The cancellation of Myers popular Christmas window display in Melbourne, in response to a planned pro-Palestine protest, highlighting that there is no Christmas for Palestinians under Israeli bombs, is hardly a ban on Christmas festivities in Australia.
Christmas – “Bah Humbug”, so said Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens 1843 story A Christmas Carol. Humbuggery is apparently alive and well in Melbourne with the cancellation of
This has seen a pile-on of pearl-clutching politicians angry at the cheek of Palestinian supporters’ plans. Indeed the Melbourne lord mayor Nick Reece told ABC Radio Melbourne the protesters were “ruining Christmas for the rest of us”.
There is obviously deep pain in Australia’s Palestinian diaspora as evidenced by the statement to ABC Radio Melbourne of President of the Australia-Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni: “We’re waking up to images that make our bones shiver. There is a member of the Australian Palestinian community, a citizen, who’s lost 148 members of her family”.
A cancelled Christmas display pales into insignificance compared to this entirely preventable tragedy.
Of course one of the self-appointed spokesmen of the Australian Jewish community weighed in with his condemnation. Dvir Abramovich, a Melbourne academic and founder of the Anti-Defamation Commission which seeks out criticism of Israel and lumps it in with genuine instances of antisemitism accused the protest organisers of sowing anger and division, saying, “We cannot let the forces of division and fear steal the joy and wonder of this season. These windows are sacred; they belong to our children, our families, our community,”
An interesting statement for a follower of Judaism.
Aside from his dogged pursuit of anti-Semitism Abramovich in May 2024 condemned Australia’s rare support of a watered down motion granting Palestine United Nations membership, claiming that the government was rewarding Hamas.
It seems that Penny Wong is no longer convinced that Israel is defending itself.
Such hyperbole ignores the tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly mothers and children murdered in the ongoing genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.
On 19 October 2023, Israel bombed the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza, killing at least18 worshippers. This is one of the oldest churches in the world. In December Israeli snipers targeted and killed two elderly women at a Catholic Church in Gaza.
Regardless of Dvir Abramovich’s holding a Christmas display as sacred, clearly Christianity and Churches in Palestine are not sacred to the genocidal state he supports and advocates for.
As a gesture of solidarity with Gazans, in December last year the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a target of Israeli attacks in the past, set its nativity display in Manger Square among bomb rubble and razor wire.
Myers would do well to show the same solidarity and recreate the scene shown in this picture.
What would the Australian Jewish community say to the following report? Palestinian Christian pastor Munther Isaac said this year (2023), Christ was “under the rubble” due to the bombings in Gaza and as Israeli forces also continued to carry out raids across the occupied West Bank, including in Jenin.
“These windows are sacred; they belong to our children, our families, our community,” rings hollow to the pastor’s lament.