Palestine is Not for Sale

Published in Latana, 15th February, 2026

The following speech was delivered by Dr Tasnim Sammak at the Naarm protest against Isaac Herzog’s visit on 12 February 2026.

I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. No pride in genocide.

As we gather here today, we condemn the genocide of the Indigenous people of this land, whose land is stolen and, as a consequence, we have a white government that thinks it is the authority over this land. Shame.

It is white sovereignty that brought Herzog here—white sovereignty, even though Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded. And that is the context we should really be talking about, the context that Minns and Albanese insist we forget. A context of colonisation here that allows so-called Australia to be an ally of the United States, which is also a settler colony, and of course Israel, the young colony.

The young settler colony. That is the ‘Australia-Israel’ relation they’re talking about here, yet they say to us that the relationship is based on civilisational values of democracy, harmony, liberty and equality. Shame, Australia, shame.