Australia cannot turn a blind eye to the atrocities in Gaza

Australia cannot turn a blind eye to the atrocities in Gaza

The Australian government has a blind spot in relation to Gaza. There is quote, “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. Our government is failing in not demanding a ceasefire now, our government is accepting the status quo re the horrendous situation in Gaza.

The Australian government could have voted at the United Nations General Assembly in November for a ceasefire, it abstained, because the details of the ceasefire did not name Hamas, nor the terror it inflicted. Well look at the terror that has been unleashed upon innocent human beings in Gaza over the last four months.

Why are we beholden to follow the US. Do we have such short memories – “weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq”.

Now we are to believe the lies the Israeli government is telling the world and its biggest weapon supplier, the US.

The Israeli government’s mission seems to be genocide. Not the Israelis themselves, their mislead government. The Israeli government is about to launch a ground assault on Rafah, the last place of refuge for fleeing Palestinians. One would think that every man, woman and child is a Hamas. Shame on the President of Israel.

Our government stands by and speaks useless words instead of action. Our government could do better and should.

Penny Costello, Giralang

Misplaced trust

Kathryn Kelly’s criticisms of Israel’s conduct in its defensive war against Hamas and defence of UNRWA (Letters, February 14) are just what you’d expect. After all, she makes it clear she doesn’t believe the Jewish people should have had their own country at all, and misconstrues an equivocal International Court of Justice ruling to wrongly claim Israel is committing genocide.

If Israel has bombed UNRWA buildings and vehicles and killed UNRWA workers, as claimed, remember more than 1000 UNRWA workers are closely associated with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas uses many UNRWA buildings to hide in and under. Just recently, a major Hamas data and control centre was discovered under the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City and its electricity supply came from the UNRWA building.

Surely there are other UN bodies not intertwined with terrorists that can supply aid, as they do in other wars or natural disasters.

Janet Parnwell, McKellar

Illusion of balance

It is clear that much of the mainstream Australian media are trying to set some sort of “balance” on what is happening in Gaza and elsewhere in Israel-Palestine. This “balance” seems to entail equal air or newsprint time to both sides. But this does not seen fair when the number of Palestinians being killed or displaced since at least 1947 and in the current Gazan crisis far outnumbers that of Israelis. So any claims of balance by the media are largely bogus.

Roderick Holesgrove, Crace