Some marchers in pro-Palestinian rallies in Sydney and Melbourne on Sept. 29 openly carried Hezbollah flags and photos of dead terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah while chanting jihadist slogans, prompting Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to warn that he will consider cancelling the visas of anyone who incites discord.
Video from the marches shows some participants wearing Hezbollah emblems while waving its flag, which incorporates text that translates to “Hezbollah will be victorious.” Others carried photos of Nasrallah in frames with text that read, “We belong to Allah, and to him we shall return.”
In Sydney, children also carried posters of the late Hezbollah leader.
The group were filmed chanting “labayka ya Nasrallah,” which translates to “at your service, Nasrallah,” and “no more USA, no more Israel, no more Saudi Arabia.”
While the protests have been a weekly occurrence since 2023, this weekend was the biggest in Sydney in months, with up to 2,000 people attending.
Burke said “any indication of support for a terrorist organisation is unequivocally condemned” and pointed out that “it draws the immediate attention of our security agencies.”
“There is a higher level of scrutiny if anyone is on a visa. I have made clear from day one that I will consider refusing and cancelling visas for anyone who seeks to incite discord in Australia,” he said.
The Coalition’s spokesman on home affairs, James Paterson, echoed the minister, writing on X that it was “Disturbing to see symbols of a listed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, prominently displayed on the streets of Melbourne & Sydney today. This is a clear contravention of 80.2HA of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It’s time for police to enforce the law.”
Speaking to reporters he said the “shocking scenes on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne are the direct result of the weakness shown by the Albanese government over the past 12 months. The law is clear. Incitement to violence based on religion is a crime.”
Masjid Arrahman mosque, which has 10,000 followers on Facebook, announced a service for “for the souls of the righteous martyrs, the master of resistance, (may God be pleased with him), and the souls of the martyrs who ascended with him, and the martyrs of Lebanon, Palestine, and our Islamic world.”
Meanwhile, a call for a clear timeline for the creation of a Palestinian state by Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has been criticised by both the left and right of politics.
Speaking on the floor of the United Nations on Sept. 28, Wong said recognition of Palestine was no longer the “destination of a peace process” but instead should be imposed by the international community to build “momentum towards peace.”
“The world cannot wait. Australia wants to engage on new ways to build momentum, including the role of the UN Security Council in setting a pathway for two states, with a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood. The world cannot keep hoping the parties will do this themselves; we cannot allow any party to obstruct the prospect of peace,” she said.
Greens leader Adam Bandt responded by calling the statement “empty words.”
“Labor is again delaying the recognition of Palestine, breaking an election commitment and pretending they need permission for something they have the power to do right now,” he said.
Meanwhile his deputy, Mehreen Faruqi, wrote in a social media post that “Colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy doesn’t just exist at neo-Nazi rallies, it wears expensive suits in Canberra and it sits on editorial boards.”
Nationals’ Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said Wong’s calls for a timeline were made purely for political reasons, to placate voters in western Sydney, which has the highest proportions of Muslim constituents in the country.
“Penny Wong ... is absolutely playing domestic politics with a very, very serious situation,” McKenzie said. ”She is trashing our decades-long bipartisan approach to a negotiated two-state solution in the Middle East.”
