Posted on Monday, 10 June
Local residents rallied at the Nillumbik Council offices in Greensborough on 28 May, calling on the Council to stand in solidarity with Palestinians as they face genocide in Gaza. Victorian Socialist members including Lucas Moore, candidate for Olympia ward in Banyule Council, attended the rally and spoke.
So far the Nillumbik Council has shamefully tried to avoid the calls of the community to stand with the Palestinians and to demand a ceasefire, claiming it isn’t a council issue.
Maeve, a Victorian Socialists member and La Trobe University student, addressed the rally about their university’s Gaza encampments, which demanded that the university disclose and divest from weapons manufacturers and its ties to Israel.
“One of the things that has come up a lot over the last few weeks, that our vice chancellors, our politicians and media figures have tried to use to discourage people from protesting… Is the idea that we’ve misplaced our anger, to be thinking about our universities or to be thinking about our councils,” Maeve said.
She went on to explain the ties that universities have to this genocide:
“All across the country, universities partner with weapons manufactures like Lockheed Martin, like Boeing, like BAE Systems. The money we pay for an education lines the pockets of those that are involved in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians.”
Whether it’s councils hiding from their communities or university management teams hiding from their students, Victorian socialist candidates and members will continue supporting these types of actions, aiming to hold those to account for their complicity in or lack of action against genocide.
