“Wait for the ricochet … “
By Allan Richardson
I don’t flabbergast easily, but listening to so-called sentients suggesting that the Middle East conflict was unrelated to religious differences, it’s clear that they’ve never heard of Jerusalem! Would King Solomon have cut it in half after having built its first synagogue? Would he have divided Palestine into equitable ‘halves’ so that the Israelites and Arabs could coexist in peaceful harmony?
Fundamental differences in religious beliefs, especially with those based on black letter ‘canonical’ law won’t give an inch. Neither the chants of ‘Allahu Akbah’ or a melodic rendition of ‘And If I Were A Rich Man’ rationalises the extreme and unbending tenets of their ‘faiths’, where sparing civilian lives rarely warrants serious consideration.
And there’s ABC Insiders, featuring Israeli sycophant Schmendrick Birmingham, who suggested that on the one hand it’s mandatory that Albanese visits Israel, and on the other hand that he stands back and doesn’t interfere. Perhaps he should be tasked with setting the government’s travel agenda, hopefully keeping our PM safe in a war zone. Yeah, right.
I’ve been heartened by the forthright and carefully considered statements from senator Aly and Minister Husic, where it appears that they’ve enlisted Palestinian support from other Labor politicians, whilst decrying the actions of Hamas, but fearful for the safety of the millions of citizens in the pocket handkerchief-sized Gaza Strip.
The world is (rightly) becoming polarised on the ME conflict, already at DEFCON 2. It will either be settled by Israel doubling down on illegal settlement until the obvious genocide has been achieved, maintaining the status quo as camouflage whilst continuing the encroachment, or the other shoe will drop and the lands of Omar Khayyam may get their hands dirty. In which case it’ll be a race between nuclear annihilation and Global Warming extinction. Pick a box.
Or, as emphasised by some classical musicians, wait for the ricochet …
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18 comments
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Douglas Pritchard -
Jonathan -
New England Cocky -
Merrin -
Clakka -
New England Cocky -
andyfiftysix -
paul walter -
corvusboreus -
gary henshaw -
Douglas Pritchard -
corvusboreus -
Douglas Pritchard -
corvusboreus -
corvusboreus -
Terence Mills -
Steve Davis -
Douglas Pritchard
Return to home pageI am aghast with the way this situation is being reported by MSM.
This is not a War. This is a nation hell bent on genocide completing the ghastly murder of civilians who have long been denied the human rights, and now starved to death.
I have a news paper from the year of my birth , 1939, reporting on Jews leaving Europe in their droves, and this was OK because they were certainly unpopular.
Now how could they be so anti social that getting rid of them ALL was seen as the best solution all round.
Read the Balfor declaration and the conditions written into it.
Every condition has been breached.
So maybe thats a clue as to a situation in the middle east when the State of Israel is sponsored by USA, and surrounded by countries that want to get rid of it.
Maybe the religion is on the nose due to its deep rooted manner of going about surviving?
Some/many of the usual war-mongering suspects claimed that this is Israel’s 9/11 moment.
I agree with this statement but not for the same reasons as the usual benighted suspects.
It seems to be that this was/is a dramatic example of a long-simmering Blowback phenomenon as described by Chalmers Johnson in response to the US 9/11 and in his work altogether.
Very impressed by the LABOR politicians, Senator Anne Aly and Ed Husic, standing up to be counted in support of the Indigenous Palestinian population of occupied Palestine against the stated intention of Israel to ”push all Palestinians into the sea” reported for one IDF General.
.
Certainly the MSM and Murdoch Media Monopoly are unreliable sources of information of this Israeli policy of genocidal retribution and land grab for even more Zionist immigrants into a geographic land area to which the Jewish people have only a tenuous claim based on a short occupation period before being moved in slavery to Babylon.
Yes NEC, good that Labor has 2 people who are showing the world a humane face. What does that say about the rest of the community, especially the media who seem to be prepping the world for a global conflagration based on religious differences? Funny thing is all the media and political manipulation – that Israeli people good because they are Zionists, Palestine people bad because they are Muslims – is being called out by a lot of Christians and other groups. If the Israeli plan is to set Muslims against Christians in other countries – as a consequence of war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians under the guise of getting rid of a small band of terrorists – then Israel has failed before it started.
The Israeli PM and some of his Ministers should be before the Hauge.
From the get-go Oz intelligence chief, Burgess, came out and rightly called for the use of measured language. The precipitous blue & white floodlighting of the Opera House by Minns was far from measured, and to that extent I note Clover Moore is voting against further such actions by City of Sydney. The Opera House stunt caused an understandably incendiary response from Oz Palestinians. Thankfully the police / security services have been wise in their negotiation and permissions with both sides across the country for the voicing of protests on the streets.
It was only about a year ago that Labor pronounced that it would more actively include consideration of the Palestinian cause in their dialogues. Thank goodness for the reasoned promulgations of Senator Aly and Ed Husic. Far better than the reckless, damaging, ignorant didactic outburst of warmongering Dutton, and the tortious point-scoring strangulations of Birmingham and Ley
During my years of business in the ME, two instructive circumstances come to mind. The first in Al Manamah, Bahrain. I had a day off, and decided to venture to the souk. At the huge plaza, I sat and had coffee, and ended chatting with some local gents. They pointed out the penitentiary, and yard where the ‘stonings’ took place. “These days?” I queried. They said, “Rarely, but now mercifully quickly via a front-end loader.” They rolled their eyes.
Later, shortly after lunch, as I returned to my hotel, I ventured through the ‘religious quarter’. I was standing agog at the huge Roman catholic cathedral, and on either side of it, a huge and ornate mosque and a very large synagogue. A very tall arabic gentleman graceful in his fine raiment enquired, “Can I help, Sir, you look a bit lost?” I told him of my preplex. He said, “Of course, Sir, this is the ‘religious quarter’ and we respect all religions.” I said I was most surprised by the synagogue. He said, “But of course, there is an ancient and lasting tradition of Jews on the island. There are many very ancient Jewish burial mounds across the country.”
Later that day, my local agent took me for a drive to see the mounds. There were hundreds, if not thousands, dating back to 2000 BCE, all protected by the National Trust.
Second. Some time later I was in Jeddah, at the Saudia board room discussing aerospace training. At one point, regarding a particular training mode, I enquired, “Do you have a system preference?” The head man said, “Yes, we prefer the system El Al uses.” I must have microscopically flinched. He said, “My young friend, never mind the politics, they will never stop trade across the mountains.”
That I live, and hopefully learn. It seems that being in place, particularly at ground level, the most is to be learned. Folk are mostly interested in each other and what they can trade in goods, services and or knowledge.
Power seekers, demagogues and those that seek to possess more than they need, tend to divisiveness and the peddling of ‘otherness’. In their quest, they may lead us to war, until ordinary folk bring us to peace again.
In our learned modern history, we will look over our shoulders, and possibly seek to balance the books of cause and effect. For example the attitudes and events of the colonial and post-colonial eras, their conquests and competitive attempts at possession for the good.
On topic, from a history of agricultural and merchant co-existence to the insurgencies of the Assyrians, the Babylonians and Romans, to the French and English occupations, the Balfour Treaty, the UN Resolution 181, and the Oslo Accords, the region’s Jews and Arabs have been repeatedly grown together and torn apart.
The second half of the 20th century saw the increasing emergence of the notion of rights over responsibilities. This of course plays into the hands of the power seekers, demagogues and those seeking to possess more than they need. They can peck at history and peddle a divisive story to suit their desires, a story that often engenders a siege and combative hatred.
In this electronically connected world there is an abundance of desk-top commentators and squawkers. Are they from on the ground? Do they speak from the context of history? Even the historians are changing their m.o., their categorizations, their language – a new view.
Netanyahu could drag Biden down
Middle Ages history still relevant today, God forbid
I was going to include a wonderful interview with Stan Grant I heard in the last few days in the wee small hours (maybe Ear Shot on ABC RN). It was a wonderful contemporary self bio, rational and philosophy of the progression of Stan through to today. Sadly, I could not find it to post
”The reckoning for decades of Israeli occupation is upon us — Antony Loewenstein (Crikey) ($): “As a Jew, I’ve long been disgusted with the proudly Jewish supremacist program on display in the Jewish state, backed by too many in the mainstream Jewish community in Australia and beyond.
When I lived in East Jerusalem between 2016 and 2020 with my partner who worked for an international NGO, every day I saw the humiliation meted out by Israeli police to random Palestinians.
I witnessed extremist Jewish settlers in Hebron openly calling for genocide against Arabs. The daily mechanics of the occupation involve myriad ways that Palestinians are treated like second-class citizens.
“In the past week, the unrelenting Israeli response arrived with predictably brute force. A friend in Gaza, Haneen, told me that Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of civilian homes and infrastructure had lasted for days but ‘felt like three years’. War crimes are being committed on a daily basis and yet the Western powers are endorsing it.
Israel’s much-vaunted surveillance and intelligence apparatus was found gravely wanting despite claiming to have every inch of Gaza under constant watch. For the past decades, Israel has deployed an extensive array of drones, Palestinian spies (many times they’re blackmailed by Israel to pass along intelligence), so-called ‘smart walls’ and sophisticated listening devices. And yet Hamas was still able to mount a deadly attack.”
From Crikey 191023
“if you been bad, lord i bet you have, you better bow your head……….wait for the ricochet” One of purple’s most powerful songs.
And in this case is an apt description of what has transpired. And strangely, some of the truth has come out. Bibi’s plan to slowly disposses the palestinians has been exposed. This latest outburst has been so brutal and viscious that palestinians cant be ignored anymore. The romans defined winning as wiping every man woman and child from the face of the earth. I hope the Israeli understand thats an impossibility that will reflect very badly on them. They will find that as they turn from victims to butchers, history will be repeated.
Love to be a fly on the wall in Biden’s Office for briefings with Albo….bugging?
Jonathon in Palestine/Israel, this has been active for a century and oil and trade routes opened or cut oil, over-manipulated intensely throughout a huge region.. The current configuration does suggest a huge component of European and US influenced to suit for themselves. The pretext is the so called Big Game involvement with the containment of China and defence
hardware industries must be loving it.
The US reacted as much as responded to 9/11 and we had over a decade of time and resources wasted chasing phantoms. Similarly, Israel couldn’t conceive of the Unthinkable at this time- it could be a sort of modern-day Tet offensive in effect- and so much a sadness of the savagery of the worst of human nature so brazenly on display..
Curiously, like the Voice, the darker side of the animal and a poisoning of the wells bringing suffering for longer for many.
andyfiftysix,
“history will be repeated'”.
An old song (running time 3:32)
Even if history doesn’t necessarily repeat, it certainly maintains a certain rhythm & rhyme.
Sigh
I fear writing my opinions here . Because one government has enormous reach throughout the world.
The ricochet may be already be in progress.
For as long as most of us can remember its been the Israeli who have sat back sipping a latte while terrorizing the Palestinians behind walls.
“Look at us, we dont need to abide by any of your laws, we just do as we please”.
However the worm has turned now, and the country is on red alert,and calling on its sponsor for help.
It may be a state armed to the teeth, but it knows its no match if its neighbours act in unison Israel is now terrified, and this is how history works.
PS… Then I watched the clip “This land….!
On dissent within Israel.
The citizens of Israel can no more be absolutely collectivised in any absolute blame than can the people of the Gaza ghetto.
I would hazard a guess that, on the whole, there are a lot of people on both sides of the ‘iron fence’ who are unhappy with conduct from not only the ‘side’ but also their own.
When ‘bibi Netanyahu wriggled out of criminal court and back into power (by negotiated coalition) for a 3rd term I groaned and braced myself, probably in unison with millions of souls within that region.
Politicians can be low creatures, and Netanyahu is most benthic kind; Hard right authoritarian religio-nationalist who wallows in corruption and opportunistically exploits chaos and carnage.
His third term saw an immediate attack on judicial independence (+other free speech) and internal restructuring (political purges) caused a state of partial mutiny within the IDF.
This was the state of the state when the hamas (+ij) operatives struck.
There is report of Netanyahu speaking within party meeting of allowing funds to flow to Hamas in order to divide Palestinian ambitions. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
The chief of Egyptian intelligence claims he gave Netanyahu 10 days warning of likely incident.
Bear in mind it is a claim from a political spook, but a US Intell committee accepted the claim of Israel getting 3 days warning of specified pre-op preparations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67082047
Bibi, of course, denies all.
Would I put it past him to deliberately degrade Israeli readiness in order to enable atrocity as a chance to sound the rallying call of Joshua’s trumpet?
Nope.
Perspective; it would suck to be a secular progressive pacifist (“Arabs are people too”) living in Israel at the moment.
Reality check; being a person of similar values currently trying to survive in the screaming rubble of the Gaza ghetto would be a hell of a lot worse.
Corvusboreus,
How true.
How very very true.
An opportunist reaction to an event.
So when folk said this is the Zionist 9/11 moment I didnt immediately make the connection.
But now I have
Maybe there were blue and white globes standing in readiness under the sails of the opera house.
.On the day that Albo heralds the arrival of 10 Microsoft data collection banks, and each and every keystroke is on record for the vested interests that run our lives.
Another stake in the heart of our supposed sovereignty
Douglas Pritchard,
When Netanyahu was re-elected, I have little doubt that the hamas planners immediately started wringing hands and formulating plots.
Netanyahu follows a depressingly predictable pattern; REACT WITH FORCE!(!!!).
This is mana from heaven for ‘political campaigns using violence (aka terror!sm).
‘Commit sacrificial attacks upon high-profile targets in order to provoke disproportionately forceful response, thus generating and militarising local and international sympathy’.
Straight out the playbook.
Phuq I hate competative ballsports.
Ps, I have formulated a cautious viewpoint based upon sceptical assessment of available evidence, I suggest you not immediately springboard off such into a pool of internationalist conspiracies.
Gary henshaw,
Probably better to remain stoicly silent than express your fears then (you never know who’s watching).
[Grey Person Principle 101]
I read that there were at best ten thousand Hamas fighters and far less now as many have returned to their families or otherwise melted into the community : in the meantime Israel are massing some three hundred thousand forces ready raze and flatten Gaza.
The two elderly Jewish women released by Hamas said they were treated with respect and courtesy (after some initial rough handling) and shared food and water with their Hamas captors – notably the women said that their captors had kept the facilities and bathrooms clean for them.
The Hamas warriors who invaded Israel and killed and terrorised settlers and young people at a dance party cannot be excused and should be brought to justice but collective punishment is not a balanced response.
Terence, I agree.
As does the UN chief, for which Israel is now calling for his resignation.
Please allow me to share a complete coincidence.
I happen to be doing a reread of Orwells “1984”, and paused to watch Press club on TV today.
The ambassador for Israel was at the Dias talking of events recently.
Now in 1984, as you will recall, our hero Winston has to interrupt his working day several times to observe hate speech from Big Brother.
Collective hatred is the order of the day, and this was published in 1949.
Today on my “telescreen” I watched hate being preached for 25 minutes.
Then our journalists were invited to ask questions, and for the following 40 mins, where the theme was “War is Peace”, Freedom is Slavery”, and an overwhelming “Ignorance is Strength”.
There was a prevailing feeling that “Big Brother is watching you”.
George really is a bit of a legend. Enjoy.