Unlike in Australia, where the Federal government was more than happy to accept a Sri Lankan nominee for a top diplomat post despite serious allegations of war crimes against him, some other countries treat human rights with proper seriousness: The Sri Lankan government has recalled its second most senior diplomat to Switzerland and Germany in…
ABCTV News24 on climate change, Murdoch thuggery and asylum seekers
I appeared last night on ABCTV News24’s The Drum (video here). The Federal government is introducing its carbon tax legislation into the parliament and yet I argued it’s legitimate to ask why so many polluters are receiving such concessions. It’s an attempted political fix that hasn’t convinced many Australians. Simply put, many people are skeptical…
Another day and all we hear are conservative voices fellating Israel
Oh Australia, you are a parochial place. First up, here’s the Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson Julie Bishop who says that, “Australia must stand firmly with Israel at this tumultuous point in its history.” Yes, that brutal Zionist occupation of Palestine needs all the support it can get. This week’s Federal Parliament was filled with talk…
Just who are those blindly backing Israel and hating BDS in Australia?
This ain’t pretty. As the BDS movement grows in Australia – the hysteria in the corporate media and political elites suggest panic stations – it’s important to understand what those opposed to full Palestinian rights are arguing. Sydney journalist Kate Auburn attended a rally last weekend in Sydney and documented the following. Note the paranoia,…
Orwellian name of the week: Middle East Transitions office
Let me get this straight. Washington spends the last decades backing any dictator who could be bought or bribed. Its image in the Muslim world couldn’t be lower. And now it wants to “help” the move towards democracy (via The Cable)? The State Department has opened a brand-new office to manage U.S. policy toward countries…
Iraq tragedy explodes on Australian television
Now and then, on commercial TV, the brutal reality of our world erupts on the screen and reminds us of our real place and responsibility:
What may happen to the Arab Spring?
The Middle East is in flux like rarely before. Only a fool would try to make accurate predictions but here’s one view by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in the New York Review of Books: For all this uncertainty, there seems little doubt—as protesters tire and as the general public tires of them—in what direction…
9/11 legacy is an Israeli/American catastrophe
My following essay is published today on ABC online: The 9/11 attacks had barely happened and the smouldering wreckage in New York and Washington was still shocking America and the world. Israel already saw an opportunity. Then former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to express his feelings about the terrorist action in the immediate…