'Australian Soldier Park' in occupied Beer al-Sabe بئر السبع

Australian Soldier Park is an ANZAC1 monument in Zionist-occupied Beer al-Sabe. The park commemorates Australia’s role in the British invasion of Palestine. It features a life-size bronze statue of a soldier on horseback created by Melbourne sculptor Peter Corlett, celebrating the capture of Beer al-Sabe by an Australian Light Horse regiment on 31 October 1917.

That same day, British military leader Edmund Allenby wrote a telegram to London: ‘Beersheba has fallen, Jerusalem will be your Christmas gift.’

Australian soldiers, who had begun invading Palestine in 1916, were instrumental to the establishment of British occupation and helped lay the groundwork for the Nakba. Even in the estimation of their British contemporaries2, the ANZACs were distinguished for their murderous racism and unchecked brutality, including the 1918 massacre of villagers at Sarafand al-Amar.

Australians have since committed countless atrocities across West Asia in the service of British — and now US — imperialism.

Opened in April 2008, Australian Soldier Park was conceived and built for 3 million AUD by Melbourne-based Zionist billionaire the late Richard Pratt. Australian Soldier Park is one amongst hundreds of colonial projects funded by The Pratt Foundation on stolen Palestinian land.

After his death, Pratt was praised by both Isaac Hertzog and Shimon Peres as being ‘passionately devoted’ and an ‘outstanding contributor’ to the Zionist entity. Pratt’s foundation also maintains a long-time relationship with the United Israel Appeal, an organisation committed to increasing the settler population in Palestine.

Between 1998 and 2019, Pratt Foundation CEO was journalist Sam Lipski. A former Editor-in-Chief and Executive Publisher of Zionist mouthpiece The Australian Jewish News, Lipski has also worked for pro-colonial and right-wing reactionary masthead The Australian, which he has praised for its editorial deference to Israel.

Lipski has been awarded by the Zionist Federation of Australia, Zionism Victoria, and the World Zionist Organisation for his ‘tireless and inspirational commitment’ to ‘Zionist life in Victoria and throughout Australia’.

According to his website, Lipski ‘takes particular pride in the development of Israel’s Park of the Australian Soldier in Beersheba’ and states that: ‘This initiative has significantly strengthened Australia-Israel relations while serving important educational and commemorative purposes.’

The Pratt Foundation is currently chaired by Pratt’s widow and family matriarch Jeanne, who holds positions of influence within various Australian arts institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Melbourne Theatre Company, Opera Australia, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Beer al-Sabe is one of the oldest Palestinian cities, holding thousands of years’ history, a prosperity derived from its location along ancient trade routes. Goods from India and East Africa passed through Beer al-Sabe on their way to Egypt via the Gaza coast. Before the Nakba, the city was also home to several traditional industries including blacksmithing, leather tanning, and textile weaving.

In 1948, Beer al-Sabe’s bedouin residents carried out a courageous armed resistance against Zionist forces, but were eventually overwhelmed by the enemy. Zionists destroyed and depopulated all Palestinian communities in the district, including the expulsion of approximately 6,000 Beer al-Sabe residents, mostly to Gaza.

During the Nakba, the Grande Mosque in Beer al-Sabe (pictured below) was perversely converted into a detention centre for Palestinians. From 1991, the Zionist occupation closed and neglected the mosque, preventing Muslim worshipers from accessing the site. In 2011, the occupied mosque was re-opened as a Zionist-run ‘museum’.

Over the past decade, the Zionist entity has attempted to develop Beer al-Sabe as its dystopian ‘cyber capital’ — a centre for collaboration between military technology units, government agencies, and cybersecurity institutions.

In 2025, Al Mayadeen reported that the city’s technology hub Gav-Yam Negev was home to 7,000 IOF soldiers and 70 complicit companies, including multinationals such as Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, Intel, and IBM alongside Israeli companies Elbit, Rafael, Cyberark, Wix, and others.

For this reason, Beer al-Sabe was the target of defensive and decolonial strikes by the Islamic Republic of Iran during both the Twelve-Day and Ramadan wars.

When Slingshot Books asked me to create a book for young children about Australian colonial monuments, I decided immediately that the Pratt Foundation’s grimacing horseman should be included. Australian Soldier Park is one of the more repulsive symbols of Australian imperialist violence and complicity projected beyond its own colonial borders.

Published in 2024, Pull it Down invites young children to flip-the-flaps to remove, repurpose, and redecorate twelve Australian colonial monuments; a gentle way to begin age-appropriate conversations about the objects of western imperialism so frequently encountered in public space.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing information about some of the other monuments depicted in Pull it Down.

Thanks for reading Matt Chun’s Newsletter.

I’m an independent artist, writer, and picture book creator. To support my practice, visit my online store or consider becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter.

I’m also a founding and current co-editor of revolutionary print periodical The Sunday Paper, an imprint of Slingshot Books.

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