Australian police announced Tuesday they have opened an investigation into a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the Sydney Opera House after a video circulated on social media showing a group of the protesters continually shouting antisemitic chants.
An estimated 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters had marched through Sydney’s downtown Monday evening, ending at the Opera House that was lit with blue and white lighting in support of Israel, following Hamas’ astonishingly gruesome terrorist invasion early Saturday, according to Reuters.
After 1,000 Jews – mostly unarmed civilians – had been murdered, video footage shared on social media by the Australian Jewish Association showed a group gathered in front of the Opera House with a banner that read “Israel is a Terrorist State.” Members of the group were waving Palestinian flags, lighting smoke bombs and flares, and chanting obscene phrases, including “Gas the Jews,” and “F— the Jews.”
On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reacted to the video footage, calling it “horrific,” Reuters reported.
“We are a tolerant multicultural nation,” he said. “I understand that people have deep views about issues relating to the Middle East conflict but here in Australia we have to deal with political discourse in a respectful way.”
“I think we should all be concerned,” Penny Wong, the country’s foreign affairs minister, told ABC Radio National on Tuesday.
“There is no place in Australia for antisemitism or prejudice or hatred of any kind and we should all stand firm against the sort of antisemitic language that unfortunately some engaged {in} – just as we should stand firm against all prejudice,” Wong said.
“It goes to who we are as a country and it goes to one of our greatest strengths, which is our diversity but our unity around values,” she added.
When asked whether Palestinians had been suffering under Israel’s occupation for decades, Wong said: “We know this is a region of the world where there has been longstanding dispute, longstanding suffering, violence on all sides. Nothing justifies what we have seen Hamas engage in.”
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Palestine Action Group Sydney, which organized Monday’s march, responded in a statement on X that “the media has reported on a tiny fringe (we estimate less than 20 people) of vile antisemitic attendees who showed up to the opera house for an event unrelated to the demonstration we organized.”
“They were quickly condemned for their chants and asked to leave. Long-standing Palestinian organizers and activists, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim elders attending the protest were disgusted and deplored the action. This is not what our movement stands for. We are an anti-racist and anti-colonial movement and we refuse to fight racism with racism.”
But one ex-Muslim named Brother Rachid says this type of racist, antisemitic hatred of the Jews is actually the norm in the Muslim world.
“I was raised as a Muslim, I was taught religiously to hate Jews, the majority of Muslims around the world are raised to do the same. The ones who didn’t are the exception, not the norm. It’s embedded, it’s horrible, it’s time to address it boldly. This is not an isolated incident,” Rachid wrote on X.