Aussie schoolkids as young as five chanting anti-Israel slogans horrified the world. Now the woman egging them on has been revealed as a Muslim scholar with a history of controversy

A controversial Muslim scholar who receives an $802,000 taxpayer-funded grant led a protest in which children chanted anti-Israel slogans.

Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah, a researcher at Macquarie University, held a ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ ‘all ages’ event at the University of Sydney on Friday to ‘inspire’ children to ‘stand up for justice and solidarity’.

Footage shows Dr Abdel-Fattah clapping and encouraging children as they chant slogans such as ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, ‘Israel is a terrorist state’ and ‘intifada’ – a Palestinian term calls for a civil uprising.

Photos of the event posted online by the University of Sydney Welfare Action Group show children, who appear to be as young as five years old, being urged to speak into the detachable microphone of a megaphone.

Dr. Abdel-Fattah later emphasized that the children were free to sing whatever they wanted.

According to the student body, the protest included a ‘teach-in’ by Dr Abdel-Fattah, face painting and a Tatreez workshop, and ended with an ‘amazing mini-rally’.

In another message, the University of Sydney’s SRC organization said students were also addressed by anti-Zionist speakers.

“In the afternoon, independent journalist and author from the Palestine Laboratory Antony Loewenstein visited the encampment to deliver a speech on anti-Zionism and the continued institutional support that universities provide to Israel,” the statement said.

“Students then held a rally at the encampment before taking to the streets, disrupting traffic and reiterating our demand that the University of Sydney cut ties with Thales and Israeli institutions.”

The incident made headlines around the world and has put Dr Abdel-Fattah – who was awarded the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2022, which provides four years’ salary and project funding for mid-career researchers – in the spotlight put.

Her research – which focuses on ‘Arab/Islamic Australian social movements since the 1970s’ – will be funded until the financial year 2025/26, at a total cost to taxpayers of $802,000.

But critics are now calling for Dr Abdel-Fattah – who is no stranger to controversy – to be stripped of her fellowship.

Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson has branded Friday’s event ‘appalling’ and called on her Labor counterpart, Jason Clare, to immediately cut off Dr Abdel-Fattah’s subsidy.

“Horrible behavior involving pro-Palestinian activists indoctrinating children,” she wrote on X.

‘How can this happen? What kind of country have we become? As seen in videos posted on social media, some of the children who attended this so-called “kids excursion” were as young as five years old.

“Minister Clare must withdraw this grant immediately. No ifs, no buts. There is no justification for the Albanian government continuing to fund someone who engages in behavior that endangers the well-being of children.”

Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), said encouraging children to chant anti-Israel slogans only deepened cultural divisions within Australia.

“Our country faces the very real threat of religiously and racially motivated violence,” Ryvchin said.

“This incident must be closely investigated by government and law enforcement agencies.

‘The organizers of this horrific spectacle want to split our country. We cannot allow this to happen.

“Sydney University must remove and ban those involved from its campus before its reputation suffers lasting damage.”

Commentator Andrew Bolt also reiterated calls to cut Dr Abdel-Fattah’s funding, arguing that the academic has made worse comments in the past.

In 2018, Dr Abdel-Fattah wrote an op-ed stating that she ‘refused to condemn the murder of the Melbourne cafe owner by Islamist terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali’.

“I, an Australian Muslim, refuse to condemn the violence that took place on Bourke Street,” she wrote in The Age.

“If you ask me to condemn, you take away my basic humanity.”

Last year she also clashed with Sky News Australia reporter Erin Molan during a radio interview after Dr Abdel-Fattah said she “did not see Hamas as a terrorist organisation”.

In response to the uproar, Dr. Abdel-Fattah issued a statement on X on Monday, saying Friday’s gathering provided “children with a space of comfort, healing and community.”

Dr. Abdel-Fattah said Palestinian children are disturbed by images coming out of Gaza and that children were given the microphone on Friday to “lead chants of their choice” in the hope of “giving them a sense of agency in a moment of need.”

“Those who took the opportunity had been attending the weekly meetings for more than seven months, observing and participating in chants and calls for justice, freedom and an end to the slaughter,” she wrote.

“Our children refuse to accept that their brothers and sisters should be sentenced to death by Israel.”

Dr. Abdel Fattah denounced the ECAJ, claiming that their comments about the children’s excursion were “defamatory… as far as I am concerned, a Palestinian Egyptian Muslim woman.”

She also claimed that the ECAJ launched a campaign to try to get her fired from her job.

“Macquarie has policies in place to protect me from ‘undue pressure’ aimed at restricting my academic freedom,” she said.

“Yet the ECAJ flaunts its appeals to my employer, aided by its stenographer, the Murdoch press. If she can do this publicly, what undue influence is she exerting behind closed doors?’

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Dr Abdel-Fattah and Macquarie University for comment.