Thursday 19th of June 2025
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speaking up in a time marked by lies, scrutiny and risks.....

Over the past 18 months, it has become harder and harder to speak publicly in this country if you are Muslim, brown, and pro-Palestinian.

For people like me, who not only want to speak up, but need to, it has been a time marked by isolation, scrutiny and risk. Risk to our reputations. Risk to our livelihoods. And risk to our place in a country that insists on calling itself democratic, while punishing those who dare name a genocide for what it is.

 

Ghaith Krayem

The cost of conscience in post-October 7 Australia

 

It’s not just anecdotal. The evidence is out there on the internet, in the media and in our institutions. Look at the silencing of academics, the blacklisting of creatives, the suspension and intimidation of health professionals and the arrests of activists who dared express solidarity with Palestinians. These are not isolated cases. They are part of a deliberate, systematic campaign to silence dissent. And let’s be honest, this campaign is racialised. The message is clear, if you are visibly Muslim, politically brown, or ethnically Arab, your voice is not welcome unless it conforms.

What makes it worse is that this is all happening while Gaza is being reduced to rubble. Well more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed. Entire families have been wiped out. Hospitals, schools, and places of worship have been bombed. Aid has been blocked and now they are being starved to death. And yet, the Australian Government continues to walk the tightrope of “neutrality”, afraid to name the perpetrator or take meaningful action. This facade of objectivity has worn so thin, it’s transparent. Neutrality in the face of genocide is not virtue. It’s complicity.

Even the language of human rights, once invoked proudly by our leaders, now rings hollow. What does it mean to champion human rights while ignoring war crimes broadcast in real-time? What does it mean when our government insists it upholds international law, yet fails to hold Israel accountable, despite the warnings of the UN, the ICJ, and countless human rights organisations? For many of us, the dissonance is more than political, it’s existential. We are told to trust systems that continue to betray us.

And yet, when we raise these truths, we are told that we are the problem. That we are causing division. That we are making others “feel unsafe". It’s a cruel irony that the very people who have seen their communities devastated, their colleagues targeted, their art censored and their careers threatened, are the ones accused of making others uncomfortable.

Let me be clear, the people who have felt truly unsafe over the last 18 months are not those upset by a keffiyeh or a protest poster. They are those whose names are quietly dropped from speaking invitations. Whose job applications go nowhere. Whose contracts are inexplicably ended. Whose inboxes are flooded with threats and hate. Whose professional affiliations are questioned and who are asked, time and again, to prove their civility, their neutrality, their “balance". All for having dared to say that Palestinians deserve to live.

This goes beyond hurt feelings. It’s about who gets to participate in public life. Who gets to be heard. And who gets erased. As a community, we are being asked to trade in our moral clarity for social acceptance. To prioritise a shallow version of “cohesion” over justice. But we can’t. And we won’t.

Because real social cohesion cannot be built on silence. It cannot be built on the suppression of moral outrage. And it certainly cannot be built by demanding marginalised people ignore genocide for the sake of politeness. That’s not cohesion, it’s coercion. And it fractures the very relationships it claims to protect.

If we keep walking this path, where calling for justice is framed as extremism, and complicity is rewarded as moderation, we will face an even deeper rupture in our social fabric. Communities like mine are being pushed to the edges, asked to forgo our pain, our principles, and our voices, just to maintain the illusion that everything is okay. But everything is not okay.

And for many of us, the damage is already done. Trust has been broken. Faith in institutions, already fragile, has been further eroded. And the idea that there is a place for us in the so-called Australian mainstream now feels more conditional than ever.

Still, we speak. Not because it is safe, but because it is necessary. Because to be silent now would be to abandon not just the people of Gaza, but the integrity of our own communities. And because if we let this moment pass without speaking truth, we would have forfeited the future.

The real test for this country is not whether it can manage discomfort. It is whether it can make space for conscience.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/05/the-cost-of-conscience-in-post-october-7-australia/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

a deal....

Overnight, Hamas and U.S. officials reached a verbal “understanding” on the framework of a Gaza ceasefire, sources involved with the negotiations told Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill. 

Drop Site has been shown the full text of the document outlining the terms to which Hamas agreed. Some of these details have also been confirmed by sources interviewed by Al Jazeera and Al-Mayadeen. Scahill reports that the understanding was communicated to Hamas through Palestinian-American intermediary Bishara Bahbah in coordination with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. 

Hamas accepted the terms in the document and was told the U.S. believed the framework could work—pending Israeli approval. A senior source from Hamas told Scahill: "We have accepted the Witkoff proposal, 60 day temporary cease fire for releasing 10 living Israeli prisoners (5 at the beginning and 5 [at the end]), President Trump will personally announce the agreement."

But before the deal could advance, Israeli officials rushed to the media to kill it. Soon after, Witkoff publicly accused Hamas of misrepresenting the proposal—directly contradicting what sources told Drop Site had been agreed to in private discussions.

The negotiations are ongoing.

What Hamas Believed It Had Secured 

The 13-point document shown to Drop Site, based on Hamas’s direct talks with the U.S. through intermediary Bishara Bahbah, included the following: 

  • A 70-day ceasefire. 

  • The release of 10 living Israeli captives in two batches, half on the first day and the other on the last day. Hamas would also release the bodies of 16 deceased captives. Hamas said it needed a two-week window to locate all burial sites. 

  • A personal, public guarantee from Trump, committing to the ceasefire and the pull back of Israeli forces to their March 2 positions. 

  • The resumption of unrestricted aid, including food, fuel, medicine, housing materials and construction equipment. 

  • A cessation of all Israeli military operations, including surveillance activities. A cessation of all armed activities by Palestinian resistance groups. 

  • Witkoff would personally, as a guarantor, sign a ceasefire deal in Doha and shake hands with Hamas’s lead negotiator, Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya. 

  • Witkoff would head the U.S. delegation, which would also include Adam Boehler and Bahbah. 

  • Trump would publicly thank all parties, including Hamas, reaffirming his commitment to the ceasefire and a lasting resolution between Israel and Palestine. 

  • Upon signing of the ceasefire, an independent, technocratic committee of Palestinians would immediately take charge of Gaza’s governance, and reconstruction efforts would commence. 

  • The U.S. and regional mediators would guarantee continued ceasefire negotiations and aid entry after 70 days, until a permanent ceasefire is reached. 

  • As long as negotiations continue, the U.S. would remain committed to a ceasefire and facilitating aid entry until a permanent peace agreement is reached. 

Hamas initially proposed a 90-day ceasefire, then said it would accept a 70-day version to align with the U.S. position. Israel wanted a shorter window. Hamas subsequently told Scahill it had agreed to an intial 60 day truce. 

Sources told Drop Site that Qatar, particularly in the wake of Edan Alexander’s release, applied pressure on Trump to secure this agreement. As Drop Site previously reported, Witkoff promised Hamas that aid would resume to Gaza two days after Alexander’s release and Trump would call for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war. Neither of those happened. 

Trump, according to sources, has been telling regional leaders that he had given Israel two months to accomplish its objectives after Israel abandoned the January ceasefire deal, and now is the time to bring the war to an end.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/hamas-united-states-ceasefire-israel-rejects?

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

mauled by zionists.....

 

Albanese ramps up Gaza rhetoric as Zionist narrative erodes

by Emma Thomas

 

Anthony Albanese is finally outraged at Israel’s aid blockade, while the Zionist lobby is losing the argument in the NSW Parliament’s antisemitism inquiry. Emma Thomas with the story.

Right-wing Zionist groups, claiming to represent all Australian Jews, have attempted to control the narrative around antisemitism. Last week’s parliamentary hearing into antisemitism in NSW suggests they might be losing control.

Last Monday’s hearing began with David Ossip of the NSW Board of Deputies claiming to speak on behalf of “the Jewish community more broadly”. When statements made by other members of the Jewish community revealed that claim to be false, Ossip reportedly declared that the inquiry was “‘hijacked’ by fringe Jewish groups.”

“Far right hate group”, the Australian Jewish Association (AJA), expressed similar concerns about “Jewish antisemitism”, which it attributes to “A tiny fringe group claiming Jewish heritage [that] parrots anti-Jewish rhetoric, [and is] rejected by the broader Jewish community”.

Sky News later chimed in, with one commentator on an all-non-Jewish panel claiming that those “fringe” Jewish speakers “don’t actually represent Jewish people.”

Would-be gatekeepers

Taveet Sinanian, a member of the anti-Zionist Jewish group, Tzedek Collective, told MWM, while anti-Zionist Jews have long copped antisemitic abuse from Zionists, the NSW inquiry showcased a newer phenomenon:

Zionist efforts to deny anti-Zionist Jews’ Jewishness itself.

The AJA’s contention that anti-Zionist activists were “claiming Jewish heritage” was a case in point. Asked by a committee member whether the AJA was “trying to pass doubt upon whether those groups really are Jewish”, AJA president, Robert Gregory, responded, “I wasn’t trying to cast doubt, but there has been well-documented examples where various people who’ve presented themselves as Jewish anti-Israel activists were then exposed as not actually having Jewish background.”

When the committee member followed up by suggesting that sounded like an attempt to cast doubt about other speakers’ Jewish heritage, Gregory responded, “We haven’t made that suggestion, but, as I just mentioned, it has been exposed in different cases internationally that that in fact is the case – that people were claiming Jewish identity and are not. I’ll just repeat: We didn’t, in our submission, make that point about any particular person, if that’s what you are implying.”

Attempts to deny someone’s Jewish heritage by equating heritage with political and ethical beliefs is “chillingly reminiscent of German race science from the 1930s”, said Sinanian, whose Jewish relatives were murdered by the Nazis at Sobibor extermination camp. It is “the height of antisemitism,” he said.

Delegitimising disagreement

Although questions about the Jewishness of the Jewish speakers, along with the Jewish groups they represent, were seemingly settled, many speakers highlighted other Zionist efforts to delegitimise political disagreement within the Jewish community.

By labelling parts of the community as “fringe”, Zionist organisations were attempting to “delegitimise my existence, my family’s existence and the existence of all the anti-Zionist Jews that I know”, Cathy Peters of Jewish Voices of Inner Sydney said.

Founder of Jewish Women 4 Peace, Stephanie Cunio, said that “to be called a fringe is despicable” given that her group includes people “from rabbis’ wives to far-left people” who oppose “killing and murder”. A regular attendee of Emanuel Synagogue, Cunio told the inquiry:

Our Jewish values are not fringe.

Among those Jewish values are commitments to freedom and resistance against injustice, said Shulamit Kirovsky of Tzedek Collective, not stifling dissent and silencing those “who speak out against Israel’s crimes of illegal occupation and genocide.”

Dr Na’ama Carlin, executive member of the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA), told the committee that “delegitimising our views or deciding who can and who can’t talk for a community is not the way forward.”

Chris Rath’s “Piers Morgan moment”

Antisemitism cannot be addressed through a “politics of condemnation”, according to the JCA’s Dr Michael Edwards. “I think that ultimately gets us nowhere, deciding who can’t speak based on what they do or don’t condemn.”

Liberal Party committee member, Chris Rath, seemed to disagree, especially after Israeli-Australian Allon Uhlmann, a member of the group Jews against the Occupation ’48 (JAO48), told the inquiry that he did not consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be antisemitic. “They have a major problem with Israel and the Zionist state”, he added. 

Rath: So, Mr Uhlmann, will you condemn the massacre that took place on October 7?
Uhlmann: No. Like—
Rath: So you won’t condemn it.
[…]
Judith Treanor (JAO48): Do you condemn what’s happened every day since?
Rath: I’m here asking questions. You’re here to answer them. And you have absolutely no legitimacy and credibility if you’re not going to condemn the atrocities that took place on 7 October.

If, as Nikolai Haddad of the Arab Council of Australia said, the politics of condemnation is often used “as an exercise of narrative power”, its efficacy in this instance was questionable.

As Uhlmann later told MWM,

Being attacked by Rath is like being mauled by a toothless sheep.

“Looks like we have upset some sensitive Zionists”, Treanor later posted to X, “Just wondering who told Lib MP Chris Rath to turn into Piers Morgan at an inquiry into antisemitism in NSW.”

https://michaelwest.com.au/albanese-ramps-up-gaza-rhetoric-as-zionist-narrative-erodes/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

dumb merz.....

Merz says Israeli actions in Gaza 'no longer justified'
Roshni Majumdar with AP, AFP, Reuters

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the fight against "Hamas terrorism" does not justify the suffering of civilians in Gaza. He no longer "understands what Israel is trying to achieve." DW has more.

https://www.dw.com/en/merz-says-israeli-actions-in-gaza-no-longer-justified/live-72666924

 

WHAT AN EFFING GERMANIC DUMMY! ISRAHELL IS ONLY TRYING TO TAKE OVER GAZA IN ITS GREATER ISRAHELL CREATION PROGRAMME... AND NOT ONLY GAZA... THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS IN THE WEST BANK "HAVE BEEN REMOVED" BY THE IDF.... BUT BARELY MENTIONED BY THE WESTERN MEDIA...

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

deranged.....

 

Randy Fine Should Resign

The Florida congressman advocated Gaza’s nuclear annihilation.

 

BY Jason Jones

 

Florida Republican Randy Fine, a sitting congressman, called last week for nuclear bombs to be dropped on the people of Gaza.

Fine made the comment on national television after two employees of the Israeli embassy in DC were murdered by a left-wing lunatic, who shouted “free Palestine!” as he was apprehended.

“We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender,” Fine saidduring a Fox News interview. “That needs to be the same here.”

 

After calling for a nuclear assault on a densely-populated territory smaller than Seattle, Fine added, “There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated.” You’d almost think Fine was breaking the fourth wall and telling us there is something “deeply wrong” with his own culture of American ideologues who dehumanize the Palestinians. But no, he was instead referring to the culture of the Palestinians themselves.

As the founder and president of the Catholic apostolate the Vulnerable People Project, I have had the privilege of getting to know first-hand the various cultures of the Holy Land, including the Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as their non-Christian neighbors. In my discussions with these people, I have not encountered the view that entire cultures must be annihilated to make more room for themselves. 

No, that disgraceful sentiment belongs to Fine, who describes himself as a “Zionist” and calls pro-Palestinians “demons” who “must be put down by any means necessary.” That statement came in response to the grotesque act of political violence in DC, but Fine was painting with a broad brush.

 

Before I go on, I first and foremost want to give my own response to the Florida congressman’s recent comments: Rep. Randy Fine is a disgrace, and I am calling on him to resign.

What’s more, if he will not resign, then I call on his colleagues in Congress to force him out.

What Fine proposed last week is a betrayal of what voters turned out in record numbers for last year. The Trump movement, though it shored up Fine’s own vote count considerably, is a movement of peace. A movement of holding the pro-war establishment accountable and wrestling away their power after decades of them cynically using foreign peoples—especially in the Middle East –as their own private chess pieces and as means to their own bizarre military ends rather than as human beings, who ought only ever to be treated as ends in themselves.

 

The Trump movement drew record numbers of Middle-Eastern voters in particular, including from Palestine. I personally know Palestinian Christian ex-pats who voted for Trump, moved by his advocacy for a ceasefire in Gaza.

After taking office, Trump has reassured those supporters by speaking compassionately about the “suffering” people of Gaza, by telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his face “you got to be good to Gaza,” and by pressuring Israel to open up corridors for humanitarian aid.

The Trump movement, in fact, has much more in common with the best representatives of the “free Palestine movement” that Fine wants “put down” than with his own mass-murderous brand of “Zionism.”

 

MAGA is based, to an extent, on a basic degree of human solidarity with the vulnerable. At the very outset of Trump’s career in national politics, he spoke often of the “forgotten men and women of America,” showing compassion for those whom the old ruling class had ignored for decades.

So, it was no surprise that Trump—and his movement more broadly—would later show the same compassion for the victims of the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s many cynical wars.

Increasingly, that includes compassion for the victims in Gaza—half of them under the age of eighteen—who are starving and wasting away behind an Israel-imposed blockade on lifesaving medicine and food.

And what about their culture? My friend Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian Christian, represents it well, and he resists the temptation to demonize and dehumanize members of other tribes. “The attack on the Jewish museum yesterday in Washington is a despicable act of violence,” he stated after the murder of those two Israeli embassy employees. Sayegh continued:

It brings shame to the “Free Palestine movement” if someone associated with it commits a random murder while shouting its slogans. There must be self-reflection, and a clear condemnation. 

My deepest sympathy to our Jewish neighbors in DC. We love you, support you, and stand with you. We will never accept the name of our cause being used to attack your spaces or harm your people.

That is a Palestinian Christian’s response to the same event that occasioned Fine’s deranged rant.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/randy-fine-should-resign/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.