Tag: History

Israel

Australia must recognise Palestine to promote peace – Pearls and Irritations

22nd October 2023, Melbourne, Victoria, Australian. The Palestinian Flag and the blurred faces of Supporters of the Pro Palestine Rally, Credit: Contributor: P.j.Hickox / Alamy Stock Photo

If we don’t recognize Palestine we don’t recognize that Israel has killed and wounded over 120,000 people and has continued to illegally occupy seize and settle land disposed of the people living there. Basically, we are washing our hands of the matter like Pontius Pilate. Pilate washed his hands in front of the crowd before announcing, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” The Jewish people shouted in response, “His blood be on us and our children.” It’s a passage that would be used for millennia to persecute the Jewish people.

In opposition, our prime minister and the Labor Party were fierce champions of Palestine and passionate voices for justice. I ask that we summon that spirit of old and do the same in power. Let historians write of us that we were on the right side of history, that we boldly reinforced international law, and that we were a shining beacon and voice for freedom.

It is time to recognise Palestine.

Source: Australia must recognise Palestine to promote peace – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Palestine and History: Macklemore v. Hillary Clinton

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered herself of some ahistorical and distorted remarks about Palestine on Morning Joe, maintaining that the young people protesting the Gaza atrocities do not know history.

Ms. Clinton’s self-serving description of the 2000 Camp David process has been debunked by many historians. In fact, her husband Bill Clinton promised in the Oslo Accords in 1993 that Israel would withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank by 1997. He then allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to sabotage that process and allowed the Israelis to double the number of squatters they sent in to the Palestinian West Bank to steal property and terrorize people. When Netanyahu went out and Ehud Barak came in, Clinton sponsored negotiations, but Barak was maddeningly vague about what he would offer and never produced a text that Yasser Arafat could sign. It is not clear why Arafat needed to sign anything more; he already signed the Oslo treaty, which should have resulted in an Israeli withdrawal that never came. Soon thereafter Barak lost to Ariel Sharon, who was as determined to sabotage any land for peace deal as Netanyahu had been, and he wrecked the whole process.

Her placing of all the blame on the Palestinians is typical of inside-the-Beltway Goy Zionism, and is profoundly ahistorical. The young people can’t be fooled by these glib words. They see what they see.

Source: Palestine and History: Macklemore v. Hillary Clinton

Israel

Zionism Killed the Jewish-Muslim World

In an interview with Jacobin, filmmaker and academic Ariella Aïsha Azoulay traces how Western powers’ exploitation of Zionism led not just to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine but to the demise of Jewish communities across the Middle East.

Source: Zionism Killed the Jewish-Muslim World

America

Spending Unlimited – ScheerPost

Before our government moves full speed ahead expanding the weapons industry and further militarizing geopolitical challenges posed by China and Russia, we should reflect on America’s disastrous performance in the costly, prolonged wars already waged in this century. After all, they did enormous damage, made the world a far more dangerous place, and only increased the significance of those weapons makers. Throwing another trillion dollars-plus at the Pentagon won’t change that.

Source: Spending Unlimited – ScheerPost

Israel

Hebron and links to today’s far right Israeli politics – Pearls and Irritations

A panorama of a part of the Ibrahimi Mosque from the inside. it shows the graves of the Prophet Yaqoub and his wife, Liqa, may God be pleased with them. also shows Saladin al-Ayoubi platform. Hebron, Palestine.

To treat the current bombardment of Gaza as simply a consequence of the October 7 incursion is at best simplistic. October 7 is not day one. The origin lies further back in time. For Western governments and their media, to maintain this ‘day one’ focus makes them complicit in the ongoing oppression and deaths of Palestinians and their expulsion from their land. It is left to us citizens to stand up and demand better.

Source: Hebron and links to today’s far right Israeli politics – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Zionism’s History Is Also a History of Jewish Anti-Zionism

Long but a history that shows the historic division of Jews

Defenders of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza have attempted to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But since its beginning, different forms of Zionist ideology have competed with varied anti-Zionisms for Jewish allegiance.

Early Zionists repeatedly invoked seemingly antisemitic descriptions of so-called diasporic Jews as weak, sickly, excessively bookish, effeminized — a people whose spirit was crushed not only by non-Jewish political rulers, but also by the dead weight of rabbinical law. They contrasted this weak diasporic figure with a model of a strong new people, drawing inspiration from everything from the Ukrainian Cossack to Palestinian Bedouin.

If you say that a Jew in Tel Aviv is like a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto, then Zionism has accomplished nothing.

The liberal Zionist perspective is certainly on the ropes. What does it mean for a person committed to liberalism to support an illiberal nation-state project?

I know it’s hard for people to get their head around, but there are many pro-Israel antisemites. Their pro-Israelism is part of their Christian dispensational ideology.

Source: Zionism’s History Is Also a History of Jewish Anti-Zionism

Informed Comment

Efforts to suppress Palestinian history defeated – Pearls and Irritations

Pharaoh Amnhotep II, 1400 BC, statue made of granite. Image: iStock

From the first days in their Jewish day schools and youth organisations, young Jews are drilled with the lie that Palestine was ‘a land without people for a people without a land’. From its inception, the Zionist movement has sought to suppress Palestinian history and narratives. Whenever there are exhibitions or events or publications featuring Palestinian artists, writers or speakers, there is a huge geschrei from the usual suspects in the Zionist propaganda machine, protesting at this example of ‘antisemitism’.

Source: Efforts to suppress Palestinian history defeated – Pearls and Irritations

Informed Comment

‘I can’t argue away the shame’: frontier violence and family history converge in David Marr’s harrowing and important new book

What is described was what made Australia, a British Colony, unique among all of Britain’s colonies. Why we criminally ignored British Law that demanded that natives be acknowledged, treated with respect, and allowed to share the land as they traditionally had. The squatters simply ignored the crown and the governors were too afraid or complicit to act. Greed was the order of the day and “might was right”. Nothing much has changed when one hears Peter Dutton speak for the LNP.

This is the bedrock of Australian secrecy. Thousands of little stories that never made the newspapers or official reports. The First Peoples of this continent have, despite the catastrophic ruptures of forced relocation and child removal, nurtured their ancient and family storytelling; those who came later failed to even tell their stories to their children. This fostered a century of silence that made it possible for myths to flourish unchallenged, as the referendum “debate” has demonstrated in recent months.

Source: ‘I can’t argue away the shame’: frontier violence and family history converge in David Marr’s harrowing and important new book

Informed Comment

An International Law of Double Standards? – CounterPunch.org

Now, let us conclude with those five Western leaders mentioned above. They are all leaders of democracies, and all of those democracies have histories ladened with the dead. France has Algeria; Italy has Libya and Ethiopia; the United Kingdom has most of the world; Germany has all of Europe; and the United States has all of Central and South America plus a good chunk of Asia. In all of these places, these standard holders of Western civilization have waged wars big and small, and killed so many people that it is a wonder there is such a thing as overpopulation. Thus, when we hear that all of them have pledged to stand firmly by Israel (a proven apartheid state), let us not be surprised—they are only being consistent.

Source: An International Law of Double Standards? – CounterPunch.org

Informed Comment

The tragic history of Coalition betraying Indigenous Australians

A sober reflection and why history sends an important message but we also need trusted and clear-eyed messengers to deliver it

Since Federation in 1901 there have been six major landmarks in Indigenous affairs. The Coalition has reversed or opposed them all, reports Alan Austin.

Last Saturday’s referendum which fulfilled that commitment was resoundingly defeated, as was, of course, inevitable once the craven Opposition decided for political advantage to oppose it.

The nation must now reflect on this and find some way to live with it for the foreseeable future.

The only positive seems at this stage – from the perspective of those who wish to see Indigenous Australians occupy an honoured place with a significant voice – is if this hastens the demise of the Liberal and National parties at future elections.

Source: The tragic history of Coalition betraying Indigenous Australians

Education

Bitter truths: colonisation was not so good for some – Pearls and Irritations

Red soil hand shape on sand in Aboriginal art style,

Basic map of the five languages of the Kulin nation. Image: Wikimedia Commons /Nick carson at English Wikipedia / Public Domain

We need to be educated about what the LNP does not want taught but prefers ignored.

These days, Melbournians celebrate the contribution of the Kulin clans to the life of the city. But even as Elders welcome us to the MCG, and clan members, young and old, bring vibrancy to the city’s cultural, intellectual and spiritual life, commentators on the Voice referendum report that many voters have little knowledge of the history of this place and its continuing impact on Kulin lives. It is as if a people just walked away and left the place to the invaders.

The claim that colonisation had no lasting negative impact is absurd. That Kulin have survived at all is a measure of the extraordinary determination of their Old People and their current leaders. That many carry generational trauma and labour under a continuing burden of structural inequality in education, health, housing, and rates of poverty and incarceration is apparent in the continuing gaps in Victoria’s life tables. That Kulin welcome us to Country and share culture so generously is a gift to us all. A ‘Yes’ vote in the Voice referendum just may go some way to closing these gaps and to addressing historic wrongs.

Source: Bitter truths: colonisation was not so good for some – Pearls and Irritations

UK

CHILE 50 YRS: UK Backed Pinochet’s Bloody Coup

Declassified UK

  • “For British interests… there is no doubt that Chile under the junta is a better prospect than Allende’s chaotic road to socialism,” the foreign secretary said
  • “The prospects for British business in Chile are clearly much brighter under the new regime,” Britain’s ambassador in Santiago agreed
  • U.K. and U.S. officials feared Allende’s successful economic policies could be replicated throughout Latin America

This is an edited extract from Mark Curtis’ book, Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses, which includes full sources.

 

Source: CHILE 50 YRS: UK Backed Pinochet’s Bloody Coup

Informed Opinion

Every Empire Falls

The question is do any of the superpowers provide us with a model in which individuals want to live?

Every empire falls and the fantasy of American exceptionalism doesn’t exempt the U.S., writes Wilmer J. Leon, III. Yet the failing hegemon behaves as though it still controls events, but instead creates worldwide danger.

Source: Every Empire Falls

Informed Comment

‘Media monsters’ used journalism to cement their empires

Carl Sagan said that in order to understand the present, it’s necessary to know the past. Nowhere does this apply with greater force than to the Australian media and its place in the nation’s power structure.

Source: ‘Media monsters’ used journalism to cement their empires

America's Shame

HAK Birthdays: Henry Kissinger Turns 100 – » The Australian Independent Media Network

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands.” Anthony Bourdain, A Cook’s Tour (2002)

If a heavy resume of crimes is a guarantee of longevity, then surely Henry A. Kissinger (HAK, for short), must count as a good specimen. The list of butcheries attributed to his centurion, direct or otherwise, is extensive, his hand in them, finger fat and busy. There were the murderous meddles in Latin America, the conflicts in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. (The interventions in Laos and Cambodia are said to have left 350,000 Laotians and 600,000 Cambodians dead.) Then came the selective turning of blind eyes in Indonesia and Pakistan, and the ruthless sponsorship of coups in Africa.

Source: HAK Birthdays: Henry Kissinger Turns 100 – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Indigenous Australia

‘Habits of civilised life’: how one state forced Indigenous people to meet onerous conditions to obtain citizenship

Why truth-telling matters

Courts and policymakers are still making decisions about the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples without full knowledge of Indigenous histories and how they continue to affect people today. In our forthcoming book, I argue that even Australia’s highest court has presented a misleading, “whitewashed” view of the history of Indigenous belonging since 1788.

Source: ‘Habits of civilised life’: how one state forced Indigenous people to meet onerous conditions to obtain citizenship

Military- Industrial Complex

This is not Your Grandfather’s Military-Industrial Complex: Unwarranted Influence

The military-industrial complex (MIC) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about more than 60 years ago is still alive and well. In fact, it’s consuming many more tax dollars and feeding far larger weapons producers than when Ike raised the alarm about the “unwarranted influence” it wielded in his 1961 farewell address to the nation.

Source: This is not Your Grandfather’s Military-Industrial Complex: Unwarranted Influence

Education

The Right Wing Is Waging a Dirty War Against History and Education | The Smirking Chimp

There is a common thread in the ultra-conservative anglo speaking world which is the promotion of the uncritical glorious history of Western Civilisation. In Australia, it has been heavily promoted by the Ramsay Foundation and politically forced on us by the LNP in the systemic teaching of history in the country.

Under such circumstances, reviving the political and moral imagination is more crucial than ever in order to resist the assassins of memory and social justice who have turned critical education and thinking into a crime.

Source: The Right Wing Is Waging a Dirty War Against History and Education | The Smirking Chimp

Iraq, Iraq War

BP Extracted £15 Billion of Iraqi Oil After British Invasion

Shell, the other U.K. “super-major” oil company, also re-entered Iraq in 2009 after an invasion in 2003 that was widely denounced at the time as a war-for-oil on the part of the U.S. and U.K., Matt Kennard reports.

Source: BP Extracted £15 Billion of Iraqi Oil After British Invasion

Informed Comment

Twenty years on, ‘coalition of the willing’ rebranded – Pearls and Irritations

Axis of just (2).JPG. Alan Moir 17 April 2003.

20 years ago, on 20 March 2003, the US, the UK, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq in an illegal act of aggression. As with all wars, we were told this one would be quick. The pretext for the invasion was – despite authoritative doubts raised at the time – claims about the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. There were no such weapons in Iraq, although plenty of them in two of the invading nations. After on-again off-again ADF deployments, the last Australian troops finally left the country in June 2020.

Source: Twenty years on, ‘coalition of the willing’ rebranded – Pearls and Irritations

Iraq War

The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now?

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Dec. 15, 2006.Photo: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images

Who is missing? Australia’s John Howard of course! However, he’s not really missing, just regarded as totally irrelevant from the looks of this photo despite that he was a dutiful camp follower at the time calling out loyally about the fake WMDs.

He pushed us with Bush to Iraq and helped create ISIS. Howard didn’t give any thought to the LNP’s chant  “All the way with LBJ” the chant that took us to Vietnam in 1965. All these fools simply went on to repeat history with their fabrication of the ” Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Now in 2023, the ALP has seemed to have joined them in accusing China to be a WMD when the facts and history tell us it’s not.

They’re all doing great, thanks for asking.

Voltaire said that humanity invented hell to dissuade people from doing wrong when they noticed there didn’t seem to be any consequences for it here on Earth. On this bleak anniversary, you can certainly understand where he was coming from.

Source: The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now?

Israel

Israel has Always Been a Dictatorship of Criminals – CounterPunch.org

 

Ministers take customary photo with president; Netanyahu the ...

“A country where the prime minister appoints all the judges and is responsible for promoting and firing them has a name, it’s called a dictatorship. When this prime minister is also a defendant who the state of Israel is accusing of serious crimes, it has a name, it’s called a dictatorship of criminals.”

Source: Israel has Always Been a Dictatorship of Criminals – CounterPunch.org

America's Shame

Scholars, Lawmakers Outraged Over DeSantis’ Rejection of AP African-American Curriculum

RonDeSantis

Redacting history and historical facts. The Germans teach and are reminded from the cradle to the grave of their part prior to and during WW2. All of Germany pays attention to its history good or bad. They as a consequence now have a more tolerant and united nation as a result compared to DeSantis’s, Trump’s and the GOP’s America.

“Florida is doing its best to shut down discussions about race, slavery, anything having to do with a challenge to the idea that racism is still a real factor in American life today,” said one author and former professor.

Source: Scholars, Lawmakers Outraged Over DeSantis’ Rejection of AP African-American Curriculum

Capitalism

The Story of Palm Oil Is a Story About Capitalism

Palm oil is in everything: what we eat, wear, read, drive. And like so much else that we consume and can’t disentangle ourselves from, palm oil is enmeshed in global supply chains that rely on brutal working conditions and the destruction of the planet.

Source: The Story of Palm Oil Is a Story About Capitalism

Indonesia

Killing Times: Indonesia grapples with legacy of government-organised mass murder – Pearls and Irritations

Joko Widodo

When is a purge a genocide? When a young Australian researcher finds solid evidence that’s long eluded international scholars, proving the minds of millions have been poisoned with lies.

Dr Jess Melvin is an award-winning academic at Sydney Uni. In 2018 she published The Army and the Indonesian Genocide using official Indonesian documents.

Her book – since released in Indonesian – conclusively showed that the mass slaughter across Indonesia of real or imagined Communists in 1965 and 66 was not an impulsive uprising of angry peasants, but government-organised mass murder

Source: Killing Times: Indonesia grapples with legacy of government-organised mass murder – Pearls and Irritations

Informed Opinion

Australia’s Rulers Know They Need American Imperialism to Dominate the Pacific

Yes they proved to be the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

When it comes to foreign policy, Australia has long been in thrall to US interests. This isn’t because Australia is an American client state but because the Australian establishment knows that its own interests are best served by US empire.

Source: Australia’s Rulers Know They Need American Imperialism to Dominate the Pacific

Informed Comment

Australia Must Confront Its Past as a Colonial Power in the Pacific

Anthony Albanese’s Labor government claims that it views Australia’s neighbors in the Pacific as “partners.” For this to be more than hollow rhetoric, Australia must face up to the injustices it has committed as a colonial power in the region.

Source: Australia Must Confront Its Past as a Colonial Power in the Pacific

Putin

Putin claims Ukraine is not a country — history begs to differ

Gangsters are overtaking the planet and where they aren’t they are trying to in varying forms. By gangsters, I mean wannabe Caesars. Single heads of State representing themselves and/or a small minority of interests. That form of power has been far easier to organize than a majority in support of its own protection and any Democracy.

Trump, not as bright as most, tried with the advice of Steve Bannon in the USA. Now the Republicans have taken his lead. He may have tripped and we’ve yet to see if he failed. Or, has a replacement already been cloned? We’ve seen the rise of these would-be kings in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and in even self-claimed Democracies like Israel, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Italy Sweden and Russia all really being seduced by the siren’s call of religious Nationalism trumpeted by these gangsters.

Putin is seen as their hero despite being just another wannabe Ceasar too. He’s a role model of power, and toughness, in his own mind. Flaunting his ability to command the support of a nation while milking it for all its worth. His problem,he believes in his own propaganda and in less than 8 months has had to distance himself from even his inner circle of sycophants who he can no longer trust becoming more and more a Nero rather than a Caesar.

His truth America wants to crush him like a bug but do it by proxy

Vladimir Putin’s misguided views of Ukraine’s independence are inaccurate, as history reveals, writes Susan Bothmann.

Source: Putin claims Ukraine is not a country — history begs to differ

Israel

Catastrophe: Historians reveal Israel’s use of Poisoning, Typhoid against Palestinians in 1948

In the 80’s historic claims made against the Dutch were accepted as fact and Dutch history in WW2 was rewritten. But not historians attempts to correct the history of the formation of Israel.

“For unearthing that dark side of 1948,” Morris said that he was vilified by the “Zionist establishment.” He was accused of shattering the founding myths of the Israeli state and lending moral weight to the Palestinian cause. Morris rejected the claim as “untrue” and explained that he “was simply a historian seeking to describe what happened.”

Source: Catastrophe: Historians reveal Israel’s use of Poisoning, Typhoid against Palestinians in 1948

Education

Jim Mamer: Fake Journalism Is Only the First Draft of Fake History – scheerpost.com – Podcast

Ron DeSantis, is the governor of Florida, although he’s this Trumpian, maybe alternative to Trump from the right wing, was educated at the best schools in America. What is it? Harvard and Yale.

Jim Mamer: Harvard.

Scheer: And yet he mangled history so badly, and in your column, you raised a question of whether it was out of ignorance or malice or what have you, but really, tell us about the state of historical knowledge among young, well, any Americans. You’ve been at it for a long time and you just pointed out these blatant errors. So let’s go there. Do we Americans really know anything about our history, the world’s history, and whose fault is it?

Source: Jim Mamer: Fake Journalism Is Only the First Draft of Fake History – scheerpost.com

Victoria

Queen Elizabeth, King Arthur and the knights of the ABC round table

Matthew Guy AKA Matt Guy wants to be your Leader. The Premier of Victoria.

The Victorian State Liberal Party Leader proved once again that if anyone can take it to the next level of idiocy, it’s, well, Matthew Guy.

In his tribute to the late monarch, Guy chose Parliament to announce that Queen Elizabeth’s lineage (unbeknown to her) included children’s storybook favourite, “King Arthur” — of the Round Table:

Source: Queen Elizabeth, King Arthur and the knights of the ABC round table

"politics of envy", Julia Gillard PM



Julia Gillard to take ground-breaking misogyny speech to the stage

Ten years ago, Australia’s then-prime minister, Julia Gillard, gave a speech in parliament that would echo long after her leadership came to an end.

“I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not,” said Gillard, in response to the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, accusing her of sexism.

“And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.”

Informed Comment

A Final Thought on the Hearings: How Trump Will Be Held Accountable | The Smirking Chimp

In other words, even if he avoids prosecution, even if he is never formally deemed a criminal under the law, Trump will be accountable to history. That is not as satisfying a form of accountability as a criminal judgment, to be sure. But it is a form of accountability that is inescapable. If the committee does its work properly — and I have every confidence it will — it will create a clear record. Which means that for our children and our children’s children — for as far as future generations will know of our recorded history — Donald Trump will live in infamy.

Source: A Final Thought on the Hearings: How Trump Will Be Held Accountable | The Smirking Chimp

Informed Comment

9 Coalition years equal 50 years regression, Dutton notwithstanding

Have you heard the one about how the Liberal leopard changed his spots? He moved from the Government spot to a spot in the shadows to pounce on progress at a future date. (Michelle Pini)

THE MORE the Liberal and National parties talk of change, the more things stay the same.

Apart from the front men (for they are usually men) who are quite regularly replaced or recycled, this is true no matter which Coalition yardstick you care to examine: health, gender equality, education, climate change, Indigenous affairs, the economy, cost of living pressures or corruption.

While the regression in these areas certainly fluctuates in terms of severity, the fact that they remain largely unaddressed by the previous Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government is testament to the degree to which the Coalition entrenches inequity across most social parameters.

Source: 9 Coalition years equal 50 years regression, Dutton notwithstanding

ALP Government,

O Lucky Man? Albo out to break the Labor hoodoo – Michael West

Labor is back in power. It is a rare gift. The ALP has held the reins of government for less than a third of the time in Australia’s history. And the party seems doomed to get the call from the electorate just as trouble is brewing.

Source: O Lucky Man? Albo out to break the Labor hoodoo – Michael West

Education

Indigenous education: New resource seeks to teach Victorian history through Aboriginal eyes

Worawa Aboriginal College principal Lois Peeler and students arrive at the launch of the Aboriginal Change Makers resource.

What the LNP and Peter Dutton want stopped

When Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung man Tiriki Onus was a schoolboy, he recalls a year 10 teacher telling the class “that the Aboriginal people of south-east Australia were extinct”.

Source: Indigenous education: New resource seeks to teach Victorian history through Aboriginal eyes

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