Palestine

(PDF containing transcript can be found here) I heard you Madam Ambassador, but what nerve you have t

"Australia is clearly taking sides and showing disregard for the many Australians currently in outright despair." The Independent Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has expressed alarm about Australia getting involved in the fighting in the Middle East by letting other countries use our air bases up north. IPAN advises that Australia should quickly pull back and not help with the fighting.

On 22 Second August, Riyad Mansour (pictured) Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations spoke to the United Nations. In that meeting, Riyad called upon all the Ambassadors to the Security Council to come with him to Gaza to see for themselves how Israel is destroying the housing, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure whilst killing, so far, by one more conseravtive estimate, more than 40,000 unarmed Palestinian civilians. Much, but all of the discussion is

In an 8 minute interview posted to YouTube on 30 April 2024, Yama Wolomsal, a Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation anchor, questioned David Mencer, a spokesperson for Israel, about the almost-7-month-old Gaza conflict in which over 34,000 Palestinians are known to have been killed and thousand more are missing, presumed dead, beneath the rubble. By putting to David Mencer facts from authoritative sources including the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, the Gaza Health Ministry and numerous human rights groups, Yama Wolomsal demolished every one of David Mencer's claimed justifications for Israel's war.

Gideon Levy gives very clear, succinct, and unvarnished opinions in this bombshell interview by Afshin Rattansi of Gideon Levy, author of The Punishment of Gaza and Israeli Haaretz Newspaper journalist.

WEDNESDAY 27 MARCH 2024: This important webinar co-sponsored by over 18 organisations will feature Pine Gap expert, Professor Richard Tanter, whose forthcoming paper, "Pine Gap, Gaza and Genocide", will be summarised to spark discussion among the panelists on the role of Pine Gap in colonial violence and surveillance in Australia and Palestine.  

The webinar is moderated by  Dr Amy McQuire, Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist

In the recent 29 February by-election for the UK seat of Rochdale, George Galloway campaigned against Israel's mass-murder of Palestinians in Gaza and for Julian Assange's freedom. He defeated the two major pro-war parties, Labor and the Conservatives, to become the new MP for Rochdale in the House of Commons. In the attached 18 minute YouTube video, he is interviewed by Syrian-born British journalist Richard Medhurst.

George Galloway has been declared winner of the Rochedale by-election in the United Kingdom. Previously, Galloway had been an elected member of the House of Commons in 1987 for 8 years, in 2005 for 5 years and in 2012 for for 3 years. In all those years George Galloway has been an outspoken supporter of struggles against imperialism, against apartheid in both Israel and South Africa and for the rights of the working classes and underpriveleged at home.

On 29 February 2024, Israeli soldiers machine-gunned crowds of Palestinians in north Gaza while they stood waiting for food to arrive. Something between 80 and 200 Gazans were killed and hundreds are wounded. "How can this still be possible?" a friend wrote in an email sent to me at 02:19 hrs.

Proposed motion: "The need for the Government to cease using one of the most secretive military export systems in the world to hide from the public the export of Australian military equipment to the State of Israel, particularly as the Chief Economist of DFAT has acknowledged that DFAT data showing millions of dollars in 'arms and ammunition' being exported to Israel is credible." (Senator McKim - Australian Green, Tasmania.) Extract from "Matters of Urgency, Israel" [Australian]

The following has been adapted from a leaflet PDF file. (See Appendix for how to print the PDF file, from which this article was adapted.) In the face of overwhelming votes for a ceasefire by both the United Nations General Assembly on 22 December and by several meetings of the UN Security Council, the Israeli ‘Defence’ Forces (IDF) have continued their latest war against the men women, children and babies of the Gaza Strip. This war began on 7 October, 134 days ago. Since then, with aerial bombardment, tank and artillery shells, rocket fire, banned phophorous, bullets - and who knows what else – the IDF have killed as many unarmed Palestinians in Gaza as they were able to. At the outset of this war, Israel also cut off power and stopped supplies of food, water, medicine and other essentials from going into Gaza, thereby causing many to die of starvation, thirst and illness.

Both houses of the Australian parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate, are meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 6 February 2024 (Update, Wednesday 9:56am: nothing said about Gaza on Tuesday). Based on past experience, if the Gaza conflict, in which, so far, nearly 27,000 Palestinian civilians are known to have been killed, is to be discussed, there has to be a Suspension of Standing orders. Should any debate occur, most of the Labor government members will just state, as fact, many of the lies from the Israeli and Corporate/Legacy newsmedia, whilst feigning concern for the plight of Palestinian civilians. The Liberal/National Opposition, for its part, will wholeheartedly support Israel's action and show almost no concern for the Palestinian civilians.

This article was inspired by Israeli and western press characterisation of Hamas-tunnels in Gaza, as if they were novel and somehow shameful and outrageous defensive constructions, when Israel itself has plenty.

The group ‘Unionists for Palestine’ will rally tonight outside Patrick Terminal in Port Melbourne to make clear that Israeli-owned ships and shipping companies are not welcome in Australian ports. They will protest the Israeli-owned Cali, and publicly welcome the news that ZIM’s Sparrow changed course to Port Kembla after the announcement of the planned picket.

• Australia should be focusing on diplomatic efforts to end Israel’s invasion and occupation of Gaza
• Australia’s signing of the UN resolution on ceasefire was in direct contrast to the USA’s decision and IPAN calls for a similar stance on the request regarding a war ship
• Australia must stop sending military equipment to Israel

The University of Melbourne is censoring graduating Palestinian and pro-Palestine students and is withholding graduation images from ceremonies taking place this week at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, Melbourne.  

Across multiple faculties and departments, graduating students are expressing solidarity for Palestine by wearing keffiyeh’s and carrying signs demanding that Uni Melb divest from arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin.  

(Update, 6:24am Wed 13 Dec: The meeting won't be starting for another 36 minutes, that is, 7am AEDT in Victoria and NSW and 8am AEST in Brisbane.Apologies, for my miscalculation.) Tomorrow at 3pm New York Time or, in Australia, at 6pm AEDT in Victoria and NSW or at 5pm AEST in Queensland, the United Nations General Assembly will comme

• The US recently blocked a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza
• The Australian Government must call strongly for a ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and massive humanitarian aid for Gazans
• The Israeli ambassador should be expelled until such actions are taken.

Yesterday, on 8 December 2023, Miko Peled, spoke at a public meeting about Israel's murderous war against Gaza, which commenced over two months ago on 7 October and the broader context of the history of the Palestine/Israel conflict going back more than 75 years. Much of what he said from his own personal experience. The meeting was held in the public library of Bethlehem in the US state of New York.

The bombings continue to destroy residential buildings, schools and hospitals. the blockade is tightening and the slaughter of Palestinians is escalating.

The global Palestine solidarity movement must continue to stand with Palestine, now more than ever.

We need to take march for Palestine and demand a REAL end to the bombing; a full withdrawal of Israel troops from Gaza, lift the siege, stop colonising the West Bank, release all Palestinian political prisoners now. We also call on the Australian government to cut ties with Apartheid Israel.

The following article has been adapted from a double-sided A4 leaflet which was handed out at a protest for Palestine, which commenced from Queen's Park in the Brisbane CBD at 2pm on Sunday 26 November. The 344K PDF file is attached here (earlier version here).

The included photograph shows a Palestinian boy moments before he died after he and his people were deliberately targeted by the Netanyahu regime. I captured it from Facebook after assuring Facebook that I could handle the image having read through their warning about how distressing it might be for me. (Unfortunately, I did not bookmark the post, so I cannot link to the original.)

Palestine-born and trained doctor who, at 12 yrs old, was shot in the neck by a sniper on his way home from school, speaks of then and now at a pro-Palestinian rally in Brisbane on 19 November 2023. The rally was very large and a later march took up several blocks, where numerous groups of supporters lined the footpaths. People are aghast, shocked, disturbed, at the failure by world leaders to heed the suffering and extinction of so many people in Gaza, in full view, 24/7.

With the exception of some members of the cross-bench, mostly Greens, both Australia's houses of Parliament support Israel's war against more than 2 million Palestinians (who are also mostly Israeli citizens) crowded into the Gaza strip.

The modern history of Israel and Palestine has well-documented beginnings in the not so long ago. Of course, if you go back to the Ottoman Empire, the current responsibilities fade. And before then, biblical times. The greatest paradox is perhaps that, if people have the power to get something they really want, and can defend it, ultimately they own it, but they also own the consequences.

(Update: Ione Bellara's further appeal, 30 October) Ione Bellara, the Spanish Minister of Social Rights has called upon the countries to act to end Israel's murderous war against 2.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip. The transcript of her short speech is:

Even many of those who are currently protesting against Israel's destruction of Gaza and murder of more than 8,000 Palestinian civilians, so far, have condemned the Palestine resistance movement Hamas for supposedly having massacred 260 civilians at the Supernova Music Festival on 7 October. However, even Israeli news services have revealed that IDF tanks and Helicopters killed the 260 Israeli civilians together with most of their Hamas captors, when they were ordered "to eliminate the terrorists along with their hostages."

The video from Twitter, which is embedded below, shows a young Israeli woman express her opinion that Israel's past and present treatment of Palestinians is unjust and how Prime Minister Netanyahu's current attempt, through mass murder by aerial bombardment, to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip of its Palestinians, is morally repugnant.