Banning words will not prevent violence

What we didn’t need was a rush to symbolic lawmaking that blurs the line between terrorism and political expression and risks doing more harm than good.

NSW Premier Chris Minns’ proposed  legislation banning the phrase “Globalise the Intifada” was passed on Tuesday 23 December, after the Premier had presented the move as a response to rising tensions and concerns about violence.

In the emotional shadow of a horrific terrorist act, the instinct to act decisively is understandable.

But history shows that when governments respond to terrorism by criminalising contested political language, they rarely make communities safer.

More often, they deepen grievance, narrow democratic space and undermine social cohesion at precisely the moment it is most fragile.

Terrorism is an act of violence. It involves intent, planning and physical harm, and it is already comprehensively addressed by Australia’s criminal law.

Political speech, even when it is confronting or deeply uncomfortable, belongs in a different category.

When the state collapses that distinction, it moves away from policing conduct and towards policing meaning.

That’s a threshold democracies cross at their peril.

Australia already had strong legal tools to address incitement, threats, intimidation and public disorder.

If a chant is used to menace people, to target communities outside places of worship, or to incite imminent harm, police can and should intervene.

A blanket ban on a phrase removes context from that assessment and replaces it with assumption. It does not clarify the law; it politicises it.

History offers repeated warnings about this approach. During the global struggle against apartheid, language of resistance and international solidarity was routinely portrayed as inherently dangerous.

Activists were surveilled, banned and silenced across Western democracies, including in Australia.

Those restrictions did not prevent violence in South Africa. They delayed justice and eroded trust in the institutions enforcing them.

Change came not through censorship, but through confronting the injustice at the heart of the conflict.

Australia’s own history tells a similar story. Indigenous advocacy for land rights and self-determination was once treated as a threat to public order.

Golden opportunity missed….NSW Premier Chris Minns.

Language that is now widely recognised as legitimate was once criminalised and ridiculed.

Suppressing those voices did not produce reconciliation. Listening to them did.

The term “intifada” itself is historically and politically complex. The first Palestinian intifada began, in its early years, largely as a mass civil uprising involving strikes, boycotts and community organising.

Later violence, particularly during the second intifada, reshaped how the term is heard, especially by Jewish communities for whom it evokes deep trauma.

That history explains why the word is contested and painful. It doesn’t justify treating the term itself as synonymous with terrorism, stripped of context, intent or conduct, as the NSW Parliament has now done.

What is most concerning about legislating a ban in the wake of Bondi is the broader signal it sends.

When governments respond to a terrorist act by narrowing the space for political expression, particularly the expression of already marginalised communities, they risk reinforcing alienation rather than easing it.

Communities that feel singled out or silenced do not become safer or more integrated.

They disengage, mistrust institutions and retreat from democratic participation. These are conditions that exacerbate, rather than prevent, long-term harm.

There is also a question of consistency that cannot be ignored. Explicit calls for collective punishment, dehumanisation or the erasure of civilians circulate widely in public discourse without attracting the same urgency for prohibition.

When only certain forms of political expression are singled out for criminalisation, the law begins to appear selective rather than protective.

That perception corrodes the legitimacy on which effective public safety depends.

As a Palestinian advocate, I reject violence against civilians without qualification.

The Bondi attack was an atrocity, and nothing about Palestinian history or suffering excuses such acts.

But safety is not achieved by banning words instead of confronting realities. It is achieved by enforcing laws against violence consistently, protecting all communities equally, and resisting the temptation to substitute censorship for justice.

Moments of collective grief test democratic values. They reveal whether leaders respond with clarity or panic, principle or symbolism.

Premier Minns has missed a golden opportunity to show that strength lies not in banning contested political language, but in upholding consistent legal standards, defending democratic freedoms and addressing the conditions that allow fear and division to take root.

Banning words may look like action, but it’s not. It mistakes expression for violence and censorship for protection.

Australia has faced moments like this before and our strongest responses have always been grounded in courage, consistency and justice – not fear.