A leading multicultural advocate has quit his South Australian post in protest against the state government’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war, which he says has been characterised by anti-Palestinian bias.
Key points:
- Islamic Society president Ahmed Zreika has resigned from the state’s Multicultural Commission
- He says the SA government has shown insufficient sympathy for Palestinian victims of the Israel-Gaza war
- SA Premier Peter Malinauskas says his government condemns all acts of violence
Muslim community leader Ahmed Zreika was one of 15 board members with the state’s Multicultural Commission, but said he resigned on Saturday after sending a letter to Premier Peter Malinauskas.
Mr Zreika, who is the president of the Islamic Society of SA, said he had urged the premier to show the same solidarity with Palestinians in the firing line as he had demonstrated towards Israelis in the wake of Hamas’s initial deadly attack of 10 days ago.
“As a Muslim community, we want to send our sympathy to the Jewish community here in Adelaide, and we condemn all kinds of killing of civilian people,” Mr Zreika said.
“But we see the state government — they support only one community, at the expense of the other community.”
Mr Zreika said he had been especially disappointed by the fact that, while the SA government had chosen to illuminate Adelaide landmarks with Israel’s blue and white colours, it had not since made a similar gesture of support for the Palestinian community.
“We have seen the premier and the state government stand up with Israel and the civilian people of Israel,” Mr Zreika said.
“I fully understand his position to light up the Israel flag on Adelaide landmarks, but I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t illuminate the Palestinian flag just to show [sympathy] for the almost 1,000 kids who have been killed so far by the Israeli army.
“All we need from him is to condemn the killing of civilians from both sides.”
Mr Zreika said that the local Islamic community was in no way supportive of Hamas or its recent actions, and that they “just don’t want the civilian people to be killed”.
In response to the criticisms, the SA premier today described Mr Zreika as a “fine gentleman” who has been a “proud advocate for his community”.
“I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with Ahmed and his community a number of times, particularly when we saw horrific attacks on Muslim people in other parts of the world,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“He didn’t agree with landmarks around the state being lit up blue and white, but that was an approach that was taken by every capital city, I think, around the country quite deliberately because as a government we have to send a very clear message that we do not tolerate any terrorist acts.”
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the heart of Adelaide and gathered on the steps of SA’s Parliament House on Sunday.
Mr Malinauskas said that, while there was now a “humanitarian crisis” unfolding in Gaza, the people there were “suffering the consequences of Hamas’s attack in Israel”.
“What was initiated by Hamas against Israel … was an unprovoked terrorist attack,” he said.
“As a government, we wanted to show solidarity with the Israeli people … but I am very conscious of the fact that as recent days have unfolded we’ve seen some pretty tragic scenes come out of Gaza too.
“It’s been reported that there is a genuine humanitarian crisis currently underway in Gaza — something to the order of 6,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza.
“The great tragedy here is that, both on the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, innocent people are losing their lives. That is heartbreaking.”
Mr Malinauskas said that both his government and he himself had been “supporters of a two-state solution for some time”.
“Acknowledging Israel’s absolute right to defend itself, we still do call on proportionality in terms of Israel’s response, we want to minimise I think wherever we see it the loss of innocent civilians’ lives,” he said.
“We call out acts of violence wherever we see them.”
