Too many in comfort denying atrocities

September 9, 2025

I share the distress identified by Dennis Altman.

“Something is unnerving about seeing people sitting in comfort in Australia denying the evidence of carnage and starvation,” Altman writes in a sentence that is also applicable to Syria, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali and a dozen other countries suffering carnage, starvation and war crimes.

The ignorance of many people about the Gaza conflict, and the many other ignored humanitarian crises, among “comfortable” Australians is lamentable. Maybe not for readers of this public policy journal, but in general I’ve been dismayed at the paucity of knowledge about the Middle East and history of this centuries-old conflict.

In my experience, few have actually been to the region, most don’t know that the modern Middle East (like Africa) was artificially created by European empires, which fomented this conflict; they’re unaware of the history and philosophy of Zionism, and embarrassingly ignorant of the history of the Palestinian people, and their fraught relationship with Egypt, Jordan, Iran and other Arab states; countries that are essential participants in reaching a sustainable peace agreement.