By electing the Albanese Labor Government on 21 May 2022, Australia ended 10 years of appalling misrule by mendacious, corrupt, incompetent, anti-science and human rights-abusing Coalition governments. However after 1 month the honeymoon is over – Australia remains US- and Zionist-subverted, and the timid new Labor government is only making cosmetic baby steps on war, inequality, fossil fuels, climate change, Indigenous rights, and Indigenous Palestinian human rights.
These present immediate failures can be succinctly summarized as follows:
(i). War – continuing commitment to US imperialism and nuclear terrorism via nuclear submarines and the anti-China AUKUS and Quad Alliances;
(ii). Inequality – mitigated by a government-backed 5.2% wage increase for low-paid workers but now exacerbated by high and increasing inflation;
(iii). Fossil fuels – Australia will remain a major exporter of coal and gas, and against scientific advice will open more coal mines and gas fields;
(iv). Climate change – despite promises to decrease Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by “43% off the 2005 level by 2030”, Australia will remain a world leader in per capita Domestic plus exported GHG pollution; and
(v). Indigenous rights – Labor will support a constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous Voice To Parliament, as well as a Treaty and Truth-telling – but the 10 year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians will remain because the appalling causative differentials in social circumstances will remain.
In relation to Palestinian human rights, the US- and Zionist-subverted Labor Government has not yet recognized a State of Palestine ( although the Labor Party Conference voted for this if Labor were elected), opposes Boycotts , Divestment and Sanctions against Apartheid Israel, fervently supports Apartheid Israel (Australia is second only to the US as a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of the crime of apartheid), incorrectly supports the false definition of “anti-Semitism” by the anti-Semitic and holocaust-denying International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (the all European IHRA, of which Australia is a member), and denies the reality of Israeli apartheid (a reality exposed by expert reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli B’Tselem, Israeli Yesh Din, and by humanitarian scholars, leaders, writers and activists around the world).
All that the timid Albanese Government has done has been to not co-sign a US letter (signed by 22 countries) condemning the UN special Human Rights investigation into Palestine/Israel which found Israel to be primarily responsible for ongoing unrest and violence. Australia sent its own letter of complaint that by referring to “disproportionate scrutiny to Israel” reflected the complaint by the US and its lackeys that Israel was being unfairly singled out [1, 2].
The continuing appalling oppression of 15 million Indigenous Palestinians by nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel (that is backed by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, the EU and NATO) is a blot on these complicit countries, Australia in particular, and indeed Humanity. Australia has been variously associated with the ongoing Palestinian Genocide from WW1 onwards (for some useful accounts see [3-15]).
In the interests of truth, truth-telling and Humanity I have set out below a detailed summary of the oppression of the Palestinians, particularly from the perspective of Australian involvement.
(1). Philistines, Palestine, Palestina, Filastin.
Palestine was named in its variant forms after the sophisticated Philistines who lived in the coastal areas from about 1500 BCE. The Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484 – 425 BCE) referred to Palestine, and the Romans who ruled Palestine from about 63 BCE referred to it as Palestina. However Jared Diamond (“Guns, Germs and Steel”) describes how precursors to the plant species of modern agriculture have been found growing in the Jordan Valley. Palestine has been continuously inhabited by the forebears of the present Indigenous Palestinians back to the very dawn of the Agrarian Revolution in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago.
(2). Old Testament narrative of Palestine from 1000BCE to 100BCE.
As declared in the song “It ain’t necessarily so” from George and Ira Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess”: “It ain’t necessarily so/ The things that you’re liable/ To read in the Bible/ It ain’t necessarily so”. Nevertheless the Holy Bible has been foundational for the historicist Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), and has had a huge global impact on religion, history, culture and language. Thus, as observed by evolutionary biologist and celebrated atheist Richard Dawkins, the King James Bible is a major foundational work for modern English language usage. The narrative of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible (written in Babylon) describes how Palestine (Canaan) was inhabited by a great variety of Indigenous peoples but one lot, the Hebrews, were instructed by their God to invade and ethnically cleanse the land. Indeed King Saul was severely punished for not effecting total destruction and genocide as instructed. The compact with the Hebrew God was simply this: follow My laws and I will smite your enemies and bring you bounty, but disobey and I will smite and impoverish you.
(3). Actual pre-Christian history of Palestine.
3000-2800 BCE, early Bronze Age settlement; circa 1400 BCE first mention of a city with a name like “Jerusalem” relating to a Canaanite god Salem; circa 1000 BCE, part of an Egyptian vassal state; solely Biblical and Zionist-espoused account of Israelite conquest and standard ethnic cleansing of the Jebusite city of Jerusalem by genocidal psychopath David followed by a largely fictional Kingdom of David and Solomon in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem (1000-925 BCE); 850-722 BCE, Assyrian invasion of Canaan; 587-586 BCE, Babylonian capture, destruction and asserted depopulation of Jerusalem; 586-550 BCE, part of Babylonian Empire; 550-333 BCE, part of the Persian Empire (with Biblical assertion of some “return”); 333-270 BCE, part of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great; 270-165 BCE, part of the Hellenic Ptolemaic Empire (Libya and Egypt through to present-day coastal southern Turkey); 165-63 BCE, part of the Hasmonean Jewish Kingdom in conflict under the Maccabees with the Hellenic Ptolemaic Empire. For my huge, multicultural, and Ancient Greek/Christian resurrection painting “Qana” (based on Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” ) see [16, 17].
(4). Roman to Turkish occupation (63BCE to 1917).
63BCE, Roman conquest; 63BCE – 638 CE, part of the Roman Empire and thence the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), notably punctuated by rule by the Roman vassal Jewish Edomite Herod the Great (from 37 BCE to – 4 CE), the life of the wonderful Jewish Palestinian Jesus Christ (circa 4 BCE-30 CE), the 63-73 CE Jewish Zealot revolt, the 132-135 CE Bar Kochba revolt, and the hugely over-exaggerated “Jewish Exile” with Judaea eventually named Syria Palastina and Jerusalem named Aelia Capitolina; foundation of Constantinople in 330 CE by Constantine who legalized and preferenced Christianity, Theodosius I the last Emperor to rule both the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire (in 379–395 CE), fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Germanic invaders in 476 CE, Seleucid Persian rule ( 615-629CE; the Sassanids and Jews slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in Jerusalem), and Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638CE; 638-1917 CE Muslim rule, notably punctuated by Seljuk Turkish rule (1073-1098CE), Western European First Crusade Crusader rule (1098-1187CE; Muslims and Jews massacred; reconquered by Saladin), temporary Christian rule (1229- 1244 as part of a deal to end the Sixth Crusade), rule by Khwarezmian Tatars (1244-1247; driven out by Egyptian Ayyubids), rule by Egyptian Mamluks (1260-1517), rule by Ottoman Empire (1517-1917; Ottoman rule terminated by British conquest in WW1 followed to the present by UK- and US-backed Zionist settler–colonialism and commencement of Palestinian immigration to Australia ).
(5). Debunking religious and Zionist mythology.
Science is about critically testing potentially falsifiable hypotheses. Conversely, religion is about untestable faith but – like literature, poetry, art, music, and dance – gives meaning, succour and hope to billions of people. Reductio ad absurdum: due to the constraints of the speed of light (300,000 kilometers per second) and the Fermi Paradox (that no alien civilizations have yet been detected despite a trillion solar systems in our galaxy, a possible explanation being that such civilizations are able to self-destruct after about 10,000 years), so far we only know of one (1) civilization in the universe. However there are about 1 trillion galaxies in the universe, each galaxy has about 1 trillion solar systems, and hence there are potentially 1 trillion trillion civilizations out there. Yet it is asserted that God chose 1 primitive tribe in a tiny patch of land on 1 planet in 1 of these trillion trillion solar systems to be uniquely blessed with omnipotent divine support. As variously articulated by Jewish and non-Jewish scholars from Arthur Koestler to Shlomo Sand, there is no non-Biblical evidence for the Exodus from Egypt, the Kingdom of David and Solomon, and the mass Exile from Palestine under the Romans. In Palestine today, the genetic descendants of the Jewish Palestinians at the time of Jesus are the Semitic Indigenous Palestinians – the Jewish Israelis overwhelmingly descend from Yemeni, Berber and Khazar converts to Judaism in the first millennium CE. The Ashkenazi Jews, who are variously politically dominant or powerful in Apartheid Israel, the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, have essentially zero Semitic genetic contribution.
(6) Zionism, British rule (1917-1948) and Australia.
The British imperial mass murderer of the Irish, Indians, Chinese, Indigenous Australians and Indigenous People in general, UK PM Benjamin Disraeli, is credited as the founder of British Zionism in the mid-19th century. Hungarian journalist and playwright, Theodor Herzl, founded Continental European Zionism in the late 19th century. Orthodox Jewish rabbis strongly opposed Zionism on obvious humanitarian grounds (wicked invasion of the country of another people) and on theological grounds (Jews could only return to Zion after the Messiah had arrived to reveal the glory of the Lord to the whole World). Herzl in “The Jewish State” pondered whether to colonize abundant Argentina (already ethnically cleansed of Indigenous People by the Spanish) or Palestine (Herzl advocated removal of the Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants). The UK forced Turkey into war (by seizing Turkish-purchased warships), invaded Iraq for oil and imperial hegemony in 1914, and invaded Turkey proper with ANZAC support at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 (now Anzac Day), thereby precipitating the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide (1.5 million killed). On 31 October 1917 the Australian ANZAC Light Horse won the key battle of Beersheba. 2 days later on 2 November 1917 Lord Balfour released the despicable Balfour Declaration granting Palestine to the Zionists as a Jewish Home, with the rapidly violated caveat that there should be no detriment to Jews or Arabs. Zionism expert Professor Sir Martin Gilbert states that the Balfour Declaration was actually aimed at getting Russian Jewish Zionist support for keeping Russia in the war. The WW1 Palestinian Famine killed 100,000 Palestinians, and on the 10 December 1918 about 100 Palestinian men and boys were massacred by Australian and New Zealand Anzacs in the Surafend Massacre. Post-WW1 mass Jewish immigration led to conflict with impoverished Indigenous Palestinians. In 1880 there were 500,000 Arabs and 25,000 Jews in Palestine of whom half of the latter were immigrants; by 1948 there were 1,320,000 Palestinians and 650,000 Zionist colonizers).
(7). Other Zions, Freeland League, and proposed Jewish colonization of NW Australia. There have been about 20 schemes for Jewish colonies around the world (in North America, South America, Africa, eastern Russia, South East Asia and Australia). After WW1 anti-racist Jewish activists, recognizing the enormous injustice of a Zionist project in Palestine, set up the Freeland League for Jewish colonizing of NW Australia (the Kimberley) led by Dr Isaac Nachman Steinberg. This movement attracted considerable support in White Australia that was fearful of the huge non-European populations to their north. The Western Australian State Government under Premier John Willcock (Australian Labor Party, ALP) accepted the proposition with qualifications. Edward Horton Angelo, State MP for the NW province, stated: “In my opinion, the proposition can be boiled down to one question: “Are we going to have Jews or Japs?’ I say, let us have the Jews”. There was no thought given to the decimated Indigenous population (even “progressives” at the time like H.G. Wells regarded Indigenous Australians as “savages”, “Stone Age” or “paleolithic”). Melekh Ravitsh (Yiddish poet from Poland who in the 1933-1934 period advocated Jewish settlement of the Northern Territory in North West Australia: “The blacks in Australia cannot be regarded as owners of the land. They belong to the very lowest level of human civilisation. One could allot them several thousand square miles of land, teach them to plough and sow, and thus the Aboriginal issue would be resolved”. However the scheme was vetoed by Australian PM John Curtin in 1944 on intelligence advice (probably since the Churchill war cabinet had secretly approved post-WW2 Partition of Palestine in July 1944).
(8). Churchill and Gandhi on Palestinians.
For all that Churchill is our hero for opposing Hitler, he was a British imperialist and racist: “I do not apologize for the takeover of the region by the Jews from the Palestinians in the same way I don’t apologize for the takeover of America by the whites from the Red Indians or the takeover of Australia from the blacks [i.e. Australian aborigines]. It is natural for a superior race to dominate an inferior one”. Churchill hated Indians: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion”. He despised Mahatma Gandhi: “Gandhi should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting. We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the Empire if he died”. Churchill was responsible for the “forgotten” 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine, WW2 Indian Holocaust; 6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Odisha for strategic reasons by the British, with Australia complicit by denying its starving ally, India, food from its huge wartime grain stores). Gandhi opined re Palestine (1938): “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred”.
(9). Apartheid Israeli rule (1948 onwards) and Australian support for Apartheid Israel.
Zionists have been responsible for a Palestinian Genocide involving successive mass expulsions (800,000 in 1948 and 400,000 in 1967), ethnic cleansing of 90% of the land of Palestine, 530 villages emptied, 2.2 million Palestinian deaths from WW1 onwards from violence (0.1 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (2.1 million), and 7 million Palestinian refugees. Of 15 million Palestinians, about 8 million Exiled Palestinians are forbidden to even step foot in their own country on pain of death; about 2 million Palestinian Israelis are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of the former Mandated Palestine, albeit as Third Class citizens under 65 race-based discriminatory laws [12, 13]; and 5.2 million Palestinians have zero human rights as Occupied Palestinians in West Bank ghettoes or Bantustans (3.2 million) or in the blockaded and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp (2 million) [7, 11]. Indigenous Palestinians represent 50% of the Subjects of Apartheid Israel but 73% are excluded from voting for the government ruling them (apartheid). Just as Henry VIII and his state apparatus took over the English Catholic Church in the 16th century, so the oil- and geo-strategy-obsessed US CIA and UK MI6 took over much of Judaism via the Zionist enterprise in the 20th century. However times they are a-changing, and the anti-racist Jews who utterly detest the racist crimes of Apartheid Israel (“not in my name”) may today represent about 50% of Jews world-wide. Australia has been tightly linked strategically to the US since Pearl Harbor (12 December 1941) and the subsequent fall of Singapore in January 1942. The US became extremely close to Israel since the Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons in the mid-1960s. Australia is second only to the US as a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of apartheid. Politicians supporting apartheid are unfit for public life in a one-person-one-vote democracy like Australia.
(10). Racist Zionist leaders from Herzl to the present advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Theodor Herzl (1895): “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly”. Benjamin Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister 1996 – 1999 and 2009-2021) (1989): “Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories”. Golda Meir (Israeli Prime Minister 1969 – 1974): “Anyone who speaks in favour of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen”, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people”, “It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist”, “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to”, and “This country exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy” [18].
(11). Dire circumstances of the Indigenous Palestinians, especially in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
(i). Israel is among world leaders for “children killed per year per million of total territory population”: Israel 25.8, Honduras 75.7, World 7.6 [19].
(ii). Israel ranks worst in the world for “average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year”: Israel in the OPT 6.164, Syria 4.733, World 0.084, India 0.027 [20].
(iii). Re “under-5 infant deaths per year per million of total population”: Israel 59.2, China 123.8, OPT 537.7, Non-European World 789.4 [19].
(iv).Per capita GDP: OPT $3,000, Israel $46.000 (gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention).
(v). Violent Palestinian deaths WW1 onwards: 100,000 (avoidable deaths from deprivation: 2 million); Zionist/Israeli violent deaths since 1920: 4,000.
(vi). 90% of Palestine ethnically cleansed; 2 major mass expulsions (800,000 in 1948; 400,000 in 1967); 530 villages emptied; 8 million exiled Palestinians.
(vii). 5.2 million OPT subjects deprived of human rights and cannot vote for the government ruling them (apartheid).
(viii). 2.0 million Israeli Palestinians can vote but are subject to 65 race-based discriminatory laws [12, 13].
(ix). About 50% of the sorely abused Occupied Palestinians are children and 75% women and children.
(x). There is an ongoing Palestinian Genocide, there have been 2 massive expulsion events, and there are repeated Israeli calls for total expulsion of all Indigenous Palestinians from Palestine.
(xi). Despite a century-long Palestinian Genocide, Indigenous Palestinians still represent 50% of the subjects of Apartheid Israel in Palestine (Jewish Israelis 47%).
(xii). Since 2000 Apartheid Israel has violently killed about 10,000 Palestinians and a further 90,000 have died avoidably from imposed deprivation.
(xiii). Each year Apartheid Israel violently kills about 500 Palestinians and about 4,500 die from imposed deprivation.
(xiv). The life expectancy gap between Occupied Palestinians and Israelis is about 10 years – the same as between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
(xv). According to the UN several years ago, conditions in the Gaza Concentration Camp were approaching “unliveable”.
(xvi). Most Palestinians – Exiled, Occupied and Israeli Palestinians – are impoverished.
(xvii). While the West (including both Coalition- and Labor-ruled Australia) has universally and rightly condemned the war criminal Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, it denies Israeli Apartheid, supports Apartheid Israel and hence apartheid, condemns Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and regards Hamas (the most popular Palestinian political party) as a terrorist organization.
(xviii). OPT subjects subjected to race-based armed check points, Jews-only transport and roads, deadly delays at check points for sick and pregnant seeking medical help.
(xix). OPT subjects subjected to collective punishment, house demolitions, child imprisonment, torture, deadly violence (bombing, shooting and shelling of the Gaza Concentration Camp).
(xx). Mothers prevented from seeing hospitalized newly born babies.
(12). Palestinian refugees in Australia.
There are about 100 million displaced persons in the World. There are about 8 million Exiled Palestinians, 2 million inmates of the Gaza Concentration Camp and further refugees in refugee camps in the West Bank (e.g. Jenin). Palestinians thus represent about 10% of the World’s refugees. It is estimated that there may be about 13,000 Australians identifying as being of Palestinian origin. Such estimates are complicated because many Palestinian refugees coming to Australian were first refugees in neighbouring countries and children of such refugees. Further, many such refugees may have been made refugees within Palestine, then became refugees to neighbouring Arab countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Kuwait) , and then became refugees again (e.g. through war and the invasions of Kuwait, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria). Children in particular may well identify with countries in which they have been born and brought up. Many Palestinians will variously identify with the large Arab Australian community, the Muslim community, and Middle Eastern Christian communities in Australia. Australia under both the Coalition and Labor has treated boat-borne refugees very badly for 12 years – they have been subject to highly abusive and indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial since 2013 (cf Nazi Germany laws, 1933 onwards). “Lucky” refugees on temporary protection visas are condemned to uncertainty, dire poverty, and massive exclusion from work, free education, free medical services, and a decent life for individuals, parents and children.
(13). Notable Palestinians in Australia.
(i). Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah: Palestinian and Egyptian heritage, author, poet, academic, human rights activist and prominent social issues commentator.
(ii). Dr Samah Sabawi: Palestinian playwright, scholar, commentator and poet.
(iii). Shady Alsuleiman: Australian-born from a Palestinian family who migrated or Australia in the 1960s, a conservative Muslim imam, and the president of the Australian National Imams Council and the United Muslims of Australia.
(iv). Munif Mohammed Abou Rish: a Palestinian journalist accused of entering Australia illegally on a false passport to assassinate former PM Bob Hawke and other dignitaries (denied by Ali Kazak, the former Palestinian ambassador for Australia and the South Pacific).
(v). Loudy Wiggins (née Tourky): a former champion Australian diver; born in Haifa, Israel, to Palestinian parents.
(vi). Joseph Benedict Hockey: Australian -born son of an Australian mother and an Armenian Palestinian father from Bethlehem. Liberal Party politician , MP for North Sydney 1996-2015, Treasurer, 2013-2015, Australian Ambassador to the US, 2016-2020.
(vii). Aladdin Sisalem: Kuwait-born Palestinian refugee and mechanic imprisoned alone on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea, PNG) for 18 months by the Australian Government after requesting asylum on Thursday Island (his prior request for asylum in PNG in 2000 was denied and he was badly beaten).
(viii). Nasser Mashni: son of a Palestinian refugee, a co-founder of Australians For Palestine, a founding board member of Olive Kids, and vice president of the influential Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN).
(ix). Ali Kazak: born in Haifa, Palestine; family torn apart in 1948; migrated to Australia in 1970; founder, publisher and co-editor of the Australian Newspaper Free Palestine (1979–1990), publisher and editor of Background Briefing (1987–1993), author of several books; Palestinian diplomatic representative to Australia and the South Pacific.
(14). Australian hostility to Palestinians.
Australia has an over 2 century history of entrenched racism against non-Europeans and Jews. However, public anti-Jewish anti-Semitism strongly declined after WW2 and revelations about the horrendous WW2 Jewish Holocaust. War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate. As a UK lackey and thence a US lackey Australia has invaded 85 countries (30 invasions being genocidal) as compared to the British 193, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25, Apartheid Israel 13 and China 2. As alluded to above, the Australian Light Horse defeated the Turks at Beersheba in 1917, this opening up British conquest and disposal of Palestine and the Middle East. The Australian AIF was in British-occupied Palestine in WW2. The century-long Palestinian Genocide (2.2 million deaths from violence and deprivation) commenced non-violently with the WW1 Palestinian Famine (100,000 deaths), and violently with the Surafend Massacre of Palestinian soldiers by ANZAC soldiers in 1918. Labor legend Dr Herbert Vere Evatt (later Labor leader) played an important role in Israeli independence at the expense of the stateless Indigenous Palestinian majority. Australian PM Robert “Pig Iron Bob” Menzies supported the UK, France and Israeli invasion of Gaza and Egypt in 1956 (war criminal Israeli General Dayan boasted that because of Vitamin A deficiency Egyptian soldiers were mostly helplessly blind at night). Fervent US support for Apartheid Israel coincided with Israeli acquisition of nuclear weapons by the middle 1960s, and fervent US lackey Australia thence became second only to the US as a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of the crime of apartheid. Australia typically votes with the US at the UN in support of Apartheid Israel.
(15). A cowardly, mendacious, racist and Zionist-subverted Australia threatens Palestinian human rights.
As leader of the Opposition, in 2022 Albanese falsely and offensively rejected the finding of leading human rights groups (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli B’Tselem and Israeli Yesh Din) that Israel is an apartheid state. Things may change with the election in June 2022 of the Albanese Labor Government – the Labor Party voted to recognize the State of Palestine if elected, and the newly elected Labor Government remarkably declined to co-sign a US protest letter over UN investigation of Israeli human rights abuses. While correctly condemning and sanctioning the war criminal Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zionist-subverted Australia has bipartisan support for Apartheid Israel, refuses to condemn the Israeli invasion, devastation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, has a dishonest and disingenuous support for a “two-state solution” (now patently impossible due to 90% ethnic cleansing of Palestine), and opposes Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions BDS) against Apartheid Israel and its supporters.
Zionist-subverted Australia has joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) that has an exclusive European membership, has a false definition of anti-Semitism that is variously anti-Jewish anti-Semitic and anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim critics of the horrendous crimes of Apartheid Israel), and is holocaust denying by ignoring over 60 holocausts and ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million deaths), specifically the WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma deaths), the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35-40 million deaths,) and the British-imposed and Australia-complicit WW2 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine; 6-7 million deaths). The IHRA has been condemned by over 41 anti-racist Jewish organizations.
Australian declaration of Hamas as a terrorist organization criminalizes Palestine’s biggest political party and threatens all its supporters around the World, including Australia – this is rather like the West criminalizing both the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition parties (that collectively have about 60% of the vote) as terrorist organizations. Palestinians have killed 4,000 Zionist invaders since 1920 whereas (as estimated in 2017) in the 21st century there have been 1,615 non-terrorism Israeli deaths from homicide by fellow Israelis, 164 Israeli deaths from terrorism in Israel (excluding Jerusalem), 1,183 further Israeli deaths from terrorism elsewhere in Zionist-ruled Palestine, 9,505 Occupied Palestinian deaths by Israelis, and 72,000 Occupied Palestinian avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation. Australia has militarily supported all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation – terrorism indeed (Labor supported all but the Vietnam and Iraq wars).
(16). US, UK, Israeli and Australian subversion and violation of Australia and the Indo-Pacific, Australian xenophobia, and demonization, false defamation and criminalization of Palestinians.
Apartheid Israel been involved in shooting, tasering, mangling , killing, kidnapping, imprisoning, robbing, deceiving, defaming, threatening, intimidating, censoring and otherwise violating the human rights of Australians and the relatives of Australians in Palestine. Within Australia traitorous Zionist agents have been involved in deceiving, robbing, defaming, threatening, intimidating, blackmailing, and censoring Australians [14, 15]. However cowardly, unprincipled, and traitorous Australian Governments have remained silent. In 2010 popular PM Kevin Rudd (following the example of the UK in similar circumstances) protested the Israeli kidnapping of Australians in International waters, and the forging of Australian passports for deadly terrorism purposes – a month later, and despite an expensive attempt to mollify the Zionists, he was removed in a US-approved, Mining Corporation-backed and pro-Zionist-led coup.
Palestinians and pro-Palestinians are threatened by Zionist-subverted US lackey Australian governments. The US shares intelligence on Australians with Apartheid Israel. Supporters of Palestinian human rights and of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and its supporters are routinely falsely defamed, notably as “anti-Semitic”. Many examples can be given. Thus in 2022 the University of Melbourne Students Union (UMSU) passed a detailed motion condemning Apartheid Israeli crimes and supporting BDS against Apartheid Israel – it was falsely defamed as “anti-Semitic” by the University of Melbourne, and under threat of expensive Zionist legal action rescinded the motion. In 2015 academic Dr Sandra Nasr was attacked by media and 2 universities (Notre Dame Australia and the London School of Economics) for sensibly comparing Biblical and present-day ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In 2017 ABC journalist Yassmin Abdel-Magied was vilified, forced to apologize and driven out of the country for simply saying 7 words: “Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)”. Sydney University academic Professor Jake Lynch was subject to unsuccessful but hugely expensive litigation by the Israeli Government. A leading journalist, Mike Carlton, was forced from his job for criticizing Israeli bombing of densely populated Gaza. For their decency, anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians are horribly and falsely defamed by the racist Zionists as “anti-Semites”, with the anti-racist Jews also copping the false and defamatory canards of being “self-hating Jews” and “self-loathing Jews”.
Australia has an over 2 century history of xenophobia, successively against Indigenous Australians, Chinese, non-Europeans, Asians, Communists, Muslims, and now Chinese (again). Naftali Tamir (former Israeli Ambassador to Australia) (2006): “Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia. We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don’t have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not – we are basically the white race. We are on the western side of Asia and they are on the southeastern side. Israel has not fully acknowledged the value of working together with Australia in Asia. It’s a way for us to cooperate with and enhance our position in the countries neighbouring Australia” [18]. The US lackey Australian Labor Government implicitly regards Australian and world hero journalist Julian Assange (imprisoned for truth-telling in the UK for 10 years) as guilty (of something serious but unspecified) but won’t publicly intervene: “nor can the Australian government intervene in the legal matters of another country”. Australia indulges in destructive Sinophobic rhetoric, has joined the anti-China AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) and Quad (India, Japan, US and Australia) alliances, and condemns an asserted China threat to the Indo-Pacific. In reality in the last 80 years Australia has violated all 81 Indo-Pacific countries, variously through war, invasion, occupation, climate criminality, and subversion variously in cahoots with the US, UK and Apartheid Israel and culminating in regime change: Indonesia (1960-1965), Laos (1960, Cambodia (1970), Chile (1973), Australia (1975), Fiji (1987), Fiji (2000) and Australia (2010). The US was involved in all of these coups and Apartheid Israel was involved in the 1987 and 2000 Fiji coups (supply of arms) and the 2010 Australian coup (pro-Zionist-led coup) [3, 21, 22].
These appalling realities are ignored by traitorous and mendacious Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes in Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australia. Thus Ali Kazak (Palestinian diplomatic representative to Australia and the South Pacific): “There is nothing ASIO suggests any Chinese lobby of doing that the Israeli lobby has not been doing for over 30 years. Any Chinese lobby is child’s play in contrast to the well-established Israeli lobby. No country has more interfered, spied and endangered Australia’s security, sovereignty and the integrity of its national institutions than Israel and its powerful lobby”.
(17). The cultural richness of Palestine.
Over the mere 150 years of their evil existence as genocidal and colonialist ideologues, the racist Zionists falsely described multi-millennial Palestine as a “a land without a people for a people without a land”. The rich reality is otherwise from the southern desert of Al Naqab (Negev) to the northern Al Jalil (Galilee) with a cultural and linguistic complexity that mirrors that in Lebanon and Iraq. Obvious groups include the Bedouin, coastal Palestinians, hill country Palestinians, the Druze, Samaritans (who speak the Assyrian Aramaic language spoken by Jesus), and urban Armenian, Circassian and Turkish people deriving from the Ottoman Empire. On this complexity is a religious diversity including the majority Muslims and the Christians of various denominations (once 10% of the population but now only 1% due to a century of ruthless Zionist invasion and colonization). On top of this is the cultural and dialect complexity of the 530 villages ethnically cleansed by the Zionists, of surviving villages located throughout the former Mandated Palestine, and the cultural complexity of the 8 million Exiled Palestinians (mostly refugees in the Middle East but, for example, including the 500,000 Palestinians in Chile who constitute the largest Palestinian Diaspora community outside the Arab world). Of about 100,000 Palestinians in the US the most famous are Professor Edward Said (1935-2003, Columbia University, and founder of post-colonial studies), and Rashida Tlaib, an indefatigable supporter of Palestinian human rights and a member of the famous, progressive, outspoken and morally influential Squad of 6 Democrat women members of the US House of Representatives which includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Ayanna Pressley (Massachusetts), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), Jamaal Bowman (New York) and Cori Bush (Missouri).
(18). Comparison of the Palestinian Genocide and the Australian Aboriginal Genocide.
British invasion of Australia occurred on 26 January 1788 and was followed by the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide in which some 2 million Indigenous Australians have died untimely deaths due to violence (0.1 million) or due to dispossession, deprivation, and disease (the remainder). The Indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after the invasion in 1788, mainly through violence, dispossession, deprivation and introduced disease. The last massacres of Aborigines occurred in the late 1920s in Central Australia. Throughout much of the 20th century there was a policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children (especially mixed race children) from their mothers, a systematic genocidal and ethnocidal policy involving the removal of perhaps 0.1 million children (the Stolen Generations). This practice ended in the 1970s, and in 2008 Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology, but removal of Aboriginal children from their mothers continues (albeit for ostensibly different reasons) at a record rate, leading PM Kevin Rudd to warn of a “second stolen generation”. There is a huge gap between the health, wealth, education and social circumstances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. About 4,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably from deprivation each year, and there is a life expectancy gap of 10 years between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Of 300-700 Indigenous languages and dialects in 1788 only 120 survive, and of these of all but about 20 are endangered in a continuing Australian Aboriginal Ethnocide. Indigenous Australians were only counted as citizens after a referendum in 1967 (formerly they were listed under the Fauna and Flora Act). Today there are about 900,000 Indigenous Australians and 25 million non-Indigenous Australians. The genocidally racist British doctrine of “terra nullius” (“empty land”) was overturned in the Mabo case before the High Court in 1992. 50% of the sorely oppressed Indigenous Australians are children and 75% are women and children [9, 23, 24].
The Zionist-imposed Palestinian Genocide began with the Australian Light Horse victory over the Turks at Beersheba on 31 October 1917 and the issuance 2 days later on 2 November 1917 of the notorious Balfour Declaration that granted Palestine to the Zionists. Palestinian deaths in the century-long Palestinian Genocide totalled 2.2 million from violence (0.1 million) and imposed deprivation (2.1 million). 4,000 Zionist invaders were killed over the same period. There were 500,000 Palestinians and 25,000 Jews (50% of the latter being immigrants) in Palestine in 1880. By 1948 there were 1,320,000 Palestinians and 650,000 Zionist colonizers. In the 1948 Nakba the Zionists expelled 800,000 Indigenous Palestinians and in 1967 expelled a further 400,000 Arabs. Despite a century of genocide by active and passive killing and repeated mass expulsion, the 7.2 million Indigenous Subjects of Apartheid Israel represent 50% of the total of 14.4 million Israeli Subjects (the 6.8 million Jewish Israelis only 47%). Of 15 million mostly utterly impoverished Palestinians today, there are 8 million Exiled Palestinians (about 10% of the world’s refugees); 5.2 million Occupied Palestinians without human rights under military occupier rule in West Bank ghettoes (3.2 million) and the blockaded and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp (2 million); and about 2 million Israeli Palestinians (able to vote under Israeli apartheid, albeit as Third Class citizens under 65 Nazi-style, race-based laws; the Israeli parliament recently rejected a motion for equality for all Israelis). About 4,000 Indigenous Palestinians die avoidably from deprivation each year, and a further 500 are violently killed each year. There is a life expectancy gap of 10 years between Indigenous Palestinians and Israelis. The per capita GDP is US$3,000 for Occupied Palestinians and US$46,000 for Israelis. The false Zionist claim of “A land without a people for a people without a land” is the genocidal equivalent of the White Australian claim of “terra nullius”. 50% of the sorely oppressed Indigenous Palestinians are children and 75% are women and children [9, 23, 24].
(19). Australian friends of Palestine.
These appalling realities are ignored by Mainstream Australian journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes in Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australia. However times are changing and a 2022 survey by the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) revealed that 50% or more of Australians supported recognition of a state of Palestine (50%), that Israel should cease its occupation (50%), and that the government should support ICC investigation of war crimes in Palestine (59%) i.e. fewer than 50% of Australians are uncaring and/or racist. A further APAN survey before the 2022 Australian Federal elections scored the major parties (out of 5.00?) for support for Palestinian human rights: the Coalition 0.15, Labor 3.25, and the Greens 4.75. The Zionist- and US-subverted but politically correct ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the similarly morally derelict UK BBC) largely ignores Indigenous Palestinian human rights but takes pains in its radio and TV programs to identify the Indigenous Australian lands involved in each program (e.g. the Wurrundjeri land in northern Melbourne). A large body of anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians support Palestinian human rights, and of these some particularly notable people include Professor Stuart Rees (founder of the Sydney Peace Prize), Antony Loewenstein ( author of “My Israel Question”), Melissa Parke (former Federal Labor MP and noble Palestinian human rights advocate), Bob Carr (former NSW premier and Australian Foreign Minister, and an increasingly vocal supporter of Palestinian human rights), Lee Rhiannon (former Greens senator), the Greens leaders and members in general, Sir Isaac Isaacs (the first Australian–born Australian Governor General and resolute opponent of Zionism), Professor Peter Singer (eminent philosopher who with numerous other eminent Jewish intellectuals condemned the Israeli “law of return” that permits immigrant Jews to live on Palestinian land but excludes Indigenous Palestinians), Bishop George Browning (president of APAN), Dr Vacy Vlazna, Dr Sandra Nasr, numerous other decent academics and professionals, and some courageous prominent journalists (Phillip Adams, Sophie McNeill, Mike Carlton, John Lyons, Kerry O’Brien, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, and John Menadue).
(20). Kindness, truth and peace.
Sensible, decent folk have zero tolerance for lying because it sabotages rational investigation, and violates trust in human interactions. Further, decent folk agree with the proposition of the wonderful, universalist Palestinian, Jesus: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. The simplest statement of this fundamental decency and honesty is “Kindness and truth”. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We must speak out for a better world for everyone. Kindness and truth means that peace and decency can be established in Palestine. The World must act over Apartheid Israel as it successfully did over Apartheid South Africa with Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters. A clear, humane solution to the continuing human rights catastrophe in Palestine is a unitary state (a “one state solution”) as in post-Apartheid South Africa, that would involve return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, a one-person-one-vote secular democracy, justice, economic justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of Palestine. It can and should happen tomorrow.
References
[1]. George Browning, “The UN Human Rights Report on Israel and Australia’s welcome statement” , Pearls & Irritations, 21 June 2022: https://johnmenadue.com/the-gandhi-doctrine-the-un-human-rights-report-on-israel-and-australias-welcome-statement/ .
[2]. Daniel Hurst, “Australia raises concerns about “human rights abuses” after failing to back US-led statement on Israel”, Guardian, 14 June 2022: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/14/australias-stance-on-israel-inquiry-may-signal-shift-to-balanced-middle-east-approach-gareth-evans-says .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15 .
[4]. Gideon Polya, “Refutation Of Mainstream-Accepted Racist Zionist Lies Behind Israel ‘s Gaza Massacres And Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 26 July, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya260714.htm .
[5]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 9 June 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .
[7]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .
[8]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel & commencement of large-scale Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 11 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/11/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-commencement-of-large-scale-palestinian-genocide/ .
[9]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/ .
[10]. Gideon Polya, “Israelis kill 10 times more Israelis in Apartheid Israel than do terrorists”, Countercurrents, 1 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/01/israelis-kill-ten-times-more-israelis-in-apartheid-israel-than-do-terrorists/ .
[11]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Excludes Occupied Palestinians From All Provisions Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya200512.htm .
[12]. Susan Abulhawa, “Israel’s “nation-state law” parallels the Nazi Nuremburg Laws”, Al Jazeera, 27 July 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-nation-state-law-parallels-nazi-nuremberg-laws-180725084739536.html .
[13]. “Discriminatory laws in Israel:, Adalah, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index?page=4 .
[14]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide, 2010: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli .
[15]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On Australia And The World For UK , Israeli And US State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 11 December, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .
[16]. “Qana”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/ .
[17]. “Art for Peace, Planet, Mother & Child”: https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/home .
[18]. “Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”, Palestinian Genocide : https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .
[19]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Among World Leaders For Killing Children”, Countercurrents, 15 June 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/apartheid-israel-among-world-leaders-for-killing-children/ .
[20]. Gideon Polya, “Remember Shireen Abu Akleh: Apartheid Israel Leads The World For Killing Journalists”, Countercurrents, 6 June 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/remember-shireen-abu-akleh-apartheid-israel-leads-the-world-for-killing-journalists/ .
[21]. Gideon Polya, “AUKUS & Quad In Context: Australia Violates All Indo-Pacific countries”, Countercurrents, 9 December 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/12/aukus-quad-in-context-australia-violates-all-indo-pacific-countries/ .
[22]. Gideon Polya, “Australia violates all Indo-Pacific countries”, Stop state terrorism, 9 December 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/2021-12-09-australia-violates-all-indo-pacific-countries .
[23]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9/11Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.
[24]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2021.
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2022) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008). He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/
