Police in Sydney led horse charges against peaceful citizens protesting the visit of Israeli President Issac Herzog on Monday, violently arresting 27 people to “clear” the way for his supporters in scenes that are bound to scar Australia’s reputation.
In one short video circulating on social media, Australian police are seen violently pulling Muslim men from the ground as they were praying outside Sydney’s Town Hall. Such images will almost certainly inflame passions in the Middle East.
That it took place after a rally to mourn the victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and to protest Herzog’s presence in the country made it all the worst.
At least 6,000 — with some accounts saying more than 10,000 — people attended the Town Hall rally. A last minute petition to the state Supreme Court by the organizers to allow a march to the state Parliament was denied.
After a 90-minute rally in which speakers decried Herzog as a war criminal, (“From the river to the sea, Herzog to the ICC”) a few of the protestors walked towards a police barricade announcing their intention to march.
Police informed them by bullhorn that the march would be illegal under terms of the Major Event Act that was invoked by the state. A handful of demonstrators tried to get through anyway and scuffled with police.
After things calmed down a second group came to the line of riot squad police announcing their intention to march. There was no physical contact made when police simply nabbed a young man who was speaking with them.
A woman then lay down still on the pavement in front of the police, right before me. As she got up a few minutes later, smiling, they violently grabbed her and arrested her.
After about a half hour of stalemate in which no protesters attempted to march, the police were given the order to move in. They violently pushed us back, dangerously risking that we would be crushed.
Then I saw a horse’s head coming at me a few feet away. I turned away and as I did pepper spray ran into my mouth, causing me to choke.
I was able to get away and what I saw next were more than a dozen people being tackled to ground and in one case punched before being taken away. I saw another mounted police charge towards the crowd.
Two arrests being made at anti-Herzog protest.
At that point, the police pushed the media out of view of what was happening. At a press conference later, New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna tried to justify the police violence by outrageously saying the arrested protesters were caught up in a “contagion of groupthink.”
This remark exposes the political motivation by the police. Is it groupthink to follow the evidence presented to the ICJ and by a U.N. commission and call Herzog a war criminal, or is it groupthink to say that Israel has a right to defend itself no matter how many innocent civilians it kills?
Such a politicized statement suggests the police were not interested in orderly crowd management but in getting a piece of the protestors. Anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian protests marches are common in Sydney. If this were a regular protest, none of this would have happened. But Herzog is in town.
“Officers were being threatened, jostled and assaulted, and we had to enact powers to move that crowd on and direct them out of the CBD,” McKenna said.
That is not what I saw, having witnessed more than half of the arrests made. Rather than wait out what was a non-violent crowd hemmed in by police on all sides, the decision was made to charge at them with mounted police.
The video of the men praying and another of a man with his hands in the air being pummeled by the cops undermine what the assistant commissioner said.
Herzog was meanwhile being feted at the International Convention Center (ICC), where a police official addressed the Herzog supporters in attendance from the podium. He is seen in the below clip asking the audience for their patience as police “clear” the protest at Town Hall in 30 minutes in order to assure their safety. One audience member apparently shouts that the protestors are a “Jew-hating mob.”
This is an extraordinary revelation of the coordination of Herzog’s visit with the police action — ordered to “clear” the streets for his supporters.
Herzog brought his violence from Gaza to the streets of Sydney.
Herzog had earlier told Sky News: “I say to all these demonstrators out there who are demonstrating against me, why don’t you demonstrate against Iran? Stop blaming Israel, which is protecting and defending the values of democracy all over the world.”
Herzog said that when his father Chaim Herzog, also a president of Israel, visited Australia in 1986, there was no police protection needed. He laments that he needs 3,000 Sydney cops and he wonders why. The man is deluded or a colossal dissembler.
An Israeli Victory
Man being arrested at anti-Herzog protest.
Three weeks after passage of the most authoritarian laws in the country’s history, Herzog arrived in Sydney on Monday as a conqueror putting the capstone on the takeover of the Australian government by a foreign power.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was maneuvered into “inviting” Herzog by the Zionist Federation of Australia — who invited him first — says the intent of the visit is to foster “social cohesion” following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack on Dec. 14 that killed 15 innocent people and wounded 40 at a Hanukkah party.
But as we’ve seen from the police violence on Monday, the opposite has happened.
Herzog says he wants to use the visit to combat “lies and false information” about Israel in Australia.
“It’s … time to get out of that brainwash campaign that has been going on within the Australian public for quite some time, both against the Jews and against Israelis,” he told The Australian newspaper.
Instead Herzog has spread the most horrific lies to cover-up Tel Aviv’s aggressive and genocidal campaign to build regional hegemony under the protection of Washington’s global empire that includes allied nations like Australia.
Herzog pretends that Israeli aggression is actually protection for Western civilization against barbarians. He told the Murdoch-owned newspaper:
“’Without us, the world is at risk and danger because of the Iranian empire of evil which has a kind of a jihadist, sort of Messianic intention to annihilate all those who don’t accommodate their beliefs, meaning Jews, Christians of all denominations, and moderate Muslims.
And without Israel, Europe is at risk, the United States is at risk. The free world is at risk because we are at the border of a clash of civilisational values against an empire of evil emanating from Tehran, which launched the horrific attack on October 7.
We did not seek this war. We did not want this war. We are defending ourselves.”
Anyone with a modicum of understanding of the Middle East, Iran and Islam knows that Herzog is lying and that he is counting on Westerners’ lack of understanding. By blaming Iran front and center, Herzog is trying to achieve several things.
First, by saying Iran ran Oct. 7, he wants to remove the agency of Palestinians from their 78-year struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the first 30 years of which took place with a U.S. and Israel ally on the throne in Iran. Herzog knows that Qatar has been allowed by Israel for years to fund Hamas far more than Iran and that Iran has mostly backed Hezbollah defending Lebanon.
Second, Herzog is purposely conflating Shia Iran with Sunni jihadist aims, such as that of ISIS wanting to “annihilate all those who don’t accommodate their beliefs, meaning Jews, Christians of all denominations, and moderate Muslims.” He is trying to conjure Iran into some generic idea of an evil Muslim power intent on rebuilding a Caliphate to enslave white Christians and Jews.
This statement is similar to Benjamin Netanyahu’s oft-repeated propaganda line that “ISIS is Hamas and Hamas is ISIS.” While ISIS occupied territory in Iraq and Syria and never attacked Israel, Hamas has been fighting against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. An occupier — ISIS, versus a resistor to occupation — Hamas.
Far from wanting to “annihilate” them, Iran dedicates seats in Parliament to Christian and Jews, groups that are protected in the Quran and in the Iranian constitution. Iranian Muslims who convert to Christianity have been harassed by authorities, but not native-born Christians.
Third, Herzog is reinforcing anti-Iran rhetoric that saw the Australian Intelligence and Security Organization (ASIO) last year blame Iran for a series of anti-semitic incidents without proof. That led Albanese to kick the Iranian ambassador out of Australia. Once again the idea that Iran may have been responsible for the Bondi terrorist attack was floated by Israel, even though the shooters were inspired by ISIS — mortal enemies of Iran.
Fourth, Israel is in the midst of desperately trying to get the United States and its allies to back renewed aggression against Iran, which was left off last June without achieving Israel’s ultimate goal of regime change.
While Herzog is in Australia, Netanyahu will again be at the White House this week trying to put an end to Washington-Tehran talks and to bomb Iran istead.
Herzog was at Bondi Beach on Monday to commemorate the massacre and meet with family members of the stricken. At a press conference, he was asked, “There are protests planned today in Sydney for people who are mourning 70,000 killed in Gaza, including 20,000 children. Can you reflect on what is the message to protesters, if you have one?”
Herzog replied:
“These demonstrations in most cases—what you hear and see—comes to undermine and delegitimize our right, my nation’s right, the nation which I am the head of state of, of its mere existence, and is contradictory to whatever was said and done by Australia. We did not seek that war on October 7th. … Terror is what undermines the whole availability of peace and the notion of peace in our region as always was, always is, and always the case and therefore terror is unacceptable by any means.”
Herzog will travel on Wednesday to the capital, Canberra, and then to Melbourne before returning to Israel on Friday.
Legal Action Against Herzog
Herzog was named in South Africa’s complaint charging genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Fourteen other nations have joined South Africa’s complaint, which names Herzog.
His statements are included as evidence of genocidal intent, dehumanization, and failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants. The complaint quotes Herzog as saying:
“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true … and we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.”
Herzog was also named in a September 2025 United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry. It said Herzog’s statement quoted in the ICJ complaint “may be interpreted as incitement to Israeli security forces to target Palestinians collectively as culpable” for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The Commission said that statements like that of Herzog, “permitted Israeli security forces to disregard international law obligations.”
The report says: “The Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog (along with PM Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant) incited genocide. Israeli authorities failed to punish this incitement.”
Herzog has also come under fire in Australia for having been photographed signing bombs that were used to kill civilians in Gaza. In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald ahead of his visit, he acknowledged it was “something that was lacking taste. I agree that I may have made an error”.
On Jan. 29, Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), and the Jewish Council of Australia, filed a complaint arguing that Australia had an obligation under international treaties to investigate and potentially arrest and prosecute Herzog for his apparent statements of genocidal intent.
The Center for Human Rights Research and Advocacy in Malaysia called on Malaysia to issue an international arrest warrant for Herzog during his visit to Australia in the principle of universal jurisdiction that was once used against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
New Laws Against Hate
The bridge in Bondi, Sydney from which the terrorists Sajid and Naveed Akram killed 15 people at a Hanukkah party on Dec. 14, spawning new authoritarian laws.
Herzog arrives three weeks after the passage of nation-altering authoritarian laws that curb the right to protest and potentially endangers someone who is a member of a proscribed group with imprisonment for publicly saying Israel is an apartheid state that is committing genocide.
Groups proscribed under the new law will be determined in secret and without due process by ASIO, the federal police, the home affairs minister and the attorney general.
As the aim of Israeli and Australian politicians and the Israel Lobby has been to conflate the anti-genocide, pro-Palestinian movement with the Bondi terrorist attack, carried out by Indian Muslims inspired by ISIS, the Palestine Action Group, organizers of Sydney’s Monday protest, fears it may be banned as a hate group.
The laws were passed by the federal Parliament on Jan. 20, just five weeks after the Bondi massacre, under huge pressure from the Israel Lobby. Within hours of the Bondi attack, Netanyahu was publicly blaming anti-genocide protesters in Australia.
Addressing Albanese, Netanyahu said: “I called upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve. Instead, prime minister, you replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement.”
He said Albanese “did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia, you did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country.”
Netanyahu said he wrote to Albanese earlier because his “call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”
Right after the attack, Herzog said: “Time and again we called on the Australian government to take action and fight against the enormous wave of anti-semitism that is plaguing Australian society.”
Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told Sky News Australia “this is what it means” to permit demonstrators to chant “‘globalize the intifada’ … if you let that continue and run in your streets” you are asking for more terrorism, she said, directly linking the protestors to terrorists. Haskel had earlier called anti-genocide protesters in Australia “useful idiots” for Hamas.
Jillian Segal, Australia’s special envoy to combat anti-semitism, issued an alarming statement, blaming anti-genocide protesters for what happened on the beach. She said:
“This did not come without warning. In Australia, it began on 9 October 2023 at the Sydney Opera House. We then watched a march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge waving terrorist flags and glorifying extremist leaders. Now death has reached Bondi Beach. These are Australian icons. Targeting them is deliberate. This is not random. It is an attack on Australia.”
Segal was trying to make as many as 300,000 Australians in effect complicit with the massacre of innocents at Bondi.
The meda left out of its Bondi reporting that these protests didn’t just spring out of thin air, propelled by pure, irrational hatred for Jews, but instead grew in direct reaction and proportion to the advancing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Leaving that out of the story makes it seem like the protests, such as those planned for Monday, are fueled by pure anti-semitism. Leaving the genocide out of the story not only excuses and covers it up, but falsely portrays opponents of genocide as willing accomplices of terrorists.
This is the Australia that Herzog is visiting this week. One that has capitulated to the worst of Zionist demands, namely continuing participation in the genocide and criminalizing its Australian opponents by fundamentally changing the country to serve Israel’s demands.
Source: Consortium News.
