Media Report 2025.08.17
Israeli military prepares relocations to southern Gaza as US cancels Palestinian visitor visas
ABC / Reuters | 17 August 2025
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Israeli unit tasked with smearing Gaza journalists as Hamas fighters – report
The Guardian | Emma Graham-Harrison | 16 August 2025
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‘Hellish’: heatwave brings hottest nights on record to the Middle East
The Guardian | Ajit Niranjan | 16 August 2025
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Not quite a full stop for writers’ festival
The Age | Hannah Hammond | 17 August 2025
The Bendigo Writers Festival limped into its opening weekend under a cloud of controversy, with more than 20 sessions cancelled and dozens of authors boycotting the event.
The festival’s opening night gala was called off just hours before it was due to begin amid growing criticism directed at sponsor La Trobe University over a newly introduced code of conduct.
Participants were issued the code of conduct on Wednesday. The document requires participants in the university’s stream of the festival to engage in “inclusive, thoughtful” discussions and to “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”.
It also mandates adherence to La Trobe’s Anti-Racism Plan, which includes a definition of antisemitism aligned with the Universities Australia standard. That definition has not been accepted by all universities and has been the subject of controversy, with some arguing that it unreasonably restricts criticism of Israel. The definition states that criticism of Israel is not itself antisemitic.
“However, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel or all Jews or when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions,” said a Universities Australia statement earlier this year.
Critics argue the code risks suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel and restricting political speech. In July, the Federal Court ruled that anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel are not antisemitic.
Independent Bendigo bookshop Bookish, run by co-owners Wendy Bridges and Wendy Sattler, was to serve as the writers festival’s official book-selling partner for the fourth year this weekend. However, the owners announced their decision to pull out in solidarity with dozens of authors who have withdrawn or resigned from the event.
Though not directly bound by the code, the Bookish team said they could no longer continue their involvement with the festival in good conscience.
“Primarily, our concern is about censorship and its immeasurable cost,” they said.
“We can’t speak for the authors and their reasons, but nothing good ever results from silencing intelligent and engaged people who are speaking up against injustice. Complex conversations, such as those which occur at writers festivals, are crucial to addressing complex issues, locally and globally.”
Since the release of the code, at least 34 writers have withdrawn from the festival. Twenty-one sessions have been cancelled, with ticket holders to be issued automatic refunds.
High-profile departures include La Trobe history professor Clare Wright, who co-curated the La Trobe series within the festival, Overland editor and Stella Prize winner Evelyn Araluen, academic and author Randa Abdel-Fattah, and journalists and writers such as Jess Hill, Claire G. Coleman and Paul Daley.
Wright said she had curated nine sessions for the La Trobe stream of the festival’s program and was to have hosted the opening night gala and closing session, and appear on a panel discussing her own book, Ṉäku Dhäruk: The Yirrkala Bark Petitions, recently shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Explaining her decision to withdraw, Wright said the fallout from the festival was a result of what happened when “managerialism trumps morality”.
“I think this is what happens when arts and educational institutions are not prepared to stand on principle against the significant pressure from Zionist organisations and other conservative lobbyists and outlets,” she said.
Wright, who is also a professor of history and professor of public engagement at La Trobe University, said there must be space for difficult conversations to be held at writers festivals and in places of higher education.
“The idea that you can risk-manage your way out of uncomfortable conversations when there is a genocide unfolding in real time, when violence against women is at epidemic proportions, when neo-Nazis are marching down our city streets, when we’re in the grips of a climate catastrophe, when sovereignty was never ceded in settler colonies, these are all the difficult topics we can and must discuss, respectfully and lawfully, at writers festivals and in places of higher education.”
Graphic novelist and artist educator Ita Mehrotra proceeded with her Saturday session, which was not part of the La Trobe-sponsored stream. However, she has since withdrawn from a Sunday panel she was to have shared with three other authors. All four pulled out, prompting the festival to cancel the event.
Mehrotra said she was deeply conflicted about participating but used her Saturday appearance to speak openly with attendees about the unfolding boycott.
“This kind of mass pullout isn’t something I’ve seen [before],” she said.
“We need spaces that allow for dialogue, that allow for uncomfortable conversations … to not allow for that is heartbreaking.
“It sets the tone for how people are thinking and the culture of the space. You’re going to crush dialogue. It’s a bleak future if this is how things are.”
Mehrotra added that authors and attendees shared a profound sense of disappointment about how events had unfolded.
“It’s not on the authors, it’s on a university having crushed this event,” she said.
In the wake of Bookish’s withdrawal, the store was flooded with customers on Saturday, many offering messages of support.
“Since publicising our decision, we have been overwhelmed with a wave of love and support from all over the country, with messages coming from authors, customers, human rights organisations, bookshops, industry organisations, and people we’ve never met,” the owners said.
“Obviously, it is a time of mixed emotions for Bookish as well as for the affected authors, but the overarching feeling in our shop today has been one of joy and solidarity. We are confident we made the right choice.”
The owners said the festival was the bookshop’s biggest weekend of the year and involved months of planning and extra work from their staff.
“It’s a logistical nightmare, a huge amount of extra work, and a massive financial blow to a regional small business,” they said.
“To be frank, we’d rather cop the financial loss and fight the good fight.”
La Trobe University defended its stance, stating that it was committed to fostering a culture that valued all forms of diversity.
“La Trobe University does not tolerate racism of any kind, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. La Trobe’s commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech is consistent with our approach to creating safe environments for the free exchange of ideas,” a spokesperson said.
“Our Anti-Racism Action Plan, which includes a working definition of Islamophobia, was developed through extensive staff, student and community consultation, including of people with lived experience of racism.”
On Saturday, Bendigo City Council confirmed that 26 sessions had gone ahead since the festival opened on Thursday, including several sold-out events.
“Refunds are being provided for ticket holders for the cancelled sessions and in instances where ticket holders no longer wish to attend,” a council spokesperson said.
“A further eight sessions are scheduled for Sunday. By tomorrow afternoon, we will be pleased to have been able to deliver more than half the festival program.”
The Australian Society of Authors has been contacted for comment.
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Israeli minister posts video of prison confrontation with Palestinian leader
The Age / AP, Reuters | Sam Mednick | 17 August 2025
Tel Aviv: Israel’s far-right national security minister has posted a video on social media that shows him admonishing an imprisoned Palestinian leader in a face-to-face meeting inside a prison, saying Israel will confront anyone who acts against the country and “wipe them out”.
The video surfaced as news broke of a reported Israeli plan to resettle Palestinians from war-torn Gaza in the troubled African nation of South Sudan. Three sources told Reuters that South Sudan and Israel were discussing such a move, which Palestinian leaders quickly dismissed as unacceptable.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted the video of his interaction with Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti on X on Friday night (Saturday AEST) but it is unclear when it was filmed. Ben-Gvir is known for staging provocative encounters with Palestinians.
Barghouti is serving five life sentences after being convicted of involvement in attacks at the height of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the early 2000s. He was arrested more than two decades ago, and polls consistently show he is the most popular Palestinian leader – some Palestinians even see him as their Nelson Mandela.
In the video, Ben-Gvir is seen telling Barghouti that he will “not win”.
“Anyone who messes with the people of Israel, anyone who murders our children, anyone who murders our women, we will wipe them out,” Ben-Gvir says.
The 13-second video shows Barghouti, appearing older and more gaunt, standing in a white T-shirt, his hands at times crossed in front of him. He doesn’t seem to be shackled, and utters a few words as Ben-Gvir speaks, but they are inaudible. Images of Barghouti have not been seen in several years.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman confirmed the visit and the video’s authenticity but denied the minister was threatening Barghouti.
The United Nations’ spokesperson called the video “disturbing”. Asked about it during a news conference on Friday, Stephane Dujarric said Barghouti “needs to have his rights fully respected, and his safety needs to be ensured”.
During the intifada, Barghouti, now in his mid-60s, was a senior leader in President Mahmoud Abbas’ secular Fatah movement. Many Palestinians see him as a natural successor to the ageing and unpopular leader of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel considers him a terrorist and has shown no sign it would release him in any prisoner exchanges. Hamas has demanded his release in return for hostages taken in the October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
In a Facebook post, Barghouti’s wife said she couldn’t recognise her husband, who appears frail in the video. Still, she said after watching the footage that he remains connected to the Palestinian people.
“Perhaps a part of me does not want to acknowledge everything that your face and body shows, and what you and the prisoners have been through,” wrote Fadwa Al Barghouthi, who spells their last name differently in English.
Israeli officials say they have reduced the conditions under which Palestinians are held to the bare minimum allowed under Israeli and international law. Many detainees released as part of ceasefire deals in Gaza earlier this year had appeared gaunt and ill, and some were taken for immediate medical treatment.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and Israel’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on information about Israel’s reported talks with South Sudan about resettling Palestinians from Gaza.
The plan, if carried further, would envisage people moving from an enclave shattered by almost two years of war with Israel to a nation in the heart of Africa riven by years of political and ethnically driven violence.
A spokesperson for the United States State Department said, “We do not speak to private diplomatic conversations,” when asked about the plan and if the United States supported the idea.
Netanyahu said this month he intends to extend military control in Gaza, and this week repeated suggestions that Palestinians should leave the territory voluntarily.
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Recognising Palestine won’t end either side’s pain
Sydney Morning Herald | Lynda Ben-Menashe | 17 August 2025
A long time ago I led study tours to Israel and Palestine to examine co-existence. Endorsed by both the Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors to Australia, they were designed to illuminate the greyscale of nuance and complexity there.
On a tour in 2019 our group visited the southern Israeli city of Sderot, near the Gazan border. In the middle of a traffic circle we noticed a beautiful sculpture of wings made from recycled pieces of Palestinian rockets. I remember thinking, “Look how Israelis can turn death into life and beauty!”
The next day we visited a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. In a small artisan jewellery store we saw neck laces and earrings made from recycled pieces of Israeli tear gas canisters. I had just walked through a black mirror into an alternate reality: “Look how Palestinians can turn death into life and beauty!”
When the announcement came this week that Australia would recognise a Palestinian state, my mind went to the traumatised people who made that art. People whose lived experience contrasts so profoundly with those of the politicians posturing in far-off lands.
In her part of the announcement, Foreign Minister Penny Wong mentioned “the faces of children we cannot forget”. I cannot forget the faces of the nine-month and four-year old Israeli brothers abducted on October 7 and later strangled; or the other 38 massacred, including a wheelchair-bound 16 year-old; or the 39 abducted and later released into lives of unending trauma.
I cannot forget the faces of the Palestinian children wandering through rubble and languishing in hospital beds; or the 12 Druze children killed by Hezbollah rockets on a soccer field in northern Israel. Anthony Albanese’s talk about wanting “an end to the killing and the conflict on our streets” is just smoke.
Australia’s white-saviour act at the UN next month won’t stop the killing or the associated conflict on our streets. It won’t release from hell the Israeli, Thai and Nepalese hostages starved and tortured by Hamas for almost two years now.
No pronouncement by any foreign leader will have the slightest impact on peace, security or co-existence for Israelis or Israelis are screaming and IDF generals threatening to resign because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest plan for Gaza will prolong both the horror of war for all, and the longevity of his coalition.
West Bank Palestinians despise the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has no ability to implement the “commitments” it has made to the international community. I remember a Palestinian academic sneering to our 2023 tour group that the only thing PA leader Mahmoud Abbas could organise was a parade for himself.
Let Palestine be recognised as a state, and held accountable as a state actor, finally. Let the corrupt and complicit UNRWA be shut down because Palestinians won’t be refugees any more; they’ll have a state to return to. Let there be elections where the PA losers don’t get thrown to their deaths off roofs by the Hamas winners, as in 2007. Let them reconcile their contradictory commitments to “statehood” (the PA) and a global caliphate (Hamas Charter).
May our government’s great faith not be misplaced. I wish Wong and Albanese had been on the tour I led this May, meeting Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze and Palestinian women who graciously shared their intertwined lived experiences. The sisterhood, mutual empathy and pragmatism of these women in the middle of a war zone stood in stark contrast with the performative sloganeering that fills our social media feeds and shamefully, our Hansards, too.
The women we met in May were focused on the future. They look into the faces of their children every day. After World War II, Germany needed to rebuild its economy and deprogram its people after years of antisemitic indoctrination and warmongering had crippled them.
The international community helped them with both, and the result was a spectacular success. Why don’t we offer a similar, strength-based approach to Palestine? Let’s put people ahead of political posturing and give the faces of both Palestinian and Israeli children something to turn to with hope in their eyes.
Lynda Ben-Menashe is president of the National Council of Jewish Women Australia
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Rewriting history to avoid facing reality
Daily Telegraph (Herald-Sun, Courier-Mail) | Peta Credlin | 17 August 2025
If you thought kowtowing to the Chinese leader when the same communist government was deliberately endangering the lives of Australian military personnel was bad enough, how does congratulations from an officially listed terrorist organisation rate?
Because that’s where we stand as a nation under Anthony Albanese after Hamas officially welcomed Australia’s “political courage” in recognising Palestine. But plaudits of “courage” from terrorists is cowardice to the rest of us. So too the PM’s decision to unconditionally recognise Palestine without the release of Hamas’s Israeli hostages and without any concession towards Israel’s right to exist. It’s not just a reward for terrorism but an indication of just how far the Australian Labor Party has moved to the far left.
In justifying last Monday’s announcement that Australia would soon recognise Palestine, both Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong sought to portray this as historical continuity with a 1947 UN resolution, “the Partition Plan for Palestine” – one that former Labor leader, Dr H.V. Evatt, helped to hammer out when he was president of the UN General Assembly – in favour of a Palestinian state. In fact, it was the division of the old Palestine mandate into two new territories, one of which being the Jewish homeland, Israel, that the Palestinians and their Arab allies utterly refused to accept. The modern state of Israel only came into existence because the infant Jewish state was able to successfully fight for its survival against the armies of all its Arab neighbours. Far from creating a Palestinian state under Evatt, the UN resolution ended up creating just the state of Israel – with what’s now Gaza run by Egypt – and what’s now the West Bank declared as a part of Jordan from 1948 till 1967, when Israel captured both Gaza and the West Bank during the Six Day War.
Who the heck is briefing Albanese?
Back in the late 1940s, leftist opinion supported the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people who’d been all but exterminated under Hitler. But as anti-colonial agitation swept Asia and Africa in the 1950s and ’60s, and as Israel repeatedly demonstrated its military supremacy over its often corrupt and dictatorial neighbours, leftists started to see the Jewish state as an exemplar of “settler colonialism” and “white privilege”; even though Jewish people had been indigenous to the area for some 4000 years and even though local Jewish people were ethnically almost indistinguishable from their Arab neighbours.
It was the Whitlam government in 1974 that broke Australia’s previous strong support for Israel by voting in favour of a UN resolution affirming the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty. At the time, this move split the Labor Party, with Bob Hawke declaring his opposition to Whitlam’s push with his immortal line: “If the bell tolls for Israel, it doesn’t just toll for Israel, it tolls for all mankind.”
By moving to recognise Palestine, without any insistence that a Palestinian state acknowledge Israel’s right to exist within secure borders, Anthony Albanese has shown himself to be a more a disciple of Labor’s worst PM than its best. He’s confirmed that, for all the prime ministerial talk about “stability” and moderation, this is actually the most left-wing Labor government since Whitlam – and probably the most left-wing ever.
On foreign policy more broadly, Albanese is weak on China, and he’s also put the US relationship in jeopardy. Our expectation that the US would help in the defence of Australia has always been the flip side of our readiness to assist America as leader of the free world. The Albanese government’s refusal to send a frigate to the Red Sea in December 2023 was the first time since the ANZUS treaty in 1951 that Australia had declined a US request for military assistance. And there’s just no way any US president would authorise the sale of US submarines to Australia without a reasonable expectation that they would be there to help in any contingency over Taiwan. Yet this government can’t even bring itself to name communist China as our biggest strategic challenge.
Admittedly, we are in a tough spot, with our main challenger also our biggest trading partner, but instead of having an honest conversation with the Australian people, this government simply denies reality … and tries to rewrite history.
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Under Albanese and Wong, these are the darkest days in the history of Australian foreign policy
Daily Telegraph (Courier-Mail) | Piers Akerman | 17 August 2025
Anthony Albanese has been backing Palestinian terrorists all his adult life so his decision to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state was no surprise.
Two years after entering federal parliament he visited Ramallah as part of a cross-party delegation sponsored by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and met Yasser Arafat, the deeply corrupt founder of the terrorist PLO, then president of the Palestinian Authority.
The trip included visits to Egypt, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank, as well as Israel, but Albanese did not trouble to meet any senior Israeli politicians. As a hard-Left student activist, he only had eyes for his keffiyeh-wearing heroes and he hasn’t grown up.
Using the woke leaders of the UK, France and Canada as cover, he reversed his view of a fortnight ago to pledge Australia’s support for Palestinian statehood at the UN next month. Sir Kier Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney are pygmies on the international stage but, even in their undistinguished company, Albanese is the intellectual runt.
He claims he decided to throw his support behind the Hamas-governed Gazans after a conversation with Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas. The corrupt 89-year-old was elected in 2005. He hasn’t let his people hold another popular election since.
There’s a famous David Low cartoon titled Rendezvous which ran in the Evening Standard on September 20, 1939, depicting Stalin and Hitler meeting after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, with Hitler saying, “The scum of the earth, I believe,” and Stalin replying, “The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume.”
How did Albanese and Abbas greet each other? Did Albanese say, “The most mendacious Middle Easterner, I believe,” and did Abbas return the compliment, “The southern hemisphere’s biggest bull artist, I presume.”
To seek advice from Abbas was as ridiculous as Foreign Minister Penny Wong asking Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim for his thoughts on this matter last month. Malaysia is the most anti-Semitic country outside the Middle East. It does not officially recognise Israel, has been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and consistently opposes Israel’s policies and actions.
Any comparison of Albanese’s stance on Ukraine with his position on Israel shows the callow shallowness of his intellect. Just last Saturday, he said of the Ukraine, “We must remember that it is Russia and Vladimir Putin who is the aggressor here, who has breached international law, who has engaged in an illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, who has taken action, which has resulted in death and destruction in Ukraine.”
On October 7, 2023, it was Hamas and Gazan civilians who invaded Israel in the most abhorrent, barbaric assault since medieval times, raping, torturing, murdering, taking men, women and babies hostage to torture further and, in most cases, kill them.
Albanese hangs on the promises of Abbas that things will change if the Palestinian Authority gets to run Gaza after his fantasy peace deal predicated on a rejection of all of the PA’s current programs, including its pay-for-slay pensions for terrorist murderers locked in Israeli prisons, its payments to the families of suicide bombers and its hate-filled education system which indoctrinates toddlers with anti-Semitism through the use of cartoon characters, songs and dances.
This malignant schooling program is funded by UNRWA to which Wong has given tens of millions of Australian taxpayers’ money.
These are the darkest days in the history of Australian foreign policy. Under Albanese and Wong, our good name in international circles has been besmirched. We’re an unreliable ally to our greatest partner, the US. We lose everything when we stand with Iran, Russia, China and the wretched tinpot nations of the world. We were better than this and we must be again.
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Leave hatred behind
Daily Telegraph | Letters | 17 August 2025
Leave hatred behind
Peta Credlin has written everything we truly patriotic Australians have been feeling regarding the situation where our government allows people who “hate our culture and our flag” to besmirch the image of our Harbour Bridge in enormous numbers of loudly Jew-hating protesters in open displays of anti-Australian values (“Sending the wrong signal to the entire world”, Sunday Telegraph, 10/8).
I, too, thought that when people came to live in our country and benefit from its freedoms they were required to promise to obey its laws and leave old hatreds behind.
We should have the power to deport those who do not embrace Australian values of religious tolerance and fairness.
Thanks to Peta Credlin for stating our views so powerfully.
Val McMurray, Denham Court
Time for action
Peta Credlin (“Sending the wrong signal to the entire world”, Sunday Telegraph, 10/8) again highlights the issue of immigrants in Australia who clearly hate Australian values, as evidenced by many who supported the anti-Israeli Harbour Bridge protest. The time is well nigh to ask for action on those who would destroy tolerant Western values that have made this country as prosperous as it is.
It is a thorny legal issue, though.
Do we deport Islamic extremists already here?
On what basis?
To which country do we send them? Do we send the entire family also?
What about second and third-generation radicals?
And what about homegrown radicals supporting loathsome terrorist ideologies and committing violence in the name of some fanatical ideology?
Negotiating and re-educating people with violent ideologies seldom works and takes enormous surveillance resources.
But the issue has to be acted upon, otherwise how many goldfish would remain once piranhas enter the goldfish tank?
Giles Edwards, Dee Why
Hamas will rearm
During every beauty pageant, the women are interviewed and there is the usual “I wish for world peace” statement and everybody thinks it is so lovely.
The announcement by “Each-way” Albo and Penny Wong is every much the same motherhood statement of lofty morals that has no basis in the reality of the situation.
From the armchair comfort of his house overlooking the ocean, he will bear no responsibility for any outcomes.
Hamas do not want a two-state solution, will never recognise Israel, will take every opportunity to use world media to demonise Israel, and will take every ceasefire to re-arm and plan the next atrocity.
Israel exists because of a 3000-year-old systematic vilification and actual genocide of Jews by Babylonians, Romans, Christians, Arabs, Turks and most European countries.
Jews know that neither the UN nor any country can be trusted with their security, and be happy to take Jewish refugee survivors.
David Bowden, Leura
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Act equally on hatred
Herald-Sun | Letters | 17 August 2025
Act equally on hatred
The sight of masked neo-Nazis in black outfits marching through the CBD was beyond disgusting (“‘Gutless cowards’ bring hate to our streets”, SHS, 10/8).
Just how much more hatred can be put on public display in vilifying the Jewish people of Victoria?
But will all the talk of the new move-on laws and unmasking of protesters in public locations by police be applied evenly?
Yes, do whatever it takes to put down this ugly extreme right-wing faction.
There is no place in the world for neo-Nazis and their vile white supremacist beliefs.
But what about the weekly pro-Palestine agitators?
Many of these so-called “protesters” also hide their faces.
And they openly advocate the annihilation of the Israeli people through their chants and signs reading; “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
What is the fundamental difference between the extreme left-wing support of the elimination of the state of Israel and/or the ethnic cleansing of Jews living there, compared to the neo-Nazi hatred of Jews and anyone else who is not fair skinned?
Once Vic Pol have their new “powers”, will they finally take rapid action to confiscate masks and move on the regular weekly rabble of Palestinian supporters in the CBD?
Phillip Smith, Eltham
Blame lies with Hamas
Lorel Thomas (Letters, 10/3) misrepresents the Israeli blockade of Gaza in place prior to October 2023.
It allowed in unlimited food, water, fuel, medicine and consumer goods.
It only sought to keep out goods for military use.
Thousands of Gaza residents were allowed out every day to work, conduct business or access health care in Israel or to travel further afield.
Tragically, it turned out that Hamas got much of its intelligence about how and where to attack Israeli communities from those Gaza residents who worked in them.
The blockade was only implemented after Hamas took over Gaza, declared it would not abide by the Oslo Accords which gave the Palestinians self-government in the first place, and began firing rockets into Israel and other acts of terrorism.
So the blame lies with Hamas.
Mark Kessel, Caulfield North
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People want end to Middle East conflict
Courier-Mail | Letters | 17 August 2025
Peta Credlin’s column “Sending the wrong signal to the entire world” (SM, 10/8) on what is happening both here and in the Middle East is unlikely to further the cause of peace.
A more in-depth look at the situation is required.
Obviously, community concern at the humanitarian crisis is far wider than “migrants from the Middle East”.
Her call to leave “old hatreds behind” has been heeded by many of those who have come here, but when a conflict that is ongoing endangers the lives of close family members on either side, this is difficult to do.
Daily news reports reveal the destruction that is occurring, the displacement of people and the starvation both for the Gazan children and for the hostages.
Both here and overseas, increasingly, people want an end to conflict and a durable solution that guarantees the existence of both Israel and Palestine.
Genevieve Caffery, Nudgee
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Baby girl killed with parents in Gaza air strike
Canberra Times / AAP | 17 August 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9042581/baby-girl-killed-with-parents-in-gaza-air-strike/
An Israeli air strike in Gaza has killed a baby girl and her parents, while the families of hostages called for a nationwide protest in Israel to express growing frustration over 22 months of war.
The baby’s body, wrapped in blue, was placed on those of her parents as Palestinians prayed over them.
Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?” neighbour Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 32 degrees.
“They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Israel’s military said it is dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities and takes precautions not to harm civilians.
It said it couldn’t comment on the strike without more details.
Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen its coming military offensive.
The Israeli military will provide Gaza residents with tents and other equipment starting from Sunday, ahead of relocating them from combat zones to “safe” ones in the south of the enclave, military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Saturday.
The mobilisation of forces is expected to take weeks, and Israel may be using the threat to pressure Hamas into releasing more hostages taken in its October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Families of hostages fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of them thought to remain alive.
They and other Israelis were horrified by the recent release of videos showing emaciated hostages, speaking under duress, pleading for help and food.
A group representing the families has urged Israelis into the streets on Sunday.
“Across the country, hundreds of citizen-led initiatives will pause daily life and join the most just and moral struggle: the struggle to bring all 50 hostages home,” it said in a statement.
The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began.
Palestinians are drinking contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass relocation of people from Gaza.
Another 11 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child was among them.
That brings malnutrition-related deaths during the war to 251.
The UN and partners say getting aid into the territory of more than two million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians.
The UN human rights office says at least 1760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday.
It says 766 were killed along routes of supply convoys and 994 in the vicinity of “non-UN militarised sites,” a reference to the Israeli-backed and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which since May has been the primary distributor of aid in Gaza.
The Hamas-led attack in 2023 killed around 1200 people in Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 61,897 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not specify how many were fighters or civilians but says around half were women and children.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals.
The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on casualties.
Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
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The world continues to tell Israel what to do – is it fair?
Canberra Times | Justin Amler | 17 August 2025
The world has never been shy in telling Israel what to do – in ways it would never dare tell other countries. It demands impossible standards no nation has ever met.
In recent months, the chorus of condemnation has reached a fever pitch. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong argues that the majority of the “international community” wants an unconditional ceasefire. But since when does majority opinion make something right?
History says otherwise. In 1938, at the Evian Conference, dozens of nations debated the fate of Jews desperately trying to flee Nazi Germany. The overwhelming “consensus” was to do nothing, leaving the Jews to their fate.
In 2002, in the midst of Israel’s campaign against Palestinian terrorism, Israel was widely accused of committing a massacre in Jenin – a massacre that never happened. At the time, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded that Israel cease its campaign and asked: Can the whole world be wrong? Yes. It can. It has.
And who exactly is this “international community” anyway? Fewer than half of UN member states are rated “Fully Free” by Freedom House. Many are dictatorships and theocracies – none living under the constant threat of annihilation – yet they lecture Israel on morality and restraint.
The hypocrisy extends to democracies like France, Britain, Canada, and Australia, which have never fought genocidal forces metres from their border, nor faced hostages being tortured in terror dungeons partly funded by their own aid. The same goes for recognising a Palestinian state: the mere act of recognition, as they plan to do at the United Nations General Assembly in September, doesn’t make it real.
None of these countries – democratic or despotic – has offered a viable plan to remove Hamas from power, yet every joint statement dictates what Israel must do while saying comparatively little about what Hamas must do. And when hostages and disarmament are mentioned, it appears more as an afterthought than a core demand.
With Hamas refusing to disarm or release the remaining 50 Israeli hostages, Israel now plans an operation in Gaza City to root out the last Hamas forces and possibly recover hostages. Again, the criticism is aimed at Israel, not at Hamas – which has rejected every ceasefire offer, refused to release the hostages and vowed to never give up power.
This war in Gaza was not Israel’s first choice, nor its second, nor even its third. In 2005, Israel left Gaza entirely, removing every Jew – both the living and the dead – and leaving behind homes and thriving businesses. The international community praised Israel for this action. But instead of embracing a future of peace, the Palestinian leadership chose terror. Businesses were burned, homes destroyed, and then the rockets came. Support for Israel vanished. What followed was a relentless campaign of violence, culminating in the October 7 massacre.
That day left a nation traumatised and a Jewish world reeling. Anti-Semitism surged: hostage posters torn down, Jewish businesses vandalised, Jews assaulted, synagogues attacked, and even kosher meals on airlines defaced with hateful slogans.
Meanwhile, the world continues to be fed a daily diet of Palestinian suffering, while Jewish suffering is largely ignored. Are Jews not entitled to the same empathy as others?
The aid narrative is equally twisted. Reports indicate that only a fraction of aid delivered inside Gaza reaches civilians, with Hamas known to divert supplies for its own purposes. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation reports delivering over 115 million meals – yet no joint statement has acknowledged it. In one case, The New York Times had to clarify that the skeletal appearance of a Gazan child featured in a front-page image was due to a genetic condition, not famine. If the disaster was as overwhelming as claimed, why the need for staged or misleading imagery?
And the hypocrisy continues. Germany suspends certain arms exports to Israel yet insists Hamas must be destroyed. Egypt calls the Gaza crisis an “international shame” yet keeps its borders shut, preventing civilians from leaving.
And still, few acknowledge the deep-rooted radicalisation in Palestinian society – a reality that makes talk of quick peace deals dangerously naive. France halted a Gaza refugee program when it discovered one of the people it admitted made social media posts calling to “kill all the Jews”. Australia revoked the visa of a woman who had publicly celebrated the October 7 massacre – but only after initially granting it.
The international community, with the exception of the United States, has shown itself powerless, unwilling to confront a terrorist entity that does not respond to statements.
In a time when the world desperately needs Churchills, we are inundated with Chamberlains.
So now Israel faces the hardest challenge any nation can: fighting genocidal forces on its border and in the heart of the enemy’s territory – all while protecting its people and being pilloried by an international community blind to the complexity of the fight.
It is not an easy or popular fight, but for many Israelis, it’s not really a choice. As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “We will not commit national suicide to get a good op-ed.”
Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
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US stops visitor visas for people from Gaza
Canberra Times / AAP | Jasper Ward | 17 August 2025
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9042582/us-stops-visitor-visas-for-people-from-gaza/
The US State Department says it is halting all visitor visas for individuals from Gaza while it conducts “a full and thorough” review.
The department said a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas had been issued in recent days, but did not provide a figure.
The US issued more than 3800 B1/B2 visitor visas, which permit foreigners to seek medical treatment in the United States, to holders of the Palestinian Authority travel document, according to an analysis of monthly figures provided on the department’s website.
That figure includes 640 visas issued in May.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the move, saying it was the latest sign of the “intentional cruelty” of the Trump administration.
The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund said the decision to halt visas would deny access to medical care to wounded and sick children in Gaza.
“This policy will have a devastating and irreversible impact on our ability to bring injured and critically ill children from Gaza to the United States for lifesaving medical treatment—a mission that has defined our work for more than 30 years,” it said in a statement
The State Department’s move to stop visitor visas for people from Gaza comes after Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and an ally of President Donald Trump, said on social media on Friday that the Palestinian “refugees” had entered the US this month.
Loomer’s statement sparked outrage among some Republicans, with Randy Fine describing it as a “national security risk”.
Gaza has been devastated by a war that was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza since then has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials.
The US has not indicated that it would accept Palestinians displaced by the war.
However, sources told Reuters that South Sudan and Israel are discussing a plan to resettle Palestinians.
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Israel was founded on the back of terrorism and violence
Canberra Times | Letters | 17 August 2025
Israel was founded on the back of terrorism and violence
Will the Liberal Party act consistently in applying its principles for the recognition of statehood? According to Shadow Foreign Minister Michaelia Cash, the Liberal Party will not reward acts of terrorism and recognise as a state an entity without agreed borders and where hostages are being held.
Between 1945 and 1948, the Zionist terrorist groups Irgun, Hagana and Lehi took hostages, stockpiled munitions, murdered many people, and destroyed infrastructure and housing across Palestine.
This was rewarded with the recognition of the state of Israel.
Today, Israel’s government does not agree with its internationally determined borders, and is indiscriminately killing people, destroying housing and infrastructure, and holding thousands of Palestinians captive.
If the Liberal Party were impartial, it would revoke recognition of Israeli statehood.
Dr Sally Sargeson, Ainslie
Israel’s borders
Alex Ryvchin is bitterly disappointed that the Australian government is committed to recognising Palestine, a state with no clearly defined borders and no capacity to live in peace with its neighbours. Doesn’t that also apply to Israel?
Nigel Thompson, Queanbeyan, NSW
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