Indigenous Friends of Israel founders Norman and Barbara Miller condemn the ignorance, racism, and antisemitism of the Greens MPs in the Australian Senate in recent weeks and of the Greens’ mayoral candidate for Brisbane, Mr Sri. 

Mr Sri made a post calling for Zionists, Nazis and TERFs to be excluded from a protest rally he was calling to scrap the Gabba Olympics. Was this in the name of inclusion which the Greens usually call for? 

For someone who hopes to be Lord Mayor of Brisbane to be equating Zionism and Nazism, shows political naivety and poor judgment and he should make an apology to the Jewish community of Brisbane as has been called for by the Qld Jewish Board of Deputies.

It would seem Mr Sri’s intention is to inflame hatred, racism, and antisemitism at a time when Jew hatred is rising due to the lies that have been spread. It is the Jewish people who were massacred in their homes on October 7 causing Israel to defend itself against terrorist groups such as Hamas. So do not spread a “blame the victim” narrative.

It is a historical fact that six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust by the Nazis. The Jewish people were able to rise from the ashes, literally, and reestablish the modern state of Israel which had always existed in remnant form. 

The Zionist dream was realized – to reestablish the Jewish people in their ancient homeland after thousands of years of colonisation and dispersal by empires now long gone. That is all Zionism is – reestablishing Indigenous Jews in their own land, never again to be uprooted. 

The United Nations approved this on 29 November 1947 with the vote for resolution 181 to set up a Jewish and an Arab state in the British Mandate. This was done under the leadership of Australian Doc Evatt.  Israel was admitted to the United Nations as a full member on May 11, 1949, a democratic country with equal rights for all its citizens. 

Zionism, Mr Sri, and your supporters, is simply the recognition of the right and legitimacy of the state of Israel to exist. 

Signed Norman and Barbara Miller