For Australian-German author and journalist Antony Loewenstein, Gaza was rarely a place to fear as a Jew. Living and working in East Jerusalem, before the war, he was a visitor to the Palestinian enclave, enjoying its seafood, its culture, its hospitality, and its people. “I thought it was important as a Jew, to say to Continue reading »
politics
The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is a constant presence in Australia’s mainstream media. Its predominant role is to defend the state of Israel come hell or high water. Whenever someone appears in the media criticising Israel and/or supporting the Palestinian cause, AIJAC personnel pop up to set the reader straight. AIJAC complains about Continue reading »
When Labour Governments moved to protect native forest in the past – Hawke, Wran, Gallop, Kirner, Beattie, Carr – they knew that they were protecting irreplaceable natural values and resources. Even as late as the early 2000s however, the role of forests in climate change mitigation was little known. It was certainly not a matter Continue reading »
The late historian Paul Schroeder offered insights into how to bring Russia into a collective security arrangement. With the death of scholar Paul Schroeder, international historians lost one of their most innovative and distinguished practitioners. Schroeder’s approach to the study of international relations was ideational: it is not power or interests alone that shapes the Continue reading »
Keeping silent, while a genocide is in full swing for all to see, is not good for social cohesion. These days any expression of grief over the genocide in Gaza is regarded as a threat to social cohesion. Any expression of moral clarity is labelled antisemitic. A large number of us are expected to keep silent and Continue reading »
From targeting humanitarian vehicles to standing by as mobs attack trucks, Israel is blocking aid from reaching Gaza.
The post The State Department Says Israel Isn’t Blocking Aid. Videos Show the Opposite. appeared first on The Intercept.
American elites are squandering the country’s global standing and political capital defending the indefensible with Israel’s genocidal war. When you not only defend but actively enable genocide and the mass murder of children, all norms and standards in human decency go out the window. That’s what’s happening to the ruling and media elites in the Continue reading »
When the taxi driver in Eritrea’s capital city, Asmara, realised I was Australian, he would not accept payment, and instead, spent the duration of the trip telling me of Eritrea’s national debt to Fred Hollows. Fred had performed eye surgery on Eritrean and Ethiopian freedom fighters as they battled and eventually overthrew the military dictatorship Continue reading »
An unnecessarily conservative budget from the government and a pathetic response from the opposition, how we are so generous to Western Australia, the Coalition and nukes, the disgrace of McBride’s jail sentence. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Because of Continue reading »
At last weekend’s Victorian Writers Festival three authors – two of them also bookshop owners and one of them an author and enthusiastic supporter of bookshops – talked about books and the threat to reading. Ann Patchett and her husband own Parnassus Books in Nashville Tennessee. Lauren Groff, another novelist and her husband Clay Kallman, Continue reading »