Joint ECAJ-NSWBoD statement.

The CEO of the NSW Jew­ish Board of Deputies Michele Gold­man, and the Head of Legal of the ECAJ have issued the fol­low­ing joint state­ment after the con­clu­sion of pro­ceed­ings in the NSW Court of Appeal ear­li­er today con­cern­ing the pro­posed protest at Syd­ney Opera House on Octo­ber 12.

“The right to engage in pub­lic protest is fun­da­men­tal but not unlim­it­ed. Like all rights it has to be bal­anced against the equal­ly fun­da­men­tal rights of oth­er peo­ple. The first major Gaza protest took place at the fore­court of the Opera House two days after the Hamas atroc­i­ties against Israel on 7 Octo­ber 2023. The protest became noto­ri­ous for its chants of “f… the Jews”, flag burn­ing and oth­er acts that des­e­crat­ed one of our nation­al icons and brought inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion upon Aus­tralia.”

“This protest set the tone for far too many oth­ers that have fol­lowed. They have tak­en over major pub­lic spaces on a week­ly basis and made them no-go areas for Jew­ish Aus­tralians or any oth­er Aus­tralians who dis­agree with the views of the pro­test­ers. No cit­i­zens should be sub­ject­ed to these kinds of restric­tions on their free­dom and should be able to go about their dai­ly lives any­where in pub­lic with­out fac­ing threats, harass­ment or intim­i­da­tion.”

“Despite this, at no time in the two years since the Hamas atroc­i­ties in Israel sparked the cur­rent war, have we sought to legal­ly chal­lenge a pro­posed march or alter its route. Even now, we are not attempt­ing to stop peo­ple from protest­ing. But the protest organ­is­ers’ cal­cu­lat­ed deci­sion to locate this lat­est protest at the Syd­ney Opera House, and to time it with­in days of the raw emo­tions evoked by the anniver­sary of the 7 Octo­ber atroc­i­ties and the 9 Octo­ber riotous scenes, is cal­lous and rep­re­hen­si­ble.”

“This is all the more rea­son why the Court was right not to autho­rise the protest to take over the Opera House precinct and risk repeat­ing the dis­grace­ful scenes of two years ago. Our com­mu­ni­ty feels relieved and vin­di­cat­ed by this deci­sion, and we know from the many mes­sages of sup­port we have received from the wider com­mu­ni­ty that many oth­ers share this view.”