Thousands of high school and university students across Australia ditched class on 29 February to protest in solidarity with Palestinians who continue to face severe privation, displacement and murder as part of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Greens councillors in Darebin, a local government area in Melbourne’s north, are being challenged by a grassroots campaign from community members determined to maintain the council’s position of solidarity with Palestine.
Mainstream politicians and pundits have long peddled the narrative that young people are politically disengaged, more interested in taking selfies than changing society. But the explosion of youth-led climate protests and Palestine activism indicates there is no shortage of political opinions among young people.
“Just because we’re young, it doesn’t mean we can’t have political opinions”, Ramona says. She’s a 14-year-old student at a Melbourne High School and one of the organisers of the school strike for Palestine on Thursday 23 November.
No sooner had the dust settled after that blast that killed hundreds of Palestinians at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital on 17 October than the propaganda war began.
Conservatives and right-wingers rarely miss an opportunity to present themselves as victims of political persecution by the supposedly censorious, intolerant, if not downright totalitarian, left. Yet the latest war on Gaza is once again showing that those most vulnerable to “cancel culture” are pro-Palestine voices.