Mardi Gras Jumps on Zionist Bandwagon to Bar Pride in Protest from Marching

As far as queer social justice group Pride in Protest was concerned last Saturday afternoon, 28 February 2026, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras had turned its back on its radical protest roots, as whilst the first 1978 procession was in aid of ending the criminalisation of LGBTIQA+ identities, this year PiP was banned from the parade as part of a society-wide Zionist agenda.

SGLMG CEO James Matheson emailed Pride in Protest at 11am on Friday, 27 February, the day before the celebrated march, to demand it remove social media posts that it had made about Dayenu: Sydney’s Jewish LGBTIQ+ social club, as it claimed the group is a Zionist organisation that supports the Gaza genocide. Matheson insisted that PiP had breach Mardi Gras’ code of conduct. 

Zionism is the late 1880s European political doctrine advocating for a Jewish nation on top of historic Palestine. Zionism is different to Judaism, the Jewish religion. Not all Jewish people are Zionists, and there are more Christian Zionists in the USA today, than Jewish supporters. The political ideology of Zionism is behind the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Pride in Protest has long been at loggerheads with the now decades-old conservative Mardi Gras establishment. Since 2018, PiP has been advocating for the reembrace of Mardi Gras’ social justice stance and to decorporatise the festival. And in January, this rift broadened, when Mardi Gras announced that it was rejecting a majority-passed resolution to prioritise trans rights this year.

But as the 5 pm deadline Matheson gave Pride in Protest to remove the Dayenu posts passed without that happening, the group was promptly told that it would no longer be able to participate in the Mardi Gras parade, with the resulting ban over the group’s antigenocide position having put the all-inclusive organisation in the new role of excluder on behalf of the Zionist lobby.

Standing strong against lobby pressure

“What we have here is Mardi Gras folding. It is because of Palestine that we are barred today.” explained Queers for Palestine spokesperson Rachel Evans, during a rally held on Gadigal land at Sydney Town Hall last Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against Pride in Protest being banned from the Mardi Gras parade.

“We are standing strong with the Palestine solidarity movement, and we won’t walk away. We are demanding that Mardi Gras lets us back in the parade,” Evans told the Pride in Protest audience.

“There is a Jew Against the Occupation comrade here. There are Jews, who have lost family because of their pro-Palestinian stance, and this is something the Rainbow Community feels very accurately. Some of us have lost our families because of homophobia and transphobia.”

Following the demonstration at Town Hall, the Pride in Protest parade participants then marched towards Hyde Park South, where those taking part in the Mardi Gras parade were gathering nearby the Anzac Memorial. However, brightly coloured PiP members were followed by a group of NSW police riot squad officers, as they made their way towards the park.

And as the protesters moved towards the entrance for parade participants, the riot squad formed a thick blue line between PiP members and those individuals still permitted to march in the all-inclusive event. And it must be said that whether the cops would set upon the crowd, after the 9 February police assault upon the pro-Palestinians protesting Israeli president Herzog, was uncertain.

“Pride in Protest has been barred from marching in the Mardi Gras parade,” Evans, also a Socialist Alliance member, continued on in Hyde Park, “because there is no pride in genocide, because we stood up for Palestine and because we stood up for trans rights.”

The guts of the gripe

Pride in Protest has been raising issue about corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras and participation of the Liberal Party and the NSW police in the annual parade since its inception. And in January 2024, as Mardi Gras agreed to PiP’s proposal to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the group, in true form, called for Dayenu to pull out of the parade, as it claimed it is a Zionist entity.

“The Zionist lobby advocates for the extermination of Palestinians and campaigned for Scott Morrison’s religious discrimination bill,” PiP asserted in a post it made two years ago now. “Australia and Israel Jewish Affairs Council and Australian Jewish Association are transphobic and pro-genocide.”

Dayenu announced it was not participating in this year’s Mardi Gras parade, soon after the 9 February 20,000-strong anti-Herzog protest in Sydney city. It expressed safety concerns in respect of Jewish people participating, due to the demonstration, which had opposed Zionism and the Gaza genocide. The group, however, changed its mind after meetings with NSW police and Mardi Gras.

Following Dayenu’s decision to rejoin the parade, Pride in Protest posted about how the group had last threatened to pull out of the parade in January 2024, when Mardi Gras determined to support a PiP motion to condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza and calling for a permanent ceasefire. And both this recent post and the January 2024 message are the ones that Matheson had demanded be removed.

“Jewish people will always be welcome at Mardi Gras. They belong in our community, the homophobic state of Israel does not,” Pride in Protest made clear in its 20 February 2026 post. “Israel is a homophobic state. It is a colonial state. It is a genocidal state. Israel murders queer Palestinians.”

A McCarthyite witch hunt

“Palestine is teaching us right now, exactly why we need to globalise the intifada, because they are coming for our cultural institutions. Who are they? The people who run this country: Chris Minns and Albanese,” said Sophie Cotton, a trans rights activist, on Saturday afternoon before Sydney Town Hall.

“They wanted to parade the president of Israel, and they brought him to this city in order to celebrate their connections with Israel. They are prepared to tear down every institution in support of Trump’s America and Israeli apartheid,” she made certain.

Cotton further highlighted that what occurred with Mardi Gras last week has playing out right across the Australian public sphere. Numerous academics, journalists, artists and other public figures have been charged with antisemitism, after they’ve been vocally critical of Israel’s policies and its human rights abuses. Lobby actors then take these people to court in an attempt to sue them into silence.

The activist then explained that at the first 1978 Mardi Gras march, one participant had attempted to fly an Israeli flag. However, another attendee went on to explain that the flag was not a symbol of Judaism, but it stood for an apartheid settler colonial state that is oppressing Palestinians.

“At that very first Mardi Gras, before they got smashed by the police, they took down that Israeli flag and they marched together,” Cotton recalled. “This today is the spirit of Mardi Gras. We are queer. We are fabulous. Don’t fuck with us.”