I will join with protesters in Sydney this Saturday to mark 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba. I say this having visited the West Bank and seen the daily brutality myself. I will stand in solidarity with Palestinians in calling for peace with justice.
Full speech
Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (13:50): Palestinians around the world mark the Nakba, or ‘the catastrophe’, every year on 15 May, referring to the violent dispossession by Israeli forces of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948. But the deep and lasting trauma of the Nakba is an ongoing reality for millions of Palestinians, who continue to live under brutal military occupation.
Israeli military strikes in recent days have killed women and children in Gaza, people trapped behind the Israeli-imposed blockade. With the recent election of the most extremist government in Israel’s history, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the reality of the Nakba has never been more present or more terrifying for Palestinians than it is today. A second Nakba, pushed by senior members of this extremist Israeli government, is a real and growing threat.
In global solidarity with Palestinians and their allies, I want to read onto the Australian parliamentary record an extract from a resolution introduced to the US Congress by Palestinian congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. In her words, she says:
… condemn all manifestations of Israel’s ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people, including Israel’s illegal theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; Israel’s displacement of Palestinians by destroying their homes and forcing them from their land; and the daily brutality and violence inflicted by the Israeli military and Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians.
I will join with protesters in Sydney this Saturday to mark 75 years since the beginning of the Nakba. I say this having visited the West Bank and seen the daily brutality myself. I will stand in solidarity with Palestinians in calling for peace with justice.