‘From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada,’ howled Australian of the Year 2021 Grace Tame. There is no need for Grace to raise her voice. The intifada has well and truly arrived on Australian shores; indeed, progressives seem to be undergoing a form of Palestinianisation.

Tame said she was ‘disgusted’ by what she called ‘brutal, unprovoked state violence’ after activists defied a police direction, later upheld by the Supreme Court of NSW, to remain stationary and then disperse. ‘Innocent people… were tear-gassed, shoved and harassed by police,’ she wrote. She has adopted the tactic favoured by Palestinian extremists of erasing their provocation and weaponising the response it elicits.

A quick review of the footage shows, for example, Blaktivist Lizzie Jarrett of the Blak Caucus group inciting the crowd to march despite the clear police direction to remain stationary. Jarrett said, ‘We want to march our streets, we want to free Australia, we want to free Palestine’, and when the crowd responded, ‘Let us march’, she replied, ‘F–k that. We’re not asking permission… You might need to, but we don’t need permission to march our land.’ That was enough for some to start trying to march.

What caught the progressives off guard was that for the first time in more than two years, the police enforced the law, preventing them from running amok in the city and arresting them when, for example, a ‘completely peaceful’ protester bit a policeman’s thumb.

Sheikh Wessam Charkawi was another who defied police orders to disperse, instead leading a group of Muslims in evening prayers. When the police started to physically move them on, the Sheikh was outraged; ‘Prayers are the backbone of our faith, and hence why it’s so disrespectful for any Muslim to be physically carried away from our prayer,’ he pontificated. For law-abiding Australians, refusing to follow police directions is not just ‘disrespectful’, it’s illegal. But it’s clear that what mattered to Charkawi was not prayer but provoking the police and demonising their response.

The special envoy to combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, was suitably outraged and demanded the Premier apologise, threatening that without action, relations with the Muslim community risked irreparable damage. Really? Apologise to Charkawi? At a rally on 7 October 2024, the first anniversary of the Hamas massacre, organised by a front group for Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the key speakers included Charkawi and Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun, the cleric who notoriously described October 7 as a ‘day of courage’.

In Gaza, the indoctrination of children starts with toddlers. Today’s jihadists grew up with Farfour – the Hamas version of Mickey Mouse – whose programme glorified murdering Jews and dying in jihad. As the daughter of slain Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said last month of her son, ‘I would sacrifice him… If he dies on this path with honour and glory, it will make us proud.’

In NSW, Teachers and School Staff for Palestine have recruited Bluey, the beloved cartoon blue-heeler and his canine his canine chums who wear keffiyehs, wave Palestinian flags, and carry a banner that reads, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. Freedom Fighter Bluey t-shirts are available for children and adults.

Miffy the rabbit and her mates are kitted up in the same way with a placard that reads ‘Resist to exist’, decorated with love hearts. In Pally-speak, ‘resistance’ is what Hamas and friends did to Israelis and anyone else they encountered on 7 October 2023.

In case there are any primary school doubters, the cartoon Powerpuff Girls, also sporting keffiyehs, brandishing Palestinian flags, and carrying a watermelon, leap above the slogan ‘Resistance is justified’.

A 24-page teaching guide praises hijacker and hostage taker Leila Khaled, a member of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who calls Hamas ‘freedom fighters’; the PFLP is fighting alongside them in Gaza. It has a history of gunning down civilians, blowing up planes, murdering Jews in a synagogue and assassinating an Israeli minister for tourism – and is on Australia’s consolidated list of terrorist organisations, but Khaled is described as a ‘brave Palestinian woman’, famous for her ‘courage’ and for wearing the keffiyeh, which led to it becoming a symbol of ‘togetherness’ for Palestinian supporters. According to the Teachers for Palestine, it’s not Khaled and the PFLP, but Israel, which is the ‘world’s most destructive terrorist organisation’.

It’s not all a bed of roses for the Marxist-terrorist missionaries. One pedagogue for Palestine complained about being ‘screamed at’ by their principal for wearing a keffiyeh and being called a ‘terrorist’ and ‘antisemitic’ in front of other staff. Their representative has called a new post-Bondi code of conduct ‘a political attack on free speech’ and is worried his members could be ‘sacked’ for expressing support for Palestine.

Jewish teachers say the inculcation of Jew hatred has been ongoing since 7 October 2023. Jewish families report horrific bullying in public and private schools in NSW, with one girl being told to ‘burn in a gas chamber’, and a boy being jeered at as a ‘genocide jid’ while the NSW Department of Education did nothing.

NSW Education Minister Prue Car says, ‘Since the anti-Semitic terrorist attack at Bondi, our government has moved quickly to do everything we can to stamp out divisive and hateful language.’ But why did it take a massacre for the government to act?

At the memorial to the victims at the Bondi pavilion, the NSW Teachers Federation placed a wreath with a note condemning ‘antisemitic and racist violence (which) is the polar opposite of the work teachers do every day to build social inclusion and cohesion’.

Yet during the odious ‘March for Humanity’ over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the red and white flags of the NSW Teachers Federation and the purple flags of the National Tertiary Education Union waved alongside the black and white flags of jihad, emblazoned with the shahada.

The biggest mistake the police and the Premier made this week was allowing the protest to be held in the CBD. Next time, it should be confined to Lakemba, near the mosque. That way, Charkawi will have somewhere handy to pray, and Grace Tame and her mates can see how they’re treated if they venture inside. That will be the beginning of a real education.