Tens of thousands anti-Israel activists in Sydney demand sanctions against Israel

Tens of thousands of anti-Israel activists marched through Sydney on Sunday, crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge to demand sanctions against Israel and increased aid to the Gaza Strip.

Among the participants were former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. New South Wales Police estimated the crowd at around 90,000, while the event’s organizer, Palestine Action Group Sydney, claimed a turnout of 300,000 – a figure not independently verified.

The large anti-Israel manifestation comes merely one day after the Australia government signaled its readiness to recognize a Palestinian state in the future. 

“It’s a matter of when, not if, Australia recognizes a Palestinian state… but I don’t want to put a time frame on it,” Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers said last week in an interview with the local public broadcaster ABC. 

The Palestine Action Group Sydney accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza while ignoring Hamas’ genocidal intentions towards the Jewish people. Israel and most Western government have rejected the accusation of genocide in Gaza. Ahead of the march, the anti-Israel group called for an “immediate Israeli ceasefire and withdrawal” and demanded an international arms embargo against Israel. 

“Enough is enough,” argued the anti-Israel protestor Dough. “When people from all over the world gather together and speak up, then evil can be overcome,” he claimed. 

Leading global media outlets like The New York Times have fueled anti-Israel sentiments worldwide by featuring false pictures of supposedly starving Gazan children while ignoring genuinely emaciated images of Israeli hostages held by Hamas who increasingly look like skeletons from Auschwitz. 

The anti-Israel march featured Palestinian Authority flags and many participants chanted “We are all Palestinians.” Some participants chanted “Long live the intifada,” which has become a code expression for violent terrorism against Israeli and Jewish civilians. 

Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Peter McKenna announced that over one thousand police officers had been deployed at the event. 

“No one was hurt,” McKenna told media representatives at a press conference. “But gee whiz, I wouldn’t like to try and do this every Sunday at that short notice,” he admitted. 

Australian center-left Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has become a vocal critic of Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas, which openly calls for Israel’s destruction and has vowed to repeat the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Israelis.

Multicultural Australia was until recently welcoming toward Jews and other minorities. However, following the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities, antisemitic incidents surged by 400%, according to a report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). Several attacks on synagogues have also been recorded.

“If anything, the raw numbers understate the seriousness of the surge in antisemitism that has occurred. There have been many new forms and expressions of anti-Jewish racism that would once have been considered alien to Australia, but which have become commonplace,” ECAJ Research Director Julie Nathan warned in December 2024. 

Like in many other Western nations, radicalized Muslims and far-left activists have played a central role in the dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in Australian society. 

Earlier this year, Australia’s intelligence chief Mike Burgess revealed that his agency views the antisemitic threats in the country as a “top priority.”

Last month, a Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) poll revealed that Australians estimate that some 28% of their fellow citizens harbor negative attitudes towards Jews. 

Numbering around 100,000 people, Jewish Australians constitute a tiny proportion of the country’s total population of some 27 million people.