Unfortunately, without Peter Dutton’s cooperation, we can expect more of the same. Without it, constitutional changes and an Australian Head of State are just fantasies.
But let’s not kid ourselves, Dutton’s desperate turn to Rinehart may give him the backer of the richest woman in the world. But neither the desperate lunge towards nuclear power nor his rich and powerful friend, nor promoting his rivals, will prevent his political career crashing and burning around him. He’s up shit creek as they say in Canberra.
Comedian Seth Meyers used his late night show’s “A Closer Look” segment to give a succinct (and funny) reminder of exactly who the Republican candidate for president of the United States is.
Source: Seth Meyers Brings You ‘Trump In 90 Seconds’ | Crooks and Liars
From immersive art to personal essays and first-person novels, our culture is obsessed the idea of individual experience. Anna Kornbluh, the author of Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism, spoke to Jacobin about why.
Source: Why Is Our Culture So Obsessed With Individual Experience?
Every religion is rooted in core beliefs or dogmas but is judged or weighed by the character it espouses and the values with which it identifies. Belief is verified or condemned by the way life is lived. Christianity is known to espouse “love your neighbour as yourself” or, “do to others as you would have them do to you”, or, “do not judge”, or “forgive others” etc. By those critical of any value in religious expression it is rightly weighed by the lived quality of these characteristics. Often, Judaism has shamefully been characterised in the negative, such prejudicial characterisation rightly called ‘antisemitism’. I wish to do the reverse, to speak of the essential virtue of Judaism which has clearly been abandoned by the State of Israel.
Source: Israel and Judaism part company – Pearls and Irritations
‘A person who can justify genocide, a person who can commit genocide, I can’t count him as a Jew. People (who) justify genocide, they are more Nazis than Jews,’ Orthodox Rabbi Elhanan Beck tells Anadolu
Source: ‘Bloodshed after bloodshed’: Israel fails to bring safety to Jewish people, says rabbi
Biden administration is pushing Hamas to accept the terms on the table, claiming that a “rational” offer had been made for a six-week truce in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. The White House statements seem to be “a very politically calculated move so that they can essentially point the blame at Hamas if this fails,” says Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. Mustafa also provides updates on UNRWA’s collapsing operations, repression in the West Bank and the utility of international law for Palestine today.
But then, after a few seconds, Harris added: “for at least the next six weeks,” qualifying what at first sounded like an unequivocal ceasefire call.
Source: Biden’s regime change agenda prolongs Gaza genocide | The Electronic Intifada
“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.”
Source: UN Human Rights Chief Decries ‘War Crime’ of Rapidly Expanding Israeli Settlements
Denied access to the world and hemmed in on land by barbed wire and electric fences, the Mediterranean shores used to be the singular place for Palestinians in Gaza to breathe in the majesty of God’s earth.
Source: On the floors of genocide: sand, shit, decomposing flesh and odd slippers | The Electronic Intifada
Palestinians across the West Bank describe how Israeli settlers, with military backing, are intensifying their takeover of land for illegal construction.
Source: A new surge of settler outposts is terrorizing Palestinians off their land
Israel is escalating its provocations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in the wake of the holy month of Ramadan, despite claims that it is attempting to prevent further escalation.
Source: Will Ramadan tip the West Bank into eruption? | The Electronic Intifada
Abdelhadi says that by arming Israel while offering limited aid to the starving population of Gaza, the Biden administration is “effectively holding a gun to Palestinians’ heads, shooting at them with one hand and throwing crumbs at them with the other.” Adding that campaigners plan to hold Biden electorally accountable for his continued support for Israel. “We are going to make sure that the DNC knows where we stand on this issue.”
Neta Heiman Mina, a member of the Israeli chapter of Women Wage Peace, whose 84-year-old mother, Ditza Heiman, was one of the hostages released during the temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in November. Meanwhile, Mina calls on the Israeli government “to do everything we can” to return the remaining hostages, including an immediate ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners. “This genocide has been going on for 152 days, and it is 100% an American project,”
The Liberal Party has been replaced by a neo-conservative one, actively supporting rich individual identities against a collective one, and old-style Liberalism no longer has a voice.
Labor, as is usual, has come to power during a crisis and is managing its wimpy grip on power, unable to make the hard decisions it knows it promised less Dutton denies his support yet again. There is little or no difference between the Liberals and the National Party, who seem irrelevant as a political force in doing anything that benefits our democracy.
Pramila Patten’s report has done nothing to uncover any evidence to back up Israel’s claims. It has only handed Israel more deceitful propaganda to further its genocide against Palestinians and its attack on the UN.
Source: UN report launders Israel’s fraudulent “mass rape” propaganda | The Electronic Intifada
Hamas and Hizbullah have never in their entire history committed known sexual offenses as their religious-moral code strictly prohibits such deeds. Moreover, the document argues that many Israeli civilians are actually armed settlers or reservists in the occupation army.
Significantly, Hamas declared its willingness to accept an independent and fair investigation and expressed confidence that they will prove their innocence.
In the document, Hamas calls on the U.S., Germany, Canada and the U.K. in particular to allow the International Criminal Court to conduct an investigation of the crimes that were committed. Of course, neither the U.S. nor Israel would allow the ICC to conduct an investigation that would inevitably document crimes by Israel.
The document did not get any attention in the Western press because the West treats Israel as truthful and Arabs as liars: old Orientalist cliches.
Above all, it lets weak Secretary of State Antony Blinken and duplicitous President Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll by taunting them: What about Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
As a percentage of the total population being killed, Gaza can expose the Israeli ruling racist extremists to a stronger rebuttal for ending U.S. co-belligerent complicity in this never-to-be-forgotten slaughter of mostly children and women. (The terrifying PTSD on civilians, especially children, will continue for years.)
Respecting the more accurate casualty toll of Palestinian children, mothers, and fathers presses harder for permanent cease-fires and the process of recovery and reparations for the survivors of their holocaust.
Source: The Real Gaza Death Toll
Thursday that around 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza are suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, and lack of adequate medical care. Malnourished pregnant mothers can’t feed their fetuses; Gaza’s youngest starvation fatality was reportedly just 1 day old.
Source: ‘Complete Madness’: Israel Blocks Food Aid as More Gaza Children Starve to Death
Britain’s two main parties are still defending Israel’s war on the people of Gaza despite overwhelming public support for a cease-fire. Rishi Sunak’s government would rather attack democratic rights in Britain than withdraw its support for war crimes.
Source: Slaughter in Gaza Has Discredited Britain’s Political Class
You might want to argue with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ view expressed in November 2023 that the Gaza Strip was even then a “graveyard for children”. An unimaginably small area (365 square kilometres; Greater Sydney is 34 times its size), it is – perhaps was – the most densely populated area on earth. As relevant, half the population of Gaza is under the age of 18.
Othering” is humanity’s original sin. Yet, for the first time in recorded history, we are direct witnesses to what we cause one another in the name of religion, racism and/or political ideology. Witnesses, too, to what we “cause” when from relative safety we respond with boredom, cynicism, indifference, hatred – or the delusion that extreme behaviours “typify” this group or that. But not “us”.
Our responses cannot end there. The most urgent challenge facing our human family is to call out evil wherever we see it, strenuously resisting our conditioned inclinations to excuse or even forgive what “we” do…and to see injustice, evil – and the greatest of wrongdoing – only in what “others” do. The world’s children need saving NOW from the terrors of the past living on in the terrors of the present.
It is not Plato but the historical Buddha who is attributed with the earth-shaking teaching: “We are what we think. With our thoughts, we make the world.” The “making” of our world, of our minds, must change. It must change now. We must change now. There is no Plan B for failure, not in Gaza, not in Israel, not anywhere.
Source: How have we come to this? “Othering” is humanity’s original sin – Pearls and Irritations
Arguments over whether Israelis or Palestinians count as “really indigenous” are beside the point. No one’s human rights should depend on their ethnicity or religion or where their ancestors come from.
Source: No One’s Rights Should Depend on Where Their Ancestors Lived
The Gaza war, however, is confronting the world with an unprecedented challenge, specifically to governments’ relationship with international law and their obligations to international institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and others.
This article is from a contributor who asked to remain anonymous Jewish Ethnic Groups and Genealogy: Sephardic Jews, Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews Histori …
Zionism is anti-Semitism – in the true sense of the word.
Zionism prejudices, discriminates against, and oppresses Semites – both Arabs and Jews. Those
who practice true forms of Judaism view all human beings as equals. Their prime aspiration is to be
altruistic through a vocation of their passion, and strive to make the world a better place – regardless
of their habitation. The fundamental principles of Zionism oppose and undermine these tenets.
Source: The Law of Return and the Zionist Campaign to Subvert Science | – IMEMC News
“When people ask, ‘What do you want Joe Biden to do?’ the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals,” said one campaigner.
Source: ‘Unconscionable’: Biden Has Approved 100+ Arms Sales to Israel in Just Five Months
How linguistic warfare manipulates narratives in the ongoing Gaza conflict Language, crafting a narrative that strips us Palestinians of our humanity, portraying our resistance as illegitimate, and branding it as either antisemitism or terrorism
Israel’s ploy, labeling all our resistance, even peaceful actions like economic boycotts, as terrorism.
With 75 years marked by ethnic cleansing, 56 years of military occupation, and 17 years of siege on Gaza, we find our people ensnared in an ongoing genocide. The toll is unbearable: more than 30,000 people killed, 70,000 injured, and many more trapped beneath the rubble.
Despite being labeled differently, the deal compelled the world to acknowledge the presence of 7,200 Palestinian individuals, including men, women, and children in Israeli prisons. Prisoners or Hostages?
The Reality it’s also being sold in the International discourse in the English speaking world Fox, NYT,
Tectonic shifts in Israeli broadcasting have played a key role in shaping the country’s nationalist and militaristic discourse, with Oct. 7 marking their apex.
These shifts are not a deviation from the norm. They are the apex of historical transformations that have fundamentally changed Israeli media and TV news, combined with outlets’ ad-hoc decision to display and prove their patriotism. Unfortunately, if coverage of the Gaza war is any indication, these trends are likely to continue, aggravating the ever-propelled cycle that pushes the Israeli media and the Israeli public to be more right-wing, conformist, militaristic, and nationalistic.
Source: Journalism out, hasbara in: How Israeli TV news joined the Gaza war effort
Israel’s Claim “Only Strategic Targeting”
A preliminary investigation by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor affirmed that bullets that killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians waiting for food aid are the same type fired by Israeli troops’ guns.
Source: Bullets Found at Gaza Flour Massacre Site Belie Israel’s ‘Stampede’ Claim
Even as this in extremis tool is being used, US made military hardware continues to be used at will by the Israel Defence Forces. The point was not missed on Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch: “We have a situation where the US is airdropping aid on day one, and Israel is dropping bombs on day two. And the American taxpayer is paying for the aid and the bombs.”
Source: Aiding Those We Kill: US Humanitarianism in Gaza – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Meanwhile half of American adults believe Israel has gone too far in Gaza, which means half of Americans have more common sense than either Trump or Biden.
As for Trump, as usual nothing he said was true. Iran was not behind the October 7 attack on Israel, and in fact was entirely taken by surprise, according to a CIA assessment. For this reason, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Hamas official Ismail Haniya that Iran would not intervene militarily on the side of Hamas in the current conflict.
Iran is still broke, since the Biden administration has kept Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran intact. This policy is unwise, since it pushed Iran into the arms of Russia, which gained a strategic asset in its struggle against Ukraine, and because being on a permanent war footing with another country can easily spiral into a shooting war. Iran got around Trump by smuggling oil to China, and it is getting around Biden the same way.
As for destroying a clan-based resistance movement like Hamas by brutalizing the civilian population within which it operates, that was also the US plan for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Source: Trump, Like Biden, supports Israeli Campaign against Gaza: “You’ve got to finish the Problem”
It is impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza. The death toll in Gaza is staggering. More than 30,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in just 150 days. 5% of the population is dead, injured or missing. Doctors are amputating the limbs of injured children without anaesthetic. Hunger is everywhere. A man-made famine is looming. It is a stain on our collective conscience that for 75 years UNRWA has had to fill a vacuum left by the lack of a political solution and a genuine peace. And yet UNRWA is now facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them, writes UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
Source: UNRWA is at a breaking point – Pearls and Irritations
How is it NATO supplies a report significantly different to the one Israel produced and the this report is independent of IDF influence.
Clearly, the aim was not to kill civilians, but rather to obtain a bargaining chip for the release of some 5,300 prisoners held by Israel. Eyewitness accounts in the Israeli press suggest that the original idea was to take only military prisoners (who are “more valuable” than civilians for an exchange). These same accounts show that the Palestinians were surprised to find so few military personnel on site, which can be explained by the fact that part of the garrisons had been redeployed to the West Bank a few weeks earlier. Yasmin Porat’s testimony, mentioned above, shows that Hamas fighters stayed with civilians in their homes, waiting for the security forces to intervene. The testimonies indicate that the Palestinian fighters left with civilian prisoners only after the Israeli military had intervened, firing indiscriminately into the houses with their tanks. It therefore appears that the capture of civilians was more the result of a combination of circumstances than a decision taken in advance.
The death of civilians was therefore not an objective, and the fact that the freed hostages declared that they had been treated with respect, and even in a friendly manner, tends to confirm that this was not a “pogrom” against the Israeli population.
“It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end.”
Source: Groups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is one of several Western leaders who have provided political and material support of the Israeli government and military over the past five months as their bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 30,000 people, but on Monday he became the first to be referred to the International Criminal Court for being an “accessory to genocide.”
An Israeli invasion of Rafah will not alter the battlefield in favor of the Israeli army, but it will be horrific for the displaced Palestinians, writes Ramzy Baroud.
To say there’s a difference between Biden and Trump is like Israel saying “A record of 277 trucks entered Gaza today we care”. AIPAC will support Trump.
There are limits to Biden’s support for Netanyahu. Trump and the Republican Party have none.
Source: On Israel, Trump Is Even Worse Than Biden – The Intercept
UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian refugee relief agency, has faced severe funding cuts after Israel dubiously accused the organization of ties to Hamas. We spoke with a director of UNRWA in Jordan about the impact of the cuts.
And this at a time of war, mass dislodgement and impending famine, and when the allegations – still unsubstantiated – were directed at roughly 0.1 per cent of the UN agency’s estimated 13,000 Gaza staff members.
I thought about this abject failure of the international community and the failure of so many Jewish people to condemn an Israeli government so utterly hijacked by right-wing extremists, messianic radicals, hooligan settlers and a morally bankrupt prime minister.
The Israeli government had for months been preventing sufficient aid from entering Gaza, and Palestinians were now eating grass and drinking putrid water. Hundreds were being forced to share one latrine. Children were beginning to die of famine, and even aid workers were starving to death. Virtually every hospital had been damaged or destroyed. Doctors, nurses, artists, students, teachers, journalists, entire families and children, thousands upon thousands of children, all dead.
“I have never in my many, many years as an aid worker seen a place that has been so bombarded for such a long time, with such a trapped population, without any escape,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Source: Israel war: IDF’s killing of innocent Palestinians has given me no choice but to speak out
“It’s not true,” said the kibbutz spokesperson, of one of the stories featured in the paper’s controversial article.
Source: Kibbutz Be’eri on New York Times Sexual Assault Story: “Not True”
Many well-intentioned Americans are laboring to convince themselves and their neighbors that Biden-Trump 2.0 is something more than a depressing rerun: It’s also, yet again — and for perhaps the third time — a decisive showdown between fascism and democracy. Both things may be true, and there’s no doubt that this election could have dramatic real-world consequences. But to the rest of the world, it looks more like a dismal sideshow, and the notion that it will determine the planet’s future looks like another narcissistic Yank delusion: Our blind, bumbling Colossus will continue its decline, no matter which of the old guys wins.
Source: America in 2024: Blind, blundering Colossus on a downward slide | Salon.com
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Donald Trump to appear on every state’s ballot, despite a constitutional provision barring from office insurrectionists who had previously sworn to support the Constitution. All nine justices agreed that states have no power to bar presidential candidates under Section 3 of the 14th amendment. But five of the six Republican-appointed justices went much further. This narrow majority ruled that only Congress can create the procedure for disqualifying insurrectionists from federal office—and they reserved considerable power for the Supreme Court to make the final decision.
Source: The Supreme Court Went Out of Its Way to Protect Trump – Mother Jones
The spokespersons are in damage control. Their country’s reputation as a respectful law abiding state must be maintained, even with a pack of lies.
The Nakba tragedy of 1948 is only one chapter in the development of a violent settler colonialism which has produced a terrorist Israeli state.
Obscuring the criminality of elites and giving cover to genocide requires effort and a commitment to the power of elites. How much easier would it be to call a spade a spade and simply tell the truth?
Source: Tell the Truth About Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity – CounterPunch.org
Receiving the Jerusalem Peace Prize is a great honour and I am overwhelmed and humbled indeed. It is particularly poignant at this time as Palestinians in both Occupied Gaza and West Bank are suffering unbelievable, horrific hardship and brutal violations of their basic human rights, for life, for shelter, water and food.
While US President Joe Biden has recently announced a plan to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza, David Harden, a former director of the US Agency for International Development has criticized this plan as “ineffective” in practice, and a symbol of the Biden administration attempting to “paper over a massive failure.”
Most academic institutions around the world remain silent about Israel’s scholasticide. But others are speaking out. Globally, this includes Librarians and Archivists with Palestine and some academic associations and faculty groups. The ICJ’s recent order to Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza may motivate other scholars and institutions to consider breaking their silence on scholasticide.The Conversation
Source: The War in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s Education and Knowledge Systems
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