Amid a spate of antisemitic incidents in Australia, pro-Israel counterprotesters in Melbourne were told to go to Europe and had money thrown at them at a Sunday protest, according to activist groups.
The Lions of Zion Melbourne activist group published footage on Instagram of pro-Palestinian marchers hurling abuse at counterprotesters.
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“Go back to Poland! Go back to Germany!” a woman shouted at pro-Israel activists at the Free Palestine rally in Melbourne’s central business district.
Lions of Zion also said that change was thrown and flashed at the counterprotesters, “an attempt to reinforce age-old antisemitic stereotypes.”
Counter-antisemitism activist group J-United published a video of the protest on social media in which anti-Israel protesters chanted “All Zionists are terrorists.”
J-United said that this slogan was targeted toward all Jews, “as 95% of us are Zionists.”
Escalation in antisemitic activity
The Australian Jewish Association wrote on X/Twitter on Sunday that the streets of Melbourne had been “abandoned to a hate mob for well over a year,” referencing the escalation in antisemitic activity in the city and country at large since the October 7 massacre.
The Free Palestine rally was organized and endorsed by dozens of groups, including Free Palestine Melbourne, as a joint “refugee and anti-war rally.”
“There are nearly 9 million Palestinian refugees around the world, the largest refugee population in the world,” Free Palestine Melbourne wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday, ahead of the rally. “Today we bear witness to the whole of Gaza destroyed and its indigenous people made homeless through a brutal and systematic policy of Genocide by Israel.”
Hundreds of protesters marched through the rain from Victoria State Library to the Flinders Street Station.Tensions are high in Australia regarding antisemitic incidents. Groups like AJA have accused the Labor-led Australian government of failing to address attacks and fostering anti-Israel sentiment with its current policy on the conflict.
AJA on Saturday argued on X that the anti-Israel component to antisemitic crimes was being ignored, pointing to the Friday Sydney Southern Synagogue vandalization. One of the vandals scrawled “free Palestine” and Nazi swastikas.
Melbourne was host to a high-profile antisemitic arson attack in early December, when the Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed.