Lidia Thorpe has compared the Australian government to Israel as the ‘illegal occupier of these lands’ in an impassioned speech pledging support to Palestine.
The firebrand Greens-turned-Independent senator arrived in the chamber for the first day of sitting in a month wearing a Palastinian keffiyeh scarf.
In response to the tragic war between Israel and terrorist group Hamas which is taking place, Ms Thorpe said she sympathised with victims on both sides of the conflict.
She said Palestinians ‘live with generational trauma of dispossession, they continue to fight for sovereignty, liberation, and land back, as do First peoples of this country.
‘You have the responsibility to support Palestinians standing against it, just as you have the responsibility to support First Nations people here standing against it.’
Ms Thorpe said she ‘is not surprised’ that the Australian government has offered resounding support to Israel after Hamas launched a missile attack at a music festival last Saturday morning.
The conflict prompted swift retaliation from Israel, and some 2,600 Palestinians in Gaza have been reported dead since October 7.
‘I’m not surprised the Australian government, which is itself the illegal occupier of these lands, condones illegal occupation of other lands, and sides with an oppresive regime,’ she said.
‘Governments across the world, in an attempt to address anti-Semitism and somehow address the horrors of the Holocaust, are allowing Israel to get away with apartheid, ethnic cleansing.
Ms Thorpe condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel, but said she was also condemning ‘the violence Israel is and has been inflicting on the Palestinian people’.
She criticised the government’s decision to light up the Sydney Opera House in the colours of blue and white in solidarity with Israel, and said the debate on the international stage had been ‘extremely one sided’.
‘Israel’s indiscriminate bombings on Gaza are killing thousands of innocent people, people who already had to suffer for so many decades in what is often called the world’s biggest prison.
‘These people didn’t attack Israel, and yet they are the human collateral of Israel fighting back against Hamas with unprecedented force.
‘They will be the ones suffering the long term consequences which will more than likely be the continued and possibly reinforced oppression of the Palestinan people through Israel.
‘How can the world let this happen? All the talk of government supporting a two-state solution seem all but forgotten – worth nothing but a side note.
‘The current war has set the solution back decades. Most Palestinians want nothing but to live peacefully in a free Palestine. For 75 years now Palestine has been under brutal occupation.
‘The state of Israel was founded on Palestinian land in 1948, when tens of thousands of Palestinans sought refuge in Gaza as their towns and villages were ethnically cleansed.
‘Palestinian voices have all but been silenced over what happened.’
Senator Thorpe’s criticism of the government comes after the Coalition complained the government had not gone far enough in condemning the attacks against Israel.