Australian Atheists Forum

Imagining and demanding the decolonization of Palestine means acting to decolonize all the colonial states in the world, from Brazil to Australia, including the USA and Chile. ...The discussion that reduces responsibility for the massacre in Gaza to the current government masks all the massacres committed against Palestinians throughout history, such as Deir Yassin in 1948, and the colonial project itself. It wasn’t Benjamin Netanyahu or the Israeli far right who founded the colonial project and apartheid, but the Israeli left. For example, the kibbutzim, well-known proto-socialist farming communities, have been central to advancing the Zionist-Israeli colonial frontier throughout history and have always been exclusively Jewish communities. There are kibbutzim that even today have the right to veto non-Jewish inhabitants (mainly Palestinians). So Israel doesn”t just have a colonial government, but a social structure made up of decades of incessant colonialism....What is even more curious is the fact that it is not only Zionists who affirm the unrestricted right of the State of Israel to exist. Many of those who advocate a “two-state solution” are now unable to imagine the self-determination of the Jewish people without the ties of the colonial state; ironically, this imaginary makes the two-state solution itself unfeasible. To affirm Jewish self-determination only through the Israeli state is exactly how Zionists envision it, leading to the one-state format that already exists: an apartheid regime and the consolidation of a catastrophic expulsion, that of the Palestinians. ...And this destruction no longer means expulsion and displacement, nor the construction of one, two or three states, but the re-founding of the social bases for peaceful and just reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews. ...The Colombian president seeks to connect the violence in his territory with the historic Israeli intervention in Colombia and treats Palestine as a paradigm of catastrophe that deserves our attention due to the global risk of conflict and collapse in the face of the climate crisis. However, Petro’s action demonstrates that it is still easier for international actors critical of Israel to invest in improving their relationship with the fragile Palestinian Authority than to actually disrupt their relationship with the State of Israel. ... . Imagining and demanding the decolonization of Palestine means acting to decolonize all the colonial states in the world, from Brazil to Australia, including the US and Chile. It is a particular struggle that expresses the liberation of oppressed peoples all over the world. Decolonizing Brazil means contributing to the decolonization of Palestine and vice versa.

Radical futures involve equally radical modes of action.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the Albanese government’s sanctioning the view that Israel is a ‘special case’ when it comes to war crimes, was in an October 10 interview with ABC Radio in Perth by Defence Minister Richard Marles. Asked about whether it was justified for the Israeli Defence Minister to order “the complete siege of Gaza, the cutting off of food, fuel and electricity”, Marles replied this way;

“Well, I think Israel is justified in acting to defend itself in this moment. I think it’s justified in seeking to protect and liberate its citizens and to act against Hamas. I mean, this is an incident which is being wrought upon innocent civilians and it is an act of terrorism. And in this moment, that Israel is acting in a way which is seeking to defend itself, I think we can understand.”

Given that the Albanese government is, as usual, in lockstep with Washington on Israel, it is not inconceivable that it might be asked to supply military assistance if the Gaza conflict continues for weeks or months. The issue would then become whether the Australian government was aiding and abetting war crimes committed by Israel.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), was one of the first heads of government to visit Israel after the Hamas attacks. On his trip, he reasserted that the security and existence of the Israeli state was Germany’s Staatsräson or “reason of state”, literally tied to the foundation of modern Germany