Ethical discernment, compassion without capitulation: grief, protest & the right to resist apartheid

"Do not let the hatred of a people cause you to depart from justice. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness." Qur'an (Surah al-Ma'idah 5:8)

History shows that collective fear enables political actors to compress narratives, erase nuance, and privilege slogans over complexity. Scholars of political communication demonstrate that simplified framing circulates most effectively during moments of shock, benefiting authority rather than understanding.¹

Ethical discernment requires resisting narrative collapse. Correlation does not equal causation. Assumption does not equate to fact, and the coexistence of multiple issues does not establish only one group's responsibility. Acts of violence cannot be retroactively assigned to unrelated movements, protests, or communities simply because they occur within the same temporal or social moment.

This essay argues that mourning victims of public violence and supporting peaceful protest are ethical imperatives, not mutually exclusive or contradictory acts. It examines how fear has historically been politicised, how narratives are manipulated during moments of crisis, and how public discourse often collapses into false binaries. Integrating legal, historical, and humanitarian analysis, the essay centres Palestinian self-determination and resistance to apartheid and genocide, grounded in contemporary evidence from international law, human rights documentation, and genocide scholarship.

1. Introduction: grief in the public sphere

Lives are lost, families are shattered, and entire communities are left carrying grief that cannot be neatly resolved. Condemning public violence is not an optional response; it is a moral obligation. Any ethical society must begin here. 

Public violence ruptures ordinary life and leaves communities carrying grief that deserves protection, not politicisation. Before analysis, before headlines, before politics or ideology, there must be space for mourning and for the protection of grief.

Bondi left many unsettled, searching for language adequate to loss: parents holding children closer, the silence after an alert, the shock of lives taken without meaning.

At the same time, a pause - ethical clarity requires recognising that moments of collective fear are rarely neutral. Crisis heightens emotion and compresses complexity into simplified narratives. Fear can be leveraged, surveillance normalised, and public discernment quietly discouraged while communities process genuine loss. Holding grief and discernment together is the responsible choice. Critical thinking must not disappear in moments of mourning, nor should the protections owed to another people - particularly a people experiencing genocide - be quietly suspended.

2. Why both grief and protest must never be silenced.

Ethical societies recognise mourning and civic dissent as moral constants, not privileges to be granted or withdrawn in moments of fear. 

Questioning protest - or demanding conformity to politically convenient narratives - fractures shared suffering and diminishes justice. The right to protest must remain inviolable precisely when fear threatens to narrow empathy and harden public discourse.

Communities most affected by structural violence often find their grief met not with care but with suspicion; not with support but with surveillance. Palestinians, Muslims, and their allies have repeatedly articulated that violence against their communities is rarely met with the same public empathy afforded elsewhere. Instead, they are framed as threats, policed collectively, monitored, and blamed.

Australia's 2014 New South Wales counter-terrorism raids, which remain among the largest in the nation's history, offer a cautionary example. Women were de-hijabed, children were swept from their beds, and men were wrongly accused in over 25 homes. These raids resulted in minimal security outcomes yet inflicted significant psychological and social harm on Muslim families through collective suspicion, aggressive surveillance, and the normalisation of fear-based governance. Such precedents echo again in the aftermath of the Bondi attack, where Muslim communities are once more positioned as collectively suspect despite one of the heroes, Ahmed Al Ahmed, being Muslim himself.

Efforts to suppress protest (particularly pro-Palestinian advocacy) frequently rely on narrative compression.  Lawful dissent is falsely linked to unrelated acts of harm; correlation is misrepresented as causation. This enables the retroactive assignment of violence to entire movements or communities that had no role in it, creating pretexts for censorship, criminalisation, and expanded state power.

2.1 Violations ignored and justice skirted: the irony of protecting one people while oppressing another

Despite this being the largest genocide in recent history, marked by the highest number of child amputees, the irony remains stark: Measures to stop the advocacy and protection of a people do not enhance public safety of another; they obscure responsibility and contravene international human rights and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition on collective punishment, the Rome Statute’s provisions on war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the foundational protections enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For example the tragedies of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria illustrate a disturbing pattern of similar violations. Decades of foreign interventions, indiscriminate bombings, and systematic targeting of civilian populations have left millions displaced, orphaned, or maimed. 

3.  Ethical discernment on narratives and fears.

Whilst we are speaking of identity, it is important to mention that major Jewish voices themselves have rejected this logic. Both individuals and organisations have stated unequivocally that antisemitic violence cannot be attributed to Palestinian protest or criticism of Israel, and that doing so endangers both Jewish and Muslim communities. Therefore moral injury lies not in protest but in selective empathy. 

To collapse Jewish identity into state violence, or to conflate Palestinian advocacy with antisemitism, is both dishonest and morally harmful. Ethical reasoning demands precision rather than fear, accountability rather than scapegoating, and solidarity rather than silence. Grief must be protected. Protest must be protected. When either is suppressed, it is not neutrality that prevails, but power and sometimes that power is brought into question. 

The Jewish diaspora carries the enduring memory of genocide, exile, and state-sanctioned dehumanisation atrocities perpetrated by European -not the Muslim world- that largely escaped consequences of what they inflicted. The lesson of the Holocaust was never meant to be that suffering licenses new forms of domination, nor that one people’s trauma may be redeemed through another’s dispossession. “Never again” was a universal moral injunction, not a selective one. 

To witness Palestinians and other Muslim majority ethnicities now subjected to collective punishment, mass displacement, and the erosion of basic human rights is not to diminish Jewish suffering. Honouring through remembrance loses its ethical sanctity when it is severed from empathy, and history becomes hollow when it is invoked to justify what it once demanded the world prevent. 

Moreover, many Jewish people-both in Australia and globally-actively support Palestinian human rights and pro-Palestinian protest, often because of, not despite, their ethical commitments. The Jewish Council of Australia stated clearly after the Bondi attack:

"Our grief should not be used as a political weapon, nor as an excuse to pursue agendas that divide communities… Responses should be squarely focused on keeping all communities safe, not fulfilling a pro-Israel wishlist."²

Australian Journalist Antony Loewenstein (2023) demonstrates in his book (The Palestine Laboratory) that surveillance tools developed under Israeli occupation, including spyware and facial recognition, have become part of a global infrastructure for monitoring and suppressing dissent beyond Palestine and repressing civil society globally.

It also reinforces this point, observing that accusations of antisemitism are sometimes deployed to shield state power rather than protect Jewish communities:

"Criticism of Israel is frequently reframed as antisemitism, particularly in moments of crisis, not to protect Jewish people, but to insulate state power from scrutiny."³

Ethical reasoning demands care rather than collective blame. Political critique of peaceful protest must not be weaponised as a main fault to justify the erosion of civil liberties.

4. History: Fear has historically been politicised & a caution to not repeat.

Political theorists such as Hannah Arendt and Giorgio Agamben have shown that states of exception emerge most easily after trauma, enabling extraordinary measures that later become normalised.⁴

In moments of collective shock, fear narrows public imagination and lowers resistance to expanded state power. Emergency powers are often framed as temporary, necessary, and protective. Yet over time, they harden into permanent legal and administrative structures. 

What begins as an exception to preserve order gradually reshapes the norm, recalibrating what is considered acceptable in governance, surveillance, and the suspension of rights.

Despite the media’s role in advancing distortion and selective framing as a manoeuvre, the mechanism itself is not new. As Orwells’ Animal Farm reminds us: “If they could not see it, they could at least believe it.” This marks the point at which people stop asking “Is this true?” and instead settle for “This is what we are being told.”

Naming these patterns where evidence loses force and authority replaces reality is not conspiratorial; it is historically grounded. Fear has repeatedly been used to justify surveillance, repression, and moral exceptionalism. History cautions us that once exceptional measures are normalised, accountability erodes, and injustice learns how to speak the language of necessity.

Events such as the Lavon Affair (1954), contested bombings of Iraqi Jewish communities in the 1950s, the USS Liberty incident (1967), and the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte (1948) demonstrate the necessity of scrutinising all state violence not just cherry picking.⁵ These cases are not accusations against communities but warnings against the lack of critical thought.

Fear does not always arrive with force; it arrives with reassurance, and people may sometimes live inside a lie because it is easier than standing alone with the truth.

5. Christchurch, hate, and public response towards radicalisation.

The Christchurch mosque massacre for example in 2019 exemplifies how violence emerges from openly articulated ideologies sustained by dehumanisation. Fifty-one Muslim worshippers were murdered in an act rooted in Islamophobic rhetoric. New Zealand's response-centred on solidarity and protection of Muslim communities-demonstrated that collective grief need not be weaponised to suppress dissent.⁶ Is this something we want to have repeated due to false narratives of Muslims, protestors and Palestinian activists?

The resurrection of the ISIS boogeyman was certainly something the Muslim community is understandably skeptical of, considering the complete absence of even a whiff of such an ideology domestically from any mosques, Islamic centres, preachers or community members. There is no radicalisation problem in the Muslim community. And if this is a concern then rather than looking to Mosques with suspicion, we would argue this is a time that the wider Australian community should want to see even more Mosque development and activity. The reality is, the best preventers of radicalisation are mosques and Imams that can counteract any toxic online ideologies.

For instance according to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), Preventing Violent Extremism through Inclusive Development and the Rule of Law (2019) far from being sites of radicalisation, mosques function as protective environments providing theological clarity, pastoral guidance, social accountability, and early intervention. Where structured religious leadership and open community engagement are present, susceptibility to extremist narratives measurably declines.

Empirical studies repeatedly show that radicalisation flourishes in isolation and online echo chambers, not in mosques - making strong, visible religious institutions one of the most effective safeguards against extremist ideology.

6. Psyops, False Flags and Scrutiny

History reminds us that political violence and deception have appeared across contexts and that no state or movement is exempt from scrutiny. Cases such as Operation Susannah (the Lavon Affair of 1954), contentious debates over alleged bombings in Iraq during the 1950–51 period, the USS Liberty incident of 1967, and the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948 all demonstrate the complexity of historical conflict and the importance of resisting moral exceptionalism (Cohen 2010; Black & Morris 1991; Gat 2006; Ennes 1979; Persson 1980). 

These events are not accusations against communities but warnings: violence and deception must be condemned regardless of who commits them or which narrative seeks to excuse them. Lest we forget, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in 2009 testimony, the United States funded Afghan mujahideen fighters during the 1980s Soviet-Afghan War (many of whom later contributed to the emergence of groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda) illustrating the long-term results of foreign interventions and proxy wars which resulted in the massacre of millions aimed at short-term geopolitical gains (Clinton 2009; Coll 2004; Crile 2003). 

In a parallel vein, the Islamic State (ISIS) has consistently opposed Palestinian nationalist groups like the PLO and Hamas, criticizing their focus on national liberation and alliances (including with Iran) as deviations from transnational Salafi-jihadism, rather than offering any support for Palestinian self-determination (Hegghammer & Wagemakers 2015; Bunzel 2015; Zelin 2023). In fact, the so-called ISIS terrorists would never step foot in a pro-Palestine rally as they would see it as an abomination and rejecting Palestinian national liberation, civil protest, and any movement grounded in international law or collective rights rooted in popular mobilisation, safe community, and political struggle rather than the nihilistic violence they promote.

Indeed, ISIS and its affiliates have directed the vast majority of their violence toward Muslim populations whom they deem apostates or rivals far exceeding attacks on non-Muslim targets, with direct operations against Israel remaining notably rare and deprioritized in favor of intra-Muslim sectarian conflict (Kafir & Krause 2018; Plebani & Maggiolini 2021). This brings many questions forward and highlights the risks of conflating disparate movements and the need for precise discernment in attributing motives across ideological conflicts. Hint: Muslims do not want to be terrorised either or at all. It is in their major interest as well to stop any and all bad actors.

To expound briefly, these instances often involve calculated deceptions blending violence with narrative manipulation for political gain. Another example is Operation Susannah, which saw Israeli agents bomb Western targets in Egypt to frame nationalists and delay British withdrawal (Teveth 1996; Golan 1978). The 1950–51 Baghdad bombings targeted Jewish sites, allegedly by Zionist agents to incite fear and spur emigration to Israel amid anti-Jewish policies (Shiblak 2005; Gat 2007). The USS Liberty attack in 1967 involved Israeli forces striking a U.S. ship during the Six-Day War, killing 34 and injuring 171, amid claims of intent and subsequent cover-ups (Ennes 2002; Cristol 2002; Scott 2009). 

Another is Bernadotte's 1948 assassination by the Lehi group targeted his peace plan in Palestine being seen as unfavorable, with limited accountability following (Persson 1979; Marton 1994). Such operations, often attributed to Mossad or its predecessors, exemplify how intelligence agencies across nations employ covert tactics that can endanger civilians and strain alliances, underscoring the broader imperative to scrutinise state-sponsored deception irrespective of the actor (Bergman 2018; Guttmann 2025; Weiss 2013). These psyops-like patterns demand ethical scrutiny to prevent normalization. It also demands that we do not naively adopt simplified narratives of incidents that are conveniently used to further political agendas. 

7. Surveillance, Civil Liberties, and the Right to Dissent

International law further recognises the right of oppressed peoples to resist structural violence through lawful means such as safe protesting. 

Misattribution threatens civil liberties and distorts accountability, diverting attention from the actual causes of violence. These Crises often justify expanded surveillance and curtailed freedoms. Legal scholars warn that such measures are rarely rolled back without sustained resistance.⁷ Security rooted in fear corrodes the social fabric it claims to protect. Silencing voices in a so-called free ‘democratic society- undermines its foundational principles: the right to dissent. 

To quote V is for Vendetta, “When the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.”

Empirical research shows most ideological attacks are committed by socially isolated individuals, not protest movements.¹⁶ Psychological scholarship links violence to trauma and isolation rather than collective grievance alone.¹⁷ Ethical discernment requires separating individual pathology from collective resistance.

Jewish scholars including Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappé, and Amira Hass reject the conflation of Palestinian advocacy with antisemitism.¹⁸ Recognising Jewish suffering does not negate Palestinian suffering.

Criminalising peaceful advocacy violates human rights norms and opens way bigger issues.¹⁹

It is deeply saddening to witness the indifference many politicians display toward the suffering of the Palestinian people. The pro-Palestinian movement has been dismissed as a domestic “nuisance” said to threaten “social cohesion” language that quietly devalues Palestinian lives. We did not hear this rhetoric when Australians protested the invasion of Ukraine or spoke out against the persecution of the Uyghurs. Instead of engaging seriously with Australia’s obligations to prevent genocide, the Prime Minister has suggested that Australia is not a “major player.” Meanwhile, voices that defend or normalise an illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are treated as just another perspective within a “complex” conflict one Australia is said to have little responsibility for. This framing ignores the reality that Australia is a signatory to the Geneva Convention, which imposes a legal obligation to prevent genocide and, at a minimum, to avoid complicity including through the export of weapons or weapons components to a state engaged in such crimes.

What threatens social cohesion is not protest, but the normalisation of genocide and the criminalisation of those who demand its end. This is an upside-down moral order that politicians and media outlets insist on presenting as reasonable right side up. 

8. International Law Recommendation and  Palestinian Context: Apartheid and Genocide

Human Rights Watch identifies Israeli governance as genocide, noting policies designed to ensure Israeli domination over Palestinians.⁸ Since October 2023, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, with widespread civilian devastation documented by health authorities and humanitarian bodies not to mention on our phone screens.⁹ 

UN commissions and organisations including B'Tselem have concluded that Israeli conduct in Gaza meets criteria for genocidal acts under international law.¹⁰ ¹¹ Starvation, blockade, and destruction of civilian infrastructure have produced famine conditions directly linked to policy decisions.¹² Settlement expansion further entrenches apartheid and undermines Palestinian sovereignty and completely goes against the genocide convention.¹³ ¹⁴

International law affirms Palestinian self-determination and statehood.¹⁵ The international community must accurately label apartheid, recognise Palestine, reform veto abuses, and pursue accountability mechanisms. Economic pressure-through boycott, divestment, and sanctions-mirrors strategies used against apartheid South Africa and remains ethically consistent.

9. Conclusion

Grief and protest are not opposites; they are ethical companions. To mourn sincerely while resisting injustice is not a contradiction but a disciplined expression of conscience. Grief that demands silence in the face of oppression is not compassion; it is compliance. Protest that abandons ethical restraint, however, risks becoming the very thing it claims to oppose. Ethical discernment therefore requires holding both together: the protection of grief, and the protection of civic dissent, especially when fear is being used to narrow empathy and expand power.

Palestinian resistance must be understood within its material context: a response to prolonged structural violence, dispossession, and the systematic denial of fundamental rights. Political protest, civil disobedience, and transnational solidarity are not threats to social order; they are assertions of human dignity, and recognised expressions of self-determination under international law. The erosion of these rights in the name of “cohesion” does not create safety. It normalises moral inversion, where mass death is treated as a background condition and those who object are cast as the problem.

Whatever rhetorical sweetness is offered to the tongue of the secular palette, a massacre and a bloodbath remain unmistakably bitter realities.

To support Palestinian self-determination is not to excuse harm, nor to negate the suffering of others. It is to reject collective blame, resist narrative manipulation, and insist that justice is applied without hierarchy. Compassion without capitulation is not radical. It is what remains when we refuse fear as our compass, refuse power as our moral authority, and choose deliberately to be just.

References

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2 Jewish Council of Australia. Public Statement Following the Bondi Attack. Sydney, 2024.

3 Loewenstein, Antony. The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. London: Verso, 2023.

4 Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970; Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

5 Cohen, Michael J., and Jones, John. “The Lavon Affair Revisited.” Middle Eastern Studies 45, no. 3 (2009); Shiblak, Abbas, and Gat, Moshe. “The Iraqi Jewish Bombings.” Middle Eastern Studies 25, no. 2 (1989); Scott, James M. The Attack on the USS Liberty. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009; United Nations Archives. Assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, 1948.

6 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques. Ko tō tātou kāinga tēnei. Wellington, 2020.

7 Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019; Lyon, David. Surveillance Society. Buckingham: Open University Press, 2001.

8 Human Rights Watch. A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution. New York, 27 April 2021.

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Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 1998. Articles 7(1)(j) and 7(2)(h). July 17.

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Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs.