Local political leaders will have to explain why they sided with influence peddlers and propaganda merchants instead of defending democratic principles and fighting against genuine antisemitism.
Hi Jenny, thanks for your comment. I fear that Australian politics is not robust enough to deal with populism and US-styled influences. The Antisemitism Summit on the Gold Coast was organised by the US CAM, yet instead of rejecting it outright or having an indifferent tolerance, over 250 local councillors attended, and Richard Marles went out of his way to go there and make a speech, Sussan Ley provided a video recording, because of the fear of missing out. It’s all about the money and influence, many politicians are not clever enough to manage these influences, which means they will pander to these extremists, which will result in absurd legislation that will ban the watermelon icon, a red triangle, and certain words and garments that offend certain people. It’s not going to end well.
Thank you for this most excellent contribution. I’m hoping that the mayor of my local council refused to attend . As far as Richard Marles is concerned nothing would surprise me , re the depths he appears willing to plumb to “further his career and power”.
Hi Eddie and David, another excellent article, thank you!
Recently I’ve been reading a lot about US politics and thinking how lucky we are here in Australia that the brazen excesses of US politics mostly by-passes us except for occasional idiots, like Advance and Pauline Hanson. I fear that this ‘summit’ will change our politics to be more like the US style, where we won’t be able to trust anything any of the attendees say, and not just about Israel. Far right propaganda seems to be inserting itself more and more into mainstream thinking, with many people not even noticing (or maybe not caring?)
I also wonder why US far right extremists feel they have a right to bring their views to other countries?
Perhaps , when they see a government like this one in Australia they see easy pickings for whatever they have in mind . Just look at the AUKUS “deal” as a prize example of grovelling.
I am against antisemitism. I am also against anti-Palestine agitation. I am for both Israel and Palestine being free states. I am against Netanyahu's drive to eradicate Palestinians. He is a failed war criminal.
I think I am like most Australians in my views.
We must not let racism and hatred dominate. That is not Australian.
These junkets for rich, white zionists to reframe genocide protestors as antisemitic attackers is typical of the Neoliberalism (privatization of public wealth, deregulation of private wealth, and austerity for the unfortunate) seen so commonly since the 1980s. The same self-entitlement to pollute the climate and to get childs addicted to tobacco, alcohol, and sugar, is now rearing its self-entitled head in Australia to be allowed to sell weapons to & from the Zionist Genocide nation, pleading the costs for the ALP and LNP of allowing Israel to replace poor Palestinians (by bomb, bullet, starvation, or 'voluntary' ethnic cleansing) with nice, rich, white people as acceptable and profitable and zionist. That has slowly been getting more obviously genocidal since 1948. The US's support for the Zionist Genocide nation has been getting slowly more genocidal too, although it was always supporting violent ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, by white (Ashkenazi) Europeans, for its own imperialist ambitions. We may replace all these genocide abetters with decent, com[passionate, humane political and cultural representatives. We may replace funding for AUKUS (which makes Australia complicit in every US war of aggression, as well as its Zionist Genocide), and transfer the public money saved on for U.S. military housing for all our Australians sleeping rough, and having to wait 2 years for a dental appointment. We may actively organize ourselves (with our humane neighbors) to replace preparations for another unnecessary and inhumane war with sane Diplomacy and mentally healthy peacebuilding. Do we want it enough to regularly make the effort required to form alliances and organize political replacement? Because the Lab/Lib/Nats will just keep stringing us along with slightly mitigated genocidal imperialism, if we can't be bothered to replace them with better candidates and policies.
Hi Jenny, thanks for your comment. I fear that Australian politics is not robust enough to deal with populism and US-styled influences. The Antisemitism Summit on the Gold Coast was organised by the US CAM, yet instead of rejecting it outright or having an indifferent tolerance, over 250 local councillors attended, and Richard Marles went out of his way to go there and make a speech, Sussan Ley provided a video recording, because of the fear of missing out. It’s all about the money and influence, many politicians are not clever enough to manage these influences, which means they will pander to these extremists, which will result in absurd legislation that will ban the watermelon icon, a red triangle, and certain words and garments that offend certain people. It’s not going to end well.
Thank you for this most excellent contribution. I’m hoping that the mayor of my local council refused to attend . As far as Richard Marles is concerned nothing would surprise me , re the depths he appears willing to plumb to “further his career and power”.
Hi Eddie and David, another excellent article, thank you!
Recently I’ve been reading a lot about US politics and thinking how lucky we are here in Australia that the brazen excesses of US politics mostly by-passes us except for occasional idiots, like Advance and Pauline Hanson. I fear that this ‘summit’ will change our politics to be more like the US style, where we won’t be able to trust anything any of the attendees say, and not just about Israel. Far right propaganda seems to be inserting itself more and more into mainstream thinking, with many people not even noticing (or maybe not caring?)
I also wonder why US far right extremists feel they have a right to bring their views to other countries?
Perhaps , when they see a government like this one in Australia they see easy pickings for whatever they have in mind . Just look at the AUKUS “deal” as a prize example of grovelling.
I am against antisemitism. I am also against anti-Palestine agitation. I am for both Israel and Palestine being free states. I am against Netanyahu's drive to eradicate Palestinians. He is a failed war criminal.
I think I am like most Australians in my views.
We must not let racism and hatred dominate. That is not Australian.
These junkets for rich, white zionists to reframe genocide protestors as antisemitic attackers is typical of the Neoliberalism (privatization of public wealth, deregulation of private wealth, and austerity for the unfortunate) seen so commonly since the 1980s. The same self-entitlement to pollute the climate and to get childs addicted to tobacco, alcohol, and sugar, is now rearing its self-entitled head in Australia to be allowed to sell weapons to & from the Zionist Genocide nation, pleading the costs for the ALP and LNP of allowing Israel to replace poor Palestinians (by bomb, bullet, starvation, or 'voluntary' ethnic cleansing) with nice, rich, white people as acceptable and profitable and zionist. That has slowly been getting more obviously genocidal since 1948. The US's support for the Zionist Genocide nation has been getting slowly more genocidal too, although it was always supporting violent ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, by white (Ashkenazi) Europeans, for its own imperialist ambitions. We may replace all these genocide abetters with decent, com[passionate, humane political and cultural representatives. We may replace funding for AUKUS (which makes Australia complicit in every US war of aggression, as well as its Zionist Genocide), and transfer the public money saved on for U.S. military housing for all our Australians sleeping rough, and having to wait 2 years for a dental appointment. We may actively organize ourselves (with our humane neighbors) to replace preparations for another unnecessary and inhumane war with sane Diplomacy and mentally healthy peacebuilding. Do we want it enough to regularly make the effort required to form alliances and organize political replacement? Because the Lab/Lib/Nats will just keep stringing us along with slightly mitigated genocidal imperialism, if we can't be bothered to replace them with better candidates and policies.