Council rocked by pro-Palestine protests

A Sydney-based council was forced to phone police after hundreds of Greens-led pro-Palestine protesters crashed their final pre-election meeting, with elected officials being escorted out for their safety.

Protesters from the Inner West 4 Palestine group donned keffiyehs and descended on the Inner West Council’s meeting on Tuesday night, sparking alarm from the mayor over the group’s “continual abuse and threatening behaviour”.

Greens councillor Dylan Griffiths had moved a motion calling for the council to investigate cutting ties with companies or products associated with Israel.

After gathering outside the Ashfield Civic Centre, protesters moved inside the building while the meeting was underway.

Councillors were forced to abandon the meeting after heated scenes erupted in the council chambers during the debate over Cr Griffiths’s motion.

In a statement on Wednesday, mayor Darcy Byrne said police were called after protesters refused to allow the meeting to proceed.

He said officers needed to escort councillors and staff out as they were not able to leave the building safely.

“The intimidating and abusive conduct of this group was unsafe, dangerous and undemocratic,” Cr Byrne said.

In a statement, NSW Police said officers were called to Liverpool Rd in Ashfield in relation to a public event.

“Officers attended and were told a number of members of the public had yelled at attendees and had left before police arrived,” a spokesman said.

“There were no further incidents and (no) arrests.”
It is understood Jewish attendees were harassed by protesters at the meeting when they were allowed to speak.

Inner West 4 Palestine had been sharing and promoting the planned protest over the month on social media.

The group claims the Inner West Council is taking a “political stance in support of war criminals” and “corrupt, exploitative companies that profit off of the suffering, dispossession, oppression, and genocide of Palestinians and oppressed people around the world”.

They reference a 14-year-old decision by the neighbouring Marrickville Council to adopt a Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) motion regarding Israeli companies and products – a decision which was overturned months later.

“We now have a groundswell of support for Palestinians in our neighbourhoods,” the organisers wrote on Facebook.

“Now is the time for us to use that support to force our council to stop funding genocide and take ethical action on investment and procurement.”

Cr Griffiths’s motion on Tuesday night called for such a BDS motion.

He noted the council had previously resolved to join calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in December last year.

Cr Griffiths also referenced orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calling for the protection of Palestinians and how the occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories by Israeli forces was considered unlawful.

“The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for a boycott of Israeli and international companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinian rights,” Cr Griffiths’s motion reads, according to the council’s agenda papers.

“All peaceful popular efforts, including boycott and divestment, to hold these entities accountable for their support of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians are justified and called for.”

At least 39,897 Palestinians have been killed over the course of the Gaza Strip conflict.

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