Published: 2 September 2025
Last updated: 2 September 2025
Warring anti-immigration and pro-Palestinian protests meant Australian city centres did not feel like safe places last weekend, not for many people and certainly not for members of the Jewish community.
In Melbourne, anti-immigration protesters clashed with pro-Palestine protesters, resulting in violent scuffles. Police made 12 arrests at the rallies and two people were taken to hospital after a related neo-Nazi attack on Camp Sovereignty, a First Nations protest site. The anti-immigration rally was addressed by Thomas Sewell, a neo-Nazi and convicted criminal who performs Nazi salutes and exhorts his followers to join a “race war”.
In other cities, scenes were less dramatic but still disturbing. In Adelaide, a rally was ended after an altercation broke out when a man who identified himself as a member of the National Socialist Network took to the stage.
In Sydney, police were spread thin trying to cover an anti-immigration protest, a pro-Palestine protest and the city’s annual marathon, each in a different part of the city. In Brisbane, a multicultural food festival had to be protected from anti-immigration protesters.
None of the protests had a specific antisemitic agenda, but Jews know too much history to feel anything but terrified by angry people who call themselves patriots and spew their anger on those who are different.
Comments2
Ruth Wilson3 September at 03:18 am
My thanks to you and your team of fearless journalists who speak to and for the sane section of the Australian Jewish community; those who are able to support the existence of Israel and at the same time acknowledge and mourn the suffering of Gazan Palestinians. It remains an imponderable mystery that neither the United Nations nor what we call ‘world opinion’ has, at any time through this awful conflict, called on Hamas to emerge from their civilian camouflaged hiding places and enable the rescue of both Israeli hostages and the Palestinians who are hostage to their own elected terrorist government.
Wesley Parish2 September at 11:14 am
Just a question – if a 2000 yr abandonment of a “homeland” still leaves you “indigenous” to it, what do we do about the English? They’re been in England for less than 2000 yrs, so are they still “indigenous” to Lower Saxony/Schleswig-Holstein? While Samaritans have been resident in Palestine for over 2000 yrs, proving the Romans didn’t exile everybody, ergo, most Palestinians are probably descended from 0CE Judaeans and Galileans.