Grace Tame has hit out at calls for her to be silenced or stripped of her Australian of the Year title over her fiery attacks on Israel and its visiting Israeli president Isaac Herzog, saying she will ‘refuse to be silent’.
In a post on Wednesday, Tame defended her use of the controversial phrase ‘intifada’ and anti-Israel rhetoric during a speech to a rally in Sydney on Monday against the Herzog visit, before it erupted into violent clashes between protesters and police.
The 31-year-old former Australian of the Year was met with heavy criticism from some, with former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce even calling for her to be stripped of her award.
Tame shared her response to the criticism in a video on Wednesday afternoon after sharing a written statement about coverage of the rally on Tuesday.
‘This is not the first time I’ve been made a villain for speaking out,’ Tame wrote alongside Wednesday’s video.
‘It is however the first time I’ve been cast in a worse light than a criminal state.
‘In the pursuit of justice, proportion, fairness, and truth, I refuse to be silent.’
In her video she directed her critics to watch an investigation by Al Jazeera – a Qatari state-funded international news network – about the ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza, which allegedly deployed US-made bombs.
‘Overnight we learned that nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been evaporated by Israel using illegal US weapons,’ Tame said.
‘But instead of focusing on that, our political and media classes are trying to distract the masses by focusing on words that I said at a peaceful protest on Monday night in Sydney.
‘I am not the story.
‘The story is that on Monday night, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters – gathered to decry the arrival of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who himself stands credibly accused of war crimes – were met with unprovoked police brutality.’
The behaviour of NSW Police on Monday night, which Minns refused to denounce, has come under massive scrutiny.
Footage online showed protesters being pepper sprayed, pushed and beaten by officers.
One of the most confronting scenes showed officers hauling off a group of praying Muslims.
The criticism culminated in a ‘police brutality’ protest outside Surry Hills Police Station on Tuesday night.
Tame took aim at the government’s response to the violence, saying: ‘Our leaders go on about social cohesion, what’s a better example of social cohesion than tens of thousands of people from many and diverse backgrounds gathering united in the pursuit of humanity?
‘This has been a trend for years and years and years.
‘The only thing that has changed, that is actively disrupting social cohesion, is the overreach of state powers which we all saw footage of from Monday night.’
Outside Town Hall on Monday, Tame accused Herzog of engaging in ‘incitement to genocide’ and of having ‘signed his name on bombs that were used to kill innocent women and children’.
The UN Human Rights Council in September alleged a genocide was occurring in Gaza, which Israel relentlessly attacked following the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.
Both Herzog and Israel have denied a genocide was committed in Palestine.
Tame used that word in her speech, but it was Tame’s use of the word ‘intifada’ which drew the most criticism.
Intifada means ‘shaking off’ in Arabic and is associated with uprisings and rebellion.
It’s previously been used to describe two violent Palestinian protests against Israel in 1987 and 2000.
Tame addressed her ‘intifada’ comment on Wednesday.
‘Our political and media classes are trying to distract the masses by focusing on words that I said at a peaceful protest on Monday night in Sydney,’ she said.
‘Disingenuously distorting definitions has been a cornerstone of Israel’s propaganda strategy for decades.
‘Choosing to put a negative spin on the word intifada, which literally means shaking off, is just another example of that.’
CRE: DAILY MAIL