Great that people are showing support, and I understand the choice of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as symbolic, but that seemed like a very dangerous choice of venue for a crowd of unknown size until the day!
The march was supposed to end at the US consulate. But about 3pm NSW police sent out a mass text message to phones throughout the city ordering the pro-Palestine march to stop due to safety concerns, with authorities turning protesters around at the north end.
Uh huh, "safety concerns". And what, the cops can just broadcast to people's phones? Oz is such a nanny state.
Messages sent to all phones in contact with specific towers is not only technologically trivial (for the operator if the cell tower), but also commonly used as part of emergency alert systems all over the world. It doesn't violate privacy rights, so I don't really see an issue with the method of alerting.
And avoiding crowd crush is a valid concern if a demonstration turns out 6 times larger than expected (organisers claim 300k+ people, when 50k were expected).
I see this as an absolute win.
Americans have no ground to stand on, shove off.
It's not a contest
You could host thousands of these across the country, but will the Israeli government truly ever give a shit about the opinions of people from the other side of the planet?
I support this kind of protest, but let's not get this twisted: this is only happening to make people feel better about themselves, and it's not truly going to change anything. How is a thousand people marching in Australia going to stop the IDF from killing Palestinians? Prove me wrong.
When the actual solution to stop genocide is something the population isn't willing to consider: aggresive military intervention.
I support this kind of protest, but let's not get this twisted: this is only happening to make people feel better about themselves,
I went to this protest, I don't expect Israel to do anything in response except call me an anti-semite. I do however, expect the Australian government to listen to it's consitutents and take a hard stance against this fascist regime.
Protests like this may be demonstrative for foreign governments and solidarity across borders, but it is pretty easy to identify the basic premise: stop using my tax money to fund genocide. Your decisions to appease that apartheid state do not represent us. Etc.
Protests are domestic, and effective internationally to the degree to which they change policy.
Your pessimism is born of a lack of civic engagement, I suspect.
Political hegemony requires a level of coherence that is threatened by mass protests. It is one MAJOR tactic in an overall strategy of moving government in a direction that reflects public will.
Prove me wrong. Has Israel or the Australian government responded to this protest yet?
le sigh
Do you play chess with only the rooks?
Unless you live under a rock you do see some increased support for Palestine even amongst Western governments. A part of that is that it's very clear that a majority of the common people are in support of Palestine and ending genocide. And no, this is not because Macron or any other politician actually cares, but the more noise you make the more they have to react to it and adapt. If nothing else it shows the world that not every Western citizen is a fan of Apartheid and genocide. The Israeli government doesn't care about a protest in Australia but if the Australian government starts reacting to it it can work to isolate Israel globally - and unlike Russia, who has other friends, Israel really doesn't.
Have either of them responded to your online comments about how other people speaking up hasn't changed anything yet?
It's not even been 2 days yet. Other Western countries have started taking first steps in the right direction (Canada, France, a couple others), at least partially due to a shift in public opinion. Maybe give it a week before you declare complete failure?
And yet here you are, arguing with strangers on the Internet.
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