Below is an article I wrote and submitted for publication on P&I, which is now a little passe' - given the rate of changes taking place, along with the festival of hate over October 7th that made support for Hezbollah or Hamas a crime against humanity. I just publish it now for the record, as well as for the photos of the Resistance... ..................................................................... With some controversy about ‘pro-Palestine’ rallies on Sunday October 6th, and attempts to have them banned, I decided at short notice to go to Melbourne to pin my dissident flag to the mast. (a Syrian flag, not banned) Having completed my 10,000 steps as participant - flag in hand; observer - camera and phone in the other; and as journalist/interviewer, here are my reflections, written the following day, and appropriately enough on the occasion of the 'prison breakout' by the Palestinian resistance that enabled the State of Israel to launch its genocidal assault on Gaza. (while the commemoration of the "greatest loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust" overwhelms the media and public spaces) It's also oddly appropriate that yesterday was the 51st anniversary of the October 6th defeat of Israeli forces in Sinai, celebrated ever since in the Arab world, including in Cairo in 2011 when the October 6th bridge over the Nile became a scene of violent confrontations with government forces. While we were told these 'Arab Spring' protests were about food prices and the people's desire for democracy, they were also a show of anger at Egypt's long collaboration with Israel and the US under Hosni Mubarak. Twelve years later the split between Egypt's street and government is the same, as Egypt submits to US pressure over the Philadephia corridor and abandons the Palestinians dying in Gaza. It's as well to bear this in mind as 'Israel' goes into full-on rabid dog mode, nicely described by the ABC's veteran Jerusalem correspondent John Lyons this morning in an extraordinary interview from Beirut: I quote from a section of the interview with Patricia Karvelas on ABC RN from 2.45 to 4.45. where Lyons starts by noting that: ..." the big picture is quite extraordinary - we're on the eve of a possible full scale war between Iran and Israel, and at the moment, as Netanyahu says, they're fighting on seven fronts. Right now, in the last few days, Israel has been bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, Southern suburbs of Beirut, the centre of Beirut, the North of Lebanon, and the Beka'a valley, and I think it's a long time since we've seen something as dramatic as that - one country being at conflicts on so many different fronts. What is extraordinary is that - as he admits - Hezbollah has no air force or weapons to shoot down drones or missiles, so is as defenceless as the 'civilians' who are being killed by the hundreds, in this latest 'fighting'. It seems that the ABC and SBS will use any way to avoid naming the perpetrator and aggressor in this war for survival. We hear that 'massive explosions' took place overnight in Beirut, destroying large areas of housing and causing unknown casualties, yet neither Lyons nor Karvelas suggests that the perpetrator be stopped and punished. The discussion veers into Alice's Wonderland with this: PK:. The UN refugee chief claims some airstrikes on Lebanon have violated international law, - what do we know? JL: Look, I'm not an expert on what exactly he's referring to, but..there are drones flying over Beirut all day and night, using AI and facial recognition to find Hezbollah leaders, and if they spot one they hit a missile, they kill the person. Beirut is one of the most densely populated places on earth, and so when you use these methods in densely populated areas you know there will be a lot of civilian casualties, and there are a lot of casualties - but I'm not in a position to judge if this is a violation of international law, and that's a judgement for international lawyers. PK - Absolutely, and we will pursue that because it is a claim being made. I have transcribed this as it nicely summarises the extreme disjunction between our media's focus on the current affair, and what must be the experience of many hundreds of thousands, even millions of Australians. We have watched with horror what Israel has done to Gaza, almost every day for the last year, and continues to do with increasing ferocity and sadism, and our anger and disgust is unassuaged. Melbourne friends of Palestine have organised rallies every week for the last year, including perhaps the largest one yesterday, but nothing changes - the killing goes on, the torture and maiming of children goes on, and the necessary support with missiles and propaganda goes on undiminished. Even as the protestors call for justice and peace, and an end to racism and apartheid and hate, we are abused and restricted and banned from speaking the truth. Just waving a portrait of the martyred hero of the Resistance, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah is forbidden, while those who collaborated and now celebrate Israel's most criminal assassination since the killing of Qasem Soleimani are free to spread their hate and lies about this great and respected leader, for whom days of mourning were held in numerous countries. Around the world - the 'rest of the world' not in hock to the 'Empire of Lies' - there is incandescent rage at what 'Israel' has done to Gaza, and at the Western powers and facilitators who have collaborated in the destruction of Palestine, and who now turn aside as the rogue regime turns its demonic focus and its two-tonne bunker-busters onto Lebanon. So tricked and deluded are we - or so careless - that the fact that Lebanon is a sovereign state not occupied by the Zionist regime seems to have gone unnoticed. And now a whole population of over a million ordinary Lebanese civilians have been forced from their homes and land by 'evacuation orders' sent to their phones by a foreign government. And Australia's response to this criminal attack by Israel on Lebanon's civilian population and infrastructure, that no sane and reasonable person could not consider a gross crime against humanity? Demand that 'Israel' immediately stop bombing? Immediately end military collaboration and assistance? No, none of that - so consequently we now have another 'refugee crisis' that is a direct consequence of our failure to condemn and prevent 'Israel's' wilful escalation of its campaign for 'lebensraum'. Instead of saying "I'm not an expert", or deferring to some authority to advise whether blowing up pagers in people's faces is against international law, these commentators should be asking why it is not and demanding that it should be. As has already been noted, no-one would be having this discussion had Iran executed a similar operation against leaders of the IOF. The last word for now however goes to those who stood up at the rally, not just for Palestine but for all the countries of the Resistance, showing flags of Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, along with plain yellow for Hezbollah and plain green for Hamas, and one for the PFLP. Uniting them all was one brave girl with a message for a TV crew, whose antagonistic focus was on this group of Resistance flag wavers:
This young woman had an interesting story as well as a powerful message, displaying one of the symbols of resistance not yet prohibited in Australia - the red triangle used by Hamas fighters to mark targets in Gaza:
Her personal story of resistance was that of her great grandparents, who were forced from their home in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in the mid-1800s to make way for sheep, and who made the long and dangerous journey to Australia. Now in Australia we have both refugees and sheep, the latter in both senses of the word.
DM 10 October 2024