24 April 2025

The uniform public utterances of our days

British scholar Leonard Schapiro, writing on Stalinism, observed that “the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade. But to produce a uniform pattern of public utterances in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance. And it seems that in the current sanctioned discourse, the jarring dissonance is speaking up against a genocide streamed live on our phones.

28 February 2025

What can one now say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite?

I read the definition of antisemitism adopted by Australian universities and my first thought was we need a list, not of what is considered antisemitic, but of what is not considered antisemetic. Now it would be helpful to have a prescriptive list of what one can say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite. And I am not being facetious. Perhaps those who developed this definition could provide such a list. It would be a very short list. Nevertheless, it would be greatly appreciated by all those who are morally caught between the need to speak up against a...

6 February 2025

Trump's plan for Gaza heralds an age of naked fascism

I watched Trump's joint press conference with Netanyahu, in utter disbelief. Not that the idea, or indeed the practice, of ethnic cleansing of Palestine is new. But at that press conference the mask has fallen. Recently, fascism has been on the march everywhere, but that press conference seemed to herald an age of naked fascism.

29 January 2025

On ethnic cleansing and land theft

The pattern is familiar. Israel tightens the screws. Palestinians resist. Israel, under the pretext of self-defence, massacres Palestinians, steals their land to add to its ever expanding fluid borders, and rewrites history.

24 January 2025

Marching in solidarity with Palestinians

Over the past 15 months, we rallied every week in solidarity with Palestinians. We rallied to protest the genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. We rallied to call on our government to cut military ties with Israel, impose sanctions and hold Israel accountable for its crimes. We rallied to prevent the normalisation of the unthinkable. And we rallied to help Palestinians retain hope in the midst of an apocalypse.

14 December 2024

Independent journalist Richard Medhurst on the so-called 'Syrian Revolution'

Medhurst was born in Damascus, Syria. His father is English and mother is Syrian. Both his parents served in United Nations Peacekeeping and Observer missions and were among the UN Peacekeepers awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.

12 December 2024

The carving up of Syria

My heart is breaking over Syria, and it was already broken over Gaza. I watch the television reports of the 'joy' in Damascus and wonder what alternative planet the mainstream media inhabits.

8 October 2024

A year of erasing a people

It has been a year of erasing a people, systematically, ruthlessly and unrelentingly. A massacre here and another there. 500 killed yesterday and 'only' 140 today.

19 July 2024

The attempt to smear and silence Mary Kostakidis is both shocking and alarming

For those of us familiar with Mary Kostakidis' untiring work for justice and human rights, the news that she has been accused of antisemitism beggars belief. And the attempt to silence her has alarming implications for all of us. That this is supposedly done to safeguard social cohesion in our multicultural Australia is difficult to believe. In fact, it will have the opposite of the claimed effect.

7 July 2024

Palestine is an issue of justice not religion

At the coming elections, many of us will vote on the basis of a party's or a candidate's stance on the issue of Palestine. It will be a vote to reject the occupation, apartheid, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and a myriad of other unspeakable horrors. And it will be an appeal to our common humanity to stop the genocide in Gaza and to help Palestinians get peace with justice. I sincerely hope it will not be a religion-based vote.

2 July 2024

In Gaza, more Palestinians will be killed by starvation and disease than those killed by bombs

We are told that the high intensity phase of Israel's war in Gaza is coming to an end. As world leaders contemplate new wars and a compliant media gets busy with freshly minted threats, there are fewer stories on Gaza. Let us not be lulled into believing that, for those besieged in Gaza, the worst is over. And let us continue to call for an end to their plight.

6 June 2024

About that elusive 'context'

Why do mainstream journalists write as if today's events just popped up out of nowhere? Why has it become de rigueur to ignore the events of all the yesterdays and yesteryears that brought us here? Where is that elusive 'context' in stories on Ukraine, Gaza, China and others? Without context, how can we navigate our way through the propaganda of an empire anxious to preserve its hegemony and a military-industrial complex pursuing ever increasing profits?

20 May 2024

Papering over our pain in the time of genocide

Keeping silent, while a genocide is in full swing for all to see, is not good for social cohesion.

3 May 2024

Weeping for the children in Gaza

For the past seven months, life as I knew it has stopped. The enormity of the genocide in Gaza inhabits me. My short nights of interrupted sleep are bookended with hours at the computer combing the news of Gaza. Meal times are now brief moments to gulp tasteless food. A sentence or a photo triggers enormous pain. I feel there is a flood rushing towards me and all I have is a spoon. If this is how I feel, in my safe, comfortable home in Sydney, how do Palestinians cope?