Letters to the Editor
The collapse of the capitalism model
February 7, 2025
Ted Trainer's article provides a timely warning that the current model of greed encased in capitalism is nearing its logical end. I have been involved in the recycling and zero waste movements and their refinement over the last 35 years. Despite highlighting the urgent need for change little happens. Every time a move is made to minimise the harm to the environment, such as plastics recycling, container recovery, alternate energy or safer and improved quality food production, the current capital model steals the concept and incorporates it into the greed structure to generate more income for the current investment...
Gerry Gillespie from Queanbeyan NSW
In response to: The situation - and why we can't fix it
Trump's diaspora
February 6, 2025
Reading P&I on Trump's latest mad plan to resettle the inhabitants of Gaza somewhere else so he can build hotels and golf courses, I was struck by an historic parallel. The last chap to try this was Sargon II, boss of Assyria, who came down on the local inhabitants like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts gleaming in purple and gold and scattered them to the four winds, an event known in Jewish history as the diaspora. That was 2750 years ago and led directly to the present mess that is Israel/Palestine. So if Trump has his...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: Trump’s plan for Gaza heralds an age of naked fascism
Yes Minister 2
February 6, 2025
For some time, my teacher mate sang the virtues of the US system where the president got to tap into the expertise of highly credentialled people from all around the country when appointing heads of departments and I must admit that I didn’t disagree with him. Then came Trump who unashamedly appointed mates. So much for that idea. In Australia, with its ongoing war against anything old that works, we too started to appoint highly paid (unlike with workers where qualifications and capability are not portional to the amount you're paid) experts as heads of departments on contract....
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: public-servants-pay-lambies-on-the-money
Understanding intent in genocide
February 6, 2025
Gerard Gill's statement: intent being determined by multiple statements from officials is legal fantasy. Intent is established by acts or omissions, not by words. If a reasonable person would understand that there was a strongly probable, indeed, near certain consequence of an act or omission, that establishes intent. She who deliberately puts death cap mushrooms in the beef Wellington commits murder, (allegedly). The act proves intent. If a reasonable person would understand that a near certain consequence of Israel's obliteration of Gaza, cutting off water, food, medical supplies, the use of starvation as a means of warfare, the...
Rick Pass from Glen Iris, Victoria
In response to: Lone soldiers, lone wolves: Are IDF returnees a security threat?
The X factor
February 6, 2025
I have been banned from X and am unable to peruse any five-minute scroll items. X claims I have sent prohibited comment to it for which I am banned. I have never used X. I responded to their ban email by saying I have never wanted to be treated as a user of X and am happy to be excluded by them. However, if the five-minute scroll continues to use them as material, I will not be able in future to be able to access it. I have been a user of P&I for over 10 years...
William Bradley from SOUTH MELBOURNE
In response to: five minute scroll
Trump removal of support for climate action and aid
February 6, 2025
What if China decided to fund the organisations (humanitarian aid, climate change support) from which Trump has withdrawn support? What a coup this would be! How would Trump react? I feel the Chinese are now rich enough to take this up. If they did so, how would the Western powers react? It would really change the world's perception of China.
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/strong-leaders-versus-inspiring-leaders-australias-curre
There is a real choice at this election
February 6, 2025
Contrary to Barb Dadd's pessimism, I believe there is a real choice at the coming federal election and that is the Australian Greens. The Greens have policies which address all the issues that concern the author and I encourage your readers to check the Australian Greens website for a thorough summary of Greens' policies. The Greens have been criticised by many commentators for blocking Labor-initiated legislation in the Parliament, but in all cases they have been trying to improve that legislation so that it is more effective and delivers greater benefits to the community as a whole and particularly...
Les Mitchell from Port Macquarie NSW
In response to: Where is the real choice when it comes to the election?
Unhinged proposals for Gaza
February 6, 2025
Like Larry Stillman, most of us don't want to see a rise in hate towards any group of people here. But for Donald Trump to reiterate a plan during Netanyahu's visit that Palestinians should just vacate Southwest Palestine is unhinged. What can that do but create even greater tensions, with their spillover in Australia and elsewhere? What then will he propose for Northeast Palestine? Hitler's plans for Poland to provide Lebensraum have an eerie echo in Trump's statements. Jewish organisations in Australia, which are hopefully fundamentally driven by moral imperatives, would be best served by proposing a much...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: No community can be blamed for the actions of a few individuals
DeepSeek
February 6, 2025
The response to DeepSeek was predictable. It is stolen, it is untrue, it is expensive, it is a psyops exercise and, if not any of these, then it is a threat to Western civilisation that deserves to be blocked immediately. And in a typical response, the CIA promptly did a massive DDoS attack on it using Vault 7, its cyberwar weapon.
Andrew Nichols from Otepoti Dunedin, Aotearoa NZ
In response to: Western commentators still unable to see the advances in China
How the Chinese system deals with the next phase
February 6, 2025
I watch as the US rushes towards the abyss, taking the Western world and the planet and democracy with it. With limited news coverage, I admire what China and the Chinese system of government has achieved. The world cheered at the fall of the Soviets and their communist system, not realising that the US and its ongoing worldwide wars and capitalism was in decline. Some thought that a benevolent dictatorship was the ideal government; the US is racing towards dictatorship without benevolence. I have no doubt that the rise of Chinese manufacturing and technology has had a positive...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Western-commentators-still-unable-to-see-the-advances-in
They didn't come to pillage
February 6, 2025
They didn't come to pillage, claims the woman who pillaged thousands of taxpayers' dollars.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: coalition mindlessness and the colonising of Australia
Significant differences between Labor govt and Dutton LNP
February 6, 2025
It is inaccurate to use the popular and populist formulation all politicians — or parties — are the same. Labor may have been disappointing on international matters – continued AUKUS expensive folly, failure to stand up to the ruling Israeli false narrative etc. Yet it has achieved many reforms: prescription costs, improved bulk billing support, after-hours medical centres, childcare costs, childcare training, apprentice training, numerous industrial relations reforms, housing developments (after a long Greens delay), support for renewables, moves towards Gonski levels in public education, reducing HECS debt, WFH right to disconnect etc etc Populist anti-political thought fosters...
Stephen Alomes from Melbourne
In response to: Where is the real choice when it comes to the election?
Is the Old Testament Christianity?
February 6, 2025
Growing up in a Protestant Christian household, I have been unable to understand the emphasis/equal billing given to the Old Testament teachings at church. Christian teachings such as those mentioned get barely a mention in and out of churches while the vengeful god of the Old Testament is often quoted. “Eye for an eye”etc I see the big players in the Old Testament as the “Who do you think you are“ class. So often the real Christian, caring, sharing, non-judgmental people remain working hard, at the bottom, caring for the needy, wearing their old suits and dresses, never qualifying...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The-widows-mite-a-call-to-justice-not-sacrifice/
Limitation of 'physics emulating' economics
February 5, 2025
In connection with Ross Gittins important article Want more economics students? Drop the obsession with maths the more fundamental question is the utility of this approach in the social sciences to ape the gold standard for being a science — assumed to be physics — by describing the area under study via mathematical relationships. The blog of Real World Economics Review, as well as posting items on current economics matters, also has those that address the weaknesses in mainstream economic mathematical modes. Lars Syll is a regular and pertinent contributor on this issue; most recently How evidence is...
Bob Aikenhead from Victoria
In response to: Want more economics students? Drop the obsession with maths
Exposing the IDF's AI-enabled barbarity
February 5, 2025
As background to Keith Mitchelson's timely alert about the recent NYT article, P&I readers will find a report from April 2024 by Yuval Abraham in +972 magazine (online) of great interest. Interviews with IDF members who had served in Gaza detailed the use of two software systems used to murder Palestinians. Lavender collated data from numerous sources to provide target lists, while Where's Daddy? provided location detail for the actual attack. As with the NYT report the full article should be read by all.
Bob Aikenhead from Victoria
In response to: Why did the IDF reveal all to The New York Times?
The elephant in the nuclear room
February 4, 2025
The fate of nuclear energy in a hung parliament is just one more article that fails to address the forever problem of nuclear waste. Until such time as nuclear proponents can 100% guarantee safe and forever disposal of nuclear waste, they shouldn't bother to leave their drawing boards.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The fate of nuclear energy in a hung parliament
Do economists know anything about economics?
February 4, 2025
Watching a variety of economists on a variety of TV shows, I have my doubts if economists know anything about the economy or if any two economists or politicians agree on anything. None of them seem to understand even the most basic concept that if you don’t have an income you can’t build / do / supply / repair anything. Take it as a given that nobody wants to pay taxes and everybody wants services . No matter how you dress it up, whatever you promise has to be paid for either by taxes, loans or substandard services....
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: want-more-economics-students-drop-the-obsession-with-mat
NYT were not the first
February 4, 2025
Like almost all your articles, this one deserves a much wider readership than it will probably get. However I'd like to mention that it is in error in its claim that the NYT were the first to report this. It may be true they were the first to interview those particular anonymous IDF soldiers but the claims made have been reported in a number of independent media outlets. In particular, I remember reading such reports in +972 magazine [www.972mag.com], an Israeli publication run as a co-operative with both Jewish and Palestinian staff and contributors, who were also the first...
Terry Constanti from Annandale NSW
In response to: Why did the IDF reveal all to The New York Times?
What about Robodebt?
February 3, 2025
Your correspondent from Gladstone Park informs us that hackers got into his Centrelink account and stole his pension. He postulates that this would not have happened under a conservative government. We all sympathise with him and lament the stress this crime has caused him; but, has he forgotten Robodebt where the Conservative government itself did the stealing, leading to the suicides of far too many?
Paul Fergus from Croydon 2132
In response to: Mainstream media fails to mention positive labor policies
The biggest hoax of all is democracy
February 3, 2025
We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a capitalist society and have done since the beginning of the illusion of democracy. There have been short-lived periods of democratic waves of revolution barely tolerated by the old money. The climate revolution is drawing to a close as the oligarchs take back control to defend their mega money income streams. The old money media and mining moguls of the past have integrated the modern day Internet and tech moguls. We are yet to see which tech billionaires will survive . The rapidly emerging Trump dictatorship is all part...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: hoaxes-that-gush-for-winners-and-trickle-down-for-losers
Our human footprint
February 3, 2025
In 1969, those who watched the “one giant leap for mankind” witnessed the end product of America’s determination to outsmart the Russians. Exactly how did “mankind” benefit from making that eternal shoe print on the moon? It was a huge engineering undertaking, but as Peter Sainsbury points out, nothing like the feat we must pull off to keep Earth habitable. With no adversary to compete against except our greed, Rupert Murdoch suggests those living in areas of coastal erosion and rising seas simply retreat. Musk has given up on Earth and is going to live on Mars. Trump promises...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Environment: one giant leap for mankind was nothing
Are the right questions being asked?
February 3, 2025
It is politically expedient to argue children should be punished for their crimes. But more needs to be studied on the reasons those children behaved they way they did. Too often those studies are dismissed for being soft on those kids – that more discipline is needed. But the environment in which they begin life may hinder social development and the acquisition of goals (not gaols). More studies could gain knowledge on their family life, community life, education that reaches out to them, inclusively, and health services that also ensures they eat well. Were any of the children belted...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: Youth Justice - punishment or prevention
Labor government achievements
February 3, 2025
Reading Jenny Hocking’s article about positive achievements of the Labor government, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps one of its positive achievements has been to make it easier for criminals to hack into the my.gov.au site and steal the money of pensioners. Last year on 7 November, my Centrelink account was hacked and my aged pension was stolen. By contrast if I were to take an extra dollar from Centrelink that I was not entitled to, I could be certain that I would be caught. But the hacker can be sure that he will never be caught ....
Vikein Mouradian from Gladstone Park
In response to: Mainstream media fails to mention positive labor policies
Time for compassionate change
February 3, 2025
I agree with Sue Barrett's article. I have felt for some time that we seem to be approaching an apocalypse such as was seen in the Great Depression: a tiny majority controlling the world's wealth (spoken a a whitey who is comfortable!). I have been saying for years that there needs to be another compassionate change in society such as was seen during the ´Flower Power´ revolution of the 1970s. During that time, we established Medicare, free tertiary education, and many other social reforms that since seem to be openly derided (whilst the commentors still accept the largess of...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Humanity’s operating system has been infected By Sue Barrett
DeepSeek challenges US capitalism
February 2, 2025
In their article on DeepSeek, Wanning Sun and Marina Yue Zhang fail to understand the most important aspect of DeepSeek – it is open source. They repeat the irrelevant criticism that as it stands, politically sensitive words and questions seem to be no-go areas. As it is open source, its source code is available for anyone and the updated versions will simply remove this problem. What terrifies the American elite most is that DeepSeek yet again shows that the Chinese economic model can out-perform the American proprietary form of capitalism. DeepSeek is the latest example but the writing...
Paul Malone from Ocean Grove
In response to: DeepSeek’s success challenges assumptions about Chinese tech companies – and the
Let's all agree to survive
February 2, 2025
I just read Sustainable Population Australia's latest newsletter which aptly included a repeat of Julian Cribb's climate information in P&I, on 30 December 2024. Cribb's list of 10 catastrophic risks ranged from forest loss to misinformation. He summarised the list essentially as too many humans wanting too much from our planet Earth. He also urged us to specifically agree to survive; and to consider updates on the Earth System Treaty which will be issued in P&I during 2025. How wonderful to have such help; it may be our very salvation.
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: 2024 – a dire year for Human Survival
The impact of colonisation: A couple of not so minor points
January 31, 2025
1. The author says: ... the taking of [Aboriginal] children from their parents by governments [continued] into the 1970s.] If only that were true. It continues to this day. 2. Jacinta Price (for so she called herself when she sent me a text during the referendum) proves that every group has fools in its midst. How she can think British colonisation has had no lasting negative effects. is beyond me. I'd have thought the numbers of Indigenous children in out of home care and jail and having a shorter life expectancy than their non-Indigenous counterparts might have...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: John Howard and British colonisation of Australia
The Trump way?
January 31, 2025
This analysis by Brian Lawrence puts Labor's position on the lowest paid workers in a clear light. They don't seem to care about them. This is disturbing for 2 reasons. Firstly, Labor seems to have abolished roots, i.e. the low paid workers for the more lucrative middle class. I suppose: Labor no more. Secondly, this looks exactly why the Democrats got such a flogging in the USA. Apart from being immoral it also seems to be utterly stupid. With an attitude to its former base like this Labor doesn't deserve to win.
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Labor has unfinished business on tax – Its 2024 tax cuts have failed low-paid workers
If only First Nations had guns
January 31, 2025
Some time ago, author Jarred Diamond wrote a book about why colonialism worked. The books title is Guns, Germs and Steel. If indigenous people in Australia had their own guns then Phillip would have sailed back to England. It was the guns, germs and steel that enabled white people to colonize others and to feel superior to all other indigenous peoples around the world. The only time colonizing did not work was when the invader went to a new country only to discover that another white colonizer was there before them and could put up a fight with...
Peter Sheehy from Blackheath NSW
In response to: John Howard and British colonisation of Australia
Foul and repeat, foul and repeat
January 31, 2025
It is for me, and I imagine for many, many others, a matter of by now well-matured grievance and anger that we are STILL having this same discussion after so many months. That Dutton and the LNP and also the Zionist Lobby continue to screech invective at every opportunity and at ever-increasing volume, is a given - this is part and parcel of the socially divisive and politically opportunistic Eretz Israel industry. No doubt, dividends would be paid from grateful investors in prime beachfront development of the Gaza Strip when those pesky Palestinians have been eradicated forever. Business...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Help defend the Jewish Council’s anti-racism work against Murdoch press smear ca
Public servants are there to support the community
January 31, 2025
Jack’s articles are informative, but In the end, I would hope that public servants are there to support the community, or public or society rather than the state. Following “the state” just allows people to say “ I was just following orders”, don’t you think? I appreciate, also, that if you accept that point, it gets complicated because different people have different ideas of what makes up a community, and what sustains it. Andrew Hitchman
Andrew Hitchman from Newcastle, NSW, Australia
In response to: Will public servants become agents of the party rather than the state?
The third possibility
January 31, 2025
At last, someone has mentioned the unmentionable - the third possibility. I have been astonished and irritated that, till now, nobody else has dared to mention it, but now, finally, Paul Heywood-Smith has put his head above the parapet. It has been seven weeks since the Adass synagogue fire, and at least according to the public record, the AFP and VicPol have made no arrests and appear to have few clues as to who was responsible. Or if they do, they're not willing or able to say. If the perpetrators had been either bumbling amateur neo-Nazis, or bumbling amateur...
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Antisemitism: a vehicle for engendering anti-Palestinian racism
Support for Sarah Schwartz
January 31, 2025
I was shocked to read in yesterday's Australian a fierce diatribe by Marcia Langton against a recent event at the Queensland University of Technology. Ms Langton took aim in particular at the presentation by Sarah Schwartz, using terms including shocking, deluded and anti-Semitic. I thank the Jewish Council of Australia and Pearls & Irritations for giving readers some background to this sordid story. I urge readers to hit the keyboards, and to add the Australian's letters page to their list.
Richard Barnes from Melbourne / Naarm
In response to: Help defend the Jewish Council’s anti-racism work against Murdoch press smear campaign
Welfare: cheaper than perks given the uber-wealthy
January 31, 2025
If The Voice campaign taught me anything it's that Indigenous people aren't listened to. Consultations were/are brief FIFO visits with virtually no say in solutions imposed from afar. I'm reminded of Another Country narrated by David Gulpilil (SBSon-demand), graphically showing every white-man do-gooder intervention taking a community backwards. It should be compulsory viewing for every non-indigenous Australian. Perhaps annually - on Australia Day. As for sit-down money .... Indigenous people are no more lazy than the rest of us. Referencing the Gulpilil film, I wonder did compulsory training programs lead to anything satisfying or meaningful for Indigenous people? If...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: After the theft of a continent, welfare benefits beat work
Why are we so easily conned?
January 31, 2025
How depressing that Greg Latemore has thrown in the towel just before the election. With Albanese doing nothing to lift his game and his chances, are we going to let Dutton, aka Trump 2.0 Lite, walk away with the prize? Labor has been a huge disappointment on the big ticket items: climate change, gambling, tax reform, neutering the NACC. But it has done quite well on important but nevertheless second-tier issues. Googling Albanese and Labor's achievements produces a quite impressive list. But the attributes that made Albanese Leader of the Opposition are not ones that have made a good...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
Wokism
January 31, 2025
An excellent article Sue. Wokism is about the essential an best human values, but they construe it as weakness, a mistake to be despised. But you do not identify the fundamental cause of the problem, and so many good critics of the system fail to do so. That is simply capitalism. It is a system driven by self interest and greed, the quest for limitless wealth via processes that cannot do other than drive out compassion and concern for the other, accumulate wealth in the hands of the winners, thus empowering them to increase control of the political system, and...
Ted Trainer from Sydney
In response to: Humanity’s operating system has been infected
Join your local chapter of TA
January 31, 2025
It was going to join my local chapter of TA Trump Anonymous until I found PA Politics Anonymous they seem to be affiliated with AA Alcoholics Anonymous as they all have the same prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change , the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference I heard there was a DA Democracy Anonymous but it was found to be an illusion.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
The Hollow man
January 31, 2025
Thank you Peter Henning for your superb article (The Hollow man seeks to Lower the Temperature 24 Jan). The analytics of the US election are quite clear. More people voted for someone not named Trump, than someone named Trump. His victory was 1.5% - one of the smallest in US history. He won by 3 million votes. Harris lost 6 million Democrat voters that could not bring themselves to vote for her due to the Gaza war and her government’s complicity. Those 6 million voters, that voted for Biden last election, would have won her the election. With these...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The Hollow man seeks to Lower the Temperature
Refaat, the death toll may be even higher
January 31, 2025
Dear Refaat I am not sure if you saw the recent data recalibrated by the Lancet, one of the worlds most eminent medical journals. They calculated the death toll has been underestimated by 20%, and more likely to be 64,000, most of which are women, children and elders. That constitutes war crime. The Lancet also concluded that the number is set to rise drastically as bodies are brought out of the rubble. Also not counted as we cannot predict how many will be effected are respiratory failure caused by asbestos and silica. The IDF use specially designed tank...
Melody Kemp from Brisbane
In response to: The war didn’t end with a ceasefire
The Christian right in Australia
January 24, 2025
It is excellent to again see Lucy Hamilton’s investigative work, this time concerning the rise and rise of the Christian Right and, specifically, that of Moira Deeming in Victoria. We should be alert and alarmed, given its enormous influence in American politics, from abortion and LGBTQI+ rights to the war on Gaza. Moira Deeming, mentored by right-wing commentator Peta Credlin, is the latest example of the intersection between church and state. The ‘culture wars’ have been waged for decades, not by the ‘woke’ left but by activists seeking to bend the arc of a moral universe towards their...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The Liberal party, Moira Deeming and political Christianity
Future generations need a flourishing ecosystem
January 24, 2025
Climate tipping points are imminent. Climate extremes will overwhelm us with increasing frequency as politicians continue to shirk the challenge of addressing their underlying causes. We live in a world of eternal growth, where standards of living are expected to rise unfailingly. But growth comes at the expense of the environment: old-growth forests depleted for agriculture, mammalian extinctions, fish stocks depleted, and ever-greater pollution – carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, plastics choking the seas. Humanity may be our planet’s dominant species, but we are just one element of its ecosystem. We are changing the balance of that ecosystem...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Extreme events, causation and politics
how stupid is America's ruling class?
January 24, 2025
Trump's election has made the role of the ruling class even more obvious but there is the danger that we may see that as a Trump abberation rather than a feature of western democracy. Both Democracts and Republicans are beholden to plutocrats; Hilary Clinton's throwaway line referring to Trump supporters as 'deplorables' reveals that attitude. Throughout the West politicians routinely invoke the social contract but one of the arguments for that contract is that the parties to the social contract ‘must be situated reasonably, that is fairly or symmetrically with no one having superior bargaining advantages over the...
john tons from adelaide
In response to: how stupid is America's ruling class?
Say NO to "mutual obligation" - in any guise
January 24, 2025
That unemployed people are burdened with mutual obligation 'work' is an abomination. To suggest that volunteering be part of that coercive package is an oxymoron that adds insult to injury. A small number of people are either incapable or simply don't want to work. The truth is, the vast majority of unemployed people do want a job. These people are forced to jump through so many time-consuming Centrelink hoops. Adding mutual obligation eats into job search time and energy of the majority merely to satisfy a lust for vengeance towards the few. If there's real work to be...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Reimagining public housing: the transformative potential of Centrelink’s Voluntary work program
Jews are not responsible for the war in Gaza
January 24, 2025
The article in today's P&I, Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide by David Lockwood, is a quite appalling article that essentially holds Jews in Australia who support Israel as bearing some responsibility for the war in Gaza. It also trivialises the antisemitism that is occurring almost daily in Australia. It even manages to trivialise the labelling of the fire-bombing of the Adass Synagogue as an act of terrorism. Conflating the antisemitism in Australia with the war in Gaza isn't simply political comment, it gaslights the lived experience of Jews in Australia and discounts the seriousness of what...
Harold Zwier from Melbourne
In response to: Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide
David Lockwood is making assumptions re attacks
January 24, 2025
David Lockwood, in his article on the anti-semitic attacks against synagogues, says, we can assume that both these incidents of vandalism (sorry, ‘terrorism’) were misguided attempts to protest against the Israeli genocide against Palestine. That assumption may be correct, but it is also possible that the extreme right or nazis were responsible, hoping to encourage disharmony in the community. All the anti- semitic attacks must be condemned and certainly don't help the Palestinian cause. Not completely out of the question is that some may have been done by zionists or their supporters, hoping that Palestinian supporters will be...
Kath Kelly from Canberra
In response to: Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide
The Genocide will Continue if Morale Improves
January 24, 2025
Alison Broinowski's prediction is a statement of the inevitable rather than a possible future scenario. Everything we have seen coming from the Netanyahu government / the IDF since 07/10/2024 is primary evidence for her forecast. Netanyahu's entire future depends upon his retaining the political leadership of Israel and by that, avoiding the Damoclean sword of almost certain guilty verdicts in regard to his personal corruption - let alone his status as a designated war criminal by the ICJ. Almost as a side note to the news coverage of the first release of Israeli hostages was a mention that...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW 2575
In response to: Netanyahu intends to attack Gaza as soon as hostages are released
It's always the Palestinians' fault... Not!
January 24, 2025
I've always respected Jack Waterford's writing but this ... the war on Gaza ... was consciously started by Hamas, which ... has long been provoking Israel, … brought me up short. Hamas consciously started this genocide? (It's not a war.) Please show me the proof. Long provoking Israel? How convenient to ignore almost a century of provocation by Israel itself and its predecessor terrorist groups. Compared to the combined Israel-US might, anything Hamas could inflict is an irritation in comparison. The Palestinian death toll has always far exceeded Israel's. There were, and are, thousands upon thousands of Palestinian hostages,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthron VIC 3122
In response to: Laurel-less Biden limps for the exit. Will Albanese be next?
We need to look in the mirror
January 24, 2025
No wonder China looks at us with contempt. ... the PRC has a dark history of human rights abuses. Before criticising China, and not justifying Chinese abuses, maybe we should get our own house in order. Australian abuses include our treatment of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, the way we treat refugees and asylum seekers, our jailing of people with mental health issues rather than providing medical care, and, most recently, clamping down on those protesting Israeli genocide. Just for starters. I concede that our journalists aren't muzzled by the government. The Murdoch press has its own 'useful'...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Vassal states of the imperial order pay homage to their US master
Balanced coverage of hostage release
January 24, 2025
We celebrate the release of hostages, be they Israeli or Palestinian. But watch the MSM to see if they give the same granular coverage to both. So far I have seen 33 released Israeli hostages and their pictures and one Palestinian. We know the length of captivity for the Israelis, but what are the most and least lengths for the Palestinians? And Israeli troops are reportedly still murdering people in the northeast part of Palestine. That must stop.
Geoff Taylor from Riverton
In response to: Gaza ceasefire deal: Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti’s release