Gaza ceasefire offers hope of easing tensions at home
Hopes for continued peace in the Middle East extend to Australia, but the country’s deep-seated racism must also be addressed, says the commissioner responsible for racial discrimination.
Supporters of Palestine and Israel in Australia cautiously welcomed the ceasefire in Gaza as a first step towards a meaningful peace in the region.
Giridharan Sivaraman, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s race discrimination commissioner, hopes the news will reduce divisions across the country.
“I hope that with the ceasefire we will see some of the direct effects of dehumanization and marginalization diminish,” he told AAP.
“But I think these problems will continue because they are structural problems.”
The commission’s consultations with Jewish, Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities as part of the Seen and Heard project revealed feelings of physical attack, online harassment, fear, isolation and “othering” in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
What further reinforces these experiences is the feeling that they are neither accepted nor validated by leaders and the broader community.
“If you don’t recognize the suffering of people who are killed, who are affected by hunger, or who are affected by acts of terrorism, then you are dehumanizing the people who identify with those who are suffering here,” Mr. Sivaraman said.
He called on the government to establish a National Anti-Racism Taskforce, a key recommendation of the “first-of-its-kind” national anti-racism framework presented by the AHRC last November.
“For too long we have taken an ad hoc, piecemeal approach to tackling racism, and that has not proven effective,” Mr. Sivaraman said.
“If you look back at the last five years, violence and interpersonal racism against people of Chinese descent descended on our streets in 2020.
“It rained down on First Nations people in 2023 (during the Voice referendum).
“If you have to step back and look at the whole picture, you have to understand that we have deep-seated, structural and institutional problems that allow this racism to continue to occur on a regular basis.
The goal changes but the problem remains the same.
The Israeli government approved the US-brokered ceasefire on Friday, and the agreement will come into force within 24 hours.
According to the agreement, Hamas will release the Israeli hostages it has been holding in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees.
Prominent Muslim community leader and GP Jamal Rifi said there was a sense of relief following the ceasefire.
Dr. “Any agreement is better than the senseless murders and killing of hostages that have occurred in the last two years,” Rifi told AAP.
He said the events in Gaza over the past two years had negatively affected Australia’s social cohesion.
However, Dr. Rifi remained optimistic about the country’s ability to recover, driven by positive conversations among Muslim, Arab and Jewish communities.
“What binds us as Australians is much stronger than each person’s perspective on the conflict,” he said.
“It will not be that easy, but I believe that the world and peace-loving countries now see that the two-state solution is the way to end the Middle East conflict.”
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