Israel - Palestine

[Captain_Chaza]

Did you know that a lot of Palestinians live in Israel peacefully
A couple have even been elected into Israel's House of Representatives

They can only live together in peace when Hamas is Killed off and all the bombs and rockets are removed
The problem of the Refugees lies totally on the Arm Suppliers
IMHO
If they could afford all the rockets They can afford the Resettlement
Just Imagine they might even give them Jobs and collect Taxes

They might even feel better Instead of living on UN handouts for Decades

 

[Captain_Chaza]

List of Arabs in the KNESSET

List of Arab members of the Knesset - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JohnDe]

Israel is doing the world’s heavy lifting. To deny that is to deny the truth and by extension to say that countries such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the US, liberal Western democracies, would willingly invite Hamas to our shores, into our schools, homes and parliaments.​

​

If that is your view, then you are not my countryman. You have a different hope for Australia’s future than I do.​

Mealy-mouthed slacktivists fail Israelis and Palestinians

On the night of April 14, 2014, Islamic terrorists stormed a government girls’ secondary school in Chibok, Nigeria, kidnapping 276 mostly Christian young girls aged between 16 and 18. This horrendous act gave rise to a global movement identified primarily by the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Oh, it was a thing all right. All of Hollywood and its hangers-on lent their names to the cause.
In a shocking plot twist, the terrorist group Boko Haram did not capitulate when confronted with the full force of highly stylised Instagram posts. #BringBackOur girls was a campaign stellar in visibility, negligent in terms of impact. It was also a powerful example of slacktivism at its finest. As of 2021, 112 of the Chibok schoolgirls were still missing.

At least 14 of the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok in 2014. Picture: AFP

Slacktivism: The appearance of standing for something but with absolutely nothing of substance at play and zero cost to the individual or organisation. It usually comes with a healthy dose of signalling virtue.

This is what we’re seeing play out in Australia and across the world as the war against Hamas continues. From a range of social media and reality TV stars who fancy themselves as geopolitically savvy, whose ignorance is matched only by hubris, to governments who talk a big game but can’t back it up.

Free Palestine. From the river to the Sea. All lives matter (more on that one in a moment).

Israel paid the greatest price on October 7 and continues to do so. What nobody seems to have the courage to say is that Israel is doing what the West has been to weak, possibly too lazy and too cowardly to do for decades – confront and eliminate Hamas. The same Hamas that hasn’t held an election in Gaza since 2006. The same Hamas that this government declared to be a terror organisation last year.

Free Palestine? Yes! From the tyranny of a terrorist government and if you think that will happen via diplomacy or without conflict, you are no student of history.

Harry Greenwood, right, along with co-stars Megan Wilding, second right, and Mabel Li, left, wear keffiyeh scarves during the encore at the opening night of the STC production of The Seagull at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre. Picture: Instagram

Israel is doing the world’s heavy lifting. To deny that is to deny the truth and by extension to say that countries such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the US, liberal Western democracies, would willingly invite Hamas to our shores, into our schools, homes and parliaments.

If that is your view, then you are not my countryman. You have a different hope for Australia’s future than I do.

Imagine if in the days following October 7 the global community had immediately demanded Hamas return all hostages, surrender those responsible and have them tried in The Hague for war crimes. This war would be long over and so many civilian lives in Gaza saved.

But slacktivism. The world said: we condemn this brutality. It also said: Israel, go easy on them because all lives matter. Sure, they do. Until of course they don’t. Do the lives of the 138 hostages still hidden in Gaza matter more than those of the Hamas animals keeping them captive? Did the lives of the slain Nova concertgoers matter more than those of the savages who gleefully filmed themselves committing wholesale rape and slaughter?

Does the life of a Palestinian child matter more than terrorists who use his school as a cover? I could go on.

Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people, displaced more than two million in the past decade. In Syria, the Assad regime systematically murders its citizens without so much as a hashtag to contend with.

According to the Syrian network for Human Rights, 501 civilians, including 71 children and 42 women were murdered by documented events of torture in the first half of this year. That’s before you go back over the past decade and count the thousands of victims, many being Palestinians.

Their lives mattered, but not enough to spark a global movement against Syria. No boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; no protests. Nobody saying that Syria shouldn’t exist.

Obviously, Palestinian lives matter. But Palestinian lives in Gaza matter more than the ones in Syria, and more than the Christian girls taken hostage in Nigeria – am I doing it right? The only lives that have been devalued are Israeli dead and the still languishing hostages.

It is unquestionably clear that there is a singular reason the professional activist class has galvanised behind Palestinian Gaza, post-October 7.

I want to propose it’s not for the love of a people, it’s because of an incomprehensible hatred of Israel. A free Palestinian people cannot happen without the end of Hamas and the only nation committed to that outcome is Israel.

Oh, but the fear and (self) loathing in Australia and elsewhere (Ie, writ large in word, deed and indefensible actions of hatred and anti-Semitism. The absolute nonsense, historically illiterate silliness coming out of the mouths of so many. It’s easy, I suppose, when there’s no price to pay.

This is a level of blindness that has nothing to do with the biological function of sight. This is what it looks like. It’s what causes people to say that Israel has no right to defend itself. What great price, their freedom.

There is always a cost, for everything. It’s like the person who wants to run a marathon but instead of training, lies on the couch eating chips, or the person who wants a loving healthy relationship but won’t face their own heart and do the work.

Life is full of these complex situations but rarely has one been so clear in the line between right and wrong. An email I received this week, one of many, broke my heart and I share it with permission.

“My kids have grown up thinking it’s normal to have armed guards and policemen manning the doors of our synagogue. How shocking is that in Australia? … Now I lie awake at night wondering how to keep my children safe. Racists will always be around. But when our government, academic, artistic and education institutes start apologising and enabling intolerance … it’s terrifying.”

Each day this war continues, there is more collateral damage like this family. Half a world away, innocent Palestinians are failed by an international community that has chosen words over action at every step.

 

[Knobby22]

View attachment 167719

1. The vote wouldn't change anything. Israel would still have to destroy Hamas and they would not have got the hostages.
2. The UN security council hardly ever vote together. Russia definitely would not have in this case as they are allied to Iran. So a compromise has to be reached.

Pretty basic. You can't blame the UN.

 

[farmerge]

Israel is doing the world’s heavy lifting. To deny that is to deny the truth and by extension to say that countries such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the US, liberal Western democracies, would willingly invite Hamas to our shores, into our schools, homes and parliaments.​

​

If that is your view, then you are not my countryman. You have a different hope for Australia’s future than I do.​

@JohnDe and if they are here silently awaiting the call and then if caught well its just unfortunate that the death sentence is no longer carried out.

 

[wayneL]

1. The vote wouldn't change anything. Israel would still have to destroy Hamas and they would not have got the hostages.
2. The UN security council hardly ever vote together. Russia definitely would not have in this case as they are allied to Iran. So a compromise has to be reached.

Pretty basic. You can't blame the UN.

The question was rhetorical and serves as a contextualisation of the current UN politicking

 

[farmerge]

The question was rhetorical and serves as a contextualisation of the current UN politicking

The UN basicaly old school tie club that really achieves very little and costs the US many millions of dollars in the process yearly.

 

[farmerge]

1. The vote wouldn't change anything. Israel would still have to destroy Hamas and they would not have got the hostages.
2. The UN security council hardly ever vote together. Russia definitely would not have in this case as they are allied to Iran. So a compromise has to be reached.

Pretty basic. You can't blame the UN.

With my thoughts previously posted I recall with horror at the time, when the POL leader Arafat was at the UN Security Council, I think it was, addressing the gathered, well paid cheering horde, brandishing a side firearm.
They didn't then have the balls to make him leave it at home.
Such is the power of the UN. Weak as ...s

 

[basilio]

The IDF is not wasting time or taking short steps in it's efforts to wipe out HAMAS.

They just pulverized the home of a veteran UN Aid worker and buried 70 members of his family and turned their home into a mass grave.

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says​

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

Emma Graham-Harrison
Sun 24 Dec 2023 12.33 AEDTFirst published on Sun 24 Dec 2023 01.02 AEDT


An Israeli military airstrike killed more than 70 members of an extended family, including a veteran UN aid worker, as the UN secretary general warned that the scale of death and destruction inside Gaza is blocking delivery of desperately needed aid.

Issam al-Mughrabi, 56, was killed with his wife, five children and dozens of other relatives in a bombing near Gaza City, said the head of the UN development programme (UNDP) in a statement that also called for an urgent ceasefire.

“The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. “The UN and civilians in Gaza are not a target. This war must end. No more families should endure the pain and suffering that Issam’s family and countless others are experiencing.”

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

www.theguardian.com

 

[JohnDe]

The IDF is not wasting time or taking short steps in it's efforts to wipe out HAMAS.

They just pulverized the home of a veteran UN Aid worker and buried 70 members of his family and turned their home into a mass grave.

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says​

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

Emma Graham-Harrison
Sun 24 Dec 2023 12.33 AEDTFirst published on Sun 24 Dec 2023 01.02 AEDT


An Israeli military airstrike killed more than 70 members of an extended family, including a veteran UN aid worker, as the UN secretary general warned that the scale of death and destruction inside Gaza is blocking delivery of desperately needed aid.

Issam al-Mughrabi, 56, was killed with his wife, five children and dozens of other relatives in a bombing near Gaza City, said the head of the UN development programme (UNDP) in a statement that also called for an urgent ceasefire.

“The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. “The UN and civilians in Gaza are not a target. This war must end. No more families should endure the pain and suffering that Issam’s family and countless others are experiencing.”

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

www.theguardian.com

The war can end today, all by Hamas laying down arms and surrendering.

 

[basilio]

The war can end today, all by Hamas laying down arms and surrendering.

Or it can end when Israel has leveled Gaza and killed or dispersed 2 million people. And it seems Israel has made it clear it will demolish Gaza block by block . To date 60% of all buildings in Gazahave been damaged or destroyed.

There is nothing like having absolute military power to enable such a punitive approach . This isn't "war" as we know it.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza​

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October


Chris McGreal in New York
Fri 22 Dec 2023 05.47 AEDTLast modified on Sat 23 Dec 2023 03.06 AEDT


The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza amid the highest death toll of media workers in any recent conflict.

The New York-based CPJ said at least 68 journalists and other media workers had been killed in Gaza, Israel and southern Lebanon since the Hamas cross-border attack on 7 October and subsequent Israeli assault.

“More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” it said.
“CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military. In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place. In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers before their family members were killed.”
The CPJ called for Israel to “end the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF”.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October

www.theguardian.com

 

[basilio]

​

Analysis: Why Israel will continue its deadly push into Gaza city centres​

A long, grinding urban war appears likely now, if Israel is to negate the effects of Hamas tunnels. But keeping public support intact won’t be easy.

Analysis: Why Israel will continue its deadly push into Gaza city centres

A long, grinding urban war appears likely now, if Israel is to negate the effects of Hamas tunnels.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[wayneL]

Al Jazeera and The Guardian, combined with basilio's peculiarly toxic far left anti Jewish take.

Propaganda at its most purulent.

 

[JohnDe]

Or it can end when Israel has leveled Gaza and killed or dispersed 2 million people. And it seems Israel has made it clear it will demolish Gaza block by block . To date 60% of all buildings in Gazahave been damaged or destroyed.

There is nothing like having absolute military power to enable such a punitive approach . This isn't "war" as we know it.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza​

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October


Chris McGreal in New York
Fri 22 Dec 2023 05.47 AEDTLast modified on Sat 23 Dec 2023 03.06 AEDT


The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza amid the highest death toll of media workers in any recent conflict.

The New York-based CPJ said at least 68 journalists and other media workers had been killed in Gaza, Israel and southern Lebanon since the Hamas cross-border attack on 7 October and subsequent Israeli assault.

“More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” it said.
“CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military. In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place. In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers before their family members were killed.”
The CPJ called for Israel to “end the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF”.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October

www.theguardian.com

War is hell.

Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects, even if the area contained military objectives, and the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible. However, forces occupying near densely populated areas must avoid locating military objectives near or in densely populated areas and endeavor to remove civilians from the vicinity of military objectives. Failure to do so would cause a higher civilian death toll resulting from bombardment by the attacking force and the defenders would be held responsible, even criminally liable, for these deaths. This issue was addressed because drafters of Protocol I pointed out historical examples such as Japan in World War II who often dispersed legitimate military and industrial targets (almost two-thirds of production was from small factories of thirty or fewer persons or in wooden homes, which were clustered around the factories) throughout urban areas in many of its cities either with the sole purpose of preventing enemy forces from bombing these targets

 

[moXJO]

Or it can end when Israel has leveled Gaza and killed or dispersed 2 million people. And it seems Israel has made it clear it will demolish Gaza block by block .

There is nothing like having absolute military power to enable such a punitive approach . This isn't "war" as we know it.

​

I don't believe it is "punitive". I think that's the excuse we get. Feels like this has been planned a lot more comprehensively than they are letting on. Might be how we see these problems dealt with from now on. We saw it with the rohingya. Peace doesn't work with these hard religions.

In the long run its easier to eradicate problem groups altogether by shifting them out. No one in the West cares that much about radicalised Muslims getting screwed. Problem is where are they getting shifted to.

Just imagine if China did something similar to Australia off the back of propaganda (which they have used up until recently to attack Australia. Are other nations really willing to step in and help us while sacrificing lives of their own?

Hard to see strong alliances at the moment. Definitely makes one wonder about the future

 

[wayneL]

 

[JohnDe]

Or it can end when Israel has leveled Gaza and killed or dispersed 2 million people. And it seems Israel has made it clear it will demolish Gaza block by block . To date 60% of all buildings in Gazahave been damaged or destroyed.

There is nothing like having absolute military power to enable such a punitive approach . This isn't "war" as we know it.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza​

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October


Chris McGreal in New York
Fri 22 Dec 2023 05.47 AEDTLast modified on Sat 23 Dec 2023 03.06 AEDT


The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza amid the highest death toll of media workers in any recent conflict.

The New York-based CPJ said at least 68 journalists and other media workers had been killed in Gaza, Israel and southern Lebanon since the Hamas cross-border attack on 7 October and subsequent Israeli assault.

“More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year,” it said.
“CPJ is particularly concerned about an apparent pattern of targeting of journalists and their families by the Israeli military. In at least one case, a journalist was killed while clearly wearing press insignia in a location where no fighting was taking place. In at least two other cases, journalists reported receiving threats from Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers before their family members were killed.”
The CPJ called for Israel to “end the longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF”.

Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza

Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October

www.theguardian.com

The Israeli war against Hamas has shown in a very dramatic way how journalism has changed in recent times – and how many journalists have come to see their role as warriors for social justice. We have been here before. There was hardly a mention of what happened on October 7 inside Israel..Neither did any call out and condemn the rape and torture of women and girls by the Hamas terrorists and as a result the increasing and horrific evidence of these crimes against humanity have been downplayed .​

Journalists in Revolt

Within days of the Hamas massacres in the south of Israel on October 7 and before the subsequent Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza with its horrific civilian death toll, thousands of journalists in the US, Britain, Canada and Australia signed letters and petitions that called for journalists to provide “context” for the Hamas massacres, and that context was that Israel was a racist colonialist state.

Since October 7, scores of letters and petitions have circulated and been signed by thousands of journalists in the Anglosphere that not only called on governments to end their support for Israel – journalists urging a change in government policy – but urged journalists to side with the Palestinians, preference their voices and implicitly silence the voices of Zionists and Israel defenders. Defenders of a genocidal state.

There was hardly a mention of what happened on October 7 inside Israel in these letters and petitions from journalists and, if it was mentioned in passing, it was contextualised and implicitly justified.

Neither did any of these letters call out and condemn the rape and torture of women and girls by the Hamas terrorists and as a result the increasing and horrific evidence of these crimes against humanity have been downplayed by women’s organisations including UN Women and by most of the media.

This ignoring in the main or at best underplaying the crimes against women and girls by Hamas terrorists was activist journalism at its most powerful.

In the main, media executives – editors and news directors – were surprised by these petitions and letters, which they knew compromised their journalism and compromised all the journalistic values they constantly told their readers and their television and radio audiences that they passionately adhered to.

But the fact is that many media companies’ – newspapers and their digital platforms and television and radio news services – had long ago given up on defending and enforcing the values on which their journalism was ostensibly based – fairness, factual accuracy and, crucially, reporting that is free of agenda pushing and activism.

It is just that the Hamas massacres and the Israeli war against Hamas have shown in a very dramatic way how journalism has changed in recent times, how many journalists have come to see their role as warriors for social justice, for the anti-colonial struggle, the anti-racism struggle, for the oppressed against the oppressors.

We have been here before, in the middle of a crisis that starkly illustrated the fact the old ethical principles of journalism were being discarded by many journalists and, crucially, perhaps the world’s best known and most venerable liberal-leaning newspaper, The New York Times.

And where the Times goes, so tend to go many left-liberal newspapers outside the US.

In June 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, riots and looting and mass demonstrations were held in cities across the US after the death of George Floyd, who died after a white policeman had knelt on his neck for nine minutes. The riots and the looting and the mass Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the demands by activists to defund the police meant that in some cities demonstrators and rioters had transformed inner-city areas into no-go zones for police.

At the NewYork Times, in the first week of June, with areas of some American cities out of control, governed more or less by demonstrators and some rioters, James Bennet, the editor of the editorial page of the paper, approved the publication of an opinion piece by Tom Cotton, a leading Republican senator and a supporter, a lukewarm one it must be said, of Donald Trump.

It is worth re-reading the Cotton piece, which calls for an intervention by the US Army. This sort of intervention has happened before and it is not unconstitutional―to quell the rioting and looting in American cities. It is, in my view, a run-of-the-mill piece, not brilliantly written but not bad either. It is not a rabidly Trumpian call for the army to be deployed against peaceful demonstrators, which is how many Times journalists―and journalists beyond the Times―saw it.

Certainly, the publisher of the Times, AG Sulzberger, did not see it that way: Sulzberger publicly and privately supported the editor he had appointed in 2016, the editor he had lured back to the paper from The Atlantic where Bennet had been the editor for a decade. It was, the publisher said, a perfectly legitimate piece for the Times.

But a few days later, after mass staff protests, after demands from some journalists that Bennet be sacked because he had made some journalists on the Times feel “unsafe” by publishing the Cotton opinion piece, Sulzberger called Bennet and, according to Bennet, Sulzberger was furious, and he demanded that Bennet resign. The op-ed, he said, did not meet the standards set by the Times. Bennet resigned, having at first said the publisher would have to sack him.

He changed his mind and resigned because he did not want to damage the institution, the paper that he still loved, the place where he had learnt his journalism, where he started in 1991 as an intern, where he had worked for 15 years, where he had been a White House correspondent and the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent, and where he had built his reputation as one of the country’s finest reporters.

Now, three years later, Bennet, who is a columnist for The Economist, has written a16,000-word essay about his resignation and what it meant, but the essay is about much more than that. It is an examination of the way The New York Times went from being an admittedly liberal newspaper to an illiberal one, a newspaper where the liberal elites talk to themselves. A newspaper whose readership is overwhelmingly progressive and woke, whose readers read the Times to have their ideological positions affirmed. They do not read the paper for reporting and commentary that challenges these ideological “truths”.

And his forced resignation was a milestone along the road to this illiberalism at the Times – an illiberalism, while perhaps not as pronounced, that has to some extent infected media companies in Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand, though not nearly as much in liberal democratic Europe.

Bennet’s essay feels like it was the past three years in the writing. It is deeply detailed about his time at the Times and his relationship with Sulzberger and editors. He describes how it felt when he came back to The New York Times in 2016 after a decade at The Atlantic magazine and found the newspaper he had grown up on unrecognisable, well along the road to the illiberalism that eventually would force him out.

Bennet describes how the election of Trump in 2016 had a profound impact on journalism, especially progressive journalists in the US and even in Australia and Canada, how for them Trump’s victory was inexplicable and shocking.

It remained inexplicable and shocking to these journalists for the four years of the Trump presidency. Instead of doing what journalists should do and go out and find out how it was that Trump was elected, who voted for him and why, many journalists saw it as their mission to call out Trump for his lies, his fascist tendencies, his crimes, his danger to American democracy. In other words, to ensure he does not win the 2020 election and, even better, that he is impeached and forced to resign.

Bennet, in the eyes of these journalists, had betrayed that journalistic mission by publishing an op-ed by a Trump-supporting senator that was urging Trump to call out the army against the Black Lives Matter protesters. How much more traitorous could you get at the Times?

Perhaps the part of Bennet’s essay that is most affecting for an old journalist is his deep reflection on journalism, on what it means to be a journalist, perhaps the best such reflection I have read for a long time. Bennet was and remains a journalist committed to the institutions of journalism – in his case, a commitment to The New York Times and the values that he absorbed and was committed to upholding during his time at the paper.

Yes, it was a liberal newspaper, but it was committed to fair and accurate reporting and the publication on its opinion page of a wide range of commentary. He describes his journalistic education at the Times, which had nothing to do with any university course. It started in the city section of the paper where a chain-smoking old editor once took him for a walk and told him if he didn’t improve in certain ways he would never be given a permanent position on the paper.

He describes how other editors educated him, how he learnt to be a better reporter by being assigned stories that he initially thought were mind-numbingly boring but that turned out to be memorable, even life-changing, like a series he did on being old in New York.

Bennet writes that this sort of mentoring and training on the job is rare now at the Times – and I believe it is increasingly rare in most media companies. At the Times, when the paper felt under threat from new media such as the Huffington Post and an array of other start-ups, many of which have now disappeared, it went out and hired people from these new online outfits who had little experience of journalism and no on-the-job training and, crucially, no commitment to and no knowledge of―the institution that was employing them.

But they were tech savvy and they understood how social media worked, and many of them were contemptuous of old journalists such as Bennet. I think some of this has happened in some Australian media companies. Institutional loyalty is disappearing. There was a time journalists felt attached to the newspaper where they worked and were proud of that attachment. That was true to a certain extent for journalists who worked for the ABC or for commercial news broadcasting.

Journalists are becoming brands, hypersensitive to their social media following, always working to cultivate a greater following because the more followers you have, the better the journalist you are and the less you are beholden to the paper or network for which you work.

Many of the thousands of journalists who in the past two months have signed letters and petitions demanding a right to be activists for the cause of the Palestinians, demanding that governments change their policies towards genocidal Israel, consider themselves to be brands in no way obligated to consider the effect of their letter and petition signing on the institutions for which they work.

Many wouldn’t know whether the newspaper or broadcaster where they work has a code of conduct to which they are bound when they are employed. Many would never have had the sort of journalistic education that Bennet describes in his essay.

Bennet is pessimistic about the Times, about whether it can go back to being the paper it was when he fell in love with the place because of its values – despite its liberal bias―and because of the mentorship he had from editors who were great educators and because it was at the Times that he fell in love with being a reporter.

At this troubled time, there are signs of hope. The New York Times a few weeks ago forced two journalists who had signed group letters that were pro-Palestinian to resign. They had refused to make a commitment to sign no further group letters of any kind. Signing such letters was against the paper’s code of conduct.

In Australia a couple of weeks later, the editors of the Nine newspapers told their staff that those journalists who had signed letters and petitions would be barred from covering any element of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, including its effect on Australia’s Jewish and Muslim communities.

Even The Guardian has an updated code that states that its journalists must not sign group letters and petitions because by doing so they would be seen to be compromising The Guardian’s journalism.

There is hope but, at the same time, it is hard to read the Bennet essay and not feel some measure of despair.

Michael Gawenda is a former editor of The Age.

 

[Macquack]

War is hell.

Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects, even if the area contained military objectives, and the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible. However, forces occupying near densely populated areas must avoid locating military objectives near or in densely populated areas and endeavor to remove civilians from the vicinity of military objectives. Failure to do so would cause a higher civilian death toll resulting from bombardment by the attacking force and the defenders would be held responsible, even criminally liable, for these deaths. This issue was addressed because drafters of Protocol I pointed out historical examples such as Japan in World War II who often dispersed legitimate military and industrial targets (almost two-thirds of production was from small factories of thirty or fewer persons or in wooden homes, which were clustered around the factories) throughout urban areas in many of its cities either with the sole purpose of preventing enemy forces from bombing these targets

You have made the same post 5 times. It is getting a bit repetitive.

Not every building in Gaza is a military objective. FFS

 

[JohnDe]

You have made the same post 5 times. It is getting a bit repetitive.

Not every building in Gaza is a military objective. FFS

Israel is doing the world’s heavy lifting. To deny that is to deny the truth and by extension to say that countries such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the US, liberal Western democracies, would willingly invite Hamas to our shores, into our schools, homes and parliaments.​

​

If that is your view, then you are not my countryman. You have a different hope for Australia’s future than I do.​

Mealy-mouthed slacktivists fail Israelis and Palestinians

On the night of April 14, 2014, Islamic terrorists stormed a government girls’ secondary school in Chibok, Nigeria, kidnapping 276 mostly Christian young girls aged between 16 and 18. This horrendous act gave rise to a global movement identified primarily by the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Oh, it was a thing all right. All of Hollywood and its hangers-on lent their names to the cause.
In a shocking plot twist, the terrorist group Boko Haram did not capitulate when confronted with the full force of highly stylised Instagram posts. #BringBackOur girls was a campaign stellar in visibility, negligent in terms of impact. It was also a powerful example of slacktivism at its finest. As of 2021, 112 of the Chibok schoolgirls were still missing.

At least 14 of the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok in 2014. Picture: AFP

Slacktivism: The appearance of standing for something but with absolutely nothing of substance at play and zero cost to the individual or organisation. It usually comes with a healthy dose of signalling virtue.

This is what we’re seeing play out in Australia and across the world as the war against Hamas continues. From a range of social media and reality TV stars who fancy themselves as geopolitically savvy, whose ignorance is matched only by hubris, to governments who talk a big game but can’t back it up.

Free Palestine. From the river to the Sea. All lives matter (more on that one in a moment).

Israel paid the greatest price on October 7 and continues to do so. What nobody seems to have the courage to say is that Israel is doing what the West has been to weak, possibly too lazy and too cowardly to do for decades – confront and eliminate Hamas. The same Hamas that hasn’t held an election in Gaza since 2006. The same Hamas that this government declared to be a terror organisation last year.

Free Palestine? Yes! From the tyranny of a terrorist government and if you think that will happen via diplomacy or without conflict, you are no student of history.

Harry Greenwood, right, along with co-stars Megan Wilding, second right, and Mabel Li, left, wear keffiyeh scarves during the encore at the opening night of the STC production of The Seagull at Sydney’s Roslyn Packer Theatre. Picture: Instagram

Israel is doing the world’s heavy lifting. To deny that is to deny the truth and by extension to say that countries such as Australia, Britain, New Zealand, the US, liberal Western democracies, would willingly invite Hamas to our shores, into our schools, homes and parliaments.

If that is your view, then you are not my countryman. You have a different hope for Australia’s future than I do.

Imagine if in the days following October 7 the global community had immediately demanded Hamas return all hostages, surrender those responsible and have them tried in The Hague for war crimes. This war would be long over and so many civilian lives in Gaza saved.

But slacktivism. The world said: we condemn this brutality. It also said: Israel, go easy on them because all lives matter. Sure, they do. Until of course they don’t. Do the lives of the 138 hostages still hidden in Gaza matter more than those of the Hamas animals keeping them captive? Did the lives of the slain Nova concertgoers matter more than those of the savages who gleefully filmed themselves committing wholesale rape and slaughter?

Does the life of a Palestinian child matter more than terrorists who use his school as a cover? I could go on.

Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people, displaced more than two million in the past decade. In Syria, the Assad regime systematically murders its citizens without so much as a hashtag to contend with.

According to the Syrian network for Human Rights, 501 civilians, including 71 children and 42 women were murdered by documented events of torture in the first half of this year. That’s before you go back over the past decade and count the thousands of victims, many being Palestinians.

Their lives mattered, but not enough to spark a global movement against Syria. No boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; no protests. Nobody saying that Syria shouldn’t exist.

Obviously, Palestinian lives matter. But Palestinian lives in Gaza matter more than the ones in Syria, and more than the Christian girls taken hostage in Nigeria – am I doing it right? The only lives that have been devalued are Israeli dead and the still languishing hostages.

It is unquestionably clear that there is a singular reason the professional activist class has galvanised behind Palestinian Gaza, post-October 7.

I want to propose it’s not for the love of a people, it’s because of an incomprehensible hatred of Israel. A free Palestinian people cannot happen without the end of Hamas and the only nation committed to that outcome is Israel.

Oh, but the fear and (self) loathing in Australia and elsewhere (Ie, writ large in word, deed and indefensible actions of hatred and anti-Semitism. The absolute nonsense, historically illiterate silliness coming out of the mouths of so many. It’s easy, I suppose, when there’s no price to pay.

This is a level of blindness that has nothing to do with the biological function of sight. This is what it looks like. It’s what causes people to say that Israel has no right to defend itself. What great price, their freedom.

There is always a cost, for everything. It’s like the person who wants to run a marathon but instead of training, lies on the couch eating chips, or the person who wants a loving healthy relationship but won’t face their own heart and do the work.

Life is full of these complex situations but rarely has one been so clear in the line between right and wrong. An email I received this week, one of many, broke my heart and I share it with permission.

“My kids have grown up thinking it’s normal to have armed guards and policemen manning the doors of our synagogue. How shocking is that in Australia? … Now I lie awake at night wondering how to keep my children safe. Racists will always be around. But when our government, academic, artistic and education institutes start apologising and enabling intolerance … it’s terrifying.”

Each day this war continues, there is more collateral damage like this family. Half a world away, innocent Palestinians are failed by an international community that has chosen words over action at every step.

 

[Captain_Chaza]

The IDF is not wasting time or taking short steps in it's efforts to wipe out HAMAS.

They just pulverized the home of a veteran UN Aid worker and buried 70 members of his family and turned their home into a mass grave.

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says​

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

Emma Graham-Harrison
Sun 24 Dec 2023 12.33 AEDTFirst published on Sun 24 Dec 2023 01.02 AEDT


An Israeli military airstrike killed more than 70 members of an extended family, including a veteran UN aid worker, as the UN secretary general warned that the scale of death and destruction inside Gaza is blocking delivery of desperately needed aid.

Issam al-Mughrabi, 56, was killed with his wife, five children and dozens of other relatives in a bombing near Gaza City, said the head of the UN development programme (UNDP) in a statement that also called for an urgent ceasefire.

“The loss of Issam and his family has deeply affected us all,” UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said. “The UN and civilians in Gaza are not a target. This war must end. No more families should endure the pain and suffering that Issam’s family and countless others are experiencing.”

Israeli airstrike kills Gaza aid worker and 70 of his extended family, UN says

Call to protect civilians and humanitarian staff after UNDP’s Issam al-Mughrabi, his wife, children and scores of relatives killed

www.theguardian.com

Sorry Basilio But You make me Sick!

The First CAUALTY in WAR is the TRUTH

The Second CASUALTY is those who develop the "Basilio Syndrome"
( Probably named after You)

You carry on about the UN and the 70 above but why did you and the UN not take on the same task on the 8th October after the infamous ~1500

You have had plenty of time IMHO to answer this question so I have elected to not hear from you in the future

Good Bye