“I am your retribution”

“I am your retribution” must rank as one of the more dangerous and insane statements of Donald Trump. Retribution focuses on the alleged failings or offences of the other.  In Donald Trump’s case the other is democracy itself, or at least the trappings of democracy in an independent judiciary, a public service that serves the good of the nation, not partisanship, and of course a free and open ballot box.

 According to Trump, it is these democratic institutions which have caused the ‘rustbelt’ and enslaved its citizens. He says they are controlled by a socialist ‘elite’. He and his plutocrats will set them free. Owning this story, citizenry rail against the institutions that serve the very constitution upon which their nation is founded. This is the insane language of ‘victimhood’, of apportioning blame, of being comforted in the knowledge that others can be brought to account for perceived ills. It is the common language not simply of dictators but also of popularist politicians in Western democracies. They foster contempt for an imagined enemy. The enemy is provided a name – the favourite from the right is to call anyone who supports the principle of common good a ‘socialist’.

If this language were restricted to Donald Trump, it would be dangerous enough for global citizenry, but unfortunately it is common language across the globe, used not only by dictators, but in democracies such as ours, by popularist politicians and media barons who support them.

It is the language of Vladimir Putin who insists his nation is under immediate threat from the Western alliance and that much of what is now Eastern Europe has been stolen from Russia. He and his people must fight to restore Russian territory, integrity and nationhood.

It is the language of Benjamin Netanyahu who plays the victim card to the utmost.  His nation has not just risen from the ashes of the holocaust, but apparently the Palestinian people are outsiders, living on land that belongs to Zionists; therefore, their removal is not simply justified, it is a moral cause with a biblical mandate.

It is the language of Xi Jinping, who insists the time has come for China’s place in the sun. China’s past suffering from European and Japanese powers is a thorn that needs excising.

It is of course true that past European dominance and exploitation lies behind many legitimate international grievances. But remedying the past is best achieved through the emergence of superior technology, culture and morality, not retribution and the violence it generates.  Retribution guarantees the continuance of the grievance, not its vanquishing.

While not being named as such, the retribution principle, the naming of offence in the other, is sadly employed in popular politics everywhere in the world but let us look for a moment to our own backyard. Elections are increasingly won or lost, not through the enunciation of good policy, but through the articulation of grievance.

Last year’s referendum loss became inevitable when rhetoric that the majority were being dudded prevailed.  The No Vote successfully convinced the majority that saying Yes would allow a small minority – First Nations people - to “double dip”, that they would have an advantage not enjoyed by the majority.   That this was rank nonsense meant nothing. Now the architects of the No vote in Mr Dutton’s office are doubling down, they refused to attend the Garma festival and have informed us that when in power they will not pursue ‘truth-telling’.  Why should we be surprised? Being confronted with truth is the last thing that politicians who rely on populist slogans want to face.

The same language is being used by the likes of Barnaby Joyce in his full-frontal attack on the development of renewable energy.  He is out to re-enforce minds that latte drinking socialist elites from cities are stealing their prosperity and livelihoods by encouraging wind turbines and solar farms across the country. Every attempt is being made to stir righteous indignation. That global warming is the greatest threat to security and prosperity for all, no matter where we live, and time is running out to address it, is apparently beside the point.

We are what we believe.  We are shaped not simply by the stories others tell us, but more significantly by the stories we tell ourselves.

Too many of us are telling ourselves that we are victims of circumstance created by others, that others have an advantage we are denied, or even that our way of life is under attack from opponents known or unknown, but guessed at through conspiracy theory.

This clearly is the view of the American Christian right who in their millions support Donald Trump.  No matter he is egregiously guilty of breaking moral codes that all citizens, let alone Christians, hold dear, that he is ontologically incapable of speaking truth and believes in his superiority in all things: nevertheless, he is supported because these people have told themselves he and he alone stands between them and a full-frontal attack on the place Christianity holds in American life, or at least the Christianity they have carved in their own image. It is an attack they believe is already underway.  

The Christianity of Jesus seeks no place of its own.  It is an incarnational faith. It seeks the face of Christ in the other. As Pope Francis said in his May exhortation, “there is no Catholic God, only God”. Christianity exists where love abounds, where life is honoured, where sacrifice is made, where justice is demanded, where the vulnerable are cared for, where the voice of God is heard in the rhythms of creation, where innocence is protected in children, where beauty in all its forms becomes a channel of grace. 

There is no power on earth that can threaten the Christian faith or its practice, as numerous saints have testified over millennia.  The greatest threat to faith is its reshaping in our parochial likeness. The greatest gift of faith is discovering Christ in the other.
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In the beginning God spoke just one word, that word is love. Investing in its discovery is the singular role of leaders whether secular or religious.
 
 

The two Envoys

This article was posted on Pearls and Irritations 11 July 24
 
The Prime Minister says he has appointed an antisemitic envoy and will soon appoint an islamophobia envoy, because the population does not understand the complexity and seriousness apparent in a perceived threat to Australia’s social cohesion.  But the boot is on the other foot. He and his government have shown an abysmal lack of understanding or perhaps wilful blindness to the causes of misplaced anger with racist overtones. Defacing war memorials and attacking the offices of members of parliament, which I do not condone, are protests against our government for not sanctioning Israel for its gross violations of international law.

1. The cry chanted by supporters of Palestinians “from the river to the sea” is not a cry of antisemitism as Mr Albanese, Mr Dutton, and their supporters claim. ​

 It is a cry which puts the whole terrible suffering in context. It is a response to the truth that the Zionist project is one of gradual appropriation of all land and the displacement of all Palestinians including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. As Senator Payman has said, she does not seek the end of Israel, she seeks the end of the colonial Zionist project. She seeks freedom and equality for Palestinians wherever they live from the river to the sea. 

Because the Australian government and the opposition both claim to support a two-State solution they should be in the forefront of boycotting Israel for actions that make this proposition impossible.  Since October 7 there has been an escalation of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, an escalation of proposals for more illegal settlements, an escalation of imprisonment of Palestinians for protesting their loss of rights and an escalation of demolition of Palestinian properties.   Senator Payman was right to vote for a motion which would have led to Palestinian recognition without caveat, and even more importantly she was right not to vote for the motion which would have kicked the can down the road and tied recognition to a peace process to which Israel will never agree.

2.  The appointment of proposed islamophobia and antisemitism envoys places the cause of unrest and anger in entirely the wrong place. 

This is not about religious bigotry or even religious identity; it is about gross human rights violations. What is happening in the Middle East is political, not religious, as is the response in the US, Britain and Australia. Mr Biden has clearly had a gutful of Mr Netanyahu, but he will not give sway to his sense of justice emanating from his Catholic faith because he knows if he did so, he would have even less chance of winning the November election. I am personally so angry about what is happening in what I have always understood to be the Holy Land. I am neither a Muslim nor a Jew.  From my Christian faith I am outraged by the subjugation of the Palestinian people. Here in Australia, neither side of politics, with some courageous exceptions, is prepared to see, or speak, with Palestinian voice. 

3. In making these appointments, Mr Albanese is muddying the waters between religion and ethnicity.

For decades Palestinian Australians have been too anxious to identify themselves as such and have been more likely to say they are Lebanese than Palestinian.  It is ironic that since October 7 and the rise of sympathetic focus on the plight of Palestinians, it has freed many Palestinians, especially the young, to stand up.  Palestinians identify as people of Palestine.  They are both Muslim and Christian, although Christian Palestinians are now more likely to be found in the diaspora than in Palestine.

Similarly, when I became President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network in 2012, my first challenge was to recognise that my understanding of ‘Jewishness’ as a form of religious identity was inaccurate. Many of my Jewish friends made it clear to me they were not at all religious (some claimed to be atheistic), but that did not diminish in any way their sense of being Jewish. I have come to understand that for many (possibly most), Jewishness is a cultural, perhaps ethnic, identity.  It is certainly true that most Israelis are secular, not religious. I was told in no uncertain terms that “the more you understand the Old Testament, the less you understand modern day Judaism”. 

4. Treating the manifestation of an illness without addressing it cause is futile

The October 7 Hamas sponsored brutality on an Israeli kibbutz and the consequent taking of hostages is rightly condemned without caveat or qualification.  However, associating the attack with all Palestinians is unconscionable. The slaughtering of tens of thousands of Palestinians without consequence from the international community is a crime against the decency of all humanity.  Several members of the Knesset have said there is no such entity as an innocent Palestinian.  The refusal to treat Palestinian asylum seekers from Gaza in the same way that asylum seekers from Ukraine have been treated by the Australian government appears to make this link. The unjust treatment of the Irish by the British created the IRA. The unjust treatment of Palestinians, leaving them without hope, has created Hamas. More than anyone else, Netanyahu is responsible for the rise of antisemitism, Albanese will not have taken a meaningful step to address the issue unless he at least uses the same language moderate Jews use to condemn the leader of Israel and its government’s apartheid inspired policies.

5. Criticism of Israel is antisemitic if it is criticism which would not be brought against other countries - Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.

The strident criticism I bring against Israel is because of what it and its allies claim it to be, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.  We have sadly come to expect atrocities from North Korea, the Myanmar junta, and from Russia.   They do not claim to be democracies.

Israel claims to hold the same values as Australia and vice-versa.  I want to shout as loudly as possible – no we don’t.  It is true that our colonial past held many similarities.   It is also true that some ‘red neck’ Australians continue to hold similar values. But as a people and as a government we do not.  It is a cause of grief and anger that we, who continually espouse to uphold international law, do not require this of Israel.

Mr Albanese, setting up your envoys may help you think you are addressing a lack of social cohesion; you could do far more by addressing the causes of such disruption.
 
 
 

Open Letter
Prime Minister, Mr Dutton, Senator Wong, Senator Birmingham, Senator Paterson

(The letters have been sent)
 
Yesterday you, or your party, opposed a motion which would have encouraged Australia to join a growing majority of the world’s countries that recognise Palestine.  Why did you do that?

Please take the time to view the recently released film:

Where Olive Trees weep

This is a film produced on the Palestinian West Bank in 2022.  Its Australian premiere happened on 25 June 2024 in Brisbane and Adelaide.

Please do not tell me you are too busy, or that the film is some kind of Palestinian propaganda. It is a film based on brutal facts, revealing what it is like to be born Palestinian and to have absolutely no right in the place of your birth.

As a politician you should develop policy based on facts.  Israel is clearly a pariah state. Watch this film and tell me why that is a heinous thing to say.  Also tell me why your commitment to a two-state solution with absolutely no condemnation of Israeli policy and action which makes that outcome impossible, is a position worthy of anything other than contempt?

 It is a film that painfully displays the brutality of the Israeli Zionist project. You don’t believe this is the case? Well, watch the film and tell me how you justify your position.

What is the story you believe that leads you to think that Palestinians do not deserve the same rights as Israelis, or indeed as other human beings for that matter?

Do you think Israelis are the victims, that their security is so perilous that for security reasons they can lock up more than 9,000 West Bank Palestinians since October 7? They have no formal charges laid against them and no right to legal representation.  It is not Israelis who lie in bed thinking Palestinians are coming after them with guns. It is Palestinians who lie in bed knowing Israelis are coming after them with guns.

What is the story that the Tamimi family and others on the West Bank have concocted about Israelis?  It is that they can and would like to live in harmony and peace with all who live in the lands once called the Holy Land from the river to the sea. The Tamimis genuinely feel sorry for Jews whose country now exists without a sustaining moral narrative. (I have visited the Tamimis in their village).
What is the story Netanyahu and his fellow thugs (and they are thugs) have concocted about Palestinians?  It is that they are vermin, less than human and can and should be exterminated. It is a narrative that insists Tamimis and others are terrorists.  Bassem and other members of his family have been brutally tortured in Israeli gaols on multiple occasions. Why?   They have committed a heinous crime? They are a threat to Israeli ‘security’? No, they have resisted the theft of their land, their property, their rights, their freedoms.   Mr Dutton you clearly accept this resistance as a fair definition of a terrorist, that is, one who resists brutality. Some years ago, you cancelled Bassem’s visa for an intended journey to Australia. 

What story are you people really believing about Palestinians and who is providing you with that story?   Why will you not listen to the Palestinian narrative?

“If we shall not end the occupation, we shall not have security, and if we shall not end this occupation, we shall not have democracy.”  This is a recent statement by Ami Ayalon, former head of Shin Bet. Similar statements have been made by Ehud Barak.

It also appears to be the view of the majority of Israelis that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political reasons and to avoid the Israeli courts.  The leader of the IDF has wisely observed you cannot militarily defeat an idea.  Hamas is an idea which, if anything, is being strengthened the longer the conflict continues.
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To begin the end of the occupation the world community must recognize Palestine.
 
Watch:       Where Olive Trees weep
 
The film ends with the following statement.  We Palestinians know that no one can or will help us. We can and will help ourselves.   All we ask is that the world stops feeding and resourcing the machine that is killing us.  Surely that is not too much to ask?  
 
Recognise Palestine
 
Watch:    Where Olive Trees weep
 
 
 
 
 

Why do the Nations so furiously rage together

Why do the nations so furiously rage together and why do the peoples imagine a vain thing?

At this point of the 21st century one might well repeat this question, which the psalmist (psalm 2) posed 2.5 thousand years ago. There is no reason to think the time we are living through is more awful than any other time, but because there are so many of us, resources have been overly exploited and the weapons of destruction we now possess are so terrible, the stupidity of humanity appears far more cataclysmic.

In response to contemporary, humanly constructed, acts of violence throughout the world, Pope Francis proposes a theology of love. “God is the first to love. God does not love because there is something in us that engenders love. God loves us because he himself is love, and, by its very nature, love tends to spread and give itself. God does not even condition his benevolence on our conversion. If anything, this is a consequence of God’s love”.

Most Church goers of my generation will readily recognise this article’s title words. They of course from George Frederick Handel’s Messiah. The biblical text for the Messiah was chosen and complied by Charles Jennings and accepted seemingly unedited by Handel. In my view, the work of Jennings is as much genius as Handel’s music. This piece comes in a short section which Jennings titled the “world’s rejection of the gospel”; appearing towards the end of the long second part, which has outlined in detail the redeeming work of God in Jesus.   It is then followed by a section Jennings calls “God’s ultimate victory”, which of course incudes the Hallelujah Chorus. The rejection of the gospel is not rejection of dogma but a rejection of love.

The palmist, who is the inspiration behind these words, lays the blame for the world’s madness at the feet of the world’s rulers: the Kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together. Mr Dutton, who presents as not just sympathetic to the gospel, but supportive of it, operates from the opposite play book, one of fear, obfuscation and denial of reform suggested by others.

Let us lay aside autocracies for one moment and focus on what is still held up to be the highest form of government – democracy.  

It is difficult not to conclude that democracy has become a failed project. Why?  Because the two-party system has morphed into a competition between parties where winning is not understood as creation of good policy, but in wresting power.   Some years ago, I found myself in the office of a senator, now in senior ranks of the coalition. We were discussing the Middle East and particularly the plight of Palestinians. She said she fully appreciated the suffering of Palestinians. I remarked how appreciative we would be of her speeches in the parliament in support of their human rights.  She informed me she would not be doing that. I asked why not?  She said it would not be in her political interest to do so. I than asked whether she would speak on any matter of conscience that was not within her political interest. She said no.

As a US citizen, why would you vote for either side at the November election, except to try and avoid a Trump ascendancy and its inevitable catastrophe. In Australia it is clear our best hope for thoughtful longsighted policy designed to serve an equitable, harmonious, and sustainable future is to vote in as many independents as possible.

Sadly, the most productive tool in a politician’s armoury is fear: however, fear engenders extreme positions, both in the politician and in their followers. Political victory is secured through stoking love’s opposite – fear. As individuals we are capable of profound love, but as a collective, fear is our default position.

If Trump wins the US election it will be because he has successfully employed fear and disinformation.  The same applies throughout Europe.  The expansion of right-wing governments threatens hope for sensible middle ground.  The extreme right governments in Israel and Hungary are courted by Australian conservative politicians. Conflict, not appeasement is their tool in trade. John Howard took us into an unpopular war in the Middle East followed by a disastrous war in Afghanistan.  Following the Vietnam war, these conflicts have achieved nothing noble and, in the process, have left thousands of combatants with PTSD.

Here in Australia, we must seriously question the alliances we seek to forge. Given US interference in the affairs of many countries and its propensity to turn to conflict in human relationships rather than seek appeasement, why are we deepening our ties? Why are we committing gigantic sums to secure two or perhaps three submarines, which may or may not arrive, or be in working order when they arrive, in another 15 years’ time?

The gospel narrative is a about divine order found in connectedness and relationships. There is only one house which we all share – the earth. The whole created order is intimately connected.  Not to seek and nourish that connectedness is to say no to life.

It is a very vain (as in foolish) thing to seek to be top dog. What is the purpose in being top dog? There is considerable purpose in finding one’s place in the company of all life.  Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister says the winner is the one who controls Jerusalem, including the Wailing Wall and the temple Mount. No Mr Smotrich, the winner is the one who refuses to sell his or her soul.

The State of Israel has sold its soul. What basis does it have for existence if its very existence depends on violence, the elimination and subjugation of others.

The State of Israel (not to be confused with Jewish people everywhere) has consciously developed a culture of fear, totally disabling the State from any conversation which might enable flourishing through coexistence.
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Pope Francis concluded his statement on the theology of love by saying: “A sapiential theology ⦋that is a theology founded in wisdom⦌ is thus a theology of love, because “whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
 
 

Truth is not singular: it is Trinitarian
 
It is a truism that belief and action are two sides of human reality. Because an increasing number of males apparently believe women to be subservient, or that because they are male, they are owed something, our Australian culture has become blighted with terrible and often violent male behaviours.  What we come to believe determines what we do.

Clearly the State of Israel believes, and people like Peter Dutton concur, that Israel has the right to control and subvert all of what traditionally had been called Palestine, and that all Palestinians are terrorists for resisting. In these last few days, we have observed the chilling sight of Israeli crowds celebrating in the streets of Tel Aviv as Palestinian children burn to death in Rafah.  Linking Jewishness to the State of Israel is wrong, despite the fact Netanyahu insists Israel is an expression of Jewishness. Josh Frydenberg, I join you in abhorring antisemitism, but if you want antisemitism to diminish, use your voice to unequivocally condemn the actions of the Israeli government and the outrageous rejoicings of those who support them.

If it is believed God singles out a particular class or tribe for blessing and that wrath falls on those whose lives differ from one’s own, or that certain people are born to rule and others to accept subservience, then actions that match that belief inevitably follow.

This week Christians have been celebrating one of, if not their primary, belief – that God is best understood as Trinity.  This statement has been roundly ridiculed as irrationally stupid within, as well as without Christianity by the likes of Thomas Jefferson or Rudyard Kipling, quite apart from predictable suspects such as Richard Dawkins. So, is it best to park this belief in the dust tray of history as the extravagant literary and academic flourish of an Augustine or Tertullian; or is there belief here without which Christians have nothing to say and no work to perform in our troubled world?

(I want to leave aside philosophical debate about ousia and homoousion, or trite metaphors which have attempted to satisfy human reason, and instead focus on what this teaching has to say about the nature of God and, as a consequence, the nature of humanity, how we should act and what we should long for).

Let me start in the obvious place with the oft recited statement that “God is love”.  It would not be possible to make this statement without belief in the Trinity. Love requires an entity to be loved and an outcome of that love. If relationship does not exist within the heart of God, God is not love. For love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and a relationship between them.

“We are created so that we may be caught up in this, so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us, as God loves God”. – Rowan Williams

In other words, relationship is at the heart of God. Bishop Lesslie Newbiggin said: “belief in the Trinity teaches me that relationship is the ultimate truth”. The primary vocation of human beings should be the giving and receiving of respect and honor, as communities, large and small, are formed and nurtured, from the intimacy of nuclear families to the grandeur of planet earth.

The human vocation is not to sit around endlessly telling God how great God is, without mirroring what God does (notwithstanding Allah Akbar is certainly true).  “I hate, I despise your festivals and offerings, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. (Amos 5: 21 – 24).

The Middle East is a case in point.  Many pious statements are made in the name of religion – all religions – but where is justice being worked for, or righteousness celebrated?

Peter Dutton and others have vilified the chant by young Palestinians - ‘from the river to the sea’.  Others also use it. When Zionists use this chant – as they do, and when Hamas uses the chant - as it has, sovereignty is front of mind. When these young students use this chant, politics and sovereignty are not front of mind.  What is front of mind, is a desire that from the river to the sea they will be free, as in, they will live as everyone else lives, without borders, with the same rights and the same freedoms.  It is not for them a racist chant. It is a call for humanity to become what we are called to be, diverse communities living in harmony, respect, and peace with each other.  The cry is a cry for justice and righteousness. It is not a cry for sovereignty. Dutton, you hear it as a cry for power and possession because these are the values that are important to you. Justice and righteousness are what they are calling for – hardly an unreasonable call.    It is an abiding failure of humanity that we hear others through the prism of our own prejudice.

This chant is consistent with belief in a Trinitarian God: consistent with belief that each is enhanced through the embrace of the other. 

It is beyond tragic that many who espouse a conservative Christian faith are more likely than not to support divisive outcomes through conservative politics, rather than supporting sustainable and diverse communities.  It appears that conservative Christians have abandoned Trinitarian belief.  This is particularly so of the Middle East where Christian voices in support of a just outcome for Palestinians has been shamefully muted for decades.  A just outcome for Palestinians does not mean diminishment for Jewish residents. It means sharing the richness of diversity without walls and with reciprocity of rights ‘from the river to the sea’.

The Anglican Church is embarking on an initiative next year titled Hope 25: it’s raison d’etre being sharing the Christian Gospel at a time when much brokenness and despair prevails both in Australia and globally.

One can only hope that this initiative is deeply embedded in Trinitarian belief: commitment to establishing a broad range of communities reflecting respect and trust  – across boundaries of injustice and division.  People of all religious belief are arrogantly in error to think God works only or even primarily within their enclave. Collaborating beyond boundaries in this relational universe is to be surprised by joy.
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Belief in a Trinitarian God must always be central in Christian faith, with outcomes that are subversive to the principalities and powers of our contemporary age.
 
 

Is humanity capable of a common story which enables well-being?
or:
Does self-interest necessarily rule - with inevitable destruction?
 
In one hundred years, how will the period we are living through be described by historians?  Despite extraordinary technological advances will it be referred to as the beginning of a new dark age? If so, why?   Why are we living in such a dark, ignorant, and self-interested manner?

Before attempting an answer, first let us hold the mirror up to obvious signs of our dysfunction.

The last few days have spotlighted electronic media, the billionaires who profit from it, and their business model which refuses accountability. Domestic violence has many causes but misogynist treatment of women as objects of male fantasy is standard viewing by young men. Clicks of a button trick many into thinking they have many friends, but in the real world the same people are trapped in a pandemic of loneliness and depression.

Ominous threats to world order are not being addressed. Despite political and international rhetoric, no committed and verifiable plan exists to limit global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, let alone 1.5.  The effective veto by any one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US effectively ensures no action is taken on any of the hard issues. Purveyors of armaments (war is part of their business plan) are keeping conflicts alive in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan. (Australia sells armaments to Israel).

States were once viewed as earthly approximations of an eternal order with the City of Man modelled on the City of God.  Now, they have come to be seen as mutually beneficial arrangements aimed at protecting the natural rights and self-interest of the citizens of each. This self-interest almost always mitigates against global best interest. Interference in support of their own self-interest by the US, Russia and China keeps the Domesday clock at 90 seconds to midnight.

Self-interest is most damaging in politics.  The West’s democracy is blighted by a binary, conflictual political system in which the interest and ambition of major parties has become more important than good policy.

Neo-liberal economics has failed. Unsurprising, given its appalling philosophical basis, that self-interest is in everyone’s best interest. Despite the crumbling edifice, self-interest prevents economic reform and renewal. An unregulated capitalist economy is powerless to bridge the wealth divide between nations, and within nations between those who own property and those who don’t; those who work in essential services and those who can afford to access them; those who for a variety of reasons cannot gain a foothold and those who can.

Now for a diagnosis!

What you are about to read in response might be perceived as the last gasp of air from one who has served and led a now defunct and irrelevant institution. Its dying, you might say, has been taking too long!

But hang on. I am not wanting to argue for the institution, I am wanting to argue for something more fundamental.

Upon what authority do we make sense of the world, our lives, our purpose – if we have one?  For the short span of our own life, what is our aim, wherein do we attribute success or failure? 80 years in the context of billions is not very much!

According to AI analysis, in the lead up to the Federal budget, Coalition governments have historically framed their presentation in terms of economics while Labor governments have framed theirs in term of social well-being outcomes.  Either way, they assume a meta narrative.

Israel's meta-narrative is clearly - 'We are the victims'  

Past civilizations have been founded on meta-stories of belief, stories which have made sense of the world as they experienced it, shaping behaviours.  Indigenous Australians had a meta-story which nourished them for thousands of years on this continent, until being brutally disconnected from it. White man’s money on its own does not ensure reconnection. Voice might have helped.

Generations back, many if not most of us, of European origin, have Celtic ancestors. Celtic symbols and stories rooted our ancestors in their place within rhythms of nature and seasons of the year which were greater than them.  Communities were gathered around a tree which through its roots and branches symbolized the web of life to which they and the natural world symbiotically belonged, leading to one of the most familiar Celtic symbols – the Tree of Life.

Pope Gregory sent Augustine to England in 601 AD with the instructions Libellus Responsionum. He instructed that the Christian faith become incarnate, indigenized amongst Britons. The Christian narrative became the meta-narrative of the English-speaking world.  That shocking excesses motivated by greed and power have blighted the faith every century does not change the fact that the faith is a civilization building narrative, which proclaims the supremacy of grace, confidence that light and goodness dispel darkness, that life is gift, that to walk humbly is strength - arrogance is weakness, and can be summarized in that humanity and divinity met on a cross.

In more recent times, the period known as the Enlightenment challenged the place of meta-story. Pre-eminence was given to rationality as a way of explaining the world, and prominence to the individual’s right to determine their own value system. In the mid-twentieth century CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, seeing the English world as almost uniquely bereft of identity nourished in story, attempted to reengage with meta-story out of their Christian conviction.

The consequences of a vacuum left by the rapid decline of Christianity, to the extent that the majority have virtually no knowledge of it, has in my view not been acknowledged and thought through.  What story now commands our attention as foundational? Where are today’s Chaucer or Bunyan? The word ‘god’ is shorthand for the entity claiming our primary commitment or devotion. Having no religious identity does not mean we have no ‘god’.  In the absence of wide acceptance (if not practice) of Christianity, there is no obvious common, binding narrative commanding moral or social behaviour.  In practice ‘gods’ vary, but are inclusive of wealth, happiness, family, longevity, power, all viewed from an individual or personal perspective. 

Sadly, within Christianity it is also true that personal interest has played a significant role. Post the Reformation, the multiplicity of new denominations sold the advantage of their brand, either through a watertight guarantee of personal salvation within their tent, or material wealth, or both – today’s successors are obvious.   

I remain a deeply committed Christian because I know of no other story with universal reach that insists I am neighbour to all, including the natural order, and all are neighbour to me.  I know of no other story that insists good must be common.  I know of no other story which has a table at its centre to which none are excluded. I know of no other story which insists future aspirations, to be meaningful, must be lived as present realities. And of course, I know of no other story that majors in grace as the world’s dominant transformative energy.

Neary two decades ago I presented at a National Library symposium titled “Does humanity have a future”.  Most artists and scientists were pessimistic.  I remember saying it depends on what meta narrative humanity is prepared to honour.

The role of Christian leaders, and Christians generally, must move from servicing the diminishing numbers who claim tribal allegiance to full engagement and participation in the wider community. Live, and tell the meta-story.
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

When words cease being words: and become weapons.

We generally assume words carry the same meaning in the mind of speaker and listener. This enables meaningful communication and common understanding.  Sometimes however words are given a specific meaning which completely changes their original intent.  The words become weapons.   This has happened with the word antisemitism and the word terrorist.

This week the American president, Joe Biden, has called peaceful protests by students at Columbia and other US universities – antisemitic. These protests were not directed at Jewish people. They were protesting the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza and more generally on the West Bank, where crimes against Palestinian people, either by instruments of Israeli government, or by civilians encouraged by the Israeli government, have been ongoing for decades and escalating since October 7, 2023.  The use of the term in this way has three very serious consequences.

Firstly, it diminishes the seriousness of real antisemitism, the demonisation of Jewish people. This demonisation, with an ethnic, cultural, or religious base has centuries of history, culminating in the horrors of the holocaust.

Secondly, it seeks to squash both academic and political debate about issues of power, injustice, and oppression.  Zionist lobby groups have sought to pressure universities and other civil institutions into signing what is called the IHR definition of antisemitism. This definition includes criticism of Israeli governmental policy in its examples.  The rationale of the argument is that Israel is a Jewish State, therefore criticism of the government is criticism of Jews or Jewishness.  Only totalitarian states seek to be absolved from criticism and single out those who dare to do so.

Thirdly, by transferring antisemitism from those who demonise Jews to those who criticise Israel, it diverts attention away from real behaviours of racial discrimination and their possible repetition.  What was done to Jewish people under the Third Reich was only possible when such people were considered less than human and therefore their elimination could be ‘justified’.  Perhaps not yet on the same scale, but the demonisation of Palestinian people by key elements of the Israeli State has made cruelty to, and oppression of, Palestinians ‘justifiable’. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israeli minister for security, has said those who kill Palestinians are doing Israel a service.
This leads us to an examination of the use of the word ‘terrorist’.

As a result of the recent knife attacks in Sydney, a spotlight has focused on how we use the word terrorist in Australia.  Who or what is a terrorist. Strictly speaking a terrorist is one who incites terror. In public western parlance it is used to describe individuals or groups who use violence to achieve religious, ideological, or political ambitions and outcomes.  There can be little debate that ISIS and al-Quaeda were terrorist organisations.

However, it is conveniently forgotten that these two organisations were born out of Sunni Islam with roots in Saudi Arabia. They were not born out of Shia Islam and Iran. Islamic terrorism experienced by the West has come out of Sunni extremism, particularly 9/11.

The Israeli government claims it imprisons and targets Palestinian terrorists.  Over the course of their lifetime, most Palestinian men experience time in an Israeli gaol. Are they all terrorists?

No, they are not, the vast majority are people who object to their homes being destroyed, their freedoms denied, and their hopes for any sense of meaningful life being snuffed out. The Tamimi family, whom I personally know, are under constant threat of their home being confiscated in area C.  Bassem, his wife, and daughter Ahed, have all been in gaol multiple times, not for any criminal activity but for resisting the crushing of any capacity to live their lives as most would normally expect.  They say: ‘all we want is to be able to live as others live’.  Bassem has been denied a visa to visit Australia on grounds he is a terrorist. We in Australia, without justification, adopt the use of this word ‘terrorist’ as dictated by the Israeli government. 

In relation to Israel, the US has maintained an impossible position both rationally and morally.  It claims a two-state solution is the only way forward, yet supports an Israeli government which vows never to cede any land to Palestinian autonomy.  It vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to recognise Palestine, saying a two-state solution must emerge from dialogue between the two parties, while knowing that Israel does not acknowledge the right of the other to exist. In other words, it has no other party to negotiate with.    The US says it abhors the ongoing slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians but has just passed a bill to send further billions of dollars’ worth of armaments which enable Israel to do this very thing.

These rational and moral contradiction are born out of adopting the Israeli misuse of these two words as the baseline from which further judgments are made.

Hamas’ rockets into Israel are terror motivated, as was its October 7 incursion. The word is appropriately used.

However, the back story is that terror instilled in Palestinian people has been a decades long strategy of the Israeli government. Those who resist oppression and injustice are not terrorists, those who inflict it are. Illegal Israeli settlers constantly shout to Palestinians “get out or we will kill you”.

Thankfully the language of the current Australian government is beginning to catch up with reality on the ground, and not be automatically driven by Zionist propaganda. There is still a way to go.
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The Israeli government deserves opprobrium from every quarter, including its own domestic population.  Peace can come, but only when the real terrorists are named and sanctioned.
 
 
 

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Lights on or Lights Out?

In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
 
This weekend we celebrate the Christian festival of Easter and proclaim once more that life is always on offer. What sets sentient human beings apart is choice, we can choose life in all our interactions, or we can choose to turn the lights out. Why in Gaza has Israel chosen utter darkness – for Palestinians and for itself?

Narratives hold power.  The narrative of Israel’s extreme right insists their brutality against Palestinians is a righteous cause because they are (re)-claiming what is theirs – land bestowed on them by God. This claim must be called out for its obscene tribalism which should play no part in the concept of nationhood. This narrative should not be taken at all seriously by the world community, least of all by the Christian community.

The current Israeli government comprises people on the extreme right of Israeli society, many of whom have a history of involvement with unlawful activity ranging from tax evasion to association with extreme and illegal groups (even under Israeli law) while at the same time claiming to be ‘ultra-orthodox’. Mr Itamar Ben-Gvir, minister for national security recently applauded the killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who let off a fire work in Jerusalem in the direction of Israeli security personnel.  He claims killing a Palestinian is doing Israel a service. This blog is addressed to him and Mr Bezalel Smotrich minister for finance, both of whom have recently been described as terrorists by Shin Bet’s internal security director Ami Ayalon. Ayalon uses the literal definition – one who incites terror – in contrast to the way it is commonly used to describe one who objects to having their rights and land denied or confiscated.

Gentlemen, you claim to know a great deal about Hebrew history as recorded in Hebrew scripture - the Old Testament.  You would know the patriarchal period (c1700 BC) is where promise and claims about land have their genesis. It was a period in which tribal ambitions contested land ownership in the name of their god. Gods and their worship were associated with place. Inter-tribal warfare strengthened or diminished the influence of the tribal god. The land allotted to followers of Yahweh became the place where Yahweh was worshipped.  You will know the rise and fall of kings of Israel and Judah (with some notable exceptions) was directly associated with involvement they had with gods of other places.

You have identified your Gazan enterprise with the Amalek narrative. The Amalekite threat was not simply about a military incursion, it was about the subversive influence of their god, the Canaanite god, Baal, with Hebrew people. Saul was in trouble because he brought ‘booty’ back from his victorious fight with Amalek, in doing so he was potentially bringing the influence of Baal back with him.

The Hebrew faith did not become genuinely monotheistic until the Babylonian exile when, forced out of Judah and Jerusalem, the prophets encouraged the people to understand that Yahweh could be faithfully worshipped in Babylon or beyond – for there is only one God, not confined to place.  Monotheism is a denial of God being restricted to a particular place.

It is a reality that in the West a growing number, perhaps the majority, find it intellectually impossible to believe in God at all.  However, if belief is to be contemplated, there can only be one God, in whose likeness all are to find commonality. 

Your Zionist narrative, gentlemen, is belief in a tribal God, the god of your tribe, whom you apparently believe advantages you at the expense of others. In as much as this belief is clearly causing enormous pain and devastation on others, your narrative must be rejected by the world community. Because such belief conflicts with Christian belief, you should not receive comfort from the American Christian conservative base.

From creation narratives onward, Hebrew scriptures struggle with the competing, and yet appropriate, claims of universality and particularity. In the 21st century we continue to struggle with these competing claims. We remain impotent to deal with major issues such as climate change, global inequality, mass migration, refugees etc, because powerful particularities prevent outcomes for common good.

Zionism is a particularity that has no place in the 21st century. Worse, Zionism is a denial of the most important promise to Abraham and any who would claim descendancy from him, that chosen-ness has meaning only in as much we become a source of blessing to others.

It appears you are willfully ignorant of the writings of your prophets, particularly the 8th century prophets who understood moral and ethical obligations of belief took priority over religious claim and practice. Also, 6th century prophets who taught Hebrew faith was not tied to place but could be practiced in Babylon and beyond.

The true mark of monotheistic belief is not distinctive identity, but virtue inherent in that identity, which is a source of blessing to all with whom we share commonality despite our different identities.

Neither of you are strengthening Israel’s security but undermining it with such severity many now wonder if Israel has not written its own death warrant. How so?

First, any national or community identity must be based in a moral code, a set of values.  It appears that those of you who currently lead Israel have no discernable moral code, other than the expansion of national identity at the expense of the identity, land, and culture of others.
A moral code is founded not on a diminished self, but on less attention paid to self. Individuals and nations grow and mature through relationships with others. The number of nations now prepared to unequivocally walk with Israel into the future has shrunk to very few.

Second, I cannot imagine what now defines the ‘soul’ of Israel. How the country’s young men and women live the rest of their lives with the scar of involvement in atrocities which have included the burial of children alive in the rubble of their homes and now includes the painful and ignominious death of thousands of others through starvation, I do not know.

Third, you are not defeating Hamas, you are creating Hamas (or its equivalent) in the hatred and loathing of young Palestinians and their supporters globally.  
There can be no place for tribalism, least of all national tribalism in the 21st century.  Judaism is not in and of itself tribal.  It is a religious, cultural, even ethnic identity through which enormous individual contributions have been made to the global community.

The brand you are supporting, or endeavouring to create, is a pariah state.
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The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the guest speaker at the 2008 Lambeth conference of Anglican Bishops in Canterbury, guest of his friend Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury.  In a Qand A following his main address he was asked what he made of Jesus? After some banter about the nature of the question his response was: “what I make of Jesus is determined by what I make of you who claim to be his followers.  At your best you have brought love to the whole world which we, even at our best have failed to do”.
What are we to make of the Israel you have now created?
 
 
 
 
 

Israel and Judaism part company

Every religion is rooted in core beliefs or dogmas but is judged or weighed by the character it espouses and the values with which it identifies.  Belief is verified or condemned by the way life is lived.  Christianity is known to espouse “love your neighbour as yourself” or, “do to others as you would have them do to you”, or, “do not judge”, or “forgive others” etc.  By those critical of any value in religious expression it is rightly weighed by the lived quality of these characteristics. Often, Judaism has shamefully been characterised in the negative, such prejudicial characterisation rightly called ‘antisemitism’. I wish to do the reverse, to speak of the essential virtue of Judaism which has clearly been abandoned by the State of Israel.

Judaism is founded upon covenants it believes have been forged with God and through which certain privileges have been assured, on the basis that accountabilities are adhered to.   What follows is not my understanding of this covenantal relationship, but the understanding of the loved and much-revered late Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain.

Lord Sacks points out there are specific covenants in Hebrew scriptures that relate to Israel and its future, notably covenants with Abraham and David; but preceding them is a universal covenant with the whole created order, made at the conclusion of the Noah flood narrative, which finalises the pre-history creation narratives. The point Lord Sacks makes is that any specific covenant must always be understood and implemented in the context of the universal covenant with the whole created order and specifically with all humankind.

What he is saying is that, at its roots, Judaism must always live out its unique identity in service of the good of the whole created order and never for itself at the expense of others. This truth has been manifested in the lives of hundreds of extraordinary Jewish people who have blessed all human life through the sciences, the arts, and many humanitarian causes.  But it is not the character of the State of Israel, which since 1947 has behaved as a pariah and bully towards those who have had every right to call the lands ‘between the river and the sea’ their home.

On the 7 October 2023 Hamas engaged in activity which was abhorrent, no matter the context.  The treatment of Palestinians by Israel had been increasingly brutal, without any hope of their rights being honoured, while the long hoped for and promised Palestinian State has been denied in perpetuity.  The people have faced an enduring blockade from which no respite was likely soon, perhaps ever.    Despite all this Palestinian suffering, the killing of innocent Jewish civilians in Kibbutz on the Israel/Gaza must be condemned.

What happened on 7th October could not pass without response from Israel.  The response needed was two-fold.  Perpetrators in the Hamas military wing needed to be brought to account, but equally, perhaps more importantly, the reason why this atrocity occurred needed to be addressed.   The reverse has occurred.  Israel has doubled down on its persecution of Palestinian people, most egregiously in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and even in Israel itself. 

Since October 7, Israel has engaged in some of the most inhumane aggression against fellow humanity ever seen in our lifetime. What exists in the mind of aggressors that they can knowingly cause mass starvation to thousands? What exists in the minds of the same individuals that they can herd innocent civilians into what was called a safe zone and then bomb them?  What exists in the minds of the same individuals that they can cause the death of thousands of children, make orphans of others, and cause many to suffer excruciating pain without relief.

What possesses the mind of Israel’s leaders that they do all in their power to prevent aid arriving in Gaza? All possible denigration has been made of UNWRA, the only viable channel of aid distribution in Gaza.  But it is not simply UNWRA, Israel has made it as difficult as possible for most humanitarian organisations to offer Palestinian aid.  Visas are refused and operatives discredited.  Mohammed Al Halabi, the head of World Vision in Gaza has been in gaol since 2016 for ‘supporting terrorism’.  He was convicted in 2022.   No evidence to justify his conviction has ever been made public, indeed independent audits have shown the accusations to have been entirely false.  Why does Israel prohibit or punish those who wish to aid the most vulnerable?

Judaism is one of the oldest and most honourable religions, based on covenants that assume global humanitarianism. Indeed, there is an assumption that Judaism will be a blessing to all nations.

In contrast, the State of Israel was born in violence and the dispossession of others, its ambition for extension and control of all territory ‘from the river to the sea’, as reaffirmed recently by Netanyahu, depends on the same tools.
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Long may Judaism and Jewish people be a source of blessing to human life on this planet, but we must forlornly conclude that Israel has long since parted company with Judaism and that Christians who without reservation support Israel because of its ‘divine chosen-ness’ are cruelly deluded.
 
 
 
 
 

 International Court of Justice and the Global court of Public Opinion

South Africa has presented an overwhelming brief to the international Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocidal motivation and demanding immediate cessation of such activity. The decision of the court will soon be known, but the opinion of millions, probably billons of the worlds citizens is known.  Israel has crossed an uncrossable line.

A community of Ethiopian nomads are gathered for their evening meal. The mood is melancholy. Ironically the conversation is not about their shortage of food, the malnutrition that stalks their children, the outbreaks of cholera, or the impact of on-going tribal rivalry and civil war.  The conversation is about Gaza.

A mixed group of middle class, mostly Caucasian Australians gather in a hall on the NSW South Coast.   They have not gathered to talk about the housing crisis, or the escalating cost of living, or a creaking health system, they have gathered to talk about Gaza and their concern about unspeakable suffering of the Gazan people.

In Sydney and Melbourne groups of progressive young Jews gather, not to talk about escalating antisemitism from which many have suffered, but to talk about Gaza.  Their overriding anxiety is that the government of Israel is doing immense harm to Judaism, to what it means to be a Jew, to the holding of humanitarian values and what it means to be a Jewish global citizen.

These conversations and thousands like them need be borne in mind by those tempted to dismiss criticism of Israel as uninformed predictability from Islamic or Arab sources alone. All Christians, all Churches, should be deeply alarmed.

In Australia, as in many other places of the world, governments that supposedly represent the mind of people, do not. Empathy for the plight of Palestinians runs at least two-thirds of the Australian population. That Australia has not supported South Africa’s case at the ICJ is utterly predictable, given a history of partisan Israeli support.  Nor is it surprising that South Africa has stood tall.  Both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu held the view that apartheid in Palestine/Israel was every bit as serious as that which had prevailed in South Africa.

What happened on October 7 was shocking and the perpetrators should be brought to account. At that point virtually the whole world was, or should have been, with Israel.  What has happened since has not been about a calling to account, but an irrational, unrequited and out of control rage. Perhaps some of it fuelled by Netanyahu’s failure to admit his, utter incompetence, even face the almost impossible admission that the IDF’s contribution at the eleventh hour contributed to terrible suffering in the kibbutz.

Since then:

It is not ok to reference Amalek and include all Gazans as a terrorist collective.

It is not ok for IDF members to chant racist slogans against all Palestinians.

It is not ok for Israel’s president to sign a missile as a Christmas gift to the people of Gaza.

It is not ok for Hamas’ statement on Israel’s illegitimacy to be given more weight than the Israeli government’s statement that not one inch of land will ever be ceded to Palestinians. Hamas has zero capacity to seriously threaten Israel, Israel has total capacity to erase the name of Palestine.

It is not ok for hundreds probably thousands of non-precision missiles to have been launched against Gazans and Gazan infrastructure, falling indiscriminately, causing mayhem.

It is not ok for thousands and thousands of Gazans to be herded into so called safe zones and then still to have lost their lives.

It is not ok for West Bank illegal settlers to be armed and for many hundreds of West Bank Palestinian residents to have been killed since October 7.

It is not ok for the IDF to indiscriminately shoot anyone carrying a white flag, even if they speak Hebrew.

It is not ok for Israel’s defence Minister to call for the death and or forced migration of Palestinians.

It is not ok for members of the Knesset to claim there is no such place as Palestine and there are no Palestinians.

It is not ok for an Israeli developer to advertise land in Gaza as a future leisure development.
It is not ok for 25,000+ people to have lost their lives, a high percentage being women and children.

It is not ok for aid to have been restricted, and for countless thousands to be on the edge of starvation.

It is not ok for the children of Gaza, in unconfirmed numbers, to have faced amputations without anaesthetic to save their lives.

Israel has crossed an uncrossable line. The Israel of 1947/48 was born out of the need to give Jewish people a safe place not just in the aftermath of the holocaust but in the aftermath of decades/centuries of discrimination and antisemitism. The world rightly saw many, but not all Jews as victims of unspeakable suffering. (Many love, and are loved members of the societies to which they belong and will always remain.)

If there was any residual reason to perceive Israel as a victim, that has been completely erased. Through its Zionistic expansionist policies and through military support from the US, Israel has been making victims of Palestinians and causing terrible suffering. Now in Gaza, this victimisation has reached a terrible threshold.

Of course, the Court of Justice must decree that Israel desist and make reparation.
There can be no going back.  Palestinians must receive the independence that most countries in the world recognise as their right.

Israelis must remove the immoral crusader-like leadership with which they are blighted, and they must demand full disclosure of what has been done to others in their name.
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We do not need the whole human history to be reminded that victory is never won through military conflict. Conflicts in our life-time are enough for that truth to sink in. Triumph is won through higher, not lower standards of morality and decency. It is won with the establishment of freedoms, justice, restoration, accords, treaties, respect and good will. When Israel awakens to the reality that Palestinians are a necessary part of their salvation, not their enemy, or simply a stumbling block to their colonial ambition, a path to lasting peace will have been forged.