Why the premier ran a marathon with the word Israel written on his arm

A week after Hamas’ October 7 atrocities, Ben Carroll ran the Melbourne Marathon with the word Israel written down his arm.

The Victorian premier revealed this personal detail to Mount Scopus Memorial College students on Wednesday during a commemorative assembly to mark the anniversary of the 2023 terrorist attack.

In his first public major speech to Melbourne’s Jewish community since becoming premier, Carroll also offered an apology for what he said was the state government’s inadequate response to the deadliest day in Israel’s history and the hatred towards Jewish people that had formented in Australia.

He declared it his personal mission to rebuild Australia’s relationship with its Jewish people so that no young Jew could doubt whether they belonged here.

Drawing a direct link between Hamas’ murderous rampage in southern Israel which killed 1200 people, the burning of Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue in 2024 and last December’s Bondi massacre, Carroll said these crimes were motivated by the same desire to sever the connection between Jews and their ancestral homeland.

“I can draw a line very clearly in my mind, from the fields and towns of southern Israel to a synagogue in Ripponlea, and to a Sydney beach on a summer’s day, and all along that line – graffiti on the school fence, a racist comment on the tram, a shove on the soccer pitch, and poison on the steps of parliament,” he said.

“The brutal minds behind the October 7 attacks remain to this day incomprehensible to me but I want you to know that I do comprehend what has happened to your community in the years since. I want you to know that as a state and as a country, we did not do enough, and I want you to know that I am sorry.

“October 7 was an attack on the existence of Israel. What followed in Australia was an attack on your connection to Israel. Whatever its name, the target is the same – the bond between Jews and their homeland”.

Carroll’s speech, delivered without reference to state politics or the upcoming election, made clear his unequivocal support for Zionism and Israel’s place in the world and acknowledged the damage done to Jewish children in Melbourne and Sydney by the importation of the Middle East conflict.

The speech did not refer to the death toll or humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s war in Gaza. An estimated 73,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, and Israel’s retaliation has been a political and societal dividing line across the Western world.

Behind the heavily guarded, secure gates of Australia’s largest Jewish day school, located in Burwood, Carroll recounted to students his visit to Israel in 2023 before the Hamas attacks, including a tour of the Gandel Rehabilitation Centre built on Mount Scopus which overlooks Jerusalem.

At the invitation of school principal Dan Sztrajt, he broke from his scripted speech to explain why, later that year, he ran the Melbourne Marathon – his first – with Israel written on his arm.

“Every moment of pain was nothing compared to the pain that Israelis were going through on October 7, and I’ve continued to see it in the whole community, in families, in synagogues, in small businesses,” he said.

“Most of all, I see it in young people, I see it in students, and I see it in children, just like you, I see it today in your faces.

“You have been tested, you have endured, but it is not a test you should ever have had to face in the first place. No one should ever have to choose between being Jewish and feeling Australian. This is not the country we accept.

“That’s where the demand for courage shifts to us as leaders to speak the truth and match our words with action. That is my mission – through leadership and action, to make Victoria and Australia not a story on how we failed, but a story on how we recovered.”

At the end of the speech, two students rushed out of the auditorium to thank Carroll. Opposition Leader Jess Wilson was invited to attend on Wednesday morning but was already campaigning in northern Victoria.

Carroll’s predecessor Jacinta Allan during last year’s Hanukkah celebrations apologised to Victoria’s Jewish communities for the antisemitism they had experienced but did not direct blame at her own government.

Allan was sworn in as premier just 10 days before the October 7 attacks and was criticised by Jewish leaders for being slow to implement practical measures to combat antisemitism. During her time in the job, the Victorian government outlawed symbols associated with terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, strengthened the state’s anti-hate laws and introduced a criminal offence for serious vilification.

Carroll while serving as Allan’s deputy privately expressed frustration at the government’s reluctance to disrupt weekly, anti-Israel protests staged in central Melbourne. The Gandel and Besen families, names synonymous with Mount Scopus College, arts, health and other philanthropic causes in Victoria, were regular targets of anti-Israel protesters.

As Carroll was speaking to the students, a “vigil for Gaza” organised by the Free Palestine Coalition was under way on the steps of the State Library of Victoria.

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