Statement: FPM condemns attack on the East Melbourne Synagogue

8 July 2025

Free Palestine Melbourne condemns in the strongest possible terms the attack on the East Melbourne Synagogue.

To target a place of worship—while people are gathered inside—is inexcusable. It has no place in any struggle for justice, and it has no place in ours.

We send our solidarity to Melbourne’s Jewish community.

FPM rejects all types of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, in all its forms, without hesitation or excuse. 

Those of us who march for Palestine do so to uphold life, not to threaten it. We grieve every civilian death in Gaza and Palestine. We speak out against the killing of children, the bombing of hospitals, places of worship, schools, and the deliberate starvation of an entire population. Expressions of grief are not the same as hate. They must not be twisted into justification for violence here.

We urge the public and the media to treat this attack with the seriousness it deserves—without using it to smear an entire movement that is peaceful, diverse, and committed to justice.

Blaming our movement would not only be wrong—it would play into a long, racist history of casting Palestinians and their supporters as violent and hateful. This kind of othering dehumanises, isolates, and fuels the very injustices we are fighting against. 

Our communities experience anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia every day without condemnation from the media or government.

There can be no place for anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism in our city. And no justification for staying silent as Palestinians are genocided with impunity.

We must hold the line—against hate here and against war crimes in Palestine.

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