If I were going to commit a genocide, I’d make sure to kill as many women and children as possible to eliminate the future generations of the people I was trying to wipe out. Come to think of it, I guess I’d basically do what Israel is doing in Gaza.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: If I Were Going To Commit Genocide
The Israeli government is putting pressure on the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz to line up in support of the government in its conduct of the war in Gaza.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll there since October 7 has surpassed 15,500. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70 per cent of the dead were women and children. It said more than 41,000 people had been wounded.
Source: Israel Hamas: South Gaza ground invasion feared, tanks heard near Khan Younis
Israeli Democracy Hipocracy
Israel is taking a variety of actions to crack down on any form of support for the Palestinian cause.
Following the October 7 Hamas attack, Israel has been clamping down on pro-Palestinian sentiment within its borders, including passing an amendment to its counterterrorism law that has been criticised for violating civil and human rights.
Much has changed for Jews and Palestinians living inside Israel since the Hamas attack, which killed about 1,200 people, and the subsequent devastation wrought by Israel on Gaza, which has killed more than 14,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
One of the highest daily death tolls since the war began as Israeli army targets Jabalia refugee camp for a second day.
The Wall Street Journal published details about the White House’s secretive arms transfers to Israel since October 7. The US has provided Israel with 57,000 artillery shells and 15,000 bombs, including over 5,000 with 2,000-pound warheads.
Source: US Sent Israel 15,000 Bombs Since October 7 – scheerpost.com
THE HUMAN COST of Israel’s war on Gaza has become increasingly difficult to fathom. Air strikes and a ground assault into Gaza have left over 14,800 Palestinians dead, with over 6,000 being children. Currently, over 1.7 million or 80 per cent of Gazans are internally displaced.
Peter Dutton is shooting of his mouth playing the victim and considering filing for defamation again but this time suing a federal Labor MP.
To lag behind international decarbonisation would be a competitive disadvantage for Australia as other nations increasingly adopt low emissions technologies and trade barriers towards high emitting nations.
The report found more than 70 per cent of people going through Workforce Australia had their welfare payments suspended for breaching compliance regulations. Between 35 and 50 per cent of people whose payments had been suspended more than 10 times were Indigenous Australians.
Research from Anglicare Australia suggested up to 20 per cent of people had their payments suspended even though it was not their fault.
In one case heard by the inquiry, a woman attended an appointment with a service provider but it was not recorded. The following day, she received a text saying her welfare payment was being suspended, leaving her unable to pay her rent.
Source: “The… – The Fiberal Party of Australia – Lies & Misdemeanours | Facebook
Many countries in the Global South will welcome less expensive Chinese EV brands. But to slow Chinese EV dominance, advanced countries are almost certain to raise existing barriers or impose quotas that limit the Chinese share of the market. EVs could well exemplify the fragmentation of world trade.
Source: China’s electric vehicle surge will shock global markets – Pearls and Irritations
Australia’s defence export program has recently come under scrutiny for its lack of transparency, particularly in relation to whether approved export permits are providing material support to Israel’s war against Hamas. Lauren Sanders, an expert in war crimes enforcement, reports.
Source: How much do we know about Australia’s weapons export to Israel? – Michael West
It cannot expect the world to turn a blind eye to the genocide it is committing in plain sight, with the support of the US. The short ceasefire – which allowed some humanitarian aid to enter the besieged enclave and the Palestinians to bury their dead and wrap their wounds as much as they can – is expected to end soon. Israel will likely continue with its indiscriminate bombardment and suffocating total siege on Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the brief truce. Israel’s war on Palestinians may be far from over, but it has already lost the war of public opinion.
Source: Israel has lost the war of public opinion | Opinions | Al Jazeera
Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields. You’ve heard the claim echoed ad nauseam in Western corporate media. Yet numerous reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights groups have found the allegations, which are brought to bear by Israeli officials nearly every time Gaza hits the news, to not only be untrue, they’ve discovered that Israel itself has consistently engaged in wanton use of Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields.
As Israel resumes its bombing of Gaza, the risk of a wider regional war grows. Mouin Rabbani analyzes the military and propaganda battles between Hamas and Israel.
You have Israel’s clownish representative to the United Nations, who attends security council meetings wearing a concentration camp outfit, or at least the yellow star, and demanding the immediate resignation of the U.N. Secretary General, whose position … He hasn’t named Israel once as responsible for anything. But he demanded his immediate resignation simply because he made the obvious factual observation that the attacks of October 7th were not the beginning of the history of this conflict, and is demanding resignations left and right.
For Israel, slaughtering 15,000 people in a month, conducting the most intensive bombing in the history of the Middle East — and we’re talking about the Middle East, not Scandinavia — has become perfectly normal. It is a state that has become thoroughly incapable of any form of inhibition. I would argue that the Israeli regime is a clear and present danger to peace in the Middle East, and, rather than drawing any conclusions, rather than or in addition to having a discussion and debate about how Israeli-Palestinian peace might be achieved, we should also be asking ourselves, should that peace be achieved? Or, rather, can it only be achieved by dismantling a regime and its key institutions the way that was done in Europe in the 1940s, in Southeast Asia in the 1970s, in South Africa in the 1990s, Southern Africa in the 1990s, and I’m sure there are other examples as well.
And, just to be clear, I’m not talking about expulsion of Israeli citizens or whatnot. I’m talking about a regime and its institutions. Again, let’s not jump to conclusions, but let’s ask the difficult questions.
Source: Intercepted Podcast: Month Two, Phase One of the Gaza War
If the government fell, Israel would go to new elections. Israelis would Hiding behialmost certainly toss out the rogues gallery of terrorists, homophobes, racists, religious zealots, male chauvinists, and genocidal psychopaths that make up the current government, putting in the center-right instead. (Israel no longer has a left to speak of). If Netanyahu loses his hold on the office of prime minister, the corruption cases against him would proceed, and he likely will go to jail.
Israel couldn’t give a second thought about the Biden Administration as long as Trump remains a credible threat in the Presidential Race it will remain a case of the tail wagging the dog.
The Biden administration has pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to allow the Palestinian Authority to control Gaza after Hamas is defeated. However, one source told FT that Tel Aviv will not listen to Washington, even as the US provides Israel with billions of dollars in weapons. “No one, not even the US, can talk to them about this,” said one of the sources familiar with the matter. That person emphasized that this point was crucial to Netanyahu keeping his far-right war cabinet together.
Source: Israel Planning for Gaza War To Last Over a Year – scheerpost.com
Israel’s attack is the last desperate measure of a settler colonial project that foolishly thinks, as many settler colonial projects have in the past, that it can crush the resistance of an indigenous population with genocide. But even Israel will not get away with killing on this scale. A generation of Palestinians, many of whom have seen most, if not all, of their families killed and their homes and neighborhoods destroyed, will carry within them a lifelong thirst for justice and retribution.
Source: Chris Hedges: Israel Reopens the Gaza Slaughterhouse – scheerpost.com
For voters to make intelligent decisions about candidates, they must be well-informed. Sadly, that is very much not what is happening today in America. If we don’t confront this crisis, democracy itself will pay the price.
Many conservatives believe that they have the power to shape society in a way that benefits the elite. They see themselves as the superior class, adhering to the principle of the aristocracy or the ‘betters’. They believe that they are natural leaders and the best suited to rule. They feel entitled to all the benefits that society creates as a reward for their superiority.
Considering that we live in a more complex and scientifically advanced world than ever, it seems unrealistic to expect the LNP, with its Luddite principles, to guide us through these complexities. Since the May 21, 2022 election, Labor has been busy correcting the mistakes made by Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison. Fixing the country’s economy may take years.
Sorry, I cannot swallow this nonsense. Andrew, Michaelia and Gerard should get a grip on themselves.
Anyway, Coalition strategists would know victory next time for them is a huge ask. First-term governments federally very rarely lose.
When a Fossil Fuel Nation takes over COP28 what can you expect? It’s like the Tobacco Industry taking over the QUIT campaign and declaring they are the biggest promoters of anti-smoking while promoting VAPING.
United Nations Climate Change Conference advisory board member Hilda Heine resigned on Friday, citing reports that the Emirati oil executive presiding over COP28 has been busy pushing for fossil fuel deals in the run-up to the event.
Source: COP28 Advisor Quits Over Alleged UAE Oil and Gas Deal-Making
Owner reveals why Bruce Lehrmann was at Liberal Party Christmas drinks in multimillion-dollar mansion (By Samantha Maiden)
Source: National Times – Owner reveals why Bruce Lehrmann was at Liberal… | Facebook
If our government fails in that duty to protect my generation against the greed of the coal and gas barons, we have a duty to stand up – because unionists, suffragettes, and civil rights campaigners fought and died for our right to do so.
Source: Peaceful coal port protesters prosecuted like bikie gang on bail – Michael West
Naive Demonstrators were Set up for a publicity and political STING
The Players were: 1 The Israeli Embassy 2 The Protesters 3 The Pawns were The Families 4 The Police 5 The media News Corp 6 The Australian Jewery Town Criers
Activists were acting on information that the Embassy of Israel was hosting an event at the hotel. The details of the event weren’t known to them. Only who was hosting. We know there were, in fact, embassy delegates there, with a booking — it’s just that there also happened to be families at the hotel not at that event either attending another event elsewhere or simply staying there.
The protesters said:
“As always, our protest was directed toward those who hold power — the Israeli officials playing politics with Palestinian lives.”
They held their rally at about 10 PM to an audience of barely anybody. We’re told that families of hostages, returning to the hotel after that event elsewhere, felt unsafe and retreated to a nearby police station. OOPS! That’s terrible.
Now we know it was a mistake that this happened and was certainly not a case of any activist intentionally attempting to “organise a demonstration against grieving families”, to quote our Prime Minister.
So you are welcome to find the reporting tasteless, but you can also put to bed any discussion of suppressing peaceful protest. Correct? Because now we’re only talking about an incident with bad optics that was a mistake — an action undertaken based off of a lack of information. It’s not a case of intentionally targeting families. Now we know this.
THE STING
But knowing this doesn’t seem to have changed the breathless media coverage on the subject. The Australian quoted WACA as clarifying what its intentions and planned targets for the protest were, before moving on to quote Executive Council of Australian Jewry CEO Alex Ryvchin competing with others to have the most lurid quote regarding the protesters.
“Indistinguishable from Neo-Nazism,” said Ryvchin. “A cancer on our multicultural society,” said Zionism Victoria president Yossi Goldfarb. “A full-throated anti-Semitic movement,” said Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich.
A protest against the families of Israeli hostages has been turned into a political stunt, providing our leaders with a reason to call for increased anti-protest laws.
Source: Pro-Palestine rally gives politicians fuel for anti-protest agenda
Today, with the endorsement of the West Bank settlements there is no hint that Netanyahu, or anyone in his government has any intention of finding a two-state solution to the situation in Israel/Palestine.
His policy is to continue the process of driving Palestinians from their ancestral homes. And “Who will remember the Palestinians?” is his final solution.
Objectively report that!
Objectivity does not exist – it cannot exist… The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No sir: sometimes truth stays on one side only. – Oriana Fallaci
The journalist who penned an open letter to Australian media organisations calling for ethical reporting of the Gaza war were probably not aware of Italian journalist and partisan, Oriana Fallaci’s quote, when they rightly called for adherence to truth over ‘both-sidesism’ in reporting of the war.
Source: Only journalists who support the Gaza war can report “objectively” on it… – Pearls and Irritations
A temporary cease-fire made it easier to grasp the horrifying violence inflicted upon civilians in Gaza by the Israeli military. As Israel begins another onslaught, Joe Biden will bear full responsibility for the carnage that follows unless he demands a halt.
Source: Israel’s War on the People of Gaza Must Not Be Allowed to Continue
Israeli media outlets sheds new light on the Israel Defense Forces’ use of artificial intelligence to select targets, essentially creating what one former Israeli officer called a “mass assassination factory.”
Source: Israel’s AI-Aided Bomb Targeting Creates Massacre ‘Factory’ in Gaza
While the Israeli army is taking a pause from slaughtering Palestinian children in Gaza, its routine killing of children in the occupied West Bank persists unabated.
Source: Israel executes 8-year-old in broad daylight | The Electronic Intifada
– More than 32 Palestinians, including two infants, have been killed in 200 Israeli bombings, Friday, since the resumption of the Israeli bombing of Gaza at dawn.
Source: Updated 2: Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens Of Palestinians, Including Children, In Gaza | – IMEMC News
In the 1970s, Kissinger was so hated by the Likud party, which now controls Israel’s far-right coalition government, that some of its members tried to have him assassinated, according to a news report from the time.
Source: Members of Israel’s Likud Party Once Planned to Assassinate Henry Kissinger
Rather than seeing the inside of a prison or being bothered to the gallows by overly fussy lawyers, Kissinger spent ample time at high level receptions receiving huge wads of cash for offering his inner expertise. He was admired, adulated and pampered; the critics kept at bay.
Source: Henry Kissinger: Snake Oil Salesman of Gangster Realism – » The Australian Independent Media Network
China is fighting WW3 Climate Change
Demand for Australian coal from the nation’s biggest customer is heading for long-term decline as China changes course on energy investment, research shows.
Source: Call to join forces as China sets pace on clean energy – Michael West
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the Coalition are fanning fears about a “new wave of boat people”. Andrew Gardiner checks out the claims, and Australia’s history of political fear-mongering.
Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten has seen the alleged victim, Brittany Higgins, again subjected to relentless cross-examination and accusations. Michelle Pini reports.
Source: These are things that women go through: The Lehrmann trial
An appropriate response to Kissinger’s death would be for the U.S. to own up to the entirety of what Nixon and Kissinger wrought.
Source: Henry Kissinger, 1923–2023. War Criminal. | The Smirking Chimp
Articles such as the one from CNN discussed herein only demonstrate the blindness of the people who thoughtlessly proclaim that they ‘stand with Israel’, overlooking its many violations of international law and human rights, and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. But around the globe, as demonstrated even in cities that attempted to ban pro-Palestinian rallies (London and Paris are two), huge numbers of people recognize blatant, murderous injustice. It is long past time for their leaders to listen to them, and act accordingly.
Source: Israel’s Foreign Labourers: Exploitation is the Norm – CounterPunch.org
Savagery on a Biblical Scale. Rationality Lost
Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something.
Source: Israel’s savagery is so shocking it’s sometimes hard to take in – Pearls and Irritations
The Inglorious Culture on which Australia’s Shameful History was built. Pirates, Slave and Opium Traders Land Grabbers that gave birth to the East India Company and Capitalism.
Wait for the wailing from Sky News
Ultra-conservatives with substantial wealth and/or undue media influence distort the secular agenda with outrageous impunity. Refer again to all the CPAC23 speeches linked above.
One case in point is Janet Albrechtsen, a former Director of the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs, and columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s flagship The Australian.
Indeed, Ms Albrechtsen wrote a scathing opinion piece in The Oz on 22.11.23 (paywalled) railing against the upcoming Secular Conference on 2nd December, in Surry Hills. Ten days before SAC – when not even one word had been spoken – she just “knew” she’d absolutely hate it all.
Her article was a breathless tirade linking basic secular principles directly with transgenderism, wokeism, the entirety of gender politics, all culture wars, and the climate “hoax”. She states, “And it’s hard to escape this new religion.” What a bizarre statement to make! Religion requires a ‘god’, but Janet knows that. She also knows secularism simply doesn’t have one!
Notice this basic right-wing strategy to bundle up everything they hate in the world and stick a convenient label on it – it’s all down to Satanism, to communism, or secular heresy. Oh, please!
SAC, and the objectively rational speakers of the Secularism Australia Conference will take a calm and measured analysis of where Australia actually stands now, in relation to the broad sweep of issues which undermine progress towards a fair, just and equitable society.
By Brian Morris Secular Australia justifiably expects equal media attention to that given to CPAC – the Conservative Political Action Conference that stages rallies promoting authoritarian agendas. Notably, the Secularism Australia Conference, SAC, is the polar opposite!
Source: SAC takes on CPAC – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The blockade of Australia’s biggest coal port Newcastle by climate protestors over the weekend resulted in 109 arrests. Wendy Bacon speaks with those arrested about the price of peaceful protest.
Murdoch has always held a personal relationship with Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan Heights. https://michaelwest.com.au/compromised-genie-energy-and-the-murdoch-medias-climate-denial/
The United Nations General Assembly voted 91 in favor and 8 against with 62 abstentions to reaffirm U.N. Security Council resolutions 242 of 1967 and 497 of 1981 that demand Israel cease its control over the Golan Heights and return it to Syria.
But overshadowing the fragile deal, Hamas announced on Thursday (AEDT) that the youngest hostage – baby Kfir Bibas – had died in an earlier Israeli bombing. His four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother are also said to have died.
The children’s father has also been held.
The Israeli military said it was checking the “cruel and inhumane” claim, which was potentially explosive given the high-profile campaign in Israel to free the family.
If you do what the SS did deflect and simply accuse doctors of being dishonest enemy collaborators and round them up like the Spanish Inquisition once did. Because the accusation alone is sufficient justification to justify the lie that hospitals were needed to be destroyed.
Israel alleges that the doctors aided Palestinian resistance forces, notoriously claiming that Hamas’ “command center” was underneath the hospital complex as a pretext for the 18 November raid and siege of the medical center by Israeli forces. “We are currently moving forward with … questioning [Abu Salmiya] over the fact that he was the head of a hospital that was really sitting on top of an entire terror network,” an Israeli military spokesperson said.
Source: Israeli military left Palestinian infants to die | The Electronic Intifada
It’s why that “open letter” by Australian Journalists was a letter attempting to strengthen journalism and distinguish it from a product masqueraded, by Australian Corporate Mainstream Media, as “impartial” news. Journalism is rather a search for the facts that reveal truth and information for the common good.
Instead
US corporate media outlets allow IDF to vet ‘all materials’ from embedded reporters in Gaza. “Israel is killing the journalists that expose their crimes, then bribing the journalists that cover for them,” said one critic.
Source: Imagine the outrage if Al Jazeera agreed Hamas could vet its footage? – Pearls and Irritations
Despite a temporary pause in Israel’s massive bombardment and ground operations in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe continues to worsen. With more than 15,000 dead Palestinians and whole neighborhoods and towns left in ruin, Israel’s defense minister has defiantly vowed to dramatically escalate the attacks inside Gaza the moment the truce ends. This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the state of the war as well as the propaganda campaigns being waged by each side. Then Roy Yellin, head of public outreach at Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem, discusses recent developments on the hostage and prisoner exchanges, how the crisis has impacted Israeli society, and describes the conditions faced by Palestinians when they are thrown into Israel’s military justice system. Yellin also explains the state sponsorship of violent Israeli settlers, the mass detentions underway of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the dangerous nature of Israel’s far-right Interior Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Source: Intercepted: Prisoners, Propaganda, and Battle Over Gaza War Narrative
When an article begins with ” the devastating Oct 7 Hamas attacks” and is followed by “the subsequent Israeli attacks” you begin to feel a it’s not worth reading. Little or no mention that the devastation was as much due to Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships killing Israelis as it was to Hamas or that Israel’s intelligence had known weeks and days before about what was going to happen and did nothing.
Was it, one wonders, that Israel saw it as an opportunity, an excuse to invade Gaza and also devastate the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank? More than just another opportunity to “mow the lawn” in Gaza but to “decrease that Palestinian lawn” in the West Bank and thereby gain greater political support for Netanyahu? After all his aim was never a two-state solution. For him “from the river to the sea” meant taking all the land, from the Palestinians.
There are no “settlers” in the West Bank only 500,000 illegal Israeli colonizers supported by the now Inglorious fascist State of Israel, aided by its conscripted IDF. A Goliath assisting in the illegal plundering of Palestinian lives, livelihoods, and homeland just as they have done in Syria’s Golan Heights.
There has never been anything less “subsequent” in Israel’s actions when Israel has historically been noted for breaking the peace agreements in devastatingly regular fashion, and not the Palestinians. ( 2008, 1440 340 children dead, 2014 2200 550 children dead) So much so even the Pope has called it out as terrorism.
While the world remains fixated on the devastating October 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, there has been a pronounced – and mostly unnoticed – escalation in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
NEW YORK (AP) – An Indian government official directed a plot to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York City, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday as they announced charges against a man they said was part of the thwarted murder conspiracy.
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