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Category: Israel and Palestine

10/03/2026

Iran Attack is another step on a bad road.

10 March 2026

(Warning- long and discursive post).

It is always important to see events in as broad a context as possible.
Prior to the First World War, Germany was rising due the industrialisation of Bismarck, and the US was rising because of its natural advantages. Britain was declining. Britain and France may have been able to defeat Germany, but the US came in at the last minute and affirmed its place as the world’s leading power.
Germany was humiliated, and continued to be shut out of markets, as was the rising Japan. Both became strong and their expansion led to WW2. The US, again remained aloof until the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The US still let the Russians do most of the fighting against Germany (look at the casualty figures if you doubt this), and came in at the end. D-Day was 6 June 1944, but Stalingrad had fallen on 2 February 1943 and the Russians had been advancing ever since.
Between the wars, the League of Nations had been created, which failed to stop German rearming and aggression. After WW2, a meeting a Bretton Woods intended to turn the whole world into one market, so that countries that did well would rise, and those who did not do so well would fall, all without wars. The US, with almost half world GDP would be in a good position, and set up the UN with a veto for the major powers.
The new world order, helped by technological advances in communications and logistics, and some US pressure for free trade treaties have largely turned the world into a market, where the wealthy nations or corporations could buy whatever they wanted. But the legacies of colonialism remained. Many developing g countries had had their resources taken over by colonial countries that were not about to give up those lucrative assets. Diamonds, gold and oil were three commodities where the major Western powers did not want to give up control. A developing country with a government acting for its people would obviously demand that the benefit of its resources would go to its people. The Colonial model was that the foreign power leaned on the government, but left it in place as long as it let the foreign power have the resources. So there was always a tension in the great powers between the rhetoric of freedom and democracy and the reality of making sure that whatever government exists lets the foreign power have the goodies.
How this conflict has played out in the US is documented in the book, ‘The Devil’s Chessboard- Allen Dulles, the CIA and the rise of America’s Secret Government’ by David Talbot. The CIA seems to have continued to get the US to ruthlessly pursue its interests with little care for the consequences for weaker nations. The book chronicles many democratic movements that tried to get a better deal for their people and were ruthless supressed by CIA-backed authoritarian regimes, often with dire consequences for the democratic figures. One of the only examples of the US actually working for democracy seems to have been John F Kennedy, who declined to give US support to the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba after the revolution in 1961, saying that the US supported progressive regimes in the belief that it would deal with them in affair and honest trading way. Kennedy sacked the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles after the invasion, and was assassinated shortly thereafter. Talbot does not think that this was a coincidence.
It seems that the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about in his farewell speech of 17 January 1961 has come to pass. Because the armaments industry is private in the US, wars are good for considerable sections of the US economy, and whether the US wins or loses does not matter much as long as the US itself is not significantly inconvenienced. It would seem that the CIA world view is dominant in Washington, and that includes supporting US corporate interests overseas as well as defence. The CIA-dominated policy has continued since Dulles. President Obama may have wished to change this; his slogan was ‘Change is possible’. He initially tried a bipartisan approach and then did not have the numbers in Congress. His epitaph might read, ‘Change was not possible’.
The election of Trump might be seen as a protest vote, even a revolution, against a system that seemed to grind on, as the US declined due to its wage structure making it uncompetitive as a manufacturing base, with corporations keen to manufacture offshore. A lack of money for education, an appalling gerrymander and slanted voting eligibility rules contributed to Trump’s victory, as did skilful use of databases and narrowcasting in social media and the paucity of options in a binary system.
Be all that as it may, the election of a basically ignorant and prejudiced man has resulted in an erratic US foreign policy. Simplistic arrogance and hubris have led to a cavalier disregard for the rules-based order that initially allowed the US to prosper, but the concentration of wealth has moved from national borders to corporations and now individuals. The nation states are still the basis of world order, though increasingly Capital in the form of multinational corporations or even individuals tell them what to do. But the nation states still exist and the US is the largest militarily, though it is declining economically. Climate change will soon mean that Russia and China will be able to trade via the North Pole, so the US wants Greenland, and Trump, with the tact he learned as a shock jock does not mind saying so. (The movie, ‘The Apprentice’ about the rise of Trump has a telling ending about the origin and success of his moral values). It may also be that Con men, lacking any real truths or values are more easily conned themselves.
The simplest reason for the attack on Iran would seem to be that Israel conned him into it. Israel has either subdued countries around it, like Jordan and Egypt or attacked and supressed them, helped by their economic troubles. Israel made deals with the major Middle Eastern economic powers, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, which is why Hamas, seeing the problem of Palestine being ignored, arranged the 7 October 2023 attack. The US and circumstance have neutralised Syria and Iraq, so the only real threat to Israel has been Iran.
Iran is a tragic illustration of CIA-controlled US foreign policy leading to bad outcomes. In 1908 oil was discovered leading to the formation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1925 Reza Khan deposed the nominal monarch and became Shah Pahlavi in 1925. He was nationalist, anti-communist, authoritarian and secularist to the point of being anti-Islam, trying to ban the burqa, which upset the Muslim elements in the country.
In 1941 during the WW2 occupation of Iran by the British and Russians, the Shah’s son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi took over from his father. In 1951 there was a Democratic revolution and the government of Mohammad Mossadeq nationalised the oil industry. But Mossadeq had his problems with opposition from the Clerics, Communists, as well as the Shah and his army supporters. A CIA assisted coup overthrew the democratic government and re-installed the Shah, the deal being that 50% of the National Iranian Oil Company was controlled by foreign companies, BP, Shell, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf, Standard Oil of California and Companie francais des petroles. The CIA supported the Shah and trained his ruthless secret police. As the Shah’s support waned, we wanted to negotiate a better deal for Iran, so he lost US support and was toppled in 1979. But because all democratic movements had been ruthlessly suppressed, the only organised political force were the most fanatical mosques, which the secret police had not been able to penetrate, and the Ayatollah who had been a figurehead, safely in Paris. In 1980 the US persuaded Saddam Hussein to launch the Iran-Iraq war, on the basis that the Clerics’ purge of the army would leave Iran unable to respond. The war went on for 8 years and killed huge numbers, but resulted in a stalemate. The religious regime has survived ever since, trying to get nuclear weapons which would make it ‘safer’, at least from US or Israeli attack.
The US policy has been to support regimes or movements that support it. They supported and trained the Taliban in Pakistan to get rid of the Russians in Afghanistan, then found that the Taliban did not want them either. They allegedly conned Saddam Hussein into thinking that he could have Kuwait as a reward for the Iran-Iraq war, then invaded Iraq in 1991. Hussain was ruthless to those who were politically active, but he was Sunni on a country which was only about 25% Sunni and many of these were Kurds. He was toppled in the second (2003) invasion because of alleged ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ that the UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Bix said were not there. Free elections would have had a Shia majority, who looked to Shia Iran, and the US had no strategy to create stability. They have supported the gaggle of hereditary autocratic regimes in the Gulf States, which are non-democratic, fundamentalism, repressive of women and supported by secret police, but economically supportive of the US. Fundamentalist religious sects like Wahhabism, almost a throwback to medieval times, are tolerated for the same reason. (Sunni and Shia strands of Islam have had antipathy for years because of a fight over who should succeed Muhammad in 634AD, each side believing that the other is illegitimate).
To return to the current war situation, it seems that Israel has been trying to get US backing for an attack on Iran for years, Iran has also anticipated this and has many drones, that are much cheaper and more numerous than the clever weapons that shoot them down. They have targeted US bases, so while they are accused of attacking many countries, they are mainly attacking the US bases, with some key oil facilities thrown in. They have been very successful in targeting US radar facilities, so the US is no longer sure of what they are doing. The Israelis have no qualms, now carpet bombing.
Australia is now a bit-player, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong taking a call from the recently visiting Israeli President Herzog, and now rushing our airborne early warning aircraft to UAE, needed of course because Iran has successfully bombed all the radar bases.
Trump, who started all this is claiming victory, but if oil stays bottled up, petrol prices will rise, and inflation will increase. His Board of Peace looks like a very bad joke.
Prof Clinton Fernandez thinks that shutting off China’s oil is part of a grand strategy, but this is doubtful. It is true however, that China gets most of its oil from Venezuela and Iran so will be most unhappy. Should they choose to take Taiwan, the US would be preoccupied in the Middle East and has also set the precedent that Great Powers can do what they like.
The British commentator, George Galloway says on Instagram that the US is about to drop a nuclear bomb on the Fordow mountain in Iran because there is a nuclear facility under it. He then predicts that Russia will intervene.
The Australian Peace Movement is strangely silent. How bad does it have to get?
Pine Gap and the new US nuclear submarine base in Western Australia are safe for the moment, but Iran may do terror attacks here.
Here is the Oil explanation from Clinton Fernandez in the SMH of 3/3/26.

Trump’s attacks are not about Iran. He’s after a much bigger fish

Prof Clinton Fernandes, Academic and former intelligence officer
3 March 2026 SMH

Behind the turbulence that characterises US President Donald Trump’s actions in Iran lies a shrewd geopolitical strategy. In the short term, he wants to demonstrate leverage over China when he meets President Xi Jinping at a pivotal summit next month. In the long term, he wants a politically submissive Middle East.
China, the world’s largest refiner of oil, purchases about 14 per cent of its seaborne crude from Iran. The true figure is probably higher, disguised as shipments from Oman, the UAE and Malaysia to get around US sanctions. Independent low-margin Chinese refiners in Shandong province, known as teapots, also import high-sulphur fuel oil from Iran. Taken as a whole, China’s enormous plastics sector relies on Iran for almost a quarter of its liquefied petroleum gas. Control over what Iran can export and to whom allows the US to retaliate if China restricts rare earth mineral supplies to the United States.

Trump’s abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in January was driven in part by a similar logic; Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and its Merey grade is also high in sulphur, well suited for China’s teapot refineries. Trump wants indirect but politically critical leverage over China through control over Iran and Venezuela.
The key word here is “control”. Control of oil rather than access to oil is the foundation of the United States’ Middle East policy. “Access to oil” implies that the United States simply wishes to buy oil like any other country; that it wants oil at a reasonable price. But the US already has access to oil. Its East Coast oil refiners (PBF Energy, Phillips 66 and Monroe Energy) have no trouble buying oil from West African suppliers. Thanks to its domestic shale revolution, the US is already self-sufficient. It is a major contributor to the global oil supply network.
Control is a very different beast. Control of oil means, among other things, controlling the terms on which its industrial rivals in Europe and Asia can access their oil. After World War II, the reconstruction of Japan required abundant supplies of energy. The United States obtained what it called “veto power” over Japan by controlling its access to these supplies. A price increase can harm the dollar reserves of heavily oil-dependent economies, ensuring they act in accordance with US objectives. Sometimes, a US-induced price rise can help its diplomacy. In 1986, the US requested Saudi Arabia to cut production to drive crude oil prices higher – to improve US relations with none other than Iran, which needed higher prices.
Control also means ensuring that oil-rich Gulf states pour some of their revenues into US Treasury securities, banks and corporations. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has bought $US150 billion ($211 billion) in US Treasury holdings. Kuwait, another family dictatorship, has bought $US66 billion.
These oil-rich states buy US Treasury bonds, make deposits in US banks and otherwise ensure that some of the dollars they earn from oil sales will flow back to US corporations. They also buy advanced US weapons systems. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the largest buyers of advanced US weapons systems.
Qatar, a monarchy with the third-largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world, hosts the forward headquarters of US Central Command at Al-Udeid Air Base, which it built at a cost of over $US1 billion. It will spend many more billions to expand it from an expeditionary to a permanent base for more than 15,000 personnel and their aircraft. Its sovereign wealth fund has committed over $US45 billion in investments in US corporations. Qatar Airways is a major buyer of US commercial aircraft.
An Iran with a government more amenable to US influence can be expected to do something similar. This is why Trump says that the war against Iran could take weeks. He isn’t merely interested in ending its uranium enrichment. After all, Iran obtained its original nuclear reactor as well the highly enriched uranium fuel to run it from the US, under former president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program in 1957, when the two countries were friendly.
In the long term, a politically submissive Middle East would likely see a network of states with authoritarian regimes that comply with US objectives. These include rolling back Iran’s membership of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, undermining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and weakening the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. If the US can’t change the Islamic Republic itself, then keeping it weak, divided and preoccupied with its internal affairs is good enough.
Control, not access, is what Trump is after. It is the same strategy Britain had 100 years ago, when Walter Hume Long, the first lord of the admiralty, said that “if we secure the supplies of oil now available in the world, we can do what we like”.

Professor Clinton Fernandes is in the Future Operations Research Group at UNSW. His latest book is Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era.

04/03/2026

Protest Against Visit of Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, in Sydney 9 February 2026

9 Feb 2026.

I was at the protest against the visit of Israeli President, Isaac Hertzog, at Sydney Town Hall and would like belatedly to share some thoughts.

The Jewish lobby has always been very strong in Anglo politics and it is a brave politician that opposes them, given their economic clout.

The Sydney Peace Foundation had supported the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and in 2003 awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi. She was a Palestinian Christian, academic, poet and member of Parliament who had worked in Education for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, but later left it due to objecting to its corruption. The then CEO, Prof Stuart Rees had checked with the Foundation’s sponsors that they would continue to back the Foundation if a Palestinian were given the Prize. They assured him, Yes, but the Jewish lobby protested loudly and demanded that he withdraw the Prize. He declined to do so, saying that the Sydney Peace Foundation would have no credibility if it withdrew an announced prize. But almost all the corporate sponsors who had promised to continue their sponsorship withdrew. That is power.

Jewish schools get the tax deductibility of all religious schools and raise the Israeli flag. The official organs have been very silent throughout the Gaza genocide, and are keen to talk about centuries old antisemitism, while ignoring the genocide and the opprobrium associated with it. It remains the ‘elephant in the room’.

Meanwhile the number of Middle Eastern Muslims has been rising, and some significant politicians in Western Sydney are depended on the Muslim vote for their seats. Australian Muslim leaders are contributors to our multicultural society, but we might wonder what they think of the Israeli flag being raised. One might also wonder what would happen if an Islamic private school raised the Palestinian flag and sang their anthem. Since the time of ISIS recruitment some radical preachers have been quietly doing harm. (I saw a film made about this, but I have not been able to find it anywhere online now. It alluded to a certain preacher, but did not name him. It was briefly in Australian cinemas).

The Bondi Terror attack was a tragic demonstration of the extent to which radical forces build up, unnoticed by existing law enforcement organs. It was a failure of both Australia’s gun laws and its intelligence services, so Anthony Albanese wanted to have an Inquiry into these failures, done by a retired security chief.

The Jewish lobby was outraged and demanded a Royal Commission, blaming Albanese for the terror attack. They had been smarting from Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian State and pressured him to hold a Royal Commission on anti-Semitism, rather than the shorter and more practical security inquiry. They then invited the Israeli President to Australia. This invitation was then taken up by Albanese. Apparently it is common practice for groups to invite prestigious people, and then the Government takes over the invitation. Labor for Palestine, a group within the Labor party claimed that there was a picture of Hertzog signing a bomb to be dropped on Gaza in December 2023. Herzog had been elected President in 2021. His father had also been President and he had been head of the Labor Party in the Knesset. The Israeli President is separated from the government and is in a similar role to Australia’s Governor-General. Hertzog had been in Opposition to Netanyahu in party politics, but as President naturally supported him as the Prime Minister of Israel . When the International Criminal Court (ICC) cited Netanyahu and his Defence Minister for genocide, Herzog criticised the ICC. Herzog spent a lot of time maintaining ties with the Jewish diaspora world-wide, frowned on marriages with non-Jews, and worked to improve relations between Israel and other countries, notably Turkey, the US and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).

After the Bondi terrorist attack NSW Premier Chris Minns was quick to announce a State Inquiry and to pass the ‘Terrorism (Police Powers) Act 2026 that empowered Police to act with impunity at demonstrations.

Herzog was to address Australian Jewry at the International Convention Centre (ironically also I.C.C.), at Darling Harbour on 9 February.

Last July, the Palestinian Action Network had been banned by the Police from holding a March across the Harbour Bridge, but appealed the Police decision in the Supreme Court, had a significant victory in August 2025, and held a major ‘March for Humanity’ on a very wet and windy day, 3/8/25 which was attended in huge numbers.

They similarly applied for permission to hold a rally outside the Sydney Town Hall at 5.30pm on 9 February and to march to NSW Parliament. The Police banned the March, and the PAN again appealed to the Supreme Court. This time they lost, but the decision was not handed down until 5pm, just before the rally was about to start.

I went to the rally, entering from Bathurst St behind the cathedral. The Police were very aggressive, forming a cordon and certainly giving the impression that they were sparring for a fight. Town Hall Square was very full and the sound system was not good, so it was hard to hear some of the speeches. Grace Tame spoke extremely well and very clearly. Perhaps she used the microphone more skilfully. People around me also could not hear, judging by the way they joined in on the chants, but were otherwise silent. Chants were ‘Free, Free Palestine, ‘Arrest Herzog’ and ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall be Free’. (It was interesting that this last chant is to be considered to be a terrorist slogan with an appropriate penalty while the Israeli government merely implements it for their settlers with no slogan at all). The Cathedral rang its bells so frequently without apparent reason throughout the rally, which made it seem a deliberate strategy. There was a mood that we were going to march, as we had not come merely to hear speeches. The speeches went on too long and seemed repetitive , though not hearing well it was hard to be sure about this last. At about 7pm, after an hour and a half Josh Lees, the chief rally organiser said that there were ‘conversations’ ongoing about whether we were marching. I presumed that he meant conversations with the demonstrators, but this was not so. He was apparently referring to conversations with the Police. Presumably the speeches were continuing to allow the negotiations.

I concluded that the Police had won, that there would not be a march and left at about 7.10pm, so I missed the confrontation, which happened at about 7.25pm

It seems that the Police strategy was to keep the rally within the precinct of the Town Hall until the Jewish rally was over so that there was no possibility of the rally participants meeting the Jewish rally.

The Jewish meeting was told by a uniformed policeman to sit down for half an hour so that the protest rally could be cleared, so it seems clear whose side they were on. The Police had tried to stop the late arrivals even entering the protest rally, which had led to chants of ‘Let them in.’

The Police then said that here would not be a march, and everyone had to leave from behind the Cathedral via Bathurst St and were not allowed to go via George St. This seems to have been the catalyst for resistance as the Police tried to clear the Square.

The Police had been sparring for a fight, arrested 17 people and pushed other to the ground and on the ground. They used pepper spray and horses. I was shocked when a patient, a 70 year old woman came to me as a patient the next day and said that she had stood up on a plantar box to see what was going on and was thrown to the ground. She had grazes on her hand and arm and bruising of her chest wall. Below is some footage of the confrontation. A 2 hour comprehensive film of the rally is available at ConsortiumNews.

There has been a lot of discussion about Police powers since the rally, but it’s certainly frightening to know that there are considerable elements of the NSW Police that are willing to attack citizens with immunity from prosecution, very similar to ICE in the USA. It seems that the ‘Riot Squad’ see themselves as an elite in this role.

Time to renew subscriptions to the Council for Civil Liberties!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1BZa27XAw

03/10/2025

Trump’s ‘Peace’ Deal

3 October 2025

Trump met Netanyahu and then announced his Peace Deal for Gaza.

Hama surrenders control totally, Trump or Tony Blair run the show for a while until the Palestinian Authority is ready.

The Gazan get not to be thrown out or killed.

Any hostages still alive go back to Israel.

Albo supports this.

What is wrong?

Look at history. Israel used terror to kill the British, and the war-weary British let them migrate from being refugee in post-War Europe in large numbers. A land without people for a people without land’. Palestine had been a colony of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, and then after WW1 a British ‘protectorate’. (?Colonial state, ?Spoils of WW1). The fact that it wasn’t a country did not mean that people did not live there. Jewish settlers piled in, and when they got to 36% of the population declared the ‘State of Israel’ in 1948, declaring all land title invalid and killing a few villagers. Many Palestinian inhabitants fled to refugee camps and their lands were expropriated. Arab countries tried to invade Israel, but Israel bought some cheap tanks and with good generals survived.

Israel talked about a 2 state solution, but as they did so they gradually moved settlers into the West Bank on all the high ground, linking them with roads, so that if the settlers were attacked by ‘terrorists’, i.e, the people who had had their land taken, they could be defended by the IDF (Army).

Ramallah was set up as the capital of the West Bank, not that there would even be a Palestinian state there, but it allowed them to move Palestinians out of Jerusalem. The international NGOs, wanting to help the Palestinians set up in Ramallah, building large comfortable buildings. This raised land values so that Palestinian s had trouble affording to live there, but also the Palestinian Authority lined their pockets arranging development approvals until they were totally compromised and just patsies of the Israelis.
Gaza was a Palestinian enclave, but its ability to grow was entirely dependent on Israeli goodwill as they had the border controls, so Gazan industries could not import or export reliably.

Palestinians are not particularly religious, but they voted for Hamas because Hamas would stand up to the Israelis. The Palestinians were in a totally apartheid situation, inferior in their own land. The menial jobs that they used to do in Jerusalem were given to imported Sri Lankans so they were deliberately forced out.
The other Arab states offered verbal support to the Palestinians , but were making peace with Israel. The endpoint was going to be that money ruled in international politics, Palestinians would have no money, no assets and no land. This is why Hamas launched its attack on October 7th; to put their issue back on the world stage.

Netanyahu, facing corruption charges, has had to rely on the right wing, who still have a Biblical view of slaying the Philistines. So in Gaza, the object was to destroy any Palestinian society. The universities and libraries were targeted so there was no culture, doctors were targeted so that4 there was no health care; Aid was targeted so that there was no food and then journalists were targeted for telling the tale. Finally the whole place was rendered uninhabitable- a demolition site. It seems that the object was to make the Palestinians either dead of fleeing into the Sinai. Egypt was aware that if they left Israel they would never be allowed to return, and that may still be the end point the Israelis seek. They now say that a 2 State solution is impossible- an object that they have had for years as they gradually took over the West Bank, while pretending it was the displaced Palestinian ‘terrorists’ that were stopping the negotiated settlement.

Everyone has been happy to demonise Hamas as a ‘terrorist organisation’. This means that it is justified never to talk to them, or indeed hear their point of view. One forgets that they were the legitimately- elected government of Gaza. A terrorist is someone who uses terror in civilian populations to further their political ends. It is almost always used by a weaker power against a stronger one. Naturally the stronger power would rather that the weaker fight in a conventional way- they would very quickly win. Israel tried to assassinate Hamas leaders in Qatar- surely an act of terror and complete break of any sort of international law.

Israel wants the Palestinains to have no one to represent them; homeless and starving, they are to be pathetically grateful that they are being allowed to live and not to have to go to any third country that can be bribed to take them. Will Gaza be a development site for some Trumpian Monaco with some welfare housing tacked on for the Gazans?

Jeff Halper in 2010 in his book, ‘An Israeli in Palestine’ stated that there was no possibility of a 2 state solution. There are now 750,000 Jewish settlers in the West bank, strategically positioned on the high grounds and linked by a road network. The only language many were taught is Hebrew, just to inhibit their ability to move or integrate. But if there cannot be 2 states, there has to be one with a reconciliation like that of South Africa after apartheid or Rwanda after their intertribal genocide. How that can possibly be achieved after what the Gazans have gone through is hard to imagine, and that attitude of many of the Jewish Israelis is strikingly similar to the attitudes to white South Africans in the apartheid era. (Yes, I have been to both).

Israel seems to have learned from the Nazis. They have pretended publicly for 70 years that there would be peace and a 2 state solution, while systematically undermining any possibility of it until now, when Netanyahu states it is impossible. They have taken the Palestinian land, while demonising them as terrorists who could not be negotiated with. Now, having destroyed their homes and their culture with the whole world screaming ‘genocide’, they will offer these starving people a ceasefire and survival entirely on the terms that they dictate, which seems to be ‘food and allowed to stay in Israel at present’. If Hamas leadership is totally defeated militarily and are being offered ‘safe passage’ to wherever, will they abdicate and take it?

Trump and Netanyahu call this a Peace Plan and Australia stands up and salutes. Probably the rest of the world sees it as it is. And what the Gazan survivors and children think and feel is currently irrelevant, but is not likely to remain so.

07/03/2025

Anti-Semitism- a perspective

6 March 2025

There is currently a rush towards the banning of hate speech and a demand for action on antisemitism, but far less emphasis on Islamophobia.

In Australia, we have been a relatively wealthy country where everyone has had a fair go. With a large number of migrants relative to most counties we have been seen as a relatively tolerant society by world standards.

When I grew up, there were large numbers of ‘displaced persons’ (refugees) who had come from Europe after the war. They were from Greece, Italy, Turkey, the Baltic states, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as ‘ten pound Poms’. Anglo-Australians called them ‘wogs’, ‘wops’, ‘Eyties’, Poms or various other names. There were no anti-discrimination laws, so the migrants mainly copped the abuse and worked hard in their new land so that their children would have all the opportunities.

Australia was welcoming in the sense that behind our tariff barriers everyone had jobs at the level that mostly only the father had to work, though women mostly could if they wanted to. There were few private schools, so most kids went to public schools and grew up together and prejudice mostly died out amongst them because of their common experiences. The government Housing department built whole suburbs of houses and leased them at reasonable rents and later they could buy the houses that they had lived in for years. Some migrants set up ethnic clubs based on their homelands and soccer teams were initially racially based as Australia played cricket or rugby. There was some trouble between Serbs and Croats with a shop in Western Sydney memorably burned down, and Sydney Water knew not to have Serb and Croat gangs in the same depots, but mostly things were peaceful.

Other notable migrant groups have been Vietnamese after the Vietnam war and Chinese after Tiananmen Square, but these were on a lesser scale.

Jews were mostly not noticed, but they set up their own Schools, which sang the national anthem of Israel and hoisted an Israeli flag. They were also quietly active in politics, working against any politician who took a pro-Palestinian line.

I can tell my own story here. I spoke at a refugee rally in Hornsby when I was an Australian Democrat in NSW Parliament and pointed out that terrorism was a political and military technique used generally by the weaker side against the stronger, and who was the terrorist depended on the time and your perspective. The political Zionist movement had grown up in the 1890s and managed to get the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine. After WW2 there were many displaced Jews and the Zionists did terror raids against the British who had inherited control of Palestine. Famously, they bombed the King David Hotel, killing the British general there and destroying all the records of the Zionists terrorists that were stored there. The war-weary British, having nowhere else to put the Jewish refugees, gave up and let them go to Palestine in 1946, despite the objections of the Palestinians, who did not actually have their own government, having been a colony ceded from Turkey to Britain. The Zionists then organised, and ‘Declared the State of Israel’ in 1948, even though Jews were still only 36% of the population. The surrounding nations declared war on the new state and the UN did not recognise it, but they were well organised, bought some leftover tanks from Romania and repelled their attackers. They also killed some Palestinians causing many others (about 750,000) to flee. This was termed the Nakba in the Arab world and is considered ethnic cleansing and equivalent to the Holocaust. The Israeli government then declared that any unoccupied land belonged to the State and could be given to whomever the State wanted. Palestinian land title was not recognised and land was given for ‘settlements’ to Jews who came to Israel and who were willing to take this land and fight the Palestinians who might resist the loss of land that was formerly theirs. The Palestinians were then termed terrorists, and this nomenclature has persisted in Western political definitions and media ever since, as Israel has progressively taken over land formerly owned by Palestinians.

The Jewish lobby in Australia has been very pro-Zionist. After my speech in Hornsby, at which I said some of the above, I was approached by a person who still posts pro-Israel messages on my FB page. He told me that I was quite wrong, but did not elaborate why.

Some time later, a State by-election was held in Tamworth, a safe National party seat, (rendered even safer by optional preferential voting). A couple of rival local councillors stood as Independents, but without preferences flowing were unlikely to knock off the National. The Democrats had a local candidate, so it was an opportunity to get our name out, so we put her up. We discussed our ‘How to Vote’ card preferences and decided we would put the more favoured of the local rival counsellors, then the other Independents, then the National last. We decided to contact the other 3 independents to decide what order to put them in.

Our ‘How to Votes’ were not going to make much difference, the National was going to get in. We contacted 2 of the independents, but despite our best efforts could not find the third, so we gave up, put him second last and went ahead. The National got in, we got a few percent and the Independent in question got 7 votes.

I was then flabbergasted to see a headline in the Jewish Times, ‘Democrats Support Neo Nazis’. The uncontactable independent had apparently attended an Neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne 20 years before and had not been seen since, and we had put him ahead of the Nationals. But the Jewish lobby had kept track of him as well as my speeches and it was pay-back time.

Another example of their power was in 2003. Both the Sydney Peace Foundation and the Dept of Peace and Conflict studies at the University of Sydney advocated the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. The Sydney Peace Foundation awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian who had worked for peace in Israel. The head of the Foundation, Prof Stuart Rees contacted all his sponsoring companies to tell them that he intended to do this to be sure that they did not pull their sponsorship. They all assured him it was up to him to award the prize, they would not interfere. When it was announced the Jewish lobby was very upset and said that he had to withdraw the prize and give it to someone else. Rees refused, saying that Foundation would have no credibility at all if he did this. Bob Carr, the Premier, awarded the Prize, but all the sponsoring companies left. Some apologised, some did not. When Rees stepped down, new Board members ended the BDS campaign. The Dept of Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University was degraded from a Department to a course within the Arts faculty after it also supported Palestine.

The Greens have been relatively pro-Palestine and ran a BDS campaign associated with the local Council elections in Marrickville. The Green candidate for mayor had done quite well and was tipped as quite likely to beat the Labor candidate. They had enough money for a billboard campaign. Zionists defaced all their posters. The vandal was caught, but had a clever lawyer who found some previously unnoticed problem with the billboard and got off on a technicality. Vandalism not terrorism? Labor won narrowly.

The IDF, Israeli ‘Defence Force’ has flattened Gaza to a demolition site and killed an estimated 49,000 Palestinans, and now have been attacking Palestinans on the West Bank. Most recently they are stopping food aid getting into Gaza because the Palestinans want a lasting peace, rather than just a ceasefire extension, which would give the Israeli hostages back, but without a guarantee that the one-sided fighting would not resume.

Hamas fighters are always referred to as Hamas militants; even on the ABC because the Americans have classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation and our government has followed. I wonder if our major political parties would have dared not to. Hamas is the legitimately elected government of Gaza because the Palestinian Authority was justly seen as corrupt and unwilling to stand up to Israel. It seems that the kickbacks from property development in Ramallah were too great a temptation.

Recently we have seen some examples to the Jewish lobby pulling Australian society into line:

Antoinette Lattouf was taken off the air by the ABC 2 days into a 5 day contract because she had done a pro-Palestinian social media post. It seems that there was a tsunami of complaints that went right to the top of the ABC within 2 days! I wonder who coordinated that? The case continues in Court- she will probably win her unjust dismissal case. (ABC News 27/2/25)

The artist selected by Creative Australia for the 2026 Venice Biennale, Khaled Sabsabi was dropped because he had made an artwork in 2006 about the Sept 11 attacks in New York and in 2007 a video about a Hezbollah leader. Artists like to think that they can make political statements as part of their work, rather than Art having a purely decorative function. It seems not. (ABC News 14/2/25)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has suspended an $870,00 grant to pro-Palestinian academic, Randa Abdel-Fatteh, who was given the money for her study, ’Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since 1970’. She had made recent anti-Israel comments. No lesser person than Federal Arts Minister, Jason Clare, contacted the ARC. (SMH 1/2/25)

Two nurses, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdehon were stood down and charged for allegedly ‘wanting to kill Israeli patients’. It is, of course, not at all in keeping with the medical tradition, which is to treat your enemies the same as you treat your own side. Their social media video came to light and was given publicity by an Israeli ‘social media influencer’, Max Veifer. (SBS News 26/2/25)

The National Gallery of Australia had a display of indigenous art and part of the display including suppressed indigenous peoples had a Palestinian flag. The Palestinian flag was covered after complaints. Some in the arts community were offended by this official censorship. (www.pedestrian.tv/news/nga-covers-palestinian-flags-in-artwork/).

You might ask who kept track of the Independent candidate for theTamworth by-election for 10 years and arranged the story about the Democrats, who pressured the companies to stop sponsoring the Sydney Peace Foundation, who made the phone calls to high places to complain about journalist Lattouf, artist Sabsabi and researcher Abdel-Fatteh, who found the social media post of the nurses and amplified it, and who complained about the Palestinian flag in an indigenous art exhibition at the National Gallery?

Clearly there is a lot of money and effort going into pressuring politicians and civil organisations that dare to take an anti-Israeli perspective, no matter how Israel behaves. There has been not a word from the Jewish establishment in Australia in favour of the Palestinians. Some of my Jewish friends who have urged reconciliation with the Palestinians have been quite outcast from mainstream Jewish society in Australia, and called names like ‘self-hating Jews’. Being a long way from the action, Australian Jewry seems to echo the most militant elements of Zionism, and are quick to play the ‘anti-semitism’ card with politicians, without acknowledging why anti-Israel sentiment might be rising. The Palestinian death toll in Gaza and now the West bank and the International Criminal Court talking of war crimes and genocide seems to make no difference. The Holocaust ended 80 years ago, the Nakba was 77 years ago, but has continued to a lesser extent until this Gaza war which is a real and ongoing problem. Australia’s politicians are very afraid of the Jewish lobby, and as in the US, it may be the case that no party can win without its support. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that systematic funded interference in the way Australia is governed is likely. Will I be safe after writing this piece? Is a fatal car accident more likely?

Australia’s neoliberalism, which seems determined to keep government interference to a minimum, makes us a relatively low taxing country. So there is not enough money for realistic welfare, unemployment benefits, Gonski’s plan for equality of educational opportunity, universal health care, or building public housing. Yet we subsidise negative gearing for middle class property speculators, private health insurance and private education for those who can afford it, in the land of the supposed ‘fair go for all’. We give tax breaks to religious institutions. Jewish schools raise the Israeli flag and sing the national anthem of Israel. I wonder how a Muslim school would fare if it raised a Palestinian flag? Is there a Palestinian national anthem?

The reason I make the point about our welfare system is because Australia managed to absorb huge numbers of post WW2 migrants because everyone had a job and housing, and nearly all the children went to public schools and had similar early life experiences. There were no anti discrimination laws or commissioners but minimal problems. This assimilation was not merely because we are all nice people and have a nice climate. Social policies promoted inclusion. We have now moved away from inclusive policies to ones that cheerfully tolerate disadvantage and the segregation of society into advantaged and disadvantaged groups, which are likely to be divided by race and religion as well as by economic factors.

There is increasing ghettoisation in western Sydney and pro-Islamic groups are looking at standing Federal election candidates to counteract what they see as pro-Israeli views in the Australian political system. There seems that there is a lot more concern about anti-Semitism than Islamophobia, though this is rising similarly.

It is all very well to pass anti-hate laws and ban Nazi salutes to control extremist political rallies, but to get a harmonious egalitarian society we need to stop subsidising things that divide us, and start paying for things that will lessen division and give equal opportunities for all in a secular society.

08/08/2024

A Realistic Assessment of the Middle East Situation

8 August 2024
None of the Anglo Countries will say ‘No’ to Israel.
https://johnmenadue.com/the-awesome-power-of-the-israel-lobby/

21/07/2024

Israeli Parliament votes down Two-State Solution 68-9

21 July 2024

Israel has been settling people, largely poorer folk from Eastern Europe on hilltops on former Palestinian occupied land since 1948. Because they did recognise land title before the declaration of the State of Israel, they can claim that no one owns this land, which is of course nonsense, as the Palestinians had been occupying and farming it.

They have continued to pretend that a peace could be negotiated as they gradually took more and more land, and built roads to all the settlements so that the army could come and help the occupiers if the Palestinians resisted. They called the Palestinians terrorists, basically to undermine their legitimacy.

Now there is no land that could be a Palestinian state- there are about 750,000 Jewish settlers in the West bank in fortified villages, and they are educated in Hebrew only, so they cannot go anywhere even if they agreed to.

Israel has pretended for years that there could be a two-state solution because it has been playing for time to make it impossible. Now, because the world is calling out for a peace solution, the Knesset has said that it will not have a two state solution. The Palestinians obviously have nowhere to go. Gaza is rubble and the land on the West Bank is largely Jewish-owned.

Jeff Halper in his book ‘An Israeli in Palestine’ recognised this problem more than a decade ago and said that there would have to be a one-state solution with and post-Apartheid type of reconciliation similar to South Africa’s. Good luck with that now!

It is hard not to believe that the hard right who control the Israeli Knesset wanted the Gazans either to die or to flee to the Sinai, but Egypt did not allow the latter, as they knew that they would be refugees there forever. The Gazans knew it too, though we might wonder what they would choose now as Israel bombs them and blockades them till their children starve.

This is colonialism and genocide more obvious than it has been in public memory, and the Knesset has just shut the door on the peace process that Australia and many other governments have been vainly clinging to.

https://johnmenadue.com/israeli-lawmakers-vote-against-palestinian-statehoodpic-zeev-elkin/

18/04/2024

Gaza- Where Next?

10 April 2024

The world has watched in horror and amazement as Israel has systematically bombed Gaza.

Gaza was an open-air prison in the sense that its people could not move without permission, could not trade, except via Israel so had no industry and even their food supply was controlled. This led to the rise of Hamas, which was seen as at least willing to stand up to Israel rather than being the patsies of the Palestinian Authority (more on that later). Hamas was a result of the situation, not the cause.

As I have posted before, Israel was making friends with most of the countries around it. Jordan was too weak to stand up to it, as was Egypt. Qatar and UAE were mainly interested in trade, and Saudi Arabia, despite being strongly Sunni Muslims were about to sign a treaty. Netanyahu was captive of his religious Right and talking about a ‘Regional Solution’ for the Palestinians. This was probably code for them ‘going elsewhere’.

The State of Israel was ‘declared’ by Ben Gurion in 1948. The slogan had been ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’. Palestine had been a colonial state, part of the Ottoman Empire and then, after WW1, a British Protectorate and. But this did not mean that it did not have people occupying it. The state of Israel set about populating it by putting ‘settlers’ on the West Bank. The myth was that this land was not owned, which was only legally correct because Israel did not recognise land title prior to the declaration of the State of Israel. So Palestinians did not ‘own’ the land that they had occupied for decades. The ‘settlers’ were given land on the hilltops that the Palestinians were driven off, and the Israeli defence force guaranteed them support if the Palestinians, now defined as terrorists, attacked. A network of roads was built so that the army could come quickly to quell any Palestinian ‘aggression’. Many of the settlers came from Eastern Europe and had been marginalised in their previous countries so defending their Jewish status and new homes was not a huge conceptual step.

This went on for years with unsuccessful negotiations for a ‘two state’ solution with Yasser Arafat. The Palestinians were portrayed as terrorists while Israel gradually made the two state solution impossible on the ground. The settlers were educated principally in Hebrew which reinforced their Jewishness, but also limited their information input and their options to go elsewhere. There are now about 750,000 of them, so the West Bank is effectively ‘occupied’ and the settlers will not move any more than the Palestinians want to.

Israel also created Ramullah as the so-called capital of the supposedly-coming Palestinian state. The international aid agencies moved there, naturally wanting good premises for their staff to live and work and the price of rents and real estate there meant that the Palestinians, on minimal income, had trouble living there. The Palestinian Authority, now actually having a place to rule, could approve land developments, a handy source of income and also of corruption. So the Palestinian Authority was no longer seen as the legitimate rulers, but as compromised by Israel, which is why Hamas won the Gaza elections. Palestinians are generally not a particularly religious people.

The Palestinains are forced out of their accommodation in Jerusalem by the fact that increasingly Israelis use imported labour from Sri Lanka to do the menial jobs that the Palestinians used to do. So they had no work and could not pay the rents. If they left the house, under Israeli law an unoccupied house belongs to the State and can be gifted to a settler, so there has been a constant house by house clearing of Palestinians from Jerusalem, both the old walled (holy) city and the new part where traditionally Palestinians have lived on the East Side. So the Palesitinaisn were gradually getting to a situation where they had no land and no jobs. They were portrayed as terrorists and there was no negotiation towards any sort of lasting settlement.

Hamas probably launched the October 7 attack because if it did not do so, the Palestinian people had no future.

Israel, with Netanyahu having to stay in power at a personal level because of corruption charges and hostage to the religious Right first bombed the north of Gaza, and now, 35,000 or more deaths later, is intending to invade the last part where 1 million refugees have gathered. It may be that the religious Right simply want all the Palestinians dead. In Biblical times whole cities were massacred,so it is hard to know their frame of reference. It seems quite probable that the Israelis assumed that the border would be opened, the Palestinians would flee to a refugee area in the Sinai and they would never be allowed to return, creating a ‘refugee crisis’ which would be a UN rather than an Israeli problem. Israel would have solved its problem, and the precedent would let the West Bank Palestinains follow the Gazans. Unpopular in the short-term, but a ‘regional solution’.

The Israelis were keen to maximise harm to the Gazans, not allowing food trucks in, and the West talked about building ports to get food to Gazans rather than try to stop the Israeli blockade. It is hard to believe that the food trucks that were negotiating directly with the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) were hit accidentally; rather it was part of the overall strategy to discourage the aid, stop the Gazans getting fed, worsen their plight and get them to go elsewhere.

The idea that hunting Hamas militants is a serious strategy must be dismissed as nonsense. This will not be won as a military campaign. The hate sown by this action will last for generations. But why should Israel be believed when it says that this is its strategy? They took the West Bank by stealth as they claimed that they wanted to negotiate peace. It was simply a lie. They have worked for 40 years to make a ‘two state solution’ impossible. Now, amazingly even the Australian government thinks this can be achieved. There are $750,000 settlers making it impossible. Jeff Halper, an American Jewish anthropologist who moved to Israel wrote an excellent book in 2010, ‘An Israeli in Palestine’ in which he advocated a ‘One State solution’ on the assumption that the apartheid situation that exists has to be undone as it was in South Africa. This looks a very dismal prospect now. When I visited in 2012 the average Israeli was in a state of denial about what was happening, regarding it as the army and the police’s job to keep the peace so that they could continue ‘normal life’. It was strikingly similar to the situation when I had visited apartheid South Africa in 1985. Now the Israeli population is very scared and arming themselves. It will end up like the US with a large number of gun-related deaths and the problems ongoing. In the end a society has to be built on consensus and a degree of trust between individuals and strangers.

So what of the Gaza war? I have drifted off topic. The actual fighting has had very little attention. Do the Israelis merely bomb the city systematically and then walk in over the rubble with few casualties? Is Hamas actually fighting? There seems to be no attention to this in the mainstream press. And what of the Israelis? A million people are demonstrating for a change of government, but it seems unclear what they want. Their hostages back? A cease fire? A reasonable long term peace? On what terms?

Netanyahu has said that a date is set to invade the rest of Gaza. Does this mean even more casualties than before to force the world to take the Gazans as there is nowhere else for them to go? It looks that way.

Even if the world stops supplying weapons, will the Israelis have enough stockpiled to complete the job?

And if the Israelis stop, either now or after even more carnage, how will Gaza be rebuilt or there be any sort of just solution for the Palestinians?

The world sees Israel as the last and most brutal of the colonial powers, simply taking a land and killing inhabitants who resist. The developed West with all its talk of international law is seen in the global South as hypocrites, unwilling even to condemn a more recent colonial aggressor. It is hard not to see their point. Countries are judged by what their governments do, not by what their people may think. Australia’s late foray into arms manufacture with the Israeli partnership can be seen for the stupidity it was. We are all losers here. Recognition of a Palestinian state will at least elevate the status of any Palestinian negotiators. It is too little too late, but what are the alternatives?

https://theconversation.com/penny-wong-floats-recognising-palestine-ahead-of-two-state-solution-to-help-path-to-peace-227456

16/02/2024

Gaza: The Final Solution?

15 February 2024

As the Israeli army threatens to invade the last part of Gaza, Australia, Canada, NZ, the UN and most of the world ask them to stop. The citizens of Gaza were already crowded into a very small area. Then they were moved to the South, then into ever smaller areas. Now military action will kill large numbers who have nowhere to shelter. It is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Netanyahu says that he wants to destroy Hamas and that the hostages must be there somewhere. Presumably as he has not found them in the areas he is already occupying.

He is still trying to defeat Hamas militarily and always has intelligence that they are hiding in the civilian population.

The idea that Hamas is separate from the population it governs is absurd. It may have a military wing, but it is a political party that was voted in. The reason that they were voted in was because the Palestinian Authority were seen as patsies for the Israeli government, corrupt and concerned with land rezoning kickbacks in the putative capital of the West Bank Palestinian state, Ramallah.

But even if the Israelis killed everyone associated with Hamas, their actions have guaranteed generations of hatred for the Israelis. The ‘war on terror’ was a silly slogan, as terror is a means of fighting that underdogs use, not a religion, a cause or a people.

Which begs the final question; what is Israel doing? Netanyahu is under a great deal of pressure personally in that he is facing corruption changes and he has actually passed legislation to disempower the courts. This was a cause of many demonstrations before the Hamas raids on 7 October that triggered the current war. He is also dependent for power on far-Right Zionist parties for the survival of his government. In a way he needs the war.

But I wonder if this final stage is actually the final solution of the ‘Palestinian problem’. Israel has pretended that there would be a ‘two state solution’ as it pushed Palestinians off their land and out of their Jerusalem houses, gave their jobs to immigrant guest workers so that they had no means of support, and kept them in a gated city, Gaza. Having deliberately made a two state solution impossible, they then made peace with adjoining countries and talked about a ‘regional solution’, which sounded very like ‘you take the Palestinians’. Now, they may be saying to the rest of the world, ‘Are you going to open the border and let these people escape to the Sinai or will we kill them all?’ Of course if they go to the Sinai they will be a huge refugee problem, but it will not be Israel’s problem, it will be the world’s problem- a ‘regional solution’, as Israel will not take them back.

Israel is already a pariah. It has nowhere to put the Palestinians and would have to rebuild Gaza, which it will not want to do. It cannot integrate them as is being attempted in post-Apartheid South Africa, as the enmity is probably now worse than it was in South Africa. And Netanyahu’s far-right religious backers probably see this as an opportunity for a final solution. Do we really believe the stated reasons for their actions? Who will blink first?

05/02/2024

Gaza Outcomes

4 February 2024

As Israel destroys all of Gaza and the refugees huddle on the beach one might ask what is the end point?

Israel claims it wants to destroy Hamas, because it is a ‘terrorist organisation’

But what does this mean? A terrorist is someone who uses attacks on civilians to create fear in a population to achieve a political end. One could ask if that was what the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was doing already, failing to recognise land title, awarding Palestinian-occupied land to settlers and then sending the Army to defend the donated land for the ‘settlers’.

But leaving that aside, it is true that Hamas or groups associated with it used terrorist tactics on October 7th. Terrorist tactics are almost always used by the weaker side for the simple reason that they cannot hope to win a more conventional conflict.

But Hamas were the elected government of Gaza, elected largely because the Palestinian Authority was seen to be corrupted by land development money and a patsy organisation for the Israelis.

Palestinians are actually quite an nonreligious people, but saw Hamas as at least on their side.

The Israelis response was at first called ‘self defence’ but the idea that killing 28,000 mostly civilians and flattening a whole city is an appropriate retaliation for 1,200 deaths seems totally unreasonable.

It is also unreasonable to think that Hamas can be defeated militarily. It is not a military problem. Even if every last Hamas member were killed, their ideas will never be separated from the rest of the Gaza population. They have witnessed this unrestrained killing and destruction of their homes- it would be difficult to believe that in the long term they will not hate Israel.

So what is Israel’s objective? One could answer that it is the short-term survival of Netanyahu politically, but that is too simple. Israel has pretended it wanted a two-state solution, which means giving the West Bank to the Palestinians. Yet it has systematically placed 750,00 settlers on all the high points of the West Bank, supported them and armed them to the teeth. It has deliberately made a two state solution impossible as a policy for the last 70 years. As Netanyahu made good relations with Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, he started to speak about a ‘Regional Solution’ to the ‘Palestinian problem’. This sounded very much like asking his Arab neighbours to take Palestinians as refugees/migrants.

Now the Gazans will have nowhere to go. Their city is totally destroyed. Who would pay for its rebuild? Who will govern this wasteland?

It seems obvious that the Israelis want the Gazans to go into the Sinai desert in Egypt and then become a refugee problem for the UN and the whole world- i.e no longer a problem for Israel. It has worked with the Rohingyas in Myanmar.

Biden is talking about a two-state solution, and not having the Gazans go into Egypt. How realistic is this?

Fillipo Grandi was Commissioner -General of UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency) and visited Australia as a guest of the UN Association of Australia in 2012. He was Italian, a consummate diplomat and in charge of relief for Palestinian refugees. I chaired a meeting at the Sydney Peace Foundation at Sydney Uni where he was the guest speaker. He was extremely careful not to criticise Israel to the extent that I as a debater and politician marvelled at his skill as he fielded loaded questions from each side of the debate.

According to Wikipedia UNRWA now has 30,000 staff and employs a lot of Palestinian refugees to help administer their aid programme. This is hardly surprising. There are few jobs for Palestinian refugees and the UN needs relatively cheap staff. Naturally they would use Palestinians to help their own people. It is therefore hardly surprising that with Hamas as the Gaza government, some UNRWA staff would be involved with them, and also unsurprising that some would be sympathetic to Hamas.

We might ask who discovered the connection between a dozen UNRWA workers and Hamas? Israeli security? Now we see the US, Australia, the UK and others stopping funding to UNRWA. The Gaza refugees are already starving. Who does this aid cessation benefit? Israel of course. The last hope of the Gaza refugees is taken away.

It seemed that the only two possibilities for a resolution of the Israeli/Palestine problem were either a two-state solution or a one state solution as advocated by Jeff Halper in his book ‘An Israeli in Palestine’ which was an Apartheid reconciliation process similar to what happened in South Africa. The chances of either of these solutions seems remote now, so the Israeli solution, of bombing and starving Palestinians out of Gaza and into Egypt initially and then anywhere else may be the only one. In the West Bank, with their land taken and the menial jobs now being done by imported Sri Lankans, Filipinos and Indonesians rather than Palestinians, there will be pressure for them to follow their Gaza compatriots into exile.

I hope that I am quite wrong about this, but I doubt it.

Here is a new word for irreconcilably taking someone’s home, Domicide, in an article in The Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/jan/30/how-war-destroyed-gazas-neighbourhoods-visual-investigation?CMP=share_btn_link