Archives: Letters to the Editor

Australian citizens who go to Israel, serve with the IDF and then return home should be treated exactly the same as those Australian citizens who went to support Islamic State in Syria then returned home.

We are all equal before the law. Aren’t we?

Anthony Albanese has been thoroughly bought by the pro-Israel lobby and aligns us with genocide by sticking with our “good ally” the US. The murders would have stopped long ago, but for the steady supply of US bombs. As for “the hostages” … when has Albanese ever mentioned the thousands of Palestinians held without charge for years in Israeli prisons? Why hasn’t Albanese noticed that, of released hostages, Israelis are far better cared for?

What of Hamas, once promoted by Netanyahu? Hasn’t Albanese looked at the alternative media that we are looking at? What possible threat could come from the rubble of Gaza?

And the two-state solution, the one Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, etc have no intention of allowing to happen. Matthew Knott in The Age shows either ignorance or that he’s also bought, saying “Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas walked away from serious offers of statehood,…”. Arafat seriously agreed to a two-state solution. There was nothing serious in what he walked away from, the equivalent of the holes in Swiss cheese.

Without recognising Palestine, there is no state for Israel to bargain with. Every day Albanese waits for the impossible, the more blood he drowns in.

Pearls and Irritations continues its good work in presenting humanitarian voices objecting to Israeli actions in Gaza. An even more through examination of current opposition sentiment in Israel itself can be found in a weekly round-up at Conflicts Forum.

However, all these articles miss one crucial point. None of them anchor their interpretation of the current situation in Gaza in the Nakba. Israel came into being on the stolen land and destroyed the lives of the occupants of Palestine, the Palestinian people. They were evicted, killed when they objected, and the survivors were herded into enclaves, Gaza being the most extreme.

Until Israel acknowledges and owns the inhumanity woven into its very foundation, the replacement of Palestine with Israel will continue until there are no Palestinians left. Israel will then head into its future covered in everlasting shame and ignominy.

The use of severe restrictions governing the release of medicine, food and water to the traumatised residents of Gaza continues unabated. Public reaction swings from horror in much of the world to seeming indifference in much of the West to outright glee in Israel.

On Israel’s northeast, it now controls all of the Golan Heights. This opens the road into Syria, and secures for Israel both water and, through Afek Oil and Gas, oil and gas deposits. These energy reserves are similar to the coveted undersea deposits located off Gaza.

Israel seems to be set on expansion through slaughter in Gaza and land-appropriation in Syria. How is pointing that out antisemitic? That it is not, can be attested to by the fact of so many Jews also condemning Israel. So why this bill, and why now?

Could it be that when the reckoning comes for Israel, as it surely must, there will be a mass exodus of Israelis, probably including former IDF soldiers, to any country that will take them? Some will find refuge here. To counter the albatross that Gaza has hung around the neck of world Jewry, a law forbidding criticism might be just the ticket.

Recently the new leader of the Liberals was quoted as saying: “I’ve never met an Australian that wanted to pay more tax “

She might have said she has never:

met a mine owner who would not take more for her/or his ore;

met an employer who wanted to pay more wages;

met an employee who didn’t want a pay rise;

met a hospital that didn’t need mor funding;

met an ambulance patient who liked ramping;

met a bushfire/victim who didn’t want a quicker response from the government; or

met a general/dmiral who didn’t want a bigger bomb.

And for her coalition partners:

never met a farmer who wouldn’t take more for their produce; and

never met an irrigator who didn’t want more water

If that is the path that she and he colleges want to continue on, Australia will continue to self-destruct. The exception is Defence. Defence spending is not judged like all other expenditure. Since the end of World War II, no Defence money has been spent on the actual defence of Australia. Perhaps we need a new business model that focuses more on service to Australia and Australians.

Humans are enslaved due to the failure to recognise the fundamental role of the government and the private sector. The private sector has taken control of the government sector and can only be trusted to make a profit.

Along the way the private sector has developed the ability to convince the voting public, and in turn our elected representatives, what we want, what we need and what can’t be done. By giving control of our telecommunications to the private sector, we lost control of all communications.

By the continual controlled criticism of all things China and its undemocratic electronic population monitoring and control, we are failing to see that we have totally lost control of our own society eg the never-ending story of internet societal damage conveniently can’t be fixed

Government has the ability to begin the fixing of but it is too scared to begin afraid to be labelled Big Brother and turning a blind eye to the real Big Brother, the tech companies. If technology has the ability to do so, bring it into our country. Ttechnology has the ability to keep it out. Dare I say the CSIRO may have the fix.

A start would be laws to mandate political truth.

Thank you for publishing Ken Henry’s address to the National Press Club. It was a privilege to read it. Henry’s ability to explain how productivity and a sound economy depends on a healthy natural environment and a safe climate is unsurpassed. One sentence summed it up nicely: “Independent reviews confirm that the environmental impact assessment systems embedded in the [nature] laws are not fit-for-purpose. Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero and they are undermining productivity.”

It is pleasing to see that Henry has been invited to the Economic Reform Roundtable in August. But sadly, nature laws are not one of the five pillars. Pillar 2, Investing in the net zero transformation, is critically important but it is a subset of the environmental and climate-related challenges this country faces.

Sadly, it seems Henry, and possibly Allegra Spender, will be lone voices for nature. Business groups will dominate. The Australian Conservation Foundation remains uninvited.

As David Attenborough has said, “… real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.” Let’s hope the Roundtable is listening.

It’s interesting what it takes politicians and the mainstream media to act. They don’t mind civilians trapped, suffocating in the rubble, they don’t mind limbs torn off by bombs, they don’t mind amputations performed without anaesthetic, they don’t mind cancer hospitals bombed and medical staff abducted, raped and tortured, but a child, skinny and starving, suddenly offends their sensibilities.

Or for politicians, it is more like the mid term elections are coming up, their constituents are bristling or they’re now realising they have to cover their own complicity.

For the mainstream media, it is more like Murdoch has decided to oppose Trump and whatever the opposing stance, it is suddenly the right one.

For years, I’ve known the ethics and values of politicians and the mainstream media was of low standard, but this conflict in Gaza has shown me that those ethics and values are non-existent.

Richard Heinberg cites Tim Lenton’s book Future of the human climate niche that warns that 2 degrees C warming may result in a billion refugees. Later, Heinberg refers to “the simple, though stark, reality that humanity faces climate change and resource depletion, and that living space is likely to become more constricted”.

We may reach 2 degrees warming by 2035. That is 10 years away. How on Earth are we to cope with a billion displaced humans in the next decade? Where will they all go? Surely, this is emerging as one of the great moral crises of our time?

In Australia, we seem to have trouble accommodating a mere 13,750 refugees every year. Of course, that number should be increased somewhat, but not to the hundreds of thousands or even the million level. We simply cannot accommodate them and, anyway, our own carrying capacity will diminish as climate warms.

It would appear Australia has two moral courses to take: mitigate climate change as much as possible and thereby help delay 2-degree warming; and massively increase foreign aid to help people in other countries adapt to climate change which would hopefully minimise their ultimate displacement, particularly across borders.

Robert, Palestinians are generally considered Semitic peoples. The term “Semitic” refers to a language family and a cultural group that includes various ancient and modern populations, including those who speak Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Palestinians primarily speak Arabic, which is a Semitic language, and their lineage is traced back to the region of the Levant, where many Semitic peoples have historically resided.

While the term “Semitic” is primarily linguistic and cultural, it has also been used in racial and ethnic contexts. In this broader sense, Palestinians are also considered Semitic due to their historical and cultural connections to the region and their shared linguistic heritage with other Semitic peoples.

It’s important to note that the concept of “race” is a social construct and not a biological reality. The term “Semitic” can be understood in different ways, but in the context of Palestinians, it generally refers to their linguistic and cultural background rather than a specific racial identity. It continues to be used wrongly being defined as anti-Jewish sentiment. It’s the exact opposite.

Yes, the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize should go to Francesca Albanese. On 24 July this year, The World Beyond War movement awarded her the individual 2025 War Abolisher Award. At the award event, Hanieh Jodat began with these words:

“Today we come together not simply to present an award – but to bear witness: to courage, to truth, and to a voice that has never trembled, even when the world has demanded silence.”

and ended with:

“Francesca has become a map, a mirror, and a megaphone for the dispossessed and displaced. Francesca, your words have become lifelines. Your presence, a promise. Your defiance, a shield. You remind us that we will not be silenced – and we will not stand down. And so, it is with a full heart, deep gratitude and unwavering solidarity that we honour your courage tonight. For your bravery, your brilliance, and your relentless pursuit of a world without war, where no mother and father carry pieces of their child’s body in a bag, where no child dies waiting in line for food, and where no family watches their dreams starve, we honour you.”

No sentient moral and ethical being could rationally dissent from the view that the Israeli state is worse in its savagery than the Nazis, as it triumphantly flaunts its barbarity and arrogant criminality openly before the world as “God’s chosen people”. That is widely recognised by the vast bulk of humanity.

What is even more distressing is the active participation in, and evident support for, this vast atrocity by the overwhelming bulk of the leadership of the “civilieed” West. It has become a truly nonfunctional and iniquitous civilisation that deserves the contempt and detestation of that vast bulk of humanity. They see in Israel’s actions the modern-day reflection of the deliberate horrors visited upon them in the recent colonial and imperial past by this same odious culture.

These Western leaders are so unwitting as to totally fail to grasp the revulsion with which they are regarded for the vast gap between their self image of moral leadership and the trail of devastation they have left around the rest of the planet. Willing participation in the greatest crime so far of the 21st century is the legacy to be left by this dying civilisation.

Great quote in this article from a man I greatly admire for his integrity, intelligence, compassion and geo-political understanding. Mahubhani represents the best aspects of a universalism and inclusivity that is entirely absent from those who pose as the foreign policy elites of the dying west.
Whilst we promote our “western values” ceaselessly around the planet, we fail almost universally to actually live up to those supposed values. We only apply them to the often fabricated atrocities attributed to the behaviour of those we look down upon as lesser civilisations, whilst blithely ignoring our far greater capacity and willingness to carry out atrocities against those same peoples.
Mahubhani has the temerity to point out our obvious shortcomings and is damned for doing so. Long may he continue!!!

The western neo-cons shouting into the void reflect their futility and anger at the dying of their largely white Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the world. Intellectually unequipped to deal with the newly emerging multi-polar world that rightly sees them as infantile examples of humanity senselessly throwing their toys out of their cots, they fulminate furiously their prevarications and delusional mendacities.
The problem for them is that the world has moved on past their conventional wisdoms, spread as they overwhelmingly are in the dying legacy media space that they thought would enable them to control the public mind on a permanent basis. Their desire for the continuance of past certainties doesn’t really cut it anymore, as those certainties only ever existed in their own fevered imaginings.
Albanese has gone a very little distance towards economic, political and geo-political sanity. Let’s hope he develops the courage to fully join the new multi-polar world.

This is up to Robert’s usual high standard, but even it never mentions the other 400 million semites and their rights. The cleverly constructed identification of antisemitism with only antijewism for over one hundred years enables us all to sympathise with only a tiny proportion of Semites, who are daily slaughtering many of the other Semites. This is no small matter as those other Semites, all 400 million of them, are the principal targets of the Jewish state.
We in the West are prone to adopt simplistic notions that suit our prejudices and often use them to shape our view of the world. Such is the adoption of the word antisemitism to relate only to Jews, as a means of dealing with our Western guilt for ignoring their fate under the Holocaust. As a Semite is any person that has as their native language, a Semitic language. That includes Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew amongst a small number of others. The principal victims from 1947 to the present of Israeli violence and ethnic cleansing are the Semitic Arabs whose homeland for more then 14,000 years has been Palestine.

As far as the United Nations is concerned I have come to the conclusion that it is a very expensive retirement home for politicians and public servants – a reward for services rendered – and when it really counts ineffective. Sound a bit like parliaments in general. There have been too many examples of vetos by the major players based on other left/right alliances, unarmed UN peacekeeping forces standing helplessly by and climate inaction and ineffectiveness . The League of Nations reached its use-by date between the wars and the UN is long past its use-by date. The new body should be located on one of the sinking Pacific Islands, which would be an economic boom to the islanders, and might encourage some actual action on climate change.

10+ years ago a report (Choice I think ) into supermarket pricing found that supermarket prices for the big two varied due to the affluence of the area in which they were located. While advertised specials (bait) were the same, general prices varied and not as you would expect – dog food, potato chips and soft drinks etc were dearer and more plentiful in the less affluent areas but overall the more affluent areas were the cheapest

Is the ANU angling to become Canberra’s best vocational training institution?

Every war-game the US has undertaken regarding their desire to invade China has resulted in US defeat. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have both acknowledged that on several occasions. Making these never-never Subs subject to US control whenever they might just arrive won’t affect that outcome in any way at all. The obvious observation that never appears to occur to our strategically illiterate politicians, is that we are talking about the invasion of the second largest population on the planet. Their technological competence vastly outmatches the US, Japan and Australia combined and would be defending their homeland. Whilst we would be trying to project military power thousands of kilometres from our shores against an “enemy” with an industrial capacity to produce hypersonic weapons in their tens of thousands.
The ONLY way we might conceive of winning such a conflict would be if the nuclear weapons of our unreliable ally were to triumph over those of China, in which case if any of us survived we would inherit an irradiated planet incapable of sustaining life. For Christ’s sake can we shake off this US death wish and get back to some recognisable sanity?

Further to Eugene Doyle’s recent article regarding French Resistance in WWII, and the heroes who oppose genocide, there are seeds of hope with several legal precedents in the United Kingdom.

Back in 1996, the Ploughshare Four were found not guilty of criminal damage to a Hawk warplane bound for East Timor at the Warton aerodrome in Lancashire. Their actions were considered reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969

More recently in January 2017, the Reverend Dan Woodhouse, a Methodist minister in Leeds and Sam Walton, a Quaker, were arrested at the same site attempting to disarm warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia, and were charged with criminal damage.

In October 2017, Woodhouse and Walton appeared at Burnley Magistrates court and Reverend Woodhouse claimed stopping warplanes would save lives. Both were found not guilty, after successfully contending that they acted for the greater good.

Bernard Corden
Spring Hill, QLD

Stone was one of the last utterly committed Neo-Liberals to occupy the head of Treasury position. Maybe it was his interest in physics that taught him to think in binary terms and without any civilisational sense. Sufficient to say his intellectual arrogance, and conviction that only he perceived reality, were sufficient to make his rejection of a modern, relevant economics a hallmark of Treasury during his leadership. His Senatorial role simply re-enforced that intellectually reactionary persona.

Pithy and succinct is the best description of the article from Geoff. In admirably few words he summarises the geo-strategic infantilism of this dodgy-brothers deal, set up by the devious, imbecilic rodent Scott Morrison. Were this to proceed, which seems increasingly unlikely, the US seems intent on proving the accuracy of Kissinger’s aphorism that being a friend of the US can be “fatal”. To continue with a deal with a disintegrating empire that has, for more than a century, shown itself as having “no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”, as Kissinger also said, reeks of political cowardice and strategic failure of epic proportions. The positive is that our missing-in-action leaders will not need to pluck up the courage to can this deviant deal as the Donald will simply renege on it, as he has with everything else he has promised in his mindless daily twitterings. The negative may well be that we succeeded in pouring billions, that we can ill afford, into the scam before that time.

Beyond Vietnam, Martin Luther King’s strident anti-war address, is as relevant today as it was in 1967 because most of us are as disinclined to protest against government policy and conventional thinking as Americans were then.

As King said: “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in a time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world.”

Beyond Vietnam revealed the history of America’s nefarious involvement in Vietnam so it was not welcomed by the establishment.

It also gave considerable attention to the impact of America’s war on the lives of Vietnamese people – the ‘enemy’.

King’s speech challenges us.

Can we approach US foreign policy – which is Australia’s foreign policy, the UK’s, France’s, Germany’s, and of course Israel’s – in a similar way?

Can we critique ourselves; see through the insidious propaganda; and show empathy for the ‘enemy’, for all humankind?

Can we watch the BBC/ABC documentary Rage against the regime with critical eyes and not be lured towards a catastrophic war with Iran?

Apart from the worst Prime Minister we have ever had (and that’s saying something when T. Abbott had the job and A. Taylor wants the job) can anybody possibly think that negotiating anything with with D. Trump is a good idea?

Congratulations to Jack Waterford for some very plain talk about the relationship with the Trump US.

I quote: ” Indeed, if Australia did blab, there would be any number of Australian officials, regarding themselves as having a loyalty to the alliance over and above their loyalty to Australia, who would leak about it.”

Can we read “US” for “alliance”?

And if so, and if Jack’s assertion is true, don’t words like “undue foreign influence” or even in a few possible cases, “treason” come to mind? Do we need an oath of allegiance?

A focus on the marine crisis in South Australia as a matter of state versus national politics, wildly misconstrues the context and misapprehends the looming danger. Like the drought impacting Southeastern South Australia and the western half of Victoria, the dystopian-like conditions these events are characterised by are entirely consistent with all of the predictions for the extreme impacts of climate change. In Australia, the droughts and flooding rains of the past were, for all their harshness, part of a cycle our biological systems had long adapted to. These new extremities are unable to be responded to so, as we are seeing on the South Australian coast, things break. Local responses will have little impact. The effect is linear and rapidly worsening. Quibbling over which tier of government needs to respond misses the point entirely.

While I was disappointed that Albo didn’t cancel the AUKUS/5 ministers Morrison pact in the first weeks of his first team I have to admit that I’ve been impressed with his steady as she goes treatment of all things Trump. If he can keep a lid on any further US instalments, keeps playing the long game, perhaps buys some conventional subs from Japan, or France, or even China, as part of Trumps demands for increased defence spending, he could well out-last Trump or even the (not so) United States.
As always with all politicians the polls rule. I’ve no doubt the voters distrust of all things Trump and Australian historical love hate relationship with America and Americans (“overpaid, oversexed and over here”) has influenced his decisions. I just hope the polls have the same effect when appointing his next defence minister.

If Australia’s “diplomatic, economic, strategic and military capabilities are all going in the same direction“, should they be if one or more of those elements is deliberately going in the wrong direction?

Marles has only ever shown the delight of the incompetent in being allowed to play with his superiors, going along with whatever they say. Hence our increasing military absorption into the US warmonger machine. Marles should be dumped. His replacement by someone even halfway more competent would be a definite improvement.

Wong, on the other hand, is smart but seems to have left her integrity at the door on becoming Foreign Minister. To put her foot down she needs to regrow her spine.
The best thing Wong could do for Australia is to say No to the US, say we will no longer be available to automatically support any of its unjustified military “adventures”. An easy way to demonstrate this would be to stand up and say we don’t support US complicity in genocide in Gaza and that we will adopt BDS immediately. Following that, Wong could give more attention to our Pacific neighbours and their forthcoming disappearance under the sea if her fellow Minister Watt’s decisions prevail.

Good article by Paddy Gourley in the July 19 P&I.
With luck America will force Australia to finally adopt a more independent security posture and capability. They have voted for Trump, twice and the world is different even if many remain in denial. Surely we must avoid being dragged into another fruitless conflict following our Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq mark 2 experiences.
We have to believe we can do it as do most other countries around the world. And the Europeans are now doing as NATO is being unilaterally changed.
To achieve similar national security to what we now believe we have, we will probably have to increase defence spending but as Gourley says we can put more
emphasis on diplomacy, trade and people to people contact. We do value the UN and its Charter and we do respect international law.
The government should update the 2013 National Security Strategy, although accelerated implementation of the 2024 National Defence Strategy without AUKUS Pillar 1 and its associated chains, would be a good step.

John Menadue’s excellent article sums it up very well. I’d just add that the US likes to parrot its commitment to democracy. Fact is it doesn’t give a rats about democracy and never has. Not only with the numerous ‘regime changes’ Mr Menadue refers to but some specifics would include destroying Iranian democracy in 1953 by overthrowing their government (with the UK) for oil, egging on the Hungarians endlessly in 1956, promising them the world when they overthrew the Soviet puppet government, letting them rot. Numerous incursions into the affairs of South American countries and even in their own country, voter suppression, gerrymandering (a unique US invention), the 3/5ths compromise, etc. etc. I never met you Mr Menadue, but my father did, in his later years in Qantas & he was both impressed and disappointed. Disappointed because he was about to retire and finally along comes a CEO saying all the things he’d been saying for 25 or so years!! Good fortune to you sir, you are a beacon of sanity in a sea of sycophants who are selling us out just as they did by running off into Britain’s military disasters before the rise of the US.