Gazans experiencing 688 days of bombing and killing now face Netanyahu’s latest final solution the destruction of Gaza City and displacement of the surviving population.

In despair and in response to the Gaza City horrors, an Australian Palestinian describes the depths of Israeli barbarism.

’It is already too late. My family, my father, my sister, my cousins in Gaza City face two choices, be killed or displaced. Israeli tanks are a few kms away, the bombings unimaginable, people are already pushed to the heart of the city. Random missiles are hitting constantly, paving the way for the arrival of troops.

I say to the media and to Australian politicians, you have been talking about 2 million people in the abstract. These are people I have hugged, eaten and laughed with. They live through unbelievable suffering. They have been displaced many times already but the message from the Israeli troops is ‘be ready to move again.’ Many are not able to walk, so people stay in what is left of their homes. They stay not because of bombs but to conserve their energy because there is no food. Please ask your friends to stop this holocaust of the 21st century and describe it as it is.

The urgency of my appeal contrasts utterly with the careful politeness of television interviewers, and the somewhat abstract descriptions relayed by Australian media since the invasion of Gaza City began, since the recent ‘tragic mishap’ murders of reporters, doctors and patients in Nasser Hospital.

If intervention to save lives is not immediately possible, at least interviewers and commentators’ language could reflect the plight of a people, should cease being so fearfully polite about this co-called Israeli ‘war.’

A different language is needed and is possible.

Consider the last two ABC television 7:30 Report interviews with Israeli enthusiasts for punishment, by death, destruction and famine. Sarah Ferguson had the task of interviewing the evangelical zealot, the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckerbee followed a week later by an exchange with an aggressive Israeli Minister Amichai Chikli.

When they must have known that Huckerbee and Chikli would be thrilled with the chance to promote Israeli policies, you’d have to ask, ‘Who in heaven’s name influenced the ABC to stage these interviews?’

That left Sarah Ferguson to deal with Huckerbee primed to be a bully by Netanayahu, each man claiming to know everything about a ‘weak’ Australian Prime Minister.

Although Ferguson tried to halt the Huckerbee tirade, at no time was he asked: ‘do you believe what you are saying, as a human being are you happy to promote a slaughter of innocents, even for one minute can you really refute evidence of a man made famine?’

That is the sort of language - courageous and fair - is craved by Palestinians who can only watch the latest elimination of their people.

After Huckerbee came a 7:30 performance by Minister Chikli. This time the usually astute Ferguson was all at sea, ill informed, ill prepared. Chikli repeated ‘Hamas, Hamas’, Israel was only fighting Hamas. To her credit Sarah Ferguson did manage to ask how this character felt about small children dying of hunger, but like a never ending missile, his ‘Hamas’ barrage carried on. At no point was he asked, ‘As a matter of balance, have you given any thought to the decades of slaughter by Israeli terrorists and the IDF, those deaths of Palestinians vastly outnumbering the killings by Hamas in 2023? How can you claim this war is all about Hamas?’

By contrast with attempts at professional journalism on the 7:30 Report, Prime Minister Netanyahu was then gifted his chance to give a sanctimonious, abusive monologue to an ever ingratiating, obsequious interviewer on Sky News. Even if the Sky News audience is limited, this piece of media disgrace, appeared to imply that the children of Gaza were an enemy.

Far from being polite, the Sky News’ ‘Israel all the way’ operator was openly partisan, so too the corporation which helped to obtain an infamous exclusive. Even the experienced journalist Michael Gawenda, usually sympathetic towards Israel, said of the Sky News interviewer,’ This was not journalism. Not a single challenging question.’

Then, at last, across the airwaves, came language which reflected the current horrors in Gaza City, in Nasser hospital, regarding murder at food distribution points, and in relation to months of carpet bombing of a defences less people. At long last, an influential leader spoke truth to power.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia described the actions in Gaza of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his regime as inhumane and beyond the bounds of sanity. ‘I have never seen read or heard in recent times people as cruel as this. Netanyahu and his ilk are truly deranged.’

Reality shown. No politeness. Nothing abstract. Language honest, appealing, humane.

Courageous, reality-based commentary may not halt displacement from Gaza City, but it expresses alternatives to a tragedy in which journalists, politicians, church and university leaders have been complicit. They have not valued Palestinians’ descriptions and appeal. They have lazily repeated the offensive but polite cliché that Israel has a right to defend itself.

This week, politics and media commentators can introduce a new language by referring to the UN’s Uniting in Peace Resolution 377a (V), which says that - regarding a complete absence of peace and security, (as in Palestine) - if the Security Council fails to act due to lack of unanimity among members, the General Assembly can initiate sanctions or force.

Herewith a different use of language, with possible life saving outcomes. One way of responding to the appeal of my Palestinian friends.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.