2 hours ago
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Not all protests have a violent intent or target a group as illegitimate. But there are many Jewish people in Australia who feel that they are being attacked and that violence is being fomented against them. They see it every day when they watch the news, they worry about it when they see security guards at their schools or when at their synagogues, and they hear it when they are told that they have no right to cultural safety if they believe in the right of Jewish people to a homeland.
After the terrorist shootings at Bondi, the New South Wales government has empowered the police commissioner to put limits on protests or to ban them. The problem is that in allowing the banning of all protests, our laws go too far. They treat every protest as the same, without regard to intent, conduct, or risk.
In the context of a terrorist massacre at Bondi beach and violent attacks in Melbourne and Perth, it is not unreasonable to ask what does it mean to have a safe and thriving democracy? What does it mean to protect citizens while safeguarding free speech?
These are precisely the questions we must confront as the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, prepares to visit Australia.
I grew up in a different age. One where Martin Luther King Jr reminded the world that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time. That philosophy has long imbued my work. Last September, I retraced part of the Freedom Riders’ journey through the American south. In seeking to understand the impact of systemic discrimination and the power and meaning of peaceful protest, I was also overwhelmed by the reminders of the significant violence directed at the peaceful protesters and representatives of the civil rights movement.
Little did I know how soon those lessons would resonate here at home, as Australia finds itself in a sharp and painful debate about the right to protest and violent attacks designed to intimidate and sow fear.
True safety is not built by sweeping dissent from the streets. It is built by defending the right of every citizen to peacefully call for justice, while ensuring that no one is subjected to intimidation, harassment or violence.
Sadly, over very recent months, we have seen the opposite. Jews have been murdered celebrating a religious festival and Jewish communities are feeling vulnerable and threatened by the language and messaging of some protesters. We have also seen neo-Nazis brazenly attack Camp Sovereignty in Victoria and an attempted bombing at a peaceful Invasion Day protest in Western Australia, which has now been identified as a terrorist act.
In expanding protest restrictions across Sydney, the NSW police commissioner explicitly cited Herzog’s upcoming visit, implying that public dissent against a foreign leader could somehow threaten peace and security at home.
As a former mayor of Waverley and a member of the Jewish community, I understand the deep personal impact of the shootings to the Bondi community. The 14 December attack was not just another news headline; it was a violation of sanctuary. For many Jewish Australians, Bondi is more than a postcode, it’s a place where we meet, live, pray and belong. Respecting that collective trauma is not only a matter of policy; it’s a moral imperative.
In this moment of deep division, we should look again to Dr King’s legacy. He understood that peaceful protest is not an act of hate, it is a profound expression of care for a nation’s moral health. He never called for the delegitimising of another group or resorted to violence. Instead, he used the language of love and solidarity to challenge entrenched power. “True peace,” he famously taught, “is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
By restricting the right to protest, our state seeks an artificial quiet, an enforced calm at the expense of justice.
The government’s decision to roll out the red carpet for President Herzog while simultaneously establishing “exclusion zones” for the public is a misstep, one likely to deepen the rift between already polarised communities. People must be able to peacefully voice their objections to the horrors of war in Gaza, against the violence of ultra-Orthodox settlers in the West Bank, the massacre of Iranian protesters or the terror unleashed by Hamas.
Protest, when done peacefully and without hate, is not only legitimate – it is vital.
But let me be equally clear: support for protest is not, of itself, support for hatred or intimidation. The power of protest is not just in its volume but in its values. It loses its moral force when it is laced with threats, language that denies the suffering of others, or rhetoric that calls for violence. We must challenge injustice with integrity. Peaceful protest must never become a platform for antisemitism or the dehumanisation of any community.
The Bondi tragedy should have brought us together in grief and resolve. Instead, the so-called “Bondi laws” are being used to shield a visiting politician from people seeking accountability. If we allow the state to decide which leaders are too controversial to criticise, we are not ensuring public safety, we are undermining the implied constitutional freedom of political expression.
Allowing fair and peaceful criticism of a foreign head of state, even amid a deeply fraught Middle Eastern crisis, is not antisemitism. Protest itself is not an attack on the Jewish people. We cannot let terrorists win by driving deeper wedges between us. Yes, Jewish Australians must be able to walk through Bondi without fear or harassment. But Palestinians and their allies must also be able to stand in Martin Place and criticise the manner in which the Israeli government conducts itself.
Perhaps now is the time to reclaim King’s dream: a dream forged in love, tested by fire, and handed down to each generation. Love, sadly, cannot be legislated. But we can, and must, protect the freedom to express it. The challenge before us now is how to balance the right to protest with the responsibility to keep all communities safe. The question is not whether we value safety or liberty more but whether we have tipped the scales too far in one direction.
In moments like this, it is our commitment to both justice and free expression that will determine the kind of country we become.
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George Newhouse AM is a former mayor of Waverley and a member of the Sydney Jewish Community
