“[T]here was the man in his 50s, forgotten in a room, having had both legs amputated. He had lost his kids, his grandkids, his home . . . and he’s alone in the corner of this dark hospital, maggots going out of his wounds and he was screaming:
‘The worms are eating me alive please help me…’ (more…)
Tag: International relations
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As 700,000 civilians flee Rafah, our shared humanity compels the indication of further ICJ provisional measures
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Some day the Gaza war will end
In the movie Apocalypse Now, Robert Duval’s character, Colonel Bill Kilgore, reflectively observes that, despite the smell of victory, ‘Someday this war’s gonna end’. So too, the war in Gaza is going to end. The only questions are how and when. (more…)
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We “share values” with people committing genocide
Western leaders like to talk about values, shared values, common values. They talk about this a lot. America itself is obsessed with two things: conflict resolution through violence and moral preening. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaringly on display than in the genocide being committed in Gaza. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) says the US and Israel have a partnership based on shared values. I believe them. (more…)
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America’s geopolitical position is crumbling
As an increasing number of countries move to recognise Palestine and welcome its U.N. membership, the Israel lobby is being hit by a pincer movement. On the one side, American voters, especially young American voters, are aghast at Israel’s brutality. On the other side, America’s geopolitical position is crumbling. (more…)
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The Kremlin needs a new PR agent
Moscow would have us believe it is fighting a life and death struggle in the muddy trenches of Donbas. But what do we get to see on the inauguration of its president? Glittering gold chambers and goose-stepping soldiers. (more…)
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Over 700 Australian lawyers call for the Australian government to take immediate action to ensure a lasting peace in the Middle East and uphold international law
In another significant show of solidarity by the Australian legal profession, more than 700 Australian lawyers (including practising barristers and solicitors, legal academics and law students) have signed a further letter to the Australian Government calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
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Israel’s willing executioners
Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to flee, once again, after more than half of Gaza’s population took sanctuary in the border town of Rafah. This is part of Israel’s sadistic playbook. (more…)
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Our great leap backward in China trade ignores China specialists
Last month Prime Minister Albanese cheerfully welcomed the Chinese government’s removal of import duties on Australian wine. (more…)
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Palestinian statehood is the only way forward for peace. Our media don’t help.
Australia’s recent vote to increase the status of the State of Palestine in the United Nations General Assembly is as welcome as it is historic. The positive vote recognizes that Palestine is qualified to join and recommends to the U.N Security Council that it reconsider the matter favorably. (more…)
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Is New Zealand slurping the AUKUS Kool-Aid?
Drinking the Kool-Aid is not only believing a foolish and dangerous idea but acting on it leads to unnecessary self-destruction. It refers to the 900 American cult members who drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978 in an act of “revolutionary suicide”. Critics of AUKUS on both sides of the Tasman think our governments need to change their drinking habits. (more…)
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Who will win the US Presidential Election? Professor Lichtman may hold the key
The Guardian newspaper reports that history professor Allan Lichtman is known as the Nostradamus of US presidential elections since he has correctly predicted the results of nine of the past ten ballots. (more…)
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The coming theatre of jiu-jitsu international conflict
Jiu-jitsu is a martial art in which one leverages one’s opponent’s strength in order to subdue them. It is increasingly likely to become the predominant mode of international conflict in the future. It will deploy the adversary’s greatest strength, its internal network of digital interconnections, as a wrecking ball. It is difficult to know if this will be a less destructive or more destructive form of international combat. We need to think carefully about this. (more…)
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“Antisemitic hate crime”: US and Israel desperate to avoid ICC justice
Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has labelled prospective action by the International Criminal Court to hold him accountable for the murder of 14,500 children in Gaza as “an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime”. (more…)
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The West believes antisemitism is a more egregious problem than genocide
The loss of Western authority as a result of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza has merely sped up changes already underway for a generation. (more…)
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Peace starts with Palestine’s UN membership
On May 10, all member states should vote to admit the State of Palestine as the 194th member of the United Nations. (more…)
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Australia must vote yes to Palestine at UN
The Jewish Council of Australia is horrified by what we are witnessing Israel do in Rafah. Israel’s ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank is the greatest impediment to peace for Palestinians and Israelis. (more…)
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Students are the nation’s conscience
The courageous stance of students across the country in defiance of genocide is accompanied by a near total blackout of their voices. Their words are the ones we most need to hear. (more…)
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The Nakba never ended, the coloniser lied
The blood is on your hands Biden. We can see it all, and fuck no, I’m not voting for you in the fall. It’s too late, we’ve seen the truth, we bear witness. Seen the rubble, the buildings, the mothers and the children. And all the men that you murdered. (more…)
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Israel is morphing into a pariah state. Time to cut the cord
Washington’s attempts to attack and impair the workings of the ICC on Israel’s behalf merely serve to further isolate a declining America. (more…)
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NZ Foreign Minister’s anti-China defamation of Carr threatens trans-Tasman friendship
Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr sues New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters for defamation over AUKUS comments. The defamation action comes as a chagrined Peters took what looked like a step back from AUKUS in recent speeches. (more…)
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How Israel relies on up to 1,000 Australians and other foreign fighters to carry out its war crimes
Thousands of people from countries around the world have joined the war against Palestinians. (more…)
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Our biggest China lie
Three things: China is winning from Gaza; China growing at 5 per cent now is better than China growing at 7 per cent a decade ago; and Australia’s biggest China lie is that we’re spending half a trillion dollars on boats to protect our sea lanes. (more…)
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Australian aid to Ukraine: False narratives and US hegemony
On Sunday 28 April, Defence Minister Richard Marles announced $100 million in military aid to Ukraine. It was said to raise Australia’s support to $1 billion in support of Ukraine’s attempt to counter “Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion”.
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Myths about Ukraine: no.#1 – Crimea rightfully belongs to Russia
Russian claims to Crimea based on historical ownership, language or the illegitimacy of past decisions are weak. They provide no justification for its invasion and annexation or continued possession of Crimea. (more…)
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We’ll reward you for genocide
Israel: Hey Joe, just letting you know Hamas has retaliated to our decades long Occupation and repression and have broken through the prison gates and attacked Israelis. Go figure. (more…)
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Washington has lost touch with reality. If it doesn’t adapt, the world will pay
In a failing quest to maintain its ‘primacy’, the US has cast China, Russia and Iran as global villains. (more…)
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War parties, the peace candidate, and the US election
The Democrats and the Republicans are outdoing each other to prove who can get us to World War III fastest. Joe Biden and the Congressional Democrats are making a convincing bid to be the leading warmongers. The Congressional Democrats just voted unanimously in a vote of 210 – 0 to extend the Ukraine War with another $61 Billion to kill more Russians and Ukrainians, and by a lopsided majority of 173-37 for another $14 Billion to extend Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Donald Trump weighed in before the vote that Ukraine’s survival and strength is “important to us”, and that Europe should pay more. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson did his part for warmongering by calling Russia, China, and Iran the updated axis of evil. The slur was just in time for Secretary of State Blinken to fly to China to threaten more US sanctions if China trades with Russia in ways the US disapproves. (more…)
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Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?
In Northeast Asia a system of confronting military alliances – US/Japan/South Korea/Philippines vs China/Russia/North Korea – gradually takes shape, calling to mind nothing so much as the alliance system constructed in Europe in the decade leading up to 1914. The one today is no more likely to lead to peace and regional cooperation than was the other 110 years ago. (more…)
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Gaza and victimhood
The regimes in Israel and Palestine both claim to be victims in the violence that engulfs them. Interpreting the situation through “victimhood” assists in understanding the human forces that arise from age-old conflicts and that continue to cause so much horrific suffering. (more…)
