BY ANDREW BOLT for the Herald Sun
Sunday was a day of national shame as pro-Palestinian protesters – backed by a wrongheaded judge – hijacked the Sydney Harbour Bridge to cause chaos and make common cause with Hamas terrorists.
Tens of thousands of Australians marched across our iconic bridge to demand Israel end its war against Hamas.
In Melbourne, protesters likewise tried to block the King Street bridge.
Hamas meanwhile, celebrated its surge of international sympathy by calling off peace talks with Israel, while the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad released video of an Israeli hostage it’s starved into a living skeleton, showing him digging his own grave.
Whatever the protesters thought they were doing, this shameless barbarity is what they’re encouraging – more war, and the survival of the world’s cruellest Jew-haters.
That a judge helped them by rejecting police pleas to ban the Harbour Bridge march just shows the depth of our moral confusion.
Police had argued the march would shut the bridge for more than four hours, affecting 40,000 drivers, but Justice Belinda Rigg was unmoved: “It is in the very nature of the right of peaceful protest that disruption will be caused to others.”
Really? This seems to confuse the right to protest with a right to bully.
Hold the protest at a beach or park and almost nobody would be inconvenienced.
But these protesters chose to protest at one of the most inconvenient places of all, obviously to annoy as many people as possible.
But causing chaos has long been a tactic of the pro-Palestinian movement – another sign that they’re on the side of destruction.
Unlike pro-Israel protesters, they’ve blocked major roads, burned religious sites, occupied universities, vandalised politicians’ offices, assaulted opponents and disrupted concerts.
I know, Sunday’s protesters include many who actually meant well, but do they think well?
This war in Gaza was actually started by Hamas, when it slaughtered 1200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 people.
Hamas could also end the war tomorrow if it did what Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and the Arab League last week demanded – released its remaining 21 living hostages, gave up its weapons and ended its rule over Gaza.
Sunday’s protesters instead demanded Israel, not Hamas, stop the war.
But think this through.
If Israel stopped fighting, it would leave Hamas not just in charge of Gaza, but triumphant. It would also be abandoning the Jewish hostages. The terror would continue.
Some protesters will say they simply want Israel to let in more food to Gaza.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself has said he was “moved” by a picture on the front page of The Age of an emaciated Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq as an alleged example of children being starved to death by Israel.
In fact, Albanese had fallen for Hamas propaganda.
Another photo of Mohammed, not published, shows his brother standing next to him, clearly well fed.
It turns out Mohammed actually had pre-existing health issues, apparently including spina bifida.
Still, yes, there is hunger in Gaza, but whose fault is that?
Israel claims Gaza was sent enough food in the first three months of this year to feed nearly two million people for six months, by World Food Program standards.
Where did it all go?
Israel says Hamas actually steals much of the food sent in by the United Nations, and resells it at a huge profit to fund its war machine.
Indeed, the UN admits 85 per cent of the food it’s tried to deliver in Gaza since May 19 was “intercepted … either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors”.
That’s why Israel paused food deliveries while it worked out an alternative delivery, now by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Hamas, furious at losing money, warned Palestinians it was “strictly forbidden to deal with, work for, or provide any form of assistance or cover to the American organisation”, and is accused by Israel of killing people trying to get to the food sites while blaming Israel’s army for the deaths.
That said, Israel also admits firing at crowds that threatened its soldiers.
It would also be no surprise if Hamas is making the hunger worse by refusing to release aid it’s stolen.
Hamas has made clear that dead Palestinians are useful to demonise Israel, which is why it uses civilians as human shields and refuses to build any public bomb shelters.
It’s also why it won’t surrender, figuring that the more Palestinians suffer, the more the world will hate Israel, which Hamas wants to destroy.
And these horrific tactics work.
Just look at Sunday’s protests.
“Playing into the hands of Hamas,” Bolt, A. Herald Sun, August 4, 2025, p.23.
VicNews does not support the view of News Corporation commentators. Mr Bolt’s op-ed is republished in the public interest so the public can see the ‘angle’ the Murdoch media is taking and promoting.
Bolt’s op-ed has not been edited or changed in any way from what was printed on page 23 of today’s (4/8/25) Herald Sun. Images via Australian Associated Press.
