Jewish Community Council of Victoria President Phillip Zajac says there should be consequences for those that wave Hezbollah flags.
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00:00I think it was a rude awakening for the Jewish community that the flag of a listed terrorist
00:10organisation was so freely flown both in Melbourne and in Sydney.
00:16I think it was a bit of a shock.
00:18Hezbollah are a band in Australia and it's a bit of a rude awakening to think that people
00:27are proudly flying their flag here in Melbourne.
00:30And what impact did the symbol have on the community?
00:34I think there's an element of fear, but for the community we want to go about our lives.
00:40This week is Jewish New Year.
00:43We want to be able to celebrate Jewish New Year without any fear or any nervousness about
00:50any potential hazards.
00:53Hezbollah have acted internationally and have attacked Jewish communities around the world.
00:59Iran has called for action by Hezbollah in various places and we have a right to be fearful.
01:08We think that there should be consequences for flying of the Hezbollah flag and for supporting
01:16Hezbollah.
01:18Does the appearance of the flag raise any security concerns for this week?
01:23I think it has to because the fact that purely that people are supportive of Hezbollah here
01:29are prepared to fly the flag, then we have to be worried.
01:33We don't know what the intentions are of these people.
01:37We don't know what they're trying to achieve by flying the Hezbollah flag.
01:40I don't know how they can possibly support them because of what they have done throughout
01:45the last 30-40 years.
01:48The relationship between Jewish communities and Islamic communities is already incredibly
01:52strained.
01:53Do you think that this impacts that relationship even more?
02:00I would like to say that historically we have had a really close relationship with the Islamic
02:04community.
02:05That has largely broken down over the last 12 months.
02:08I would like to think that regardless of what happened and the display of the Hezbollah
02:13flag, that in the future we can reconnect with the Islamic community and we can live
02:19peacefully together here in Melbourne and have some sort of social cohesion.
02:23Our interest is not to fight with the Islamic community here.
02:26Our interest is to make Melbourne a better place.