Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision
Refaat Ibrahim

Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision

Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront of international attention, much more legitimacy has accrued to the rights of the Palestinians.

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism
Nick Estes

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism

There is no end in sight for the massacre in Gaza. Nearly two years after the start of Al Aqsa Flood, the United Nations Human Rights Council has — finally — declared Israel’s war in Gaza genocide.

The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine
Ilan Pappé

The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine

While we should not regard it as a “historical moment” or a “game changer”, the recognition does have the potential to help Palestinians lead us into a different future.

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The world isn't even trying to phase out fossil fuels
Ken Russell

The world isn't even trying to phase out fossil fuels

This article highlights the global failure to address the most important requirement to minimise the climate threat, the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Lawsuits, cancellations and bullying: Trump is systematically destroying press freedom
Denis Muller

Lawsuits, cancellations and bullying: Trump is systematically destroying press freedom

US President Donald Trump is well advanced in his systematic campaign to undermine the American media and eviscerate its function of holding him and others in power to account.

More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to
Ross Gittins

More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to

As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs.

Reclaiming illegally granted Indigenous land: An interview with Wiradjuri man Paul Towney
Paul Gregoire

Reclaiming illegally granted Indigenous land: An interview with Wiradjuri man Paul Towney

Proud Wiradjuri descendant Paul Towney was out in front of the Federal Court of Australia on Gadigal land on Macquarie Street in Sydney city on 19 September 2025.

Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation
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Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation

We congratulate the NSW Government for establishing the Great Koala National Park, which will protect a nationally significant koala population.

Nepal is the latest of Asia’s unfinished revolutions that keep politics stuck in a loop
The EAF Editorial Board

Nepal is the latest of Asia’s unfinished revolutions that keep politics stuck in a loop

Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina begins with the famous line, all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

I am ANTIFA
Michael Taylor

I am ANTIFA

I am ANTIFA. Or so says President Donald Trump, branding me and millions like me as terrorists in the same breath he decries “fake news” and “radical left” bogeymen.

Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
Michael McKinley

Disengaging from the dangerous alliance

When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate partner betray its democratic principles as a cost of receiving favourable treatment, the time has come to terminate the relationship. Such is now the state of the Australia-US alliance.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision
Refaat Ibrahim

Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision

Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront of international attention, much more legitimacy has accrued to the rights of the Palestinians.

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism
Nick Estes

How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism

There is no end in sight for the massacre in Gaza. Nearly two years after the start of Al Aqsa Flood, the United Nations Human Rights Council has — finally — declared Israel’s war in Gaza genocide.

The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine
Ilan Pappé

The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine

While we should not regard it as a “historical moment” or a “game changer”, the recognition does have the potential to help Palestinians lead us into a different future.

Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Lama Qasem

Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister

Anthony Albanese says Palestinian children are taught to hate. My daughter’s first trip home proves otherwise.

UN at 80: Gaza – the deep stain on the UN’s collective conscience - Part 3
Joseph Camilleri

UN at 80: Gaza – the deep stain on the UN’s collective conscience - Part 3

The deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 provided the Netanyahu government with the pretext it needed to unleash a vicious war on the land and people of Gaza.

UN intervention is essential to stop genocide and establish peace in Gaza
Bevan Ramsden

UN intervention is essential to stop genocide and establish peace in Gaza

The United Nations General Assembly must activate its “Uniting for Peace” mechanism to bypass the UN Security Council veto and establish an armed interventionary force to establish peace and end the genocide in Gaza.

Israel moves to embrace its isolation
Abdaljawad Omar

Israel moves to embrace its isolation

Benjamin Netanyahu's recent comments that Israel must start making its own weapons and become a self-sufficient super Sparta signals that the small colony might be willing to embrace its isolation – all in the name of annihilating Palestine.

Our media and Palestine/Gaza
Paul Heywood-Smith

Our media and Palestine/Gaza

An article entitled “Israel backtracks on location of hostages”, appearing in the weekend edition of The Australian, evidences the failure of our media to properly inform the Australian public on the Israel/Palestine issue.

John Menadue's book on Israel's war against Gaza

Israel's war against Gaza

Media coverage of the war in Gaza since October 2023 has spread a series of lies propagated by Israel and the United States. This publication presents information, analysis, clarification, views and perspectives largely unavailable in mainstream media in Australia and elsewhere.

Download the PDF

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Revitalising the UN's foundations
Daryl Guppy

Revitalising the UN's foundations

The United Nations grew out of the global co-operation which defeated fascism. It was conceived as a multilateral organisation to deliver a global rules-based order.

Why the planet now needs China
Stewart Sweeney

Why the planet now needs China

The World Bank’s Reboot Development report has belatedly confirmed what scientists have warned for decades: humanity is breaching the safe operating limits of the Earth.

Confucius Institute decline signals China’s soft power shift
Jocelyn Chey

Confucius Institute decline signals China’s soft power shift

While Chinese soft power is thriving in the so-called Global South, it is waning elsewhere.

John Menadue

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Pearls and Irritations leads the way in raising and analysing vital issues often neglected in mainstream media. Your contribution supports our independence and quality commentary on matters importance to Australia and our region.

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Hamas is better than us
Eugene Doyle

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Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
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Latest letters to the editor

Political and bureaucratic failure

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

Excellent article by Kathy. Really nails the gross failures of the bureaucrats and the government to design a system which actually fixes the manifold problems in aged care. Perhaps they should start involving people like Kathy in the planning process to overcome the broad ignorance displayed by the bureaucrats drawing up the present plans! Just a thought.
Investing in the past

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

Like Britain and the US, we continue to exhibit multiple signs of looking wistfully to an imagined past and seeking to repeat it, rather than looking to a future which will we know will be different from that past. Nowhere is this more evident than in the one area in which we claim expertise – making war!! As we hollow out our economies and turn them into heaven for our speculative class, we also continue to plan for a repetition of our past colonial successes. China and Russia are the objects of that desire for more glorious colonialism. The...
The Enlightenment betrayed

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

For anyone who truly values our civilisational legacy from Athens all the way to the Enlightenment, the absence of a moral compass in the vast bulk of our current political and intellectual leadership class is a damning footnote to our civilisational decline. That they feel comfortable in daily witnessing and participating in the wilful and deliberate destruction of a culture far older and far more civilised than ours, with a moral certitude that defies description, is a clear marker of the judgment which history will pass upon us. The cultures we have spent the last 500 years looking...
The fantasy Sparta

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

The reality of an isolated Israel trying to be a modern-day Sparta is stupidity on top of insanity. In the days of Sparta, a small community could be relatively self-sufficient to a certain extent when arms for fighting were swords and maces. The sane reality is that if Israel is cut off from vast external support in funding, technology and arms supply it will be utterly incapable of producing any of the sophisticated weaponry it will need without major sources of supply of the vast amount of metals, magnets, explosives and foodstuffs that it has no capacity to produce...

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Arts 128 China 1191 Climate 1411 Commendations 19 Defence 2447 Economy 2816 Education 701
Employment 36 Finance 2 Health 1523 History 56 Immigration 964 Indigenous Affairs 381 Israel Palestine 1326
Media 1847 Podcast 43 Policy 197 Politics 18118 Racism 16 Religion 1231 Review 25
The Human Future 59 Our Top Five Each Week 2147 USA 533 World 1382

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