Three Aussie ladies, two keffiyehs, and a country gone mad 

Judith Treanor, Suzie Gold and Michelle Berkon were welcomed by security, NSW police and event attendees as they held a small gathering outside Emanuel Synagogue in Sydney to protest a speaking event by Federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton. Concerned by Dutton ‘weaponizing antisemitism for political gain’, the three women, who also happen to be proudly Jewish, had stood near the synagogue to protest his speaking engagement there at a time when he is using antisemitism as a political cudgel in an attempt to court powerful influence.

What greeted the proud activists was measurable in units of David vs Goliath, as the peaceful protest on a public footpath was approached by an extra-equipped synagogue security detail from Community Security Group (CSG) and told to move on. The police arrived, too, and after conferring with the CSG, approached the three women who were shuffled along, relocated, and told to vacate the area entirely.

Treanor, Gold and Berkon wrote an article published in ‘Pearls & Irritations’ about their experience. Three Aussie women, two loosely draped in keffiyehs, and a few inconspicuous signs on a public pedestrian space was all it took to rouse security, and two detachments of NSW Police, who issued ‘move on’ orders for causing ‘alarm and distress’, and insisted they disperse or risk arrest. By this point, with police issuing decrees, and event attendees jeering insults, the three women left in what seemed like an unnecessary and heavy handed commotion. 

You can feel the knife edge tension that is mounting around the sharp and rapid deprivation of liberties in many aspects of our society, and a constant strain bubbling up from under the surface. 

The real world consequences of resisting something as simply horrifying and unacceptable as a genocide, are seen in the careers lost, the silenced voices, and the quashed protests. This has evolved into a national issue. The treatment of Judith, Suzie and Michelle for holding up signs on a public street is emblematic of the chasm between extremist pro-Israel ethno-nationalists and secular Australians of all faiths, and reflects a wider issue that sees a captured political and media class seeking to silence anyone critical of the Israel project on behalf of their benefactors. 

Whether it be concert pianists or world music duos, esteemed academics or business owners, radio hosts or cricket commentators, even everyday workers and Muslim families minding their own business at K-Mart, the mainstream of Australia has awakened to a worrying trend coalescing around the same issue: the extremism of Zionism clashing with mainstream Australian values.   

Since Israel’s depraved actions in Gaza began nearly eighteen months ago, Jewish Australians, along with Muslims and Christians, have been trying to express their concerns about the dangers of conflating Zionism and Israel with the Jewish faith, and the threat that this ideology poses to Australians, especially the Australian Jewish community. Objective criticism of Israel been callously lumped into the basket of antisemitism by a disingenuous and subjective media, and the situation only compounds under incessant pressure by overly-powerful foreign-aligned pro-Israel lobby groups and ‘registered charities’ that wield a disproportionate influence over Australian domestic affairs.   

Australia has a history of proud activism and protest. For Suzie Gold, her call to activism was through the inspiration of her aunt, a ‘heroine of the Warsaw Ghetto’. For Michelle Berkon it was the brutality of Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ in 2014 that shattered any illusion she had of the virtues of Zionism. And for Judith Treanor it was the Zionist spectre that had hollowed out the heritage she loves, and the lie that she was told about the ‘land of milk and honey’ in Israel that has become a morbid illusion. For many Australians of all backgrounds, their path to activism has been the endless rolling video clips of endless human destruction, and the unnatural and sudden hyper saturation of all things Israel and antisemitism at the expense of everything else that should matter in this country.

This current environment has been allowed to fester by a politically obsessed and preoccupied government, a divisive and socially irresponsible coalition, and a malevolent corporate press. As a result of those we elect to govern us being unable to pull up their sovereign bootstraps and repudiate foreign linked religious-nationalist extremism in our national interest, we now have Murdoch news crews running into Egyptian cafes to do gotcha antisemitism with Israeli Tik-Tok trolls, ‘foreign actors’ behind a string of the socially divisive graffiti and arson attacks, false caravans laden with explosives, and ADF soldiers linked to Israel being identified by ASIO. Given all this, why is it that a handful of passionate Jewish women were given such a heavy handed exit for protesting in the Australian spirit? Why are Australians losing their livelihoods, reputation and public safety for protesting a genocide?

On the event info page for Peter Dutton’s speaking gig at Emanuel Synagogue, it states that “Emanuel Synagogue has been a safe haven for our community”, but that has not entirely been the case. Judith, Suzie and Michelle were all given their marching orders from near the religious site with which they shared a connection. Out on the footpath, shunned, that connection must seem ever more distant to them. There has been so much talk and leeway towards providing safe spaces for ethno-nationalist Zionist Jews to support the current iteration of Netanyahu’s Israel, but little on the safety of anti-Zionist Jewish, Christian and Muslim Australians who are swept away by police for being against the genocidal actions of such a place. 

Judith Treanor remarked that the biggest threat to social cohesion, to community solidarity, and ultimately to the Jewish community in Australia is the threat of Zionism. As a result of the oversaturation of all-things antisemitism, our country is caught up in a miasma of chaos and confusion, and as a result of an incessant information bombardment, is almost unidentifiable to what it looked like prior to the attacks on October 7. In the time since, a genocide has unfolded in Gaza, and an entire apparatus of pro-Israel power-brokers have been activated to lobby for Israel’s right to continue it. 

Sadly, our politicians and law enforcement have been politically cowardly, and unable to challenge the influence of Zionist power-brokers for fear of their own careers, resulting in a foreign aligned overt power being allowed to dictate terms in Australian domestic life. 

Due to a visible gagging of human expression that goes against the unique and expressive nature of Australian discourse, it’s not only harmless peace loving Aussie parents like Judith, Suzie and Michelle that are being told to move on from public places, its Australian people losing their jobs, their academic grants, their once in a lifetime selection to perform at a high-profile festival, and even their right to physical safety. It’s also fellow Australians who have lost dozens of their family members in Gaza. All the talk about antisemitism is at the expense of a proper discussion on racism, and while Nazi graffiti attacks open the news bulletins, Islamophobic attacks on pregnant Muslim women are tucked away a few pages in – and an already complex national issue compounds under the weight of disinformation and subjectivity.

There is a palpable disparity between the engineered narratives and the alarming reality, and a disproportionality and lopsidedness in this messaging that has gone too far, as evidenced daily with the treatment of Judith Treanor, Suzie Gold and Michelle Berkon and every other reasonable person who is shut down for taking a stand against Israel’s actions – and it has tripped the bullshit detectors of reasonable Australians who value their freedoms. 

This status quo continues to damage the national psyche by punishing people reasonable enough to stand against the unacceptable demands of the unreasonable few, and that is ultimately a situation that is unsustainable.