Pentagon contractor Elon Musk and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu had a conversation that they broadcast on Twitter during Musk’s apology pilgrimage to Israel in a desperate bid to salvage his public image amid costly accusations of antisemitism. (more…)
Category: Israel Palestine
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A monstrous Gaza proposal is evil in plain sight
Giora Eiland is one of the “thinking officers” in the Israeli Defence Forces. He has an idea – epidemics in Gaza are good for Israel. “After all, severe epidemics in the southern Strip will bring victory closer and reduce fatalities among IDF soldiers.” One only has to wait for the daughters of Hamas’ leaders to contract the plague, and we’ve won. (more…)
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US hypocrisy results in persistent Western failures in resolving the Palestinian crisis
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which spans over seven decades, serves as a potent illustration of the persistent failures of Western nations, particularly the United States, to facilitate an equitable and enduring resolution. (more…)
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Two solutions for the “Question of Palestine”
In these terrible times in the wake of October 7, there is one perception as to which the Israeli government and virtually all other governments now publicly profess to agree, sincerely and passionately in the Israeli case and at least rhetorically in the case of the Global West: The “Question of Palestine” can no longer be ignored or “managed” but must, finally, be definitively resolved. (more…)
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Why are so many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails?
Four in 10 Palestinian men spend time in Israel jails. Hamas says it wants to exchange captured Israelis for them. (more…)
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White House fears pause in fighting will let journalists see what’s been happening in Gaza
Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a four-day ceasefire which will entail the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 150 hostages held by Israeli forces. (more…)
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A UN Mandate for the Gaza Strip
Israel’s military campaign to rout the war machine and government authority of Hamas in the Gaza Strip has entered its sixth week. Its steady physical destruction of the terrorist organisation’s military capabilities above and below ground has left a trail of physical ruin and a growing humanitarian tragedy as hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians evacuated their homes in the war zone in northern Gaza and fled to tent encampments in the south at the border with Egypt. (more…)
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Australia’s role in the bombing of Gaza
Being part of the global supply network that supplies parts for the Israeli F-35 jet fighters used over Gaza implicates Australia in their alleged war crimes. (more…)
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Antisemitism and criticism of Israel: open letter to Julian Leeser MP
Shocking discrimination suffered by Jews in the past does not give Israel a warrant to make victims of others. You say anti-Zionism is a cover for antisemitism. Let me tell you why your view is wrong. (more…)
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When is genocide ever balanced?
‘Balance’ between supporters of Israel and of the Palestinians is what most police and State governments in Australia say they seek. So does the ABC. But what’s happening in Gaza isn’t balanced: it is asymmetric warfare. (more…)
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The most successful military raid of this century: the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel
There is a truism that I often cite when discussing the various analytical approaches to assessing the wide variety of geopolitical problems facing the world today—you can’t solve a problem unless you first properly define it. The gist of the argument is quite simple—any solution which has nothing to do with the problem involved is, literally, no solution at all. (more…)
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Losing my religion
Theology has long been used to justify war. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s happening again in the Middle East. (more…)
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Gaza – What is the end game?
In recent weeks some frightening possibilities have come to the world’s attention. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has noted plans, by some, for high density Jewish cities in the Gaza Strip. Such plans call for total destruction and mass expulsion in Gaza. (more…)
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Does Israel have a right to exist?
Israel’s membership of the United Nations was approved in 1949. Unlike other states, it was approved conditionally upon Israel complying with Partition Resolution 181 as to the limits of the Israeli State, and UN Resolution 194, allowing the return of refugees. Israel has complied with neither condition. It refuses to define its borders and is today governed by an Apartheid regime that has murdered over 4,500 children in Gaza in the space of one month. Israel’s membership of the UN must be illegal. It should be expelled from the community of nations. (more…)
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West must acknowledge Israel’s rights are not untrammelled
Everyone’s talking points have in bold type – ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’. This simplistic American militarist jargon is treated as if there was an untrammelled right. International law hasn’t emerged to facilitate war, but to constrain it. (more…)
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US and Israeli exceptionalism and the exception of humanity
Both The US and Israel have turned out to be exceptionally brutal, exceptionally authoritarian and exceptionally unjust. The zeitgeist is peace, and Israel and the U.S. will be left behind when the world moves towards humanity and cooperation. Meanwhile they are going to dig in, stand firm on their use of blood curdling violence against their prisoners and send us all to hell unless the general public resist with every ounce and fibre of their humanity. (more…)
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Ending Jewish Israel’s domination a “re-humanising act”: UN Special Rapporteur
Invoking a “shared humanity”, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese called for a rehumanisation discourse in the Israel/Palestine conflict, in which ending Jewish Israel’s domination would be a re-humanising act for Jewish Israelis as well. (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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No water, no electricity, no oxygen, no way to stay alive
Doctors, nurses, patients and thousands of internally displaced Palestinians are being bombed, terrorised and held hostage in Al Shifa hospital, one of Gaza biggest hospitals. There is no water, no electricity, no oxygen and 37 pre-term babies are slowly dying due to lack of oxygen. (more…)
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A rude awakening: Israel’s occupation shaken to the core
In the early hours of that fateful morning, October 7th 2023, the silence was broken by a wake-up call like no other. A group of Palestinian freedom fighters, young men who had never known anything but occupation, siege, and subjugation shook the Israeli Occupation foundations to the core. Like birds of prey, those fighters flew on their motorcycles over the electronic steel fence, breached that same fence on their jeeps and attacked the illegal settlements on the periphery of the besieged Gaza Strip. They killed 1400 people and captured over 200 others. The casualties were a mixture of Israeli soldiers, reservists and, of course, civilians. And the cry for Freedom and basic human dignity reverberated across the land. (more…)
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Gaza: Israel is winning the battle but losing the war
As was to be expected, Israel is winning the battle for Gaza, albeit at an enormous cost in lives. But what are Israel’s and its backers’ plans for winning the peace, as without an enduring peace settlement the war can never be won. Is a US-led, UN mandated Trusteeship for Palestine the way forward? (more…)
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The relational consequences of October 7
Overhead, suddenly, there was a noisy helicopter. I didn’t look up. Then I noticed that I hadn’t looked up. If I was in a place of terror from the sky, I would have looked up. (more…)
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Gaza: Israel’s hideous “final solution”
In Gaza, the 16 year old ghetto of two million people that Israel created, it seems that we are looking at Israel’s own hideous “final solution” with their collective punishment of a whole civilian population, their catastrophic genocidal practices and their mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. After decades of a systematic, sustained and strategic oppression, the Israeli policy appears to be nearing its final completion. (more…)
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The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template
“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.” (more…)
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Amidst horror, the screeching metal of turnstiles haunts our conscience
We tramped along streets of rubble and twisted girders of metal in Gaza – these had been a home, a school and even a hospital. From one heap of rubble, a sobbing Granny ran up to me – it was winter and bitterly cold. She was camped in a hollow in the bombed out ruin of her family home, where she had been the only survivor from a family of 21 people. She grabbed and hugged me and begged me to tell the world what was happening in Gaza. I made a promise to her that I would. (more…)
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The day after: Destroying Gaza will only yield future war
At the core of the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine is “the studied blindness of two people to see the other, to accept that they have a legitimate place on the landscape”. Without such acceptance, this horrific war in Gaza will not be the last. (more…)
