Media Releases

Following incidents over the weekend in which Hezbollah flags were openly displayed, alongside extremist and racist slogans, at demonstrations in several Australian cities, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has called on law enforcement agencies to improve their enforcement of existing laws against offering support to listed terrorist groups as well as laws against the public display of prohibited terrorist organisation symbols.

AIJAC Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein AM stated, “The incidents we saw this weekend, where supporters of Hezbollah demonstrated in the street with Hezbollah flags while praising Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of that banned terrorist organisation, and shouting racist slogans, should be exactly the sort of actions our laws are designed to prevent. Yet, as we have seen all too often since October 7 of last year, our law enforcement agencies, state and federal, seem to bend over backwards to find ways to avoid enforcing those laws robustly.

“While we note that the Australian Federal Police are now considering charges in a number of specific cases in the wake of the pro-Hezbollah protests, what is needed is a broadly more pro-active approach to laying charges in all such cases of public support for terrorist groups, or trafficking in their symbols.”

Dr Rubenstein added, “While the right to protest is a fundamental part of Australian democracy, it does not extend to expressing open support for murderous terrorist organisations like Hezbollah or Hamas, as both state and federal laws make clear. But if law enforcement agencies are reluctant to enforce those laws – perhaps out of a misguided concern that doing so will increase communal tensions – there is not much point in having them. And if those laws cannot be enforced because of ambiguous language – as some from the law enforcement sector seem to imply – they need to be amended and clarified immediately to fulfil the original intent expressed by our political leaders when they were passed.”

Dr Rubenstein concluded, “The Hezbollah flags and the racist slogans that Australia witnessed over the weekend in our various cities  – such as the infamous ‘Khaybar, Khaybar, Ya Yahud’, [‘Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews’ invoking a seventh-century battle in which Jewish tribespeople were massacred] – are examples of both racist bigotry and support for murderous terror against civilians. As such, they risk tearing our harmonious multicultural country apart. Our lawmakers recognise this and have passed laws to counter any such importation of overseas hatred, as both members of the Government and Opposition have made clear. Now our law enforcement agencies need to make enforcing these laws a higher priority.”