Showing all posts in June 2019

Many adults in the US still regard the situation in Iraq as vitally important, according to a new poll by CBS News. Indeed, it is the most pressing issue according to respondents, followed by the economy/jobs and terrorism. Before last year’s Federal election, Australians overwhelmingly thought that the Iraq war increased the terrorist threat to…

B’Tselem is one of Israel’s premiere human rights organisations. Its latest report, One Big Prison, makes for disturbing reading. It’s well worth quoting in full: Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world to such an extent that it is easier for Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank to…

We’re told that Israel is serious about peace. We’re informed that Palestinians must stop “terrorism” before serious negotiations can occur. We’re deluged with propaganda in our media that reassures us that there is a new hope for peace since the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. If you believe all this, you’re living in fairyland.…

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is known to despise the Greens under Senator Bob Brown. For these establishment media-types, a two-party system is all a democracy needs, thanks very much, and if anybody dares steal the limelight from the corporate-driven Labor or Liberal parties, watch out. Such was Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper during last year’s Federal…

I’m a freelance journalist based in Sydney, Australia, writing primarily on international affairs, the Israel/Palestine conflict and domestic politics. Few areas don’t interest me. Sadly, the Australian media is increasingly complicit in the actions of John Howard’s government. Rupert Murdoch owns 70% of my country’s print media, the highest percentage of any Western nation. The…

“In an age where war has become a policy option rather than a last resort, where its legitimacy rather than its morality can be summed up on a sheet of A4 paper, we prefer to concentrate on the suffering caused by “them” rather than “us”, writes Robert Fisk in his latest article for The Independent.

“Australians are as just as concerned about United States foreign policy as Islamic extremism and regard the US as more dangerous than a rising China, according to a new poll.” It’s a sign that recent Bush administration adventurism and illegalities, from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, are causing uncertainty here. This is not about moral equivalence,…

The now deceased Edward Said once said that the last great taboo in America is that country’s relationship with Israel. It’s rarely discussed in Australia, either, though I’ll be examining it throughout my upcoming book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, out with MUP in early 2006. Gorilla in the Room is a new blog based in…

David Marr, one of Australia’s finest journalists and co-writer of Dark Victory – the devastating examination of the 2001 election and the injection of racial prejudice into the public domain by the Howard government – has returned to The Sydney Morning Herald after three years hosting ABC TV’s Media Watch. His latest article tells the…

Easter Sunday. Sunny day in Sydney. And I’m cooking, a rare occurrence for a dinner party tonight with friends. This story in today’s UK Independent peels back yet another layer in the Blair government’s rush to war. We await an equivalent dissection in Australia. Lies, deception and slave to American power: “A former head of…