Netanyahu Is Visiting Trump For The FIFTH Time This Year, And Other Notes,Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 28, 2025,
“………………………………………New South Wales Premier Chris Minns defended his authoritarian crackdown on pro-Palestine protesters following the Bondi shooting by arguing that Australia doesn’t have the same free speech protections as the US.
“I acknowledge that we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that, we have got a responsibility to knit together our community,” Minns said.
And of course Minns isn’t wrong when he says Australians don’t have any real free speech rights (Australia is the only western democracy without any kind of national bill of rights), but it is a bit odd to be openly proclaiming that this is a good thing because it means you’re allowed to stomp out criticism of Israel. Kinda feels like that’s saying the quiet part out loud.
It’s been so surreal watching in real time as Australians get manipulated into accepting the Zionist narrative about the Bondi Beach attack. As of this writing we have not been presented with the tiniest shred of evidence that anti-genocide protests had anything whatsoever to do with the massacre, but the nation is proceeding as though this is an established fact. NSW is banning the phrase “globalise the intifada” and passing laws allowing for demonstrations to be made illegal for up to three months while PM Anthony Albanese rolls out more policies to align with “antisemitism envoy” Jillian Segal’s plan to crush free speech in Australia. After being smashed in the face with an extremely aggressive mass media propaganda campaign to marry the Bondi attack to anti-genocide demonstrations in the minds of the public, a recent poll by the Resolve Political Monitor found that 53 percent of Australians now support a ban on pro-Palestine marches.
Again, this is happening in light of literally zero evidence that pro-Palestine demonstrations were even slightly responsible for the Bondi attack. None. Nothing. They’re suggesting that there is an association between the two, and they are lying. They’re rolling out pre-existing agendas to crush free expression in opposition to an active genocide, and they are doing so based on lies.
When a leading Zionist calls six other Australian Jews “antisemitic” – and worse – over criticisms of Israel, the issues are deep. Hence this February piece, by those six, was so vital, well-received and much read.
Six Melbourne Jews, labelled “antisemites” by prominent lawyer Mark Leibler, have made a formal complaint against him to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Dr David Glanz details their position.
IMAGINE calling a group of Jews ‘repulsive and revolting human beings’.
At a time when Nazi thugs are openly organising on our streets and swastikas are being daubed on Jewish buildings, it’s surely the stuff of Far-Right memes. Inspiration for more foul graffiti.
Mr Leibler wrote the words as part of a post on Twitter/X that he paid to promote, reaching some 400,000 people.
His target was anti-Zionist Jews in general and – given that we were organising an anti-Zionist rally the day after the post – surely the five of us, some of whom are migrants from Israel.
Mr Leibler didn’t pull his punches. He went on to say that our relatives killed in the Holocaust would be rolling in their graves.
And – this stings, given our track record of anti-racism – that we are ‘vicious antisemites’.
Now Mr Leibler is entitled to his support for Zionism. The idea that Jews would be best served by the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine is, after all, a political position and one that has been contested within Jewish communities for some 140 years.
He is also entitled to defend the State of Israel and its actions in Gaza over the past 16 months.
We disagree with him on both counts. We organised our rally at Parliament House because we wanted to put on the public record that some Jews oppose the settler colonial conquest of Palestine and the consequences that have flowed from that, including apartheid laws within Israel and the West Bank and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
We know that we are a minority within the Jewish community. We don’t claim to speak for all Melbourne Jews — quite the opposite. Our argument is that no one, including Mr Leibler, gets to speak for all Jews.
But we know that the number of Jews standing against the genocide and in solidarity with Palestine is growing, not just in Melbourne but around the world.
Over the past 16 months there have been impressive and lively rallies by dissenting Jews in the U.S., a Jewish bloc of up to 1,000 on Palestine rallies in London and, here in Melbourne, Jews taking part in each of the 71 weekly rallies for Palestine, with Jews often invited to speak from the platform.
We include in our ranks the descendants of Holocaust survivors and those who lost family in the Nazi death camps.
So the one thing we are certain Mr Leibler is not entitled to do is to dismiss us as beyond the pale. We have a right to speak, to be heard (and disagreed with) as Jews.
As we are all Jews, and as Mr Leibler attacked us as such, we would argue that his post is not just offensive but antisemitic.
And given that our rally was to highlight the issue of discrimination against Palestinians and all victims of racism, we would argue that Mr Leibler’s post was an attempt to victimise us by exposing us to ridicule and contempt as Jews in the public arena.
It is also insulting. We include in our ranks the descendants of Holocaust survivors and those who lost family in the Nazi death camps.
We don’t want money or revenge. A public apology would suffice.
We have been denigrated and impugned. But the suffering of the Palestinians makes any slight we have experienced pale to nothing in comparison.
And that is the tragedy. While Mr Leibler uses his position of power to attack us as the “wrong sort of Jews”, some 2 million Palestinians in Gaza squat in the rubble of their homes, their hospitals and schools, their mosques and churches, and mourn their tens of thousands of dead.
Our rally called for an end to the suffering and discrimination. It was joined by many Jews and our non-Jewish supporters.
Mr Leibler’s post was a calculated and pre-emptive smear to undermine our rejection of all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
He was obviously concerned about our impact. We must be doing something right.
Dr David Glanz, Nachshon Amir, Shahar Amir, Dr Keren Tova Rubinstein and Dr Guy Gillor are anti-Zionist Jews in Melbourne, who organised a rally against genocide and racism at the Victorian Parliament.
Michael McCormack, former leader of the National Party, had a surprising and emotional outburst before the Christmas break. Surprising in that rarely has he shown this level of energy, certainly not when he was National’s leader and on the back-bench he has barely made a contribution beyond regretting the defection of his mate Barnaby Joyce down the rabbit-hole of One Nation.
Mr McCormack was incensed that federal parliament had not been recalled following the Bondi shootings and he was particularly upset that Anthony Albanese had not initiated a national Royal Commission to complement and duplicate the Royal Commission set up by the New South Wales government: he was also enraged that new gun ownership regulations legislated in NSW, and probably to be adopted nationally, would impact unfairly on the activities of farmers – farmers and professional shooters will be restricted to 10 weapons but with a ban on automatic weapons that allow multiple shots without reloading, similar to those used by the alleged shooters at Bondi and gun licences will need to be renewed every two years rather than being perpetual licenses – poor farmers, how will they get by?
He may have been spurred into activity after Sussan Ley, the coalition’s prime ministerial hopeful, noted that Penny Wong, despite close scrutiny, had not been observed shedding a tear over the Bondi killings – evidently an inexcusable failing on the part of a female minister!
I got the impression that Mr Mc Cormack’s emotional tirade was not so much about Bondi, Royal Commissions or guns but rather it was about the fact that he, as a deposed former party leader, now sitting on the back-benches, was the only voice in the National Party available to speak out particularly as his leader, David Littleproud was completely silent on these issues: Mc Cormack may well have been echoing his former colleague Barnaby Joyce who had little faith in the current leadership of the National Party.
For the record, the New South Wales government have initiated a Royal Commission that will look into, among other matters:
The nature, prevalence, and drivers of antisemitism in Australia leading up to the Bondi attack, including actions of governments, law enforcement, and broader society.
An examination of Islamic extremism and neo-nazi ideology long with recommendations to strengthen counter terrorism systems.
Albanese has resisted political and emotive pressure to having a separate Royal Commission to that proposed by Premier Minns in New South Wales. He has noted that:
“There was no royal commission called by the Howard government after Port Arthur. There was no royal commission called by the Abbott government after the Lindt [Cafe] siege, there hasn’t been a royal commission held recently that has not had an extension of time. We know who the perpetrators are here … We know what the motivation is, that they are motivated by the evil ideology of ISIS and a perversion of Islam.”
Albanese has, alongside hate speech reforms and changes to gun laws, announced a review into federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies which will be led by former intelligence chief Dennis Richardson, and he has offered the co-operation of both the government and federal agencies with the NSW commission.
Those insisting on a separate federal Royal Commission say that it would not necessarily take years to conclude and that they could call on the appointed Commissioner to have a preliminary report by the end of April. That, of course is nonsense as the whole point of a Royal Commission is to be broad ranging, hear from all and sundry and probe into the dark corners that usually are hidden; you cannot expect quick fix responses and the Royal Commissioner would undoubtedly resist that sort of pressure.
A Jewish woman wearing a Keffiyeh as well as the Star of David was escorted off Bondi Beach by police. The resulting social media storm led to death threats to her and to her friend.
I am writing this knowing it will likely result in more death threats.
That is not a metaphor. It is a statement of fact, based on what happened to my friend Michelle and me this week, and what happened next when we sought protection from the state.
On Monday, at the Bondi memorial for the victims of the mass killing the day before, Michelle – a Jewish local and member of Jews against the Occupation ‘48 – was surrounded by a hostile crowd shouting “get her off”. She was escorted off the beach to the sound of applause by approximately forty police officers, whilst trying to explain her position to the surrounding reporters, and taken to Bondi Police Station, where she was told she couldn’t go back to Bondi Beach for 6 hours.
Her “offence”? Wearing a Keffiyeh.
Whether one agrees with her politics or not is beside the point. The memorial was dominated by Israeli flags – the flag of a state currently accused of genocide and whose leaders are wanted for war crimes. Michelle wore the keffiyeh because she objected to a moment of mourning being politicised. But it is not a crime. Nor is it a provocation warranting mob intimidation.
What followed should concern anyone who believes the rule of law applies equally.
After video footage of Michelle circulated on X, under a post by journalist Hugh Riminton, the abuse escalated rapidly.
Facts ignored
What was not mentioned – despite Michelle wearing a visible Star of David and explicitly stating to the press that she is Jewish – was that she is a Jewish local who grew up in Bondi. That omission mattered.
I replied publicly on X to clarify that Michelle is Jewish, that she is my friend, and that she is part of JAO48. While those responses received hundreds of supportive comments, they also unleashed some of the most extreme antisemitic, misogynistic, ageist and Islamophobic abuse I have encountered in years of public advocacy.
I can deal with online abuse on social media. The block button is my friend.
Threats arrived in my email inbox – not via social media, but via my direct contact form and messaging linked to my business. One message stated that Michelle was “now wishing she had stayed home” and warned, “I would not want to be her”.
The individual who contacted me used the name “Brenton Tarrant”, the name of the Christchurch mass murderer, writing that I “deserve a bullet in the head”, and that Michelle would be “hunted down”, and that because her address was doxxed, it would make “putting a claw hammer in her skull even easier.”
This was enough intimidation for me to call 000 and for two members of the Chatswood station to attend my home. The expressions on their faces when they read the messages were of shock and disgust.
No police report
More concerning was that Michelle’s home address had been published online in response to Riminton’s post. On Monday night, she went to Maroubra Police Station to report she’d been doxxed.
And nothing happened. She wasn’t contacted the next day or given a case number. Nothing.
When we returned to Maroubra Police Station two days later to ask what action had been taken regarding the doxxing and threats, the attending constable.
‘could not even find a record of Michelle having gone there on Monday night.’
There was a record of the death threats I received from Chatswood Police Station, but that doesn’t help someone whose life is in danger in Maroubra.
A Jewish woman, escorted by dozens of police officers, detained at a police station under threat of violence, had no record in the system days later. Had something happened to her in the intervening period, there would have been no official trace of her presence or vulnerability.
This is not a paperwork error. This is a systemic failure.
Irony of doxxing laws
The irony is sharp enough to cut. NSW’s doxxing laws were introduced following sustained lobbying about online threats directed at Zionist Jews. Those laws were framed as urgent protections against harm.
Yet here we have a Jewish woman who is anti-Zionist, whose address was published, who received death threats, and whose case appears to have been ignored entirely.
Only after I explicitly raised the double standard to a young constable – only after pointing out how differently this would have been handled had Michelle been a Zionist Jew – was a report finally entered into the system. I also demanded that police investigate the instigator of the doxxing. Whether the individual can ultimately be identified is beside the point. The absence of effort is the issue. This failure is made even more disturbing by the broader amplification of risk.
Identity matters
The omission of Michelle’s Jewish identity among all the abuse matters. Not because her Judaism should confer protection or legitimacy – it should not have to – but because it fuelled a narrative that made her a target. The implication was clear:
‘she was an outsider, an agitator, someone deserving of removal.‘
It should not matter who she is. It should not matter what she believes. Wearing a keffiyeh is no more illegal than waving the flag of a state accused of mass atrocities.
What should matter is this: no one attending a memorial should be threatened with death, have their home address exposed, or be left unprotected by the police.
If that standard only applies to some Jews, then it is not protection at all. It is political preference enforced by the state.
And if writing this results in more threats, then that fact alone tells you how broken our public discourse – and our institutions – have become.
Tragedy should have united the country
Fifteen people are dead. Around forty are injured. Families and communities are grieving. But within hours, the event was weaponised.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the Albanese government. Jillian Segal linked the massacre with the March for Humanity on the Harbour Bridge.
Josh Frydenberg re-emerged, positioning himself as a future Prime Minister on the back of mass death, although suggesting this is the case is “highly offensive” to him.
I guess to Josh, it’s irrelevant that the father in the father/son terrorist team arrived in ’98 when Howard was PM, he gained his gun license in 2015 when Abbott was PM, and the ASIO investigation into the son was dropped in 2019 when Morrison was PM.
And now, as a result of this horrific terrorist attack on Sunday, the calls to ban pro-Palestine protests are louder than ever.
If anybody can possibly think that Palestinians, Muslims, indeed even humanitarians who object to genocide had anything to gain from a mass shooting, “they’ve got rocks in their head”, as we say in Australia. If anything, the events of this week
‘show precisely why dissent must be protected.‘
When anti-Zionist Jews can be threatened with death, doxxed, misrepresented as terrorists, and left without protection by the state, the danger is not protest – it is repression.
If writing this results in further threats, that fact alone will confirm the point.
It is not safety for all that is being prioritised in this country. It’s not even safety for all Jews that is being prioritised. What dark days we are living in.
Anthony Albanese has announced the government “adopts and fully supports Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism,” bowing to intense media pressure. Stephanie Tran and Kim Wingerei report.
Criticising the state of Israel is about to get difficult.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the Prime Minister said, “We’ve already legislated for hate speech, hate crimes, hate symbols, outlawing doxxing,” adding the government would implement all 13 recommendations “in consultation with the Jewish community and the envoy.” His words hint at a cop-out with a bit of wriggle-room.
The 13 recommendations he refers to are from Anti-Semitism Envoy Jillian Segal’s report, presented in July this year, including the adoption of the controversial definition of anti-semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – the “IHRA definition.”
Never intended to “chill speech”
The government’s formal response endorses the IHRA definition as Australia’s official definition by publishing a new “supplementary guide” by the Special Envoy to assist its application in an Australian context. Until that’s been published, it is unclear what this will mean in practice.
First adopted by Australia in 2021 under the Morrison government, the definition includes 11 illustrative examples, most of which relate to criticism of the State of Israel.
Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition, has cautioned against its use as a disciplinary tool. Stern has repeatedly said the definition was never intended to “target or chill speech”.
“Starting in 2010, right-wing Jewish groups took the “working definition”, which had some examples about Israel … and decided to weaponise it with title VI cases,” Stern wrote in a Guardian op-ed.
In 2021, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism was supported by hundreds of Jewish scholars in response to what they described as the IHRA definition’s “unclear” and “controversial” framing. The Declaration’s preamble states:
“The IHRA Definition includes 11 “examples” of antisemitism, 7 of which focus on the State of Israel. While this puts undue emphasis on one arena, there is a widely-felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine.”
Burgatory ruling
In a recent Melbourne Magistrates’ Court ruling, a magistrate rejected police attempts to treat anti-Zionist chanting as a strict-liability offence, finding prosecutors must prove intent to insult or offend.
The court found that political speech must go beyond a mere difference of opinion and be “contrary to contemporary standards of public good order” to constitute a criminal offence.
Outside the court, Hash Teyeh hailed the ruling as “a huge win for the freedom of political speech”.
New immigration powers
The government’s response also includes expanded immigration powers, with the government “collaborating with the Special Envoy for Antisemitism to enhance training of immigration officers”.
Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said, “We will be changing the law to make visa cancellation and visa refusal easier. … I have refused and cancelled visas on the grounds of antisemitism in a way that very few predecessors have. I don’t resile from that.
“And I’ve made clear on the balance of bigotry versus freedom of speech.”
Antisemitism Education Taskforce
In response to Segal’s recommendation to “foster long-term societal resilience by ensuring throughout Australian society an understanding of, and familiarity with, the nature, history and danger of antisemitism,” the Government will establish “the Antisemitism Education Taskforce (the Taskforce) to be chaired by David Gonski AC,” the perennial go-to man for aspirational plans.
The aspirations are to encompass all levels of education, from kinder to uni, in a concerted effort to ensure “a deep understanding of Jewish Australians’ history and culture, and a mature understanding and expression of Australian values.”
The plan does not touch on what those values are, but there is the odd, cursory nod to combating racism in general, including funding for an SBS podcast “to dispel misinformation and disinformation impacting Australia’s social cohesion.”
Security, law enforcement and coordination
A new AFP special taskforce is to be established, “to investigate threats, violence and hatred towards the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians.”
The government has also committed $159.5m in security funding to the Executive Council of Australia Jewry and other community groups, “to improve safety and security at Jewish community sites, including synagogues, and to protect Jewish students in schools and higher education.”
Recommendations not adopted
Some of the more controversial proposals in Segal’s original report were omitted from the government’s formal response, albeit not explicitly rejected.
These include recommendations to allow public funding to be terminated for cultural institutions or festivals deemed to have failed to address antisemitism, or the removal of charity tax status for “problematic organisations.” See below [chart on original] for a detailed analysis of what has been included and what has not. Only 31% of the original recommendations are to be implemented “as is.”
The awful events at Bondi Beach have taken travel rorts off the front page but documents show Defence Minister Richard Marles is using an Air Force 737 as his own private jet. Rex Patrick reports.
Apologies to Richard Marles for using the title of Defence Minister in the lede to this article; he much prefers the title of Deputy Prime Minister. It’s all about the look.
What next in travel rorts
The Prime Minister has asked IPEA, the Independent Parliamentary Expense Authority, to examine whether the parliamentary travel entitlement rules require reform (hint: they do).
MWM is on the case, with an FOI lodged to see what’s been happening behind the tightly drawn curtains of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Meanwhile, on RAAF VIP Airways
In August 2023, journalist Samantha Maiden revealed that the Defence Minister, – sorry, Deputy Prime Minister – had been personally consulted over the decision to stop publishing where politicians are flying on VIP flights during the same period he personally ran up a $3.6 million bill.
“Publication of VIP flights, generally, cannot present a security risk.“
They were indeed regularly published, with details of routes and passengers, from the late 1960’s until 2022. VIP flights generally take off from secure airports, often from quarantined Royal Australia Air Force (RAAF) areas of those same airports, and the reports are requested to be made public well after the event.
MWM has been fighting two separate Freedom of information (FOI) battles with the Department of Defence (‘Defence’) over the release of flight details.
In the first FOI fight, from September 2023 to October 2024, Defence capitulated in the Administrative Review Tribunal, effectively telling MWM there were no security issues with the flights themselves, rather a concern with identifying individuals with close ties to high office holders to target (presumably with cyber surveillance).
Second request
When a second FOI request was made in October 2024 by MWM focussing on the Defence Minister’s – sorry – Deputy Prime Minister‘s, ‘last four flights’, the FOI was met with hostility and obstruction.
Only after taking the matter to the Information Commissioner (OAIC) and threatening to elevate it to the Administrative Review Tribunal, did Defence again capitulate.
What the documents show in this case is that two of the four flights in question were between Avalon, 64 km from Melbourne airport, and Canberra. The first was a morning flight on 23 September 2024 from Avalon to Canberra. It involved two pilots, and according to the passenger manifest, 5 other security /support/defence staff and lots of empty seats.
Why the Defence Minister didn’t take a commercial jet is not known. There are plenty of, circa $1000 business class flight options from Melbourne to Canberra. Perhaps such a course of action would not have been befitting of a Deputy Prime Minister on that occasion.
And the entourage
A second flight that took place on 10 October 2024 at the end of a parliamentary sitting week, from Canberra to Avalon, carried the Defence Minister – sorry, we keep getting that wrong, Deputy Prime Minister – and three other Victorian MPs, Resources Minister Catherine King, Libby Coker MP and Joanne Ryan MP.
All were appropriately designated by the RAAF as ‘entitled passengers’.
The FOI suggests 13 other security /support/defence staff tagged along. Again, there were plenty of empty seats on the flight.
The two other flights taken by the Deputy Prime Minister – he’ll be happy we’re finally using that more elite title – that were captured by the FOI were a Sydney – Java (Indonesia) – Timor – Avalon flight from 28 to 30 August 2024 and a Melbourne to Port Villa flight on 18 September 2024 returning to Avalon the next day – both using the RAAF’s smaller Falcon executive jet.
Perhaps it was appropriate for the Deputy Prime Minister to fly on a Falcon ‘private’ jet for these international trips, but it’s hard to see the justification for taking a near empty RAAF 737 on travel that could easily have been conducted on commercial flights.
Bronwyn “Chopper” Bishop
Richard Marles lives in Geelong. Maybe he could fly at the front of a commercial aircraft from Canberra to Melbourne and then take a helicopter the rest of the way to Geelong. Bronwyn Bishop did that once in 2015 (and lost her job as Speaker of the House).
‘But Bishop’s extravagance was less expensive for the taxpayer than Marles’.
Apparently, the Deputy Prime Minister regards a hour’s ride in a luxuriously appointed Comcar between Melbourne Airport and Geelong to be an intolerable inconvenience. But even allowing for security requirements it’d be a much more cost effective solution than an RAAF crewed 737.
When the domestic flights above were taken, FOI had not successfully extracted VIP flight details out from under a flight manifest secrecy blanket deployed by former Prime Minister Morrison, but endorsed by Marles.
Maybe the next MWM FOI on the Deputy Prime Minister’s flights might reveal that a bit of sunlight on the issue has stopped such extravagance. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.“
How to make ‘Iran like Gaza’ and describing the genocide in Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory. Michael West and Stephanie Tran with the inside story of a weapons expo.
Inside a conference hall at Tel Aviv University, executives, generals and venture capitalists took turns boasting about “combat-proven” Israeli weapons and surveillance systems.
At Defense Tech Week 2025, senior figures from Israel’s defence establishment openly described how the genocide in Gaza has accelerated weapons development, unlocked new export markets and reshaped Israel’s global identity as a defence powerhouse.
Less than 70 kilometres from where the conference was held, Gaza has been reduced to rubble. More than two years of genocide, indiscriminate bombardment and mass displacement have left at least 70,000 Palestinians dead and 90% of the Strip destroyed.
Gaza weapons lab
Defense Tech Week advertises itself as a forum connecting startups, investors, defence primes and policymakers. According to its organisers, the event showcases “practical lessons from Israel’s cutting-edge solutions that are addressing global security challenges”.
MWM has obtained the footage with Drop Site News in the US.
The speakers resembled a roll call of Israel’s military-industrial complex with senior Israeli military leadership, officials from the Ministry of Defense, and executives from Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, including Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Speaker after speaker framed the war as a lucrative opportunity for weapons development and sales.
“These are not lab projects or PowerPoint concepts,” said Amir Baram, Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense.
“They are combat-proven systems.”
Gili Drob-Heistein, Executive Director at the Blavatnik ICRC and Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, described defence technology as Israel’s “next big economic engine”.
Israel is known for being the startup nation,” she said. “We all believe that defence tech has the potential to become the next big economic engine for Israel.”
She credited what she called Israel’s “technological leadership” and “out of the box thinking” for results “we’ve seen recently on the battlefield.”
For Boaz Levy, President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, the war has presented an opportunity to showcase the company’s wares with IAI’s weapons being deployed in Gaza, Iran and Yemen.
“The war that we faced in the last two years enabled most of our products to become valid for the rest of the world,” he said.
“Starting with Gaza and moving on to Iran and to Yemen, I would say that many, many products of IAI were there.”
Real-time combat data
Elbit Systems CTO Yehoshua (Shuki) Yehuda spoke about deploying autonomous systems and mass data collection in real-time combat. He showed a video demonstrating how an AI-powered system developed by Elbit is used to select and track targets “less than a pixel.”
“All of it is done by collecting the data,” he said, describing the ability to track “small targets in a very tough background… less than a pixel.”
He explained that these systems were developed in collaboration with the IDF and refined through continuous data collection during military operations.
Profiting from genocide
The speakers were candid about the scale of the financial opportunity presented by genocide.
According to Amir Baram, more than 300 startups are now working with Israel’s military research directorate, MAFAT, with 130 joining during the current war alone. In 2024, he said, the ministry invested 1.2 billion shekels in defence startups.
Baram oriented Israel’s surge within the global boom in defence spending.
“Global defence spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024,” he said, pointing to the increase in expenditure from NATO countries and US defence spending exceeding $1 trillion.
“By partnering with Israel, you gain access to our advanced technologies as well as the valuable insights and experience that make our system truly effective. The world has chosen to partner with Israel because trust in defence must be built on credibility, performance, and shared strategic purposes.”
In 2024 alone, Baram said, Israel signed 21 government-to-government defence agreements worth billions, positioning Tel Aviv as the world’s third largest defence tech hub.
At Israel Aerospace Industries, Levy said 80% of the company’s activity is export-oriented.
“IAI as of now has $27 billion of new orders,” he said, with annual sales of around $7 billion.
Elbit Systems reported $8 billion in annual revenue and a $25 billion backlog, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide.
‘Make Iran like Gaza’
The speakers were explicit about how techniques developed and used in Gaza could be deployed in future conflicts.
Dr Daniel Gold, head of Israel’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, described scenarios in which Israel would replicate Gaza style control in Iran.
“Once we have operational freedom in the air,” he said, “we inject inside… our UAV fleet controlling Tehran and controlling Iran – which means we make Iran like Gaza.”
Gold highlighted the practicality of “dual use” technology which have both civilian and military applications.
“A swarm of drones that control the traffic in Tel Aviv can be the same swarm of drones that control in Gaza,” he said.
During his presentation, video footage was shown of a semi-autonomous drone targeting an individual inside an apartment building, imagery that bears striking resemblance to documented Israeli strikes that have killed civilians in residential homes, including the attack that killed Dr Marwan al-Sultan and his family.
“It is very simple to operate,” Gold explained. “Semi-autonomous.”
Mounting pressure
In her report on the “Economy of Genocide”, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese stated that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”
the report found.
Two years into Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza, execs appear to be acutely aware of the mounting international pressure.
Shlomo Toaff, an executive at RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems, lamented that “Israel is experiencing a boycott.”
“I think Israel is experiencing a boycott,” he said, citing the company’s exclusion from the Paris Air Show last year. “This is something that we have to take into account when we’re talking about what we’re doing here in the industry.”
IDF security guards to roam the streets of Sydney? Criticism of Israel to be outlawed? Protests banned, media and universities monitored, the threat of defunding for antisemitism?
This episode examines how the Bondi Beach attacks were rapidly politicised, before the facts were established and while families were still grieving. Instead of restraint, Australia witnessed an immediate rush to blame, agenda setting by foreign leaders, and a media cycle that prioritised outrage over evidence.
We look at how the tragedy was leveraged to justify new crackdowns on protest, expanded surveillance, and policies that blur the line between combating antisemitism and restricting legitimate political speech.
We examine the role of lobby groups, the adoption of the IHRA definition, and the implications for media freedom, public broadcasters, universities, and civil society. There is no justice without truth. Watch the full investigation and read the related reporting at michaelwest.com.au
The final stage of the playbook is the deliberate conflation of three distinct entities: the Jewish faith, the Jewish people (especially in the diaspora), and the political State of Israel. Political Zionism’s success depends on merging these concepts, thereby framing any criticism of Israeli state policy as an attack on Jewish people globally, which is then branded as antisemitism.
Introduction: A Sovereign Nation on a Foreign Hook
The premise is stark and troubling: Australia is being played. This manipulation operates on two interconnected levels: the geopolitical, where Australian sovereignty and policy are leveraged to serve a foreign nation’s interests, and the communal, where the rich, complex history of Australian Jewry is reduced to a political pawn. The cynical exploitation of the Bondi Beach tragedy – used to justify cross-border political pressure and a rapid legislative response absent in domestic crises – is not an anomaly. It is the latest move in a long game, one that deliberately conflates Jewish identity, faith, and safety with the agenda of the modern Israeli state. This article traces the historical roots of this conflation and examines its contemporary manifestation, arguing that both the Australian body politic and its Jewish citizens are victims of a sophisticated foreign policy playbook.
Part I: The Australian Jewish Tapestry – From First Fleet to National Pillars
The history of Jews in Australia begins with the First Fleet in 1788, with at least eight Jewish convicts among the initial colonists. This community grew steadily through the 19th century, comprised initially of British Jews and later supplemented by those fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. By Federation in 1901, they numbered over 15,000 and were recognised as equal citizens in a society where the antisemitism endemic to Europe was notably rare.
Their integration and contribution to Australian nation-building are undeniable. In commerce, Jewish entrepreneurs were central to sectors like clothing manufacturing, particularly in Melbourne’s Flinders Lane, creating employment and industry. In service to the nation, no figure looms larger than General Sir John Monash. The son of Jewish parents from East Prussia, Monash commanded the Australian Corps in 1918 with such brilliance that he is considered one of the war’s most celebrated commanders. His leadership, however, was attacked by rivals, including official war historian C.E.W. Bean, who expressed antisemitic views about Jews’ “ability… to push themselves”. Monash’s triumph over this bigotry to become a national hero symbolised a powerful truth: loyalty and identity for Australian Jews were directed at their home country, Australia.
This history creates a clear benchmark: for over a century, Australian Jewish identity was synonymous with Australian civic identity. The community’s battles were against stereotypes and prejudice, not for the political objectives of a foreign state. The notion of a “Jewish society” in Australia is a historical falsehood; Australia is and has always been a pluralist, secular democracy.
Part II: The Fracturing Instrument – Zionism’s Rise and the Haavara Precedent
The rise of political Zionism in the 20th century created a new and potent ideology that sought to redefine Jewish identity in national-political terms. This movement often found itself at odds with established Jewish communities in the diaspora, including in Australia, where early Zionist overtures were reportedly dismissed by a government wary of disruptive foreign influence.
A critical and darkly revealing historical nexus is the 1933 Haavara Agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist organisations. This pact allowed approximately 60,000 German Jews to transfer some assets to Palestine in exchange for boosting German exports. For the Nazis, it was a tool to forcibly emigrate Jews while breaking an international boycott. For some Zionist leaders, it was a pragmatic, if horrifying, means to build the Jewish population in Palestine.
The agreement was deeply controversial. Mainstream Jewish leaders like American Rabbi Stephen Wise opposed it, and right-wing Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky denounced it vehemently. The pact illustrates a chilling precedent: the willingness of a nationalist political movement to engage in realpolitik with even the most abhorrent regimes when it served its demographic and state-building goals, treating individual Jewish lives as political currency. This instrumental approach foreshadowed later accusations of Zionist leaders showing contempt for Holocaust survivors, viewing them less as victims to be comforted than as demographic assets to be utilised.
Part III: The Geopolitical Playbook – From USS Liberty to Bondi Beach
The modern playbook for manipulating Western democracies was refined over decades. A foundational event was the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy spy ship in international waters, which killed 34 American servicemen. Declassified documents and senior U.S. officials, from Secretary of State Dean Rusk to CIA Director Richard Helms, concluded the hour-long assault on a clearly marked ship in broad daylight was deliberate.
The subsequent cover-up was a masterclass in political coercion. Records show Israeli diplomats threatened to accuse President Lyndon Johnson of “blood libel” if he pressed the issue, while U.S. officials, fearing domestic political fallout, ordered the Navy to “hush this up”. The lesson was clear: a foreign nation could attack a sovereign ally with impunity by leveraging perceived political control over a minority voting bloc and the weaponised charge of antisemitism.
This template is now visible in Australia. Following the Bondi attack, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (a role with an explicitly American mandate) publicly blamed the Australian government for “inaction,” inserting himself as an authority on Australian internal security. The Australian government’s response was tellingly swift, pledging to adopt recommendations from its own Antisemitism Envoy, Jillian Segal. Critics note the government is simultaneously ignoring the report’s “unlawful” aspects while fast-tracking measures that curtail free speech—a reaction that stands in stark contrast to the glacial pace of action on homelessness or healthcare. The tragedy was leveraged to advance a pre-existing, contentious policy agenda, demonstrating how external pressure can create “political will” for a foreign-aligned objective where none exists for domestic suffering.
Part IV: The Conflation and the Crisis – Playing Both Sides Against the Middle
The final stage of the playbook is the deliberate conflation of three distinct entities: the Jewish faith, the Jewish people (especially in the diaspora), and the political State of Israel. Political Zionism’s success depends on merging these concepts, thereby framing any criticism of Israeli state policy as an attack on Jewish people globally, which is then branded as antisemitism.
This conflation is a betrayal of both the Australian Jewish community and the Australian public. It ignores the long tradition of Jewish voices in Australia and globally who are strident critics of Israeli policy and the ongoing violence in Gaza. It resurrects the very ideas of racial-national identity the world sought to bury after WWII. It forces a false choice upon Australian Jews: either express unwavering support for a foreign government’s actions or be accused of betraying your people.
The ultimate goal is to create a political monolith. By fostering suspicion and manufacturing crises – whether through the amplification of extremist attacks or the promotion of divisive legislation – the architects of this playbook aim to polarise societies, dismantle bipartisan foreign policy, and align democracies unquestioningly behind a single geopolitical vision. As recent statements from U.S. figures about creating a singular empire suggest, Australia’s sovereignty is not a principle to be respected but a variable to be managed.
Conclusion: Reclaiming Sovereignty and Sanity
Australia is indeed being played. Its Jewish community, with its deep and patriotic history, is being used as a wedge and a shield. Its political class is being manipulated into prioritising a foreign nation’s narrative over its own citizens’ welfare. The rapid, forceful response to the Segal report’s agenda, contrasted with the neglect of foundational domestic issues, is proof of a hijacked policy compass.
Breaking this hook requires intellectual and moral courage. It requires disentangling faith from nationalism, rejecting the conflation that is the playbook’s central weapon, and reaffirming that in a pluralist democracy like Australia, loyalty is to the nation and its people – not to a foreign flag. It requires remembering the legacy of Sir John Monash, who served Australia, not a foreign ideology. The task is to reclaim sovereignty from foreign manipulation and sanity from manufactured crisis, for the benefit of all Australians.
Chris StokesProfessor in the Department of Geography, Durham University
Florence ColleoniSenior Researcher, Polar Geophysics, National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS)
James KirkhamPostdoctoral Researcher, Antarctic Geography, British Antarctic Survey
“We cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice.” That’s the message from more than 50 leading scientists who study the Earth’s frozen regions, published in the latest annual State of the Cryosphere report.
In the past year alone, the vast polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are likely to have shed around 370 billion tonnes of ice, with a further 270 billion tonnes from the 270,000 mountain glaciers around the world, some of which are disappearing altogether.
In February 2025, global sea ice extent reached a new all-time minimum in the 47-year satellite record. Elsewhere, perennially frozen ground (called permafrost) continues to thaw, releasing additional greenhouse gas emissions each year that are roughly equivalent to the world’s eighth-highest-emitting country.
The warning lights from the cryosphere have been flashing red for several years, and governments ignore this at their peril.
Melting ice is driving an acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise, which has doubled to 4.5mm per year over the last three decades. If this acceleration continues, sea-level rise will reach around 1cm per year by the end of this century – a rate so high that many island and coastal communities will be forced to move.
The loss of mountain glaciers will affect billions of people who rely on their meltwater for agriculture, hydropower and other human activities; and the damage caused to infrastructure by Arctic permafrost thaw has been estimated to cost US$182 billion (£137 billion) by 2050 under our current emissions trajectory.
Negotiations based on ‘best available’ science
In an effort to reduce the risks and effects of climate change, including those from the cryosphere described above, the Paris climate agreement was adopted by 195 countries at the annual UN climate summit in 2015, with the aim of limiting “the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.
Its implementation should be based on and guided by the “best available science”. That includes evidence provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group created by the UN to provide governments with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Yet recent climate negotiations, including at the UN climate summit in Brazil in November 2025 (Cop30), have seen some countries – largely fossil fuel producers – push back on previously standard language endorsing the IPCC as a source of the “best available science”.
As cryosphere scientists who regularly attend the UN’s climate summits, we have noticed recent efforts to downplay, confuse and dilute some of the latest scientific findings, especially from the cryosphere. We find this alarming.
At Cop30, observations about the complete loss of glaciers in two countries (Slovenia and Venezuela) were removed from the final draft text. Other shocking scientific findings about “irreversible changes to the cryosphere” were diluted to a rather vague “need to enhance observations and address gaps in the monitoring of the hydrosphere and the cryosphere”.
This tactic to obfuscate the science is not new, but has been increasingly used over recent years, during which the indicators of climate change and its consequences on the cryosphere have become increasingly obvious to scientists.
At Cop30, climate negotiators from several countries expressed disappointment and concern that the role of the IPCC as the best available science was not highlighted alongside some of the more alarming scientific findings, with an intervention from the UK capturing this frustration.
While the final overarching summary text from Cop30 – the Mutirão decision – references the IPCC as the source of the best available science, and contains some strong language around the need to limit warming to 1.5°C, rather than 2°C, these look like empty words when the same document fails to even mention “fossil fuels”. Emissions from fossil fuels will result in 2.6°C of warming by 2100, without urgent action.
Indeed, the final text from Cop30 is the first to explicitly reference a temperature “overshoot”, reiterating the need “to limit both the magnitude and the duration of any temperature overshoot”. Most scientists agree that overshoot is now inevitable, but that 1.5°C increase remains the legal and ethical imperative for a long-term global temperature target.
However, some scientists – including ourselves – would argue that even this is too high, committing us to losing around half of the world’s mountain glaciers and several metres of sea-level rise from the polar ice sheets.
Among the dire warnings, a recent study offers hope that it is still possible to curtail warming in the next 15 to 20 years, peaking at an increase of around 1.7°C in the 2040s before declining to an increase of 1.5°C and then 1.2°C by the end of the century. But that requires rapid and deep cuts in emissions from now on.
Climate negotiations may move at a glacial pace, but the irony is that the pace of glacier change is rapidly overtaking our ability to adapt to it and protect the most vulnerable people. The science is clear. But the perils of ignoring it are even clearer.
Change from State-based and comprehensive database
By Lee Capocchi
First and foremost: We are not proposing to take away firearms from legitimate and legal owners and users.
What we are proposing is changing shooter Licencing and Weapon registration from a State-based system to a National System.
Creating a National database modelled on existing Driver Licencing, Vehicle registration and fleet-ownership system.
Let’s get the major changes covered first
A National Shooter and Weapons Authority.
All shooter Licences and Weapons registrations to be renewed three yearly.
A National Database that may be accessed by all interested and relevant parties. This will include Police, Security Agencies, Firearms Dealers, Gun Clubs, Shooting ranges and people buying and selling firearms. Access and ability to read or enter data will vary according to requirements of each group.
Such usage to record each and every access, by whom and what was read or written, similar to the Police LEAP system.
Recording of Ballistics for EVERY weapon in circulation. Starting with sales of new firearms by dealers, then when there is ownership transfer of second hand weapons, and the balance of existing weapons on Licence or registration renewal.
Ballistics samples to be held by Authority. Details to be in database as per fingerprints.
Group ownership laws which will include Police, Military where weapons are carried in Public Spaces, Clubs, Shooting Ranges.
Automatic flagging within system or by authorities or other users.
Transfer of ownership modelled on motor vehicle transfer with Buyer and Seller to complete and separately submit paperwork.
Tighter rules for weapons stored by authorities.
Speedy identification of lost or stolen weapons.
Special permits or licences for those that do technical work on firearms. Renewed annually.
Physical checks on flagged owners, weapons and special permits.
Non-Citizens and visitors are not permitted to have a Weapons Licence and are not permitted to own or use a firearm.
An exception will be made for visiting shooting competitors and their weapons used for competitions/sports Eg commonwealth games or Olympics
Permanent Residents may obtain a Provisional Licence and be limited to 1 firearm only. (Red P on Licence)
Only citizens may hold a full licence and for the first 3 years from obtaining that licence (Green P on licence) may only possess 2 weapons.
an exception will be made for Professional shooters employed in this field
Professional Shooters may have more than 5 weapons
Benefits of the new system
Lost or stolen weapons will be traceable to last known owner and location. Any responsible person or Authority will quickly know if a weapon is so lost or stolen. This will include buyers and dealers as well as police.
Any ballistic sample obtained at a crime scene will be traceable to last known owner and location and provide Authorities with a serial number and let them know if that weapon was reported lost or stolen. It will instantly link crimes committed with the same weapon.
The database will track which owners are permitted to use which weapons and the number and type owned.
Authorities (mainly police) will be more accountable to tracking all weapons held in custody or storage, as will dealers.
There will be tracking of weapons sent for destruction, which currently does not occur, and if weapon is used in a crime the data trail will point to what happened and who did it.
Police in cars will also be able to check or update quickly on their terminals or tablets.
Downsides of new system
Expect Kickback from:
Police, Clubs, Ranges and even the Military
Owners who currently do not have to regularly of frequently renew registration or licences
Dealers who will need to set up access and purchase ballistics testing equipment.
For the first 3 years there will need to be a large team of staff doing data entry and filing of ballistics samples, after which activity will settle down to renewals and registration. The workload will be somewhat reduced by mandating dealers do the entry for new and secondhand weapons and do the ballistics testing. There will need to be designated police stations to do ballistics and certain tasks like late renewals, etc.
For remote or poorly serviced, paperwork and ballistic samples can be posted to the central authority using registered post.
Some details
All new weapons will be entered in the system and have with ballistics done at point of sale. So rather than fishing a bullet out of someone and simply identifying the type of weapon, authorities will know the serial number of the gun and who, if anyone, was the last owner.
Previous names and addresses of licence owners will be on display and also previous owners of weapons also will be immediately visible. A search of the database can be instigated to further trace history if needed………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://theaimn.net/proposed-australian-national-firearms-laws/
The dumbest thing we are being asked to believe today is that pro-Palestinian protests caused the Bondi shooting. It’s self-evidently moronic. No one sincerely believes it. They’re just pretending to believe it to get protests banned and criticism of Israel outlawed.
Nobody actually believes pro-Palestine protests caused the Bondi shooting. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
Nobody actually believes “globalize the intifada” means “kill all Jews”. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
Nobody actually believes pro-Palestine demonstrations are “hate marches” or that pro-Palestine speech is “hate speech”. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
Nobody actually believes there’s a soaring epidemic of antisemitism in our society that is caused by anti-genocide demonstrations. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
Nobody actually believes opposing the state of Israel is the same as hating Jews. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.
Israel supporters are liars and manipulators. They support genocide and apartheid. Of course they will lie about what they believe, and pretend to think things that they don’t actually think. They’re defending a mass atrocity that can only be defended using lies. They’re bad people. Bad people do bad things
It’s crazy how the Bondi shooters got radicalized by the anti-genocide protests from 2023 to 2025 and then invented a time machine and went back to 2019 to join ISIS.
That’s the claim that’s being made when people say the mass shooting in Sydney was caused by pro-Palestine protests, you know. In 2019 Naveed Akram was on an Australian intelligence watch list because of his ties to an Islamic State terror cell, so the claim that the Gaza protests caused or incited the shooting necessarily requires an element of time travel. Call their story “The Terrorists and the Time Machine”.
We’re being asked to believe that ISIS were a bunch of cuddly wuddly snuggle bears until Australians started protesting an active genocide.
If the right to free speech does not include the right to oppose an active genocide using strong and unmitigated language, then there is no freedom of speech.
This is exactly the sort of thing that freedom of speech is intended for: times when the government is doing something wrong which needs to be ferociously opposed. That’s the primary reason it’s an enshrined value in our society. Freedom of speech is for holding the powerful to account.
If you only have freedom of speech when you’re agreeing with your government and saying nothing which inconveniences the powerful, then Saudi Arabia has free speech. Every tyrannical regime that has ever existed has had freedom of speech by those standards. You don’t measure a society’s freedom by how much its citizenry are allowed to agree with their government, you measure it by how much they’re allowed to disagree.
And right now we are being told we’re not allowed to disagree. We’re being told the protests need to stop, the anti-genocide chants need to be criminalized, and everyone needs to shut up and obey — all justified by the completely baseless narrative that the words and actions of pro-Palestinian activists were somehow responsible a terrible massacre that was committed in Sydney last week.
And these policies just so happen to serve the interests of the very same western powers whose genocide-enabling actions were being forcefully opposed these last two years. Government officials constantly being protested and questioned about their facilitation of Israel’s genocidal atrocities. Politicians who are consistently confronted by anti-genocide demonstrators during their public appearances. Wealthy arms manufacturers whose profit margins are being harmed by direct action from activist groups. Plutocratic media institutions who are becoming more and more discredited in the public eye as the Gaza holocaust exposes them all. Billionaires whose empires are built upon the political status quo that gave rise to the genocide in question.
If the powerful are shutting down speech rights to advance their own interests in your society, then your society is not meaningfully different than the dictatorships the western world tries to contrast itself with. All our stories about living in a free society have been just that: stories. Fairy tales.
That’s what they’re telling us with this mad rush to stomp out freedom of speech this past week. They are telling us that we do not live in the kind of society we were taught about in school. They are telling us that the only reason we were allowed to speak as we pleased in the years leading up to the Gaza genocide is because we were a bunch of compliant sheep who were not meaningfully challenging the interests of the powerful, and now that we are meaningfully challenging them the facade of freedom and democracy is falling away.
As Frank Zappa once said, “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
The earth has moved under our feet, and our massive security gamble is crumbling, but the government pretends nothing has happened, writes Michael Pascoe.
Tits on a bull, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, all same same. The former committee is a random mix of odds and sods – even Ralph Babet – as could be assembled, the latter stacked with fans of last century’s security stories, devotees of Pax Americana, fed and watered by the local and American security establishment
“to think no further than their outdated Anglosphere prejudices.“
This was the year the earth moved for Australia’s security, while our timid government kept its head under the pillows, desperately hoping it would not have to face up to the changes and challenges, praying its political strategy of copying coalition policy would help keep it safe at the polls. What’s Labor’s main security concern? How it looks in khaki on election day.
Can the opposition come up with a more pro-American defence spokesman than Richard Marles? No. Labor remains safe on the security right flank that was traditionally Liberal high ground.
With the Albanese/Marles/Wong government devoted to exerting discipline, quashing dissent and going all the way with Donald J, Australia’s national security future goes unexamined while its current blueprint burns.
Strategic failure
We have proven ourselves to be rich in the greatest strategic failure: lacking imagination. Our defence establishment – politicians, spooks, bureaucrats, military, salespeople, foreign agents – could not imagine the change that has been foisted on them, could not conceive any future for Australia other than one embedded in the American military armpit,
can’t grasp that the game has irreversibly changed.
Now, as America changes faster than anyone dared guess, we pursue the path of failure that comes from not believing what is happening. Having explicitly bet our strategic future on America always protecting us, that that is our only hope for survival, it is too painful for the establishment to face up to America withdrawing, to being proven wrong.
Australia Deputy Sheriff
There have been rare and largely ignored voices forecasting what is happening under Trump. A decade ago, Geoff Raby warned of the US eventually withdrawing from Western Pacific domination, leaving Deputy Dawg Australia an orphaned shag on a rock. Hugh White, more recently, has made the case that America is in retreat to its core interests.
That has now been spelt out in the Trump administration’s National Security Statement and by its “Secretary for War” Pete Hegseth. America is to be about the Americas, with Europe left to itself, or Russia, and China’s military rise acknowledged and accepted in Asia.
A new reality
Crikey’s Bernard Keane summarised the new reality ($) while highlighting local mainstream media’s failure to examine it, citing a speech last weekend in which Hegseth said the quiet bits out loud:
“Our interests in the Indo-Pacific are significant, but also scoped and reasonable … this includes the ability for us, along with allies, to be postured strongly enough in the Indo-Pacific to balance China’s growing power.
“President Trump and this administration seek a stable peace, fair trade and respectful relations with China…this involves respecting the historic military buildup they are undertaking.”
Keane concluded Hegseth had said the unthinkable: the US aims merely to be present in the Pacific, not to dominate it. It merely seeks to balance China’s power, not defeat it. And it “respects” China’s military build-up.
“Imagine the absolute uproar from the media — and not just from News Corp — if Anthony Albanese had talked about ‘respecting’ China’s military build-up,” Keane posited.
Like the US blatantly committing war crimes and now piracy off the Venezuelan coast, America’s declared security strategy is an embarrassment Australia doesn’t want to see. This is the America which preferences Russia over Europe.
Not “just a phase”
The optimistic view within the defence establishment clinging to American coattails is that Trump, too, will pass and everything will get back to just the way it was.
It won’t. That’s not the way it happens when the world changes. Much of MAGA will prove sticky even if the Democrats reclaim the White House and Congress.
“Having given ground, it’s very difficult to reclaim it.
Not much of Trump 1.0 was overturned by Biden. The tax cuts and Chinese tariffs remained. The domestic chaos created by Trump will be more than enough for a Democrat administration to wrestle with, if there is a Democrat administration next.
America is set for so many problems by 2028, China’s role in Asia won’t register.
In little ol’ Australia, we’ll watch the cricket and slumber through summer. Prime Minister Albanese’s interview on the final Insiders program for 2025 was typical, being purely domestic. A minister’s expensive airfares was a major issue, American war crimes and the national strategic statement Russia applauded didn’t rate a mention.
And with an iron grip on Labor Party members and an irrelevant opposition, Albanese/Marles/Wong will continue to treat the somnambulant Australian public with contempt, refusing to be open about our AUKUS fantasy,
“refusing to risk a public inquiry,
refusing to tell us what more the US is demanding of its South Pacific vassal.
Oh well, we can concentrate on the cricket, ignore our complicity in piracy and war crimes and just keep handing over the billion-dollar cheque
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.
History Council of South Australia, 19 December 2025
Adelaide historian Dr Nicholas Herriot has been awarded the prestigious 2026 History Council of South Australia Fellowship for his project “Leave it in the Ground: South Australia, Uranium, and the Atomic Age”.
The project, which was the unanimous winner in a strong field of ten nominations, will investigate how South Australians mobilised against uranium mining and grappled with the promise and peril of the atomic age, focusing on the 1970s and early 1980s – a period of intense political controversy.
Dr Nicholas Herriot is an early career researcher specialising in Australian labour, environmental and social movement history. He teaches history at the University of Adelaide and serves on the executive of the Labour History Society (South Australia).
Supported by the State Library of South Australia, the $2000 History Council Fellowship is open to all Australians exploring South Australian history, and aims to foster research that deepens our understanding of the state’s past and its contributions to wider histories. The annual winner also receives 10 hours of library research support, library space and the use of a computer.
History Council of South Australia president Prof Matthew Fitzpatrick said the judges were impressed with Dr Herriot’s plan to explore the legacies of anti-nuclear campaigns in shaping contemporary debates about energy, sovereignty and environmental justice.
“The project is both topical and timely, resonating with current explorations into alternative energies and about the power of protest,” Prof Fitzpatrick said.
“By illuminating these aspects of our recent past, the research will help contextualise ongoing concerns about nuclear policy and environmental responsibility and highlight the library’s rich collections as vital resources for understanding the state’s unique identity.
Prof Fitzpatrick said the state library’s commitment to preserving and sharing the state’s documentary heritage contributed significantly to the success of the awards, and the advancement of historical research. He also thanked the Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation for its continued support.
State Library of South Australia director Megan Berghuis said she appreciated how Dr Herriot’s project would draw on the library’s extensive archival holdings, including oral histories, activist ephemera and rare periodicals.
Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation director Dr Susan Marsden AM said she was impressed by Dr Herriot’s intention to situate local activism within national and transnational networks.
Antinuclear 