Benjamin Netanyahu is sabotaging talks, hoping Donald Trump will blame Hamas if negotiations fail. (more…)
Category: Israel Palestine
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The greatest irony in our contemporary history
I just read the Sunday Age articles by Chip Le Grand. The writer and The Age have been engaged in a vicious propaganda campaign against the increasing mass protests in Australia that have also involved large numbers of artists, writers, academics and students opposed to the Gazan genocide. (more…)
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Gaza: There comes a time when silence is betrayal
Last week I spent a day fasting, joining medical colleagues and other healthcare workers in a rolling hunger strike to protest what is happening in Gaza. Why are we doing this? (more…)
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Antisemitism envoy’s report ‘Trumpian’
The report of the Albanese Government’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, contains recommendations that will lead to erosion of freedom of expression and the right to protest. (more…)
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‘It is not antisemitic to criticise Israel,’ says Federal Court judge – and the Executive Council of Jewry agrees!
In the light of the revelations in the Lattouf v ABC decision about the way in which the Israel lobby hounded the ABC, the judgment in the recently decided Federal Court case Wertheim & Goot v Haddad is both significant, “interesting” and certainly more than revelatory. (more…)
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US sanctions UN expert Albanese over criticism of Israeli genocide
One critic said Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “crude effort” to sanction Francesca Albanese “only serves to establish that the US is an international outlaw.” (more…)
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The story most Israelis are not allowed to hear
I write this in quite a distressed state. On Sunday, I watched the award-winning documentary film – “No Other Land”. (more…)
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Israeli defence minister orders plan to build concentration camp for Gaza’s civilian population
Israel Katz says the so-called “humanitarian city” will be built on the ruins of Rafah. (more…)
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Freedom of speech and chants
“Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” and “Death, death to the IOF [Israeli Occupying Force]”. Chants that some in the Palestinian support movement in Melbourne used last weekend. (more…)
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Punishment, proportionality and principle
The reaction to the fire bombing on a Jewish establishment in Melbourne has been sadly predictable. (more…)
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The one-word problem for Israel
The massive, almost universal, support nations have provided Israel since the Hamas attacks is eroding around the world and new research indicates that most people surveyed over 24 countries now have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu. (more…)
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When the helping hand holds a machine gun
There’s no precise number of how many Palestinians have been starved to death by Israel’s embargo on food entering Gaza. (more…)
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J’accuse (Part 2) – The Israel lobby
Readers may recall a piece published here on Pearls and Irritations (J’accuse!… the Jew who accuses his fellow Jews of being antisemites on 23 February, 2025 — in which I wrote about an offensive tweet Mark Leibler (lawyer and leader of AIJAC) posted on X — in which, amongst other things, he described those Jews criticising Israel as “vicious antisemites”. (more…)
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Gunning for the Greens over Gaza – Part 1
After the federal election on 3 May, dissection of the Liberals’ turmoil received top billing. (more…)
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Genocide in Gaza: History repeats itself
For the past 21 months, I have endured the painful experience of displacement, moving between tents under relentless bombardment in Gaza. (more…)
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Food aid or firing squads?
In Gaza today, hunger has a price – and for far too many civilians, that price has been death. (more…)
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UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’. Who are they?
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law. (more…)
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Israel’s genocide and German Staatsräson: Thwarting a youth’s political sensibilities
It was the third month of Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza, just before the Christmas break in 2023, when my daughter Lelia came home one day and mentioned an unhappy confrontation with one of the directors of her school, the Freie Waldorfschule Berlin Mitte. (more…)
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Gaza’s Hunger Games
Israel is weaponising starvation. The objective is to dismantle all remnants of civil society and reduce Palestinians to herds of desperate scavengers who can be driven from historic Palestine. (more…)
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Flour instead of homeland: manufacturing the crisis and the end of the Palestinian dream
Since 4:00 p.m. on 14 May 1948, the Palestinian cause has been one of a homeland seized by force, a land torn from its people by Zionism through weapons and terror. (more…)
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Courage needs to be shown in politics – Israel is no longer above the law
In the past weeks, an estimated 500 more Gazans have been killed, bombed out of existence by the IDF or killed while queuing for food. (more…)
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Lattouf’s victory, our fight: Standing firm against intimidation
In April 2025, I posted a comment in The Age, sharing how, after 40 years in my Goldstein neighbourhood, I’d never felt unsafe until I was wrongly accused of antisemitism. (more…)
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Starvation and profiteering in Gaza (with Francesca Albanese) | The Chris Hedges Report
Francesca Albanese joins Chris Hedges to break down the current starvation campaign in Gaza, and her upcoming report detailing the profiteering corporations capitalising on the erasure of Palestinians. (more…)
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Three blows against Zionism in a single day
A court ruling in Australia, an election result in New York and a military setback for Israel, all coming last week, signalled a serious turn of events for Zionism and its supporters, writes Joe Lauria. (more…)
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The generational divide in the West over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: from a culture of loyalty to a culture of justice
A deep analysis of the growing generational divide in the West over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (more…)
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Don’t talk or write about Palestine. It’s a career killer
The new McCarthyism sweeps through the university sector at a terrifying pace. At the core is conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel, spurred on by the pro-Israel lobby that has convinced or recruited governments and large sections of the media. (more…)
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Beyond complicity: Western accomplices to genocide in Gaza
After decades of unwavering support for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, it seems Western leaders can no longer avert their gaze from the horrific televised images of mass carnage and starvation in Gaza and brutality on the West Bank. (more…)
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Lattouf’s win over ABC a big victory for freedom of expression
Journalist and broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf’s win over the ABC in the Federal Court is a significant victory for freedom of expression. (more…)
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Israel’s ‘weaponisation’ of food is a ‘war crime’: UN
“It is weaponised hunger. It is forced displacement,” said one UN human rights official. “All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza.” (more…)
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IDF actions in Gaza directly contradict Jewish ethical tradition
The Israeli response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 has been massive and all-encompassing. (more…)