Early this year, the Opera House delivered a review of its illumination policy to Arts Minister John Graham, but his response has not been announced. The premier said requests were subject to a “judgement call”.

The call to light the sails in Israel’s colours reflects a global trend to use architectural landmarks, from the Eiffel Tower to the Empire State Building, to express condemnation. The idea is that these sites symbolise unity, as locations of a nation’s soul.

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Hearts were in mouths on Monday night when protesters supporting Palestine were given police consent to change their venue from Sydney Town Hall to the Opera House. They wanted to change because of the illumination of the sails. Police were mobilised to protect the Opera House from a supposedly unpredictable, angry fringe group.

But how fringe are those whose feelings about the new war are complicated by family connections or personal history? Potential controversy, or disunity, can be measured by numbers. The terrorist attacks previously mourned on the Opera House sails could safely be assumed to have minimal local support. But this Middle-Eastern conflict has been so long-running, leaving such complicated allegiances, that hundreds of thousands of Australians will be feeling deeply the connection between what came before, and what will come after, the weekend’s atrocities.

The Palestinian diaspora in Australia numbers 7,000, while other nationalities hostile to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, according to the 2021 census, comprise 3.2 per cent of our population, or more than 700,000 Australians. Many inside and outside that community do not see the Hamas butchery in isolation, and dread the next escalation.

To ignore these politics, and to isolate days of mourning, is to ignore how political exploitation of the Opera House sails has been gathering pace for years. When the sails become a political canvas, where is the border to be drawn? In the coming wave of civilian death in Gaza, has the Opera House now made itself answerable to a large local community wanting its own recognition and sympathy in red, white, black and green?

If the Opera House chooses to say, “You started it, you deserve what’s coming”, to what extent is it a unifying symbol for Australians? This is the trouble with remaining true to “artistic value, brand or reputation”, as its policy firmly states, while also being open for orders from its political masters.

Previous protesters against Opera House lighting controversy have chanted, “It’s our house”. The 700 Palestinians on Monday night, by going to Circular Quay, were questioning whether the Opera House is anybody’s. This is an outcome of years of subtle political creep. In opening Jørn Utzon’s sails for contested issues, the Opera House and the NSW government have bought into a choice: whose house is it?

Malcolm Knox is a published author and regular columnist.