The life and legacy of activist Caroline Graham reflects decades of struggle across feminism, environmentalism and Palestinian solidarity, writes DrEvan Jones.

INDEFATIGABLE ACTIVIST Caroline Graham died on 24 April, aged 87. Her colleagueShamikh Badragives her a powerful tribute atGreen Left, 25 April.

Caroline, with others, co-founded theWomens Electoral Lobbyin 1972.

Caroline was a sometime journalist with MurdochsThe Australianin its early years (withWendy Bacon) before Caroline abandoned ship (she claims that she was sacked) as the papers editorial lurched hard starboard.

Caroline had a remarkable ability to digest and synthesise material and to provide a cogent narrative for readers preoccupied with busy lives. Such is the case with a 7,000-word article on the seemingly genetic disposition to violence of those with hierarchical dominance over subject individuals, especially when that dominance is manifest in a uniform and a gun.

Britains colonisation of Terra Australis, compounded by its convict outpost character, provided an ideal breeding ground for the mentality. The article is Of Warriors, Bad Apples and Blood Lust, inMeanjin, winter 2021 (a short version appeared inPearls and Irritations, 11 December 2020).

A provocative Royal Commission submission by Dr Evan Jones argues that Australias antisemitism debate cannot be separated from Israel, Zionism and their political influence.

Caroline was an inveterate letter writer to the papers (including to The Australian imagine having the stomach to read it).

Heres one from the Sydney Morning Herald, 27 October 1986:

Quite. Forty years later, this (Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 2026):

Quite again. The common element in these years-apart events is the opportunism and obeisance of Labor governments.

It is for Carolines pro-Palestinian activism that I came to know her (without, alas, ever having met her).

Caroline was long involved in producing a Middle East Report program on Sydneys (university-funded)2SERradio station on Broadway on Sunday evenings. In 1981, the Zionists attempted to have the program shut down. Caroline faced off against a barrister heavy at theAustralian Broadcasting Tribunaland the program survived.

Caroline was a key force in the NSW branch of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) organisation during the 1980s, including an offshoot at Sydney University, where she then worked in the Government Department.

Why is support for Palestine so often seen as antisemitism? And why so few mentions of Islamophobia?

According to fellow activistAntonina Gentile, during the 1980s, many of the overlapping groups preparations, production of materials and organisation of rallies took place at Carolines home in Petersham until activities were relocated in the late 1980s to the Palestine Centre at the Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville.

Antonina recounts one memorable occasion in which Carolines contacts helped to get the thenWaterside Workers Federationto blockade from Australia the IsraeliZimLine during the 1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon. (Zim, until bought by a German company in early 2026, was a joint state and para-state entity integrally involved in the construction and maintenance of apartheid Israel.)

Several of Carolines writings, in particular, deserve to be recalled for greater and long-term exposure. In 2021, Caroline exposed to the broader public the duplicitous role of former Deputy PMHV Evattin the facilitation and legitimation of the creation of theState of Israelin May 1948.

Evatt declined to meet Palestinian representatives over the absurd partition plan endorsed by the UN General Assembly on 29 November 1947 and he ignored the Pakistani delegateMuhammad Zafrulla Khan, an equally eminent lawyer, who demanded that the partition plan be submitted to the recently empowered International Court of Justice.

In the public mind, Evatts role is seen positively as integral to his role in the institutionalisation of human rights through the United Nations. In Zionist accounts, Evatt is praised to the high heavens. Numerous Evatt biographers (includingGideon Haighs 2022The Brilliant Boy) ignore or treat casually Evatts role in playing midwife to the birth of Israel.

Caroline notes that Evatts dismissal of Palestinian claims was consistent with hisracist approachto other indigenous populations, a persistent behaviour curiously overlooked by Evatts admirers.

Along with the Evatt expos, for me, Carolines most powerful written contribution documented former PMBob Hawkes love affair with the Zionist Jewish community and with Israel. Titled The Making of a Zionist Prime Minister, this two-part account appeared in the low distribution and short-lived publication, now relatively inaccessible, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign - Information Bulletin, No.8-9 (March-April 1983) and No.10-11 (May-August 1983).

(The Information Bulletin was the contribution of the Sydney cohort of the PHRC. In 1982, the various state and regional PHRCs forged a national office, which was presided over in Melbourne byDavid Sprattas national secretary. During the 1980s, Spratt andFrans Timmermanliaised withAli Kazakto put out the monthly Free Palestine.)

The PHRC-IB articles draw on a lateral reading of two Hawke biographies (John Hursts 1979Hawke: The Definitive BiographyandBlanche dAlpugets 1982Robert J Hawke) and on other public material.

Hawke grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household. His childish grasping of a biblical David and Goliath story is the foundation for an adult attachment to Israel that was pathological in its intensity. Hawke perennially became teary-eyed in his devotion to Israel. Hawke became national president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) (1969-1980), president of the Australian Labor Party (1973-1978), Federal MP from 1980 and Prime Minister (1983-1991).

If Palestinians are Semitic too, what does antisemitism really mean?

In those capacities, Hawke worked assiduously for Israels interests, undermining Labors official policy (although he did not always succeed), working with the Zionist lobby to prevent access of Palestinian representatives to Australia (as for the prominent intellectualFaris Glubbin 1983-84). He even became a de facto roving ambassador for Israel, not least in seeking a change of policy of the Soviet Union in freeing up emigration of Jewish citizens from Soviet territories.

As Prime Minister, Hawke defied National Conference deliberations on Palestine and his Cabinet choices reinforced his own pro-Israel orientation. For his services to this foreign rogue state, Hawke had a forest named after him in December 1976.

As with the Evatt story, Caroline adroitly brought together a central trajectory of Bob Hawkes career that might otherwise be seen as marginal and sporadic in the political life of Australia and the Labor Party in particular. Hawke later recanted somewhat on his unremitting support for Israel, but his lamentable self-inculcation in the Zionist cause remains unforgivable.

(David Spratt notes that the 1990 Gulf War diverted activists energies in countering anti-Arab attacks. Contemporaneously, the Palestine issue was receiving greater recognition in Canberra, not least with Ali Kazaks presence and involvement. The PHRCs dissipated and were not resurrected.)

Caroline was active in green politics. Experiencing burnout (my term), she moved to a bush block (her term, in Douglas Park, NSW) in the 1990s. But she soon throws herself into another fight. As a spokesperson for the Nepean [River] Action Group and then theRivers SOS Allianceshe was prominent in fighting the longwall coal mining ambitions ofBHP BillitonandPeabody Resourcesin undermining the water catchment of the Nepean River system andWoronora Reservoir(and thus Sydneys water supply) and even the safety of the towering Douglas Park Bridge on the M31 Hume motorway.

Caroline subsequently moved back to Sydney. Her green activism continued in joining thePittwater Knitting Nannas.

Its time to move beyond narratives of suffering and imagine Palestinian joy.

Her pro-Palestinian activism was revived and she and others formed the Northern Beaches Committee for Palestine (NBCP).

Several other articles that Caroline wrote are of further interest. Thus Blowback: The sewage intifada of Gaza,AQ, Jul-Sep 2019. Caroline highlights that the maintenance of Gazas water and sewage system is impossible under Israeli bombing.

The irony is that polluted water has no politics, knows no boundaries and thus Israels desalination plants and some farmers are adversely affected. The Israeli leadership, obsessed with ethnic cleansing, doesnt care. Even theJerusalem Posthas paid attention to the environmental (and of course the social) catastrophe, noting that several multi-party NGOs (Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza,EcoPeace Middle East) are working to relieve Gazans plight.

But given the Israeli leaderships scorched-earth approach, this is band-aiding an uncurable wound. The global powers look elsewhere.

Caroline also provided a permanent reminder of the deranged former PMScott Morrisons kowtowing to Israeli imperatives under presumed biblical injunctions via the Pentacostal sect (Slouching Towards Jerusalem: Australia as an Israeli apologist,Pearls and Irritations,6 June 2021). The Albanese Government is less strident than Morrison, but its acquiescence to Israel and the lobby is substantively more or the same.

Then theres the Gaza nippers story. Caroline and others at the NBCP were thinking of means to enable Gazans better access to their coastal waters. Gazan-bornShamikh Badrajoined NBCP and highlighted what was needed a surf training program that would allow Gazans to master the waves and, at least, significantly reduce ongoing drowning deaths.

Mohammed Saleh and Hasan Alhabilwere brought to Australia in 2020 to train, courtesy of the North Steyne Surf Life Saving Club. After long preparation, the program finally got underway in 2023, only to be stopped by the events of7 Octoberand after. Since then, some nippers have been murdered, as have associated program staff members.

Mohammed and his family, with assistance from supporters, found refuge in Australia but initially only on travel visas. On the last publicly available information, Hasan remained trapped in Gaza. This writer is unaware of the current status of these courageous people.

Caroline Grahams long involvement in progressive activism has left a legacy of many friends and admirers.

DrEvan Jonesis a political economist and former academic.