19November 201209:55 am
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Most media has in the western world has tended to provide a fairly blinkered view of the Israel - Palestine issue. The media, generally, and the left, broadly, tends to fall in behind a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli view of the ongoing conflict. There are all kinds of reasons for this - in my view it is largely a factor of the anti-Americanism of the left which sees Israel as a US-proxy or vice versa. But that is not the point of this blogpost.
Rather my point is that because of this jaundiced coverage, the conflict that erupted last week has surprised many people. It seemed to come out of the blue. However, in reality the provocation from Hamas in Gaza has been extreme and prolonged.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 - pulling out its troops and thousands of settlers from Gaza and some other Palestinian areas - it was a significant gesture towards peace. In Gaza the Palestinian people were given the opportunity to build a peaceful future and, by example, point towards a future two-state solution. Despite being supported by Israel in many ways - including the supply of health, education and other resources - the people of Gaza saw militant factions (including Hamas which later won an election to rule Gaza) refuse to adopt a peaceful future.
Instead, the reward they gave Israel was rockets fired indiscriminately from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas. This led to hostilities in late 2008 and early 2009. But since then the attacks from Gaza have continued - more than 8000 rockets have been fired, with 60 innocent Israelis killed, dozens injured and, of course, hundreds of thousands forced to live in fear. Casualties would have been much higher were it not for Israel’s extraordinary defence mechanisms to intercept rockets and emergency procedures to get citizens quickly into bomb shelters.
These rocket attacks - terror attacks - have continued this year with increasingly sophisticated and longer-range missiles smuggled into Gaza from Syria and Iran. More than 800 had been fired this year, prior to last week’s escalation. It was against this tragic history that Israel decided to act last week and take out the Hamas military leader Ahmed Al-Jabari. The result is yet another conflict over Gaza, with Israeli air raids trying to eliminate Hamas’s capabilities and Hamas now launching rockets as far north as Tel Aviv and even the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Innocent people have and will be hurt on both sides. The critical difference is that Israeli weapons are trained on Hamas militants, whereas the Hamas rockets are fired indiscriminately at civilian areas. This is a complex problem that probably won’t be resolved in our lifetime, especially while extremists seek to perpetuate it as the irritant to fuel their wider aims. But to begin any road to peace, the innocent people of Gaza need to have a leadership that will simply stop the firing of rockets into Israel.
On Saturday Agenda this week Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem, joined me to discuss this issue. In the second half of the program regulat political panellists Matt Thistlethwaite and Mathias Cormann joinmed me to discuss domestic politics.
13November 201211:27 am
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This quick blog update is really to share with you the exchange I had with former Labor leader Mark Latham on the SkyNews program Paul Murray Live last night. When the panel discussion turned to the Australian Workers Union/Slater and Gordon affair, Latham got very agitated and turned nasty.
In my view the reporting here at The Australian, and now also at The Age and Latham’s own newspaper the Financial Review, has unearthed concerning information about Julia Gillard’s involvement in the affair and what she did about it. There are many questions and side issues to be followed up but to me the central question is - after she became aware of suspect practices to such an extent that she ended her relationship both with her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson, and her dealings with her partners at the law firm broke down to such an extent that she resigned – why did she not report to the AWU or the police, the existence of the “slush fund” she had helped to establish.
Anyway, as you will see, Latham’s response is to level personal abuse at me and suggest that I am part of some wicked conspiracy to undermine the Prime Minister. Given I have written one column on the matter, this would seem a big stretch. I told Latham afterwards that the tactics he employed against me were unlikely to convince the public about the merits of his argument. And crucially, his defence that Ms Gillard could not have been expected to take any action because it would be “dobbing in” her boyfriend, would not seem to be a helpful explanation.
So here is the clip. Let me know your thoughts.
11November 201212:30 pm
In yesterday’s Saturday Agenda program we kicked off with two political opponents who have managed to strike up a friendship across the divide. Labor’s Ed Husic (a Muslim MP from Sydney who supports NRL’s Parramatta Eels) and Liberal Josh Frydenberg (a Jewish MP from Melbourne who supports AFL team Carlton) are both up an comers who we can expect to take on senior roles in their parties in years to come.
In the second half of the program I was joined by regular panellists Sunday Telegrapah national political editor, Samantha Maiden, and authorm and columnist, Cassandra Wilkinson.
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