Grace Tame's shameful protest chant at anti-Isaac Herzog rally is the lowest of lows for an Australian of the Year. It's time to do what was once unthinkable: PETER VAN ONSELEN
Last night at a protest rally in Sydney deliberately timed to coincide with the Israeli President’s official trip to Australia to mourn the victims of the Bondi terrorism massacre, former Australian of the Year Grace Tame directed the assembled crowd to chant 'globalise the intifada'.Tame would piously insist she’s on the side of the righteous in doing so, however, the overwhelming majority of Australians would undoubtedly disagree.‘Globalise the intifada’ is not a misunderstood plea for justice that deserves gentle interpretation. It’s a slogan with a body count in its shadow. Anyone chanting it in 2026 is choosing to drag that shadow into their own city, their own streets, their own politics.On this occasion the person doing it happens to have once been the most celebrated person in Australia. So what does 'globalise the intifada' mean? Intifada literally translates as ‘uprising’, and in modern political life it is globally recognised as shorthand for two defining episodes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which involved terrorism that included the deliberate targeting of civilians.Added to that, the word ‘globalise’ calls for a regional conflict - in this case between Israelis and Palestinians - to be exported elsewhere. It invites people, thousands of kilometres away, to imagine themselves as participants in an uprising. Grace Tame screamed 'from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the infitada' at a rally outside the Sydney Town Hall on Monday nightBy bellowing 'from Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the infitada' in peaceful Sydney, from the steps of the town hall, Tame is pretending that these three words are not weighted with history. If a slogan requires the public to forget where the words came from and what they meant it is misdirection - a rhetorical sleight of hand. It is also playing political cosplay with other people’s trauma. And it is a reckless act because it invites the importation of hatreds from abroad onto our own shores. What exactly does Tame think motivated the Bondi terrorists into action? A foreign ideology, in that case that of ISIS, that was brought to Australian soil, resulting in foreign hatreds being acted out here. This is where intent becomes a convenient refuge for the irresponsible. The chant’s defenders claim they don’t mean violence. Indeed, I don't suggest that violence is Tame's intention. But in public life intent is not the only moral currency. Predictable effect matters. If a phrase is widely understood as a call to replicate an uprising associated with violence, then choosing it is not a neutral act. It is knowingly choosing to be provocative - and then blaming the audience for being provoked.And let’s not forget last night's protest led to police being assaulted and wider violence. Although I don't suggest that Tame was responsible for the violence or assaults, she did choose to use a catch-cry that both major parties want banned, because of the damage it does to social cohesion. Pro-Palestinian protesters face off with police outside the Sydney Town Hall on Monday night Chanting 'globalise the intifada' doesn’t lead to nuanced debate about international law or humanitarian corridors for starving Palestinians. And it lands as an intimidation tactic for Jewish communities who have every reason to fear it.That is precisely why the phrase is so poisonous: it collapses distinctions that matter. It blurs the line between criticism of a government and hostility towards an ethnic and religious community. It takes a conflict and smears it onto diaspora populations who do not control Israeli policy and are not proxies for it. And it does that at the exact historical moment when antisemitism is again spiking in many Western societies, including ours.There is also an ugly vanity at the centre of the chant. It allows comfortable Western activists to claim the moral adrenaline of revolutionary struggle without the discipline of peaceful persuasion. It gives the speaker, in this case Tame, the thrill of being radical while leaving everyone else to absorb the anxiety it creates. That isn’t principled activism. It’s utter indulgence.And it corrodes the very cause Tame claims to support. If the aim is to build durable support for Palestinian rights and security, the worst thing you can do is adopt language that a large portion of the public interprets as a call to violence. It hands opponents an open goal. It distracts from humanitarian arguments. It turns a debate about policy into a debate about extremism. It pushes moderates away from the cause. It gives institutions every reason to clamp down on protests. It’s extremely counterproductive. There were fierce clashes between police and demonstratorsNaturally, the likes of Tame will claim victimhood when the backlash arrives. But if you insist on speaking in a way that predictably terrorises, or is heard as terrorising, don’t feign innocence when society rejects it.Ultimately, the chant is irresponsible because it treats social cohesion as collateral damage. It asks a multicultural democracy to import a conflict’s most incendiary symbolism and pretend that nothing will happen here. When shockingly it already has.If Tame or anyone else wants to stand with Palestinians, there is no shortage of language that does not carry the stench of civilian terror. No need for performative menace.Tame should have her Australian of the Year title taken away. The only reason not to do so is that she would relish the martyrdom that would go with it.
