Campus Protest that Failed to Read the Room

 

June 18, 2014: Jerry Seinfeld managed to fill the Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday night, but the Students for Palestine encampment at Sydney University has been reduced to a tiny rump as a crackdown on the protest continues. 

A few students and their assorted supporters remain in a restricted area. The protest that once swamped a broad expanse of the iconic lawn is now reduced to a small cluster of less than 20 tents.


Graduates are now able to celebrate with a happy snap in front of the Quadrangle rather than contend with unwashed activists in their tents spreading Hamas propaganda.

In an encouraging development, The University has tweaked its Diversity & Inclusion Policy to include a requirement that preening lefties cannot occupy the Quad lawn. Patches of dead grass mark where the tents were pitched in a performative act of protest but most were never actually occupied.


The Sydney University Al-Quds Brigade waiting for new recruits. Plenty of spare camp chairs and solar power on tap to stay tuned in to Radio National and Al Jazeera Live.

Gates are now open on the Quad entry space that was formerly HQ for the Palestine Action Group. It may have provided a nice haven from the rain, but it ironically contains a memorial to the Australian Light Horse Regiments that took part in the Battles for Rafah, Gaza, Beersheba and Jerusalem. The plaque has not been defaced, so possibly the protesters were not History Majors.

Protest, what Protest?

Location: Camperdown NSW 2050, Australia

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