In her first report in October 2022, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese recommended that UN member states develop “a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime”. What message will she now bring to Australia? (more…)
Category: Israel Palestine
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In the high court of western public opinion
The Zionist slogan….A land without a people for a people without land…has led to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestine people. (more…)
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Scott Morrison’s heartless yearning for Armageddon
I was wondering what was taking prominent Christian Zionists so long to visit Israel. And then I saw him…Scott Morrison landing with the arrogance of someone totally convinced he’s betting on the winning horse. (more…)
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The moral abyss: Israeli doctors call for the bombing of hospitals
Even as the moral abyss that is the war in Gaza had seemed as if it could not deepen, it now appears to be a bottomless pit. It is reported that about 100 medical doctors belonging to a group called Doctors for the Rights of Israeli Soldiers signed a letter last weekend stating that it is an “obligation” for the army to target hospitals in Gaza allegedly used to shelter Hamas, and specifically calling for the bombing of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. (more…)
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Enemy twins: Israel and Hamas unite to massacre innocents
Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel as a state is as absurd as Israel’s belief that the current massacre of Palestinians will destroy Hamas. If all this were mere stupidity it would be bad enough, but the consequent violence against innocent people is extreme and it is accelerating. (more…)
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‘Enduring Peace’: Three questions for the Australian Foreign Minister on Gaza
With the Australian government refusing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, what is Australia actually doing to bring about the ‘two state solution’ and a ‘just and enduring peace’ called for by Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week? (more…)
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Legal case set to expose Australia’s facilitation of war crimes
Is the Albanese government aiding and abetting the Israeli military and intelligence services in actions in Gaza which are serious violations of international human rights laws? (more…)
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Israel: mowing the grass in Gaza, again and again.
There will be no end to the occupation and death until there is a political settlement with justice for both Palestinians and Israelis. (more…)
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Israel does not have the right to ‘defend itself’
Over the last few weeks we have been bombarded with a number of assertions,advanced firstly as mere mantra, but then appearing as axioms, or self-evident truths.Israel has a right to defend itself; and Israel has a right to exist. I wish to question whether these two statements are as axiomatic as our Prime Minister and our Foreign Minister apparently assume. (more…)
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Israel and Palestine – the pain increases hour by hour
The land the Palestinians dream about returning to is no more, and the land that Israelis dream about possessing forever has turned into an immoral and unsustainable nightmare. (more…)
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Massacre of the Innocents
The UN is calling the Israel-Hamas war a ‘graveyard of children’…. an adult conflict, in which the young are suffering most. What we see on our TV screens every night is impossible to watch. Did Netanyahu see the young lad who had just carried the decapitated body of his friend from the rubble. If so, what did he think? He almost certainly thought the same as Natali Bennet the former Israeli prime minister who said to a reporter on Sky News: “Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians? What is wrong with you? We’re fighting Nazis”. (more…)
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Israel’s moral power ebbing away in a human rights catastrophe
Israel’s strategic choices, as Israelis see it, are rather like those sometimes argued for Australia. It wants powerful friends but cannot take them for granted. Ultimately it must depend on itself, if needs be alone. Surrounded by deadly enemies, it must make the cost of conquest so high, and so uncertain, that invaders are deterred. All the better when one has nuclear weapons, because its enemies must consider whether, if the survival of the state is in question, Israel would use them, whether on the battlefield or in the cities of the enemy. (more…)
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Battle of the gods
An older man, grey-haired but quite firm in his manner as he spoke to the ABC TV reporter on Palestine’s West Bank. He was an Israeli, he said, and he was claiming the building site because, ‘God gave us this land.’ (more…)
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Have Australian troops secretly deployed to an illegal war?
Australians have been assured by the Albanese government of greater transparency and accountability on defence. So soon after the 2022-23 parliamentary inquiry into how the country goes to war, that has already fallen over. (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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What our Media fails to tell you about October 7
It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account of that day. (more…)
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The moral complexities of bombing a concentration camp full of children
Israel created Hamas – Now THEY’RE DROPPING BOMBS ON A CONCENTRATION CAMP FULL OF CHILDREN. (more…)
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With focus on Gaza there is escalation of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank
There is “a real risk” of the Occupied Territory of Palestine in the West Bank “spiralling out of control”, the UN said this week. (more…)
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“This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are intensifying as the traumatic toll on civilians sees thousands of children being killed, many health and aid workers and journalists dying on the job, the destruction of health services, surgery taking place without anaesthetic, and civilians unable to access necessities, including life-saving healthcare, food and water. (more…)
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An open letter to ABC Managing Director David Anderson
ABC reporters and program presenters always refer to Hamas’s non-recognition of the right of Israel to exist, but they never mention the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party does not recognise in its charter the right of Palestine to exist, why? An open letter from Ali Kazak, Former Palestinian ambassador. (more…)
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One less terrorist
As of October 29, the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s official confirmed figure for those killed by Israeli bombing and shelling of the territory of the Gaza Strip was more than 8000, including more than 3400 children, which, statistically, is one child killed every 10 minutes since October 7. (more…)
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A call for empathy
A friend of mine in Israel, sickened by the events of the past few weeks, when asked what we outside the country could do suggested we begin with empathy. (more…)
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Prime Minister ignores Palestinian criticism of Government’s support for Israel’s oppression, genocide and ethnic cleansing
The convenor of the youth branch of Australian Friends of Palestine Association, (“Young AFOPA”) on 20 October 2023 wrote to Prime Minister Albanese expressing disappointment in his unequivocal support for Israel during its ongoing genocide in Gaza. The writer challenged the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s purported commitment to engaging in reconciliation in Australia, when at the same time supporting “an occupier actively committing acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide.” (more…)
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Netanyahu invokes Genocide
Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison have signed a statement drafted for them by the Zionist Federation of Australia in support of Israel. In doing so, were they aware that on Sunday, in launching the ground offensive into Gaza, Netanyahu invoked a genocidal precedent for his war on Gaza? (more…)
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A price paid in blood: Australia secretly deploys to another Middle East war
Will Australia involve itself in another war in the Middle East? One that promises to be far more destructive and damaging to Australia than our previous misadventures. (more…)
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We are the Silence: How words bear witness in life and in death
In August of this year, Yousef Maher Dawas, a young Palestinian author, wrote a story of hope and resilience, titled “Kidney Transplant and Rebirth: A Palestinian Love Story”. On the 14th of October, Yousef was killed by an Israeli missile strike, along with several members of his family. Remember his words. He was not a number. (more…)
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Objectivity serves the powerful, and silences the oppressed
Australian journalists still cling to ‘objectivity’ as the hallmark of ‘good journalism’. And yet, Palestine has shown us how colonial notions of ‘objectivity’ pave the way for genocide. (more…)
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Hamas has set a trap. It depends on Israel’s brutal response
In the 75 years since it won nationhood in a field of blood, Israel has fought many wars against its neighbours and its indigenous population. Each has been an existential struggle, because its enemies wanted – still do – to annihilate it altogether. (more…)
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Herald Sun report on support for Zionist Federation letter “untrue”
Today’s Melbourne Herald Sun carries a story that, along with other former Australian Prime Ministers, I will be a signature to a statement drafted by The Zionist Federation of Australia, condemning the attack by Hamas on Israel. This report is without foundation and is untrue. (more…)
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How can you sleep at night Anthony?
Can you sleep at night knowing that your extremist Israeli mates have killed 3,000 children over the last three weeks? That is one child killed every 13 minutes in Gaza. And that doesn’t include the estimated 1,000 little souls laying dead under rubble that distraught fathers can’t rescue. Can you hear the screams of the mothers and babies trapped under the bombs from America that you supported? By your silence, and maybe with your voice, in closed rooms, with that unfeeling geriatric friend of yours, Joe Biden. (more…)