SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon

While Australia’s universities continue to repress pro-Palestine peace protests, they gave the green light to pro-Israel events earlier this month, sparking outrage from anti-war protesters over the hypocrisy.

Israeli lobby groups StandWithUs Australia (SWU) and Israel-IS organised a series of university events this week which featured Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservists who have served during the war in Gaza, two of whom lost family members in the Hamas resistance attack on October 7, 2023.

The events were promoted as “an immersive VR experience with an inspiring interfaith panel” discussing the importance of social cohesion, on and off campus.”

Hundreds of staff and students at Monash, Sydney Uni, UNSW and UTS signed letters calling on their universities to “act swiftly to cancel the SWU event and make clear that organisations and individuals who worked with the Israel Defense Forces did not have a place on UNSW campuses.”

SWU is a global charity organisation which supports Israel and fights all conduct it perceives to be “antisemitic”. It campaigns against the United Nations and international NGOs’ findings against Israel and is currently supporting actions to suspend United States students supporting Palestine.

It established an office in Sydney in 2022 and Michael Gencher, who previously worked at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, was appointed as CEO.

The event’s co-sponsor, Israel-IS, is a similar propaganda outfit whose mission is to “connect with people before they connect with ideas” particularly through “cutting edge technologies like VR and AI.”

Among their 18 staff, one employee’s role is “IDF coordinator’” while two employees serve as “heads of Influencer Academy”.

The events were a test for management at Monash, UTS, UNSW and USyd to see how far each would go in cooperating with the Israel lobby.

Some events cancelled
At Monash, an open letter criticising the event was circulated by staff and students. The event was then cancelled without explanation.

At UNSW, 51 staff and postgraduate students signed an open letter to vice-chancellor Atilla Brungs, calling for the event’s cancellation. It was signed on their behalf by Jessica Whyte, an associate professor of philosophy in arts and law and Noam Peleg, associate professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice.

Prior to the scheduled event, Michael West Media sent questions to UNSW. After the event was scheduled to occur, the university responded to MWM, informing us that it had not taken place.

As of today, two days after the event was scheduled, vice-chancellor Brungs has not responded to the letter.

UTS warning to students
The UTS branch of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students partnered with Israel-IS in organising the UTS event, in alignment with their core “pillars” of Zionism and activism. The student group seeks to “promote a positive image of Israel on campus” to achieve its vision of a world where Jewish students are committed to Israel.

UTS Students’ Association, Palestinian Youth Society and UTS Muslim Student Society wrote to management but deputy vice-chancellor Kylie Readman rejected pleas. She replied that the event’s organisers had guaranteed it would be “a small private event focused on minority Israeli perspectives” and that speakers would only speak in a personal capacity.

While acknowledging the conflict in the Middle East was stressful for many at UTS, she then warned students, “UTS has not received formal notification of any intent to protest, as is required under the campus policy. As such, I must advise that any protest activity planned for 2nd April will be unauthorised. I would urge you to encourage students not to participate in an unauthorised protest.”

Students who allegedly breach campus policies can face disciplinary proceedings that can lead to suspension.

UTS Student Association president Mia Campbell told MWM, “The warning given by UTS about protesting definitely felt intimidating and frightening to a number of students, including myself.

“Especially as a law student, misconduct allegations can affect your admission to the profession . . .  but with all other avenues of communication exhausted between us and the university, it felt like we didn’t have a choice.

I don’t want to look back on what I was doing during this genocide and have done any less than what was possible at the time.

Sombre, but quietly angry protest
The UTS protest was sombre but quietly angry. Speakers read from lists naming dead Palestinian children.

One speaker, who has lost 120 members of his extended family in Gaza, explained why he protested: “We have to be backed into a corner, told we can’t protest, told we can’t do anything. We’ve exhausted every single policy . . . Add to all that we are threatened with misconduct.”

Do you think we can stay silent while there are people on campus who may have played a part in the killings in Gaza?

SWU at University of Sydney
University of Sydney staff and students who signed an open letter received no reply before the event.

Activists from USyd staff in support of Palestine, Students Against War and Jews Against the Occupation ‘48 began protesting outside the Michael Spence building that houses the university’s senior executives on the Wednesday evening, April 2.

Escorted by UTS security, three SWU representatives arrived. A small group was admitted. Soon afterwards, the participants could be seen from below in the building’s meeting room.

A few protesters remained and booed the attendees as they left. These included Mark Leach, a far right Christian Zionist and founder of pro-Israeli group Never Again is Now. Later on X, he condemned the protesters and described Israel as a “multi-ethnic enclave of civilisation.”

Warning letters for students
Several student activists have received letters recently warning them about breaching the new USyd code of conduct regulating protests. USyd has also adopted a definition of anti-semitism which critics say could restrict criticism of Israel.

It has been slammed by the Jewish Council of Australia as “dangerous” and “unworkable”.

A Jews against Occupation ’48 speaker, Judith Treanor, said, “Welcoming this organisation makes a mockery of this university’s stated values of respect, non-harassment, and anti-racism.

“In the context of this university’s adoption of draconian measures to stifle freedom of expression in relation to Palestine, the decision to host this event promoting Israel reveals a shocking level of hypocrisy and a huge abuse of power.”

No stranger to USyd
Michael Gencher is no stranger to USyd. Since October 2023, he has opposed student encampments and street protests.

On one occasion, he visited the USyd protest student encampment in support of Palestine with Richard Kemp, a retired British army commander who tirelessly promotes the IDF. Kemp’s most recent X post congratulates Hungary for withdrawing from “the International Criminal Kangaroo Court. Other countries should reject this political court and follow suit.”

Kemp and Gencher filmed themselves attempting to interrogate students about their knowledge of conflict in the Middle East on May 21, 2024, but the students refused to be provoked and declined to engage.

In May 2024, Gercher helped organise a joint rally at USyd with Zionist Group Together with Israel, a partner of far-right group Australian Jewish Association. Extreme Zionist Ofir Birenbaum, who was recently exposed as covertly filming staff at an inner city cafe, Cairo Takeaway, helped organise the rally.

Students at the USyd encampment told MWM  that they experienced provocative behaviour towards them during the May rally.

Opposition to StandWithUs
Those who oppose the SWU campus events draw on international findings condemning Israel and its IDF, explained in similar letters to university leaders.

After the USyd event, those who signed a letter received a response from vice-chancellor Mark Scott.

He explained, “We host a broad range of activities that reflect different perspectives — we recognise our role as a place for debate and disagreeing well, which includes tolerance of varied opinions.”

His response ignored the concerns raised, which leaves this question: Why are organisations that reject all international and humanitarian legal findings, including ones of genocide and ethnic cleansing,

being made to feel ‘safe and welcome’ when their critics risk misconduct proceedings?

SWU CEO Michael Gencher went on the attack in the Jewish press:

“We’re seeing a coordinated attempt to intimidate universities into silencing Israeli voices simply because they don’t conform to a radical political narrative.” He accused the academics of spreading “provable lies, dangerous rhetoric, and blatant hypocrisy.”

SWU regards United Nations and other findings against Israel as false.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Notes from The Edge of the Narrative Matrix
Acting on orders from the White House, immigration agents arrested a Columbia University graduate for deportation due to his leadership of campus protests against Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza last year.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is reportedly married to an American citizen and had had permanent residency in the US, but his green card has been revoked by the State Department as the Trump administration works to deport everyone they can possibly get away with deporting for criticising Israel.

This is the equivalent of the Australian government revoking the permanent residency of my American husband Tim and deporting him because of our work criticising the Gaza holocaust. The suffering that can be unleashed by a policy like this in the United States is hard to fathom.

This comes as we learn that the US government will be using AI to compile lists of people suspected of expressing support for Hamas on social media, and as the Trump administration announces that funding will be killed for any schools which allow “illegal protests” in support of Palestinians on their campuses.

I have said it before and I will say it again: there is no greater threat to free speech in our society than Israel and the Western governments who support it. Civil rights are being stomped out throughout the Western world to shut down all criticism of Israel.

We’re now seeing escalations in Western Zionism’s assault on civil rights on a daily basis. Pretty much every day I’m reading about at least one Western government silencing criticism of Israel with some new authoritarian abuse.

Zionism is the number one threat to free speech in our society.

Westerners need to understand that Israel and the West’s support for it are a direct threat to our personal freedom. This is about YOU now. If you didn’t have enough compassion to oppose Israel for its genocidal atrocities, you should at least now oppose it to protect yourself.

Arrest The Real Criminals pic.twitter.com/hPmXeFzXLP

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) March 12, 2025

❖

Trump supporters are falling all over themselves trying to justify Trump’s assaults on free speech the same way Bush supporters fell all over themselves to justify the authoritarianism of the Bush administration. Republicans haven’t changed. They think they have but they haven’t.

❖

This happens as opposition to Israel becomes more urgently needed than ever. Israel has cut off all electricity to Gaza, which is expected to cripple Gaza’s water supply by killing power to critical desalination plants. Once again this genocidal apartheid state is targeting civilians with deadly force in order to advance its depraved agendas, but anyone who wants to criticise such things is being aggressively targeted by increasingly tyrannical measures throughout the Western world.

❖

The most horrifying thing about all the footage of HTS thugs massacring people in Syria is not the violence itself, it’s how happy its perpetrators are in the videos. Grinning. Laughing. Joking. It’s deeply disturbing how easily people can be turned into monsters.

I’ve been on the receiving end of shrieking vitriol ever since I started this gig for opposing the Western empire’s regime change operations in Syria. Got a good dose of it last December when the operation finally succeeded.

Now look. Look where it landed.

Always oppose the empire.

“British troops should be in Ukraine, but I’m a conscientious objector”

Asking young British men if they’d fight in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/FGr5Xu97AA

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) March 6, 2025

There’s a video going around of young British men at some kind of pro-Ukraine event advocating sending British troops to Ukraine, and when the interviewer asks them if they themselves would volunteer to go put their own boots on the ground they act shocked and start stammering about how they’re conscientious objectors and are not physically fit enough.

It’s fascinating how often you’ll see this sort of response from Western armchair proxy warriors when you suggest that they should go and fight in this military intervention they’re so keen on perpetuating. They often cannot seem to comprehend why anyone would think it’s a compelling point that they are pushing the continuation of a war that they themselves would never agree to fight in, which is just so very revealing.

It shows that they see the idea of other people fighting and dying in a war as a completely different and unrelated category to the idea of themselves fighting and dying in a war.

It shows that they don’t view the people who fight in wars as fully human, with dreams and fears and families just like they have, who don’t want to die a violent death any more than they do. It’s genuinely never occurred to them to put themselves in the shoes of the people who are fighting and dying and getting their limbs blown off, and to think about what it would be like if the same thing were happening to them.

It’s like a video game to these people. They don’t see it as real in the same way their own lives are real. A war is something they watch unfold on social media and cheer and boo like a sporting event, not something involving real people who are just as capable of suffering and loss as they are.

A majority of Ukrainians now oppose the war and want a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible. If you want this horrific war to continue and yet you are not on front lines serving in the Foreign Legion, then you should definitely shut up.

If you want Ukrainians to keep throwing their lives into a war against their will when you yourself are unwilling to do the same, then you have failed to mature as a human being on this planet. You lack a functioning empathy center in your brain, and it’s a major character flaw, and you should go fix it.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps.

And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in the 1960s and 1980s.

But authorities have cracked down at some institutions against the peaceful demonstrations with at least 550 being arrested in the US, reports Al Jazeera.

Clashes between students and police officers have been reported across the US during intensifying university protests with encampments in at at least 20 institutions.

Ali Harb, a Washington-based commentator on US foreign policy, Arab-American issues, civil rights and politics, says the Gaza-focused campus protest movement “highlights a generational divide over Israel” in the US.

Young people are willing to challenge politicians and college administrators across the country, he says.

“The opinion gap — with younger Americans generally more supportive of Palestinians than the generations that came before them — poses a risk to 81-year-old Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election chances,” says Harb.

“It could also threaten the bipartisan backing that Israel enjoys in Washington.”

Divestment from Israel
What started as the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, where students camped inside campus to push their institute to divest from companies linked to Israel, has since spread to campuses in California, Texas and other states.

The students are protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 34,000 people and its blockade has caused starvation.

Students have been demonstrating worldwide in support of Gaza since the outbreak of the war on October 7.

Following the Columbia encampments, the protests have further spread to universities from France to Australia. Here is a summary:

In Paris, France, Sorbonne University students have taken to the streets. Additionally, the Palestine Committee from Sciences Po, is organising a protest where students set up about 10 tents on Wednesday. Despite a police crackdown, the protesters regathered on Thursday.

In Australia, students from the University of Sydney set up pro-Palestine encampments on Tuesday, and they were continuing to protest yesterday. Also, University of Melbourne students have pitched tents on the south lawn of their main campus.

In Rome, Italy, students from Sapienza University organised demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes on April 17 and April 18.

Investigating Israeli ties
In the United Kingdom, students from the University of Warwick’s group Warwick Stands With Palestine have occupied the campus piazza. In Leicester, a protest broke out on Monday in which students from the University of Leicester Palestine Society also participated.

Last month, students from the University of Leeds occupied a campus building in protest against the university’s involvement with Israel.

Hicham, a student protesting at Sciences Po, which is also called the Paris Institute of Political Studies, told Al Jazeera, “We have a few demands but one of them is to start investigating all of the ties they [Sciences Po] have with the state of Israel, which [are] academic and financial”.

The students are calling on the French government to provide more help to the Palestinians.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States.

The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of infrastructure haunted Gaza with Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave passing the 200 days milestone.

Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,500 children killed in the attack, which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance.

In Sydney, according to the university’s student newspaper, Honi Soit, the camp was established on the campus when tents were pitched “emblazoned with graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘from the river to the sea’”.

Students form several Australian universities were in attendance for the launch of the encampment, which was inaugurated with a student activist “speak out” on the subject of the war on Gaza and the demand for USyd management to drop any ties to the state of Israel.

According to the student newspaper: “Many chants that were used on US campuses in the past week were repeated at the encampment tonight like “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” followed by “Albanese/Sydney Uni you will see, Palestine will be free”.

Making our message clear!

We won’t let our university get away with being complicit with the weapons companies that arm the genocide in Gaza.#gazacampusyd #FreePalestine #FreeGaza #fromtherivertothesea pic.twitter.com/LHOqFsRg1B

— USyd SFP | Join the Gaza Solidarity Camp! (@SFP_USyd) April 24, 2024

Pro-Palestinian protests are gaining momentum at colleges and universities across the United States with street protests outside campuses as police have cracked down on the demonstrators.

Students at New York University, Columbia, Harvard and Yale are among those standing in solidarity with Palestinians and demanding an end to the war on Gaza.

Tensions flare at US universities over Gaza protests.

Tensions between pro-Palestinian student protesters and school administrators flared at several US universities Monday, as in-person classes were cancelled and demonstrators arrestedhttps://t.co/ByWzL8ZWhN pic.twitter.com/W5I08JqoBg

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 23, 2024

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from New York, said student demonstrators from New York University (NYU) gathered for hours in a park just off the campus to protest against the genocide.

The protest moved to the park following the mass arrest of 133 students and academic staff who had participated in a protest on the NYU campus the night before.

“As news spread of their arrests, so have demonstrations around the country — at other colleges and universities,” Saloomey said.

Columbia announced that it was introducing online classes for the the rest of the year to cope with the protests.

Watch Saloomey’s AJ report:

Columbia protests: Chants of ‘Azaadi’.               Video: Al Jazeera

The Al Jazeera Explainers team have put together a comprehensive report detailing the numbers that highlight the unprecedented level of violence unleashed by Israel on Gaza in the 200 days of war.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz