Category: Middle East

How to Make Refugees

20/02/2019

If the conditions within a country are so terrible as to force their civilian population to flee and seek refuge elsewhere, then we should be doing everything that we can to alleviate their suffering, and everything we can to deescalate whatever tensions sparked such conditions. One country in particular, where the conditions are incredibly abhorrent, receives relatively little coverage – Yemen. But instead of a humanitarian approach to such a devastating situation, the “West” has been directly and indirectly responsible for the suffering of millions since 2015. Australia, usually a bystander unless in coalition with US interests, is now about to actively participate in this suffering.

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Quick Quips: (Literally) Bloody Hell

16/02/2019

I have been slack and haven’t posted in a couple of days – I am still ahead on my goal to reach 365 posts this year, but I’ll admit I was having a bit much fun testing out my new laptop’s capabilities and didn’t get around to writing much. But while I’ve been quiet, the world sure has not been. Neither has our government here in Australia, despite the fact they are so inept they can’t even do their job.

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Calling Out AIPAC and Israel Is Not Anti-Semitic

12/02/2019

The notion that legitimate criticism of a lobbyist group and of Israel’s government is somehow anti-Semitic is absurd. Both the Democrats and the Republicans in the US, however, firmly believe this is the case, as does Israel. So much so that they have introduced laws in defence of Israel that actually restrict the actions of states to participate in any kind of boycott of Israel, laws that stifle freedoms in the land of the free.

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Lenin and the Russian Revolution: A Reflection Pt.2

06/02/2019

Nationalism and Imperialism

In part 1, I talked about the possibility of a socialist revolution taking place today. The chances are quite small in my view, and one of the reasons for that is the ideological divides and how people perceive different –isms. In this piece, I just want to touch on nationalism and imperialism, with reference to ideas of Lenin’s quoted in Christopher Hill’s Lenin and the Russian Revolution.

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Media Scuffle Among Gulf States

03/02/2019

I spent a fair bit of today either out and about or with a migraine, so another late upload now I’ve gotten to it. I saw an article by Al Jazeera earlier about the Asian Cup, and while I’m not a sporting fan it’s a simple example to explain briefly the bias of media due to ownership and politics.

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Australia Recognises Guaido

28/01/2019

A small update to my piece yesterday about foreign leaders declaring who they recognise as the head of state in another country. Australia, tragically but predictably, has followed in step with the US in backing the long anticipated coup in Venezuela.

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Quick Quips: What a Week

08/01/2019

Because it’s fun and allows me to comment on things that might be of interest but do not warrant their own post, the ‘quick quips’ is something I intend to become a weekly thing (I know the “New Year” one came out a couple days before the 1st, but we can overlook that). I realise some of the ‘quips’ are not exactly ‘quick’, but compared to the usual post size they are. So hopefully every Tuesday a post like this will go up, a compilation of things that happened throughout the previous week.

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Zionism: A Quick Observation

25/11/2018

My current read is a book I have borrowed from my granddad, One Palestine, Complete, by Tom Segev about Palestine under the British mandate (from the end of WW1 to the creation of the modern state of Israel). I am only a few chapters in, but there appear to be a few contradictions, both from the author and in a broader sense, in the ideology behind the Zionist movement.

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The Silver Lining in the Khashoggi Murder

2/11/2018

Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on 2nd October in what Saudi Arabia deemed a ‘rogue operation’. The Saudi Arabian officials have changed their story about what happened inside the building, first stating that he had walked out alive, then admitting he was murdered. Each new story is complemented by fresh denials of any Saudi involvement in his death – a claim that the international community has trouble believing.

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Policy for Votes: Wentworth By-election

16/10/2018

Today Scott Morrison announced that Australia would be looking into the prospect of recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a foreign policy stance that no one in the Coalition had previously held. Israel considers Jerusalem as its unequivocal capital, recognised only by a few countries, namely the United States. The UN and International Law do not recognise Israel’s claim, having given Jerusalem a special status. The government’s shift in this issue has occurred in the lead up to the Wentworth by-election, an election taking place after the latest leadership change in the LNP and Turnbull’s resignation as MP.

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