Inspiring ideas from Tony Benn

Mike Phipps reviews The Most Dangerous Man in Britain?: The Political Writings, by Tony Benn, published by Verso.

There’s good reason for a new collection of Tony Benn’s selected writings, set out by his daughter Melissa in the Foreword to this book:  “More than ten years after his death, his pithy soundbites and video extracts of his most passionate speeches regularly circulate on social media forums such as X and TikTok. None of his influential and accomplished peers, from Roy Jenkins to Tony Crosland, provoke anything like the same degree of contemporary popular interest.”

Elected to the House of Commons in 1950 at just 25 years of age, Benn did not immediately align himself with either left or right faction, but played a significant role in opposing the Suez adventure a few years later. It was his experience of government which radicalised him, and as Secretary of State for Industry in 1974 he developed plans for the expansion of public ownership. His radicalism made him the target of a viciously hostile press and it would be decades before he was regarded as a ‘national treasure’ – long after his challenge for Labour’s leadership in 1976 and deputy leadership in 1981 – when in later life he became a kind of “secular preacher” on global events.

The book contains sections on the British state, democracy, industry, global affairs and radical thinking. They underline Benn’s thirst for a real, participatory democracy, ending the crown prerogatives and privileges built into the British state, and expanding popular control of decision-making at all levels, including democratising the media and the running of industry and devolving power away from Whitehall.

There are some thought-provoking pieces included here, such as a speech where Benn details his views on Marxism and why it is such an abused and feared set of beliefs. The idea of the Labour Party without Marx, he argues, is “unthinkable”. But he also ponders Marxism’s limitations in terms of personal morality and democratic accountability.

Another neglected piece is Benn’s 1970 response in Melody Maker to an article by Mick Farren, the head of the Yippies (Youth International Party), which was active in the US anti-war movement. Filleting out issues of lifestyle, Benn finds a lot to agree with in Farren’s diagnosis of the ills of modern corporate and bureaucratic society.

What really brings this book to life, however, is Benn’s decades of militant internationalism: his call for sanctions against apartheid South Africa in 1964, his 1982 Commons speech denouncing the government’s hypocrisy and jingoism in the Falklands War, his brave call for the government to set a date for ending its jurisdiction over the North of Ireland in the aftermath of the IRA Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen in 1998 and his now famous 1998 speech against war on Iraq – “Every member of Parliament who votes for the government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting responsibility for the deaths of innocent people.”

It’s also worth quoting extensively from his short speech to the huge million-strong anti-Iraq War demonstration in February 2003, for the way he connected key ideas:

“We are here today to found a new political movement worldwide. The biggest demonstration ever in Britain. The first global demonstration. And its first cause is to prevent a war against Iraq. It must also be about other matters as well. It must be about the establishment of a Palestinian state…

“While we are here, 35 million people die every year of hunger. While 500 billionaires have the same income as half the population of the world put together. That the world in which we live is dominated by the military, the media and the multinationals. And what we are about is getting democracy all over the world. So we can build a world that is safe for our children and grandchildren. That is what it is about.

“If there are to be inspectors in Iraq, I would like there to be inspectors in Israel. inspectors in Britain. Inspectors in the United States. I want to see the United Nations take sanctions against the arms manufacturers who supply weapons all over the world. I want to see the money wasted on weapons of mass destruction diverted to give the world what it needs. Which is food, and clothing, and housing. And schools and hospitals. And to protect the old, the sick and the disabled. My friends, that is what we are here about today.”

With over 65 active years in public life, Benn’s output in speeches and articles was phenomenal. The contributions gathered here underline just how ahead of their time he and many of his fellow socialists were. Let’s hope they inspire a new, younger, audience.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

UK

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right

The rise of the populist right has been both remarkable and rapid. Mark Perryman introduces a day of participative discussion exploring both the reasons for the rise and the ideas we need to reverse it.

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right on Saturday 12th July couldn’t be a more timely, and urgent, event.

When Lewes Labour began planning our July 2025 event, the proximity to the May local elections seemed to make the theme The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right a good candidate for topicality. Oh, how we wish we were wrong!  

The elections saw Reform overturn a massive Labour majority of 14,696 in Runcorn, the 49th safest Labour seat in the country. It won two mayoral elections and a majority on nine county councils, with 648 Reform UK councillors elected.

In the space of just twelve months, Nigel Farage has broken the two-party system. If Reform UK’s progress doesn’t prove to be ‘resistible’ the consequences for the 2029 General Election don’t bear thinking about. 

How do we ensure the ‘resistible’ becomes a reality?  

Last Thursday, Labour defied all predictions, not only winning the Hamilton Scottish Parliament by-election, taking the seat from the SNP, but also halting Reform UK’s recent string of victories. Farage had led the Reform UK campaign himself with nakedly racist messaging against the leader of Labour in Scotland, Anas Sarwar.    

The good news from Hamilton is the rise of the populist right can be resisted.

The bad news is: despite coming third, Reform still attracted 26.1% of the vote, far higher than anything Farage ever achieved in Scotland with either UKIP or the Brexit Party. If they translate that share of the vote into votes at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election they will be the second biggest party.

There has been a rapid rise in support for Reform UK and President Trump, and the AfD breakthrough in Germany, while elsewhere in Europe – Austria, France, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain – the populist right are either in government or leading the opposition.

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right is a day to participate in gathering together an understanding of Far Right ideology, anti-immigration policies and nativist nationalism, that frame this rise, in order to cause it to be defeated.

The day opens with a keynote talk by Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar, the co-authors of one of the most important books of recent years on the day’s theme The Little Black Book of the Populist Right.

Jon and David’s keynotes will be an unrivalled insight into the politics behind the populist right. Q&As with each give all participants the opportunity to quiz their analysis. Chairs are Gill Short and Joy Mercer, Lewes Labour event facilitators.

The afternoon is then divided into three parallel 90-minute small group discussions, each with a single speaker opening for 30 minutes to enable the maximum participation.

Nick Lowles, Founder and Chief Executive of Hope not Hate, which describes itself as a “mission to work tirelessly to expose and oppose Far Right extremism,” will provide an in-depth briefing on how Reform UK is both a product of and producer of the Far Right.

Eleanor Shearer, Senior Research Fellow at the think tank Common Wealth and a researcher into the legacy of slavery, did research that inspired her debut novel River Sing Me Home, currently being turned into a film. Eleanor will outline the vital socio-economic context to the immigration debate that too many would rather wasn’t heard.

Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, which produces reports on immigration, integration and national identity and author How to be a Patriot: Why love of country can end our very British culture war, will explore how to construct a popular conversation on race and nation free of the division such an exchange often generates.

To close, a roundtable of campaigners:

Annie Ralph from the Lewes Refugee Support Group joins Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Labour’s 2024 General Election candidate against Nigel Farage, and Val Ruston, Director of the Culture Connect Project in Newhaven, to respond to the day’s discussions with their practical experience of working with refugees and asylum seekers, promoting the value of diversity in communities, combating Islamophobia, encouraging ethnic minority representation in politics and more.

The event coincides with the Durham Miners Gala. It’s a  sobering thought that Durham County Council is now controlled by Reform UK.

Presented by Lewes Constituency Labour Party in association with CWU South East Region. Book your place here.

 

Colonial Mining Fuels Israeli Genocide: Global Protests Target Glencore AGM

Pavan Kulkarni | 02 Jun 2025

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Glencore, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates at the confluence of worker exploitation, environmental destruction, and genocide, brought Palestine solidarity activists, trade unionists and mining affected communities together in a unified protest.

Allies take place outside Glencore offices ahead of Annual General Meeting in Switzerland. Photo: Screenshot

In a protest against Glencore, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates fueling Israel’s genocide in Gaza and devastating the environment of the local communities in the mining towns in Africa and South America, activists organized a global day of action on Wednesday, May 28.

Demonstrations were reported in South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Germany, and Switzerland, where the Anglo-Swiss multinational held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) that day. 

The company’s shareholders have gathered in Switzerland “to celebrate the record profits” it makes by extracting and transporting coal to “the genocidal state of Israel” where it is “used to fuel the killing machine,” Socialist Youth Movement member Zaki Mamdoo told Newzroom Afrika.

He was a part of the march to Glencore’s South Africa head office in Johannesburg, where a demonstration was organized by Palestine solidarity activists, trade unionists, and other civil society groups. 

“Glencore is directly fueling Israel as they commit their genocide against the people of Palestine,” said South African Jews for a Free Palestine, describing Glencore’s owners as “some of the most complicit individuals in Johannesburg.”

“The air is dark. The trees are dark. The soil is dark.”

In the meantime, the environmental destruction, especially by its coal mining operations in South Africa, DR Congo, Peru, and Colombia, is devastating the health and livelihoods of the local communities.

“That is the reason most of the people taking part in these demonstrations alongside the activists were the people from the mining-affected communities,” Mametlwe Sebei, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA), told Peoples Dispatch.

In mining areas like Witbank, “the entire city is covered in dark clouds. The air is dark. The trees are dark. The soil is dark,” he said, adding that the resulting health ailments beginning with lungs have killed hundreds of residents and mine workers paid survival wages. 

“Colonial mining”

Leaving such devastation behind, coal mining by Glencore and other multinationals does not contribute anything to the South African economy, beyond the pittance paid to cheap black immigrant labor hired to work in the mines, Sebei emphasized. 

Mostly exported raw, the mining of these minerals does not create any jobs upstream in processing and manufacturing. This kind of “colonial mining” has not brought any development, he added. 

“It has not brought any healthcare or education to people affected. It has not resulted in the improvement of any public infrastructure, except the roads needed to take out the minerals.”   

He went on to observe that it is this same predatory extractivism that drove the imperialist powers to set up the genocidal settler colonial project of Israel, as a means to exert control over West Asia to monopolize its oil reserves that “are critical for modern industrial capitalism.” 

Struggle for a free Palestine is intrinsically connected to class struggle in South Africa

Glencore is at the confluence of worker exploitation, environmental destruction, and genocide, all driven by the same logic of “imperialist extractivism”, Sebei said, explaining why the struggle for a free Palestine is intrinsically connected to the class struggle in South Africa.  

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the country’s largest trade union federation affiliated with the ruling African National Congress (ANC), has also echoed such analysis in its statement backing the demand that Glencore stop coal exports from South Africa to Israel.

“The war on Gaza” is “directly related to the desperation for energy control by the monopolies. This is why the struggle for a free Palestine is at the same time a struggle for a new, just, and democratic economic model of development for humanity as a whole,” read its statement last year, when 200 unionists and other activists protested outside Glencore’s office in Johannesburg.

“22% of its [Israel’s] energy comes from coal. Glencore is the biggest coal mining company here sending coal to Israel. So we’re calling today on our government to end coal sales to Israel,” South African BDS Coalition coordinator Roshan Dadoo said at this demonstration in August 2024, two days after the progressive government of Colombia had banned coal exports to Israel.

“Given the fact that the International Court of Justice has ruled in January… that there’s a plausibility that Israel is committing genocide… what is Glencore doing to review its relationship with Israel,” asked a shareholder proxy during Glencore’s previous AGM in Switzerland in May 2024. 

“Do you recognize that maintaining such a business relationship could lead to people thinking that Glencore is aiding and abetting a potential genocide and that this could lead to criminal liability?”

Glencore’s chairman Kalidas Madhavpeddi had dismissed her question, saying that it had “no merit at all.” But she persisted, asking if Glencore was “conducting human rights assessments on the use of the coal you’re exporting to Israel to ensure that you’re not held liable.”  

Replying that “the company supplies to many countries around the world,” Madhavpeddi said “It’s almost impossible to tell you the answer to your question,” refusing to field further questions from her.

Expropriate!

“In many ways, they are doing what they are supposed to be doing – extracting record profits. That is by design… that is what they are set up to do,” Mamdoo, who is also a member of the Workers and Socialist Party, added in his news byte from the demonstration on Wednesday.

“So when we are dealing with Glencore” the halt of South African coal export to Israel is an immediate demand because “people are dying in their hundreds day in and day out, children are being burnt alive” and starved to death. 

“But the struggle doesn’t end there. Ultimately we need to be moving toward the expulsion and expropriation of Glencore and all companies like it” so that the means of production it now privately owns can be used to cater to South African people’s developmental needs, rather than a genocide abroad.

 INDIA

Govt Should Not Rush Into 49% FDI in Nuclear Power, Warns People’s Commission

NewsclickReport | 03 Jun 2025

The organisation cited potential safety risks and impact on country’s self-reliance in nuclear power. It called for setting up a nuclear regulatory authority.

Representational use only.Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Newsclick Report

New Delhi: The Peoples’ Commission on Public Sector and Public Services (PCPSPS) has expressed deep concern over India’s emerging nuclear strategy that may impact the country’s self-reliance, and has urged the Centre not to rush in for 49% FDI in nuclear power plants.

In a public statement, PCPSPS, consisting of academics, jurists, erstwhile administrators, trade unionists and social activists, highlighted the potential risks around a nuclear power plant, up to the range of 80km around it, while noting that in recent times the “Centre has rushed into announcing the setting up of a nuclear power plants at numerous locations, including Anakapalle in AP, Kasargod district in Kerala and in Goa.

Among other things, the organisation also called upon the Department of Atomic Energy to halt any further delay in processing a Bill for setting up an independent nuclear regulatory authority on the lines suggested by a Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2012.

 

Read the full statement below:

People’s Commission Expresses Deep Concern Over India’s Emerging Nuclear Strategy

Date: 02.06.2025

 

Peoples Commission expresses concerns at the following recent developments which are likely to pose a serious setback to India's quest for self-reliance in the field of nuclear energy.

1. In her latest Budget Speech, the Finance Minister's had indicated that India would consider amending the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA) for promoting domestic and foreign investments in the field of nuclear energy.
2. The NDA government proposes not only to continue its predecessor's imprudent policy of setting up nuclear power plants based on imported reactors and imported fuel but also steeply increasing India's reliance on imported reactors by planning to add 100GW of nuclear power capacity based on such a strategy
3. The Central government is reported to be considering a proposal to permit 49% FDI in nuclear power plants.
4. In August 2023, the Centre permitted private mining of beach sands through an amendment to the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act (MMDRA), opening the floodgates to export of strategic atomic minerals such as Titanium and Thorium-rich Monazite at the cost of compromising the long-term three-stage nuclear development strategy envisioned by Dr Homi J Bhabha, the architect of India's nuclear establishment.

CLNDA: The intent of CLDNA is to apportion liability for an accident at a nuclear power plant between NPCIL, the operator of nuclear power plants and the reactor suppliers. In such an arrangement, NPCIL should have the right to recourse for liability against rector suppliers for accidents arising from (i) defects in the design of their reactors, (ii) sub-standard materials used in their reactors, or (iii) gross negligence on the part of reactor manufacturers in ensuring the required quality of the material, equipment or services provided for operating the reactor, whereas the then UPA government under external pressure, proposed to provide an escape route to reactor suppliers through Clause 17(b) so as to exempt them from such liability. Though the Parliamentary Standing Committee at that time suggested plugging the loophole and the BJP in opposition adopted a firm stand on it, the version proposed by the UPA survived. The western MNCs who supply reactors to India have been demanding further dilution of the Act to benefit them at the cost of the Indian tax payer and what the DAE is planning to do now, as announced by the FM in her Budget speech, would amount to surrendering national interest to subserve the commercial interests of those MNCs.

Any dilution of accident liability as cited above would indirectly incentivise the reactor manufacturer to cut corners in designing reactors for safety and, considering that accident liability arising from a serious Fukushima-like disaster running into trillions of dollars, any such exemption could cripple India's finances. It is noteworthy that nuclear power plants in India are subject to regulation by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) which in itself is subordinate to the DAE whose facilities it is expected to regulate. Post-Fukushima, the DAE proposed a Bill to create a more independent regulatory authority but it never saw the light of the day. In the existing environment of regulation of the operation of nuclear power plants, it would be all the more risk- prone to permit large nuclear power complexes based on multiple imported reactors to operate.

We therefore feel that the existing CLNDA needs to be strengthened as proposed by the then Parliamentary Standing Committee, rather than diluting it further. India should uphold the national interest by resisting external pressures in that respect.

The US President issued an Executive Order on May 23, 2025 that the federal government would give a boost to US nuclear reactor exports to other countries and for that purpose step up diplomatic pressure on reactor-importing countries. We feel that India should tread cautiously in this respect and ensure that, instead of meekly yielding to US pressure, it resists it in order to uphold the national interest in every respect 100 GW nuclear power capacity based largely on imported nuclear reactors and imported Uranium fuel:Apart from the fact that such vast expansion of nuclear power generation capacity based largely on imported reactors will imply a sharp deviation from the long-term strategy envisioned by Dr Bhabha, a wide range of reactors of different makes and technological features will render their maintenance costly. Electricity generated from imported Uranium will be expensive as imported Uranium is subject to the vagaries of the global Uranium market and also to the value of the Indian rupee in the foreign exchange market. India's bilateral nuclear deals do not permit transparent, competitive discovery of the price of either the reactors or the fuel. Once such plants come into operation, the State power utilities will have no option to exercise their right to buy electricity in merit order, as they are mandated to absorb nuclear electricity at any cost.

In recent times, we find that the Centre has rushed into announcing the setting up of a nuclear power plants at numerous locations across the country, including Anakapalle in AP, Kasargod district in Kerala and in Goa. Keeping the safety concerns in view, it is now recognised globally that there could be potential risks around a nuclear power plant upto a range of 80 km around it.

As far as India is concerned, the regulatory authority, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has notified the following zones from the risk point of view.

Zone	Distance from the site
Exclusion Zone (where no habitations are permitted)	1 km
Natural Growth Zone (Where no development activity should be taken up that is likely to increase the density of population)	5 km
Emergency Planning Zone (where the local authorities should be ready and equipped to evacuate people in the event of occurrence of a nuclear accident)	16 km
Radiological Surveillance Zone (where radioactivity levels will be monitored regularly to prevent adverse health impacts)	30 km

In other words, while globally, it has been recognised that toxic radiation effect around a nuclear power plant can extend up to 80km, even according to NPCIL's own norms, it will extend up to 30km around the plant, necessitating close radiological monitoring. When a Fukushima-like accident were to take place, a contingency that cannot be ruled out, it can be worse, as it would then necessitate large-scale evacuation of people. More than a decade after its occurrence, the clean up operation is still going on, with some estimates indicating that it could extend over decades, with the costs running into trillions of dollars. Neither the DAE nor the States have taken the people in confidence of this possibility.

With most nuclear power plant sites proposing to have multiple reactors, the cumulative impact of a nuclear disaster could be enormous, especially in a regulatory environment that is anything but independent and strong.

It is ironic that India should opt in favour of such expensive, risk-prone, imported nuclear electricity at the cost of promoting self-reliance in the field of nuclear energy, by reducing its reliance on indigenously available coal which India produces in large quantities. Coal mining and production are highly employment-intensive, whereas India importing nuclear reactors will result in employment benefits accruing to supplier countries, rather than in India.

We feel that it is highly imprudent for India to shift its emphasis from self-reliance in nuclear power to large-scale dependence on imported reactors MMDRA amendment to re-introduce private mining in beach sands: India's beach sands, especially along the Odisha, AP, Tamil Nadu, Kerala coasts, contain several strategic atomic minerals including Titanium and Monazite, the raw material for Thorium, the fuel for the third stage of India's nuclear power development programme. The Monazite deposits in India constitute a significant portion of the deposits available globally.

It was at the instance of Bhabha that India imposed a total ban on private mining of beach sands. Caving in to external pressures, the UPA govt opened up beach sand mining to private miners and relaxed regulations that allowed clandestine export of atomic minerals. Subsequently, as a sequel to court cases, the Union Ministry of Mines at the instance of the DAE imposed a total ban on private mining of beach sands in 2019. However, once again, yielding to external influence, the government abruptly amended the Mines & Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act (MMDRA) in 2023, once again paving the way for clandestine export of Monazite, Titanium etc.

India has apparently not learnt lessons from past experience with mining of beach sands by domestic miners and instances of corruption in the case of overseas miners.

In our view, the government should revoke the above cited MMDRA amendment and work out a strategy to conserve atomic minerals for domestic use. Monazite, as envisioned by Dr Bhabha, should be exclusively used for extracting Thorium to fuel the third stage of our nuclear development programme. Those that were instrumental in clandestinely exporting atomic minerals need to be proceeded against.

FDI in nuclear power:

The latest proposal mooted by the government seeks to permit domestic private companies to induct foreign investors as shareholders upto 49% of their equity capital. Such a large equity share would empower the investors to have a say in the way the domestic companies operate nuclear power plants, including in matters relating to the end-use of the by-products of used Uranium, which has strategic implications. We feel that the government should tread cautiously in the matter of permitting FDI in nuclear power

 

Conclusion:

We therefore demand that

1. CNLDA should be strengthened as earlier proposed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee rather than diluting it
2. The DAE should reconsider its present strategy of large-scale shift in reliance from self-reliance to increasing dependence on imported nuclear reactors
3. Amendment to MMDRA to permit private mining in beach sands should be revoked
4. The government should not rush into permitting 49% FDI in nuclear power
5. The DAE should not further delay processing a Bill for setting up an independent nuclear regulatory authority on the lines suggested by the then Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2012.

 

Australia: Sydney’s Red Wave of Resistance Against Genocide in Palestine

Apurva Chaudhry | 07 Jun 2025

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Protesters beat drums, pots and pans, demanding sanctions on Israel, blaming the Albanese government of “complicity” in Israel’s alleged war crimes.

Thousands of Australians rally outside Town Hall in Sydney’s CBD.

AUSTRALIA: On a sunny Sunday afternoon at the start of this month, Sydney saw one of its largest pro-Palestine rallies to date when a sea of red flowed through the streets in the heart of the city. On June 1, thousands of Australians holding hundreds of Palestinian flags and placards marched outside Town Hall in Sydney’s Central Business District against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

On the same day as the protest, over 30 Palestinians were shot while seeking aid in Gaza, and the region’s only dialysis hospital in the north was destroyed.

The demonstration began with a stream of fiery speeches by the organisers, Palestinian diaspora, student and teacher activists, and indigenous aboriginal activists of Australia.

The Palestine Action Group Sydney has been organising protests and demonstrations across the city every week since the beginning of the conflict. According to the organisers, over 10,000 people joined the rally this Sunday, including a block of ‘Jews against Occupation ‘48’, an organisation of Australian jews in support of Palestinian, human and national rights.

One could feel the despair and anger in the air. Protesters beat drums, pots and pans, demanding sanctions on Israel and blaming the Albanese government of complicity in Israel’s alleged war crimes. 

As hopes for a lasting ceasefire continue to fade, desperation and hunger in Gaza are intensifying. After more than two months of total blockade, Israel is now permitting limited humanitarian aid into the territory. On May 30, the UN issued a warning that the entire population of 2.3 million people in Gaza is at risk of famine. This follows a mid-May report stating that one in five Palestinians is already facing starvation.

Mohamad Harb, Lebanese Australian protester at the rally.

Mohamad Harb marched with an eight-foot-tall banner displaying the history of Israeli occupation of Palestine and military offenses in Lebanon. A regular attendee of the weekly rallies for over a year, Harb said: “Israel kills children, old people, and has no respect for international law at all. Everyone knows the truth, but they turn a blind eye to it. Australia needs to stop arming Israel.”

University of Sydney’s Student Council member Deaglan Godwin said: “We're seeing Israel rip off the mask and openly declare its genocidal intent to ethnically cleanse the people of Gaza. As the situation in Gaza worsens, we see at the very least, a flicker of greater resistance and energy from people.”

On the role of the Australian government in Israel’s actions in Palestine, Godwin said, “Our government has always been a close ally of Israel. From the beginning of the partition plan in 1948, our government has given diplomatic, economic, and military aid to Israel. Our leaders, alongside other leaders of the West, have provided cover to what Israel is doing.”

Godwin believes that only mass pressure and movement will force the Australian government to sanction and sever economic and military ties with the state of Israel.

Australia and Israel have regularly signed trade, joint research and development, and science-related agreements. There has also been discussion of further cooperation in communications, agricultural technology, water management, biotechnology, and defence.

 

Source: Facebook page of Jews Against Occupation ‘48

But why does the Australian State support Israel so stridently?

A powerful aspect of the movement opposing the genocide in Gaza has been the solidarity between Palestinians and Aussie Aboriginal communities, united by their shared experiences of colonisation and resistance.

 

Australia and Israel were both established through the displacement and violence against Indigenous populations. Today, they serve as key extensions of Western imperial influence in their respective regions—Asia and West Asia—exemplifying the enduring patterns of settler-colonialism.

Australia’s close relationship with Israel isn’t about some shared rebellious spirit or just blindly following the US. Australia’s support for Israel aligns with its own economic and strategic interests, both in West Asia and globally. The Australian government’s stance is not half-hearted; it’s a deliberate choice shaped by its broader capitalist and geopolitical priorities.

A recent poll commissioned by ActionAid Australia in collaboration with several other international organisations shows that 82% of Australians think that Israel’s deliberate blocking of aid into Gaza cannot be justified. More than two in three Australians believe the government should do more to ensure civilians have access to food, water, and medicine.

Macquarie University student and social activist Eddie Stevenson questions the Australian government’s words and actions in support of Israel’s military offenses. According to her, the Albanese government holds itself more accountable to the rich than to the common people. “They care about having strong allies for Australia in a region where there’s oil, resources, trade routes, things that are very important to business and commercial interests. Which is why I think protests are so important; they will not listen to reason. We have to disrupt until they are forced to change what they are doing,” Stevenson said.

“A permanent ceasefire is an absolute bare minimum, and that was the state of affairs before this genocide began, and what led up to this genocide, so we can’t settle for that. We need the full liberation of Palestinians, an end to the apartheid, and an end to the constant process of ethnic cleansing that’s been going on for the past 77 years. We need the right of return for the Palestinian people,” Stevenson added.

One of the activists involved in the Palestine Action Group Sydney, Damien Ridgwell, said “it is imperative to continue protesting as Israel can only continue carrying out this genocide because of the complicity of governments in the West.”

He added that we’re not seeing people’s will reflected in democratically elected governments’ policies because “unfortunately, there are a lot of big businesses invested in war. It has much to do with the legacy of the United States' empire and the domination of the West Asian region. Australia is also an imperialist nation that has a shameful history. Its ties and alliance with the US have bound the Australian governments to carry out a bipartisan policy of supporting Israel in its oppression of the Palestinians.”

The rally ended with the announcement of the next protest scheduled for June 8 and the promise to keep fighting for a ‘free Palestine’. What began as a march became a message—that Palestine is not alone, and neither is the fight for justice.

The writer is studying in Sydney, Australia. The views are personal.