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…)
Tag: International relations
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Why is the US so reluctant to ratify UN conventions?
The US is reluctant to ratify international conventions despite endlessly expounding on the importance of all countries abiding by the vague Rules Based International Order (RBIO). (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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The rise of China’s “Australianists”: game-changing opportunity for bilateral relations
Vision, passion, and commitment of the forerunners in the Australian Studies community in China and Australia have paved the way for the emergence of such an exceptional intellectual community over four decades. It is a visionary and responsible question to ask: where should the community head in the next four decades? (more…)
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Looking on the bright side: Report from Beijing
Australian Studies scholars in China are optimistic that relations can “get back to normal”. This is the impression I gained from a recent symposium at one of the major Australian Studies Centres in that country. University colleagues I met while in Beijing were all encouraged by news of the forthcoming visit by Prime Minister Albanese and had great hopes for positive outcomes. (more…)
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Australia does not have to choose between China and the United States
The biggest challenge Australia is facing now probably is not how to maintain a balance between China and the United States, or to choose a side between the two, but instead how to serve the interests of its own people. The choice facing Australia is between standing on the side of division and confrontation, or alternatively on the side of cooperation and prosperity. (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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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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A Western disease of cause-and-effect amnesia
The savage Israeli reaction to the suggestion by UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, that some Hamas actions may be a response to 56 years of Israeli repression was extraordinary. We have long known about Israeli sensitivity to criticism. But this brings things to a new level. Cannot Israel accept even some of its own responsibility for the Hamas response? (more…)
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In this conflict, context is everything
The truth of the matter is that Western Governments bear the primary responsibility for both the carnage in Israel and the genocide in Gaza. (more…)
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Michael Pascoe: ‘Dingo Warriors’ bait Albanese’s China visit
Former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, last week wrote a piece praising the rise of diplomacy in our dealings with Beijing, claiming that since changing prime minister, we don’t have a defence minister and senior public servants beating the drums of war, running roughshod over the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (more…)
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“Red line”: Overshadowed by Gaza, Ukraine drifts beyond proxy war
The news that Ukraine has begun to use US-supplied long range ATACMS missiles against Russian forces has been overshadowed by the Palestine-Israel crisis, but it is an escalation that has profoundly dangerous implications. (more…)
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For Washington, the US-Australia alliance counts for less than nothing
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have plenty to talk about when he meets with US President Joe Biden this week. The Middle East, China, AUKUS and submarines will no doubt dominate the agenda. But there is one matter in respect of which Mr Albanese should insist on a quick resolution. That is the case of Australian publisher and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (more…)
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Israel will never be safe until Palestine is free
No attempt to “explain”, rationalise, find some counter-“equivalence” for, nor any attempt to see matters through the eyes and the experiences of the murderers rather than the immediate victims can justify or forgive the barbaric massacre of Israeli children, women and men by Hamas warriors after they broke out of Gaza. It does not forgive collective punishment, or the counter-massacre of Palestinians it inspired either. But one of the starting-off points for dealing with the latest upsurge of irrational violence must be the sheer enormity of what was done to southern Israelis. (more…)
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China and the apocalypse: How the West reinvents the end of history
After China entered the period of “reform and openness” in the 1980s, Western liberalism, embracing a form of ‘apocalyptic modernity’, adhered to the fantasy that China “would become like us.” What it meant in fact was that China “would become like us but be subservient to us”. If China was not going to “become like us [and be subservient to us]” it had to be put in its place. It is time to call this out. (more…)
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Biden and Xi should follow their generous instincts
President Joe Biden last June showed his ignorance and arrogance to the world, when he called President Xi Jinping a dictator. Apparently he does not realise the weight of his remark. As the leader of the world’s most powerful country, President Biden should understand that the responsibility of a leader must be to serve the country’s best interests. Given this imperative, no decent leader can be a dictator, because a leader, to be effective, must follow the dictates of the laws of nature. (more…)
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UN Secretary General throws support behind G77 and global multipolarity
The meeting of the Group of 77 developing countries (G77) plus China, held last month, 15-16 September in Havana, Cuba, passed with little note from our mainstream media, despite being attended by more than 100 countries, with thirty-one heads of state and 12 vice presidents present. That such should pass largely unnoticed by them however, hardly surprises. (more…)
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Greater sunrise and the new Timor-Leste – China Comprehensive Strategic Framework
Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos Horta has been pressing the Albanese government to somehow enable Woodside Petroleum to go forward with the development of the Greater Sunrise Gasfields and the processing of the gas on Timor-Leste’s south coast. He says that his country could turn to China if Australia doesn’t help. On September 23, 2023, Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Gusmão signed a Comprehensive Strategic Framework with China, thus increasing the pressure. (more…)
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Gaza genocide exposes fundamental bias in the state-corporate news media
On BBC Newsnight, host Kirsty Wark listened to Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, describe how six of his family members had been killed by Israeli air strikes. Wark reacted oddly: ‘I’m sorry for your own personal loss. I mean, can I just be clear, though, you cannot condone the killing of civilians in Israel, can you?’ This captures an essential element of western media coverage in the region. (more…)
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Return of the Wild West: America was built on genocide
Gravity-defying Western double-standards are now on worldwide display, as the US and its liegemen line-up to support a vengeful Israel to the hilt. Which prompts this question: what is the difference, today, between the universal human rights gospel of the Global West and a Potemkin Village? Answer: Increasingly little. (more…)
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Indonesia, Malaysia blame and accuse Israel – Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week: War is ‘against the Palestinian people’. Plus: Voice defeat ‘undercuts regional stance’; Indian court rejects same-sex marriage; Xi marks BRI anniversary with new funding; Democracy ‘put to the test’; Gaol and caning for rape. (more…)
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Israel’s culture of deceit
Israel, which always seeks to blame Palestinians for the atrocities it carries out, is the least trustworthy source about the bombing of the hospital in Gaza. (more…)
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Western reporters’ shameful cover-up of Israel’s hospital massacre: A postscript
As a postscript to Caitlin Johnstone’s piece in yesterday’s P&I, I wish to comment further on who is responsible for the attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital on the 17th October. (more…)
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To my brothers and cousins, the Jewish community of Australia
Your fear is our fear, your safety is our safety, your blood is our blood, our blood is your blood, make no mistake. When I see a Jewish mother crying for her loss, I feel with her. I want you to feel with the thousands of Palestinian mothers that have been crying for years and years; make no mistake. Your future is our future, your freedom is our freedom; make no mistake. Don’t let an Apartheid state speak in your name. If there was no ongoing occupation, there would be no violence (more…)
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You reap what you sow in Israel
“Freedom is never given. It must be taken.” (Ursula Le Guin) . You cannot be well in a home you stole. (more…)
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Saving Israel and Palestine through the UN
Following Hamas’s heinous attack on innocent Israeli civilians, senior Israeli military strategists are threatening the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This would be another Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), akin to the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. If Israel commits massive war crimes in Gaza in the face of global calls for restraint, Israel would put its fundamental national security at risk. (more…)
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Palestinian genocide: History whispers until it shouts
There is a genocide happening on our watch. Can we rally from the brink of despair? (more…)
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100 years of ethnic cleansing: Quo Vadis Palestine
Israel has spoken of “erasing Gaza”. Don’t turn away. Stop. And think about what that might mean. (more…)
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The Voice has been silenced, but now we must listen
As vanquished Australians, white and black, fell back in ruin, defeat and humiliation on Saturday, the most galling prospect they must face is that for many of the victorious, the Voice battle was but the first engagement in a longer war. They do not want to give their enemies time for regrouping, or even for trench-building by which they can defend what they have got. Now, they might think, is the time to preserve the momentum for fundamental change in indigenous affairs. (more…)
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Morrison’s Taiwan visit designed to goad China into war
The speech by former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison in Taipei on Wednesday 11 October, 2023, was clearly designed to undermine the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Albanese to Beijing. It continued to drive forward the American objective of goading China into war over Taiwan. (more…)