Speaker 1: In spite of pouring rain, government opposition and a failed
Speaker 1: police ban, ninety thousand people massed across the Sydney Harbor
Speaker 1: Bridge yesterday. It was the largest pro Palestinian protest in
Speaker 1: Australia's history. It was a moment of mass demonstration against
Speaker 1: twenty one months of war in Gaza, where tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of civilians, including children, have been killed. Despite warning
Speaker 1: that the march would become dangerous, the protests remained peaceful
Speaker 1: and marked a powerful expression of a shifting public conscience.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven AM today
Speaker 1: Walkley Award winning journalist and author David Laser while he
Speaker 1: joined the protest not in spite of his Holocaust heritage,
Speaker 1: but because of it. It's Monday, August fourth, David, thanks
Speaker 1: for speaking with me. They have of course been regular
Speaker 1: pro Palestinian rallies in cities around Australia since the war began.
Speaker 1: But what did it mean to have a protest take
Speaker 1: over such a significant and iconic landmark as the Sydney
Speaker 1: Harbor Bridge.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's all there. In the word iconic,
Speaker 2: I mean that Sydney Harbor Bridge is what the world
Speaker 2: sees every New Year's Eve as we are in the
Speaker 2: new year. So in terms of the representation of a
Speaker 2: collective sentiment on that place at this time, I saw
Speaker 2: a very very very large demonstration in very very wet
Speaker 2: conditions and an extremely civilized, well behaved collective howl of protest.
Speaker 2: I think is a very very powerful moment.
Speaker 1: Yeh New South Wales estimated that around ninety thousand people attended.
Speaker 1: Organizers said they were expecting fifty. What does that say
Speaker 1: to you about public sentiment at this particular moment.
Speaker 2: Well, I think public sentiment is boiling over. I just
Speaker 2: think that it's impossible to see these images of famished,
Speaker 2: desperate people dying of malnutrition, skeletal, particularly children. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are moments that photographers and journalists capture that galvanize sentiments,
Speaker 2: and it seems to me that the photos that we've
Speaker 2: been seeing recently of starving children has done just that.
Speaker 1: Last week, the New South Wales Premier Chris Min's said
Speaker 1: he didn't support the protests going ahead and didn't want
Speaker 1: Sydney to descend into chaos.
Speaker 2: I can't close down the central artery for a city
Speaker 2: as big as Sydney, even on a short term basis,
Speaker 2: but even if we had a massive heads up to
Speaker 2: do it now.
Speaker 1: The police then took matter to the Supreme Court to
Speaker 1: get a prohibition order over safety fears. They lost because
Speaker 1: the judge ruled that the right to freedom of expression
Speaker 1: ultimately outweighed the safety risk. But what did you think
Speaker 1: when the Premier intervene just try and stop the protest
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't agree with it. I don't think the
Speaker 2: decision by Men's or the New South Wales Police to
Speaker 2: prevent that march going ahead was the right action at
Speaker 2: the right time. It smelt of politics and it was
Speaker 2: a denial of a boiling public grievance. So to say
Speaker 2: I'll look take another route for your march, do it
Speaker 2: somewhere else, I mean, it's just not going to cut it.
Speaker 2: Not while millions of Palestinians are facing death from starvation
Speaker 2: or shelling from Israeli forces or malnutrition. I mean, there
Speaker 2: is a people on the steering into the abyss, and
Speaker 2: I think we need to be able to release the
Speaker 2: valve when public sentiment gets to this point in order
Speaker 2: for people to come together as a kind of a
Speaker 2: common humanity in a moral community and express themselves together.
Speaker 2: So I think he got that wrong. I do think
Speaker 2: what we're seeing right now is we are asking ourselves
Speaker 2: what has happened to our humanity that we could allow
Speaker 2: this to be proceeding the way it is. And I, certainly,
Speaker 2: as a Jewish Man, do not accept this idea that
Speaker 2: it is anti Semitic to protest vehemently about the treatment
Speaker 2: of the Netnyahuu government against the Palestinians. And so we
Speaker 2: need to get clearer about definitions about how we use words.
Speaker 2: And I don't even see this as a war right now.
Speaker 2: I see this as a slaughter, because a war suggests
Speaker 2: that you've got two equal sides, or more or less
Speaker 2: equal sides fighting each other. This is just mass murder.
Speaker 1: David, you've recently written that you supported this protest not
Speaker 1: in spite of your Holocaust heritage, but because of it.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about how your heritage informs your
Speaker 1: position during this time.
Speaker 2: Well, my father was born in Germany. It was eight
Speaker 2: years old when Hitler came to power and fled the
Speaker 2: Nazis in nineteen thirty nine, a few months before World
Speaker 2: War two began, was shunned at school, was expelled from
Speaker 2: school for being Jewish, was frog march through the streets
Speaker 2: of Coburg in the Old East Germany as a Jewish
Speaker 2: boy and pelted with stones and rotten fruit along with
Speaker 2: his peers from this Jewish boarding school. So he fled
Speaker 2: Germany along with my grandfather and my step grandmother. And
Speaker 2: on my mother's side, Latvian Jewish forty one relatives executed
Speaker 2: in the forest outside of Riga, the capital of Latvia,
Speaker 2: the Rumbula forest, or forced to dig their own graves
Speaker 2: and then shot in the back. And that's been burnished
Speaker 2: in my heart and soul and mind since I was
Speaker 2: a young boy growing up. I think the fact of
Speaker 2: that Jewish background informed my intellectual search. Well, how did
Speaker 2: the people who survived the ovens survived the gas chambers
Speaker 2: of the most sophisticated extermination campaign in modern history? How
Speaker 2: did the survivors of that infamy become the persecutors of
Speaker 2: another people? And I think you know Gabor Marte, you
Speaker 2: know the famous psychotherapist. He talks a lot about trauma
Speaker 2: and how trauma begets trauma, violence begets violence. So I
Speaker 2: have for the past forty to forty five five years
Speaker 2: studied the Middle East. Gone there several times lived in
Speaker 2: Jerusalem to try and work out the nature of this
Speaker 2: conflict that sits very close at the center of what's
Speaker 2: informed my thinking and my impulses on.
Speaker 1: This After the break, will this be a tipping point?
Speaker 1: You've been outspoken about what's been occurring in Gaza for
Speaker 1: a long time now. What has been the personal cost
Speaker 1: of that to you, David?
Speaker 2: Well, nothing like the personal cost of being a Palestinian
Speaker 2: in Gaza, and nothing like the cost of being a
Speaker 2: Palestinian in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers have been
Speaker 2: led off the leash by the net Yahoo government. This
Speaker 2: is a very, very, very traumatic moment for Jewish people.
Speaker 2: So the quick answer to your question, Daniel is I've
Speaker 2: lost friends. I think there are people who just don't
Speaker 2: want to have anything to do with me now because
Speaker 2: they see me as having portrayed the tribe made the
Speaker 2: Jewish people less safe. I take the view that unless
Speaker 2: Jewish people are being seen to speak out on this issue,
Speaker 2: then it would be understandable, if not inevitable, that the
Speaker 2: majority of people would take the view that all Jewish
Speaker 2: people are supporting what the State of Israel is doing
Speaker 2: to the people of Gaza. And I think it's absolutely
Speaker 2: urgent that there is seen to be which there is
Speaker 2: a plurality of voices within the Jewish community who have
Speaker 2: different views on this horrendous, never ending conflict. I think
Speaker 2: what Nednyahu has done is two things. The first and
Speaker 2: most important is he's brought a catastrophe down on the
Speaker 2: heads of the Palestinian people. And he has committed mass
Speaker 2: murder as an act of revenge for the horrors of
Speaker 2: October seven. And in the process he has made Jewish
Speaker 2: people less safe. And he has brought a moral catastrophe
Speaker 2: down on all Jewish people. And we are at odds
Speaker 2: with each other. The Jewish community is divided in a
Speaker 2: way that I've never seen before in my lifetime. And
Speaker 2: I'm nearly seventy, you know, So the fact that I
Speaker 2: may fall out with certain friends, I think there's been
Speaker 2: fallings out every which way across the board.
Speaker 1: Day the weather. We're at a political tipping point kind
Speaker 1: of remains to be seen. But Anthony Albernezi has joined
Speaker 1: many other countries, including the UK, Canada and France, in
Speaker 1: speaking about how to recognize a Palestinian state and how
Speaker 1: it would actually practically be implemented. What have you made
Speaker 1: of Australian a government's approach to this in recent weeks.
Speaker 2: I don't know why he's dragging his feet on this.
Speaker 2: I mean, I personally think that the declarations by France
Speaker 2: and Britain and Canada that they'll recognize a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: It feels to me like a platitude. I would say,
Speaker 2: when you start saying, like Slovenia did, we are going
Speaker 2: to stop all shipment of arms to Israel, then I
Speaker 2: think you're getting serious. I mean, to me, the two
Speaker 2: state solution is kind of dead and buried. Politicians talk
Speaker 2: about the two state solution all the time, but a
Speaker 2: two state solution presupposes that the Palasins have actually land
Speaker 2: to set up a state of their own. Well, part
Speaker 2: of that land, Gaza, is all rubble, and the other
Speaker 2: part of it the West Bank. There's seven hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty to eight hundred thousand Jewish settlers in the West
Speaker 2: Bank and East Jerusalem included, who are torching Palestinian villagers,
Speaker 2: who are running amok. And how on earth would Israel
Speaker 2: remove seven hundred and fifty thousand Jewish settlers in order
Speaker 2: to make way for a Palestinian state. So very nice
Speaker 2: for Makron Karnei and Code to actually call for a
Speaker 2: Palestinian state. I think Albanese should do so too. I
Speaker 2: think there's all sorts of legal and economic implications that
Speaker 2: flow from the recognition of a Palestinian national entity and
Speaker 2: what Israel is doing and the consequences for Israel by
Speaker 2: doing what it's doing to a people who have a
Speaker 2: state of their own recognized by the United Nations, as
Speaker 2: opposed to a dispossessed people. But I would like to
Speaker 2: see something more than that. I would like to see
Speaker 2: government saying we're not sending arms or we will. Actually
Speaker 2: we've been prevaricating about boycotting or sanctioning Israel, but we
Speaker 2: cannot sit by now and in all good conscience watch
Speaker 2: what Israel is doing to these people and not respond.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what the demonstration on the Harbor
Speaker 2: Bridge was all about, this cry from the heart of
Speaker 2: the people of Sydney that enough is enough.
Speaker 1: Well, David, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Daniel.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, Anthony Albernezi has delivered the keynote
Speaker 1: address at the Garma Festival in northeast arnham Land over
Speaker 1: the weekend. Outlining a new plan for a first nation's
Speaker 1: economic partnership between the government and First Nations people. Any
Speaker 1: speech to Prime Minister also acknowledged the work of the
Speaker 1: europe Justice Commission, the first truth telling process in the country.
Speaker 1: His comments have led some to speculate whether a national
Speaker 1: truth telling process could be on the table. We'll have
Speaker 1: more on that tomorrow. And the Secretary of the Australian
Speaker 1: Council of Trade Unions says it's time to bite the
Speaker 1: bullet on negative gearing reform. Sally McManus told the ABC
Speaker 1: over the weekend she'll be calling for an overhaul or
Speaker 1: the tax break at the government's Productivity round table this month.
Speaker 1: The ACTU will argue negative gearing should be limited to
Speaker 1: one investment property. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.