Since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, through the following months of disproportionate and incomprehensible Israeli vengeance wreaked upon the Palestinian people, the seismic waves from Gaza have been felt near the surface of Australian democracy itself. Reputedly we live in a robust democracy but the current situation in the Middle East has exposed fissures Continue reading »
Israel / Palestine
In Australia, the ‘Anzac Cloak’ is appropriated, proselytised, prostituted and promoted far too often for perfidious reasons: to lend some dubious activity gravitas and shield it from criticism. Internationally, another ‘Cloak’ has arisen from the horrific circumstances of the Holocaust. Instead of being the touchstone for solemn commemoration of the manifold injustices visited upon the Continue reading »
What does it mean when good people do bad things? This has been an eternal question and one raised yet again as the world watches Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians and the cheering Israelis, most of them, calling for more and more blood, slaughter, and atrocities to be committed against civilians. Not only are they Continue reading »
March 7, Evening, Washington D.C. : Joe Biden announces an incredible plan to provide a route for aid into Gaza, with no American ‘boots on the ground’. Incredible: too extraordinary and improbable to be believed. At least, unless one is a serious conspiracy theorist, because this idea is staggeringly stupid or of Machiavellian cunning. This Continue reading »
It’s 8 pm in Gaza, Palestine right now, the end of my fourth day in Rafah and the first moment I’ve had to sit in a quiet place to reflect. I’ve tried to take notes, photos, mental images, but this moment is too big for a notepad or my struggling memory. Nothing prepared me for Continue reading »
For five months now, our screens have been bombarded by images depicting Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza. This extraordinary footage, this apocalyptic scene, shows just how widespread that destruction has been. Israel is still denying foreign journalists independent access to Gaza. We’re in Israel, about a kilometre from the border, reports the ABC’s Continue reading »
The deplorable vandalism of our sacred space by individuals, who, most likely have never experienced war and its consequences, staggers the imagination, writes Gavin O’Brein after “Eyes on Gaza” was spray painted on the Vietnam war memorial, Canberra. I am a Vietnam Veteran, a conscript under National Service, who spent just under a year deployed Continue reading »
The scale of deliberate Israeli cruelty against the Gazan people over the past five months is still difficult for Australians to absorb. But internationally, a key political fact has clearly emerged: that Israel, the US and their supportive Western allies (like Australia, to our nation’s shame) have now shredded any moral standing on the issue of Continue reading »
Two significant acts invited to play WOMADelaide 2024 have been treated in vastly different ways in recent months by the Director, Ian Scobie. One head-line act, renowned reggae singer/songwriter, Ziggy Marley, has faced strong calls to be cancelled due to his support of the apartheid state of Israeli, yet his inclusion was defended by WOMADelaide’ Continue reading »
As I write, it’s exactly four months since October 7, 2023, when Hamas breached the border between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and, with others following, Islamic Jihad or simply enraged civilians, embarked upon what was undoubtedly a killing spree. Yet in its aftermath, it is not too farfetched to assert that we in Continue reading »