Thanks Josh. I'm so sad to see the wholesale unmasking of so many progressives during this awful time. I am ashamed of my countrymen that countenance, and encourage actual hate speech in the streets. I am ashamed of my elected leaders for their equivocations. I am so sad that the liberal west is so morally lost that so many cannot recognize what pure evil looks like or bring themselves to denounce it. NGL I am very scared about the future knowing how many of my neighbours think that the atrocities committed are to be celebrated in the name of decolonization. OMFG.
Thank you Josh for a rational approach to an incredibly challenging and heartbreaking situation. Even members of my own family have been completely irrational and abusive towards me for reminding them to be empathetic especially with the mis- and dis- information spreading, but despite the fact that I have lived in Israel and in the West Bank, visited Gaza, have a law degree and a specialist graduate degree in Middle Eastern politics, apparently I am an idiot and don’t know what I’m talking about. I sympathise with the frustration and that anger can be comforting when someone feels powerless, but it does not give anyone permission to act with moral obtuseness. As you say, its about us.
This is the most incredible time to witness. The lies, the beliefs, the misinformation, the hatred and the willing stupidity.
The entire situation is an absolute catastrophe. A travesty, a tragedy and catastrophe.
It does seem that the only way to some kind of peace is the elimination of Hamas. But by god, it could actually be impossible to do that and could, at the most dangerous end of the risk spectrum, bring the whole world into conflict. What are they to do? They could kill 10’s of thousands of civilians in this invasion and that will make them an international pariah. But it is simply no longer tenable to live beside Hamas. Not after their massacre. And the Palestinian people will never know freedom or peace under Hamas, even if they support Hamas explicitly or implicitly.
Catastrophe.
The swiftness with which the horror of the massacre has disappeared and the ‘left’ and greens have become anti Israel is simply astounding. I’ve always disliked the greens for their idealistic stupidity and hypocrisy (being involved in agriculture and forestry in Tasmania) but this has displayed an ideological bias that is sickening to me.
Obviously the images of Gazan’s is horrific in the extreme and no well meaning person can be indifferent to their real and existential plight. But this is exactly what Hamas wanted, they wanted this! They wanted Israel to invade so they can cause mass Israeli casualties in a terrifying urban warfare environment. They want their civilians to be human shields and collateral damage as it plays to their propaganda advantage.
Israel is in an impossible situation. It can no longer tolerate living beside Hamas, but can’t get rid of them without mass damage and casualties. And it is very likely their invasion could trigger a regional war with Iran and its proxies. The USA is critical to avoiding this.
Catastrophe.
I can only imagine Josh, that being at the ABC at the moment is a massive challenge for you.
I hope you are coping with it, I hope it is not too much of a hostile environment.
Thank you for your voice, it is very welcome in this environment. Please don’t give up or lose hope.
That Israel is not held up as a success of de-colonization shows what a sham the notion is, that land acknowledgments are performative, not meaningful.
Thank you for this and your recent podcast on the subject. I can always count on you to bring a rational, balanced view to uncomfortable conversations.
I hear you Josh and am in agreement. Many don’t realise that Palestinians had more rights and opportunities under Israeli law or that the land was mostly barren prior to the state of Israel coming into being.
Im not surprised your radio listeners have a one-sided view. The coverage from the national broadcaster is so one-sided that, once again, any Australian seeking a balanced perspective is looking elsewhere.
Thank you Josh. I always thought that my father, who had to flee Austria during the holocaust, was exaggerating the hatred for Jews that simmers along in society. I am so shocked to now see how right he was, how gleefully people celebrated 7th October... My heart is broken.
I suppose I lean in perspective to the plight of the Jews who endured their exile as the will of God for their past disobedience to the Almighty as recorded in the Scriptures. This supremacist, Zionist, nationalistic Israeli exceptionalism is foul and will result in more banker's wars, impoverishing the average person. It's not the average Jew or average non-Jew, though we pay the price. It is, ultimately, a spiritual battle since time immemorial, which will culminate in a 3rd temple with a really nasty world ruler attempting to outthrone God.
I’m guessing the Australian MSM coverage of these last two months in the Middle East must differ profoundly from the Zionist lockstep that prevailed absolutely for the first month and predominates still over here in North America.
Josh, you start in very early assuming criticism of Israel is antisemitism. In fact that’s such a popular concept that I hear the US is legally defining opposition to Zionism as antisemitism. But how are we supposed to have a civilized conversation if one side gets to redefine all the words? Next thing you know, “literally” will mean its opposite and we will be drowning in alternative facts...
But seriously, do you imagine I missed all the loaded words you put in there to remind us how awful Israel’s opponents are?
And let me remind you, because you seem to choke on the idea that there is a reason to count the corpses: proportional response. What is going on in Gaza is a war crime. 600 Israeli civilians were slaughtered on October 7 (yeah yeah, I know, you want me to count the foreign nationals, the armed combatants, and the victims of friendly fire. But the war crimes tribunal doesn’t, shouldn’t, and won’t). Israel has already murdered more than 20,000 Palestinian civilians in the past two months, and let me be crystal clear: this was not just clumsy pursuit of Hamas, nor even overzealous retribution meted out by the most sociopathic IDF soldiers. It is deliberate, and the obscene numbers have multiple purposes. Bibi called Oct 7 the equivalent of 20 9/11s [bad math/a lie: actually less than 7, certainly terrible beyond words regardless]; but the Palestinian death toll so far, using Bibi’s formula *correctly*, yields (are you sitting down?)
MORE THAN 1000 9/11s. Smoke on your pipe and put that in.
So what are these purposes, beyond collective punishment (WAR CRIME)? Israel is destroying every possibility of a Palestinian Gaza, and the vast numbers of random murdered civilians is COVER for the deliberate targeting of the prominent citizens who would naturally be the rebuilders. Teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, journalists (70 murdered so far), etc. Israel is targeting the human infrastructure.
Israel had knowledge of the Hamas plot more than a year ago, and then from Egypt a warning a week in advance. What did Bibi do? Pulled most of the IDF OUT OF THE REGION, sending them to back up more West Bank Settler Land Theft, and conveniently abandoning those lefty hippy NON-LIKUD SUPPORTERS, because Bibi, even more than the Men With Guns of Hamas, needed martyrs so he could justify EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING.
You have to be blind deaf dumb and dead not to be aware of many, many, many prominent Israeli officials (and believe me they are the tip of the iceberg), who see Palestinians as human animals and have expressed openly genocidal opinions...so just F*CK RIGHT OFF with complaining that the rest of the world is not still crying over October 7th. WE WOULD BE IF WE DIDN’T HAVE THE LAST TWO MONTHS OF THE GENOCIDE JOE AND BIBI SHOW to cry over even more. Because, sorry but 600 (or even 1200) does not remotely resemble 20,000. And that’s just the beginning.
If *my* family lived in Northern Gaza we’d still be there (alive or dead), because we have disabilities in our family that make it impossible to up sticks.
Just the beginning. Imagine having four hours to escape from one absolutely unsafe place to a soon-to-be-even-more-unsafe place (because that’s what’s going on: the IDF says go here, then bombs you on the way and again when you get there). Imagine being a five year old (that is the average age of murdered Palestinians), your parents just blown apart yesterday and now some uncle is trying to get you to run past the corpses, and that smell...all the rotting bodies under the hundreds of thousands of destroyed buildings.
So...let’s say you survive. Ten years from now you might (unlikely? But maybe) you might have Jewish friends...but you will hate Israel, and if there isn’t a Hamas, you’ll make one.
Men With Guns always want to speak too soon. More Men With Guns cannot be the answer to other Men With Guns. (Another commenter decried the ugliest reality of war: Banker’s Wars, good for business).
There are more than 600 commandments in the Torah, and in keeping with the Jewish passive iteration of the golden rule (do nothing to another you would not want done to yourself, as opposed to the “do unto others” version more common to Christian ears), most of them are situational (if the opportunity arises, do thus). Only two actually command action regardless:
Justice, Justice you must Pursue; and Seek Peace, and Pursue It.
That does not appear to be part of Israel’s plan, so (if I may say so) : Israel is not doing Judaism right. The underlying rot ruins the beautiful dream (nationalism is not helping us with the climate crisis either, for what that’s worth. Maybe we should move on from such concepts).
Your heartfelt commentary is a civilised and intelligent contribution to a morass of commentary so much of which is neither. I am less impressed by postcolonial viewpoints than you are, and very sceptical about Palestinian politics.
Fatah is also not interested in peace, as hundreds of millions of dollars flow to Palestinians that would cease if a peace agreement was signed, as they would stop being refugees and bastions against the Zionist entity. The more Israelis become convinced there are no Palestinian partners for peace, the more plausible “changing facts on the ground” becomes.
Thanks Josh. I'm so sad to see the wholesale unmasking of so many progressives during this awful time. I am ashamed of my countrymen that countenance, and encourage actual hate speech in the streets. I am ashamed of my elected leaders for their equivocations. I am so sad that the liberal west is so morally lost that so many cannot recognize what pure evil looks like or bring themselves to denounce it. NGL I am very scared about the future knowing how many of my neighbours think that the atrocities committed are to be celebrated in the name of decolonization. OMFG.
Thank you Josh for a rational approach to an incredibly challenging and heartbreaking situation. Even members of my own family have been completely irrational and abusive towards me for reminding them to be empathetic especially with the mis- and dis- information spreading, but despite the fact that I have lived in Israel and in the West Bank, visited Gaza, have a law degree and a specialist graduate degree in Middle Eastern politics, apparently I am an idiot and don’t know what I’m talking about. I sympathise with the frustration and that anger can be comforting when someone feels powerless, but it does not give anyone permission to act with moral obtuseness. As you say, its about us.
Thanks Josh,
This is the most incredible time to witness. The lies, the beliefs, the misinformation, the hatred and the willing stupidity.
The entire situation is an absolute catastrophe. A travesty, a tragedy and catastrophe.
It does seem that the only way to some kind of peace is the elimination of Hamas. But by god, it could actually be impossible to do that and could, at the most dangerous end of the risk spectrum, bring the whole world into conflict. What are they to do? They could kill 10’s of thousands of civilians in this invasion and that will make them an international pariah. But it is simply no longer tenable to live beside Hamas. Not after their massacre. And the Palestinian people will never know freedom or peace under Hamas, even if they support Hamas explicitly or implicitly.
Catastrophe.
The swiftness with which the horror of the massacre has disappeared and the ‘left’ and greens have become anti Israel is simply astounding. I’ve always disliked the greens for their idealistic stupidity and hypocrisy (being involved in agriculture and forestry in Tasmania) but this has displayed an ideological bias that is sickening to me.
Obviously the images of Gazan’s is horrific in the extreme and no well meaning person can be indifferent to their real and existential plight. But this is exactly what Hamas wanted, they wanted this! They wanted Israel to invade so they can cause mass Israeli casualties in a terrifying urban warfare environment. They want their civilians to be human shields and collateral damage as it plays to their propaganda advantage.
Israel is in an impossible situation. It can no longer tolerate living beside Hamas, but can’t get rid of them without mass damage and casualties. And it is very likely their invasion could trigger a regional war with Iran and its proxies. The USA is critical to avoiding this.
Catastrophe.
I can only imagine Josh, that being at the ABC at the moment is a massive challenge for you.
I hope you are coping with it, I hope it is not too much of a hostile environment.
Thank you for your voice, it is very welcome in this environment. Please don’t give up or lose hope.
Thank you.
With love and hope for a stable future,
Oscar
That Israel is not held up as a success of de-colonization shows what a sham the notion is, that land acknowledgments are performative, not meaningful.
Thank you for this and your recent podcast on the subject. I can always count on you to bring a rational, balanced view to uncomfortable conversations.
I hear you Josh and am in agreement. Many don’t realise that Palestinians had more rights and opportunities under Israeli law or that the land was mostly barren prior to the state of Israel coming into being.
Nice article.
Im not surprised your radio listeners have a one-sided view. The coverage from the national broadcaster is so one-sided that, once again, any Australian seeking a balanced perspective is looking elsewhere.
Thank you. A rational statement of fact that recognizes the broader historical context.
Thank you Josh. I always thought that my father, who had to flee Austria during the holocaust, was exaggerating the hatred for Jews that simmers along in society. I am so shocked to now see how right he was, how gleefully people celebrated 7th October... My heart is broken.
Well said Josh - just my thoughts exactly
Thank you , Josh, for your sane and rational analysis of this nightmare scenario.
Thank you Josh
I suppose I lean in perspective to the plight of the Jews who endured their exile as the will of God for their past disobedience to the Almighty as recorded in the Scriptures. This supremacist, Zionist, nationalistic Israeli exceptionalism is foul and will result in more banker's wars, impoverishing the average person. It's not the average Jew or average non-Jew, though we pay the price. It is, ultimately, a spiritual battle since time immemorial, which will culminate in a 3rd temple with a really nasty world ruler attempting to outthrone God.
Is this a satire of antisemitism? Well played. Very subtle. I can barely tell the difference. 😉
You like dead or suffering Jews. Nice! Thanks but no thanks.
Who says the Palestinians have been treated abysmally? They have been abysmal. Terrorism not stop.
I’m guessing the Australian MSM coverage of these last two months in the Middle East must differ profoundly from the Zionist lockstep that prevailed absolutely for the first month and predominates still over here in North America.
Josh, you start in very early assuming criticism of Israel is antisemitism. In fact that’s such a popular concept that I hear the US is legally defining opposition to Zionism as antisemitism. But how are we supposed to have a civilized conversation if one side gets to redefine all the words? Next thing you know, “literally” will mean its opposite and we will be drowning in alternative facts...
But seriously, do you imagine I missed all the loaded words you put in there to remind us how awful Israel’s opponents are?
And let me remind you, because you seem to choke on the idea that there is a reason to count the corpses: proportional response. What is going on in Gaza is a war crime. 600 Israeli civilians were slaughtered on October 7 (yeah yeah, I know, you want me to count the foreign nationals, the armed combatants, and the victims of friendly fire. But the war crimes tribunal doesn’t, shouldn’t, and won’t). Israel has already murdered more than 20,000 Palestinian civilians in the past two months, and let me be crystal clear: this was not just clumsy pursuit of Hamas, nor even overzealous retribution meted out by the most sociopathic IDF soldiers. It is deliberate, and the obscene numbers have multiple purposes. Bibi called Oct 7 the equivalent of 20 9/11s [bad math/a lie: actually less than 7, certainly terrible beyond words regardless]; but the Palestinian death toll so far, using Bibi’s formula *correctly*, yields (are you sitting down?)
MORE THAN 1000 9/11s. Smoke on your pipe and put that in.
So what are these purposes, beyond collective punishment (WAR CRIME)? Israel is destroying every possibility of a Palestinian Gaza, and the vast numbers of random murdered civilians is COVER for the deliberate targeting of the prominent citizens who would naturally be the rebuilders. Teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, journalists (70 murdered so far), etc. Israel is targeting the human infrastructure.
Israel had knowledge of the Hamas plot more than a year ago, and then from Egypt a warning a week in advance. What did Bibi do? Pulled most of the IDF OUT OF THE REGION, sending them to back up more West Bank Settler Land Theft, and conveniently abandoning those lefty hippy NON-LIKUD SUPPORTERS, because Bibi, even more than the Men With Guns of Hamas, needed martyrs so he could justify EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING.
You have to be blind deaf dumb and dead not to be aware of many, many, many prominent Israeli officials (and believe me they are the tip of the iceberg), who see Palestinians as human animals and have expressed openly genocidal opinions...so just F*CK RIGHT OFF with complaining that the rest of the world is not still crying over October 7th. WE WOULD BE IF WE DIDN’T HAVE THE LAST TWO MONTHS OF THE GENOCIDE JOE AND BIBI SHOW to cry over even more. Because, sorry but 600 (or even 1200) does not remotely resemble 20,000. And that’s just the beginning.
If *my* family lived in Northern Gaza we’d still be there (alive or dead), because we have disabilities in our family that make it impossible to up sticks.
Just the beginning. Imagine having four hours to escape from one absolutely unsafe place to a soon-to-be-even-more-unsafe place (because that’s what’s going on: the IDF says go here, then bombs you on the way and again when you get there). Imagine being a five year old (that is the average age of murdered Palestinians), your parents just blown apart yesterday and now some uncle is trying to get you to run past the corpses, and that smell...all the rotting bodies under the hundreds of thousands of destroyed buildings.
So...let’s say you survive. Ten years from now you might (unlikely? But maybe) you might have Jewish friends...but you will hate Israel, and if there isn’t a Hamas, you’ll make one.
Men With Guns always want to speak too soon. More Men With Guns cannot be the answer to other Men With Guns. (Another commenter decried the ugliest reality of war: Banker’s Wars, good for business).
There are more than 600 commandments in the Torah, and in keeping with the Jewish passive iteration of the golden rule (do nothing to another you would not want done to yourself, as opposed to the “do unto others” version more common to Christian ears), most of them are situational (if the opportunity arises, do thus). Only two actually command action regardless:
Justice, Justice you must Pursue; and Seek Peace, and Pursue It.
That does not appear to be part of Israel’s plan, so (if I may say so) : Israel is not doing Judaism right. The underlying rot ruins the beautiful dream (nationalism is not helping us with the climate crisis either, for what that’s worth. Maybe we should move on from such concepts).
Your heartfelt commentary is a civilised and intelligent contribution to a morass of commentary so much of which is neither. I am less impressed by postcolonial viewpoints than you are, and very sceptical about Palestinian politics.
https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/our-postcolonial-trash-needs-taking
Fatah is also not interested in peace, as hundreds of millions of dollars flow to Palestinians that would cease if a peace agreement was signed, as they would stop being refugees and bastions against the Zionist entity. The more Israelis become convinced there are no Palestinian partners for peace, the more plausible “changing facts on the ground” becomes.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
But civilised commentary on this fraught issue is precious, and you have provided such, thank you.