The dead children don’t affect me like they used to. The images. The videos. They still disturb and horrify, but not like they did in the beginning. Not anywhere close. And, honestly, I hate it. I hate that that part of me has been stolen. As much as I hated having my heart kicked around Continue reading »
Israel / Palestine
Israel has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war. It has been morally bankrupted by the sanctification of victimhood, which it uses to justify an occupation that is even more savage than that of apartheid South Africa. Its ‘democracy’ — which was always exclusively for Jews — has been hijacked by extremists who are Continue reading »
A majority of Australians want a ceasefire in Gaza, but the Australian Parliament seems more preoccupied with political brinkmanship than recognition of this tragedy. The first parliamentary debate occurred immediately after the Hamas attack on Israel when this atrocity was immediately condemned recognising the human impact of this act of terrorism. Yet for the last Continue reading »
In answer to Chas Freeman’s devastating question: “Does Israel deserve to exist?” 9 JUNE—Chas Freeman’s question has haunted me since he first articulated it three months ago in a conversation with Aaron Maté and Katie Halper on Useful Idiots podcast: Does Israel have a right to exist [is] a rather strange question because it does Continue reading »
What is it about the Australian Jewish community, Australian Jewish ‘faith’ schools and Israel? Israel is another country, with its own raison d’être, decidedly blood-soaked. The young Israel had been created out of settler colonialism and terrorism in a country with a majority indigenous non-Jewish population. Australian Jewish families are Australian with a long history. Continue reading »
Last week activists in Brisbane CBD took their voices and violin to the doorstop of giant American weapons and aircraft company Boeing. To denounce Boeing, along with other US, Australian and UK based ammunition and weapons manufacturers for prolonging the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine in order to make huge profits from civilian suffering Continue reading »
This year, as the world celebrated the holiday season, my Palestinian Christian community in Sydney, and elsewhere, experienced profound bereavement and fear, a sentiment shared by our Muslim and Jewish siblings. This year, I wondered for the first time, if my people’s culture, that of the Palestinian Christians, continuous since Jesus of Nazareth walked our Continue reading »
I dug a hole in the garden I don’t why just felt like digging Just broke up with my girlfriend I needed something … something to do Soon I’d dug so deep The sky was just a window above me But I didn’t care … mmm Looking for something deeper Jackson Jackson (2006) The parallels Continue reading »
“Israel must immediately stop its military operations and attacks in Gaza, including the assault on Rafah,” said the chair of the United Nations commission behind the investigation. A United Nations commission tasked with conducting an in-depth investigation of Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories concluded Wednesday that Israel’s government is responsible for multiple war crimes Continue reading »
It’s been a month since I relocated to a new town. It’s been traumatic. The emotions have run wild and the somatic reactions strong. At the epicentre of this emotional firestorm is a deep, wounding sense of dislocation, of severed connections with people and place. As I began to reflect on all this, I found Continue reading »