There is what is called a ‘war’ in the Middle East. Israel is one party. The legal status of its opponents has not been identified to me. Nor have I seen any ‘rules’ for a war between one nation and people who are identified merely by their occupying a neighbouring territory.
In fact, the hostility between Jewish people and Muslims in the area in and around what used to be called the Holy Land has been going on for very many centuries. One war last century led to Gaza becoming occupied territory. I do not know what legal standing it has.
What we do know is that a group known as Hamas, which claims to represent the people of the land called Gaza, launched a brutal attack on Israel, and that Israel, as was both expected and intended by Hamas, responded. The war is still going after nearly two years. There is now another front in Lebanon, and Iran felt obliged to surface openly in the conflict.
Some, including some high in the government of Israel, say that Israel started a war without knowing how to finish it. That appears to be mandatory in that part of the world. And we all know about a ‘war on terror’ or a war on a nation holding ‘weapons of mass destruction.’
Most outsiders would say that Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ group. But you may wish to draw the line at saying that any people who employ terror to achieve rights on land occupied by others are ‘terrorists’. That would catch the founders of the United States, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the nation of Israel. (And of course England for about eight hundred years in Ireland.) You can make up your own mind about those called the ‘settlers’.
It is certainly the case that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel – for whatever that threat may be worth in fact. But it also looks to be the case that Israel has prevented the nation of Palestine being born – with, it must be said, a lot of help from those claiming to represent the people of Palestine. (A friend of mine says that the leaders of Palestine never miss a chance to miss a chance.) They may be more fractious than those claiming to stand for the people of Israel. (And that is a very large statement.)
People in Australia will take sides if they are connected by blood or faith to the combatants in this war overseas. And their inclination or bias will be quickly apparent, and almost certainly not throw any light or warmth on what is on any view a colossal human tragedy.
Most of the rest of us just want to keep our mouths shut and do what we can to stay neutral. What we certainly want to avoid is bringing conflict into Australia that arises from a conflict on the other side of the world with which we as a nation have no apparent connection.
I am not sure how the numbers between Jews and Muslims add up here now, and the war in Gaza will have consequences. But there is no doubt about the power of the Israeli lobby in this country. And their apparent capacity to commandeer the local Establishment, at least with the parties of the Coalition, does not command universal assent.
Prejudiced commentators show bias in deciding how far back we should go in order to understand this war. Some start at the most recent attack by Hamas. Some with the birth of Israel.
In truth, this whole area has been a hot spot since the time of Moses. Jonathan Sumption disposed of the first fallacy as follows.
One is the idea that this story began with the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023; the other is that any attack on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is anti-Semitic. A fortnight after the attack, António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, pointed out in the Security Council that it “did not happen in a vacuum”. It followed 56 years in which the Palestinians in Gaza had suffered “suffocating occupation… their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes demolished.” He was expressing the self-evident truth that if you persistently treat people like that, hatred, violence and terrorism will eventually be the response. The Israeli ambassador objected to his attempt to “understand” terrorism and demanded his resignation on the ground that his words were an anti-Semitic blood libel. This neatly encapsulated both falsehoods.
In my view, the only place to start is with the first books of the bible – that each of the three main faiths gives some heed to.
Those books stand for the following propositions. There is only one God. But there are many tribes or peoples. Those tribes or peoples are all different and in no way equal. God has a favourite tribe. It is therefore in order for some people to be better off than others, just because Providence has raised their tribe above others. God has promised land to his favourite tribe or people. And authorised them to kill women and children who get in the way. One example of that authority is set out below. People outside of God’s protection – beyond the Pale, if you prefer – could choose between forced labour and death. Then there is one example of the exercise of that authority. According to the Bible, with the help of God, the Israelites killed 12,000 men, women and children in one day at the town of Ai – because they had chosen to live on the Promised Land.
Ever since then, that land has seen similar acts of brutality. They have seen the worst kind of wars – those where each side is convinced, or at least persuaded, that it has God on its side. Warriors claiming to be Muslims sought conquest by the sword. So did Crusaders claiming to be Christians. They got prepared to massacre Muslims by massacring Jews on their way to the Holy Sepulchre. Such has been the horror and destruction wrought in the name of religion in the Holy Land.
To return to the present, the current casualty rate in the war is running at about twenty to one. There are tens of thousands of Australians who have an interest in the conflict on either side. Anyone claiming that one side is blameless is blind. Anyone claiming the right to give an objective judgment is deluded.
So, the only course for our government is one of neutrality. That is, I think, the course followed by the relevant minister, who is so much ahead of her colleagues, it is embarrassing.
But it was not the course followed by the Opposition. It looks to have put votes before principle and the national interest. It has done this before. It is ironic that the Opposition supports the claims on one side in the Middle East that go back a few thousand years, but wiped off like a dirty bum the claims of peoples here that go back sixty thousand years.
I have no idea what the answer may be. But it seems clear that decent people on both sides will bear the scars of this tragedy for ever.
The various emanations of God behind this vast human tragedy are, we are told by people on all sides, omnipotent and eternal.
The War in the Middle East
There is what is called a ‘war’ in the Middle East. Israel is one party. The legal status of its opponents has not been identified to me. Nor have I seen any ‘rules’ for a war between one nation and people who are identified merely by their occupying a neighbouring territory.
In fact, the hostility between Jewish people and Muslims in the area in and around what used to be called the Holy Land has been going on for very many centuries. One war last century led to Gaza becoming occupied territory. I do not know what legal standing it has.
What we do know is that a group known as Hamas, which claims to represent the people of the land called Gaza, launched a brutal attack on Israel, and that Israel, as was both expected and intended by Hamas, responded. The war is still going after nearly two years. There is now another front in Lebanon, and Iran felt obliged to surface openly in the conflict.
Some, including some high in the government of Israel, say that Israel started a war without knowing how to finish it. That appears to be mandatory in that part of the world. And we all know about a ‘war on terror’ or a war on a nation holding ‘weapons of mass destruction.’
Most outsiders would say that Hamas is a ‘terrorist’ group. But you may wish to draw the line at saying that any people who employ terror to achieve rights on land occupied by others are ‘terrorists’. That would catch the founders of the United States, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the nation of Israel. (And of course England for about eight hundred years in Ireland.) You can make up your own mind about those called the ‘settlers’.
It is certainly the case that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel – for whatever that threat may be worth in fact. But it also looks to be the case that Israel has prevented the nation of Palestine being born – with, it must be said, a lot of help from those claiming to represent the people of Palestine. (A friend of mine says that the leaders of Palestine never miss a chance to miss a chance.) They may be more fractious than those claiming to stand for the people of Israel. (And that is a very large statement.)
People in Australia will take sides if they are connected by blood or faith to the combatants in this war overseas. And their inclination or bias will be quickly apparent, and almost certainly not throw any light or warmth on what is on any view a colossal human tragedy.
Most of the rest of us just want to keep our mouths shut and do what we can to stay neutral. What we certainly want to avoid is bringing conflict into Australia that arises from a conflict on the other side of the world with which we as a nation have no apparent connection.
I am not sure how the numbers between Jews and Muslims add up here now, and the war in Gaza will have consequences. But there is no doubt about the power of the Israeli lobby in this country. And their apparent capacity to commandeer the local Establishment, at least with the parties of the Coalition, does not command universal assent.
Prejudiced commentators show bias in deciding how far back we should go in order to understand this war. Some start at the most recent attack by Hamas. Some with the birth of Israel.
In truth, this whole area has been a hot spot since the time of Moses. Jonathan Sumption disposed of the first fallacy as follows.
One is the idea that this story began with the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023; the other is that any attack on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is anti-Semitic. A fortnight after the attack, António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, pointed out in the Security Council that it “did not happen in a vacuum”. It followed 56 years in which the Palestinians in Gaza had suffered “suffocating occupation… their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes demolished.” He was expressing the self-evident truth that if you persistently treat people like that, hatred, violence and terrorism will eventually be the response. The Israeli ambassador objected to his attempt to “understand” terrorism and demanded his resignation on the ground that his words were an anti-Semitic blood libel. This neatly encapsulated both falsehoods.
In my view, the only place to start is with the first books of the bible – that each of the three main faiths gives some heed to.
Those books stand for the following propositions. There is only one God. But there are many tribes or peoples. Those tribes or peoples are all different and in no way equal. God has a favourite tribe. It is therefore in order for some people to be better off than others, just because Providence has raised their tribe above others. God has promised land to his favourite tribe or people. And authorised them to kill women and children who get in the way. One example of that authority is set out below. People outside of God’s protection – beyond the Pale, if you prefer – could choose between forced labour and death. Then there is one example of the exercise of that authority. According to the Bible, with the help of God, the Israelites killed 12,000 men, women and children in one day at the town of Ai – because they had chosen to live on the Promised Land.
Ever since then, that land has seen similar acts of brutality. They have seen the worst kind of wars – those where each side is convinced, or at least persuaded, that it has God on its side. Warriors claiming to be Muslims sought conquest by the sword. So did Crusaders claiming to be Christians. They got prepared to massacre Muslims by massacring Jews on their way to the Holy Sepulchre. Such has been the horror and destruction wrought in the name of religion in the Holy Land.
To return to the present, the current casualty rate in the war is running at about twenty to one. There are tens of thousands of Australians who have an interest in the conflict on either side. Anyone claiming that one side is blameless is blind. Anyone claiming the right to give an objective judgment is deluded.
So, the only course for our government is one of neutrality. That is, I think, the course followed by the relevant minister, who is so much ahead of her colleagues, it is embarrassing.
But it was not the course followed by the Opposition. It looks to have put votes before principle and the national interest. It has done this before. It is ironic that the Opposition supports the claims on one side in the Middle East that go back a few thousand years, but wiped off like a dirty bum the claims of peoples here that go back sixty thousand years.
I have no idea what the answer may be. But it seems clear that decent people on both sides will bear the scars of this tragedy for ever.
The various emanations of God behind this vast human tragedy are, we are told by people on all sides, omnipotent and eternal.
With Compliments 