticising Israel’s “disproportionate” escalation in Gaza. The asymmetry has been discovered just 600 days into a “war” between one of the world’s best-equipped militaries and a starved civilian population. They should not be allowed to feign ignorance. The architects of these crimes could hardly have been clearer in their intentions. 
At the invasion’s outset, Knesset Deputy Speaker Nissim Vaturi <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cze5w2wd4x0o">wrote on X</a>: “Now we all have one common goal—erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth”. Two days after 7 October, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was “<a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/we-are-fighting-human-animals-dehumanization-of-palestinians/">fighting human animals</a>” as he announced a complete siege of the territory.
“It’s time to kiss doomsday”, Israeli MP Revital Gotliv wrote, also on X. “Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza ... with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!” 
Ariel Kallner, another member of parliament, wrote: “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ’48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suddenly finds distasteful the use of starvation as a weapon of war. On 26 May, he told a press conference: “It is outrageous that there be a blockade of food and supplies to people who are in need”. But UNICEF began warning that all children under five were at risk of death from starvation in December 2023. And Israel has blockaded Gaza for almost twenty months. 
Albanese knew exactly what Israel’s endgame was when he refused to criticise US President Donald Trump’s plan for forced relocation back in February. “I’m not going to have a running commentary on statements by the president of the United States”, is all he had to say. Foreign Minister Penny Wong knew that access to food and water in Gaza had been cut off when she said on 10 October 2023: “I think it’s always very difficult from over here to make judgements about what security approach other countries take”. 
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent statement that he “no longer understands” what Israel is doing has been <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/05/27/no-longer-comprehensible-german-chancellor-slams-israels-gaza-strikes/">hyped in some quarters</a> as an “unprecedented criticism of Israel’s Gaza operations”. But, like the rest of the world, Merz does understand. He understood it in February when he invited Netanyahu to Berlin, promising to find a way around the prime minister’s <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu">International Criminal Court arrest warrant</a> for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He understood it last year, when his party approved €161 million (A$284 million) of arms shipments to Israel. The entire German establishment understood it as they closed ranks to have opponents of the genocide <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250304-german-ministry-dismisses-lawyer-for-supporting-gaza-rejecting-genocide/">fired</a>, <a href="https://hyphenonline.com/2024/10/04/ava-moayeri-germany-pro-palestine-protest-free-speech-police-arrest-violence/">raided, arrested</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/germany-palestine-activists-deportation-state-repression">deported</a>. 
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy recently labelled Israel’s actions “abominable”. But he’s comfortable with UK-manufactured drones being used by the Israeli army. According to testimony from a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7893vpy2gqo">retired British surgeon</a>, those drones target and shoot children who survive air strikes. Palestine solidarity activists who attempted to disrupt drone production have been <a href="https://thebristolcable.org/2025/02/filton-18-palestine-action-activists-treated-like-terrorists-elbit-israeli-arms-factory-action/">arrested</a> by “counter-terrorism” police and are imprisoned awaiting prosecution by Lammy’s government. 
Politicians in the West have united to defend their states’ economic and political relationships with Israel, a vital ally for projecting their power and influence in the Middle East. This has been more important to them than the 2 million people whose lives have been devastated in the Gaza Strip. Now that they have proven their loyalty, now that the job is nearly done, now that nobody is standing in Israel’s way, these politicians want to wash their hands of the inevitable results. 
For the same reason, a slight shift is occurring in media coverage. The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post publishes <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/05/22/israel-gaza-ethnic-cleansing-genocide-2/">opinion pieces</a> decrying genocide. The BBC runs humanising stories on families decimated by Israeli airstrikes. Everyone, it seems, is starting to get the memo that a bit of equivocation and “balance” might be in order, if for no other reason than to begin scrubbing the stains from their reputations. 
But it doesn’t change the fact that corporate and state media outlets have spent 600 days acting as loyal agents for the Israeli military. They’ve treated Israeli accounts of events as facts, silenced dissenting voices and embedded their journalists with Israeli units to be taken on North Korea-style propaganda tours.
One of the most notorious examples occurred at the beginning of the war, when CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson accompanied the Israeli army to Gaza’s bombed-out al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital. The network broadcast “evidence” that Hamas was using the hospital to hide Israeli captives. Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari showed CNN a document on the wall written in Arabic, which he said was a roster of Hamas guards. “Every terrorist has his own shift”, Hagari told Robertson. 
The problem was that it wasn’t a Hamas roster—it was just an Arabic calendar. Despite the footage already being debunked by Arabic speakers and a protest being lodged by a Palestinian producer at the network, the lie was broadcast, giving the Israeli state cover for war crimes it may have committed at the hospital. 
The systematic bias against Palestinians and their supporters has been so overwhelming that many normally apolitical journalists at major news outlets—from American CNN to the BBC in Britain—have felt compelled to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/5/failing-gaza-pro-israel-bias-uncovered-behind-the-lens-of-western-media">blow the whistle</a>. In Australia, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staffs-concerns-over-gaza-bias-revealed">journalists have complained</a> that editors have effectively banned the use of the word “Palestine” in reports.
It’s not until the damage is done that the rewriting of history begins. Wars that can no longer be defended are re-framed by their perpetrators as unforeseeable and unfortunate mishaps. 
During the US invasion of Vietnam, opponents of the war faced a solid wall of capitalist institutions committed to its prosecution. Intellectuals overwhelmingly supported the war as a defence of freedom against communist tyranny. University heads called the police on protesters targeting their defence ties. American journalists identified with the objectives of “their side”, repeated government justifications for war crimes and assisted in their cover-up. Anybody who stood against this consensus was slandered as a “communist sympathiser”.
When as many as 3 million Vietnamese were dead, the occupation collapsed and opponents of the war were proved right. Then the war was rewritten self-servingly as a “tragedy of good intentions”, a noble mission gone awry. 
It was similar with Iraq. Sponsors of the war falsified evidence to justify the invasion, and suppressed, monitored and smeared opponents. Then, when it all fell apart, they shrugged it off as an intelligence failure. Hillary Clinton brushed aside her support for the war during her first presidential bid, saying: “If I knew then what I know now, I would not have voted that way”.
As in Vietnam and Iraq, so now in Gaza. From the beginning, the left and the Palestine solidarity movement have argued that Israel’s aims are clear: an extension of their decades-long project of ethnic cleansing and expansion. From the beginning, we argued that if Israel wasn’t forced to stop, the war would end with the brutal forced depopulation of Gaza. For telling the truth, we were sacked, suspended, slandered and put on trial. 
Israel’s backers now admit the reality of this war, yet they continue to persecute those who oppose it. Now that our leaders mouth rhetorical criticisms, we should demand real action. 
All political prisoners who have been demonised as “terrorist sympathisers” and threats to “social cohesion” should be released. All bogus charges of antisemitism against anti-war and anti-racist activists should be withdrawn. 
States should impose real sanctions on Israel. The “sanctions” announced by the UK government are nothing of the sort, consisting of the pausing of free trade talks and travel bans on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/22/violent-israeli-settlers-under-uk-sanctions-join-west-bank-outpost">a handful of West Bank “settlers”</a>. The government will continue to send weapons and share intelligence from surveillance flights over Gaza, assisting Israel in its targeting of civilians. 
As world leaders try to distance themselves from Israel’s crimes, we must continue to hold them accountable. They’ve been accomplices in this atrocity and implacable enemies of those who have tried to stop it. They must never be forgiven.

Luca Tavan

Western collaborators in genocide now scramble for alibis

The weaponisation of food echoes the horrors of the Jewish ghettos, as Palestinians are pushed beyond the limits of human endurance, writes Soumaya Ghannoushi. This article was first published at <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-how-israel-replicating-nazi-starvation-tactics">Middle East Eye</a>.
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A woman <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKUjoFXMjiV/?igsh=aDRhcnAxM3hrZTEw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">kneels</a> in the dust.
She is thin, trembling—not old, but famine has aged her. Her bones protrude through a threadbare dress. Her face is ash. Her fingers claw at the ground. 
Around her, others bend too—not in prayer, but in desperation, scraping at the dirt for flour. Not even full grains. Just remnants. Scraps. Whatever the wind and boots and bombs have not yet claimed.
Then she breaks.
She sinks fully to the earth, as if the weight of hunger is too heavy to carry. And she cries, not softly, but with a violence that cuts through the silence of the ruined street: “My kids will eat flour scraped from the floor”.
She weeps into the gravel.
This is not just starvation. It is the calculated breaking of a people, pushing them beyond the limits of human endurance.
This is what Gaza’s “aid” looks like.
Not distribution, but oppression. Not relief, but ritual debasement.
Rations of suffering
The flour had been withheld for weeks—stockpiled, blocked, used as bait. Exhausted families walked for miles, past corpses and craters, to reach the drop sites—only to find cages, soldiers and drones. When they ran towards the food, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-kills-32-starving-palestinians-latest-us-aid-point-massacre" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">they were shot</a>.
More than 30 <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Palestinians</a>
were massacred on Sunday, and more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/01/israel-gaza-aid-rafah-shooting/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">170 were wounded</a> near an aid distribution site in Rafah, as <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Israeli</a>
forces opened fire on starving civilians trying to collect food. The drop was coordinated by the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">US</a>-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Aid has become a trap. And hunger, a pretext for slaughter.
They have built a bureaucracy of starvation, calling it a “humanitarian foundation”.
But let’s call it what it is: the GHF doesn’t deliver aid, but control. It rations not food, but suffering.
Even the food they promise, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-u-s-backed-gaza-aid-plan-has-started-operating-why-are-so-many-humanitarian-groups-opposed-to-it" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1,750 calories per person</a>, is not enough to stave off malnutrition. The World Health Organisation sets the emergency minimum at 2,100 calories.
But most Palestinians in Gaza receive far less than that because the food never comes.
In April 2024, people in northern Gaza were surviving on an average of<a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/people-northern-gaza-forced-survive-245-calories-day-less-can-beans-oxfam" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> 245 calories a day</a>, less than a can of fava beans, according to Oxfam.
Grandparents chew flour laced with sand. Toddlers are fed leaves.
The body begins to consume itself: the mind flickers, the breath slows.
Death comes not with a bomb, but with a whisper in the stomach: empty, empty, empty.
And all of this is not accidental. It is replication.
No one spared
In the weeks leading to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/germany" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Germany</a>’s 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, Reich Minister of Food Richard Darre and his state secretary, Herbert Backe, developed the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34907689/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hunger Plan</a>, a strategy of deliberate starvation to exterminate Soviet civilians and Jews while feeding German troops.
It killed at least 7 million people, not as collateral, but by design.
The Nazi regime’s food ration system reflected a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34907689/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">racial hierarchy</a>: 100 percent for Germans, 70 percent for Poles, 30 percent for Greeks and 20 percent for Jews.
In the Jewish ghettos, food was weaponised. Access to meat or bread was controlled. Shops were empty. Hunger was not a failure—it was policy. 
“That we sentence 1.2 million Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally”, <a href="https://www.nobelpeacecenter.org/en/news/hitler-s-hungerplan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hans Frank</a>, the Nazi governor of occupied Poland, wrote in a diary entry.
Today, more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza—the territory’s entire population—are being forced, by design, into famine.
Not one million. Not most. All of them.
Women and men, infants and the elderly. No one is spared.
And yet—in a twisted echo of history—the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-plan-to-initially-only-feed-60-of-gazans-as-they-endure-extreme-deprivation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GHF’s plan</a>, like the Nazi food hierarchies before it, will serve only 1.2 million people in its initial phase, excluding the rest of the population.
And that should never be noted marginally.
Even if the GHF achieves its goals, the average Palestinian in Gaza, by design, will receive fewer than 1,000 calories a day, when those receiving no food at all are taken into account. 
This is very close to what Jews in the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-defiant-jewish-doctors-in-warsaw-ghetto-detailed-effects-of-nazi-starvation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Warsaw Ghetto</a> were receiving, through both their allocated rations and smuggling. 
Mockery of the dying
Gaza is now the hungriest place on earth—the only area where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/30/gaza-hungriest-place-earth-all-people-risk-famine-un" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">100 percent of the population is at risk of famine</a>, according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared in April that not even “<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/smotrich-says-not-even-grain-wheat-will-enter-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a grain of wheat</a>” should enter Gaza.
In <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Britain</a>, the advocacy group UK Lawyers for Israel grotesquely suggested that the war might help <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/10/uk-lawyers-for-israel-condemned-over-claim-war-may-reduce-obesity-in-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“reduce obesity” in Gaza</a>.
This is not just cruelty. This is contempt; it is mockery of the dying.
Even the man appointed as executive director of the Gaza Humiliation Foundation, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/54ec0009-5023-4130-b69e-300c7333e63d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a former US Marine</a>, recently resigned, warning that the project is incompatible with humanitarian standards.
And no wonder. This is not a relief effort. It is a siege conceived by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, endorsed by US President Donald Trump, and inspired—in logic and layout—by the Nazi Hunger Plan.
Armed gangs loot aid convoys with impunity, moving freely in areas under Israeli control.
An internal<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/18/gaza-looting-aid-convoys-israel-famine/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UN memo</a> seen by The Washington Post last year warned these groups “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli army.
When guards in Gaza tried to stop these gangs, Israeli air strikes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfD4NK2Z3H4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">killed twelve</a>—not the looters, but those trying to protect the food.
This is not chaos. It is a calculated breakdown.
It aims to turn hunger into disorder, starvation into surrender.
Stripped of dignity
There are conflicts in the world. There are wars, occupations, displacements.
But nowhere on Earth—not anywhere—is an entire population, young and old, locked inside a flattened, walled-off strip of land, bombed from the air, shelled from the sea, and systematically starved under total siege.
Gaza is not a battlefield. It is a prison. A graveyard.
Eighty years ago, a group of Jewish doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto documented the effects of hunger on the human body.
They called their book <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-defiant-jewish-doctors-in-warsaw-ghetto-detailed-effects-of-nazi-starvation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Maladie de Famine</a> (The Disease of Starvation). In it, the project’s lead doctor, Israel Milejkowski, wrote: “I hold my pen in my hand and death stares into my room … In this prevailing silence lies the power and the depth of our pain and the moans that one day will shake the world’s conscience”.
This is exactly what doctors in Gaza are saying today.
They treat toddlers who haven’t eaten in days. They watch infants die with sunken eyes and protruding ribs. They speak to the world, but the world does not listen. 
That day is now.
After seeing their homes, schools and bakeries razed; after being displaced again and again, infants on shoulders, elders in wheelchairs, entire families turned to ash—they are now denied bread.
Gaza’s people are not just being starved. They are being stripped of the final thing left to them: their dignity.
They are treated worse than animals. Hunted when they gather. Shot when they eat.
Because Israel is not content with crushing Palestinian bodies. It wants to crush their souls. To erase not just their presence, but their will to exist.
And while the world looks away, somewhere, in a corner of the rubble, a mother kneels.
Still scraping. Still crying.
Trying to feed her children with flour dusted in dirt, and drenched in blood.
Soumaya Ghannoushi is a British Tunisian writer. This article was first published at <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-how-israel-replicating-nazi-starvation-tactics">Middle East Eye</a>.

Soumaya Ghannoushi

Israel is replicating Nazi starvation tactics in Gaza

Senior officials in the Israeli government are increasingly open about the genocide they have been carrying out, and the endgame they believe to be within their reach. 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that the forced expulsion of Palestinians will be the “inevitable outcome” of the destruction of Gaza. 
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an advocate of starvation as a weapon of war, said at a press conference: “We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us”.
The army plans to force Palestinians into the south of Gaza and then to third countries. “This is a change of the course of history—nothing less”, Smotrich said.
And in a piece last week for Haaretz’s Hebrew edition, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote:
“What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians. We are doing this not because of an accidental loss of control in a particular sector, not because of a disproportionate outburst of fighters in some unit—but as a result of a policy dictated by the government, knowingly, intentionally, maliciously, with reckless abandon. Yes, we are committing war crimes.”
The liquidation of the Gaza Strip through starvation, disease, relentless bombardment and terrorism would represent Israel’s final solution: the annihilation of the centre of Palestinian national life and the redrawing of the Middle East’s political map. 
It is increasingly clear that this is the crime of the century. Not because it has generated more death or suffering than other atrocities, but because the death and suffering have been backed and justified down the line by those who claim to represent the “civilised” world.
With this war, all the old, purportedly “banished” colonial-era canards about civilisation taming barbarism return with a vengeance to justify the slaughter and starvation of several million people.
Last week, the governments of Britain, France and Canada—staunch backers of the Zionists’ genocide—finally appeared to waver in the face of a renewed Israeli offensive. In a joint statement, they described conditions in Gaza as intolerable.
“We will not stand by while the Netanyahu government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response”, the three governments said.
But this was theatrics. One Israeli official told Haaretz
newspaper that the public pressure was “all part of a planned ambush we knew about”.
Netanyahu has been clear that the resumption of small deliveries of aid to starving Gazans is about “the operational need to enable the expansion of the intense fighting” and to ward off international pressure while the genocide continues.
At any rate, Western politicians cannot claim ignorance. The historical record will inevitably contest any attempt now to rewrite their history of support for these crimes.
From the very beginning in October 2023, the Israelis talked about destroying every last building in Gaza. Within weeks of the ground invasion of Gaza, United Nations officials were warning about ethnic cleansing and a potential genocide.
Western governments not only ignored these warnings. They provided support for the slaughter and to this day continue to slander opponents of the genocide as racists. 
Israeli politicians who attempt to rewrite their place in this gruesome event will also face history’s judgement.
Yair Golan, leader of the opposition Democrats party, in a now widely reported interview with Kan public radio, recently said Israel was “on the path to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa once was”. He continued: “A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population”.
But like all politicians trying to cover their arses, Golan is up to his neck in these crimes.
“First of all, we need to cut off any supply to Gaza”, he said in October 2023. “I think that in this war, a humanitarian effort should not be allowed. They should be told: Listen, until they [the hostages] are freed, we don’t care if you starve to death. It’s completely legitimate.”
A few months later, on the Haaretz podcast, he said: “We’d all like to wake up one spring morning and find that 7 million Palestinians who live between the sea and the river have simply disappeared”.
This has been the standing position of the Israeli establishment: from the river to the sea, a Jewish ethnostate free of Palestinians. 
Israel’s Western backers knew this then, and they know it now. They have given unconditional support to the Zionist state in full knowledge of its intentions and its crimes against humanity.
As the endgame draws nearer, still they support the government in Tel Aviv.
This shall never be forgotten. And they should never be forgiven.

Editors

Gaza: never forgive, never forget

The most authoritarian campus in the country looks quite nice. The University of Western Australia, situated at the edge of the Swan River in Perth, features Japanese, sunken and Shakespeare gardens, peacocks that strut through the tropical grove, and Romanesque sandstone buildings. 
Yet, far from an idyllic haven of critical inquiry and free debate, UWA managers are turning the place into a sort of Trumpian protectorate. They are imposing a suite of bans and restrictions that undermine progressive activism and free speech on campus—even banning some factual statements—while riding roughshod over clubs and societies in the process. 
The initial rules were announced before first semester began. On 12 February, the student guild and the university sent a joint letter to the Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs, announcing that putting up posters, handing out leaflets, using chalk on pavements and hanging banners were banned almost everywhere on campus. <a href="https://www.uwa.edu.au/about/leadership-and-governance/integrity-and-standards/conduct-and-integrity#:~:text=In%20doing%20so%2C%20the%20University,the%20Director%20of%20Student%20Life.">Lecture announcements were also forbidden</a>, with a few minor exceptions. 
Many rules were already on the books; the novelty is the move to enforce them. By doing so, university managers outlawed activities fundamental to political activism in one fell swoop. Students have engaged in these activities to promote support for the plebiscite on marriage equality, campaign for a Yes vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum and promote student climate strikes. 
Like any Trump-style offensive, the attack was sweeping and resulted in much collateral damage: the university inadvertently imposed severe restrictions on other clubs and societies that rely on posters, leaflets and lecture announcements to promote their events. 
New rules were also imposed on Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs. The university informed us that events need approval not just from the student guild but also from campus security and a senior university manager. Applications to hold events must be submitted with at least ten working days’ notice and must include a list of “measures that will be taken to ensure the safety of others” (political discussions now being treated like some fire-throwing festival). 
Ominously, the letters warned that clubs must “refrain from using phrases and slogans that are contrary to the university’s policies”. The university did not initially clarify what specific “phrases and slogans” were questionable. It soon became clear, however, that this was a measure to censor Palestine solidarity speech on campus. 
Students for Palestine organised an event on 19 March, at which activists were going to paint “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on a banner. The university sent me an email the day before, warning that the slogan was “not a permitted use on UWA Lands”. I didn’t immediately see or respond to the email. So, in a move indicative of the censorious campus atmosphere, the head of security was directed to track me down on campus and deliver a printed copy of the email. The penalty for the banner painting was extreme: the university said that proceeding with it would result in “possible disciplinary proceedings and/or disaffiliation”. 
So while Israel carries out genocide in Gaza, and amid threats of imminent ethnic cleansing and forced displacement coming from far-right Israeli politicians, calling for justice and equal rights for all residents of historic Palestine gets you disciplined, or your club disaffiliated, at UWA. 
At UWA, facts are no defence from discipline. In follow-up correspondence, I inquired about the university’s attitude to the statements “Israel is an apartheid state” and “Israel is carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza”. Lisa Goldacre, director of student life and a senior manager, replied that the “use of these slogans even if objectively true, may still cause harm to others”, and, “if your club makes a particular statement (e.g. in an article, flyer, speech, banner, online post, etc, etc), then the fact that statement may be objectively true does not mean that your club’s use of that statement will not breach UWA Policy”. 
Again, it’s not just the Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs that are affected. Anyone who organises an event that crosses UWA’s red lines is a target. Palestine is one such red line. 
For example, in May last year, the Muslim Students Association was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/uwamsa/p/C6v3QUwP0dT/?locale=ru&amp;hl=am-et">forced to cancel an event featuring influential speaker Sami Hamdi</a> after the administration refused to approve their room booking. UWA disapproved of the speaker. Similarly, the Palestinian Cultural Society was <a href="https://perthvoiceinteractive.com/2024/10/24/students-claim-uwa-tried-to-block-speaker/">forced to cancel an event</a> featuring renowned author Vijay Prashad after UWA rescheduled their booking to a time that clashed with another of Prashad’s speaking events. 
These attacks are not limited to crackdowns on pro-Palestine speech and activists. They open the door to attacks on free speech in general. 
This was demonstrated at the end of March, when UWA disciplined a student for putting up posters related to freedom of speech. Finn Penter put up half a dozen posters at a monthly meeting of clubs and societies. The posters read: “Free speech is under attack” and “Clubs are under attack.” Penter is an elected student representative on the guild council and a member of the Socialist Alternative club. The university initiated disciplinary action against him for putting up the posters and used CCTV to monitor him. Shockingly, Penter was issued an official reprimand from the university for misconduct.
“No wonder students feel like we’re studying in an Orwellian surveillance state”, Penter said. “There are all these attacks against free speech, and if you speak up about it by, for example, putting up a poster, you get punished. This is extreme overreach, and it shows how insistent UWA is to put an end to activism on campus”. 
These attacks come as the Trump administration cracks down on Palestine solidarity activists in the US. Some have faced <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/04/16/protesters-denounce-abduction-of-another-palestinian-student-activist-by-us-immigration/">abduction</a>, threats of <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/us-government-kidnaps-palestinian-student-activist">deportation</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/nyregion/columbia-protest-library-occupied.html">arrest</a>. Republican House Majority leader Steve Scalise has spoken about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/18/trump-education-policies">stripping universities of their accreditation</a> if there have been Palestine solidarity protests on their campuses. Columbia University has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-university-college.html">strengthened its campus security and anti-protest restrictions</a>, among other regressive anti-DEI changes, after the Trump administration cut $400 million in its funding. This is an intensified continuation of the crackdown that started last year. 
The attacks on student activism in the US are much more extreme than anything in Australia. But there is a goal that the managers’ offensive at UWA and the Trumpian crackdown on American universities have in common: eradicate progressive activism on campuses. And use a heavy stick to discipline anyone who does not comply.

Alevine Magila

University of WA bans statements that ‘cause harm’, disciplines student for defending free speech

Babies should be chubby. They should be content and well fed. They should be happy and protected. Gaza’s children are none of these things. They are thin, sometimes to the point of total emaciation. Their bones can be seen through their skin. They are often silent with haunted eyes. 
The UN’s child rights agency (UNICEF) recently reported that around 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition since the start of the year. Al Jazeera recently reported on a five-year-old boy who weighed only nine kilograms. This is the result of human decision-making. It is the conscious policy of the Israeli state, which has blocked all food, fuel and medicines from reaching Palestinians in Gaza since 2 March. 
Much has been made of Israel’s “advanced” and “precise” weapons. It is part of what has made it one of the most profitable weapons manufacturing countries in the world. These weapons have, since January, “precisely” targeted families sheltering in makeshift tents in “humanitarian zones”. 
They have also targeted bulldozers and other equipment intended to allow Gazans to rebuild their homes. It is precision barbarism. At least 2,300 Palestinians have been killed over the past six weeks alone—more than 50 people killed every day on average. More than 740 of the dead are children, according to the director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Zaher Al-Wahidi. 
At Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, Dr Ahmed Abu Nasir said the situation has become “worse than ever”. It is hard to imagine the situation in Gaza getting worse. Worse than whole neighbourhoods, whole cities flattened. Worse than tens of thousands of human bodies ripped apart by bombs, by bullets, by shrapnel. Worse than forced displacement over and over and over again. 
It’s hard to imagine, but true. Since the end of the ceasefire, the Israeli war machine has ramped up its genocidal efforts. Indeed, since 18 March, Israel has launched what can only be described as a scorched earth campaign. “The massacres do not stop. We are being slaughtered from vein to vein”, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif said in a social media post. 
Now Israel is calling up reservists and has indicated a further escalation with Operation Gideon’s Chariots. The Israeli security cabinet has approved a plan for “conquering” the Gaza Strip. On X, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video declaring that the “population will be moved, for its own protection”. 
Fascist Israeli politician Bezalel Smotrich has finally been let off the leash and is saying what other Israeli politicians have been thinking all along: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation’”. The last eighteen months have been leading to this point. The acting head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jonathan Whittall, said in a statement:
“Land is being annexed from the north, from the east, from the south of the strip as forces advance ... Gaza is being starved, it’s being bombed, it’s being strangled. This looks like the deliberate dismantling of Palestinian life.” 
For over a year, Israeli politicians and their supporters across the West have claimed that the Israeli decimation of Gaza has had something to do with “tackling terror” and “defending democracy”. Red Flag and activists in the Palestine solidarity movement have argued that Israel has had a very different agenda. 
We said that Israel would use the pretext of 7 October to murder, punish and humiliate Palestinians. We said that, if they could get away with it, the Israelis would try to conquer the Gaza strip. This has now come to pass. Even Netanyahu is saying the quiet part out loud. 
US President Trump will visit the Middle East over the next few weeks and will no doubt give his blessing to this explicit effort at 21st-century ethnic cleansing. At the same time, Israel is waging an increasingly violent war on Palestinians living in the West Bank. If it can achieve total victory in Gaza, it will no doubt turn its sights to the total defeat of the Palestinians. 
The Australian media have largely remained silent about these realities. Australia’s federal election campaign only further sidelined the issue of Palestine. 
Over the last eighteen months, the ALP has been steadfast in its determination to maintain political, economic and military ties with Israel, despite the depths of the barbarism we have all witnessed. Labor politicians have been deeply complicit in what is happening. Now that they have been re-elected with a majority, they will feel like they can ignore the genocide. We cannot let this happen.
In a campaign meeting recently in Perth, an activist with family in Gaza reported that, while generations of Palestinians have remained steadfast—have held out hope for their own liberation—they are increasingly exhausted. They feel abandoned by the world. 
It is our responsibility to call out what is happening. We need to maintain pressure on our own government and continue to show solidarity with a population suffering from the most extreme, conscious form of imperial barbarity in the 21st century.

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Gaza: never forgive, never forget

University of WA bans statements that ‘cause harm’, disciplines student for defending free speech

The quiet part out loud: Israel announces Gaza takeover

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