A two-day online summit Erasure and Defiance: the Politics of Silence and Voice on Palestine, hosted by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Diversities and Social Inclusion Research Centre, also heard the type of reporting in the mainstream media “normalised violence” against Palestinians, reports the UTS Central News.

Also, the murder of Palestinians and resistance by them had been routinely mischaracterised as “loss and failure” on their part as though it was their own fault.

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Although the conference took place over one and-a-half days in July and brought together Arab, Muslim, Jewish and Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Australia, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, details have only just been released.

The release of the conference proceedings comes more than one year on from the start of the Israeli War on Gaza, now extended into Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and an Amnesty International investigation concluding Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts… and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at least 45,097 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 17,492 children, with more than 107,244 people injured and in excess of 10,000 people missing under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, have killed journalists at a faster rate than any conflict on record, with estimates varying between 137, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 188 documented by Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi, and the 196 killed as reported by the Gaza Government Media Office.

By comparison 63 journalists were killed in 20 years of the Vietnam War.

Posed war crime questions
The conference posed major questions regarding the erasing of Palestinian history, how it enables present-day war crimes and how defiance has resonated and inspired ongoing resistance by:

• Palestinians fighting to defend their lives and their land, or as seen around the world, in civic protests;
• the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement;
• human rights advocacy;
• alternative social media production; and
• legal challenges in the highest of our international institutions, the ICC and the International Court of Justice.

The conference was officially opened with the Welcome to Country, from Uncle Greg Simms, Gadigal elder of the Dharug Nation.

Uncle Greg spoke about the importance of land and country to the survival of Australia’s Indigenous people, the role of ancestral ties and connections, the importance of history and allies in the face of genocide, and the need to empathise with the people of Palestine at this time.

Dr Janine Hourani’s address.    Video: UTS

Janine Hourani from the University of Exeter and Palestinian Youth Movement, in her keynote speech detailed the history of Palestinian resistance to Zionist occupation, addressing how the recording of history, privileged by a select few, served to stifle narratives, as well as erase key figures and moments in time, “reproducing a particular version of Palestinian history that focuses on defeat and loss, rather than resistance and rebellion”.

“The Western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts, reporting Palestinians as ‘died’ and Israeli settlers as ‘murdered’ and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians,” said Hourani.

“Since October we’ve heard multiple political interventions being made about the Western media’s complicity in the current genocide in Palestine.”

Souheir Edalbi, a law lecturer at Western Sydney University, convened the session that followed, featuring four speakers.

Anti-Palestinian racism
Randa Abdelfattah, an author, lawyer and academic, addressed anti-Palestinian racism which serves to disarm criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Udi Raz, an academic and activist based in Germany, presented a case study of Mizrahi or Arab Jews in Germany, interrogating the definition of semitism and otherness in that context, the culturally pervasive racism towards Arabs, and German anxieties about what constitutes a non-European identity.

Annie Pfingst, an author and academic, listed 11 different types of “erasure” by Israel, from the confiscation, possession and renaming of Palestinian villages through to the holding of Palestinian bodies killed by the Israeli forces, not returned to their families, or buried in the “cemetery of numbers”.

She described a “necrological regime” that turns dead bodies into prisoners of the state, penalising and torturing the community, serving “to further evict the native in line with the structure of the settler colonial imperative of elimination”.

We have seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.

Jessica Holland, a researcher, curator and archivist, discussed how the history of archiving of Palestinian material is “deeply embedded within a legacy of coloniality”, and the importance of Palestinian social history and archiving projects, in redressing and countering hegemonic understandings and organisation of materials.

“Journalists, teachers, doctors, health care workers, public servants, lawyers, artists, food hospitality workers. Across every profession and industry [showing] solidarity with Palestine has been met with a repertoire of repressive tactics, disciplinary employment processes, cancelled contracts, lawfare, police brutality, parliamentary scrutiny, coordinated complaints and harassment campaigns, media coverage, doxxing, harassment, attempts at law reform and policy amendments,” said Abdelfattah.

“We have seen in the past few days the treatment of [Senator] Fatima Payman and the intimidation, bullying and silencing she has endured.

“We have also seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.”

On day two of the conference Aunty Glendra Stubbs gave the Acknowledgement of Country, which was followed by the keynote speaker Jeff Halper, anthropologist, author, lecturer, political activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Normalising violence
Halper addressed how Israel as a Zionist settler colonial state normalises violence, erasure and apartheid against Palestinians, where physical and cultural genocide are built in, necessitating indigenous resistance.

A second panel, “Social Movements, in Defiance”, convened by Alison Harwood, a social change practitioner, included speakers Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia, and Latoya Rule from UTS Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.

Speakers shared insights on how social movements mobilise from within their diverse communities, to reach and potentially impact the Australian and international social and political stage.

Interdisciplinary storyteller and media producer Daz Chandler presented a series of pre-recorded interviews and a live discussion with participants involved in University campus encampments from around the world including activists from Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank, Mexico, Trinity College in Dublin, UCLA, the University of Melbourne, University of Tokyo, University of Sydney and Monash University.

Two further sessions focused on responses “From the Field”, with a third panel convened by Paula Abboud, a cultural worker, educator, writer and creative producer, featuring The Age journalist Maher Moghrabi, author and human rights lawyer Sara Saleh, Lena Mozayani from NSW Teachers for Palestine, and Dr Sana Pathan from ANZ Doctors for Palestine.

Each reflected on their work and the challenges they encountered in their respective professional fields. Obstructions they faced ranged from hindering and silencing the expression of ideas, through to the prevention of carrying out critical on-the-ground work to save lives.

Hometown of Nablus
The final panel of the conference was moderated by Derek Halawa, a Palestinian living in the diaspora, who shared his experience of travelling to his hometown of Nablus.

He followed virtual footsteps from his cousin’s video, through the alley ways, to reach the home of his great grandfather, a journey which culminated in reaching the steps of Al Aqsa Mosque, with both spaces symbolising belonging and hope.

Cathy Peters, media worker and co-founder of BDS Australia described a diverse range of disruption movements calling for the end of ties with Israeli companies, since the war on Gaza.

This was followed by RIta Jabri Markwell, solicitor and adviser to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, addressing specific points of Australian law dealing with terrorism, freedom of speech, and racial discrimination.

The conference, which was was co-convened by Barbara Bloch, Wafa Chafic, James Goodman, Derek Halawa and Christina Ho, concluded with UTS Sociology Professor James Goodman giving an overview of the proceedings and potential actions post-conference.

One post-conference outcome is an additional series of interviews produced by Daz Chandler exploring the power of creative practices utilised within the Palestinian resistance movement.

It features renowned Palestinian contemporary artist Khaled Hourani, Ben Rivers: co-founder of the Palestinian Freedom Bus, Yazan al-Saadi: co-founder of Cartoonists for Palestine, Taouba Yacoubi: Sew 4 Palestine, Birkbeck University of London; and artist and activist from Naarm Melbourne, Margaret Mayhew.

Republished from the UTS Central News.