'We will be on the right side of history' says UTAS senior lecturer

The University of Tasmania (UTAS) lecturer Dr Adel Yousif has said, "This grassroots movement of passionate, caring people are greatly concerned by our [Australian] Government's support for Israel.

"Keeping up the [protest] momentum is about justice and seeing these Palestinian people as the human beings they are," Dr Yousif said.

The Australian government has backed Israel's right to respond to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, however, has urged the country to prevent civilian deaths and has reported military exports have stalled because of concerns around the rising casualty rates.

The UTAS lecturer said the Launceston-based protesters are "fully aware of what happened in Tasmania's history, how the indigenous people were murdered, slaughtered and the genocide that occurred here.

"Even down to matters of nutrition and calories, how they were starved to death, this is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians of Gaza [now]," he said.

Launceston, Tasmania, is very far away from Gaza, so what do Dr Yousif and his fellow protesters hope to achieve by protesting in the city?

"We want to reduce the political licence that our federal and state Governments gave to the State of Israel for this mass murder and genocide.

"We are calling Labor out because it has not made the right noises about this issue. Indeed, they have been very supportive of Israel," he said.

Dr Yousif believes that the Australian Government is supporting Israel's right to defend itself against a people they already imprisoned in what he claims is "an open jail."

"Israel defending itself against a people it has already impoverished, an impoverished militia that has rudimentary weapons, is akin to spears used against Flintlock rifles, which the indigenous people defended themselves with in Tasmania," he said.

He further argued, "what armaments do the Palestinians have in comparison to the 20th-century weaponry Israel has."

The lecturer said that due to the Australian Government's ongoing support for Israel, he has felt increasingly isolated when it comes to sharing his views about the conflict.

"It is impossible for me to sit and talk about these matters in the tea room at work. I have to isolate myself," Dr Yousif said.

He claimed, "every colonisation project in the world, be it the Belgians in the Congo, the French in Algiers, the Italians in Libya, the English in Iraq, there was always a resistance movement.

"Only Palestinians are not afforded a resistance movement," he said.

The senior lecturer drew comparisons to Hamas, the Palestinian militant wing and Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) party during the apartheid years in South Africa.

"We were on the wrong side of history about South Africa, but by protesting now on behalf of the Palestinians, we will be on the right side of history," he said.