Letters to the Editor
Stopping Israel's genocide
September 9, 2025
Refaat Ibrahim’s hope for a popular uprising by starving Palestinians against the rogue state, Israel, is unlikely to succeed without external pressure. So far, the Australian Government is avoiding actions of substance that could include the following: • Ban export of weapons components to Israel and any military co-operation with Israel; • Ban imports from Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law; • Impose sanctions (e.g. asset freezes, travel bans) on all members of the current Israeli Government and military commanders; • Greatly increase humanitarian funding to UN agencies and NGO groups providing food and...
Mark Diesendorf from Sydney
In response to: Seven hundred days of genocide
State terror came first
September 9, 2025
The Académie Française dictionary in 1798 defined terrorism as a system, or regime of terror and terrorist as an agent or partisan of the Terror that arose through the abuse of revolutionary measures (The French Revolution and Early European Revolutionary Terrorism by Michael Rapport) In other words, state terror came first, preceding any other kind, the very first example being the revolutionary regime in France, 1793-1794. Ample examples exist today: the US drone warfare over NW Pakistan 2004-2018; Saddam's mukhabarat; Assad's torturers and Israel's war on Gaza. All these, it might be thought, represent state terrorism – which is...
James Schofield from London
In response to: Who is a terrorist?
Vice-chancellor pay
September 8, 2025
While it is hardly unexpected that accountants would focus upon pay and governance as the source of problems in Australian universities, these are superficial targets which mask determinants. The pay that vice-chancellors receive is a symptom, not a cause. The central causes of what have become little more than state consultancies are that teaching students is now almost completely devalued. This began in the late 1970s-early 1980s and is now rife. Casual contract, part-time teachers are responsible for many first- and second-year undergraduate courses. If senior professors etc appear at lectures for these courses, it is in a Joan...
Scott MacWilliam from Amaroo, ACT
In response to: Reining in vice-chancellor and executive pay
Products of the system
September 8, 2025
The system of education and social conditioning set up by the US, in particular, since early last century and re-enforced throughout the last century has worked superbly well. It has ensured that those who do not give their assent to that conditioning are marginalised from polite society and only accidentally and temporarily occupy positions within the agencies of opinion formulation within our societies. As George Orwell pointed out, those who make it to positions of prominence within the mainstream media actually believe the nonsense they are peddling and are where they are as they can be trusted not to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The betrayal of Palestinian journalists
Thank you, Teow Loon Ti
September 8, 2025
Thank you, Teow Loon Ti for your clear and well-formed response to the piece by Ju Hyung Kim titled “Asia must learn from SEATO and build its own NATO”. In truth, I read the title of the article mentioned and couldn't read it as it is obviously an Uncle Sam homily. Too bad our media is so saturated with such articles of faith, detached from reality, history and evidence. Teow has spoken to reality, a relief in troubled times.
Mark Bulluss from Dalmeny
In response to: Seeing truth through the fog of war mongering
Bolton, the archetypal chickenhawk, all squark!
September 8, 2025
This is a good summary of the truly insubstantially equipped Bolton. He hasn't seen a war, actual or proposed, that he doesn't like, from a distance of course. His later life bravado was preceded by a careful avoidance in his youth of any likelihood that he would actually serve anywhere near where the killing and the dying were taking place. His enthusiasm for war has been acquired along with an unerring capacity to avoid it in practice. Like many of his ultra-conservative colleagues in Washington, he is more than happy to send other mothers' children to fight and die...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Southeast Asia pragmatic on China's rise
A land of standing corpses
September 8, 2025
As John Menadue correctly points out, the death toll in Gaza is far higher than those killed directly by Israeli bombs and bullets. A conservative multiplier of four indirect deaths to every one direct killing gives a minimum of 300,000. But this overlooks the fundamental point: genocide is not simply about killing. Killing is but one of the depraved ways that Israel is committing genocide. Israel's Zionazi holocaust is about the destruction of the Palestinian People. A Semitic people, no less. To fully gauge that destruction, one needs to look to different research; Guillot et al, Lancet, February...
Rick Pass from Home Hill FNQ
In response to: The real death toll in Gaza, John Menadue
We must defeat the demon of fossil capital
September 8, 2025
Julian Cribb potently describes the latest report, A Climate-First Foreign Policy for Australia, from the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, as a “trailblazing vision of where an enlightened, informed, and caring humanity might go in the face of the brutal escalation in climate impacts”. Cribb would know the soon-to-be-released National Climate Risk Assessment has been evocatively depicted by insiders as “dire,” “diabolical,” and “extremely confronting”. Fittingly, ASLCG calls on government to “mobilise the resources necessary to address this clear and present danger, and to decarbonise our economy to reach net zero emissions as close to 2030 as possible. Climate...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Military experts warn of climate wars
Dump AUKUS
September 8, 2025
If you are not convinced that the Australian government must dump AUKUS by • The fact that the primary utility of the proposed AUKUS submarines is to augment a US attack force aimed at China, our major trading partner; • The obvious ceding of sovereignty to the US empire that this entails; • The questionable logic of acquiring a submarine fleet unsuitable for coastal defence of Australia; • The certainty that the $368 billion budget will blow out, as illustrated by the fact that Australia has already paid a $5 billion instalment of a $47.8 Billion...
John Curr from MANLY
In response to: SSN AUKUS – Heading for a quagmire
I nominate you
September 8, 2025
I nominate Margaret Callinan, Bob Pearce and Les MacDonald to head our new government. They know the arc of our history; they see the repeated pattern of strategic errors successive Australian Governments have made; they each have brave innovative ideas, rooted in social conscience, and can articulate and educate in less than 200 words. Bravo Margaret, Bob and Les. Your voices are so valued.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The real death toll in Gaza
It couldn’t be simpler
September 8, 2025
It’s not about decisions made by Hitler in 1939. It is no longer about decisions made by Hamas on 7 October. It’s about decisions made today, in this moment, by one's own conscience. It’s about setting aside economic contracts, monetary incentives, lobbyist influences, deals behind closed doors, and harkening to one’s own consciousness of what is right and what is evil. It couldn’t be simpler. Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong, Tony Burke: it couldn’t be simpler.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Greta Thunberg 'disgusted' by global silence on Gaza genocide
Aussie scepticism
September 8, 2025
The courageous Sarah Dowse may have been born in America, but she has evidently acculturated well into Australia, even to taking on the fabled Aussie bullshit detector. Add to this her insider view on Israel the Jewish State and she has the basic credentials for exposing perspectives avoided by the legacy media in the face of real or perceived pressure by the powerful pro-Israel lobby. I appreciated, in particular, her scepticism about ASIO's role in the Iran affair in which, (and in numerous other national security crises) no evidence ever comes under public scrutiny.
Vince Corbett from Essendon
In response to: Israel, hasbara, antisemitism and Iran
Leaders who have lost their moral compass
September 5, 2025
It is hard, if not impossible, to any longer believe that the vast bulk of our leaders in the West are fit for their leadership positions. When they not only turn away from the grotesque, genocidal activities of the Israeli Government, but participate in, and publicly support them, knowing the truth of what that support enables. The truth about this vast criminal enterprise, and those without the moral courage to condemn it, are a rebuke to the view of Hanna Arendt about the banality of evil. This evil is not banal. It is contemptible and abhorrent. It will...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The real death toll in Gaza
MSM under-count indigenous deaths in US wars
September 5, 2025
This is an extremely important article by John Menadue demanding total trade sanctions against Israel because of hundreds of thousands of Gaza deaths. Dr Zeina Jamaluddine and colleagues estimated that 64,260 Gazans died violently by day 269 of the Gaza massacre (30 June 2024) (The Lancet) and hence 136,000 Gazans died violently by day 569 (25 April 2025) with a “conservatively estimated” four times that number (544,000) dying from imposed deprivation for a shocking total of 680,000 deaths from violence and deprivation by 25 April 2025. That is 28% of the pre-war Gaza population of 2.4 million, and 11...
Gideon Polya from Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria
In response to: The real death toll in Gaza
Labor’s de-democratisation of Australian politics
September 5, 2025
Gregory Clark writes well on the Palestine issue. As a result of FOI applications, I now know that up till about six weeks ago, Albo had had about 65,000 pieces of correspondence on Palestine since the Israel-Palestine war broke out, and had answered none. Penny Wong had had about 52,500, and had answered about 17% of them. It is clear that governments of both persuasions largely believe that foreign affairs is not a suitable policy area for democratic control resulting from widely encouraged public debate. It has taken more than 22 months of weekly marches just to get Labor...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Canberra and Gaza
Urgent action required to stave off collapse
September 5, 2025
The latest report by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group warns that climate change may lead to widespread food insecurity, economic destabilisation, large-scale people displacement, war, failed states and social collapse. If ever there were a better collection of people to make the connections between climate and security, it is the ASLCG led by Retired Admiral Chris Barrie. We must heed their warnings and pull out all stops to mitigate climate change. Possibly the most worrying, apart from widespread food insecurity, is large-scale people displacement. Some suggest a billion displaced by 2050. How on earth will the world cope...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Military experts warn of climate wars
Climate criminal Australia's huge CO2 emissions
September 4, 2025
Important and revealing article by Peter Sprivulis. I have been a career biochemist for the last 50 years and researched energy transduction in plants that over hundreds of millions of years generated huge fossil fuel resources. The atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs; notably CO2, CH4, and N2O) from unrestrained fossil fuel and other exploitation are at record highs, are increasing at record rates (notwithstanding “we are tackling climate change” political rhetoric), and existentially threaten humanity and the diosphere (see Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, 843 pages, 2020). Yet the Australian Government’s “Australian Energy Statistics...
Gideon Polya from Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria
In response to: Sprinting to stand still: Still no progress in Australia’s energy transition
The fog of espionage
September 4, 2025
The fog of war plays a distant second to the fog of espionage. We are witnessing this writ large in the unfolding drama being played out over the alleged Iranian involvement in the recent terrorist attacks against Jewish targets here in Australia. When considering the pros and cons of the arguments being presented, it is important to keep in mind one crucial truth. The various Zionist/Israeli lobbying groups, voicing their opinions and attempting to influence both public opinion and state policy, have a long and proven record of framing the narrative. Saying something first, and loud enough and often...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Messiness in spookdom: Australia's Iran Contra deal
Labor sets sail in the same policy boat
September 4, 2025
Thank you, Annabel Hennessy, for calling out the persistent policy cruelty of our political “leadership” and its impact upon many stateless refugee neighbours in our midst. The legislation referred to, as background to the Nauru deportation proposal, presents us with the same lethargic compliance we have endured from Liberal-National Coalition hard-heartedness. Are we to allow Australia to take the same new normal path pioneered by the Trump administration to “win” by withholding justice from Kilmar Abrego Garcia? How long will it be before the Labor Party (and its equally lethargic Parliamentary opponents) realise that a healthy Australian democracy has...
Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central
In response to: Australia should halt plan to deport refugees, migrants to Nauru
Subs deal
September 4, 2025
Noel Turnbull certainly sets out a valid alternative, but I would have thought the whole submarine saga is going to be undermined by drones in any case as the Navy is already developing long-range underwater drones! They will certainly be fully developed well before we ever see the mythical AUKUS subs, or at least my grandchildren see them!
Max Bourke AM from Campbell ACT
In response to: If you really want some subs – try this
When is it time for the climate rebellion?
September 4, 2025
I am so grateful to the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group for their complete commitment to our ongoing well-being and their respect for our intelligence and capacity to deal with the terrifying truth. Both this commitment and respect appear to be somewhat half-hearted from our government. The latest evidence of disregard for our climate occurred on 28 August. That day, the Albanese Government quietly granted approval for Glencore to expand its Ulan thermal coal mine near Mudgee in NSW. Meanwhile, the government steadfastly refuses to share the contents of two apparently terrifying documents detailing the security threat posed...
Lesley Walker from Northcote
In response to: Climate-first foreign policy essential for Australia and regional security
Thanks
September 4, 2025
What a privilege to read such an insightful article by someone with such a pedigree of both experience and principle, not to mention a global citizen's lifestyle. Thank you.
Bede Doherty from Melbourne
In response to: What goes around, comes around
'Turn back the boats' – tell them they're joking
September 3, 2025
The recent protest marches in Australian capital cities shows the ignorance of the protesters in basing their protests on the colour of people's skin and their religion. They should have instead protested about the climate, because rising sea levels alone in our vicinity will affect tens of thousands (17,000 in Indonesia). Many thousands of Pacific Islanders will lose their island homes and many million Indonesians will look South due to inundation of low-lying coastal areas. At present, the UK is trying to stop the refugee trickle across the Channel which will be nothing compared to the flood...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SĄ
In response to: Climate-first foreign policy essential for Australia and regional security – top security leaders
Discernment and nuance: Victims of AI
September 3, 2025
Many are under the illusion that AI chatbots like ChatGPT are objective sources of information, having collected data across multiple sources. But they are not. AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, are designed to sycophantly agree with the user. This means that whatever you ask, these AI chatbots are designed to encourage, and agree with, your bias. This was demonstrated when a teenager contemplating suicide, was actively encouraged to do so by ChatGPT. That these AI platforms are designed to sycophantly agree with the user, makes them, due to our human nature, highly addictive. What human being doesn’t want someone...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: I'd rather a bloodied shark than AI
St Albo of the lost cause
September 3, 2025
Let’s get real about greenhouse gas emissions; they are a damper on productivity. They are instrumental in the function of the global ecosystem. As things stand today, the taxpayer is picking up the cost of the destruction, caused by an unstable environment, as well as the toxic pollution from the forever chemicals that actually present a bigger threat to life on our planet than rising temperatures and sea levels. From lost lives, homes and livelihoods to inflated prices and insurance premiums, they shell out while the corporations creating them are laughing all the way to the bank. Then there’s...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: The one big reform not discussed at Labor's roundtable
Common sense versus fear of uninformed criticism
September 3, 2025
This is a common sense and intelligent approach towards attendance at these important celebrations. It is unlike the federal government which continues to pander to how they think the US and Rupert Murdoch will feel about such attendance. Hopefully Bob Carr's attendance will keep those important diplomatic channels open until our governments regonise the reality of the new power dynamics at work geopolitically!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Beijing invited me to their special celebration. Here's why I'm happy to go
Bob Carr’s rational approach
September 3, 2025
Congratulations to Bob Carr for attending the 80th anniversary celebration by China of the end of World War II. And it’s hardly surprising that Vladimir Putin is attending. Without the Soviet Union, China, we (and the people of Germany, Italy and Japan) might have lost the battle against German, Italian, and Japanese fascism. The Spanish and the Portuguese had to wait well beyond World War II for an end to fascism. Carr quite rightly reminds Andrew Hastie that only weeks ago Vladimir Putin was in the United States. If you want to solve problems between nations you have...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Beijing invited me to their special celebration. Here's why I'm happy to go
Swearing in schools and community
September 3, 2025
While I agree with Samantha Helps that teachers punishing children for swearing puts the teacher in a different space to the community from which the children come, what she seems to miss is that there are multiple levels of swearing. One is when the swearing is aimed at the teacher or another pupil. This is where the teacher has a responsibility to stop this behaviour. It is clear that swearing is now endemic in our communication to add emphasis or to express emotions such as when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Such swearing is now on TV...
Richard Swinton from NSW Northern Rivers
In response to: For the sins of the father
Wanning Sun correct re over-interpreting attendance
September 3, 2025
Wanning Sun is correct in pointing out that it would be unwise to read too much into what countries have been invited and the relative seniority of those representatives. There is clearly some guidance that can be obtained from it, but there are a host of factors that shapes such attendance that are specific to the individual nations concerned. It would also be unwise to use that attendance list to draw conclusions about the relationship between China and the vast bulk of the global South. More telling are the substantive actions of that South in their enthusiasm to enter...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: A tale of two lists: How geopolitics shaped the attendance of China’s parade
Labor should, and could, introduce a price on carbon
September 3, 2025
Thanks to Ross Gittins, economics editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, for so clearly outlining Rod Sims’ five reasons why a carbon price is both “necessary and urgent”. Sims, now chair of Ross Garnaut’s Superpower Institute, argues that Australia needs a carbon price “so effective climate action can be taken, so our targets can be met, and so we can more than fully compensate households for the price effects” while also strengthening public budgets. These outcomes would be well received by Australians and should give the Albanese Government courage in its second term. There is also international precedent....
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: The one big reform not discussed at Labor's roundtable
You don't find truth or the full story in the mainstream media
September 3, 2025
The mainstream media has had years of practice ignoring reality in Palestine, not only since 2023. But if you want to argue the toss about prior to 2023, the MSM have had undeniable decades of practice reporting on climate change. Whenever it suits them, the liars, the deluded and the vested interests denying truth and science must be given equal space to spread their falsehoods. Why does anyone pay for legacy media anymore? The sooner it finally dies out, the better. We already have quality alternatives.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The media’s Israeli atrocity treadmill
Chinese, Bengali and Gaza holocausts
September 2, 2025
Important article by Professor Jocelyn Chey. In the 1937-1945 Chinese holocaust 35-40 million Chinese died from violence and deprivation under Japanese occupation (15% of the pre-war population). Australian attorney-general Robert “Pig Iron Bob” Menzies made Australia complicit by permitting iron exports to Japan. Michael Portillo included me in a 2008 BBC program Bengal Famine that included comments from Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (Welcome Institute, London): “That six to seven million [World War II Bengal famine deaths] figure includes the deaths that happened in let’s say the provinces of Bihar, Orissa and Assam”, economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen (Cambridge, Harvard): “Famines...
Gideon Polya from Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria
In response to: Marking September 2: Lest we forget
It is the (capitalist) system that is the problem
September 2, 2025
I like, and usually agree with, much of what Caitlin Johnstone has to say about world affairs. However, in her latest piece — on the demerits of Western civilisation — she is wrong to ascribe to all Westerners responsibility for the grave wrongs that have been carried out in effect by small concentrations of government and corporate power in the capitalist societies of the West. To conflate the sins of this small, grasping, self-interested minority with Western civilisation and with what most Westerners believe is a mistake. Indeed, it might be said that Caitlin has fallen victim to...
Peter Blunt from Siem Reap
In response to: Western civilisation is not worth saving
How to create fear in the Australian Jewish community
September 2, 2025
Jack Waterford's article fails to mention one pertinent aspect of the bombing of the Melbourne synagogue. That aspect is crucial, namely that the Adass branch of Jewish Orthodoxy is anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. The Israel lobby feasts on this lack of transparency and uses it to further its attempt to make Australia focus on so-called antisemitism, instead of the real issue, which is Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In other words, if, as ASIO blandly declares, Iran is responsible for the attacks, then ASIO implies that Iranian Government officials are as uneducated and stupid as Australians who don't know...
Dieter Barkhoff from Melbourne
In response to: When spying is subcontracted to gangsters
Western civilisation is not worth saving
September 2, 2025
I agree with Caitlin Johnstone that Western civilisation has come to a very bad pass, especially in terms of politics and colonial thinking. However, I'd like to defend another aspect of Western civilisation, namely the music, art and literature it has produced. I would regard it as a crime to throw away the music of Mozart or Bach. I even think some of the Enlightenment values that originated in Western civilisation, even though they are not necessarily part of it, are worth preserving. It's right to attack values of people like Trump and others we associate today with...
Colin Mackerras from Capalaba, Queensland
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/09/western-civilisation-is-not-worth-saving/?u
Consultant culture at universities
September 2, 2025
It's not only at universities, our politicians have also outsourced their resposibilities. What government services are left are controlled by mostly large overseas corperations. When the roundtable discussion about regulation took place, they never mentioned that they are happy and instrumental in writing those regulations so as to exclude small to medium Australian bussiness from the honey pot.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SĄ
In response to: Reining in the consultant culture in Australia’s public universities
Two world health threats
September 2, 2025
Julian Cribb's professional and prescient article shows we have two serious problems. There is the well-founded threat of lethal pathogens and also the threat from the militant, irrational groups opposed to immunisation and masks. Lately we have seen the power and rage of a resentful minority, seriously uninformed, igniting the fuse of fear and pushing an aggressive barrow. It is to be hoped there is sufficient potent research into these groups to enable myth and terror management, rather than attacking them head-on and empowering the work of the fearmongers thus granting them more potency as they will claim to...
Michael Breen from Robertson NSW
In response to: The next pandemic is 'an epidemiological certainty'
Overcrowding and overpopulation a health issue
September 1, 2025
Julian Cribb cites overpopulation and overcrowding as the two major causes of a pandemic. Thus, cruise ships and high-rise buildings must be regarded as giant petri-dishes, facilitating the growth of micro-organisms that cause disease. This is a problem because, while populations grow, we do need to densify our cities. We have to stop urban sprawl, that is, the encroachment of cities onto natural bush or farmland, the latter needed to feed people. The only solution is to stop further growth of human numbers. Cities can't go out without destroying other species' habitats or our food base, and they...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: The next pandemic is ‘an epidemiological certainty’
The circle of death
September 1, 2025
The story of what John Darby saw didn't end there. Eighty-plus years on, some of the victims of the Holocaust, some children of Holocaust survivors and some grandchildren of Holocaust victims are seeking revenge using the Holocaust to justify any and all actions. In 100 years, will the great-grandchildren of the Holocaust still be at war with the Palastinian survivors of the genocide and their offspring? Will the Palistinians be using the genocide as a justification for any and all retribution? Some of them will. The arms industry will continue to benefit from it.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide Są
In response to: The gates of Gaza
Submarines, nuclear or otherwise, are obsolete
September 1, 2025
Expensive manned submarines are a relic of past world (meaning European) wars! Just like aircraft carriers, infantry wars and manned aircraft. If the special military operation in Ukraine and the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank have taught our military leaders anything — and that is questionable — it is that the fundamental nature of war has changed. UAVs, accurately guided missiles and bombs, along with accurate detection of underwater threats and use of underwater unmanned drones using AI and quantum computing, have dramatically cheapened the fighting of wars and have increased its lethality substantially. That...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Ditch AUKUS Pillar One. It involves Australia too much in US strategy
Never again – but for whom?
September 1, 2025
I commend George Browning, former Anglican Bishop, for his valiant fight for the rights of Palestinians and for Jewish, Armenia, Rwanda, and Gaza holocausts to be remembered and not repeated. However, there appears to be an unconscious disremembering, as shown by the absence of even a cursory mention by Browning of the horrors suffered by people in the Far East (a somewhat pejorative Anglo-Saxon term). Across East and Southeast Asia, tens of millions suffered untold brutalities under World War II Japanese imperialism. Notably, the horrific Nanking Massacres and Unit 731 (Imperial Japanese Army chemical and biological warfare research unit,...
Jeffrey Chew from Melbourne
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/08/never-again-so-the-world-pledged/
The Holocaust industry
September 1, 2025
I agree with George Browning's article; however, the horrific things perpetrated by Hitler's consort on European Jews, not to mention millions of others, do not mean Judaism has a claim on the word holocaust. Up to 10 million Congolese died under Belgian rule, Shashi Tahoor claims 120 million Indians died under British rule, and there have been countless other massive numbers of victims of European colonisation. Norman Finkelstein wrote the book The Holocaust Industry after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel began refining its River to the Sea Crusade, all the while hiding its atrocities behind the Holocaust cloak....
Dieter Barkhoff from Melbourne
In response to: Never again – so the world pledged
Iran, or Israel false flag operation?
September 1, 2025
Michelle Grattan should be far more critical in her approach to Mike Burgess and the Iran affair. There has not been a shred of evidence presented to prove Iranian sponsorship of terror acts in Australia. Suggesting that Iran's motive is to cause disharmony is asinine to say the least. Clearly and logically, the only country that would gain from these terror acts is Israel. These gains include: shifting public opinion away from a free Palestine, the Palestine Resistance and its allies; emboldening the Zionist lobby in Australia at a time it is increasingly becoming isolated; elevating Iran to the...
Fergus Robinson from Melbourne
In response to: Grattan on Friday: Mike Burgess, the spycatcher who gives ASIO a very public face
Reviewing poll findings on US alliance
September 1, 2025
One striking aspect of year-to-year changes in Lowy Institute polling figures, covering the popularity among Australians of Australia-US relations reported on by Jaron Sutton, can perhaps be explained by a differing interpretation of the response to one particular question in the poll. Sutton reports that in the polls between March, 2024 and 2025, Australians' trust in the US to act responsibly in the world had plummetted from 64% to 44%, yet despite this, a whopping 80% of Australians felt the US alliance was very or fairly important for our security, down just three points from 83% in 2024. ...
Bruce Foskey from Blackwood, Vic
In response to: Time to dial back the Australia-US alliance
Australia is one trade deal away from backing authoritarians
September 1, 2025
I understand that Taiwan feels threatened by China. However, the arguments in the article I feel are not substantiated. China now has the expertise and capability of surpassing Western chip capabilities, perhaps not as yet achieved, but in development. I feel this is shown in part by the speed that China developed AI capability in such a short time. The West appears under the misapprehension that China needs chips from Western manufacturers, but I feel the reality is that China will use Western technology when it is cost-effective and available. The idiocy of forcing Dutch manufacturers to stop...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Australia is one trade deal away from backing authoritarians, says Taiwan
Will the Albanese Government listen?
September 1, 2025
I commend Usman Khawaja for his principled stand on Gaza. Given his elevated position in the Australian sporting firmament, he managed to gain an audience with senior members of our current government. To his great credit, he did not waste this chance. Will the Albanese Government listen? The short answer is no. Thinking in Canberra has been captured by the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council. This is a great shame, especially as better advice is readily available from the Jewish Council of Australia, an organisation founded in February 2024 specifically to represent non-Zionist Australian Jews and to counter, or at...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Usman Khawaja urges Albanese to sanction Israel over Gaza genocide
Blurring the line between sport and politics
September 1, 2025
Usman Khawaja is claimed to have blurred the line between sport and politics, but what concerns me is that Australians don't have the same access to the prime minister as lobbyists and high-profile sportspeople. Even after the resounding victory in the federal election and a series of marches around the country, the government and, in particular, the Opposition require high-profile lobbying to see what is obvious to a large portion of the population. No matter what your nationality, religious affiliations or sporting obsession, it has become obvious that what is happening in not just Gaza and the Ukraine...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SĄ
In response to: Usman Khawaja urges Albanese to sanction Israel over Gaza genocide
Unmasking propaganda
September 1, 2025
Thank you, Jeffrey Sachs. “Russians invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was thoroughly provoked by the West.” I have long held this view. The Western media’s propaganda was never enough for me to swallow Russia as the enemy. Russia lost 27 million people during World War II. The Allies wouldn’t have defeated Hitler without Russia’s staggering sacrifice. As Sachs makes clear, every war Russia has been involved in the past two centuries has been defensive. The Western narrative does not acknowledge these facts. Just as Western leaders and media have skewed their propaganda in defence of Israel’s horrific crimes, so...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: A new foreign policy for Europe
Genocide denial and Spanish Jewish organisations
September 1, 2025
In 1985, an Auschwitz survivor sued a prominent Holocaust denier in the Spanish courts for libel – and won. The result of that victory and public demand was that the Spanish penal code was amended to make genocide denial a criminal offence. An article in Spain's El Pais by Federico Zukierman Merlin, a member of JCall Spain-Another Jewish Voice, points out that the secretary-general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, has effectively denied that genocide is taking place in Palestine. Its board of directors did not dissociate itself from his statement. It is quite possible that...
Kieran Tapsell from Stanwell Park
In response to: Never again – so the world pledged