.

The humanitarian situation has been described by the United Nations and relief agencies as catastrophic, with widespread destruction, shortages of food and medical care, and massive displacement across the territory.

People moving toward the sea reflect a grim reality of the geography there: the Mediterranean coast is one of the few open spaces left when neighbourhoods are heavily damaged or under military pressure. Witnesses and humanitarian reporting over many months have described civilians trapped between evacuation routes, combat zones, and overcrowded displacement areas.

Western news media don’t report it, and social media activists are filling the courts charged with ‘antisemitism’ for decrying the evils of the Zionists.

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It is a paradox because consumers rely heavily on data centres every day — for streaming, banking, food delivery, social media, dating apps, online shopping, payments, and for men to send photos of their penis to people who don’t want to see them - while also increasingly opposing the construction or expansion of those same data centres because of their environmental costs.

The laws of physics dictate that silicon chips cannot be made smaller, though there are experiments with organic/silicon hybrids. Other countries have experimented with putting data centres on the bottom of the sea. It’s a societal dilemma which stems from a disconnect between the invisible benefits of digital services and the visible costs of their physical infrastructure. We’re good at societal dilemmas. Global warming science was locked in 50 years ago, so we all bought bigger cars and put a FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE sticker on the bumper.

Netflix, Uber Eats, and AI-driven platforms require massive computational power. However, the physical manifestation of this demand—data centres—imposes local burdens such as strain on water supplies, surging energy consumption, noise pollution, and limited local job creation. No one is going to give up their AI any more than we’re going to roll back the Industrial Revolution and hand-spin cotton looms at home. It’s a good time to remember that approximately 27% of the world’s population—roughly 2.2 billion people—still do not have access to the internet at all.

Laying out the facts does suggest one irrefutable point, of which AI is a small part. While overconsumption in the First World is the primary driver of AGW emissions, the consequences are disproportionately borne by the developing world.

The poorest countries experience nearly 70% of deaths caused by climate-related disasters, despite contributing the least to the problem. Disasters are estimated to be 10 times more damaging (relative to GDP) for poorer nations than for richer ones. The Global North (including the United States and European Union) is responsible for approximately 92% of excess global CO₂ emissions that have pushed the planet beyond safe boundaries (t takes roughly 581 people in Burundi to generate the same annual emissions as one average American) On a per capita basis, Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions are approximately 17.9 tonnes CO₂-e per person (based on 457.7 Mt total emissions and ~25.6 million people in 2026), ranking it the highest among OECD nations.

Its a complex political problem, but I have no doubt Australia’s new champion, Pauline Hanson will have the answers. Why change yourself when there are soft targets to blame?

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The film presents testimony from multiple former Palestinian detainees who describe:

• Forced stripping and prolonged nudity

• Blindfolding and shackling

• Threats of rape

• Sexual assault and rape

• Filming of abuse by guards or soldiers

• Sexualized humiliation intended to degrade prisoners

Similar patterns appeared across different detention facilities and among detainees who did not know one another.

One of the documentary’s most disturbing allegations comes from former detainees who claim military dogs were deliberately used during episodes of sexual abuse and intimidation.

The film includes testimony from detainees who describe being stripped, restrained, and exposed to attacks by dogs while guards allegedly laughed, threatened, or filmed them. The recurring appearance of dogs in multiple testimonies is presented as evidence of a pattern rather than a single event

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The film relies on reports and findings from organizations and experts including:

• United Nations investigators and special rapporteurs

• Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

• Human Rights Watch

• Amnesty International

• B’Tselem

The documentary cites reports documenting allegations of torture, sexual violence, and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees since the October 2023 war began.

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and their support for definitions that silence Jewish dissent …

and their role in excluding anti-Zionist Jews from the narrative …

are harmful behaviours that reinforce antisemitic tropes. We used to call it antisemitic.

Their antisemitism is not new. In February 2025, Leibler, Chair of The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), posted a paid advertisement on X describing anti-Zionist Jews as "repulsive and revolting human beings" and "vicious antisemites," claiming their Holocaust-relatives would be "turning in their graves." The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) agreed that Leibler's comments violated racial vilification laws by exposing Jews to hatred and contempt as Jews. In other words, they were attacked specifically for their Jewish identity.

These are the groups given $100+ million to “fight antisemitism.” Does it make sense? What is going on?

The Zionist lobby appears to speak for all Jews because legacy institutions monopolise access to the Royal Commission and the media. The exclusion of anti-Zionist Jews from primary testimony in the critical early hearings and the adoption of the IHRA definition effectively silenced their distinct perspective, reinforcing the false impression of a monolithic, pro-Israel Jewish community

According to the March 2025 Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) survey, 37% identify as "Zionist," yet 61% of US Jews (per Washington Post polling) believe Israel has committed war crimes. There are no equivalent surveys in Australia, for obvious reasons, but it’s fair to say the Commission does not represent all Jews. And the unrepresented have no forum; they are silenced by Israel’s agents, ECAJ, AIJAC and the ZFA. Roughly 40% of US Jews believe Israel is committing genocide.

All of this only makes sense if we give the word ‘antisemitism’ yet another definition. That raises the question of how long it will be before Australians work out that the genocidaires are pissing in their pockets.

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There were no charges because a one-week forensic examination by police found no evidence of any wrongdoing. But police continued to harass the pensioner, demanding he attend the police station as the investigation was ‘ongoing.’ He knew that if he walked into that cop shop, he was unlikely to walk out again.

At the same time, the pensioner started getting death threats from an IDF commander named Daniel Hanukayev.

The harassment then intensified. The IOF wrote the pensioner’s name on a bomb and dropped it on a school “in your name.” International Israeli media ‘outed’ him as a ‘secret drag queen’ to cause him problems at the mosque. The Daily Telegraph ran an article suggesting the pensioner was a ‘Jew hater.’ The AJA called him “a threat to the Jewish community.”

It might be fair to say the pensioner was feeling a little traumatised. He approached his Muslim community for support but was told, “Sorry, we can’t be associated with a Jew hater.”

But wait, there’s more. The same IOF officer sent him a threat that his unit was in Sydney and would come calling. His home address was doxxed on social media, complete with a photo and Google map coordinates. Late one night, he had uninvited visitors …

He was now receiving daily email threats from the Zionists, implying they were working with the police to have him jailed, and that Pegasus spyware was installed on all his electronics.

At a time when every Zionist Jew and his/her dog is crying antisemitism, it does seem an overreaction to one tweet. But of course it was not about tweets but his advocacy, research and writing that exposed the lobby as frauds and liars almost every day.

Mainstream media never report these cases, and social media is obsessed with status, the big names in smart suits. One day, the cops might come to take him away and never be heard from again. He lives alone.

p.s. yes, you guessed it, the pensioner is me.

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“He said: ‘Julia is looking very good in the public eye these days, Prime Minister. She’s performing very strongly. She’s a great friend of Israel. But you shouldn’t be anxious about her, should you, Prime Minister?’”

Rudd described this as a veiled, menacing threat — implying Leibler was signalling that if Rudd didn’t fall into line on Israel policy, Gillard was waiting in the wings as a more amenable alternative.

Three weeks later, Gillard toppled him. Rudd made it clear Leibler was cultivating Gillard as a pro-Israel contact within the government. Gillard had adopted a markedly more pro-Israel position. Carr’s 2014 account of Leibler’s influence over Gillard’s foreign policy added fuel to the argument that Julia was/is “Liebler’s poodle.”

The real story Rudd was trying to tell was not about the coup, but about the lobbying power of AIJAC and Leibler over Labor’s Israel/Palestine policy and their ability to bully, threaten and override even a sitting Prime Minister on foreign policy questions.

Israel has been listed alongside non-state actors and other state militaries in the Secretary-General’s report on conflict-related sexual violence.

There’s a genuinely fascinating tension in Gillard’s legacy.

She is celebrated as Australia’s first female Prime Minister and a landmark feminist figure, most famously for her 2012 “misogyny speech” which went viral globally and is still cited as one of the great feminist political moments of the modern era.

Yet her government pursued one of the most uncritically pro-Israel foreign policies in Australian Labor history — a state engaged in what many international legal scholars, the UN, and postcolonial theorists explicitly characterise as a settler-colonial project.

For anyone applying the frameworks of intersectional or postcolonial feminism (the very frameworks her “misogyny speech” helped inspire globally) this is a profound contradiction. Postcolonial feminist thinkers like Chandra Mohanty, Gayatri Spivak, and Sara Farris argue that Western feminism has repeatedly failed to extend its logic of liberation to women living under colonial or imperial structures. Gillard’s career is almost a case study in this critique.

She could articulate with devastating precision the gendered power structures that silenced and diminished women in Australian political life but was unwilling to extend that same logic to Palestinian women living under military occupation.

Palestinian women experience gendered violence, restricted movement, denial of political voice, and structural dispossession; conditions that map directly onto feminist frameworks of oppression.

Yet Gillard’s government blocked or abstained on UN resolutions that would have given Palestinians even minimal recognition. Some might call it shallow and populist politicking. Farris calls it femonationalism, where feminist credentials are deployed selectively, in ways that align with existing power structures rather than challenging them.

Gillard’s schtick is a liberal feminist tradition of equality within existing institutions. It is not critical of structural or colonial power, not connected in any way to the situation of women outside the Western democratic framework and not intersectional in the sense of linking gender oppression to racial, colonial or economic dispossession.

There’s another uncomfortable layer here, which connects back to the Leibler history. A recurring feminist argument is that women in power should not be judged by a different standard, and that holding women leaders to a higher moral standard than men is itself a form of sexism. But this cuts both ways. If Gillard’s foreign policy was shaped, at least in part, by donor relationships and lobby pressure (as Carr’s diaries strongly suggest), then her feminist identity arguably made that more insidious, not less, because the optics of a feminist PM may have provided political cover for policies that would have drawn sharper criticism from the left if pursued by a male Labor leader. Her identity as a progressive, feminist figure made it harder to criticise her Israel policy without being accused of attacking her for being a woman.

Gillard has a particular and limited strand of feminism, very common in the West, that is entirely compatible with maintaining a pro-Israel, pro-Zionist foreign policy, because it never questions the structures of global power within which those policies operate. It misses the intersectionality recognizing that race, gender, and class are interlocking systems. Further, it poses non-Western women as passive victims needing rescue, rather than as agents of their own liberation and women’s suffering in the Global South to justify military intervention (e.g., the Taliban’s treatment of women was invoked to help legitimize the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, same in Iran. The British in India, for example, cited the practice of sati to morally justify their presence while simultaneously implementing policies that harmed Indian women economically.)

“We need to ask ourselves: whose feminism is this?” — Chandra Talpade Mohanty

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Australia helped support the partition of Palestine in 1947, which facilitated the creation of Israel and the displacement of large numbers of Palestinians during the event Palestinians call the Nakba (”catastrophe”).

Australia has a responsibility to support Palestinian self-determination, equality, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Australia has a broader history of military and colonial involvement in the Middle East and continues to support Israel through intelligence and strategic cooperation.

Israel is committing severe human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank, including large-scale civilian deaths, destruction of infrastructure, displacement of civilians, and actions they characterize as genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Israel has been able to avoid accountability because of support from powerful allies, particularly the United States.

Pro-Israel lobbying groups and politicians equate criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism, and this suppresses legitimate political debate.

Australian political leaders, particularly Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and former opposition leader Peter Dutton, uncritically adopted pro-Israel positions for political advantage.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call for freedom and equality.

Australia has both historical responsibility and current influence regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and therefore, should take a stronger stance against Israeli policies and in support of Palestinian rights, rather than claiming it is not a significant actor in the region

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Here’s Alex Ryvchin, co-Chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) at the JNF. ECAJ just got a grant of $124 million.

In 2023, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Australia faced allegations that tax-deductible donations were being used to support settlement-related activities in the West Bank.

Investigations revealed that despite claims of operational independence, millions of dollars raised in Australia were transferred to the organization’s Israeli parent, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (KKL-JNF), which has explicitly funded settlement expansion and military support initiatives.

Financial records analysed by investigative journalists indicate that JNF Australia has remitted more than $125.4 million to Israel since 2009, while receiving approximately $213 million in tax-deductible donations since 2013. In 2024 alone, the organisation reported transferring $10.4 million of its $12 million in donations to Israel. Although JNF Australia has repeatedly asserted it is a “separate independent entity” from KKL-JNF, financial filings from the Israeli parent organisation identify Australia as a significant source of overseas donations. Between 2021 and 2024, KKL-JNF received roughly $19.4 million from Australia and New Zealand

The controversy intensified following a 2021 board vote by KKL-JNF in Israel, which officially permitted the purchase of private land in the occupied West Bank for settlement expansion. This decision was criticised as a violation of international law. Despite JNF Australia’s leadership stating they were not bound by this decision, evidence suggests funds raised in Australia contributed to the general revenue pool of the Israeli entity, which subsequently utilized these resources for the newly authorized settlement activities. The Jewish National Fund was originally founded in 1901 to purchase land for Jewish settlement, and its historical activities have been linked to the displacement of Palestinian communities.

Beyond land acquisition, JNF Australia has publicly promoted programs providing direct financial support to IDF soldiers, including initiatives like “Ach Gadol” and “Panim el Panim.” Reports indicate that over 50,000 foreign soldiers, including hundreds of Australian citizens, have served in the IDF. Additionally, the organization has fundraised for groups such as Ateret Cohanim, an extremist settler organization active in East Jerusalem involved in eviction lawsuits against Palestinian families. These activities have drawn sharp criticism from human rights organizations and UN commissioners, who argue that third states have an obligation not to render aid to organizations maintaining illegal occupations.

The organization Artzenu, which recruits volunteers for these illegal farms, has received JNF support.

These farms serve as the precursor to legalized settlements. In late 2024, KKL-JNF admitted to halting most of this funding following revelations that the youth were being used to dispossess Palestinians.

The funding was described as providing “benevolent relief” and security for settler families living in properties seized from Palestinians in neighborhoods like Silwan and the Old City.

Since 2021, KKL-JNF allocated approximately NIS 4.7 million ($1.5 million) to these outposts under the guise of “volunteer programs for at-risk youth.”

Investigations by Peace Now and Kerem Navot revealed these programs were used to station young settlers on strategic hilltops to guard state land and expand outposts, often through violence and intimidation against Palestinian herders.

Ateret Cohanim is actively involved in eviction lawsuits against Palestinian families. While JNF Australia later removed the fundraiser from its website following criticism, and an Ateret Cohanim spokesman denied receiving direct funds, the organization had previously listed the group as a partner project.

In response to these allegations, Federal Member Julian Hill wrote to the Tax Commissioner in 2024 seeking clarification on whether provisions exist to remove tax-deductible status from organizations supporting illegal settler activity. In 2026, the Greens introduced an amendment to deny Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status to entities supporting illegal occupations. However, the Labor Government rejected this proposal, with Finance Minister Katy Gallagher stating that while charities must comply with Australian law, there is no requirement for them to comply with international law regarding overseas conduct. The government maintains that existing regulatory frameworks are sufficient, despite UN recommendations that states should not provide tax deductibility for donations supporting unlawful occupations

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The expulsion of the Israeli diplomat over the Dubai passport affair occurred in May 2010. Rudd was removed as Prime Minister in June 2010

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It’s a complicated scenario where the extreme, reactionary wealthy have the power to split society and create a Hell for the majority, depending on who holds political power.

Current predictions are that AI will lead to 15 per cent unemployment (2.3 million Australians out of work compared to 700,000 currently) in this country by 2031. There’s literally no way any government could cut so much out of the federal budget to provide that level of welfare support without driving the country into recession.

The feared risk scenario involves a society where 20% of the population owns the AI capital and thrives, while the remaining 80% are economically excluded. This concentration of wealth, combined with the erosion of occupational identity, could lead to widespread social unrest, mental health crises, and political polarisation.

Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures showing a record $21.8 billion was spent by businesses on equipment linked to data centres over the past year. The country is looking at a $350 billion pipeline of data centre-related work over the coming years.

The Stinking Rich

Data from the 2026 Federal Budget reveals that the top 1% of income earners receive more than half of the total benefit from capital gains tax concessions and a significant portion of negative gearing benefits.

In Australia, the wealthiest 20% of households (the top income and wealth quintile) individually own the vast majority of property by value and volume.

As of 2026, total household wealth in property has surpassed $12.5 trillion, but this gain is almost exclusively captured by existing owners.

It is “upper-class welfare” that has always disproportionately benefited wealthy Australians. The Australian tax system effectively subsidises the use of debt for high-income earners through negative gearing. In 2026, despite recent budget changes restricting negative gearing on established properties, the strategy remains fully available for new builds and is grandfathered for existing holdings. The “welfare” is grandfathered for all properties owned before May 2026, meaning the wealthiest generation of investors retains the benefit indefinitely.

Data indicate that the top 1% of income earners receive more than half of the total benefit from capital gains tax concessions and a disproportionate share of negative gearing benefits.

Current legal, educational, and social safety net systems are ill-equipped for the AI age. Without rapid policy intervention, such as new forms of income support or a redefinition of “work”, the gap between technological capability and social stability could fracture our democracy.

In Australia, the redistribution of power and income is primarily controlled and executed by the Federal Government, specifically through the Treasury and the Department of Social Services, operating under legislation passed by the Parliament.

Communities are raising concerns about their scale and noise, the use of power and water. It’s the least of their worries

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The Zionist lobby has demonstrated how effectively one extremely wealthy, avaricious cohort can control the government. The Federal Treasury is the central architect of redistribution policy. Services Australia administers unemployment benefits (JobSeeker), the Age Pension, family tax benefits, and healthcare subsidies (Medicare). Ultimate control rests with the Parliament of Australia.

It’s a surreal scenario where the disillusioned, disenfranchised and marginalised drift to the Politics of Stupid, like PHON, blaming migrants, etc., for their woes.

It really is a classic case of the sheep voting for the wolf.

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I remembered an AFR interview with the Lawyers for Israel who said they, and everyone they knew, had sent their children to join the genocide in Gaza in 2023. Is that the kind of thing their kids are doing? How ‘radicalised’ must they be when they return?

There’s a legal dimension regarding potential accountability for alleged war crimes. Australian law, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, theoretically allows for the prosecution of individuals suspected of committing war crimes or genocide regardless of where those crimes occurred. However, no such prosecutions have been initiated against returning IDF soldiers in Australia.

A former Australian Defence Force chief, Chris Barrie, has expressed alarm that Australians can legally serve in the IOF with minimal government oversight or tracking. At airport Customs, they ask, “Have you cleaned your hiking boots/equipment of all soil?” Why don’t they ask, “Have you committed war crimes and crimes against humanity?” “Have you served in a genocide?” “Did you bury babies alive, burn hospital patients in their beds, raped someone with a knife? Shot a child in the groin?” Department of Home Affairs officials confirmed at recent Senate estimates hearings that they do not monitor how many Australians are fighting overseas

So, there are more than 500 of these young killers on our streets. It’s horrific to even imagine what ‘souvenirs’ they brought home with them. Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that “war crimes incur criminal liability under international law, irrespective of what the law of nationality says”. An exception was Nazi Germans, whose law allowed and obliged them to commit atrocities, would incur no liability.

The mandatory military service law in Israel exempts dual nationals residing abroad, making the enlistment a voluntary act, an important distinction when such crimes are tried in foreign courts. Lawyers have reportedly noted that the voluntary nature of the soldiers’ service makes them more liable for alleged crimes.

Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, countries that are parties to the treaty have a binding obligation to prevent and punish genocide. Countries can investigate and prosecute individuals who may have committed or been complicit in this crime.

As Senator Shoebridge said, “Without oversight of Australians fighting in foreign militaries, we are potentially providing a safe haven for war criminals.

They shouldn’t be too hard to find. Just go along to the barbecue.

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The only problem was that a thriving community already existed on that estate.

More than 60 per cent of residents are elderly. Many rely on vital support and medical networks, particularly older residents and First Nations tenants. Their residences are not bricks and mortar; they are homes — places of belonging, nests where children were raised and lives were built over decades. Home is also community. The happiest people in the world are not the wealthiest, but those who have community. People know one another here, look after one another, and form networks of care. But to another cohort, these places are simply investment opportunities.

Housing Minister Rose Jackson has described large-scale public housing estates as “not functional communities.” Perhaps she has a different understanding of what community means. When I walk into the local IGA, everybody knows my name and wants to chat.

Bikram Lama, a Nepali national, lost his legal residency status so he lived on the street. He was discovered in bushes near the entrance to the St James tunnel in Sydney’s CBD. He had died approximately one week before his discovery. During that time, an estimated 100,000 commuters streamed past his decomposing body without noticing or intervening.

These are the fringe dwellers, the people who slipped between the cracks, those others often look down upon. Yet, but for circumstance or luck, any one of us could find ourselves in similar circumstances. The trauma of displacement for long-term residents is a constant topic of conversation at the local shops.

Up the road, in Sydney’s wealthier suburbs, hundreds of key-lock boxes hang from fences outside Airbnb apartments, offering a glimpse into the future of housing. At up to $500 a night, such properties pay for themselves. Airbnb was heavily restricted in New York City to free up housing stock. Yet while the government frames Waterloo as a project to increase housing supply, in affluent suburbs entire apartment blocks are being gutted to create a handful of luxury penthouses.

The redevelopment of the Waterloo Estate involves demolishing ageing public housing and replacing it with approximately 3,300 new homes, dramatically increasing density while fundamentally altering the balance between social and private housing. Half the new estate will be private market apartments.

Demolitions began this month. Between 2,500 and 3,000 residents will eventually be relocated, with the NSW Government promising all displaced tenants a “right to return” when the project is completed in roughly a decade. Yet the severe shortage of vacant social housing in the inner city is already causing delays and distress for residents awaiting relocation. Supply is critically tight, forcing government reliance on a limited number of new units and existing vacancies across the state.

Like The Rocks and Millers Point before it, the poor are again being displaced to make way for wealth. There are currently 68,247 households on the NSW social housing waiting list. Displaced Waterloo tenants are effectively competing for the same scarce resources as everyone else in urgent need of housing. Because replacement homes at Waterloo are unlikely to be completed before 2030, every relocated tenant placed into existing housing reduces the stock available to the 12,478 priority households already waiting.

As with The Rocks and Millers Point, public housing in Waterloo has been allowed to deteriorate. Things break and are not repaired. Essential services — intercoms for residents dependent on food deliveries, security lighting that helps reduce antisocial behaviour — are neglected. Yet many of the existing low-rise buildings are structurally sound and were built to last, unlike many contemporary developments that may struggle to endure half a century.

A more sensible alternative would be to refurbish the existing 750 homes and build additional public housing on available infill sites. But there is little profit in refurbishment for developers and investors.

This is, fundamentally, a massive transfer of public assets. A site that is currently 100 per cent public housing will become a mixed development of 50 per cent private housing and 20 per cent “affordable housing” — often defined as rents set at 80 per cent of market value. Privatising prime inner-city land for developer profit represents a breach of promises Labor made before the election. The redevelopment reduces the proportion of dedicated public housing at a time when the waiting list exceeds 68,000 households. Woolloomooloo may well be next.

During the 2023 election campaign, Labor candidates, including local MP Ron Hoenig, explicitly told tenants they would “stop the sell-off” and “protect” the estate. Those promises have plainly not been kept. Why should tenants trust assurances about relocation and return now?

Hoenig has said that “public housing should mean dignity.” He couldn’t be more offensive. For many residents facing displacement, such statements ring hollow. The government argues there will be a net increase of roughly 150 to 250 social housing units over the next decade. Yet while the absolute number of social housing dwellings may rise, they will form a much smaller proportion of the community — falling from 100 per cent public housing to roughly 30 per cent. Ron is a staunch Zionist; we know what "Right to Return" means to him.

I love Waterloo. It was thoughtfully planned, with buildings positioned at angles so all residents receive sunlight. It is famously leafy, supporting colonies of lorikeets, honeyeaters, crows, ibis, kookaburras and parrots. This is Gadigal Country, historically a wetland before nineteenth and twentieth-century urbanisation and around one-third of tenants are First Nations people.

The redevelopment plan for Waterloo South will involve the removal of a significant number of mature trees, though the final figure remains unclear. This beautiful old lady, which I painted, sits in my front yard and greets me with birdsong every morning. Yes, I live in Waterloo too

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Many of the buildings were designed by noted Brutalist architects such as Tao Gofers and Penny Rosier, who also contributed to the iconic Sirius Building in The Rocks.

Soon, an influx of wealthy private residents will reshape Waterloo and the community that exists today may disappear forever.

Something similar happened in Kings Cross and Potts Point. A prolonged “streetscaping” of the main strip killed off the entertainment precinct while hotels became apartment blocks. Oxford Street declined as much of its creative and nightlife culture shifted elsewhere. Wealthier residents moved in, and the result, for many, has been a more conservative, sanitised and less vibrant neighbourhood. Many apartments sit empty while homelessness grows.

For now, a standoff remains. Fifteen residents in the initial demolition zone are still on-site, while demolition crews wait behind temporary fencing for access to specific buildings. No additional social work or case-management support has been provided to address the trauma of displacement. The lack of available housing stock renders many support services ineffective, leaving vulnerable residents — particularly the elderly and those with complex needs — in limbo long after their notice periods expire.

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In his submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) Chair Jeremy Liebler refers to UN Resolution 3379 (”Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”, passed in 1975) as a lie. South Africa played a prominent and leading role in the passage of 3379. The resolution was that the political ideology of Zionism equals racism and racial discrimination.

Israel had a close ideological alliance with the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa and was providing De Klerk with weapons and technology. African nations viewed the resolution as a way to draw a direct parallel between apartheid and Zionism, condemning similar brutality in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and aligning with anti-racist movements.

Australia’s Envoy for Antisemitism, Jillian Segal’s family fled South Africa at the time that the apartheid regime faced collapse. She said life here was difficult at first, without her black servants. 20% of NSW Jews came from that place, and the influx of white supremacism into the diaspora saw the rise of Zionism in this country. Visiting Rabbit Dov Lipman said, “I see the Australian Jewish community as perhaps one of the most Zionist I have come across.” We are not talking about Judaism: Israel is one of the least religious countries on Earth. (Haaretz) That is why the Envoy’s Plan relies on redefining antisemitism to embrace criticism of Zionism. There’s a tsunami of understandable anti-Israel emotion being reframed as Jew hate

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The Envoy is still one of five executive‑level office holders at ECAJ and the chair of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. They plan to force antisemitism education across schools, universities, police, judiciary, and public sector leaders, monitor media organisations’ reporting on Israel, empower the government to withhold public funding from institutions or individuals deemed ‘antisemitic’, revoke tax-deductible status for charities, assess visa applicants, take stronger legal action against social media commentary and so on. Her family invested in Advance Australia because they campaigned against the Greens at the election, the only party to oppose them and support Palestine and free speech

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In the Australian Jewish News in 1993, Sam Lipski wrote, “... the ECAJ and the ZFA allowed, and the Likud government encouraged, a blurring of the roles between the ECAJ/ZFA and the Israeli Embassy. These two bodies became quasi-diplomatic agencies.” ECAJ are also implicated in tax-deductible donations used to send Australian/Israelis to join the genocide. Israel recently released data on soldiers in the IOF; there were 621 individuals from Australia

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Bob Carr said that Australian foreign policy was “subcontracted to Jewish donors”, and Rudd stated that about 20% of Labor’s 2007 election funding came from the Jewish community. A small network of genocidal actors exerts disproportionate sway over public discourse, policymaking, and the boundaries of democratic debate. Backed by governments on three tiers to criminalise truth-tellers, the forcible imposition of a single, all-encompassing ideology is a core characteristic of fascism.

Once there were giants - Biko, Mandela, Tambo, Tutu. Today, in Australia, they would be jailed for ‘Jew hate speech’.

Mandela said, “I will never have respect for a government that wants to whitewash cold-blooded murder, but I must tell them that the truth will come out.”

And it will.

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$218.9 million in immediate support for victims, families, and the broader community affected by the attack.

$124 million to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)

$42.9 million over two years for Jewish mental health support

$207.4 million over five years to combat antisemitism

$80 million over two years for a Counter-Terrorism Online Centre

$32.6 million in 2026–27 for public awareness campaigns

Amendments to tax laws will allow Jewish organisations to qualify as deductible gift recipients

In 2023, the Jewish National Fund Australia faced allegations that tax-deductible donations were being used to support settlement-related activities in the West Bank.

Going for gold indeed. Alex’s topic was ‘When Moral Clarity Collapses: The Royal Commission and Jewish Life in Australia. The question needs to be how much of that is going to fund the erasures in Gaza and the West Bank.

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More money ...

In December 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced an immediate $32.5 million in emergency funding to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). According to the Department of Home Affairs’ GrantConnect portal, the total value of the Enhancing Security for Jewish Communities Program was increased to $63.8 million (GST inclusive) Grant Award View

$25 million grant to the ECAJ was announced in October 2023, aimed at improving security at Jewish schools and communal facilities. Additionally, Jewish sites have benefited from the federal $50 million Securing Faith-Based Places program.

$60.4 million specifically for security at Jewish and Muslim places of worship. This is part of a broader $178.4 million social cohesion package

$31.4 million to restore the fire-damaged Adass Israel Synagogue and Torah Scrolls

$2 million for the Holocaust Museum

That’s an awful lot of our money doled out to fight antisemitism, and it would take a forensic accountant to get a handle on it all.

But the most obvious question is whether the scale and nature of the ‘tsunami of antisemitism’ claimed by the Zionist lobby, for which we are paying, are true.

Testimonies at the Royal Commission face no scrutiny. It’s not a court of law. But a quick look at the transcripts reveals many egregious misstatements.

Peter Wertheim, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Executive Council of Australian Jewry's testimony referenced a story about the university encampments which was based on a misleading report from ECAJ. The inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities on 29 October 2024 did not survey all Jewish students as he suggested. the data relied on self-reported, self-selecting participants. The Australasian Union of Jewish Students sent 3,330 invitations, resulting in 563 completed responses—a response rate of under 17%, representing 7% of all Jewish university students in Australia, according to ZFA’s own estimate. The widely cited claim that 64% of Jewish students experienced antisemitism is untrue

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The first Opera House protest always gets a mention. But the claim that protesters chanted “gas the Jews” is also untrue. A falsely subtitled video was widely shared by media outlets and politicians, leading to global condemnation and prompting changes to hate speech laws in New South Wales. The video with the fake subtitle was originally posted online by the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) and widely shared by media outlets like Sky News.

His submission referenced "A caravan containing explosives said to be capable of causing a mass casualty event with a 40-metre diameter blast and documents suggesting they may have been intended for use in an antisemitic attack on a synagogue were found in Dural in north-west Sydney. Untrue.

An internal review of 367 cases compiled by Operation Shelter, the taskforce set up to combat antisemitism following an October 2023 protest at the Sydney Opera House, found there were issues with the “consistency and veracity” of cases and uncovered numerous examples of incidents being recorded multiple times. 367 incidents cited contained significant errors. Descriptions of the 367 cases showed dozens of examples of what police called “mischaracterisation”. It was also found in 38 cases that an incident had been recorded multiple times.

Police Minister Yasmin Catley told budget estimates “more than 700 antisemitic events and incidents and arrests” in Sydney since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. It was later revealed that the figure included Islamophobic and “other” incidents, such as protests.

The Jewish Council of Australia described the ECAJ’s 2024 Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia as “amateurish and ideologically driven,” accusing it of conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism, which would inflame tensions. Multiple critics have condemned the methodology, categorisation, and political framing of the data. Many entries were doubled up; others did not refer to Israel or Jews at all. The inclusion of pro-Palestinian political slogans and protest activities as antisemitic incidents. I’m not sure if ‘irony’ is the right word for The Chair of The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) Mark Liebler, who tweeted about Jews who oppose genocide, “They are repulsive and revolting human beings.” His post was promoted to an audience of approximately 400,000 people.

And then there’s Alex Ryvchin. You can read his testimony for yourself. Poor Alex.

Jayson Gillham believes artists have a right to bring their whole selves to the stage.

The case of Jayson Gillham versus the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is estimated to run for 15 days, concluding around 5 June 2026.

In December 2023, the management team at the MSO deliberated whether to say anything about the events in the Middle East. They called sponsors and supporters, went through a whole process, and in the end landed on ‘no, we won’t take a position’.

Art, the MSO decided, had nothing to say. Their case is about their ‘right to control public messaging and maintain neutrality.’

Art is a demanding bitch, without the ability to explore, challenge norms, and take risks; when someone else tries to maintain control over someone’s artistic identity, the world becomes a smaller, sadder place. Art has no choice but to be art. When Nazi officer Otto Abetz visited Pablo Picasso’s apartment in occupied Paris during World War II he spotted a photograph of Picasso’s monumental 1937 painting, Guernica, which depicted the horrors of the bombing of the Basque town by Nazi German and Fascist Italian bombers. The officer pointed to the image and asked Picasso, “Did you do that?” Picasso famously replied, “No, you did.”

Jayson is one of a string of advocates, artists and journalists fighting for our rights in the courts.

Antoinette Lattouf ‘s job was just to ‘play Michael Bublé songs and discuss Christmas lunch plans with talkback callers’ for 5 days. A year later, she was in a court, shaking and crying with rage. “That was the most soul-crushing thing I’ve experienced.” And they’d changed the law so she could not even name the bastards who had done this to her

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Theo, Jayson, Hash and so many others went the same way. None of these people did anything wrong; none of them deserved this.

UNESCO and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights affirm that artists must be protected in their right to freely create, express, and share their work. This includes the right to “bring their whole selves” to their art. It’s not about the Jewish religion; it’s about control - controlling the narrative, controlling those who rise up against genocide.

John Ruskin wrote that (wo)men write their histories in three books: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. The first is the most faithful, the second the most useful, the third the most truthful.”

Jewish artist Mark Rothko would have kicked these Zionist control freaks’ arses to Jerusalem and back. Rothko was once given a lucrative contract to paint four huge panels at the Four Seasons restaurant in NYC. After meeting with the owners over a meal at that place, he wrote to them the next day, “Anyone who would pay those prices for that food will never understand my art.”

One of the first artists to fall foul of the Control Queens was Mike Parr, sacked by his gallery, Anna Schwartz (wife of Morry Schwartz, who owns The Saturday Paper, etc) Gallery in December 2023. Mike wrote ‘Palestine’ on one artwork, and Anna said, “I felt like he wanted to hurt me.” His contract was terminated via email. "It's extraordinarily upsetting and deeply anxiety-provoking because the Schwartz's store … a huge amount of my life's work," he said.

Brendan Behan, that fabulous Dublin street brawler, said, “Poverty makes prostitutes of us all.” Silencing normal human responses to apartheid and genocide makes us all whores of the Zionist regime that currently controls the narrative in Australia. And our chubby-cheeked champion, Gillham, is certainly nobody’s whore.

For those still catching up, young Mr Gillham’s woes began when he prefaced a performance “... The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world.” One audience member, Peter Cotterell, described the piece as “incredibly beautiful” and “very sad,” and said the music “said more than what Jayson said.”

The piece Jayson Gillham played was composed by Australian composer Connor D’Netto. It was a five-minute piano solo dedicated to journalists killed in Gaza. The MSO said it “does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views.” Every performance is a personal view. Freedom is life for an artist. Gillham has consistently said that artists have a right to bring their whole selves to the stage and that silencing them undermines both art and truth (see Ruskin above)

I’ve never known a time when a slew of litigations tried to compel artists to some Zionist-generated blancmange because of ‘how a word or a song or a smear of paint made someone feel.’ If art offends, it’s doing its job; it’s asking you to take your own moral inventory, to ask yourself who you are. It whispers, ‘Change yourself, not the rest of the world.’ For those who prefer their art to be bland, like pre-digested baby food, there’s always Delta Goodrem.

The wealthy sponsors of art institutions like the MSO do not buy control with their money. Art is one thing Zionists cannot own; a painful lesson for the self-named J.E.W.I.S.H. Australian creatives & academics, like Ms Conway, have yet to learn.

Gillham said, “This battle in the Federal Court is about defending everyone’s right to freedom of speech.” The beleaguered Hash Tayeh said, “his case is bigger than me. It is about fairness, consistency, free expression ..” Are you sensing a pattern?

Popular media likes to iconise our ‘heroes’ and ‘leaders’, but some stand, while others remain seated, because of an irresistible compulsion to speak, not be gagged. They’re not bigmouths; it’s just in their blood.

Two years later, the final hearing of Jayson’s case is due to begin on May 18. His self-produced tour in Australia begins in July, alongside Jordanian Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer (dates/venues below). They will play pieces by Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Khachaturian, Arensky and Chabrier, and a new piece by Palestinian Lebanese composer Houtaf Khoury.

Great music ascends. The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, by Polish composer Henryk Górecki, is based on a message written on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell in Zakopane. I can’t listen to it often because it tears me up inside. That’s what it’s supposed to do. It makes me feel. My instinct is not to censure something because it makes me uncomfortable. My instinct is to surrender to it because in that relationship between the composer, performance and listener lies Ruskin’s ‘only truth.’ The first Holocaust occurred because it was allowed; in the same vein, the Gaza Holocaust unfolds by permission of those who stay silent.

‘Taking ownership’ would also have been a good name for this new tour. It’s a remarkably mature and courageous stance. Jayson has chosen to go this path so other artists don’t have to.

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Penny Wong was right when she told Caucus: “Let’s not walk into the trap Scott Morrison wants us to walk into. It is the same trap John Howard set many years ago, and that is to position working people and progressive voters as opposing forces. Labor wins when we bring people together.”

But Labor walked into it anyway.

Labor MP Clare O’Neil and other commentators have argued that Labor partly lost the 2019 election because it prioritised so-called progressive “identity politics” over class issues and, as a result, alienated traditional Labor voters.

Similar arguments were made after Labor’s 1996 defeat. Yet Labor figures such as Jennie George argued that workers were alienated more by Labor’s market-oriented economic policies than by its social progressivism. Labor has generally framed issues such as same-sex relationships, gender equality and Indigenous rights as matters of equality rather than identity. Addressing these concerns is consistent with Labor’s broader commitment to social justice.

Framing politics as a choice between class and identity is misleading because the working class itself is diverse. The challenge is to build a unifying narrative that connects economic security, equality and social inclusion.

It was a narrative the Right understood when it first confronted the rise of One Nation.

When Pauline Hanson emerged on the political scene, John Howard’s Liberal Party was leaking votes to her. Rather than confronting her politics directly, Howard often mirrored elements of her agenda. The arrival of the Tampa proved politically advantageous. Howard made highly publicised displays of border enforcement, including sending the SAS to board the vessel, while repeatedly invoking themes of national sovereignty and immigration control. Arguably, those actions helped transform a difficult election campaign into a winning one in 2001

More recently, Anthony Albanese saw political opportunity in responding to concerns about antisemitism. He presented himself as a defender of Jewish Australians and Holocaust survivors. Yet despite this, sections of the pro-Israel lobby remained deeply critical of his government, particularly over its handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict. The episode illustrated a broader lesson in identity-based political appeals: attempting to satisfy highly mobilised interest groups does not necessarily produce lasting political loyalty. Zionists don’t make friends; they take hostages.

After Howard defeated Paul Keating in 1996, some right-wing Labor figures argued that socially progressive positions had alienated traditional working-class voters. Howard encouraged a political divide between workers and Labor’s progressive middle-class supporters. Hanson has been able to exploit that same divide.

In an era of worsening inequality and economic insecurity, it is a potent political strategy. While most political struggles contain elements of identity, including class identity, Labor has traditionally framed issues through the lens of equality. Women, Indigenous Australians and other disadvantaged groups often experience both economic and social forms of disadvantage. Presenting politics as a conflict between class and identity implies that the working class is exclusively white, male and heterosexual, and suggests that workers are incapable of empathising with other disadvantaged groups. It is a false choice that has repeatedly benefited right-wing populists.

Further, identity politics isn’t quite what it seems. More than 85 Commonwealth laws have been reformed to give LGBTQ people equal rights. Muslims don’t even have protection from Islamophobic hate speech and face religious discrimination, second-class treatment and an underrepresentation of Muslims in public institutions. But for those whose worldview is through the politics of identity, gays will always be the underdogs.

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All of this has unfolded against a backdrop of decades of neoliberal continuity. From Howard through Rudd and Gillard, Abbott, Morrison, and now Albanese, the broad economic framework has remained remarkably consistent. Economic growth has increasingly failed to translate into security for ordinary Australians. Housing has become unaffordable, wages have stagnated, public services have come under strain, and ownership of national wealth has become more concentrated.

One Nation is no longer merely a protest vote. Its growth reflects the failure of the major parties to address these structural problems. Many voters who feel abandoned by the political system have gravitated towards Hanson because she speaks in a language that acknowledges their frustrations, even if her solutions are often contradictory.

The irony is that One Nation itself remains deeply embedded in the neoliberal political economy it claims to oppose. The party maintains close relationships with mining interests and wealthy donors while presenting itself as the voice of the battler. Yet voters increasingly see few alternatives.

Labor’s task is not to abandon equality or social justice. It is to reconnect those principles to material concerns. The focus must return to wages, housing, public services, secure employment and democratic control over national resources. Economic insecurity is the soil in which political resentment grows.

If Labor wants to win back disillusioned working-class voters, it must place class and economics back at the centre of its politics—not instead of equality, but as the foundation that makes equality meaningful. Without a compelling material vision, Labor risks continuing to cede disaffected voters to the populist right.

One of the enduring questions in ethics is why so many ordinary Germans, who knew what the Nazis were doing, remained silent. Americans, too, knew of the existence of Nazi death camps long before the war ended, yet public and political pressure to intervene remained limited until Pearl Harbour changed the equation. Geopolitics complicates every moral judgment.

Today we face the horrific prospect of passively witnessing the destruction and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza. The countless videos emerging from the territory carry the same desperate plea:

“Why do you watch? Why don’t you do something?”

The question cuts to the heart of what psychologists call the bystander effect

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The "drowning child" analogy argues that if you would ruin your clothes to save a child drowning in a pond in front of you, you are equally obligated to spend that same amount of money to save a child dying of preventable causes overseas. The only difference is the mechanism of action. The argument posits that the "nexus" is created by the shared capacity for suffering, not by geography or kinship. Therefore, the lack of a personal connection is considered a psychological hurdle to be overcome, not a valid moral exemption. Translated to social media, if you came upon a drowning child, would you send him/her some emojis, film it and post on Facebook, "Why is this happening?" or would you wade in?

The crucial idea is the concept of a nexus: the relationship that creates a duty to act. Singer argues that this nexus is not formed by proximity, nationality, or kinship. It is formed by a shared human capacity for suffering.

The absence of a personal connection is therefore a psychological obstacle, not a moral exemption.

This essay is about the waders and the watchers.

“All Eyes on Gaza” may not be the rallying cry many believe it is. Looking is not enough. There is also far more that can be done than many people realise. We are not talking about one drowning child. We are talking about a million.

And you are holding a rope.

The Problem of Paralysis

The solution to inaction lies in moving from individual emotional responses to structured collective action.

When people feel they cannot save anyone on their own, they often disengage entirely. The remedy is to plug into systems where small, manageable contributions accumulate into meaningful impact.

That brings me to the keffiyeh.

Wearing one serves an important function in visual activism and collective identity. It transforms private concern into public solidarity. Contrary to dismissals of such gestures as merely “performative,” the act is not socially neutral. In many places, it carries real consequences. People may face accusations of supporting terrorism or antisemitism, workplace disciplinary action, social exclusion, or even physical intimidation.

That risk changes the nature of the gesture. It becomes an act of visible solidarity rather than simply a fashion statement or social signal.

Why So Many People Watch

The phenomenon of millions witnessing atrocities online without taking visible action is not necessarily evidence of indifference. Research into social media behaviour during the Gaza crisis points to something more complicated.

The sheer volume of graphic content can produce compassion fatigue, sometimes called “psychic numbing.” Repeated exposure to extreme suffering without resolution causes the mind to dull its emotional responses as a form of self-protection. What initially provokes horror gradually becomes processed as information rather than an urgent human tragedy.

The scale of social media amplifies this effect. In a crowd of millions, responsibility becomes diffused. People assume someone else will donate, organise, protest, lobby politicians, or take meaningful action.

Worse still, the act of witnessing can become a substitute for intervention. Recording, reposting, commenting, and sharing may satisfy the psychological need to respond without requiring any tangible commitment. The performance of witnessing can replace the act of helping.

Yet there are people who break through that paralysis.

I’m tempted to list all the individuals who have inspired others to act, but I’d inevitably leave someone out. Instead, I’ll point to Josh Lee, whose organising helped put 600K feet onto Sydney Harbour Bridge and contributed to the political momentum behind Labor’s recognition of Palestine.

Those marching feet delivered a message that terrified the Zionist lobby: the power of the people is greater than the people in power

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Learned Helplessness

Perhaps the strongest driver of inaction is learned helplessness.

People experience a unique form of anxiety created by unpredictability, institutional betrayal, moral distress, and a profound lack of agency. They sign petitions, share hashtags, attend rallies, and see little immediate change. Over time, they conclude that nothing they do matters.

The result is paralysis.

The gap between the horror people witness and their inability to stop it creates such intense psychological tension that disengagement becomes a coping mechanism.

What appears to be apathy is often despair.

There is also growing recognition that endless consumption of graphic footage can become a form of “trauma porn,” where suffering is consumed voyeuristically. Watching increasingly horrific images does not necessarily deepen empathy. It can instead produce secondary trauma, exhaustion, and burnout.

Eventually, many people mute accounts, scroll past posts, or disconnect entirely to protect their mental health.

We all have different thresholds.

What looks like passivity is often self-preservation.

Why Witnessing Still Matters

There is another side to this story. Israel is entering a period comparable to other states that experienced a loss of legitimacy before major political transformation

The proliferation of images and videos from Gaza is actively fueling the most significant legal challenges Israel has ever faced.

The case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice relies heavily on open-source evidence. In many instances, perpetrators have documented and shared their own actions online. The result is an enormous evidentiary archive that becomes increasingly difficult to deny or erase.

Political action may be stalled by alliances, vetoes, and geopolitical interests. Legal processes move more slowly than public outrage would like. But they are moving.

The strategy of impunity is colliding with a new reality in which every smartphone can function as a witness.

Every video uploaded, archived, and verified contributes to a record that may one day form the basis of accountability.

This does not mean that watching is enough.

It means that witnessing has value only when it becomes part of something larger.

The challenge is not simply to keep our eyes on Gaza.

The challenge is to decide whether we are spectators standing on the bank—or whether we are prepared to step into the water.

In late 2023, senior editors at Nine Entertainment (publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age) issued directives banning journalists from reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict if they had signed an open letter calling for improved coverage of the war in Gaza. The letter, signed by over 270 media professionals, urged newsrooms to prioritise truth and include more Palestinian perspectives. Editors argued that signing the letter compromised the journalists’ impartiality, with Nine executives stating that staff who signed could not participate in any reporting or production relating to the war. This ban extended to covering local rallies and events connected to the conflict, effectively silencing those who advocated for editorial changes within their own newsrooms. It was and is an effective media embargo - like the old D notices.

The decision occurred after intense pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups, such as Lawyers for Israel and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, which had publicly criticised Australian media coverage. Internal communications and subsequent court cases revealed that fear of backlash from these groups and the desire to avoid being labelled “antisemitic” heavily influenced management decisions. Journalists noted that the ban was selectively applied. While signatories of the pro-Palestine letter were silenced, staff who had expressed strong pro-Israel views or participated in lobby-funded travel faced no such restrictions.

Editors likely fear commercial backlash, subscription cancellations from pro-Israel readers, and reputational damage from powerful lobby groups, leading to a risk-averse strategy that marginalises voices advocating for Palestinian perspectives.

Staff at Australia’s public broadcasters, including the ABC and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), reported intense internal pressure to conform to specific narrative frameworks regarding the conflict. Internal memos from ABC staff revealed concerns that the broadcaster’s coverage relied too heavily on Israeli sources and avoided terminology such as “genocide,” “apartheid,” or “ethnic cleansing” when describing Israeli actions, while readily labelling Hamas actions as “terrorism.” Journalists who signed the 2021 and 2023 open letters faced threats of contract non-renewal and were instructed by management to remove their signatures. At SBS, managers held informal conversations with staff to “remind them of their obligations” to be impartial, which many journalists interpreted as intimidation. The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) intervened in several instances, arguing that signing open letters was a legitimate exercise of free speech and that disciplinary actions violated media ethics codes.

In October 2025, the National Press Club of Australia withdrew an invitation to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture on the “Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.” The Club cited a need for “balance” in their program, a move critics described as a euphemism for censorship and a refusal to platform critiques of Western media complicity in the conflict.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has downgraded Australia’s press freedom ranking from 25th to as low as 39th in recent years, placing it in the “satisfactory” to “problematic” category. Continued suppression of journalists, raids on newsrooms, and the prosecution of whistleblowers (e.g., David McBride) signal a drift toward authoritarian practices. Finally, the story of the highest-profile instance of foreign agents controlling media, and the narrative: Latouff.

The New York Times leaked WhatsApp messages which revealed that a group called Lawyers for Israel orchestrated a high-level, coordinated campaign to pressure the ABC into dismissing Lattouf in December 2023. The campaign involved dozens of lawyers sending a barrage of letters and emails directly to ABC Chair Ita Buttrose and Managing Director David Anderson, demanding Lattouf’s immediate termination and threatening legal action despite admitting internally there was likely “no actionable offence.” On the morning of her dismissal, group members shared a “call to action” urging peers to contact the Communications Minister and ABC leadership to create the impression of a significant legal threat. Lattouf was informed of her dismissal later that afternoon

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Robert Goot, co-Chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), was a central figure in coordinating the complaints within the “Lawyers for Israel” WhatsApp group. Leaked messages showed Goot communicating with other members about the timeline of Lattouf’s removal, with one message stating, “I understand that she will be gone from morning radio from Friday,” before the decision was publicly enacted.

Members referred to Lattouf’s lawyer, Josh Bornstein, who is Jewish, as a “traiter” [sic] for representing her in subsequent legal proceedings. While group members later described the chat as a place to “vent” and denied a formal coordinated campaign, the timestamps of their messages correlate directly with the ABC’s internal communications and the ultimate decision to terminate Lattouf’s contract. The Fair Work Commission tribunal found that the ABC’s decision was significantly influenced by the external pressure campaign rather than a genuine breach of policy that warranted termination and awarded her $200k plus costs and published a book.

Representatives from the ECAJ and the “Lawyers for Israel” group have consistently denied organising a conspiracy to fire Lattouf. In truth, it was a coordinated Jewish lobby which did little to dispel anti-Semitic conspiracy theories regarding Jewish control of the media. ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin dismissed the idea of an organised campaign as “total bullshit,” asserting the group was a “grassroots initiative of individuals” rather than an official body. But Robert Goot of the ECAJ‘s senior role as Deputy President directly contradicts the narrative that the campaign was entirely separate from established communal leadership structures.

The Federal Court applied a suppression order in the Lattouf case. Some news articles were unpublished or removed entirely.

Major outlets, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (owned by Nine Entertainment), amended existing articles to redact the names of the protected individuals. The identities of the nine complainants from the Lawyers for Israel group remain legally suppressed and have not been officially published by the court or the media

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While Lattouf is the most prominent case, the Lawyers for Israel and the related J.E.W.I.S.H creatives and academics’ WhatsApp groups targeted or discussed targeting other Australians, primarily in the arts and media sectors. A campaign against the Sydney Theatre Company discussed strategies to pressure the institution over the actions of its employees. Messages regarding this specific campaign were deleted from the chat logs before they were leaked. Dozens of artists were contacting me at the time to see if they were a target and by whom. All experienced employment repercussions and were recipients of coordinated complaints.

The J.E.W.I.S.H creatives and academics group, which collaborated closely with Lawyers for Israel, had approximately 600 members led by Conway and Lee Kaufman. Leaked transcripts revealed that members discussed ways to “jeopardise the employment of other pro-Palestinian activists whose activities they felt crossed the line into antisemitism.” These are the people at the Royal Commission crying that everybody hates them because they are Jewish. When this group was doxxed in February 2024, it was revealed that members had been compiling information on and discussing campaigns against various pro-Palestinian creatives and academics.

The doxxing incident in 2024 exposed the names of hundreds of group members, many of whom were implicated in these broader targeting discussions, though the exact number of successful campaigns against other individuals remains undocumented.

For any person or entity publishing the names of these protected individuals, the risk is imprisonment for 10 years. Fairfax media ran a safe puff interview this month with Latouff. None of the above was touched upon, but we did learn about her wardrobe and taste in food. If you’re wondering what she had to eat, it was “a zesty and decidedly non-traditional tuna tabbouleh, charred octopus skewers and beetroot with sheep’s curd.”

Now excuse me, I have to go milk a sheep.

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“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” — George Orwell Politics and the English Language (1946)

The term Semitic originates from the biblical figure Shem, one of Noah’s sons, and was first used by late eighteenth-century German linguists to classify a family of related languages. Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic and Phoenician are all Semitic languages. Originally, Semitic was a linguistic category, not an ethnic or racial one.

In the nineteenth century, European racial theorists began applying the term to populations, particularly Jews, as part of a supposed “Semitic race.” Later, in 1879, Wilhelm Marr coined the term antisemitism, giving a pseudo-scientific gloss to hostility toward Jews. Whatever its linguistic origins, antisemitism today refers to prejudice, hostility or discrimination directed at Jewish people.

Language evolves through legal, social and political use, not etymology alone.

Yet the modern legal and political treatment of antisemitism raises difficult questions in Australia—particularly when compared with the treatment of Islamophobia.

A Legal Asymmetry

Australia has no single universal statutory definition of antisemitism. However, Jewish Australians are protected under Commonwealth racial discrimination law through interpretations of ethnicity.

Part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) makes unlawful conduct that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person because of race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.

In Jones v Scully (2002), the court accepted that Jewish people share a common ethnic origin for the purposes of anti-vilification protections. Holocaust denial and antisemitic generalisations about Jewish people may therefore fall within section 18C of the Act.

The classification of Jews as a race or ethnic group in law does not rely on biological concepts of race, but rather on sociological and legal definitions of ethnicity. The Explanatory Memorandum to the Racial Hatred Bill 1994 drew upon legal reasoning such as King-Ansell, which recognised that ethnic identity may overlap with religion, history and culture.

This allows Jewish Australians to be protected under racial discrimination laws, but it also creates some bizarre anomalies. At the same time as Isaac Herzog condemned the violent Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Jewish School principal, Jeremy Stowe-Lindner, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that being told “Zionism is violent genocidal colonialism” is antisemitic.

Muslims, however, occupy a more ambiguous legal position. Julie Nathan, author of of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) annual Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia retweeted a post describing Palestinians as “a pack of salivating bloodthirsty hyenas.” She provided testimony to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that comparing Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany is considered antisemitic as such comparisons are intentionally deployed to hurt Jews. The Israel Exposed archive of Israel’s ‘cleansing’ of Gaza contains 10,749 videos and 10, 915 photos of atrocities so vile our words stuck in our throats like door stoppers. The co-Chair of ECAJ has angrily refuted that a Holocaust is unfolding in Gaza.

Zionists own the game by owning the defintion.

Even following the Christchurch massacre in which an Australian murdered 51 Muslims as they prayed in New Zealand there remains no equivalent Commonwealth protection specifically covering Islamophobia as racial vilification. Muslims are not automatically recognised as a racial or ethnic group under federal law.

In Khan v Commissioner, Department of Corrective Services (2002), a tribunal held that being Muslim alone did not establish membership of an ethno-religious group for the purposes of racial discrimination protections.

This creates what many critics see as an asymmetry: one community can access Commonwealth racial protections through legal recognition of ethnicity, while another largely cannot.

That disparity deserves serious discussion.

Where Criticism Ends and Hatred Begins

Many people assume it is easy to distinguish criticism of Israel, Zionism or political ideology from hatred directed at Jews as a group.

For example, some Jewish organisations and commentators argue that describing Zionism as inherently violent, colonial or genocidal crosses into antisemitism because it attacks a core aspect of Jewish identity for many Jews.

Others argue that Zionism is a political ideology and therefore subject to the same moral and political criticism as nationalism, colonialism or state violence elsewhere.

These disagreements matter because accusations of antisemitism increasingly shape public debate, media coverage and institutional responses in Australia.

At times, critics argue that the label is applied too broadly, particularly in discussions of Gaza and Israeli state conduct. Supporters of stronger antisemitism frameworks respond that anti-Jewish prejudice frequently disguises itself through political language about Israel.

This has diven rise to the contention by many that the Israel lobby acts as an agent of Israel and controls Australia’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Ryvchin of ECAJ and the Bondi Chabad are aligned with Orthodox Judaism and are staunchly Zionist. The Chabad, like Turning Point in the USA, is a highly political organizations that mixes religious elements with war and policy of invasion. The Rebbe was adamantly against land-for-peace deals, including the Oslo Accords and withdrawal from Gaza. His halakhic (Jewish legal) stance on retaining all biblical lands helped influence political developments in Israel, including supporting Benjamin Netanyahu’s rise to power in 1996 through figures like Australian donor Joseph Gutnick. Chabad has become so distinct in its outreach model that recent surveys, such as those by Pew Research Centre, now classify Chabad as its own category rather than a subgroup of Orthodoxy.

PM Albanese stood in the Opera House and said, “Let me make one thing very clear, the victims at Bondi were killed because they were Jewish; for no other reason.” Its a great example of the ploiticisation of antisemitism.

From Haaretz (Israeli newspaper):

“Behind the Smiles and Doughnut Stands: Chabad’s Growing Alliance With Far-right Minister Ben-Gvir

For years, Chabad was careful to brand itself as an apolitical movement, with hundreds of centres in Israel and around the world, and a place in the Israeli mainstream. Now, its right-wing, messianic ideology is emerging openly, alongside a growing political alliance with Ben-Gvir.” We are not talking about a religion.

In Chabad philosophy, based on Kabbalah and Hasidic texts, it is taught that:

• The Jewish people are referred to as “the beginning” (reshit), referencing Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” which is interpreted to mean the world was created for the sake of the Jewish people, who embody the spiritual purpose of creation.

• Every action a Jew takes, especially fulfilling commandments, has cosmic significance and affects all of reality.

This idea is expressed in various sermons (sichot) of the Rebbe, where he emphasises the spiritual responsibility and elevated status of Jews in the divine plan, “it is obvious that since every Jew, (men and even women and children) brings about the existence of the entire creation, they become masters over the entire world, and thus every single creation, owes them recognition…therefore the jew is in control, particularly over physical matters.”

Gaza, Public Speech and Moral Language

Public figures, advocacy groups and legal scholars disagree sharply over whether Israel’s conduct constitutes genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, self-defence, or some combination of these. International courts continue to examine allegations, while public rhetoric has become increasingly polarised. Men, women and children in Palestine are brutally raped every day as a matter of policy.

In this climate, language carries enormous political weight.

Critics of pro-Israel advocacy organisations, including many Jews, argue that some public messaging frames Jewish insecurity in ways that minimise Palestinian suffering or silence criticism of Israeli government actions. I have a friend in Sydney who has lost 23 family members in Gaza. No one knows how many Arab Australians lost how many family members in Israel’s territorial expansion so far. Conversely, Jewish organisations frequently argue that anti-Israel activism has normalised hostility toward Jews and made Jewish Australians feel unsafe. The paradox is that framing critics of genocidal Zionists as antisemitic (because they attack “a core aspect of Jewish identity for many Jews”) labels the majority of Jews proponents of atrocties and war crimes. In other words, the argument goes that Jews have an exemtion from judgement of crimes against humanity.

Both realities can coexist: antisemitism exists, and so too does anti-Muslim hatred.

The question is whether Australian law and institutions are responding to both with equal seriousness.

Political Influence and Public Debate

Australia’s public debate on Israel and Palestine is heavily influenced by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) in many policy areas. Defenders argue that these groups are simply participating in democratic advocacy, no differently from unions, churches, business councils or human-rights organisations.

But an important distinction remains: criticism of political lobbying, foreign policy or ideology is not inherently antisemitic. Equally, criticism can become antisemitic when Jewish people as a whole are stereotyped, collectively blamed, or dehumanised.

A functioning democracy requires the ability to debate these lines openly, without collapsing every disagreement into accusations of hatred—or dismissing genuine bigotry when it occurs.

The Uncomfortable Question

The deeper question is not whether antisemitism exists. It plainly does.

Nor is it whether Islamophobia exists. It plainly does.

The question is why Australian law treats these harms differently, and whether a consistent framework for protection should apply across communities.

If antisemitism deserves robust legal recognition—and it does—then many Australians reasonably ask why comparable protections against anti-Muslim hatred remain underdeveloped at the Commonwealth level.

Language evolves. So does law.

The challenge is ensuring that both evolve consistently.

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