Opinion
If you needed no other argument against lowering the voting age — in fact, if you want an argument for raising the voting age — you need only look at Melbourne yesterday.
It was like a scene out of Triumph of the Will, with keffiyehs in place of brown shirts. Hundreds of Hamasjugend baby stormtroopers screaming and yelling and cheering on the mass murder of Jews.
No, I’m not making that last part up.
“I think (Hamas) are doing a good job.”
“I don’t think (Israel) should really exist.”
Those are actual quotes from a Melbourne teenager at Thursday’s “school strike for Palestine”.
It may have only been uttered by a teenager who ditched school for a protest in Melbourne, but the declaration Hamas was “doing a good job” and Israel “shouldn’t exist” speaks to the wave of anti-Semitism that Jewish leaders say is sweeping the world since the terrorist attacks of October 7.
Some commentators tried to comfort themselves that “it was only a few hundred” at the most openly anti-Semitic demonstration since Muslims chanted “Gas the Jews!” at the Opera House. Which is a bit like Weimar residents reassuring themselves that there were only 2,000 hotheads at the Munich putsch.
The 16-year-old girl, who was one of the hundreds of students who walked out of class to attend a pro-Palestinian rally on Thursday, said the borders of Israel should not exist. “I don’t really think it’s important to stay in school when matters like this really matter,” she told The Australian.
Hmm. When you’re babbling that “matters like this really matter”, maybe you should have stayed in school.
About 500 protesters, mostly school-aged children along with adults and parents, gathered on the steps of Flinders Street Station to call for an end to the war in Gaza. The group shouted “Free Free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, a chant viewed by members of the Jewish community as a call to destroy Israel. Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said the rally should have never gone ahead.
“Before our very eyes we see a generation of anti-Jewish bigots rise, and the ripple effects of this vilification will be felt for many years to come,” he said.
“Free Palestine Melbourne has taken a leaf of out of the Hamas playbook in weaponising and exploiting children and using them as human shields to promote their ugly and divisive agenda.”
Not just Hamas, but Hitler’s playbook.
There were moments of unintentional comedy, though.
“Are we brainwashed?” the Palestinian activist asked the crowd.
“No!” the students screamed.
Some students at the protest […] held signs that read “No Nazis ever again”.
Look in the mirror, you ignorant, hateful baby Nazi loon.
Then there was this pratfall from the Victorian premier.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan earlier this week said she expected every student to be at school on Thursday.
“The best place to learn, the best place to understand, the best place to strive for a more peaceful community is by being in school, learning from history and getting the tools and skills to be part of a better future,” Ms Allan said.
The Australian
Make up your mind. Do you want them to learn and understand, or go to a government school?
It’s one or the other.
The result of too much government indoctrination, oops, “schooling” was goose-stepping through Melbourne this week.