Published: 5 August 2026
Last updated: 5 August 2026
I did not expect to lose friends for condemning a terrorist group. But that is what happened when I started to criticise Hamas.
Two days after Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel, around 1,000 protesters gathered at a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney, calling on the Australian government to end support for Israel.
Israel responded swiftly and with overwhelming force to October 7. Night after night, television screens filled with images of airstrikes, rubble, smoke, wounded children and desperate civilians fleeing through the shattered streets of Gaza.
As the war escalated, thousands more joined marches across Australian cities. Slogans such as “Globalise the Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” were chanted or screamed through city streets. Placards reading “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide” were held aloft, some even by children. At some marches, the odd Hamas flag appeared.
Many people within my own friendship and literary circles joined the marches. One friend I’d known for years organised protests in northern New South Wales. A deeply caring doctor and writer whom I’d met at book events marched beneath banners accusing Israel of genocide.
Distressed by images from Gaza
I tried to switch off, ignore it all. It was all too complicated for me. I was deeply distressed by the images of what was happening in Gaza, as well as the hostage situation. How could I take sides?
Months later, I almost did. I attended a Zoom discussion featuring Canadian doctor and trauma expert Gabor Maté and found myself moved by his language of trauma, dispossession and historical suffering. I also read Antony Loewenstein, whose critiques of Israel, Zionism and Western power I initially found persuasive.
Comments2
Jeremie Bracka6 August at 09:44 pm
What moral courage and clarity. Thank you for speaking with such honesty, even when it has come at a personal cost. If only more people understood that it is entirely possible to stand unequivocally with Palestinians while also unequivocally condemning Hamas. Those are not contradictory positions. I admire your willingness to speak out when it would have been easier to stay silent.
Mark Ian4 August at 11:55 pm
It is a fact that the Ancestors of Hamas the Islamic Brotherhood led the Jihadi Palestinians in rejecting with the threat of a full alliance with Nazi Germany, in blocking the Escape of the Jewish People of Europe to ANY Islamic lands including Türkiye between 1933-1945 .
After the Holocaust the Jihadi blocked Right of Return of Holocaust Survivors in Europe to the Jewish Areas of Mandatory Palestine .
These policies led to the 1947 UN Plan into a Jewish State 60% arid Negev and an Arab State which included an International Humanitarian Jerusalem and Bethlehem in its midst.
But the USA and U.K. refused to ensure that they would secure the Partition despite appeals from the Jewish People and the Humanitarians .
They then left the Jewish People to defend themselves against the Jihadi Forces many who were led by ProNazi Islamic Leaders and from Lebanon Bosnian Nazis recruited by Al Amin Husayni Leader of Palestine who spent the World War 2 years as Hitler and Himmler Arab Propagandist .
The Israelis established the State by 1949 but Arab escapees were not welcomed by the Arab States and were put into crowded accommodations with bitterness and hate thriving .