A top NSW cop has claimed a pro-Palestine protest at Sydney’s Opera House which involved flag-burning and extreme chants was sensationalised in news coverage when it was actually “under control”.

The rally on the forecourt on October 9, 2023 has been cited throughout a royal commission launched after the deadly Bondi Beach terror attack as a milestone for anti-Semitism in Australia.

A hearing on Tuesday examining extremism and the police response to the protests heard that the rally had caused widespread distress in the Jewish community as they grieved the Hamas terror attack on an Israeli music festival just two days earlier.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip labelled the decision to call the rally as “insensitive”, “while women were still being raped, while children were being kidnapped, whilst families were being burnt alive”.

Police had issued the Jewish community a warning to stay away from the Opera House after receiving intelligence that a planned pro-Palestine protest at the Town Hall had intended to march to the Opera House.

It followed a decision by the NSW government to project the Israel flag on the monument’s sails.

NSW Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Peter McKenna also told the high profile probe that the police also had intelligence that members from the now-proscribed hate group Hizb ut-Tahrir would attend ahead of the October 9 rally.

Mr Ossip described it as an “international disgrace” and criticised NSW Police’s decision to tell Jews to stay away from the CBD rather than stop the pro-Palestine protest as “extraordinary and outrageous”.

“There were flares being thrown at the police. There were flags being burned,” he said.

“It was a scene of international disgrace and infamy.

“The protests achieved international notoriety because you had protesters proudly screaming ‘F the Jews!’, ‘Where are the Jews!’.

“One individual screams out, ‘I’m going to kill them all’.

“It’s amongst the clearest examples of anti-Semitism we’ve seen over the past two years.

“I can’t recall any group, particularly any religious or racial group, ever being provided advice that they should avoid their own city CBD for their own safety and wellbeing.

“I thought it was quite an extraordinary and outrageous admonition from police.

“It was effectively the police saying ‘we can’t keep your community safe’.

“And as I said in my statement, in my view, it was effectively the police transferring control of the CBD to the protesters.”

Mr McKenna told the commission how the protest had started with 700 people at the Town Hall but then swelled to 1500 by the time it reached the Opera House.

He downplayed the rowdiness of the crowd, insisting how police on the ground had sectioned off the crowd had “worked very well”.

He also appeared to blame the media for portraying the protest as “more significant” by showing just a portion of the protest when flares were set off and a flag was burnt, insisting it was largely under control.

“We’re talking hours of a protest that has been reduced to seconds or minutes on a news grab that has probably conflated to make it more significant than what we would say it was, as far as public safety goes,” he said.

“I’m not talking about the intention behind it or, you know, how it might make the Jewish community feel obviously.

“I can understand the heightened emotions for someone watching that, thinking how bad that looks.”

It took until 2026 for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to list Hizb ut-Tahrir as a hate group in Australia. Mr Ossip had included in his submission that the rally was called before Israel had launched a widespread retaliation to the Hamas attack and suggestedin his verbal evidence on Tuesday that some people attended to celebrate the October 7 attack.

About 1200 people, primarily Israeli citizens, had been slaughtered in the attack and Hamas took more than 240 people hostage.

“I can’t judge the motivations of everyone who attended but I think it’s fair to say that there were quite a few people there who were celebrating,” he said.

During cross-examination by the counsel for the Palestine Action Group Dominic Toomey, Mr Ossip was handed advertising for the event and asked if he believed it was celebratory of the terror attack.

Mr Ossip couldn’t say that the advertising explicitly indicated a celebration of the deadly attack but insisted that actions of attendees, including shocking chants and flag burning, had been anti-Semitic and organisers should take responsibility for that.

“It is quite extraordinary timing for that rally to be promoted on the evening of October 7, whilst the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas were still under way,” Mr Ossip said.

“This post would have gone out while women were still being raped, while children were being kidnapped, whilst families were being burnt alive.

“And the Palestine Action Group thought that that was an appropriate time to hold a rally for a free Palestine.

“It’s impossible to avoid the connections between the events of October 7.”

Royal commissioner Virginia Bell had to interrupt a lawyer for a Palestinian group after her line of questioning strayed into broader Middle Eastern history and detailed military action rather than focusing on the royal commission’s terms of reference around anti-Semitism and social cohesion.

Counsel for the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network Ragni Mathur had disputed Mr Ossip’s claim that a protest at Sydney Opera House had been a celebratory affair, insisting Israel at that point hadn’t launched widespread retaliatory action to the Hamas October 7 terror attack.

Ms Bell had to step in during Ms Mathur’s cross-examination to remind the hearing that the high profile probe wasn’t focused on exploring the hostilities of the Middle East “in greater detail” but rather focus on anti-Semitism in Australia.

“Ms Mathur, I don’t think you’re going to get very far with this line,” Ms Bell interrupted her.

“The witness has acknowledged that it is a very contested history.

“That there have been innocent Palestinian lives lost, just as innocent Israeli lives lost.

“I understand the matters that you wish to canvas, but the witness isn’t in a position to do more than possibly agree that that is a fair reading of a portion of the United Nations Commission report, that can be referred to in submissions.

“I do think that we’ve gone as far as we can with this line of questioning.”