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Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame faces mounting backlash after leading a controversial pro-Palestinian chant, raising serious questions about accountability and the limits of free speech.

Grace Tame, a former Australian of the Year recipient, recently revealed at a speaking engagement in Hobart that she is the victim of an orchestrated “smear campaign”.

This has resulted in seeing her cancelled from any future speaking engagements, at least for the foreseeable near future. As Ms Tame said, “This is my last presentation of the year, and it’s only March”.

Perhaps her extended sabbatical will give her time to reflect on the consequences of her actions, when earlier this year she publicly led a chant in Sydney to “globalise the intifada”.

Significantly, this was not just a call to ethically cleanse the land of Palestine, but that it be extended “from Gadigal (Sydney) to Gaza”. Which doesn’t leave the Jewish people anywhere to really go, does it?

Convenient Ambiguity

Interestingly, even the ABC couldn’t escape the inconsistency of its own definition as to what the term ‘intifada’ means. Just note the following justification they gave in defending her comments:

The word “intifada” means “shaking off” in Arabic and has been used to refer to two periods of violent Palestinian protest against Israel.

The phrase has different associations and meanings for different groups.

Some members of the Jewish community have described it as a hateful call for violence that implies support for terrorism, but for many Palestinians, it means continuing the struggle for Palestinian self-determination.

So, just exactly what does the ABC think the term ‘intifada’ means? Historically, most people have understood the Arabic term to mean “uprising” or “resistance”.

But if ‘intifada’, as the ABC wants to suggest, is merely a metaphorical reference to a Taylor Swift version of “shake it off”, then why has it resulted in not just one but two “violent Palestinian protest(s) against Israel”?

This is because it’s almost impossible to avoid the violent implications of the term, especially when it is connected to the chant ‘From the River to the Sea’. It’s also why the Queensland government has banned the phrase as a form of ‘hate speech’ and recently arrested two pro-Palestinian activists who publicly promoted it.

Off-putting

While Ms Tame said she does not support violence or antisemitism—as well as any form of Islamophobia—as a public figure, surely she must be aware of how the term ‘intifada’ has been routinely employed throughout the world?

What’s more, one would have thought that as a victim of sexual abuse herself, Ms Tame might have been more empathetic to the many female Jewish victims of October 7. However, she claims the reports of rapes by Hamas were mere propaganda, though this has been debunked.

All of which is to say, words have consequences. And as Grace Tame has quickly discovered, Australians don’t want to be hectored, especially by someone who has herself been shown compassion, but seems unwilling to want to extend it to others.

Is it any wonder then that when the Prime Minister was asked to describe Ms Tame in one word, after a moment’s pause, he responded with, “Difficult.”

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.