I dug a hole in the garden
I don’t why just felt like digging
Just broke up with my girlfriend
I needed something … something to do
Soon I’d dug so deep
The sky was just a window above me
But I didn’t care … mmm
Looking for something deeper
Jackson Jackson (2006)
The parallels between white settlement in Australia and the present devastation and further incursions of Israelis into the Palestinian Territories deserve some pondering. In that context it is curious that the Settler-supporting Israeli Likud (National Liberation Movement) apparently has so many adherents in Australia.
Promoted by former Israeli PMs Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin, the vigorous far right Settler Movement underpins these incursions, nearly half a million settlers, 225 settlements – a Judean thrust, which physically embodies the widening chasm between Israelis, broadly secular and Zionist. Recall what happened to Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin – assassinated by an Israeli student ultranationalist, Yigal Amir, 4 November 1995. No shrinking violet, yet Rabin was against ‘a creeping process of de facto annexation’. That was enough.
Gaza is no war but violent inveterate colonisation. Sound familiar? Backed by the US, in the same way white settlers in Australia were backed by their opportunistic British promoters. The phenomenon is fundamentally an economic loop, a dynamic to which the world remains subject, across eras and economic fads, all for the profit of the few. Hand-rubbing for the spoils of redeveloping Gaza began some time ago – all for the good – of a few. As soon as blood hits the ground this mechanism comes to life. (See NYT 24 April 2024 – ‘Even with Gaza Under Siege, Some are Imagining Its Reconstruction’; sbs.com.au 3 May 2024 – ‘Gaza will need the biggest reconstruction effort since the Second World War, UN says’.)
Nothing new across the aeons. But now we see it – this mayhem and misery, this inhumanity is daily visible, in real time. What is the effect of such ‘sharing’?
Some years ago, several young Australian men made their own private ‘excursions’ overseas, to explore alternative belief and were unexpectedly engaged in the fallout from 9/11. Jack Thomas and David Hicks provided the Australian, then Howard government, with ‘useful’ exemplars and show trials. Had these young men known how their endeavours to explore, (in the way of many a young ANZAC), would be politically employed, it is questionable whether either would have set foot a millimetre offshore.
To keep political and arms industry momentum alive, the Australian government continues to resuscitate ‘terrorism’ by contributing to its foment: $900m contract with an Israeli weapons company, obscene planned spending on AUKUS, but perhaps the cruelest and most neglected dynamic is among young people safely ashore, those turning in on themselves and closest others, thrashing , and yes slashing, in desperation at a cultural void, a lack of civic sustenance, a disregard and disrespect for education, a howl at world failures piling up around them, their fecklessness in face of it, and yes, the impunity of it all. Consequences anyone.
The waitlists for men seeking help are long – Relationships Australia (NSW) had a waitlist of 245 earlier this year in May; No To Violence (NSW) 480. A Victorian service had five men die by suicide while on its waitlist. “We say we want men to be accountable — well, we have 245 men putting up their hands saying they’re concerned about their use of violence,” chief executive Elisabeth Shaw, Relationships Australia (NSW), SBS News, 2 May 2024.
‘Every four years the federal government does a personal safety survey which documents in immense detail what women suffer. And that’s great. We know a huge amount about that. But we need to have the same level and depth of information about the men’ Anne Summers – The Conversation, Michelle Grattan with Anne Summers 1 May 2024.
Societies, and their chosen representatives, neglect what they don’t want to see, or admit. Universities have become factories. Scandal-ridden school is being avoided. Indigenous deaths in custody continue to increase and suburban violence surprisingly amazes us.
Meanwhile, in the Occupied Territories, a place where more than half the population are under 21, youth are learning a few hard lessons which will undoubtedly find their place in the future. Only governments without an understanding of history or a vision for the future neglect this implication.
Anna Sande
Anna Sande is a Victorian painter, photographer, curator and writer. With qualifications in art history and political science from the University of Melbourne.