Israel / Palestine
-
Gaza: Israel is winning the battle but losing the war
As was to be expected, Israel is winning the battle for Gaza, albeit at an enormous cost in lives. But what are Israel’s and its backers’ plans for winning the peace, as without an enduring peace settlement the war can never be won. Is a US-led, UN mandated Trusteeship for Palestine the way forward? Continue reading »
-
The relational consequences of October 7
Overhead, suddenly, there was a noisy helicopter. I didn’t look up. Then I noticed that I hadn’t looked up. If I was in a place of terror from the sky, I would have looked up. Continue reading »
-
Gaza: Israel’s hideous “final solution”
In Gaza, the 16 year old ghetto of two million people that Israel created, it seems that we are looking at Israel’s own hideous “final solution” with their collective punishment of a whole civilian population, their catastrophic genocidal practices and their mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. After decades of a systematic, sustained and strategic Continue reading »
-
The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template
“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.” Continue reading »
-
Amidst horror, the screeching metal of turnstiles haunts our conscience
We tramped along streets of rubble and twisted girders of metal in Gaza – these had been a home, a school and even a hospital. From one heap of rubble, a sobbing Granny ran up to me – it was winter and bitterly cold. She was camped in a hollow in the bombed out ruin Continue reading »
-
The day after: Destroying Gaza will only yield future war
At the core of the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine is “the studied blindness of two people to see the other, to accept that they have a legitimate place on the landscape”. Without such acceptance, this horrific war in Gaza will not be the last. Continue reading »
-
UN Special Rapporteur Albanese visits Australia as government refuses to back Gaza ceasefire
In her first report in October 2022, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese recommended that UN member states develop “a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime”. What message will she now bring to Australia? Continue reading »
-
In the high court of western public opinion
The Zionist slogan….A land without a people for a people without land…has led to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestine people. Continue reading »
-
Scott Morrison’s heartless yearning for Armageddon
I was wondering what was taking prominent Christian Zionists so long to visit Israel. And then I saw him…Scott Morrison landing with the arrogance of someone totally convinced he’s betting on the winning horse. Continue reading »
-
The moral abyss: Israeli doctors call for the bombing of hospitals
Even as the moral abyss that is the war in Gaza had seemed as if it could not deepen, it now appears to be a bottomless pit. It is reported that about 100 medical doctors belonging to a group called Doctors for the Rights of Israeli Soldiers signed a letter last weekend stating that it Continue reading »
-
Enemy twins: Israel and Hamas unite to massacre innocents
Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel as a state is as absurd as Israel’s belief that the current massacre of Palestinians will destroy Hamas. If all this were mere stupidity it would be bad enough, but the consequent violence against innocent people is extreme and it is accelerating. Continue reading »
-
‘Enduring Peace’: Three questions for the Australian Foreign Minister on Gaza
With the Australian government refusing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, what is Australia actually doing to bring about the ‘two state solution’ and a ‘just and enduring peace’ called for by Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week? Continue reading »
-
Legal case set to expose Australia’s facilitation of war crimes
Is the Albanese government aiding and abetting the Israeli military and intelligence services in actions in Gaza which are serious violations of international human rights laws? Continue reading »
-
Israel: mowing the grass in Gaza, again and again.
There will be no end to the occupation and death until there is a political settlement with justice for both Palestinians and Israelis. Continue reading »
-
Israel does not have the right to ‘defend itself’
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 Continue reading »
-
Israel and Palestine – the pain increases hour by hour
The land the Palestinians dream about returning to is no more, and the land that Israelis dream about possessing forever has turned into an immoral and unsustainable nightmare. Continue reading »
-
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, Continue reading »
-
Israel’s moral power ebbing away in a human rights catastrophe
Israel’s strategic choices, as Israelis see it, are rather like those sometimes argued for Australia. It wants powerful friends but cannot take them for granted. Ultimately it must depend on itself, if needs be alone. Surrounded by deadly enemies, it must make the cost of conquest so high, and so uncertain, that invaders are deterred. Continue reading »
-
Battle of the gods
An older man, grey-haired but quite firm in his manner as he spoke to the ABC TV reporter on Palestine’s West Bank. He was an Israeli, he said, and he was claiming the building site because, ‘God gave us this land.’ Continue reading »
-
Have Australian troops secretly deployed to an illegal war?
Australians have been assured by the Albanese government of greater transparency and accountability on defence. So soon after the 2022-23 parliamentary inquiry into how the country goes to war, that has already fallen over. Continue reading »
-
Expose and dismiss the dominating Israeli narrative
For decades, the western world has been fed Israeli/Zionist narratives about their country being exceptional, Palestinians not existing or being less than human. False Israeli accounts have been swallowed by a compliant media and by politicians scared of being accused of being even slightly anti-Semitic. Continue reading »
-
What our Media fails to tell you about October 7
It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account of that day. Continue reading »
-
The moral complexities of bombing a concentration camp full of children
Israel created Hamas – Now THEY’RE DROPPING BOMBS ON A CONCENTRATION CAMP FULL OF CHILDREN. Continue reading »
-
With focus on Gaza there is escalation of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank
There is “a real risk” of the Occupied Territory of Palestine in the West Bank “spiralling out of control”, the UN said this week. Continue reading »
-
“This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are intensifying as the traumatic toll on civilians sees thousands of children being killed, many health and aid workers and journalists dying on the job, the destruction of health services, surgery taking place without anaesthetic, and civilians unable to access necessities, including life-saving healthcare, food and water. Continue reading »
-
An open letter to ABC Managing Director David Anderson
ABC reporters and program presenters always refer to Hamas’s non-recognition of the right of Israel to exist, but they never mention the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party does not recognise in its charter the right of Palestine to exist, why? An open letter from Ali Kazak, Former Palestinian ambassador. Continue reading »
-
One less terrorist
As of October 29, the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s official confirmed figure for those killed by Israeli bombing and shelling of the territory of the Gaza Strip was more than 8000, including more than 3400 children, which, statistically, is one child killed every 10 minutes since October 7. Continue reading »
-
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. Continue reading »
-
Prime Minister ignores Palestinian criticism of Government’s support for Israel’s oppression, genocide and ethnic cleansing
The convenor of the youth branch of Australian Friends of Palestine Association, (“Young AFOPA”) on 20 October 2023 wrote to Prime Minister Albanese expressing disappointment in his unequivocal support for Israel during its ongoing genocide in Gaza. The writer challenged the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s purported commitment to engaging in reconciliation in Australia, when Continue reading »
-
Netanyahu invokes Genocide
Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison have signed a statement drafted for them by the Zionist Federation of Australia in support of Israel. In doing so, were they aware that on Sunday, in launching the ground offensive into Gaza, Netanyahu invoked a genocidal precedent for his war on Gaza? Continue reading »
