Following the article in yesterday’s Australian newspaper by Philip Mendes and Nick Dyrenfurth – lovers of enforcing “acceptable” boundaries over Israel/Palestine – that claimed “fundamentalists” have hijacked the Middle East debate, I submitted the following, unpublished letter: Blind supporters of Israel have for decades framed the Jewish state as the victim of a vicious, global…
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Times changing rapidly in the Middle East
My following article appears in today’s Crikey: Times are changing fast in the Middle East. The legal affairs editor at Yediot, Israel’s largest circulation daily, wrote on the weekend that the situation in the West Bank is “apartheid”. One leading American commentator, Time’s Joe Klein, directly challenges Barack Obama to withhold US aid until Israel…
How threatened are Jews by alternative views? (hint: a lot)
Parochial Jews love to feel like victims, despite the fact that they’re largely a successful, connected and wealthy community. Being a victim is terribly effective politically, despite its inherent dishonesty. In that tradition, here’s a recent letter in the Australian Jewish News: Where would we Australian Jews be without our demons? Without (in no particular…
Omar Musa, an Australian man of now
During my recent visit to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali, Indonesia, I became friends with Omar Musa, a beat poet, rapper and artist. He’s Muslim, Australian and a man to watch. Here’s the video for the recent single, Hemingway: Omar Musa “Hemingway” (Dir: Tom Spiers) from MRTVIDZ on Vimeo.
It’s the US and Israel that remain isolated, not us
As the UN voted today to endorse the Goldstone report on Gaza – note the countries that sided with Israel, the US and Australia: how many client states can you count? – William Blum in his regular Killing Hope newsletter reminds us how isolated the US and Israel remain on another key human rights issue:…
300,000 Tamils need 30 seconds of your life
An important campaign launched today in Australia: The 300,000 Reasons campaign has been launched to draw attention to the plight of 300,000 Sri LankanTamil citizens – men, women and children who are being forcibly held in military camps in their own country for no reason other than their ethnicity. It is time for all of…
Pilger forces us all to question everything governments tell us
Last night’s Sydney Peace Prize speech by this year’s winner John Pilger was a powerful affair. The capacity crowd at the Sydney Opera Hose heard Pilger compare the reality of Aboriginal Australia to apartheid South Africa (more here). As it is announced this week that the University of Lincoln will establish a digital archive of…
South African Jews killing Arabs in the name of Zionism?
Al-Jazeera reports: Efforts to prosecute those who may have committed war crimes in Israel’s war on Gaza have spread beyond the Middle East. A lawyer in South Africa has identified 75 South African nationals who he says were fighting with the Israeli army in the war earlier this year. How many Australian Jews fight in…
The result of Sinhalese repression year after year
Why are so many Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka and wanting to come to Australia? Here’s why.
Australian commentator loves terrorism trials to prove his point
Sydney Morning Herald’s Gerard Henderson loves tough terrorism laws. He feels protected from terrorists. Governments would never exaggerate that threat. God, no. Their primary aim is to protect citizens from harm. They believe in the rule of law (except, of course, if America breaks that law and then Australia clearly has no choice but to…