Press Release
Proposal to Ban Hizb ut Tahrir - Hate Speech and Social Cohesion as a Means to Silence Legitimate Political Dissent

The aftermath of Bondi is changing Australia in more ways than we imagine and at a pace faster than we have ever witnessed. Rather than centering community grief or prioritising fact accumulation, Zionist advocates - taking instruction from the occupational entity itself - bolted off the blocks with a political agenda that left Bondi as nothing more than a convenient backdrop.

Old agendas resurfaced, couched in a new double speak. Bondi can only be explained through the lens of antisemitism, we were told. Protesting to the contrary would only confirm one’s hatred of Semites. Any reference to Gaza would be derided as insensitivity at best, or justifying terrorism at worst.

More than that, Bondi was not just an act of antisemitism, it was the product of a pernicious form of it rooted in a ‘radical’ Islam. Exhausted from having to justify a genocide to the world, maybe the world will now condemn its victims and their supporters, who Zionists hope to collectively invoke as radicals and extremists.

Forget that the AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has since dismissed claims Bondi was motivated by religion. Forget the fact she has also alleged the perpetrators acted alone. But let’s not let facts corrupt a convenient narrative.

Enter hate preachers and hate factories. New, loaded terms that have no meaning except to identify Muslims who refuse to accept a genocide and the right of the occupying entity to enact it. ‘Muslims no longer read the Quran, they seek inspiration for terror. Muslims no longer express political grievances, they preach hate. Their places of worship are no longer communal spaces; they are incubators of terror.’

The Zionist entity has thus sought to bully Australia into adopting such absurdity as an official policy response, demanding the introduction of new laws outlawing Muslim political dissent given existing provisions didn’t explicitly capture it. That is why the Prime Minister and his Home Affairs Minister have adopted the language of hate speech, seeking to intertwine the fate of Australia with the fate of the genocidal entity by insisting opponents of genocide must hate both Australia and the Zionist entity. Even Jewish opponents of genocide have been labelled as self-hating Jews!

But hate has no inherent meaning and its recourse serves no purpose except to deflect legitimate criticism. The charge of hate dismisses real grievances and recasts them as dangerous, irrational outbursts. It positions its advocates as haters, not genuine interlocutors. Most importantly, it absolves the one being criticised of the need to defend themselves against the charges levelled against them.

This intellectual distortion extends into conversations around social cohesion.

Social cohesion is a ubiquitous term describing a type of peace where a victim is content living without restorative justice. It’s a fragile, false peace constructed by oppressors and forcibly imposed upon its victims.

Peace endures as long as demands of justice remain unclaimed. Peace persists as long as its victims endure the humiliation of oppression. Any claim to justice or restitution is thus regarded as a disturbance to this peace. A claim more than words, expressed through direct action, even if expressed peacefully, is regarded as nothing less than subversion.

Social cohesion is championed as long as its benefactors continue to enjoy its peace. In the twisted logic of Palestine’s occupiers, peace can only be realised when Palestinians accept the occupation of their land and the genocide of its people.

In an Australian context, social cohesion is established when we accept the right of the Zionist entity to occupy Palestine and the genocide of its people. Questioning the occupation or genocide in Palestine, or Australia’s complicity in it, or demanding its end, is thus a disturbance to the peace of the oppressors. It is not social cohesion they are interested in protecting, but social conformity.

Extending every political, economic, military and diplomatic support to the occupation is okay, but raising a word against it is not. Zionist supporters in this country travelling to serve in the occupational forces and participating in internationally recognised war crimes is okay, but raising a word against it is not. Zionist supporters donating tax exempt, tax deductible, charity money to the occupation is okay, but raising a word against it is not.

In the interests of protecting social cohesion, we are also instructed to not import foreign conflicts in order to protect an otherwise indigenous peace. Putting aside for a moment the absurdity of any claim to a ‘peace’ established through Australia’s own occupation and genocide of indigenous land, the reality is that Australia is not a neutral observer on the Palestinian question. It has always sided with the occupier of Palestine, from inception till now. Calls to not import foreign conflicts are nothing more than calls to erase Palestinian claims in this already woefully one-sided affair.

Thus charges of hate and calls to social cohesion are calls to shield Zionist crimes from rightful scrutiny and protect them and their complicitors from rightful prosecution. It is a call that only serves to protect the criminal and punish its victims and their supporters, a call all people of conscience must comprehensively reject.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Australia