From the rate and scale of civilian slaughter to the killing of protected groups and the type of munitions, Israel’s war on Gaza is an exceptionally brutal campaign unlike almost anything we’ve seen.
While Israel has the right to strike back at the Hamas organization in the wake of the latter’s hideous October 7 attack on Israel, it doesn’t have the right to do so in a way that recklessly endangers civilian lives. Beyond that issue, Israel is recognized by the United Nations at the occupying power of Gaza, and therefore has responsibilities under the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 to preserve the lives and well-being of the occupied population. Finally, according to the Rome Statute that underpins the International Criminal Court, targeting a group such as “the Palestinians of Gaza” for death is a form of genocide, regardless of the number killed.
After 76 years there is a particular shamefulness in proposing to defer statehood when an Australian Jew is permitted automatic citizenship, while survivors of the Nakba and their descendants languish in squalid refugee camps denied self-determination and the right of return enshrined in international law.
The biggest blunder in recent history and who do we apologise to and for what? It remains unclear today why we didn’t tell America to fuck off back then.
The Vietnam War tormented and tore the societies who saw fit to participate in it. It defined a generation culturally and politically in terms creative and fractious. And it showed up the rulers to be ignorant rather than bright; blundering fools rather than sages secure in their preaching. Five decades on, the political classes in the United States and Australia are still seeking to find reasons for intervening in a country they scant understood, with a fanatic’s persuasion, and ideologue’s conviction, a moralist’s certainty. Old errors die hard.
In that sense, Trump and the Republican fascists are not doing anything new. Sinclair Lewis famously warned that fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag and carrying cross. That was prophetic; one can’t expect Lewis to have predicted the MAGA hats. Instead of running away from Trump and what he represents, tens of millions of white Americans are instead cheering him on as their herald, hero, and savior. Such mass delusions are a defining feature of fascism and other such destructive political ideologies and visions.
America is being consumed by a compulsion towards self-destruction. Time is running out. Will the American people choose life or death? They will soon find out.
Australia can show the way You might not think it, given the decade of political climate wars, but Australia is the world leader in terms of solar electricity produced per person.
We won’t let the Hazaras in Indonesia come here. Yet they have few other options. They certainly cannot go back.Worse, the Hazaras kept at our behest on the streets of Indonesia for a decade are still not obtaining solutions or even adequate day to day support from Australia.Rather than let them arrive and thrive, Australia flips thousands of taxpayer dollars per stranded refugee to IOM rather than bring them here. IOM in turn sell the refugees to the lowest cost service provider or contractor. After a while, these practices resemble people trafficking for profit.I spoke to a couple of Hazaras in Indonesia over the weekend.One, Ghaznavi, is a gorgeous young chap who turned his hand to baking bread and tiling, despite work bans and his very apparent higher education.
Our involvement in the Afghan war makes us accountable for the wellbeing of Afghans. It is no different from the accountability of allied troops for Jewish war orphans in occupied Europe, or those affected by the bombing of Japan, Korea or Vietnam*. The Allies used their homeland to settle scores rather than our own. Even a hardened warrior like Jim Molan should be able to comprehend that.
They shoot Palestinians, journalists bomb hospitals ensuring those they shoot have no chance of medical care, and then declare they are “defending themselves”. The world is shocked by Putin’s attack on Ukraine but say nothing about what Israel has been doing for decades and calls normal.
In May 2021, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of bombs on the Gaza Strip, destroying houses, schools, businesses, and health care facilities.
Perhaps nowhere was the human toll of that month more apparent than at al-Shifa hospital, the “only hospital in Gaza equipped for emergency assistance.”
“Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill, a member of the Select Committee, characterized the January 6 attack on our democracy as a “dry run” – implying it could happen again – perhaps successfully. It will happen again – unless we put mechanisms in place to constrain a corrupt president from exploiting the absolute power presently conveyed by the Insurrection Act. That change needs to happen now – before yet another authoritarian – or even the same one – tries another Jan. 6 and succeeds,” he argued.
Under Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia no longer displays compassion and humanity towards those in need, writes Rosalind Fuller. MANY ARTICLES have been written over the last few weeks about the current refugee crisis in Afghanistan as well as the 20 year anniversary of the Tampa debacle, both now inextricably linked. What has also been featured in the commentary is that previous prime ministers, including two Liberal PMs, responded to previous humanitarian crises by offering refuge to people fleeing violence, persecution and in the aftermath of wars. The acceptance of refugees was not always supported by the populace or the political party’s base. These figures are worth restating. Malcolm Fraser, between 1976 and 1982, accepted almost 70,000 Vietnamese refugees (so-called “boat people” — because how you flee apparently matters). A tearful Bob Hawke was so incensed at the Tiananmen Square massacre he made a ‘unilateral decision in 1989 to let the 27,000 Chinese students [that were]present in Australia stay’ and ultimately ‘grant a total of 42,000 permanent visas for Chinese students’. Tony Abbott (not known as a beacon of tolerant politics) in 2015 offered 12,000 Syria
When you have a leader whose most memorable contribution has been a rather tragic Elvis impersonation, I guess it’s understandable that the natives might get restless. But in the last few weeks, the Nats have gone so far off reservation they seem to be occupying a totally different universe.
Australia is a nation of double standards. It should come as no surprise to see our politicians and our media brazenly wearing them like badges of honour. As a country, we criticise China at every available opportunity for any whiff of foreign interference, though we turn a blind eye to blatant interference coming from Israel. As many on the right say: “China has a woeful record on human rights”, as if Palestine didn’t exist. The media talked up “historic” peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. People hear the words “Middle East peace deal” and think of Israel and Palestine, yet the media have neglected to sufficiently inform the public that this dud deal that is already in jeopardy. It has not brought about peace, in fact, Gaza has seen Israel bomb their men, women and children every night for two weeks.
A new book by an Israeli scholar dissects the extraordinary hold that the country’s military — and militaristic ways of thinking — have on Israeli society, and the ideological myths that keep the project afloat.
“I deeply regret any offence caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time,” he said in a statement. It came after the deaths of two fire fighters and the injury of others, and Morrison’s decision to cut short his Hawaiian holiday.
But the prime minister still remained quite focused on why he’d taken leave just now, telling 2GB how he’d had to bring his holiday forward because of his commitments to visit India and Japan in January, missing a break at the coast. So he’d wanted to give his girls a surprise with this family trip to Hawaii. Etc. Etc.
He didn’t seem to grasp that while he likes to emphasise his relationship with the ordinary Australian, as prime minister he is not an ordinary Australian.
Anything but the REAL facts on the Economy of the USA. It’s just about defending Trump and neutralising REAL change.
Anything REAL is forbidden like real data on GE, Climate, Health Education Guns and Racism. All about FAKE victimisation of a divided America not the union of Multiculturalism. (ODT)
Fully armed soldiers enter the school in occupied Hebron, threaten teachers, and take away a child they likely exceeded their authority to arrest because of his age.
Which of the men runs on the amoral belief the” end justifies the means” and pretends he’s a Christian.It isn’t the leader of the ALP that trashe the Hippocratic Oath doctors take as being a threat that turns medical practitioners into activists and a national threat.
Scott Morrison saw how media enabled of community division and fueled the Cronulla Riots in 2005 and he immediately took it to his local branch of the Party and encouraged the use of ethnic and racial division to raise the fear-meter in order to garner votes. While his rejected the Morrison tactic Tony Abbott haf no qualms in holding back and we’ve seen it applied time and time again. Yes it’s back again now in full force. These good Christians family men like Morrison, Corman and Abbott have began calling the Asylum Seekers “Rapists” “Pedophiles” and worse for the simple purpose of garnering desperate votes.
With the help of Ch9 and News Corp and 2GB their PR machines ready to put profit before reality we have seen the campaign of fear hate begin where hope of “political gain ought not justify the immoral means” being applied to asylum seekers as if they were cockroaches by our current LNP government. A legacy encouraged by Scott Morrison as far back as 2005 (ODT)
Labor workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor said the Prime Minister had chosen to “misrepresent the truth” and “lie to the Australian people” in an attempt to gain political advantage when he should be safeguarding the national interest.
“Most remarkably and outrageously, we’ve seen him announce the opening of Christmas Island. Well if this wasn’t the biggest advertisement to people smugglers, I don’t know what is,” he said.
“To open up a taxpayer funded motel in Christmas Island to basically advertise to people smugglers in the region that indeed business is back – that is a desperate act.”
Former prime minister Tony Abbott said the Labor rules would mean people could “get on a boat, get to Nauru, get sick and get to Australia” – making no mention of the fact the new law did not apply to new boat arrivals.
Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said Mr Morrison had chosen to “endorse lies”.
Sgt. Gregg Lewis was fired last year for his comments, first released publicly this week. He is fighting the firing and may be able to retire with pension.
You don’t get this for manslaughter his crime he arrived without papers in the land of a “fair go” (ODT)
A man who has spent the last nine years in immigration detention is seeking his freedom in the High Court, with a case that challenges one of the court’s most controversial decisions in recent decades. If successful, his case could curb, or even bring an end to, Australia’s internationally criticised system of indefinite detention.
Said Imasi, who believes he is 29, arrived in Australia in January 2010 without a passport or identity documents. In the nine years he has been detained since, Australia has never been able to ascertain his identity.
As if on brilliant cue, Shire Ali, like Malaspina, had been a blessing, giving Morrison a chance to scold imams into a greater state of vigilance even as he extolled the inner Melburnian spirit.
Elevate the standing of the slain common man; berate the state of the corrupted accused. Shire Ali’s mental health was of little consequence to finding a suitably political description for him, one that could be marketed. “Of course issues of mental health and all these other things are important,”he told Network Ten, but the assailant “was a terrorist” with the blood of Islamic State coursing through him. “He was a radical extremist terrorist who took a knife to another Australian because he had been radicalised in this country.”
“We’ve been doing whatever we can in our capacity to eradicate extreme thoughts and potential acts of terror.”
If this were a pro-coal rally Murdoch media would have it as front page news world wide. It’s not the silence is deafening. Where is the MSM? ( ODT )
“This rally is about demanding that the German government break the deadlock of a climate policy that has failed to reduce carbon emissions for nearly a decade now, but it also is about showing governments everywhere that a growing climate movement is demanding an end to dirty and outdated fossil fuels.”
It came just over four months after another massacre on 26 January 1838, at Waterloo Creek, where up to 50 Kamilaroi people were killed by 26 mounted police, under the command of Major James Nunn, whose orders were to expel Aboriginal people from the region which was being opened up for farmland.
The Waterloo Creek massacre was brought before court, but the case was dropped. Both witnesses were soldiers who had taken part in the massacre. One said three or four had been killed, the other said 40 to 50 had been “badly killed”.
Despite leaving its name on the landscape, the Slaughterhouse Creek and Waterloo Creek massacres remain a contested event in Australian colonial history.
It wasn’t the only massacre brought to trial in 1838. On 10 June, settler John Henry Fleming and 11 stockmen, armed with muskets, swords, and pistols, drove a group of 28 Wererai people into stockyards at Myall Creek, east of Slaughterhouse and Waterloo Creeks.
“Justice is the cornerstone of peace,” he said. “As such we view this step as advancing the prospects of peace.”
The United States disagreed.
“We have made clear that we oppose actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive to the cause of peace,” said Edgar Vasquez, spokesman for the US State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich published a tweet on 21 April calling for a Palestinian child prisoner to be shot.
Smotrich wrote that he was “very sad” that Ahed Tamimi is in jail because she “should have gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap.”
“That would have put her under house arrest for the rest of her life,” the lawmaker added, according to the newspaper Haaretz.
Smotrich is a member of the extreme right-wing nationalist party Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home).
He has advocated a plan for the expulsion of Palestinians that a noted Israeli Holocaust expert has described as potentially genocidal.
That expert also said that Smotrich’s values resemble those of the Nazi SS.
Smotrich was responding to Israeli journalist Yinon Magal, who wrote, according to Haaretz, “I’m watching this clip again and I am so glad that Tamimi is still in jail. Sometimes, it’s good that the mill of justice grinds slowly.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised Israel’s security forces after the killings of 17 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, just as condemnation over the Israeli army’s use of live ammunition against protesters grows.
In a statement on Saturday, Netanyahu thanked his troops for “guarding the country’s borders” and allowing “Israeli citizens to celebrate the [Passover] holiday peacefully”.
8 I may receive some criticism for my remarks about Victorian Labor but the fact is corruption is corruption, no matter the colour it comes in
9 Over the last two years, wages have grown by only four percent while company profits have increased by a massive thirty-two percent, eight times faster than wages.
10 Cabinet ministers on $400 000 a year talking about the need to reign in welfare. The same goes for penalty rate cuts. It was so important for people on $40 000 a year to take a pay cut. When the Senators discussing it were on $200 000 a year at least.
Proof positive its Poverty and Systemic inopportunity that creates Homelessness. News Corp is so wrong White Culture and social systems are the cause not Aboriginal Culture (OD)
Gerry Georgatos reveals the unemployment and homeless rates in Australia that we’re not being told.
AUSTRALIA IS FACING homelessness and poverty levels the likes it has never known — nor that it’s prepared to admit.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there are more than 116,000 homeless Australians.
At least, that’s how many they’ve identified.
However, the number is closer to 300,000 homeless Australians, with more than 100,000 of them being children. Since the data released from the ABS in 2011, we’ve identified that nearly one in five of Australia’s homeless are children aged 12 years and less.
Complaints about racist remarks made by the disgraced head of Victoria Police’s own Professional Standards Command were lodged more than a decade ago, but Brett Guerin continued to be promoted through the ranks, The Age can reveal.
Mr Guerin resigned in disgrace on Monday evening, after The Age published details of shocking racist and obscene comments he made under the online pseudonym “Vernon Demerest”.
Muhammad Abu Sakha, who teaches children with special needs at a circus school in the West Bank, is released after spending two years in Israeli prison. He was never once charged or brought to trial. By Yael Marom A moment before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Israel decided to release Muhammad Abu Saha, a Palestinian clown and educator, from administrative detention. In the blink of an eye, after two years of imprisonment with no trial, he is no longer a threat. [tmwinpost] Abu Sakha, 26, joined the Palestinian Circus School as a student at age 14. Over the past years…
Travel permits can be stalled for three to four months, according to doctors.
![More than 1,500 Palestinians were injured in Friday's protests calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/3/30/753d2c4b8a4e4c5fa757d8a9086bd621_18.jpg "Netanyahu praises Israeli army after killings of Palestinians")
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