A prominent pro-Palestine protest leader has been charged for saying “all Zionists are terrorists” at a rally in Melbourne’s CBD last year.
Hash Tayeh, who owns a restaurant chain called Burgertory, was charged on Friday with four counts of “using insulting words within the hearing of a person/s in a public place” for repeating the statement in a chant at a protest on May 27 last year.
The charges are normally used against people who direct obscene or abusive language against police, but last month while discussing Victoria’s proposed anti-vilification laws Jewish Liberal MP David Southwick said there should be no political defence for using the phrase “all Zionists are terrorists”.
Mr Tayeh, who last year had his house and one of his burger franchises firebombed, told The Age he would fight the charges, and that he was against the harm no matter who the victims were.
“Standing against the loss of innocent lives is not just a political stance; it is a moral obligation,” he said.
“No innocent person deserves to die, and I will fight these charges with everything I have. I will take this battle as far as necessary because speaking out against injustice is not just a right – it is a duty.
“Criticising a regime that commits acts of terror is not a crime. It is a fundamental right, a cornerstone of democracy, and political censorship has no place in Australia.”
Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns SC addressed the charges on X on Saturday, writing: “Deeply concerning that Victoria Police is seeking to criminalise political rhetoric. Dangerous.”
On Friday he told The Age the charges, in Section 17(1) of the Summary Offences Act 1966, were “designed to stop or deter people from personal insults and swearing against others using offensive language” and were not usually applied to protests.
“In the United States or Canada, where freedom of speech is substantively protected, there would be much greater reticence to prosecute because the speech could be seen as political,” he said.
But executive director of Zionism Victoria Zeddy Lawrence said: “Given the overwhelming majority of Jews in Victoria, Australia and, indeed, the world would identify as Zionists, besmirching the latter is akin to painting a target on the former.
“And tragically the spike in anti-Semitism on these shores, which has shamed Australia globally, is indicative of where misrepresenting the truth about Zionism can lead.”
In Victoria’s parliament on February 5, Mr Southwick used Mr Tayeh’s phrase while arguing against a “genuine political defence” that has since been dropped from Victoria’s anti-vilification amendments bill.
“We had 7 October, with all the hate that goes with it, and 15 or 16 months later we have now got a political defence in this bill that says, ‘You know what, take out the word “Jew” and insert the word “Zionist”, and then we can say all Zionists are terrorists – all Jews are terrorists’,” he said.
“Because I can tell you most of the Jews I know call themselves Zionists, because they are proud Jews that believe in the State of Israel’s right to exist. That is what a Zionist is.
“We believe that the Jewish community and Israel have a right to exist, and that is Zionism. But according to the government it is a political movement that should have an exemption. Maybe Israel should have an exemption as well.”
Mr Southwick said in December that nationalist activists should be jailed for holding a banner saying “Jews hate freedom” during a protest against the anti-vilification laws, which have stalled despite Labor agreeing to remove the political defence clause.
Mr Tayeh was behind many of Melbourne’s weekly pro-Palestine protests and was last year arrested but not charged over allegations he incited hatred of Jews during the rallies.
His burger store in Caulfield, a suburb with a large Jewish population and part of Mr Southwick’s electorate, was burned down in November 2023, and his home was firebombed in an unsolved attack in April last year, and Mr Tayeh believes both incidents were related to his political activity.
Police repeatedly said there was no racial, religious or political motivation for the Burgertory attack, but in November last year The Age revealed that an alleged arsonist told undercover operatives the firebombing was linked to the conflict in the Middle East, and a court heard in July that the offenders were allegedly paid $20,000 to torch the restaurant.
Header image: Left, right, Hash Tayeh (Instagram).
