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The Two Envoys - a comment

“The two envoys - pearls and irritations “ is a brilliant and deeply moral essay on Gaza and antisemitism by George Browning. I only take issue with one sentence - his superfluous and gratuitous statement that “we expect atrocities from [Putin’s] Russia. I do not, and I challenge George to name one? People need to stop trying to use Russia as a whipping boy comparison if they want to be taken more seriously on Zionist Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza. Tony Kevin

Joe Biden is no mere bystander

George Browning says: “Mr Biden has clearly had a gutful of Mr Netanyahu, but he will not give sway to his sense of justice emanating from his Catholic faith because he knows if he did so, he would have even less chance of winning the November election.” This is to understate his role. If Joe Biden is as compos as he claims he is, then he deserves to stand accused of being fully complicit in the war crimes in Gaza, heading the US as the principal perpetrator by proxy of the pogrom in Palestine. The White House is...

Religion has never had anything to do with it

While the statement The genocide in Gaza is not a Muslim, Jewish or Christian issue. ... It is about justice, not religion. is correct, it should be said that it was 'never' about religion. For many people, blaming religion, in all sorts of conflicts, is a lazy argument that saves them from having to examine the facts. The conflict in Gaza is about a land grab. It stems from British capitulation to pressure, starting with Theodor Herzl, a secular Jew, in the 19th century, for a home in Palestine for Jewish people. It was formalised in theory by the...

Expert advice for a sustainable Australia

Australians are fortunate in having definite advice on clean energy and sustainability from expert Mark Diesendorf. He refutes six myths. The first is that Renewables cannot supply 100% electricity. He insists that they can and will because We do not need expensive, dangerous nuclear power, or expensive, polluting gas. During the next pre-election months, the Australian government must educate the public with such truths. Plus they must practice what they preach, that is, speed ending our own fossil fuel consumption, and commence ending our huge fossil fuel exports. We need a clear mandate on these steps for the election.

Is Julian Assange beyond all criticism?

Mr Barns wrote recently in P&I; I have spoken with (Peter) Greste and met with him, along with my Australian Campaign colleagues. He is not, these days, fixated on whether Assange is a journalist or publisher and told us as much in an online meeting held on 6 February 2023. In an interview on the ABC on 26 June 2024, Greste said he was not convinced that what Wikileaks did was journalism, that it met the professional and ethical standards that go with someone being designated a journalist, as Greste sees it. Further, Greste wrote in The Conversation on...

Jeffrey D. Sachs and the independent state.

According to Sachs, Ukrainians and their supporters insist that Ukraine has the “right” to join NATO. The U.S. also says so repeatedly. NATO’s policy says that NATO enlargement is an issue between NATO and the candidate country, and that it is no business of Russia or any other non-NATO country. This is preposterous. So writes Mr Sachs. If Mr Sachs is correct, that Ukraine is not independent, that Ukraine is subject to and must accept in full, the rule by Russia, then no country is independent. This begs the question as to why be a member of the UN....

Faithlessness-Based Politics

“....Payman hadn’t contradicted Labor’s policy platform, written in 2023,.... She had done the opposite... tried to get the government to implement its own policy platform, recognition of the state of Palestine.... the Labor caucus unanimously agreed to Albanese’s decision to indefinitely suspend Payman from caucus, Albanese pontificating that he showed “strength in compassion” in not expelling Payman from the ALP.” A Labor PM has power to expel a member from the ALP? Truly? Pontificating is surely the right term, and just when Mr. A comes out as an opponent of “faith-based politics.” Labor now extends the Turnbull...

Albanese and AUKUS and relations with China

It is very easy to be a critic. The AUKUS pact is a chance to get technology transfer from the UK and the USA and skill up a generation of Australians. At the same time relations with China are much healthier and trade has resumed. Albanese is doing much that is right as prime minister.

Our Government Making Every Post a Loser

Alison Broinowski's excellent article includes the message that the Government may be considering appointing an 'Anti-Semitism Envoy', being a past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Such a move would compound the disaster created by the unremittingly partisan and resolutely uncritical support of the Israeli government exhibited by our Government since October 7. Most fair-minded Australians including a very significant number of Jews have been repeatedly horrified and dismayed by the unending lack of equitable support for a people identified to receive the support of the ALP by its stated policy. The daily stream of news...

The public service has no memory

In about one month 100 years of operational experience left the Department I worked for when 3 people retired. They have been unable to replace them. Just prior to that the department was concerned about the age profile of the department (another consultant report with KPIs ) So they recruited University graduates who expected to rapidly rise through the rank because they had a Degree and they expected to be payed according to their degree. One of the many problems with the old public service was that it took time to rise through the ranks. While the criticism...

Casting doubt is part of the propaganda

Sam Varghese, is simply adding to the propaganda wars around Israel's war against Hamas. The casting of doubt about this or that atrocity serves the purpose of discrediting the enemy to bolster one's own narrative. That a massacre of Israeli citizens occurred on 7 October is not in question. The killing of some 240 young people at a music festival in southern Israel is not in question. That rapes occurred is not in question. But Varghese wants to analyse the veracity of the reporting without lending some words to the events themselves and the very real...

ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE

I have long been a reader and an enthusiastic supporter of Pearls & Irritations which I have almost always regarded as a brilliant and valued journal. However, things began to change for me as a Jew after 7 October 2023. I became so disillusioned by your one-sided, and unbalanced reporting about the tragedies taking place in Israel/Gaza that I unsubscribed but eventually, realizing my own loss in doing so and missing so many of your other deeply thoughtful articles that I thought better and decided to resubscribe and even recently published once more on your site. To be...

Peter Henning gets Gaza & Labor right

Thank you Peter Henning. We needed such a detailed timeline of how the Labor elite is trying to destroy Senator Fatima Payman’s determined drive to recall Labor to its principles on Gaza. This has been a sad and disillusioning week. Labour is doing itself immense damage and losing its voter base in seats with large immigrant-based populations. The power over the Labor Party of the alliance of Australian Zionism and the old white political power elites has been challenged by Payman’s idealism and courage. The result will be very damaging to Labor at the next election: it will face...

Prof Hocking's article on caucus

Thank you Professor Hocking for your interesting and informative article regarding Senator Payman's stance and Labor caucus solidarity. I found it illuminating, and appreciated the detail you provided to support your argument. I also appreciated the examination of social media as a mechanism that supports the spread of incorrect history. I did want to question why you included the quotation from Patrick Gorman, Labor member for Perth. I didn't feel it added anything to the argument you were presenting, and I can think of many examples in the past of an international war [being used] as a domestic political...

Labor vs Payman on Palestine

Professor Hocking appears to argue that the position adopted by Senator Payman on recognition of Palestine was contrary to the policy of the Australian Labor Party. In doing so she claims that the wording of Labor’s amendment to the Greens’ motion, “to recognise the state of Palestine ‘as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace’”, “replicated the party platform and therefore the caucus position”. The relevant portion of the 2023 ALP National Platform states: “The National Conference: * Supports the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to...

Accepting a two-State solution

I suspect Jenny Hocking misrepresents the positions of both the Greens and Senator Payman. Their opposition to the Government motion correctly recognises it for what it is – an attempt to delay as long as possible the recognition of Palestine. If the Government were truly even handed, they would also propose a motion along the lines that ‘the House of Representatives support the recognition of the State of Israel, as part of a peace process, in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace’. Ie, set similar pre-conditions on the recognition of Israel. I doubt the...

Caucus scores own goal

Spot on Stuart. The Labor caucus dumping Senator Payman for voting for the Palestine policy in the party platform is an absolute own goal. Labor’s weak Palestine stance has now given rise to a new religious-based election grouping, resulting in less of the social cohesion the PM uses to justify that stance.

Our China knowledge deficit

Thank you, Jocelyn- a very helpful filling out of some much needed developments with/in China. And you may be pleased to add to your comments the multiple interactions that take place between the Confucius Institute and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, the latter being a locus for discussions with Chinese scholars - including in China of 'ecological civilization' a term adopted by the Chinese in their Constitution. This action by the Chinese puts us to shame, being well beyond our limiting notion of Western Civilization'! 'Ecological Civilization' where humans and the rest of nature live...

We Boomers won the environmental lottery

We all see the myopic folly of the person who wins big on the lottery and squanders the proceeds – discarding the possibility of a lifetime’s comfort and security for a few months or years of absurd extravagance. Why then can so few recognise that we Boomers won the environmental lottery? In our lifetimes we have been able to achieve levels of health and education unimaginable to earlier generations, we have enjoyed unprecedented lifestyles, and yet we have done so at a pace which consumes and destroys the environment which sustains us. Unlike the spendthrift lottery winner, we may...

The Antisemitism definition missing from the public record

In all the discussions on social, print and other media concerning antisemitism’s definition, there is almost a complete lack of acknowledgement of the existence of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA). Specifically there is no discussion about the differences between JDA’s definition of antisemitism in relation to criticism of Israel/Palestine, and the definition espoused by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). I believe that such a comparison is long overdue in the media and isn’t just an academic exercise in terminology or semantics. As clearly outlined in your article, the IHRA’s antisemitism’s definition is one of the...

Who is a real Nazi

I read this article in total amazement. It reads like a statement issued by a combination of the US State Department and the Ukrainian Propaganda Ministry. Yours in shock, Dieter Barkhoff

Speaking truth to power

Dr Helen McCue has well expressed the problem of Senator Fatima Payman and how the Gazan people suffer. Our Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister are missing the mark. They are paid by Australian taxpayers and expect that in this day and age, compassion should be the foremost issue in their work, and at times party lines need to be set aside. It is not Fatima Payman's problem. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister should look at themselves: they are making a statement about themselves. I am sure that Fatima Payman must have discussed her views in their party...

Sidelining Senator Payman

On the ABC Minister Mark Butler said, “…they get the privilege of putting themselves forward for election to public office with the Labor party next to their name on the ballot paper.” The corollary is that Labor gets to include a Muslim woman on the ticket, cynically attesting to its diversity credentials. Apparently the inconvenient fact that she has a different perspective to the white male lawyer majority in parliament is intolerable, even if a two state solution is Labor policy. By barring Senator Payman from the Caucus, Labor has effectively barred all the voters who hold the...

Patrick Gourley writing on Pezzulo

Patrick Gourley writes a superb dumper on this cretinous product of Oz Federal public service. What an insult it must be for good people in that excellent profession to suffer arrogant fools such as he. I am not the least surprised that the LNP chose to elevate this turd to 'greatness'. Well done Patrick.

We need proactive governments to save our climate

As Julian Cribb observes, we have, for 9,000 years, been living in a uniquely stable climate. Within current lifetimes urban consumers in developed economies have lost all awareness of the risk to them of famine. But this risk is real: the UN Food Program is calling a global food crisis. This situation will exacerbate as the changing climate reduces crop yields further. As Cribb reports, irreversible tipping points are already being crossed with permafrost melting, seabed methane dissolving, and more. Developed-world governments seem to assume that they can trim their climate policy sails to the changing political wind, but...

Critics of Zionist values are not anti-Semitic

Moshe Feiglin is quoted as saying “but the land of Israel belongs only to the people of Israel because God gave it to us”. Generations of those like myself who had a Christian education have been brought up on this, the flight from Egypt, the crossing of the Jordan and the subsequent domination or elimination of the existing peoples living in Canaan. How young David, later to become king, and Jesus’ purported ancestor, was a hero for killing a man who opposed the brutal takeover of land described in the Book of Joshua. Now a modern Israeli leader channels a...

Disappointed by Henry's call for an Apology

It's disappointed to read Mr Reynolds call for an Apology rather than accept that the True Sovereigns of these lands remain the Sovereign First Nations. Charlie should return Sovereignty, not apologise for stealing it. Perhaps Mr Reynolds would be well advised to look into the findings of the Beauchamp Committee of 1785. It was set up to locate where to send those sentenced to Transportation. The King had already announced such a return to Transportation, and this committee recommended, thus; “that Convicts will need strict supervision wherever they are sent, and that the destination to...

Geoffrey Watson SC and the NACC

Geoffrey Watson SC persuasively argues that 1) NACC is supine and 2) this resulted in six Robodebt people getting off scot-free. I agree with his first point, but disagree with his second point. In my opinion, blame should be divided between Cmr Holmes failure to report them to the AFP and the AFP itself. I believe the NACC is right when it says the investigation phase is over. Now it is time to enter the prosecution and trial & sentencing phases. This phase is not the NACC's job. If someone - anyone - you, me, or...

Palestine

Palestine Palestine. Oh! Palestine Should not be left to wither on the vine Our love for you does entwine Love and Peace for all is on the line Palestine. Oh! Palestine Your heart stolen By those whose lies do shine So long ago, over 100 years Your lands stolen, so many fears Hearts broken amid a lake tears All to the harsh sound of Zionist jeers Palestine. Oh! Palestine Your soul destroyed By those pretentious and divine Much forsaken by western eyes Downtrodden by British lies Whose manipulations so unwise All under your clear blue skies...

‘I’m permanently pissed off’

I read this article, next to it was an ad for another article with a title asking why the US doesn't negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. It is disappointing to constantly read that people prefer immediate, temporary peace over the victory of established states against aggression, violence and barbarism. What do you think would happen next if a peace deal was established with a victorious Russia and Hamas? Really, what does that world look like to you? To me, it looks like it is in each countries, terrorist group's or individual's interest to be as...

LGBTQ+ people and Religious Organisations

Dear Editor Yvonne Patterson is unfortunately correct when she suggests that Australian governments are prejudiced towards LGBTIQ people because there has been no movement by any government to strengthen the laws against discriminating against LGBTIQ people in religious worklpaces and schools. Today the prime Minister has announced that the government will not attempt to bring in a religious discrimination law because he can't get bipartisan support. Yvonne also suggests we need an inquiry into these issues. Perhaps she is not aware of the very detailed report by Equality Australia in March 2024, entitled Dismissed, Denied and Demeaned: A National...

In response to your article

Dear Sir, Thank you for your article. It was interesting to see how this situation is perceived. I would like to bring a correction. Falun Dafa is not anti China. We peacefully denounce the unjustified persecution started in July 1999 by Jiang Zemin.

Biden's Floating Aid Fails as Expected

March 15 this year, I wrote: Biden’s plan for sea-borne aid to Gaza is incredibly stupid - Pearls and Irritations (publish.pearlsandirritations.com) I feel the need to update that gloomy premise, as the current summary of the results of the floating jetty are far worse than I had foreshadowed: ‘They miscalculated’: Gaza’s floating aid pier failing to deliver in rough seas | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian Fact: ‘Over the entire course of the pier’s operation so far, however, only about 250 truckloads of food and other humanitarian assistance (4,100 tonnes) have arrived by the planned maritime...

Common sense Wisdom

May I congratulate Geoff Davies on a common sense logical article on renewable energy, it makes absolute sense, especially with all the massively deep/ wide holes in the ground left over from years coal mining, which I believe some are already underway with feasibility studies with anticipation to go ahead with ORPH . I cannot believe that Peter Dutton is going to try and divide the nation once again just like with the voice referendum, using the most critical and important task that the nations of this planet need to deal with in the shortest time possible that we...

The Power Options Debate (A Professionals View)

As a hydropower engineer, responsible for the economic justification of aa of my projects I suppose I should weigh in on the power options debate. I agree with Geoff Davies assessment (P&I June 26, 2014) which coincidentally is the same as that of the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator. Nuclear Power has never been an economical option even for systems larger than those existing in the interconnected system of the eastern states of Australia. China has nuclear power providing a small proportion of their total installed capacity but State Power acknowledge that this is not the...

A startling admission from a former insider

In amongst a blather of pseudo-intellectual posturing, Mike Pezzullo’s recent long essay in ASPI’s The Strategist makes a startling revelation. As someone recently removed from Australia’s security centre it’s disturbing when Pezzullo writes; “[Australia’s] actual grand strategy is being conducted, thankfully, at variance with our declared policy—through contributing to the building of a US-centred system of integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, the hardening of Australia as a bastion for allied war-fighting operations, and the continuing integration of certain strategic functions undertaken on Australian territory into global US war-fighting systems”. Taken at face value this is an admission that the...

Nuclear power and weapons linked

Any nation that has nuclear power stations has access to making nuclear weapons and there are no effective international sanctions to prevent this. In fact one of the reasons Sir Phillip Baxter gave for building a nuclear power station at Jervis bay was to have access to nuclear weapons.

Robo-Debt fall-out

The question is, are our governments accountable. The answer appears to be a very clear no. I was not part of or included in Robo-Debt, I was just another citizen looking at a slow motion train crash. So much has already being said about Robo-Debt that I cannot offer a new insight. But I can note the complete lack of accountability from those who developed and implemented the Robo-Debt policy. Such lack of accountability translates into contempt for the very people that vote politicians into government in the first place. Robo-Debt is not the only time such contempt...

Graduates not 'job-ready' without the humanities

University graduates will never be ready for any jobs without a knowledge of history and the skills to analyse critically the social contexts in which they work. Any deficits in these regards will seriously impact their performance, increasingly so as they assume leadership roles in later life. Humanities-based contextual studies should be required subjects in every professional degree course in Australia. Taught well, they will enable graduates to contribute more effectively to the improvement of their organisations and the well-being of our democracy. Certainly this has been my experience after four decades of teaching courses in the...

The capitulation of Ukraine

I found this article by Geoffrey Roberts, insulting, offensive and misleading using misinformation in order to achieve the writers political agenda. I find what Roberts says in much in line with what Jeffrey D. Sachs has to say, which is that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war between the US and Russia and therefore independent Ukraine has no say. So the sooner Ukraine's learn to live on their knees and bow down to Putin the sooner the war will end. Except just prior to the war, a day, a week or a month prior, Ukraine was...

The legal black hole of nuclear

Ernst Willheim (17/6) asks the legal questions about nuclear: State rights, liability, safeguards and insurance. He concludes: “It is not clear that the Opposition has addressed any of these issues”. Shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien has travelled to Canada and Britain to check out small modular reactors, but appears to have spoken only to nuclear unnamed “nuclear experts” - promoters, not lawyers. Given the exceptional regulatory requirements for nuclear, can the Coalition detail its legally-binding ‘road map’ for the planning, building, maintenance, decommissioning and waste storage of nuclear plants? Technological innovation can be expected over the next decades,...

Julian Cribb offers government a climate plan

It is great to see a photo of highly honoured world issues analyst Australian Julian Cribb as well and relaxed, and to hear his clear and logical voice (How to stop climate change, Podcast, June 14, 2024). He argues that world agriculture is not sustainable in quantity or quality for a human population of over 8 billion; and it will result in mass refugees. He considers most humans have rotten diets and die from related conditions such as cancer. He therefore recommends sustainable methods of natural regeneration, local urban production, and deep ocean production of nutritious fish and seaweed....

Australians would support non-alignment

Australia is part of The Global South. We would be wise to acknowledge (and embrace) the fact that we are fortuitously positioned between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. We have the potential to become a major player in a world where everything is changing rapidly and too often catastrophically. Why are we hanging on to increasingly anachronous allegiances to has-been imperial powers? Should we not urgently and seriously consider becoming a geopolitically non-aligned nation? Respectful friends of our neighbours and trading partners? We would be safer, I believe, without phantasmagoric protectors. I agree that the ballot box...

Journalists could bone up on nuclear information

It’s true, the Canberra Press Gallery is not homogeneous (Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?, 13/6). But presumably most journalists are not scientists. The same can be said of politicians, economists and commentators of a certain persuasion, who have gone in to bat against the CSIRO’s latest costings of renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear energy. They say science should not inform our decision as to whether we go nuclear (eg John Kehoe, AFR, 13/6). He, and the Coalition, advocates “letting the market decide”, as if the economics of such a hugely complicated technology can be divorced from...

Capitalism and democracy are different things

In the very excellent When Confucius meets Machiavelli, Teow Loon Ti states, “It implies whether these countries comprise people of European origin, profess an adherence to the idea of democracy and common values with the core, is endowed with valuable natural resources and willing to make them available to the Empire and its supporters on terms agreeable to them…” This sentence proves the lie contained within it. The lie that the US Empire is devoted to protecting the ideal of democracy. The US Empire has only ever been interested in defending Capitalism, not democracy. Millions of victims of...

Most certainly, we hold no sympathy for Hamas....

Please, please, there is no need to highlight the so-called atrocities Hamas is accused of committing on October 7th - very, very few of them are proven or substantiated. If 1200 died, there is now ample evidence via Al Jazeera and the Electronic Intifada, Haaretz, and various other Israeli sources that many, if not most were murdered by Israeli fire. The Hamas incursion is a pimple on Mount Everest in comparison to the thousands of such incursions and slaughters committed by Israel since 1948. To single out Hamas is a classic case of blaming the victim for...

Poor policy results in poor outcomes

There has been much ado about the so-called Reserve Bank of Australia’s modus operandi, but most of all, it overlooks the fact that the RBA is an instrument of the Federal Government, independent or otherwise. The Feds make policy, the RBA doesn’t, and it’s this policy which governs the fortunes of Australia and the RBA. Policy governs everything we do whether we like it or not and 30 years of poor policy has created mounting inequality and poverty. We are now reaping what we have sown! As we have seen with the pandemic, we can afford to do...

Why is the US waiting for Hamas?

That is a good call by a very distinguished body of us Australians. After all, twice in five weeks Hamas has accepted a ceasefire proposal guaranteed by the US, Egypt and Qatar. Yet Biden and Blinken keep saying they are waiting for Hamas to accept? Why? Isn’t the onus on Israel to accept the deal?

Stigmatising dementia

Dear editor, I too have a close friend diagnosed with younger onset Alzheimer's disease. She is in an excellent care facility, and every day I see photos of her smiling face, despite her advanced memory loss, and inability to walk or talk. To describe her life as one of 'intolerable suffering' is completely untrue. Dementia is an umbrella term for many diseases, including Alzheimer's, so it is inaccurate to say dementia or Alzheimer's. Whilst I understand the viewpoint of the author, and do not necessarily disagree with euthanasia in general, I think unfortunately the focus is on...

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