DEAR News Of The Area,
UNSURPRISINGLY, the rhetoric used by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli and US government spokespeople following the recent Australian Government announcement on qualified recognition of Palestine statehood, follows a pretty standard formula.
It starts with a one-sided focus on the terrorist atrocities and hostage-taking carried out by Hamas on September 7th 2023, to the total exclusion of any historical context.
The narrative typically demonizes all Palestinians as barbaric terrorists and denies both the reality and the unjustifiable extent of the impacts of the Israeli Defence Force on the Palestine population, despite the now very large body of evidence. Even more remarkable, however, is the commentary from conservative media and political figures in Australia that are also prepared to ignore these actions, despite not meeting even the most basic Rules of Engagement, which our own military forces uphold as sacrosanct.
Even a superficial search of accepted definitions reveals that the historically and currently perpetrated actions by the IDF do not meet the requirement for proportionality; could also constitute “terrorism”; and easily meet the definitions of “massacre”, “genocide” and /or “ethnic cleansing”. [These are] as upheld by the United Nations and reported by independent monitoring organisations on hundreds of occasions since 2007, when Israel again “occupied” and blockaded Gaza and encroached further into the West Bank.
The Australian Government should have joined other major nations in making representations long ago in calling out these actions and applying sanctions, and should likewise be calling on the US to explain why it is has enabled and supported the illegal Israeli behavior for this extended period – frustrating and blocking every attempt by the UN and ICC to call Israel to account.
Our PM’s recent delayed stance, while it may be politically savvy, is morally too little and way too late.
Regards,
Dave WOOD,
Boambee East
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