First the Opera House steps were desecrated on October 8 with a baying mob celebrating rape, murder and kidnapping as part of an invasion of Israel they hoped would sweep “from the River to the Sea”.

Now the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been co-opted for the cause of the Islamic death cult Hamas. What was once a proud symbol of unity, freedom and enterprise has been hijacked to promote hatred and jihadist propaganda. The so-called “March for Humanity” on Sunday was anything but. It was a public relations coup for Hamas and the global jihad, not a cry for peace.

As Rowan Dean wrote in The Spectator Australia, “the Bridge has been used for the odd political statement... but never has it been so brazenly defiled.” Those who marched beneath Hamas and ISIS flags, chanting slogans calling for intifada and the eradication of Israel, weren’t advocating for justice – they were cheering on barbarism. Most disgracefully, the march occurred on the very morning Hamas released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David being tortured to death. The crowd’s silence about this atrocity was deafening.

Family First is deeply concerned about what this event reveals about Australia’s social cohesion. When tens of thousands gather under terrorist flags and Ayatollah posters – without a single Australian flag in sight (apart from that carried by the misguided John Ruddick) – it signals a disturbing moral drift. Where were the Muslim leaders condemning Hamas? Why do so many intellectuals and journalists twist facts to make excuses for the world’s most infamous Islamist death cult?

The truth is, Hamas is responsible for this war. On October 7, it launched a grotesque campaign of murder, rape and kidnapping. As historian Niall Ferguson wrote in The Australian, “one cannot call this nasty war genocide.” Ferguson, an expert on genocide, explained that while war is brutal, Israel’s objective is clear: to defeat Hamas, rescue hostages and minimise civilian harm where possible.

Ferguson noted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “warn before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets and broadcasts,” and open humanitarian corridors. They are not trying to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” That is the legal definition of genocide under the UN Convention – and it simply does not apply to Israel.

There have been reports that there is plenty of aid for Gaza, it’s just that the UN refuses to deliver it because it will not work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation which seeks to stop the aid being looted by Hamas for its terrorist army. 

In contrast to the IDF’s efforts to protect civilians in a difficult urban war zone, Hamas deliberately targets its own civilians. It hides behind women and children. It steals aid. It executes Gazans who protest. And it glorifies death. Yet, bizarrely, most Western media and much of our political class give Hamas a free pass. As Ferguson observed, this is a form of “luxury belief” – a fashionable but dangerous posture detached from reality, aiding our enemies and undermining the West.

Let’s be clear: the only winners from Sunday’s march were Hamas, Iran, and the broader axis of authoritarians. Not Palestinians. Not Australians. And certainly not the prospects for peace.

The best way to free the Palestinian people is to free them from Hamas and that can’t be achieved if Israel is made to be the villain in this conflict.

Israel’s military tactics can and should be scrutinised. But that’s not what is happening with calls to sanction Israel when it is fighting a just war on behalf of Western Civilisation.

Rowan Dean sums it up well.

“Several ironies leapt out from the images. Firstly, of course, was the absence of any serious political or community figures. Second was the fact that someone like Sydney Mayor Clover Moore who is supposedly the great representative of Australia’s LGBTQ community and Queen of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was happy to pose under a photo of the Iranian Ayatollah – an evil dictator (and homophobe) who would ensure Clover was tossed off the nearest rooftop (or bridge?) if she ever attempted to bring her ideology to the streets of Tehran. Or indeed anywhere else in the Middle East other, of course, than Israel.
“But most disgraceful and sickening of all was that this so-called ‘march for humanity’ chose to completely ignore the shocking and very real footage released that same morning by Hamas of Evyatar David being tortured to death in the tunnels beneath Gaza ‘digging his own grave’.
“Shame on everybody who set foot on our iconic Bridge last Sunday. It will take a few more heavy deluges to wash away the stains of ignominy from that wretched day.”

Family First calls on our leaders – especially those in the Muslim community – to unambiguously denounce Hamas, defend Australian values, and restore moral clarity. Appeasement emboldens terrorists. Silence makes us complicit.

What happened on the Harbour Bridge was not just a stain on our city. It was a warning that we have lost our moral compass.