THE demonstration outside the State Library was stupid and ill-conceived. The fact that US President Donald Trump shifted the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem shouldn’t anger Melburnians.
These kind of protests have the potential to raise foreign tensions that have no place in Australia. And let’s face it, there’s nothing local demonstrators can achieve that will influence events in the Middle East. These placard-waving demonstrators need to grow a brain before they engage in such un-Australian behaviour.
It’s time we realised that imported ethnic rivalries have no place in this country.
For decades we’ve happily welcomed migrants from all corners of the globe — but we need to take a stand against public displays of historic friction based on religion, race and culture.
And that’s why Wednesday’s antagonism between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators deserves condemnation. If those who took part in this protest are so keen to re-fight the wars of the Middle East, let’s deport them overseas where they can hate each other to their hearts’ content.
Conflict between Jews and Muslims goes back a long, long time. Members of those two rival religions have hated and killed each other on a regular basis since the 7th Century. Right now the well-organised Israelis appear to have the upper hand against Islamic rivals such as the Palestinians.
That may change in the future, indeed as it has on many occasions in the past.
Read the opinion piece by Tom Elliot in the Herald Sun.