Consortium News was in Port Botany in Sydney, Australia on Sunday to capture these dramatic images of police aggressively arresting protestors trying to block export of military aid to Israel.
Video and article by Cathy Vogan
Special to Consortium News
Paul Keating, branch secretary of the Australian Maritime Union (AMU) spoke for fellow members in solidarity with the Palestinian community and faced off with police, when he and several hundred protestors blockaded Sydney’s Port Botany on Sunday to protest Australia’s export of military aid to Israel.
The protestors’ target is ZIM Shipping, a well known Israeli company that trade unionist Ian Rintoul says supports and is connected with Israel. “It offered its services to the Israeli state for the conduct of the genocide,” he told Consortium News. “Zim Shipping has actually been a target of protests at ports all around the world in the United States and Italy, Europe [and elsewhere in Australia]”.
Keating, who also spoke to CN, called on all of the other workers’ unions to stand with the AMU and for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to place sanctions on Israel for what the International Court of Justice has called a plausible case of genocide.
He told the police chief at the scene: “This is an international working class issue”, and in his speech reiterated:
“On behalf of the MUA, we stand with our communities and throughout the generations we fought against the establishment who have supported apartheid, like we saw with South Africa, like we’ve seen with the wars that have forced ordinary working class men and women like ourselves and our communities into the most desperate of situations. We oppose war. Peace is union business, and this is our business”.
Police arrest protestors blocking military shipments to Israel in Sydney on Sunday. (Cathy Vogan)
Deputy Leader of the Greens Mehreen Faruqi also spoke in favour of the blockade and condemned the government’s current policy. She said:
“It’s been 169 days of Israel’s genocide on Gaza. 169 horror-filled days for Palestinians. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered by Israel. More than 1 million Palestinians are being starved by Israel. Famine and disease loom large in the ruins of Gaza. That’s the reality on the ground right at this moment. And how bereft, how bereft of humanity, of morality, of head and heart can the Labor government be to not do anything to stop these war crimes, this collective punishment, these atrocities and this genocide? How ruthless and cruel can you be to aid, abet and arm Israel?”
The blockade was short-lived and was broken up by police. Keating and 18 others were arrested and now face fines of up to AUS $22K and two years jail for obstructing traffic in the maritime zone.
Cathy Vogan is the executive producer of CN Live!
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Ill health or not, Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
hxxps://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
Code pink
hxxps://www.codepink.org/cnngaza?utm_campaign=12_15_pali_update_alert_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. ww.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
Australia sounds like it might be a welcoming place for Julian Assange and family.
And no wonder the Pope was so ill that he couldn’t give a Palm Sunday homily;
obviously, his sickness comes from guilty conscience.
The Pope is pushing eighty and has a right to his ill health. Your snide remark about his guilty conscience is dumb, and unworthy of serious discourse.
Actually the Pope is now 87, “and has a right to his ill health”?
Now, who is it who is dealing out this human right?
RP’s remark may be snide, in your opinion, yet he is entitled to his opinion!
On the other hand, his off-the-cuff statement: “obviously, his sickness comes from guilty conscience” is not based on facts, unless your Eminence, the Pope regularly shares the private details of his medical record with RF!
The ‘aged’ saying goes: opposites attract.
Perhaps you gentle men have some things in common, after all, besides your innate human qualities.
Could it perhaps each has an affinity for religious faith in general?
Say two hail Mary’s, and get over your foibles with a little tolerance!
Well Robert, not to offend your Catholic Church loyalty,
but do give some thought to the event of Jesus entering into
Jerusalem on an “ass’s colt.” He rides not as a king of
violence on a chariot for war, but on a donkey representing
peace. Israel’s true King.
Now let me stretch your limited patience a little
more and ask you to consider US/Israel’s horrendous
genocide, the worst of crimes against humanity, and the
pope’s weak calls for a ceasefire. Did he ask Catholics
to protest the horrors spoken in the article above? No.
He talks about gender issues hardly worth comparing
with the “slaughter of innocents.” And that is for
the pope an issue of conscience; one that makes faithful
Christians ill.
I’m grateful that Consortium News isn’t as narrow
minded as yourself.
Agree with second sentence. It is not OK for bigotry to divert attention from the pressing need for combatting Israeli genocide.
This is the Australia I love.
It is what we all should be. HEROS!
jack
It’s been made abundantly clear the only thing Western governments value is commerce. Living beings are simply resources to be used and discarded. Profits are sacred. What a sick and twisted world they have created.
This article is not by any Josephine Blow.
It is written and produced by one of CN’s inveterate truth seekers; especially where truth still counts!
Yeah, yeah, I’m aware of how this may come across.
In my book, sincerity and truth go hand in glove!
5 memos. [from VIPS] Were there any replies to any of them?
Two thoughts:
This is where the racket of military industrial profiteering leads to a high potential for civilizational ruin. Macron thinks he’s still ratcheting tension in support of his masters’ profits but he’s going to get us all killed.
Second: does this crap not prove once and for all the incredible folly of the US belonging to nato? How’s it feel for my fellow Americans to be railroaded to a nuclear disaster by the pusillanimous French president and the three Baltic stooges?
C’mon, guys.The idiots in Washington think they’re the masters of the universe and they’re going to continue thinking that until somebody kicks ’em in the teeth. “The West” thought that Russia would lay down when we started menacing them in the Ukraine. That didn’t work and Russia attacked the Ukraine. Then we went full tilt into sanctions that were allegedly going to totally isolate Russia as everybody would sanction Russia and the Ruble would be rubble. That didn’t work and the Russians simply switched their sales away from Europe. The Ruble is doing fine and 75% of the world continues to trade with Russia.The wonderwaffen from NATO weren’t so wonder after all and Russia has developed their own new weapons and, contrary to the delusions of The West’s military establishment Russia is out producing The West. Do you think that any organization that can ignore all that is going to listen to you?
Macron formerly worked for a leading war profiteering bank.
Research has found that Churchill was pushed into pushing for WWII, which he eventually called a “needless war”. Let’s not let that happen again.