Naval and air standoffs, sabre-rattling and accusations of underhand dealings are heightening tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and causing a security dilemma. It does not have to be like this. Diplomacy and referral to international dispute resolution mechanisms can make a difference. (more…)
Tag: International relations
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Antisemitism tangle: Can ridicule depict reality?
Current responses to the Gaza “war” would seem to suggest that antisemitism is the priority issue, not the unending slaughter of Palestinians. (more…)
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Aiding and abetting and war crimes
The participation of four Israeli arms companies in the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition in Melbourne is a clear instance of the Australian Government aiding and abetting the commission of an ongoing war crime in Gaza. (more…)
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A foul formula: Zionism x Appeasement = Genocide
The capitulation by seemingly intelligent and decent-minded national leaders to the Holocaust Industry’s relentless campaign to validate any action by Israel in the current conflict in Palestine is seriously affecting the political landscape. It seems that the leaders of “the Western World” have learned nothing from nearly a century of calamitous events. (more…)
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The defence of self-defence
As Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza continues unabated after 11 months, the Labor Government recites ad infinitum its talking point, borrowed from the Biden/Harris playbook, that Israel has the right to defend itself, thereby legitimising its carpet-bombing and indiscriminate mass killing of Palestinian civilians. Treating the atrocities of 7 October as an isolated event that came out of the blue buttresses the self-defence line, de-contextualising it from decades of brutal subjugation of Palestinians, which have fuelled their resistance against the settler-colonial apartheid state. (more…)
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Avoiding an ‘exclusion’ disaster in the Pacific – a different lesson from Ukraine
The most senior US officials, including President Joe Biden himself, refer to US alliances with individual or groups of countries in the Indo-Pacific as benign and defensive in nature. These references contrast with warnings about the possible “knock-on” effect of a Russian victory in Ukraine which, it is said, could encourage China to seek to incorporate Taiwan by force. However, an examination of the situation in Europe provides a different lesson for our part of the world; that is that building an alliance system which excludes the most important country in a region can have disastrous effects. (more…)
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Palestine defines us
The citizenry of past nations engaged in genocide woke up each morning focused on their challenges of everyday life, not those of the people their rulers were butchering. The victims may have been across continents or within the same population, and so awareness of the slaughter varied, but propaganda and dehumanisation were the ever-present balm for uneasy consciences and political cover. Those who rose above the brainwashing were limited in their ability to challenge their rulers, and faced consequences — often brutal — if they did. (more…)
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Why we’re still at war with terror
The talented comic song-writer Tom Lehrer, from a family of secular Jewish New Yorkers, complained during the Vietnam war that nothing was funny any more. He would agree now about the war in Gaza. (more…)
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The United Nations and states, individually and collectively, are responsible for Palestine and Israel
The United Nations General Assembly commences its 79th session this week. The session continues until the end of the year. Among other things, at this session the GA will respond to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, delivered on 20 July 2024. (more…)
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The deputy sheriff rides again
In recent days, Australia’s ‘”deputy Sheriff” role has been on full display again in our foreign policy. The prime minister’s extraordinary gaff at the Pacific Islands Leaders Forum, when caught out joshing along with US Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, would have been noted not just among Pacific Island leaders, who would be entitled to feel belittled by Australia, but also across the region. (more…)
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The long arc of India-Russia relations
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia on 8 and 9 July and embraced President Vladimir Putin. The outcome of the visit included mutually beneficial substantive agreements, but damaged India’s reputation in the West at a time when President Joe Biden hosted the NATO summit in Washington. The BBC featured an analysis under the title “Modi’s balancing act as he meets Putin in Moscow”. On 23 August Modi went to Kyiv, the first visit to independent Ukraine by an Indian PM. The BBC headlined it as ‘“Diplomatic tightrope for Modi as he visits Kyiv after Moscow”. (more…)
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Australia’s collaboration with Israel’s genocide
Republished from DECLASSIFIED AUSTRALIA, September 03, 2024
FOI document releases show that behind the press releases and statements of concern, lie the facts of the Australian Government’s knowing support for some of the gravest human rights crimes of the century. (more…)
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The loss of global influence by the United States is China’s gain
The world doesn’t see an “indispensable nation” in America, only one that is ‘dysfunctional at home and pursuing naked self-interest abroad’ (more…)
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Are the people of Israel really the chosen people?
Last month, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, an Israeli/American couple, Jon Polin and Rachael Goldberg, the parents of Hersh Goldberg Polin, an American/Israeli soldier who was a hostage with Hamas in Gaza, were afforded the respect and the courtesy of the convention when they were chosen to address the assembled members of the Democratic Party. (more…)
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The democracy metanarrative
In its strategic competition with Russia and China, the United States has constructed a metanarrative based on democracy versus authoritarianism (i.e. good versus evil). Such a narrative harks back to the political thinking of the first half of the 20th century which saw the fighting of two world wars. (more…)
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UN expert says impunity for Israel must end as ‘Genocidal Violence’ spreads to West Bank
“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese. (more…)
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The US made the Dutch an offer they couldn’t refuse
Hold on to your mobile phones, civilians, this is gonna get rough. If you thought the Sopranos and Corleones were intimidating, check this out. (more…)
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Pope takes refugee concerns on the road
Pope Francis’ milestone tour from 2-13 September includes Papua New Guinea, the nation that has long hosted the largest number of refugees in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Indonesia, the country from which those asylum seekers fled. (more…)
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AUKUS could be the biggest Ponzi scheme in history
Much of the angst being generated by Australia’s worst foreign policy decision since joining the American invasion of Vietnam may well be misplaced. It is unquestionable that the former prime minister and two former foreign ministers have been correct in their assessments of the decision by the Albanese Government to proceed with the AUKUS deal, as being nothing short of disastrous for Australian sovereignty and for our economy, but the question arises, will it ever happen? (more…)
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Gaza happened because we forgot Korea
History didn’t start on 7 October. True that. To get a deeper sense of why the shocking destruction in Gaza is happening, we have to revive the forgotten war that the US waged against North Korea in the 1950s. In many ways, it was the template for all that followed. (more…)
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PNG’s sustainability rests on funding people, not elites
Political and economic pressures are rising in Papua New Guinea (PNG), with escalating social tensions suggesting a need for focused regional support. Critics argue that given ongoing civil unrest, political instability with Rainbo Paita’s challenge to Prime Minister James Marape and substantial economic challenges such as a stagnating minimum wage and increasing poverty, financial aid and strategies should be directed towards supporting the PNG populace rather than bolstering the political elite. (more…)
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Rewriting history will not serve Australia well
There can be little doubt that Australia is entering the same kind of misinformation domain as the US. Just a few days ago, failed presidential hopeful Nikki Haley posted on X that UN Resolution 2758 doesn’t mention Taiwan. (more…)
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Indonesia: going for gold
While in Canberra on 20 August, Defence Minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto made it clear that Indonesia remains avowedly non-aligned. This stance and how Indonesia perceives the world needs to underpin our relationship. (more…)
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The plight of the Iranian people
Given the growing likelihood of the Gaza maelstrom moving on to a direct military confrontation between the US and Iran, the epic plight of the Iranian people should not be overlooked – a plight which Britain and the Americans instigated back in the 1950s with the removal of their democratic rights and in which hopes for restoration of these rights have been dashed by the political grip of their own clerics. (more…)
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What happened to the surfers in Gaza?
Sometime in 2016 , soon after I’d joined the Northern Beaches Committee for Palestine, a group of us visited the then premier of New South Wales in his Manly electorate office. (more…)
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Advocates for nuclear power should heed the lessons from Kursk
On 22 August, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned of the deadly effect a military attack on Russia’s nuclear power complex at Kursk would have on civilian communities in Russia, Ukraine and potentially across Europe. He had previously warned of the consequences of such attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear reactors at Zaporizhzhia. (more…)
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Ukraine, Russia and the West
It would be fairly uncontroversial to describe Ukraine’s recent military advance into Russia’s Kursk region as a deliberate provocation. Kyiv’s claim that it was intended chiefly to prod Moscow towards a negotiated peace, if true, appears to ignore Vladimir Putin’s tendency to stick to his guns in the face of embarrassments. (more…)
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AUKUS: Submarines afloat in — and perhaps causing — a sea of troubles
In the wording of the Ministerial Statement after the recent AUSMIN meeting between Australian and US Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs, and in a subsequent on-the-record conversation, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles strongly endorsed both AUKUS and a greater US defence presence in Australia. Unfortunately there are questions about AUKUS which the Government has never answered, and about how the US Government sees itself possibly using the stronger military presence which it is establishing in Australia and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific. (more…)
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Malaysia needs ASEAN to navigate a pathway between ‘the West’ and ‘the rest’
Malaysia’s 2025 ASEAN Chairmanship is an opportunity to provide clear regional leadership amid shifting geopolitics, but the country’s strategic goals remain uncertain despite a growing perception of closer alignment with China. Malaysia should focus on enhancing ASEAN centrality, balancing local sentiment against global interests, and sustaining ties with all major regional powers including the US, EU, and Japan to demonstrate regional leadership, strengthen ASEAN, and further the interests of Southeast Asia. (more…)
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Israel’s perilous decay
Stephen M Walt, Professor of International Relations at Harvard University, recently published an article in the leading US journal, Foreign Policy, entitled: “The Dangerous Decline in Israeli Strategy”. He argues that Israel, the US and their supporters are wedded to long-honed, conspicuously bad policies, which “is a prescription for unending trouble, if not disaster”. (more…)