The children of the stones
have scattered our papers
spilled ink on our clothes
mocked the banality of old texts…
Fact: There are 15 million native Palestinians, 8 million are refugees or displaced people who do not have the right to return home (2/3rd of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are refugees).
Why is it so shocking that the people of Gaza have rockets? My Palestinian friend says: “They have been locked up and treated like animals by Israelis for 15 years. It is little wonder they have so much hatred.” Much to the chagrin of the leaders of the Western world, the people of Gaza now have rockets that are more effective. They can blow up Israeli tanks. Still, the Israelis have nuclear weapons. This evening, in response to Western leaders lighting up their Opera houses and bridges with the Israeli colours, a small band of people in Meanjin (Brisbane) dropped the Palestinian flag from the Goodwill bridge showing our support for the people of Gaza and the occupied territories.
As one man from Gaza told me on the bridge, ‘life for people (in my city) is a lottery at the moment.‘ Life or death as the bombs rain down on the people of Palestine. As the solidarity supporters dropped the Palestinian flag from the Goodwill Bridge it took me back to the American war in Vietnam and student support for the National Liberation Front in that country. As I filmed this clip a woman behind me expressed her disgust that we would fly the Palestinian flag:, “Absolutley terrible, you are supporting terrorists.” she said as the people got on the ferry beside us, as if seeking support from the passengers and crew. “People should be condemning the Israeli occupation” Alex beside me said. “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves“, I chimed in. “Not to murder” was the woman’s retort as she got on the ferry. Turning around, I noticed that there was another woman behind using her mobile phone to takea shot of the back of my T-shirt which read “Free Palestine.” She was lining up my T-shirt with the unfolding Palestinian flag waving in the wind up on the bridge in the distance. She told me that she liked my T-shirt. Unlike the woman before, she did not conflate my support for the Palestinian people with so called ‘terrorists’.
It turned out she and her partner were from Iran. The man said that the autocrats that ruled Iran were like Hamas and that the people in Iran wanted to get rid of them. I later told my friend from Gaza about the woman on the ferry saying that we were supporting murderers. He replied that: “Hamas makes it difficult for what we are doing”, meaning giving solidarity to the Palestinian people suffering under the horrendous Israeli bombing: ‘the lottery’ as he put it.
Meawhile, the Liberal National Party Mayor of Brisbane and graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, Adrian Schrinner, ordered that the Storey Bridge be lit up with Israeli colours: “Brisbane’s thoughts and prayers are with Israel”, he said. He was not alone. State and federal leaders chimed in. The government of New South Wales ordered the Sydney Opera house be lit white and blue. So too was the Australian parliament as was Flinders Street station in Melbourne.
By flying the Palestinian flag, it was as if we were back in the American war in Vietnam where flying the Palestinian flag is an act of rebellion, of treason even. All the news media including the ABC came out against people protesting governments’ response of lighting up monuments and buildings with the colours of the occupation of Palestine.
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies weighed into the debate: “NSW Police and Community Security Group (CSG) are urging the community not to attend the Sydney Opera House precinct or Town Hall this evening (9 October).”
Twitter, as usual, is full of vitriol and hate, reflecting the same emotions that people are having over the “the Voice” referendum. The settler state is never far away either here, nor is the setller violence far away in Israel. The federal parliament has come up with its own two-state solution here in Australia as the UN did in Palestine. Only in both countries, one side has all the guns and all the money. So polarised is the debate is that voting ‘Yes’ for such a modest proposal of recognition of the rights of aboriginal people or Palestinians has become an act of rebellion. As in Australia the lands of the Palestinians have been shrinking since 1948. Once was Palestine has now become Israel. Netanyahu held up map in the United Nations that declared the entire area is Israel. Now Israeli forces are bombing into oblivion the small vestige left in Gaza. A prison for about 2.3 million people living in only 141 square miles, a tiny strip.
The Israeli government with the support of the Australian government and the United States have done their level best to make sure the Palestinian flag does not fly in Tel Aviv. The same could be said of efforts to prevent the national liberation flag of Vietnam from flying in Saigon. Yet it did.
Ian Curr
10 October 2023
The children of the stones
have scattered our papers
spilled ink on our clothes
mocked the banality of old texts…
O Children of Gaza
Don’t mind our broadcasts
Don’t listen to us
We are the people of cold calculation
Of addition, of subtraction
Wage your wars and leave us alone
We are dead and tombless
Orphans with no eyes.
Children of Gaza
Don’t refer to our writings
Don’t be like us.
We are your idols
Don’t worship us.
O mad people of Gaza,
A thousand greetings to the mad
The age of political reason has long departed
So teach us madness…
Its all Al Grassby & Malcom Frasers fault
Dear The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Mr Schrinner,
On behalf of the organisation ‘The Big Ride for Palestine-Australia’ which, since 2017 has conducted an annual event that raises funds supporting Palestinian welfare programs in refugee camps and in the West Bank, we are writing to express our concerns about an issue for supporters of Palestine in Brisbane.
The issue is the decision of the Brisbane City Council to light up the Story Bridge in the Israeli flag colours due to the latest events that are still unfolding in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
As long-term residents of Brisbane, we find this disheartening.
Not because the council decided to sympathise with civilians who were killed or injured in a war. Many of our own supporters agreed with the council’s decision to light the Story Bridge in the Ukrainian flag colours in solidarity with the Ukrainian people after the invasion of Ukraine.
However, we are extremely disappointed because this decision seems particularly one-sided in a complex conflict where, over the past several years, approximately 5,000 Palestinian civilians and children have been killed by Israeli occupation forces. We note that in that time, Israel continues to defy UN resolutions on resolving the conflict peacefully and has, on a daily basis, unleased deadly force in a very uneven array of forces.
In stark contrast, when Israel launched major attacks on Palestinian people in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2023, killing civilians and a large number of children no memorial nor any consideration was given to this tragedy by the Brisbane City Council.
This makes us feel that Brisbane does not care about Palestinian people as they have cared about others.
To make things right, I believe that the Brisbane City Council should take at least one or both of the following steps:
a) Apologise to Brisbane’s Palestinian community for lighting the Story Bridge in the Israeli flag colours, and;
b) Light up the bridge in the Palestinian flag colours (Red, Green, White & Black) for the many hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the latest clashes.
We urge you to take action to address this issue.
We are available to discuss this further and provide any additional information that may be needed.
Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Curr and Lachlan Hurse
The Big Ride for Palestine (Australia)
Mob: 0407687016
Email: thebigrideaustralia@outlook.com
The incursion by Hamas into Israel yesterday has shocked everyone including Palestinians.
When seen in isolation, it is an attack on civilians in the early hours of the morning, that has drawn the international condemnation it has.
However, when seen in context of the history in Palestine, it doesn’t weigh up to the amount of suffrage the Palestinian people has been enduring for the past 75 years.
Gaza has 2.1 million residents, out of which are 1.7 million are descendants of the refugees that fled from the neighbouring villages to the Gaza strip during the Nakba, and have been living in refugee camps since 1948. The areas that Hamas broke into was their old land, where settlements were built on top of the villages their grandfathers once lived at.
Since its existence, Israel has dealt with indigenous Palestinians as a “Security Problem”, resolved by heavy military measures, including blockades, army check points, aerial bombardment, imprisonment without trial…etc, and has accordingly reduced the quality of life of Palestinians to a bare minimum.
The Gaza strip is a 20 X 7 km rectangle which is under blockade from Israel, without a sea port, nor an airport. Israel controls the commodities entering Gaza as well the water sources, and the electricity into Gaza, both of subhuman quality, effectively treating Gazans as animals in a barn.
This tight blockade has been ongoing for the past 15 years, with at least 5 major wars against Palestinians, killing at least 5,000 Palestinian civilians, and destroying hundreds of homes. This has resulted in 93% of Gaza’s population with PTSD, and 50% unemployment, including 75% of youth unemployment.
Knowing the context always helps!
Photo: a timeline of Israel’s land grabbing, and ethnic cleansing progression since 1948
A friend emailed me about a missing friend of hers likely captured by Hamas. Another friend called me from Rafah to report that his cousin, her husband, and their children were all killed when Israel bombed their residential building. There was another bombing in which 17 members of one family (Shayeb) were wiped out. A missile at a crowded market place killed 50.
The stories keep flowing. This latest sad escalation of violence has already left 800 Israelis and 600 Palestinians dead SO FAR. These are not numbers they are people.
The past 24 hours saw Israeli planes intensify their bombing of population centers. As in previous rounds of uptick in violence, the number of Palestinains killed (mostly civilians) will be many fold more than Israelis (and statements of wrath are too chilling).
There will be a difference this time: Fuel, food, water, and medicine to the entire population of Gaza was halted by the occupation army (previously they were kept at a minimum to keep people alive but the economy devastated). Thus, this time people will start dying from lack of food or medicine. Gaza hospitals are running out of fuel to power their emergency generators. No matter your opinion of Hamas or Islamic Jihad or of Israeli apartheid system, civilians cannot be allowed to suffer like this.
Here is the contact information of the person in the ministry of health if there is anyone on this list who can help with the issue of hospitals: Dr. Marwan Abu Sada, Director General, International Cooperation & Projects General
Directorate, Ministry of Health, Mobile (Jawwal): +972 59-997-7704 Mobile
(Ooredoo): +972 56-733-3308 Office: +972 8-282-6325
Israeli “Defense” Minister Yoav Gallant said bluntly: “I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed.
We are fighting HUMAN ANIMALS and we act accordingly.” [When we hear such language, does it remind us of previous episodes in history. Warsaw ghetto uprsiing? Sioux wars? Already the colonizer army is bombing many residential buildings, killed >50 shoppers in a market, and over 80 Palestinian children killed so far. It is as promised, the tip of the iceberg.
Sadly even the hostages/prisoners held by Hamas are impacted and Israeli bombing in Gaza killed 4 Israeli captives plus their captors. Now Israel is also using white phosphorous (chemical weapons) in residential areas and is openly saying the war is against the entire population of Gaza].
Mazin
10 Oct 2023
King George Square
13 Oct 2023
6pm
Israel has declared war on Gaza.
Israel is launching a full scale war on Palestine for the humiliation it suffered this weekend when Palestinians tore down apartheid walls at a Gaza border, and began to enter ’48 land that is rightfully theirs.
This comes in the context of the deadliest year ever for Palestinians with Israel electing its most right-wing government ever, which includes openly fascists settlers. There were 3 Israeli attacks on Palestinians per day for the first 8 months of 2023. Israeli settlers only recently stormed Al Aqsa mosque.
It is the responsibility of everyone who stands for justice, freedom, against apartheid, colonialism and imperialism to stand up for Palestine.
End Israeli apartheid, the occupation, the siege on Gaza. We demand Australia cuts ties with Israel.
Organised by Brisbane Stands With Palestine
In view of the unfolding catastrophe in Palestine I have decided to cancel our vigils for the remainder of 2023. The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have given “unequivocal” and immediate support of the Israeli side of the war. Our support of the human rights of Palestinians living in Gaza and the occupied territories may be misconstrued as support solely of Hamas. Just Peace for Palestine is a sub-group of Just Peace QLD and therefore abhors the use of aggressive wars to resolve conflict.
You are aware of the appalling humanitarian conditions under which Palestinians are living; circumstances created and maintained by the government of Israel for the past 75 years. In the days and weeks to come, as Israel seeks revenge with unimaginable ferocity, it is certain that these living conditions will deteriorate even further, if that is possible. We fervently hope that the war will stop before that time comes.
Otherwise, I am not sure what will remain of Palestine to support.
In the meantime, you can support the people of Gaza for example through the organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians
(https://www.map.org.uk/news/archive/post/1521-map-launches-gaza-emergency-response-amid-rapidly-escalating-violence). In addition, UNWRA, which operates in Gaza and the occupied territories, has detailed updates and means for donations (UNRWA Situation Report # 1 on the situation in the Gaza Strip | UNRWA.
I will contact you further if circumstances change.
In solidarity, Vikki Henry, Co-Convener, Just Peace for Palestine.
—
Just Peace Queensland. justpeaceqld.org.au
PO Box 573 Coorparoo, QLD, 4151