Australian senator Lidia Thorpe speaks up for Palestine in Australian senate

Dramatic moment Lidia Thorpe speaks up for Palestine wears a Palestinian scarf into the Australian Senate and compares Australia to Israel as the ‘illegal occupier of these’ lands.

Lidia Thorpe has compared the Australian government to Israel as the ‘illegal occupier of these lands’ in an impassioned speech pledging support to Palestine.

The firebrand Greens-turned-Independent senator arrived in the chamber for the first day of sitting in a month wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.

In response to the tragic war between Israel and terrorist group Hamas which is taking place, Ms Thorpe said she sympathised with victims on both sides of the conflict.

She said Palestinians ‘live with the generational trauma of dispossession, they continue to fight for sovereignty, liberation, and land back, as do the First Peoples of this country. 

‘You have the responsibility to support Palestinians standing against it, just as you have the responsibility to support First Nations people here standing against it.’

Ms Thorpe said she ‘is not surprised’ that the Australian government has offered resounding support to Israel after Hamas launched a missile attack at a music festival last Saturday morning.

The conflict prompted swift retaliation from Israel, and some 2,600 Palestinians in Gaza have been reported dead since October 7.

‘I’m not surprised the Australian government, which is itself the illegal occupier of these lands, condones illegal occupation of other lands, and sides with an oppressive regime,’ she said.

‘Governments across the world, in an attempt to address anti-Semitism and somehow address the horrors of the Holocaust, are allowing Israel to get away with apartheid, ethnic cleansing.

Ms Thorpe condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel, but said she was also condemning ‘the violence Israel is and has been inflicting on the Palestinian people’.