If until recently – in the minds of Jewish-Israelis – Palestinians found themselves inheriting the Nazi legacy and perhaps just competing with it, the last twenty years or so have changed their positioning on the hate ladder. In their ambition to have it all – land and domination from the Sea to the River – Israeli institutions, law, and policies went too far with their disciplinary and violent logic against Palestinians, to the point that it makes sense today, for a well-trained Jewish-Israeli, to conceive the ‘Palestinian threat’ as not any less ominous than the Nazi regime was.

‘Students,’ Pyne warned, ‘have been targeted physically and verbally just because they are Jewish.’ It’s no small thing for the Education Minister to publicly identify the universities within his portfolio as seedbeds of racialised violence. You’d think that, to justify such an extraordinary allegation, there’d be some – oh, I don’t know – evidence.

All media is social media. That’s the first point I think needs emphasised. We have had this term ‘media’ since the mid-twentieth century, and the term ‘medium’, in the sense of ‘an intervening or intermediate agency or substance’, since the sixteenth century.

Two months before he was assassinated, Malcolm X, in a speech at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in December 1964, spoke about the influence of the corporate media. Malcolm told his audience that the corporate media often worked in the service of those in power and sought to convince ordinary people not to fight on the side of the oppressed. ‘If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing,’ he said.

Republished with permission from Electronic Intifada and Kim Bullimore. In the largest show of support for the Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign so far in Australia, more than 350 persons marched on 29 July in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle – and in opposition to an attempt by Victorian Police to criminalise Palestine […]

On Friday 1 July, 19 pro-Palestinian activists, including me, were arrested in Melbourne’s CBD for opposing Max Brenner, a chocolate store that sends care packages to some of the most brutal sections of the Israeli army. The arrests show just how far defenders of Israel will go to silence dissent. Furthermore, police intimidating and violently […]

Below is an open letter to the Marrickville Council (via Antony Loewenstein) from prominent international academics, writers and artists who support the council’s BDS position. Marrickville Council is voting on the boycott again today. Dear Marrickvile councilors, We the undersigned would firstly like to congratulate the Marrickville Council in Sydney’s Inner West, Australia for their […]

Back in the day, it was considered desirable to offer arguments about people you had political disagreements with. You know, factually grounded premises, logically sound conclusions, that type of thing. However, if you produce content for Murdoch, there’s a much easier way to win arguments. Fabrication. Take the case of Joe Hildebrand. He’s a hilarious […]

I have an article up at Drum about the Melbourne International Film Festival and their cultural partner, the state of Israel. It begins: The Melbourne International Film Festival is receiving Liberty Victoria’s free speech award, the Voltaire award, for its “refusal to buckle in the face of intense pressure from a foreign government and a […]

(I should preface this post with a disclosure: I’m a long-time Melbourne International Film Festival [MIFF] attendee, and am quite partial to cinema.) This week we learned that Richard Moore’s position as executive director of the Melbourne International Film Festival will not be renewed. Finally, I thought, there is some kind of justice in Melbourne. […]