Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Middle East conflict

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:40): (923) My adjournment matter is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for the Premier to meet with Victorian community members who are protesting in support of Palestine. Just this morning there was a report of a second airstrike on a tent camp in Rafah, the designated evacuation zone of Gaza – a humanitarian zone and a place where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering. The strike killed 21 Palestinians and injured 60. This report was only two days after Israel killed 45 people in a similar strike on a tent camp in Rafah. The video and images of this horrific attack fit in alongside months and months of almost identical footage of people dying and children dying in the most gruesome of ways – still in their nappies, in their favourite jumpers, calling for someone to help them.

But you turn around and say, ‘Why would anyone protest if not for political gain?’ The Labor government sees the atrocities being committed against the Palestinian people and sees the community crying out and doing everything they can to get you to listen and end our partnerships with weapons companies. You see the pain, the suffering and the hurt in the community, and then you accuse them of manufacturing it for political gain. You accuse them of bringing division to the streets. It is beyond belief. It is horrifying. It is insulting. Then to top it off, you tell those people – people who want peace and an end to the occupation and end to the suffering – that they are uneducated on history and that they are falling for misinformation. How uneducated is it to know the value of a child’s life? Are those recorded civilian deaths, those children who died, simply misinformation? The people on the streets are calling for a ceasefire, an enduring peace and for you to end partnerships with weapons companies – a bare minimum request – and in response you insult them.