Mainstream media outlets repeat, ‘Hamas, a terrorist organisation designated by the US and other western governments.’ Tagged to that description is a daily reminder of the brutality of Hamas’ attack on October 7 and the taking of over 200 hostages. Intimidated journalists and ill-informed politicians then promote the Israeli message that Hamas is a monster without precedent and must be destroyed. (more…)
Stuart Rees
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What happened to the UN’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’?
The world watches the destruction of Gaza as 13,000 thousand Palestinians are killed including 5,600 children. The world watches as Gazan hospitals are invaded, patients ordered to flee south where there is neither water, food nor safety. The world watches while Israeli spokespersons claim they never target civilians, and then comes the propagandist fig leaf to conceal all the cruelties. An Israeli spokesperson points to a hole in the ground beside a hospital as evidence of Hamas’ headquarters. (more…)
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‘The Australian’ weaponises anti-Semitism
The Israeli media has been interpreting the October 7 attack as ‘reaching Holocaust levels’, or as ‘an equivalent of the 9-11 attack in the US’: and in an atmosphere of fear and anger, Israeli citizens are said to perceive the Hamas slaughter as a threat to the country’s existence. In Australia, to defend Israel, to stifle critics of the bombing of Gaza, and to follow Prime Minister Netanyahu’s polarisation of choices between good and evil, between civilisation or barbarism, between a powerful law-abiding country or Hamas terrorists, charges of anti-Semitism are being weaponised. (more…)
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Expose and dismiss the dominating Israeli narrative
For decades, the western world has been fed Israeli/Zionist narratives about their country being exceptional, Palestinians not existing or being less than human. False Israeli accounts have been swallowed by a compliant media and by politicians scared of being accused of being even slightly anti-Semitic. (more…)
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In this conflict, context is everything
The truth of the matter is that Western Governments bear the primary responsibility for both the carnage in Israel and the genocide in Gaza. (more…)
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Voices of women, life and freedom battle sadism in Iran
In Australia, in the 25th year of the award of the Sydney Peace Prize, attention has at last been turned to a country, Iran, ruled by fear. The award-winning Iranian born British activist and actress Nazanin Boniadi will receive the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize ‘for drawing attention to human rights violations in Iran, for lending a powerful voice to support for Iranian women and girls in their Women, Life Freedom Movement.’ (more…)
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Netanyahu’s cries for revenge
Terrible violence and massive loss of life in this latest Palestine/Israel conflict is tragic and regrettable, but commentary from western politicians and their media backers is also tragic. The US rush to generate sympathy for Israel, and with scant regard for the traumatised citizens of Gaza, repeats years of thoughtless commentary that depicts the more powerful nation, Israel, as always, the victim and a people under siege as terrorists. (more…)
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The despotism of Mike Pezzullo
Journalists from The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Sixty Minutes have at last exposed the efforts by Mike Pezzullo, Secretary of Home Affairs, to influence government in favour of conservative politicians and by insisting that press freedom be stifled. (more…)
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The Richard Boyle case: Lots of persecution, no sign of humanity
The Australian public needs to know why persecution of the principled, courageous ATO whistle blower Richard Boyle has dragged on for six years. He blew the whistle on the ATO in October 2017, the AFP raided his home in April 2018, in March 2023 a judge in South Australia decided he was not immune from prosecution and a trial may not be held until 2024. (more…)
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Authoritarianism rampant
The primary site of the authoritarian cancer is the embrace of abusive power as the way to govern. (more…)
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Pat Conroy and the sexuality underpinning AUKUS
The sexual connotation of support for AUKUS should be obvious. An apparent fascination with phallic symbols as large as nuclear submarines, plus language describing how to dominate and penetrate enemies shows notions of security which reflect a top down, masculine interpretation of power. (more…)
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At National Conference, the ALP has the chance to recognise Palestine as a state
The 1948 Palestinian catastrophe, known to Palestinians as the Naqba, saw 750,000 of their predecessors driven from their lands, over 500 villages and towns destroyed, the extent of the killings, destruction and dispossession denied and no-one held accountable. How should Australia respond? (more…)
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Why does the Australian Government fear dissent on AUKUS and Palestine?
Desperate to present a united front at the forthcoming Labor conference in Brisbane, the Albanese government looks to prevent delegates voting on the merits of the AUKUS alliance and for recognition of Palestine as a state. On two crucial issues, dissent is feared. An opportunity for informed debate will be lost. Toeing a party line is the priority. On each issue, Australia’s identity as an independent, human rights respecting country is at stake, so why fear debate? (more…)
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A boycott of Israeli universities, who could possibly object?
In a significant, scholarly book ‘Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine’, Dr. Nick Riemer describes Palestinian civil society as ‘among the most strangulated and oppressed on the planet.’
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To honour Daniel Ellsberg, we must reject a US war over Taiwan
Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, died on June 16. Asked about his decision to dispute the Nixon White House claims about US progress in the Vietnam war, Ellsberg said he had one regret. ‘I waited too long to release those papers. The bombs were already falling.’ From his death bed he stressed the value of warning against war before it is too late. (more…)
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War or peace? Immanuel Kant turns in his grave
In 1795, in his Treatise on Perpetual Peace, philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated rationality about peace by repudiating any plans for military domination, by respect for non-violence and by aiming to abolish standing armies. (more…)
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The cowardly conduct of the media, government and AFP
When former NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane was vilified, his home raided and false claims made by a journalist who wanted to promote himself, no apology was given, no restoration made. Instead, the victim became the guilty party, punished for something he did not do. Sounds familiar? (more…)
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Managerialist and consultancy deceits: PWC and others
Sudden political excitement about the unethical, almost certainly illegal conduct of a large, too big to disappear, accountancy company, deflects attention from the primary site of a cancerous managerialist disease. That site was infected with the idea that individuals labelled managers, usually but not always accountants, could be trusted to decide how government departments, universities, hospitals and other public institutions, could be more cost effective. (more…)
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Gun slaughter of Americans and Palestinians
Despite the horrors of conflicts around the globe, the United States and Israel compete for headlines about their latest killing sprees. These close allies have cultivated cultures of violence, have aided one another with weapons, with military mindsets, with a fascination with violence as the way to solve problems and eliminate opponents. (more…)
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Best not to know: how secrecy and ignorance feed AUKUS policy
Reports that Australia pays retired senior US military officials up to $7,500 a day for advice on AUKUS related defence projects, reveals a cultural cringe and taste for secrecy. Such practice is coupled to a common policy technique, of avoiding criticism by maintaining public ignorance. (more…)
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President Putin eliminates his critics: the latest sentence – 25 years in prison
For denouncing Russia’s war in Ukraine, the brave dissident Vladimir Kova-Murza has been found guilty of treason and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. This savage punishment, the longest sentence given to any opponent of Putin, shows the Kremlin waging cruel authoritarianism as their preferred means of government. (more…)
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Nihilism in Israel, what possible response?
April 5, in Jerusalem, Israeli police using stun grenades and firing rubber coated steel bullets invade the Al Aqsa Mosque. Hundreds of worshippers are arrested. Fourteen Palestinians are wounded by bullets, beatings and tear gas inhalation. (more…)
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Parachuted professors
In a who-cares-about-standards world, the appointment of some university professors looks very much like insider trading, secret patronage, and who you know, not what you know. How else to explain appointments as professors of public figures, seemingly agile enough to vault over the usual obstacles straight to the top of the academic hierarchy? (more…)
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President Xi’s peace plan for Ukraine: plausible and implausible
At first sight, the Chinese President’s twelve proposals to achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine appear plausible. Claims about common interests are supported by references to parties working together for peace and security, abiding by international humanitarian law, sustaining an existing world economic system and insisting that nuclear weapons not be used. (more…)
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Rainbow alerts for peace, not red alerts for war
In their Red Alert for War, doom laden experts assembled by the Sydney Morning Herald forecast a war with China. Preoccupied with cybersecurity, biosecurity, with the weaponry available in military alliances, the experts speak the language of militarism and war but have nothing to say about peace. Yet the language of peace can inspire, not red alerts but rainbow visions to enhance life, not destroy it. (more…)
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Authoritarianism pandemics: Belarus, Nicaragua and beyond
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ales Bialiatski has been sentenced to 10 years in a Belarus prison for allegedly smuggling and financing actions which violated public order. At almost the same time Nicaraguan opposition leader Felix Maradiaga was released from prison, stripped of his citizenship and flown to the US. (more…)
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Thinking differently about sovereignty and economy
While Governments often promote consensus views that disguise racism, domination of the less fortunate and an ages old acceptance that violence can sustain dominant interests, recent articles in P&I have begun to challenge this conformity. (more…)
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Lessons from the earthquake disasters in Turkey and Syria
At personal, national and international levels, crises provide learning opportunities. How to adapt to loss by seeking change, how to think differently about family, community and nation by, among other things, pondering the meaning of security and sovereignty. (more…)
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Explaining Israel’s oppression: cruelty, evil, apartheid and colonisation
On January 27, Israeli forces kill 10 Palestinians in Jenin, including two youths and an elderly woman. The following day a lone Palestinian gunman shoots dead seven Israelis as they leave a synagogue in a settlement in East Jerusalem. (more…)
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Fear to criticise Israel fosters racism and apartheid
An extremist Israeli government insists that apartheid policies will be permanent, that the 2022 slaughter of Palestinians will be repeated, that settler stealing and violence will be ignored and international law derided. In these circumstances, surely no Australian citizen, let alone a politician, could justify such policies? (more…)