It has been a few days of slaughter-filled accounts. Starting on October 7 on the Jewish day of Simchat Torah, the State of Israel has faced assaults from hundreds of Hamas militants. Directed from southwards in the country, the mayhem has rattled the security and intelligence establishment smugly convinced in their reading of Palestinian motivations and capabilities. But outside the conflict, the commemorations for the dead are to be held according to a specific blueprint.
Across a slew of Western capitals and cities – self-described their presses as The World, blue and white lights have splashed buildings, offering a plaster of virtue over the policies of a state. It would be futile, and tiresome, to document each example of such selective privileging. But for those countries aligned or sympathetic to Israel, some particularly reluctant to decry policies that have violated, with breezy disdain, the dictates of international law, you will not see buildings illuminated by the flag colours of Palestine.
The Berlin Wall received such treatment. Ditto the Berlaymont, the headquarters of the European Commission’s building in Brussels. But surely no country, in terms of number, came close to the United States, Israel’s unqualified political and military backer. In New York alone, under direction by Governor Kathy Hochul, such landmarks as the One World Trade Centre, the Moynihan Train Hall and the Empire State Building received the nocturnal blue-white bathing of light. “New York stands with Israel – today and every day,” Hochul reiterated.
Very clear statements have been made in taking such a position: to the dead we owe the truth, but only a certain truth, and only to certain dead. There are some truths to be told slant and circuitous, and others to be avoided altogether.
A noisy, agitated example of this unfolded in response to the decision made by the New South Wales government to illuminate Australia’s most famous architectural construction in the colours of the Israeli flag. Reporters went about sniffing to see whether the protests organised by Palestinian activists outside the Sydney Opera House emitted a certain antisemitic tang. If not antisemitic, anything that could be seen as pro-Hamas or laudatory of attacks on the Israeli state would also be picked up.
Political figures did not wait long before the red mist descended. Had the protesters been pro-Israel, Jewish and celebrating Israel, that would have been a different matter. But here, we saw protests by Palestinians against the decision to bathe the Opera House’s famous sails in such selective illumination. A prudent measure might have been to avoid doing so altogether: once sides are taken, other sides are excluded.
The focus, however, was not on the building’s preferential lighting scheme but the insensitive audacity of the Palestinian protesters who turned up like desecraters at a holy event. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed the view that “people need to really take a step back,” and that the march be abandoned.
Allegra Spender, the independent federal MP for the Sydney seat of Wentworth, made it clear where her side of the vote counted. She called protests outside the Opera Hall “abhorrent. At a time when there should be solidarity with our Jewish community, they have been subject to appalling abuse.” She demanded to know how such an unsympathetic rabble had been permitted to protest in the first place. No mention that the protest was directly challenging the illumination of the edifice in the colours of a flag associated with the military and economic incarceration of Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank, the brake on recognising Palestine as a sovereign state.
The scenes and chanting outside the Opera House last night are abhorrent. At a time when there should be solidarity with our Jewish community, they have been subject to appalling abuse.
I am seeking an urgent explanation of how this was allowed to happen. pic.twitter.com/ofYenjW1VW— Allegra Spender (@spenderallegra) October 9, 2023
Attacks by Hamas, Spender raged in a separate statement, were not seen as “acts of resistance” but those of a crazed terrorist outfit. “People should not let sympathy for the Palestinian’s legitimate aspirations for statehood blind them to the fact that Hamas remains dedicated to a Palestinian state where Israel does not exist.” Spender could also have noted that the stillborn nature of Palestinian statehood has become the default policy of the Netanyahu government.
Former diplomat Dave Sharma, who had also previously served as a Liberal MP for Wentworth, expressed his “outrage” on ABC News Breakfast because the protesters should have “picked another evening” to march. This should have been Israel’s day, the day for Jews. The Palestinian marchers should have protested appropriately, always the mealymouthed recipe for the ducking brigade who favour power over principle. NSW Premier, Chris Minns, fumed Sharma, should never have given the state police permission for the protests to take place.
For his part, Minns managed to aggravate a goodly number by permitting the illumination of the Opera House to take place, not disallowing the rally in response to that decision while warning the Jewish community to stay away for reasons of safety. Regarding the protests themselves, they were, according to the Premier’s office, “horrible” and did “not represent the people of NSW.” As horrible as they were, not a single arrest took place.
While Australian politicians complained and sniffed, Israel has imposed another blockade of Gaza, with news reporters limply avoiding the point that the enclave of two million inhabitants was already blockaded. Such a political entity was barely breathing to begin with, but the promise now is to cut off water (97% of the water in Gaza is already contaminated), food, fuel and access to electricity (this was already subject to regular outages) is seen as a logical, natural barbarism. Searching for the appropriate word, the Israeli forces had dubbed this latest measure a “siege”.
During a visit to the Israeli Air Force’s underground command centre, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant summed up the attitude to this approach of even deeper deprivation against an already exhausted civilian population. “We are fighting animals and are acting accordingly.”
Hardly the voice of a restraint-filled, law abiding official. But back in Australia, Sharma was full of greasy apologetics: “You have to understand, this is a war.” And whenever it waged war, Israel would only do “in accordance with international law”. Hardly – but at least we can light up a few buildings in blue and white.
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Well said.
It’s a horrible time, and worse is likely. Idiots emerge in world politics, war as in Ukraine and elsewhere cannot be halted, old racism, superstition, greed, revenge, hatred, delusion cannot be defeated, horrors for ordinary folk abound, and we can only chat…
At the risk of playing Devil’s Advocate, I see the same strategy in this conflict as exists in the Russia v Ukraine (USA Proxy) was since 2014. Incrementalism politics until finally one side gets distressed enough to react violently in response to unmitigated provocation of a long period.
Perhaps somebody could explain how the Balfour Declaration was extracted from Balfour by Rothschild in 1916 when he was seeking war funding from the Rothschild bankers.
Perhaps somebody could explain how this situation between the indigenous Palestinians is any different to the Aboriginal Wars in Australia.
When I was being told about this business of lighting the opera house I was in total disbelief, but continued to make very rude gestures toward the screen.
This is Orwells 1984, and big brother could be watching.
Like the Palestinian people certain freedoms are allowed, but by whom?
The way that this so called democracy is bullied into shape by a belligerent minority very much swings my passive mode into a more active mode.
The whole two state thing is utter nonsense while one party repeatedly exterminates the oppressed.
Quote D.P. -” The whole two state thing is utter nonsense while one party repeatedly exterminates the oppressed.”
That’s exactly how Netanyahu wants it.
Supporting Israel is supporting the genocide of the Palestinians people!
I think one of the big issues regarding Israel is the fact that politicians in other countries are scared shitless of being attacked online and in the media for holding views that are perceived as being against the state of Israel and in the extreme also labelled as anti-Semitic.
I see no equivalence with Ukraine. Russia was not an occupied country subjected to cruelty and oppression, except by its own despotic leader.
It is possible, if a bit of a long bow, to draw parallels with the situation facing our First Nations people, although the oppression is not of the same order of magnitude as that practiced by Israel over the Palestinians.
It could be argued that some of the antisocial activities and crime being experienced in places like Alice Springs and Darwin are an imitation of the revolt by militant Palestinians. Going further one could predict that if the referendum fails such antisocial behaviour might worsen.
LIKE DP I was gobsmacked by the thick headed thinking of Minns and Albanese. These are our leaders??? Surely someone could have had a quiet word , in simple four letter words to explain the consequences of ignoring the history of the conflict? Have they forgotten we are a multicultural country? After all just days ago Alɓo was standing in a mosque praising our Muslim community. This is the sort of brain fart we expect from Dutton.
To add insult to injury, Dutton and the government are worrying about retaliation against the Jewish community, but what about the more likely scenario of an attack on a mosque, or women wearing a head covering being abused.
Penny tried to bring a bit of calm but was quickly put in her place by not only Dutton, but her own colleagues. After all what would a woman know about bringing calm and rational thought to a tense situation.
I’m a Labor supporter but I am embarrassed by the ham fisted approach. We could have bathed these sites in deep purple to signify the tragic loss of life across Israel and Gaza. Better still we could have worked with the UN to seek a solution over the last forty years.
Yeah, good article, well said.
Can’t help comparing the Israel / Palestine mess to what we in Oz are attempting to inform and redress, and the current imbroglio regarding the ‘Voice’.
The colonizing Zionists had their term for Terra Nulius, the propaganda mantra was ‘A land without people for a people without land”.
United Nations Partition Plan
Of course UN Resolution 181 has largely been ignored, and the incoming Israelis have largely been duped by their leaders and their international ‘friends of convenience’, and the Palestinians increasingly disenfranchised (eg. the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and ignoring of Yasser Arafat), and dispossessed and oppressed.
Re the current festering outbreak, there are multiple important issues raised by Amos Harel in Haaretz
1 .”Those who try to draw an equivalence between Hamas’ murderous acts and Israel’s airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response, distort the truth. Hamas is the aggressor this time, and it has intentionally committed war crimes against a civilian population.”
2.”A prime minister who got us into this trap in the first place, the heads of Israel’s defense establishment who don’t trust the prime minister, and cabinet members mostly lacking political experience and a minimal sense of responsibility, and having little military experience.”
3.The Trump/Morrison/Dutton/Netanyahu Poison machine “the poison machine that stands at his command has recovered from its initial confusion. No more than a few hours passed and it was already engaged in finger-pointing … Someone, perhaps an officer from the progressive left, even opened the gates for the Hamas terrorists. How else can the disaster be explained? These things are being said in all seriousness … this terrible lie … is happening via a systematic and planned campaign on the part of the Bibi-ists.”
From Haaretz | Israel News by Amos Harel 8 October 2023
Analysis | Four Bad Options Face Israel in the Gaza Strip
Clakka, Haaretz is a good source that does try to hold power to account; Netanyahu has much to answer for.
I am quite convinced that Albo is very aware of what happened to Jeremy Corbyn when he did not pay enough homage to those who who favour Israel.
So quaking in his shoes, he uses the opera house to appease them.
Anything to take our minds off the carnage that is going on right now as the Palestinians are being decimated even faster now, in full view of the world.
Shooting fish in a barrel does not even come close.
This is not going to turn out well for both sides, but for us to involve this country is sheer stupidity.
Insightful.
So many thoughts.. the exclusion of indigenes in settler society, the hysterical bourgeois media and press, techniques of manipulation and persuasion; in this case outright lies.
I find their vengeance face (again) sickening. I find the gormless and reactive politics, hypocrisy and refusal to contextualise, the paranoia and dislocation from actuality quite disturbing.
In one way, Israel is not atypical of western societies in general. Populist braggarts installed by people in the background, aging reactive and denialist as well as duped and exploited in not a few ways ..
Anyway China’s Panopticon is only an overt form of most more subtle forms of surveillance many places elsewhere.
Really repulsive few days of the worst of human nature on so many levels on display.
Aus politicians and mainstream media are now supporting genocide in real time by siding with the Israeli PM declaration of revenge/vengeance. As usual, msm looks through its Overton window of perception and the backstory of this conflict is deemed to have begun a few days ago. The rocket attacks by Israel & Palestine are creating future terrorists, some will join Hamas, some the Israeli army. It’d be good for media to not take sides and try be more balanced in reporting.
It is interesting to note that those that provide the greatest criticism of Ukrainian (legal and military focussed) resistance to Russia’s brutality and occupation , provide the greatest support for Palestinians using any means, including terrorism.
In 1986 Jackson Browne released « Lives in the Balance « .
I don’t know if he had the Middle East conflict in mind but it could have been written for today. (Edited)
I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the deadlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear,
On the radio talk shows and tv
You hear once thing again and again,
How the USA stands for freedom,
And we come to the aid of a friend,
But who are the ones that we call our friends?
These governments killing their own,
Or the people who finally can’t take anymore,
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire.
Thank you Jackson Browne. .
It is despicable that the coalition functionaries including Dutton, Susssan Ley and even Howard was trundled out to criticise the government’s response to the Hamas attack on Israel : they even called out Penny Wong for calling on the parties to maintain “restraint” after the Israeli Defence Minister threatened to close all access for water, food, electricity and medical support and to flatten Gaza.
Restraint on both sides is what is required…………………..!!
Terence Mills, in no way is it about “restraint”.
NEC’s post early is closer to my thinking, hence my understanding of how laughable the comment from romeo charlie is.