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Rally for Peace - 30 July 2006
Scenes from the third major rally held in Melbourne to protest at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza in mid-2006...
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| Video information | |
|---|---|
| Produced by | pc |
| Directed by | pc |
| Produced | 2007/04/25 |
| Duration | 6 minutes 28 seconds |
Full description
Here is part of a report written shortly after the rally (a shorter version appeared first on Melbourne Indymedia):
For the third week, Melbourne's Lebanese and Palestinian organisations, along with supporters from across the community, rallied to demand an end to Israeli aggression and demand an immediate ceasefire.
Called by the Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network and endorsed by many other organisations, including the Federation of Australian Muslim Students, the Islamic Girls/Womens Group, the Palestinian Community of Victoria, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative, and Resistance, under the banner of ‘Rally for Peace - Stop Israeli aggression against Palestine and
Lebanon’, Sunday's rally and march were marked by a definite raising of the temperature compared with previous weeks: the speeches, including those from non-Muslims, were more strongly worded, and there was more visible and audible anger in the crowd. Although there was a large police presence, they had not brought the horses this time, and it should be acknowledged that police as far as I could see showed much good sense - looking back, I think one could say that there was more heavy-handedness on display during the recent march on World Refugee Day, a pretty harmless assembly one would think. When the marchers reached Parliament House, there have been far more innocuous events where police have chosen to defend the steps more aggressively, and indeed on this occasion they drew back to the top and made no attempt to interfere as marchers occupied virtually the whole front of the building. Neither did they intervene when a group of young men, including some in battle dress, first set fire to and then trampled an Israeli flag. (I left at the end of speeches at Parliament House. The
march was due then to continue to Federation Square, but I can't say what happened there, although I understood it was planned to deliver a letter of protest to SBS regarding its coverage of the issues regarding the Middle East.)
Apart from Lebanese and Palestinian speakers, the initial rally at the State Library was addressed by David Glanz of Unity for Peace, Margarita Windisch of the Stop-the-War Coalition, and Senator Lyn Allison of the Democrats - as before, the major political parties were conspicuously absent (perhaps displaying the better part of valour, given their leaders' recent
statements?). We also heard from Layal Allaf, a young Lebanese-Australian just back from visiting her family in Lebanon. A notable feature of the halt at Parliament House was the reading of a detailed condemnation of Zionism and the acts of the State of Israel from the point of view of Torah-Judaism, a reminder that, as the statement stressed, the State of Israel does not speak in the name of the Jewish people. And indeed, as on previous occasions, there were Jews among the protesters. (The
statement can be found in full on the website of Neturei Karta International, Jews United against Zionism.)
As at previous rallies, Sheik Fahmi Imam also spoke, inviting the rally to join him in lamenting the death and burial of international law and the Geneva Convention. As already mentioned, during this halt a group of young men, some in battle dress, burned an Israeli flag.
Numbers at the rally and march certainly went up and down, probably peaking at around 2,000, but falling off during the march and subsequent halt. Again, families made up a large part of the crowd ...
