At the eighteenth meeting of the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Rev. Alex Sangster and I presented a proposal condemning antisemitic acts in Australia, while pointing out that protesting genocide is not antisemitic and encouraging members of the Uniting Church in Victoria and Tasmania to do so. The proposal was passed without amendment. This is the text of that proposal, the rationale for it, and the words of the speech I made presenting it.

Non-Violent Anti-Genocide Action

The Synod resolved:

Noting that groups including Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Defence for Children International, International Federation for Human Rights, Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have all described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide:

1. To condemn antisemitic acts against the Jewish community in Australia, including the arson attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea and the City Shul in Melbourne;
2. To condemn the mischaracterisation of non-violent anti-genocide action as antisemitic;
3. To encourage Uniting Church members in Victoria and Tasmania to engage in non-violent anti-genocide action, and
4. To write to the Prime Minister, the federal Leader of the Opposition, and the Premiers and Leaders of the Opposition in Victoria and Tasmania, informing them of this resolution.

Rationale

The world is currently watching the first live-streamed genocide. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 18,000 children and at least 44,000 adults in Gaza; the actual number of Palestinians who have died in Gaza because of Israel’s actions is much higher. Israel has also killed at least one thousand Palestinians in the West Bank over the same period.

At its July 2025 meeting, the Assembly Standing Committee adopted the recent statement of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee on Palestine and Israel as the official position of the Uniting Church Assembly. The WCC statement, A Call to End Apartheid, Occupation, and Impunity in Palestine and Israel, recognises a clear distinction between the Jewish people and the acts of the Government of Israel, the unbearable suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza, and the escalating violence and oppression in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. It calls churches to witness, to speak out, and to act.

For most Sundays since October 7, 2023, a non-violent anti-genocide protest march has been held in Melbourne. Other non-violent actions have taken place outside politicians’ offices, outside weapons’ manufacturers, at businesses owned by people involved in Israel’s actions in Gaza, and at public institutions that have accepted donations from funds that also support Israel.

Victoria Police have made no connection between any of these anti-genocide actions and the antisemitic arson attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea and the City Shul in Melbourne. That connection has however been made by both politicians and the media. The Victorian Premier specifically referred to the fire-bombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in proposing new laws limiting the right to protest in Victoria. On 21 August, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Australian anti-genocide protesters should be ‘counteracted’.

A recent case in the Federal Court has clarified that ‘political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity’ and ‘[t]he conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other.’ (Wertheim v Haddad [2025] FCA 720)

Non-violent action can include writing letters to politicians and the media, signing petitions, making deputations to politicians, remembering the dead in vigils, participating in protest marches, boycotting or picketing businesses, or engaging in student strikes. The Palestine Israel Ecumenical Network has many suggestions of non-violent actions Christians can take.

Non-violent action can have an outcome; while correlation is not causation, it was in the week following the March for Palestine across the Sydney Harbour Bridge that the Australian government announced that it would recognise a Palestinian State.

My speech at Synod

One year ago, Omer Bartov, Israeli American historian and Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, described what Israel was doing in Gaza as genocidal. Having served in the IDF, believing in the State of Israel, this was a conclusion to which he came reluctantly. Still, he wrote: ‘at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024, it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions.’

About 63,000 Palestinians have been confirmed killed in Gaza. More than 18,000 of those were children. UNICEF says, ‘An average of 28 children have been killed each day – the equivalent of an entire classroom.’ An internal Israeli intelligence database says that at least 83% of those Israel has killed in Gaza were civilians.

These civilians include about 200 journalists and media workers, more than were killed in World Wars One and Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. They include more than 1500 health workers. By the end of 2024, 344 humanitarian workers had been killed, including Australian Zomi Frankcom.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification organisation has now confirmed that Gaza is in Famine. Over half a million people are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution, and death. At least 322 Palestinians have died of starvation. More than 80% of Gaza’s health, water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged, leading among other things to a polio outbreak.

And in news released today, the International Association of Genocide Scholars have agreed that ‘Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in article II of the United Nations convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (1948).’

Protesting this is not antisemitic. Nothing that non-Jews say about what is happening in Gaza can compare to what disputants within the Jewish community say. But for their own reasons, elements of the media and some politicians have said that Australian anti-genocide actions are antisemitic. This means that Jewish Australians are being told that hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens hate them and wish them harm.

When I attend the weekly anti-genocide rallies in Melbourne, I appreciate that speakers remind marchers that there is no place in our movement for any racism or violence. On the Sunday after the Adass Israel Synagogue was firebombed Nasser Mashni, the President of the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, condemned the attack saying: ‘To whomever set fire to [it], know this, you are a racist, you are a fascist, you are a Nazi. We stand in solidarity with [Jewish Australians].’

One Jewish participant in the march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge wrote about her meeting with another Jewish participant: ‘I looked over at my new friend who now had tears streaming down her face. During a lull she explained how she wished her friends could experience the love we were receiving, how they had been afraid to come, how they had expected the crowds to be hostile because of them being Jewish. Instead, there was only love.’

We cannot ensure that every Jewish Australian attends an anti-genocide march and experiences that love. But we can speak up against the misrepresentation of anti-genocide protests as antisemitic.

Avril Hannah-Jones
2 September 2025