Hundreds of students walked out of high schools across Melbourne to express their support for Palestine on Thursday – in defiance of the politicians who’d encouraged them to stay in class.
The rally started on the steps of Flinders Street Station and made its way through the Melbourne CBD from there.
“We have come out today, people have left school en masse, to say that business as usual can’t continue when Palestinians are being slaughtered in their thousands,” one protester with a megaphone announced to the crowd.
“We know that a truce or a temporary pause to this atrocity is not enough.
“We’re not fighting so there can be six hours in a day where Palestinians cannot be murdered. We are fighting so that there is never another Palestinian killed ever, ever again.”
After a social media post from Free Palestine Melbourne invited students to walk out of school to join the rally, prominent members of the local Jewish community demanded the Victorian government put a stop to it.
The community feared the protest would inflame anti-Semitic sentiment. And it felt the youngsters taking part would have a naive view of the conflict in Gaza.
“Most students in Victorian schools will not have a direct connection or a comprehensive (if any) understanding of the attacks on Israel and war in Gaza,” an open letter to the Victorian government read.
One of the thousands of petitioners who signed the letter asked parents to think of the dangers before supporting their children’s decision to protest.
”My message to fellow parents is please think really hard about whether you want your child exposed to violence, vandalism and graffiti with a group of people that you don’t know,” they told 9 News.
While the protest ultimately proceeded peacefully, there were extreme and unsettling views expressed by some in the crowd.
The Australian spoke to one 16-year-old girl who praised Hamas and suggested Israel should no longer exist.
“I don’t think it’s really important to stay in school when matters like this really matter,” she told the newspaper.
“I think (Hamas) are doing a good job. I think they should stand up for what’s right, they should protect our brothers and sisters in Palestine.”
Reporter Tricia Rivera asked the student where she thought the borders of Israel should be.
“I think they shouldn’t exist at all. After what they’re putting my brothers and sisters through, I don’t think they should really exist,” the student replied.
“They don’t deserve a place in humanity.”
Another student, a 17-year-old boy, said he was at the protest to show his “respect”, as he felt the children’s “voices have been silenced in school”.
“Compared to what Israel is doing, Hamas is nothing,” he said.
“I think Israel should exist, but they don’t really deserve to exist, with all the stuff they’ve done,” he added.
Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip without subjecting itself to elections for almost two decades, is designated a terrorist organisation by most of the Western world, including the US, UK and Australia.
The current war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, murdering more than a thousand people – overwhelmingly civilians – and abducting hundreds more.
Negotiations to secure those hostages’ release, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, are ongoing.
Israel has responded by hammering the Gaza Strip, whose Hamas-run health ministry claims the Palestinian death toll has risen above 13,000.
Other students spoken to by The Australian were more even-handed, expressing hope for peaceful coexistence between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state.
“Both Israel and Palestine should exist,” said a 14-year-old boy.
“I feel like it’s much-needed in our community that everyone gets involved.”
A 14-year-old girl stressed that “obviously what Hamas did was not OK”.
“But shutting off (Gaza’s) water supply and all their food supplies, and bombing and killing thousands of children, it’s not OK (either),” she added.
“I think obviously Israel should exist. I just think that Palestine needs to be free.”
Once the protest was underway, the Australian Jewish Association took to social media to criticise students for chanting “Allahu Akbar” (which translates as “God is great”), as well as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
The latter has been a fixture of most pro-Palestine demonstrations around the world in recent weeks. Many, not all, interpret it as a call for Israel to be wiped off the map.
“Australia is changing rapidly,” the association said, characterising the chant as “genocidal”.
“The indoctrination starts at a younger and younger age. Sad to see, and not a good omen for Australia’s future.”
Reacting to the more troubling remarks by students detailed above, it said some of the children were “pro-terrorist” and speculated that “the education system”, “extremist activist teachers”, “radical Islam” or even “TikTok” might be to blame.
More rallies are planned in Sydney and Wollongong on Friday.
New South Wales Education Minister Prue Car has told students they should not be “skipping school” to protest.
“We understand that people feel passionately about a range of things, but you need to be at school,” she said.
Speaking to Sydney’s 2GB radio station on Thursday, she also urged university students promoting the strike on social media to “stay in their lane”.
“They’re outside schools handing out things to school students, many of whom are in their first term of year 12. They’ve got important things to focus on,” she said.
“We want young kids to be fully educated to be knowledgeable about the world to form their own views when they graduate from school.
“To make school the enemy, striking against it, I think sends the wrong message about education.”
The rallies have been inspired by similar walkouts at schools in other countries, including the US, UK and Canada.
Event organiser Ivy, who played a part in the establishment of School Students for Palestine, said the walkout was a way for students to be heard.
“Schools talk about politics all the time but on this issue we are silenced,” she said.
“We are walking out because there’s genocide happening right now and we have to take action.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin feared the strike would alienate Jewish students.
“This will cause incredible emotional harm to Jewish students,” he said.
“Seeing their classmates chant slogans, march and wave placards that are hostile to their community, that ignore or deny the trauma of the October 7 atrocities, and which demonise their ancestral home will cause permanent damage to cohesion in classrooms.
“Jewish students and teachers will never feel safe and accepted among colleagues and peers that participate in these actions.”
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said the demonstrations were a “dangerous call to arms (that) will only inflame an already antagonistic environment”.
“When Jewish parents send their children to school, there is an expectation that they will not be placed in a dangerous environment where they might be isolated or attacked for who they are,” he said.
“In a climate of escalating anti-Semitism and a growing rhetoric of intolerance and radicalisation, words and images do matter.”