Monday 9th of February 2026
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our media is intimidated by the zionist lobby and propagandists....

Australia’s political and media response to Gaza, including the invitation to Israel’s president, reflects the influence of pro-Israel lobbying and the shrinking space for lawful criticism.

The powerful Zionist lobby has our political, media and academic class bluffed. Not surprisingly the lobby has seized the initiative following the tragic Bondi killings.

 

John Menadue

The Zionist lobby, antisemitism and Herzog

 

The lobby invited the Israeli President Herzog to visit Australia before it was considered by the Australian Government. Then, true to form, the Australian government followed and issued a formal invitation for the visit. The tail wagging the dog!

The Zionist lobby in the US effectively commands the support of the two major parties. The same is true in Australia. Few opinion leaders in Australia are prepared to defy the lobby.

John Lyons of the ABC in Pearls and Irritations on 4 October 2021 said: “In 40 years of journalism I’ve dealt with some smart and powerful lobby groups. But none compares to the pro-Israel lobby in Australia. It is formidable, well-funded and effective…. Says senior journalist Peter Greste: “personally I think the pressure that the Israeli lobby places on Australian journalists is frankly outrageous”.

In the name of balance our media gives credibility to Israeli propaganda. No one would think that we should give equal treatment to those who deny the Holocaust. Neither should we give balance to those who deny the continuing Holocaust in Gaza today.

None of our media have taken seriously the assassination of almost 300 Palestinian journalists and assistants by the IDF. The National Press Club withdrew an invitation to Chris Hedges a world renowned journalist about the failed western media coverage of the genocide.

So much of our media, including, shamefully, the ABC is intimidated by the Zionist lobby and Zionist propagandists. In our mainstream media Palestinians and Muslims are treated as much less human and less valuable than white Jews and white Christians. Just contrast the media coverage of Christian Ukraine and Muslim Gaza.

Israelis and their defenders consistently play the victim game but refuse to accept that the victims of the Holocaust in Europe are now the perpetrators of a new Holocaust in Gaza.

I have not seen or heard the lobby say one word against the genocide. It attacks those Jews who opposes the genocide. Those Jews believe that “never again” embraces all humanity, Jews and Palestinians alike.

Are only Zionists allowed to grieve? Are we expected to be silent about Palestinian grief?

Speaking of Zionist lobbying, Bob Carr – former Premier of NSW and Foreign Minister – put it this way in Pearls and Irritations on 2 December 2021: “My experience as Premier and Foreign Minister confirms that the (Israeli) lobbying exceeded that marshalled by any other diaspora community. As Foreign Minister on my first visit to the UN I released a very routine statement noting the latest burst of Israeli settlement activity was not helpful to the peace process. From Australia arrived a request I make myself available for a telephone conference with the community. This expression had only one meaning that as Foreign Minister, I should justify myself to Mark Leibler and Rubenstein who would patiently explain to me that Australia was not entitled to criticise settlements even though a clear breach of international law.”

In a speech to the Jewish Community Centre in Perth on 24 July 2018 Mark Leibler boasted of his lobbying power and gave tips for lobbyists. He gave some case studies: “a good example is the advocacy we undertook at the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council in relation to the recently returned ABC correspondent Sophie McNeill’s coverage of the Middle East. She should never have been given this posting by the ABC because she was ideologically attached to the Palestinian cause. I don’t believe that the ABC would have sent her if they had known but they weren’t going to create a controversy by pulling her out. That said our representations both public and private undoubtedly moderated her behaviour because she knew she was being watched”.

Leibler gave another example in Perth undertaken ahead of an ALP’s national conference: “Bob Carr and his associates we’re making worrying in-roads on the diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state, particularly in western Sydney electorates with a strong Muslim influence. A great deal of sustained behind the scenes lobbying was done with the leader and with individual politicians whose voice carried weight to ensure the damage was limited.”

Another example was the targeting of Antoinette Lattouf who was fired by the ABC after sharing a Human Rights Watch report on social media which detailed Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians. The federal court judge who found that the ABC contravened the Fair Work Act by terminating her employment also found that the decision of the ABC was made to appease pro- Israel lobbyists.

A further example of the lobbying was the collapse of the Adelaide Writer’s Festival following the withdrawal of invitation to speak given to the Palestinian novelist Randa Abdel-Fattah. There is also ongoing litigation instigated by the lobby against renowned journalist Mary Kostakidis over alleged anti-Semitism.

Pressure was also applied by the Zionist lobby to university managements to quell protest, call in police and treat peacefully protesting students as terrorists at the time of the Gaza Solidarity Encampments throughout 2024 and later.

The stock in trade of the Zionist lobby is to describe even the slightest criticism of Israel as antisemitic. I find this personally offensive. When I was Secretary of the Department of Immigration under the Fraser government, we were active in facilitating the migration to Australia of Jews from the Soviet Union. A major influx of Soviet Jews arrived under special humanitarian visas in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The lobby consistently plays the ‘victim’ and refuses to acknowledge that the victims of the Holocaust in Europe are now the perpetrators of a new Holocaust on the victims in Gaza.

If I criticise Israel over genocide that does not make me antisemitic. If I criticise India that does not make me anti Hindu. If I criticise Japan that does not make me anti Buddhist or Shinto. If I criticise Indonesia that does not make me anti Muslim.

But the weaponisation of antisemitism, the use and misuse of the term, stores up danger for the future when there is a serious problem of antisemitism. And there will be. When language is debased truth is likely to be lost.

Research by the Scanlon Foundation Image Mapping Social Cohesion 2025 revealed negative attitudes towards people of different religious faiths as follows…4 per cent negative feelings towards Buddhists, 14 per cent for Hindus, 15 per cent for Jews, 18 per cent for Christians and 35 per cent for Muslims. Asked about perceived racism, 67 per cent of all Australians said that racism was a problem in Australia

Those survey figures confirm my personal experience that racism and Islamophobia are far bigger problems than antisemitism.

There has undoubtedly been a rise in antisemitism in the last two to three years. In January 2025 the Anti-Defamation League which describes itself as “the world’s most extensive study of antisemitism globally” said that “46 per cent of the world’s adult population harbour deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes, more than double compared to our first worldwide survey a decade ago”. That comes as no surprise. The upsurge in antisemitism has occurred at the same time as the genocide in Gaza. The two are closely linked. But the Zionist lobby dishonestly refuses to recognise the context of genocide in Gaza which is driving antisemitism.

Professor Iian Pappe in the Palestine Chronicle of 23 April 2025 describes the ugliness and cowardice of so many in the west for failure to recognise the context of Gaza: “ignoring the genocide in the Gaza Strip and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank can only be described as intentional and not out of ignorance. Both Israel’s actions and the discourse that accompanies them are too visible to be ignored unless politicians, academics and journalists choose to do so. This kind of ignorance is first and foremost the result of successful Israeli lobbying that thrived on the fertile ground of European guilt complex, racism and Islamophobia. In the case of the US, it is also the outcome of many years of an effective and ruthless lobbying machine that very few in academia, media and politics dare to disobey."

Professor Henry Reynolds in Pearls and Irritations of January 24, 2026, wrote: “surveys of opinion in the Jewish community have found that 76 per cent considered themselves Zionists while 86 per cent feel a sense of responsibility that the state of Israel continues to exist. This helps us understand why there is so much determination to relate the growth of the criticism of Israel in recent times to antisemitism rather than to the utter barbarity of the IDF in Gaza and the continuing pillage of the settlers in the West Bank…. It would greatly facilitate social cohesion if the leaders of the mainstream Zionist organisations could trace the true source of discomforting community criticism back to Israel rather than the broader Australian community."

Israel, like other settler societies have two homelands, Australia and Israel. We know of older Australians who regularly spoke of England as “home “. We even sent our soldiers to fight in England’s wars. Many Israeli Australians do the same, fighting in Israel’s wars against the indigenous people of Palestine.

In the aftermath of the Bondi killings Israeli flags were prominent amongst the floral tributes. There are extremely well funded propaganda programs for politicians and journalists to visit Israel. The Zionist community in so many ways exhibit a conflict of loyalty between Israel and Australia.

The lobby instigated the coming President Herzog visit. Herzog heads a state that has committed genocide as determined by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry in September last year. An Australian – Chris Sidoti – was a member of that Commission.

Following the October 7 attacks President Herzog said that an “entire nation” is responsible for the attacks. Many would argue that that was an incitement to genocide against all Palestinians.

Eighty-three per cent of the casualties in Gaza are civilians, yet Herzog says that Israel puts “a huge focus” on reducing civilian casualties.

Organisations like Human Rights Watch allege systemic discrimination, persecution and apartheid against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Herzog turns a blind eye.

On 9 October 2023 Herzog was photographed brazenly signing a bomb that was to be dropped on Gaza to kill Palestinians. That picture tells us an awful lot about the character of the Israeli president.

Herzog said that Israel is acting in self-defence and is adhering to international law. That is just not true.

  • Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land – West Bank, East Jerusalem, see Security Council, (2334/2016), and the ICJ (July 2024). Israel refuses to end such occupation as it has been ordered to do.
  • The 4th Geneva Convention affirms that it is illegal to transfer Israel’s population into occupied land. Israel is doing that.
  • Israel is directly contravening ICJ orders in impeding aid into Gaza.
  • Israel’s indiscriminate or disproportionate acts targeting civilian healthcare and aid workers is a violation of international humanitarian law.
  • Forced evictions and displacement breaches international humanitarian law that Herzog refuses to acknowledge.
  • UN human rights experts have highlighted Israeli crimes against humanity – murder, torture, sexual violence and war crimes with starvation as a weapon targeting civilians. Herzog denies it.

Along with our political, academic and media class our PM dare not defy the lobby. We need a public inquiry on the lobby’s activities even more than on antisemitism. If there was such an inquiry, I expect the lobby would insist on its terms of reference and membership!

It is outrageous and destructive in almost every way that a Labor Prime Minister would invite a war criminal like Herzog to our shore. He is the criminal head of a criminal state.

Anthony Albanese brings shame to what I thought was the Party that had a vision of “a light on the hill”.

He talks about social cohesion and humanity, but his actions belie his words.

One word he won’t speak is “genocide”. He  does not want to offend the lobby.

I joined the ALP over 70 years ago. Today I am ashamed.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/02/the-zionist-lobby-anti-semitism-and-herzog/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

MAIN IMAGE AT TOP FROM INTEL DROP.

eternally....

President Herzog to 'Post': This is the truth about Zionism - opinion
Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people – a return to an indigenous homeland after millennia of persecution.

 

Fifty years ago today, my father, Chaim Herzog, then Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and later the country’s sixth president, stood before the UN General Assembly to respond to the infamous resolution declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism.”

In front of a hostile hall, he affirmed: “Zionism is nothing more – and nothing less – than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name.”

He declared that it was not Zionism or the State of Israel that stood on trial that day, but the UN itself. In one of the most stirring and enduring moments in the history of that body, he tore his copy of the resolution in two, right there at the podium.

He had felt, he later told me, that he was speaking not only as Israel’s ambassador, but on behalf of the past and future generations of a persecuted and maligned people. The resolution, as he saw it, was not just another UN political maneuver.

It was a direct assault on the Jewish people’s identity, history, and fundamental right to self-determination – a form of organized political bullying meant to silence a voice and to demoralize a people.

The pitch he had chosen was simply equal matching: a visceral, if still rational meeting, of the vitriol being lodged against our people. It was a speech that was widely regarded as one of the finest and most effective in history.

While the resolution itself was later revoked, the specter of the sentiment that fueled it still reverberates – the lingering accusation, whispered or shouted in different forms – that Zionism is somehow a moral stain, an illegitimate aspiration.

It has been audible, sometimes softly, sometimes piercingly, across the decades since – and, once again, in our own time.

It was immediately there, implicit in the language of many, on October 7, and over the past two years of devastating war against Hamas in Gaza, the old chorus has decidedly returned: Israel, by defending itself, by existing, is already guilty.

The tools and rhetoric may have evolved since 1975, but the core impulse remains: to deny the Jewish people the moral right to self-determination, to cast the very existence of our state as a transgression, and to portray Israel as a racist entity undeserving of security or peace.

Zionism is not racism: It is the liberation of the Jewish people

Yet as my father insisted then – and as we must continue to insist now – the truth flies in the face of these accusations. Zionism is not racism.

It is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people – a return to an indigenous homeland after millennia of persecution.

In its redress of an historical injustice, in its desire to restore dignity to a people, it is an expression of the same universal yearnings for equality, freedom, and dignity that have animated all struggles for justice.

That is the true moral framework of our story. While the past two years have tested it in ways we could not have imagined, what has emerged from the pain and heartbreak of this time has also reaffirmed it: the extraordinary resilience, solidarity, and mutual responsibility that define us.

These are the same moral energies that rebuilt a people from ashes. They are what have enabled us to respond with courage, dignity, and purpose to the catastrophe of October 7, and they are what continue to animate our national life today.

As Jews and Israelis, we will survive the current onslaught of hate. We will prevail against those that still seek to divide and demoralize us. Through faith in our shared mission, in the moral gravity of our calling, and in the justice of our path.

The writer is the president of the State of Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-873468

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

BEING GOD'S "CHOSEN PEOPLE" IS OF COURSE A BURDEN TO BEAR WITH GUILT AND RESENTMENT...

relatively....

 

THIS IS A RE-POST......

 

While the world has focussed on the atrocities in Gaza, Israel continues its support of illegal settlements, hostility and apartheid in the West Bank. Ben Bohane reports from Bethlehem.

We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December morning when my  Palestinian driver – let’s call him Ahmed – stops and points to a curl of smoke rising in the valley below, near Beit Jala.

“That’s a local restaurant the Israeli’s are burning since last night. They demand permits even when it is on family land. Israel then gives demolition orders, and no one can stop them.”

It’s the day before Christmas. I’m in the West Bank and Israel for a month to see the situation for myself, to try and understand how this comparatively small area continues to hijack history and our news agenda. Gaza remains off-limits to all foreign media attempting to report on Israel’s genocide there, so I can’t go.

The international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states 249 media personnel have been killed so far by Israel in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since the Gaza war began.

Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history,

assassinating more than all media personnel killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined.

Israel has also now banned many reputable international NGOs from operating there. In late January, the IDF finally acknowledged the death toll tally compiled by Palestinian health authorities as accurate, saying it believed 71,000 people had been killed so far.

I’ve come to the other front, the West Bank, as Israeli settlers and the IDF establish new illegal settlements and make life difficult for Palestinians just trying to eke out a living.

While I’m there, Israel announces 19 new settlements, bringing to 69 the number of new settlements approved in the past few years.

They are slowly circling and strangling Palestinian towns by taking the high ground on hilltops, establishing their own roads to link up with other settlements, and destroying ancient olive groves which locals have long relied on for a meagre income. Some of these trees are many hundreds of years old, and their desecration seems somehow symbolic of Israel’s attempts to change history and geography.

“We are trapped here”, says Ahmed. “Ever since October 7, Israel has closed off our access to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. A lot of businesses are struggling to survive after 5 years of shutdowns – first it was Covid, and then the Gaza war. No tourists for years.”

Unless they are employed in one of a handful of jobs, such as in hospitals or working for a Christian organisation, Palestinians in the West Bank can’t leave. Denied both Palestinian statehood and Israeli citizenship,

West Bank Palestinians are caught in a limbo where they can’t travel into wider Israel or beyond.

“Israel controls all our movements, all our water, and controls our petrol supply”, says Ahmed. “The only thing they don’t control is the air we breathe, and if they could control that, they would.”

Bulldozer warfare

We visit a home recently bulldozed by settlers and fields uprooted because they were considered too close to the expanding nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit. As locals lose access to their olive orchards, the only trees safe are those within towns or around their homes. I see a young boy with a wheelbarrow full of seedlings and uprooted olive saplings moving towards a nearby field. Ahmed translates:

“The boy says that part of their resistance is to immediately replant the olive trees when settlers chop them down. The olives aren’t just an income for us, they are part of our identity on this land.”

We have to be quick when visiting the contested edges of these towns and fields, as settlers are always watching from nearby hilltops and the IDF can be on scene in less than 5 minutes. On two occasions, my driver yells to get us back in the car for a hurried exit when he spots settlers driving down to intercept us.

Returning to Bethlehem, the annual Christmas parade is underway. Hundreds of Palestinian, Arab and Armenian Christians in uniforms march along roads leading to Manger Square in the heart of Bethlehem. Palestinian Authority police guard the route and Churches, including the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, first begun by Emperor Constantine’s Christian mother, Saint Helena, in the 4th century. Under this Byzantine church is a grotto where Jesus was supposedly born.

This is the first time in two years that Christmas celebrations, including a huge Christmas tree, have taken place. With few foreign tourists, shops in Bethlehem are happy to see many Muslim families from across the West Bank visiting with children to see Santa and the holy sites. It’s a peaceful time with Christian and Muslim families celebrating together.

I met Father Issa Thaljieh, a Palestinian (Greek Orthodox) priest overseeing the Basilica. ‘Issa’ is the Muslim name for Jesus. He says the number of Christians continues to dwindle, from 10% of the Palestinian population during the British mandate period 100 years ago, to around 1% today. Most live overseas now, with Israel incentivising their departure.

Apartheid

One thing I hadn’t known until I came here is that Israelis are forbidden from entering any West Bank towns. At the entrance to many towns I visited, including Jericho and Bethlehem, are large road signs in red warning Israeli citizens not to enter.

Although usually framed as a security measure to prevent kidnapping, it has the additional impact of preventing ordinary Israelis and Palestinians from mixing together and stops Israelis from really understanding what is going on across the West Bank. It underlined the sense of apartheid, along with the long winding separation wall that snakes between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank.

Always interested in art and graffiti as forms of resistance, I cruise a length of the wall, near two refugee camps inside Bethlehem and come across artist Banksy’s ‘Walled Off’ hotel, which had only reopened the week before after 5 years of closure. Upstairs is a gallery supporting local artists, downstairs a museum about the wall and ‘occupation’, along with a chintzy piano bar styled like a frontier saloon.

The hotel faces a section of the wall emblazoned with graffiti and promises ‘the worst views in the world’. The wall began construction substantially in 2002, runs for 810kms and is Israel’s biggest infrastructure project. Banksy’s museum quotes the man put in charge of the build, Danny Tirza:

“The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was,

to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside as possible.

Down the road, a number of local stores have popped up selling cheap Banksy merch, and apparently, Banksy is fine with all the rip-offs.

Other days are spent visiting Jericho and Hebron with its shrine containing the tomb of Abraham, patriarch of all the monotheistic faiths.

It is a town often at flashpoint between Palestinians and hardcore Israeli settlers who have moved right into pockets of the town, protected by IDF soldiers. A day trip to Ramallah is aborted when my driver says that Israeli forces had entered that morning to destroy dozens of shops and shot two people.

“It’s too dangerous today to visit, and besides, it would take us 5 hours to get through the checkpoints instead of one hour as normal”, he says.

Every day across the West Bank, Palestinians must navigate security challenges, declining business and hungry families. Given the impunity with which Israel operates in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank are still standing their ground, but without much hope that the international community will stop Israel’s encroachment.

Netanyahu’s government wants to extinguish any hope of a two-state solution, but Palestinians will not cede their homes – or their olive trees – easily.

https://michaelwest.com.au/the-west-bank-israels-atrocities-in-clear-sight-but-out-of-mind/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.