The world once again is descending into chaos, creating a perfect storm for an upcoming war. Some countries are preparing militarily for this, with large spending on weapons, investment in research of missiles, including space technology, taking over disputed areas such as the Chinese annexation of the South China Sea. War rhetoric is ever increasing from China and Iran, with threats to invade or destroy other countries. Meanwhile the West is tearing itself of part, with a woke culture and drastic measures in response to the prolonged Covid 19 outbreak, which serve to weaken them by dividing and demoralising their population rather than concentrating on unifying people and preparing to counter those who beat the drums of war. [Image: La Guerre, Henri Rousseau 1895]

As Australia prepares for war with China over Taiwan, one wonders what kind of strategy it envisages. It has gone from being self sufficient to being dependant on others for almost everything, including fuel. In fact, it is very dependent on China, including for a vital ingredient in diesel fuel. It imports its fuel and has only a few days’ reserve. If war does break out, and there is a high chance of this happening in the foreseeable future, does it really think that China will supply it with strategic resources such as fuel additives to fight against it? Unless Australia rebuilds its self-sufficiency, it will find itself in future history books of military blunders.

Belarus is using Middle Eastern and African migrants to attack Poland and the European Union by flying them to its capitol Minsk and then sending them to the Polish border to force them to enter Poland. Polish troops have erected a barbed wire to preserve the border. Poland will shortly build a permanent fence. Belarus’ dictator is angry at European sanctions against his country which were placed due to human right abuses in Belarus. The use of these people by Belarus to attack another country is deplorable however so far human rights groups have been mute, as these are not interested in human rights but only in attacking liberal countries for confected accusations of wrong-doing. Every country should have the right to choose who it lets in.

Australia, one of them most human rights abusing countries since its democracy was overthrown 18 months ago, has sunk to a new low by introducing apartheid rules, euphemistically called “Vaccine Economy” rules. The country now has one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world as a result of coercion, bullying and brutal police beatings, however there is still a small percentage of people that is refusing to cave in to this intimidation. These will now be officially marked and excluded from society. They will be unable to work, shop (apart from essential food and medicine) or even inspect and organise a home. They will be unable to travel or even get a haircut. The Premier of Queensland, asked why she is building a new large detention centre, replied that it was for the unvaccinated. A similar internment camp is being built in Victoria. This is reminiscent of 1930s Germany. Just as then, the general public seems not to care and, apart from commentators in the United States and Japan, and officials in Poland, no country has said a word. We know how this ended in Germany. This is not about whether people should or should not be vaccinated. This is about basic human rights and dignity. Australian law (now set aside) stated that it was illegal to coerce someone to be vaccinated. How many lives will be extinguished by the authorities before someone does anything to stop this madness?

In the space of under two years Australia went from an easy-going democracy of friendly compassionate people into a brutal dictatorship keeping its citizens locked up in their homes, prevented from seeing family or friends not living with them, shopping, writing or posting anything critical of the government, spying on each other and reporting the most minor misdemeanour to a brutal politicised police force that shoots people in the back and attacks pregnant girls and elderly women for no reason. The Covid 19 pandemic created the opportunity, and the government and press used this to instil fear into citizens, compounded by a compliant media and well-armed police force. The daily propaganda of fear and no hope reinforced this. No-one is allowed to question the lies and wild exaggerations made by the government each day. That people caved in so quickly to this brainwashing is astounding. This of course has happened before in history, including in Nazi Germany. Everyone much carry proof of vaccination. Those who are not vaccinated are the new Jews. The propaganda put out is that the unvaccinated will kill the vaccinated and therefore must be shunned; they are not allowed into shops or people’s houses, they cannot work, and they are taking up hospital beds that are needed for those who truly deserve them (perhaps those dying of smoking or alcohol related disease, though this was not stated). History will judge Australia badly.

Australian used to be a supporter of human rights. Over the last two years it has descended into a human rights abusing dictatorship. It is now imposing apartheid. There will be two classes of Australians, not counting the elite rulers and their supporters, who have special privileges as in any dictatorship. Even though it is illegal under Australian law to coerce anyone to be vaccinated, the government is using blackmail. Those who will have a Covid-19 vaccine will have certain privileges such as be able to see family, go to a cafe or go shopping, whereas those who have not will be kept locked up in their houses indefinitely. This becomes even more problematic as those 60 years of age and over are being denied access to a safe vaccine, a deliberate policy that will see them imprisoned in their homes kept apart from family. In addition, with the virus spreading in the community, this will see the most vulnerable group of people unprotected. Unfortunately, being an island, escape to the free world is very difficult. Boats are in great demand and consequently are difficult to access.

The current US administration insists on opening a consulate on Israeli sovereign territory rather than in the Palestinian territories. Prior to the previous US administration there was a consulate in East Jerusalem on land ethnically cleansed of Jews, which was shut down by the Trump administration and its function absorbed into the new US Embassy to Israel. Although always telling Israel not to facts on the ground prior to any peace agreement while itself creating such facts. No other country is expected to tolerate an Embassy to a foreign entity on its own soil and it is doubtful that any would. It is obvious that the Biden administration is determined to unilaterally excise Israeli sovereign land and give it to those who are determined to ethnically cleanse Jews from the area. Israel must not allow such a precedent to occur.

Question 5. Israel is often accused of committing genocide. The Palestinian population is falling or rising? Answer: Genocide is the deliberate killing of an ethnic group. Such accusations against Israel are patently false and antisemitic. The accusers attribute any death of Arabs (Palestinians) is attributed to genocide. Such deaths are almost always due to defence against terrorist attacks; self-defence is not genocide. When Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Egypt occupied Gaza they ethnically cleansed all Jews and wiped out almost all Jewish culture. During the 19 years that they held them, the areas did not progress. When Israel regained these areas, development started, including the building of hospitals and universities for the Arab population. The figures speak for themselves: The annual population growth is: Palestinians 2.5%, Egypt 2%, Israel 1.9%, Jordan 1.5%. The number of Arabs in Israel: 1948 156,000; 2016 1,800,000. The number of Jews in Arab countries: 1948 1,000,000; 2016 less than 10,000. The number of Palestinians in the self-governing territories: 1960 1,100,000; 2020 5,100,000. The only genocide in the area was committed by Arabs (Palestinians) against the Jews.

Question 4. Under the United Nations are Palestinians treated the same as any other refugees? If you answered “No”, congratulations. During the 20th century millions of refugees were created by war. The largest displaced populations were the result of World War 2 and the break-up of India which led to the creation of Pakistan. Many millions of people were displaced and resettled. These refugees came under the UNHCR, whose purpose is secure the safety of refugees and to resettle them. All of these refugees were resettled, often in a different country to their home one. Once resettled, they stopped being refugees. Furthermore, their children could not claim refugee status. As a result of the 1948 Middle East conflict approximately 750,000 Arab refugees and 850,000 Jewish refugees were created. The Jews came under the UNHCR and were resettled, mostly in modern day Israel, although some went to other countries such as the United States. For political reasons, the UN created UNWRA just to look after the Arab refugees. UNWRA works under different rules to the UNHCR. The Arab refugees are considered to be refugees in perpetuity, as are all of their descendants. This creates a unique situation where Arab refugees who have been resettled in another country, gained citizenship of that country, and have successful careers are still considered to be refugees, and their children, who have never known conflict, are also refugees. That is why today there are approximately 6 million such refugees out of an initial approximately 750,000, and the number will keep climbing until UNWRA’s mandate is no longer renewed. In 1964 these Arab refugees were renamed “Palestinians”. The situation is bizarre, but suits the politics of those trying to destroy Israel, the country of the indigenous Jews, and ensures that the conflict does not end. The enormous financial cost of UNWRA is born by Western countries. [Photograph: Middle Eastern Jewish refugees]

Question 3. There is much talk about ethnic cleansing in the area. In the conflict which people have been ethnically cleansed? This is another question that people often get wrong because of a constant stream of propaganda which accuses Israel of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians. The only genocide and ethnically cleansing has been done by invaders and migrants who have attacked the indigenous Jews. In modern history, the Arabs started this in significant numbers in the 1920s, before Israel was established, and continued until the Arab League armies invaded Israel in 1948, ethnically cleansing the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem of the Jews and handing over Jewish homes to Arabs. At the same time Arabs in what is now Israel were encouraged to temporarily move out to allow the Arab League armies free access to kill all Jews, and these are the Arabs that today’s became refugees. Simultaneously, around 850,000 Jews were cleansed from Arab lands. Israel has never deliberately killed Arabs. In fact, under Israeli rule the Arab population of Israel has flourished, increasing from 156,000 in 1948 to 1.8 million in 2016. At the same time the number of Jews in Arab areas has fallen from almost 1 million in 1948 to under 10,000 in 2016. [Photograph: Arabs looting Jewish homes in Sheikh Jarrah, 1947]

Question 2. Who are the indigenous people of the area? Many people, fed a diet of misinformation, will say “the Palestinians”, however they do not stop to think who are the Palestinians. The correct answer to the question is the Jews. There is more than 3,000 years of recorded history of Jews in the area. This includes periods when they ruled themselves – the area was known as Judea. These kingdoms were conquered, however there was always a Jewish presence there. The name Palestinian was used by the Romans as an insult to the Jews. The first record of Arabs in the area dates to 450 BC, and they did not have a significant presence or an Arab state in the area until recently. When it was conquered by the Ottomans, it remained a poor, desolate province of the empire. When Jews started purchasing land and creating farms in the 19th C. Arabs came in search of work. When the Ottoman empire was conquered in World War I, the area became the British Mandate of Palestine. The British referred to the people there as Palestinians, however the word was mainly used for the indigenous Jews, as Arabs considered it to be an insulting term. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Arab League armies conquered part of the area (the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem), which they ethnically cleansed of Jews and gave the homes to Arabs. The war against the Jews continued in other ways, including terrorism and a propaganda war. In pursuit of the latter, in the 1960s the Russian KGB convinced Yasser Arafat, the then head of the PLO, to change the name of the Arabs in the area to Palestinians, which was done in 1964. The Arabs then started usurping Jewish history, claiming it to be theirs. Unfortunately, this false narrative, made to delegitimise the true indigenous people of the area, has taken hold in much Western discourse. [Photograph: The geographical survey by Adriaan Reland, published 1714, does not mention an Arab presence in the area]

Question 1. Are Israeli settlements in the West Bank legal under international law? Answer: The answer may surprise you. The statement “illegal settlements” is constantly repeated by the media, university professors, diplomats and presidents, but the actual answer is that they are not illegal. The land in dispute, what is called the West Bank and East Jerusalem, were part of Judea (Israel) in ancient times, and were conquered several times. It was last conquered and became a province of the Ottoman Empire. In the first world war the Ottoman Empire was defeated and the area became part of the British Mandate of Palestine, along with what is now Jordan. When the League of Nations voted to recreate Israel as the home of the indigenous Jews, and Israel was declared of state in 1948, the West Bank was part of Israel (the British having excised the area East of the Jordan River to create what is now Jordan), while Jerusalem was declared in international city. The Arab League invaded and conquered the West Bank and East Jerusalem, illegally annexing it in 1950, a move recognised on by Britain and Pakistan. When the Arabs once again declared war on Israel in 1967, the area was retaken by the Israelis. Thus, the land may be considered to be disputed but it is not illegally held. Jews, who were expelled from the area in 1948, began to voluntarily move back in. Some people cite the UN Convention which forbids forcible movement of populations into conquered land however the land is not illegally conquered, and the Jews moving into the area did so voluntarily. What is referred to as the 1967 borders are not the real borders of Israel but the 1948 armistice lines, which were never meant to be final borders. The belief that the settlements are illegal is based on propaganda together with the adage that a lie repeated often enough will be believed to be true.

Few other issues create as much passion, division and press coverage as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but how much do you really know about it? Take part 1 of this easy 2-choice test and over the next few weeks the answers will be revealed. Part 2 will follow. PART 1: #1. Are Israeli settlements in the West Bank legal under international law? A. Yes. B. No. #2. Who are the indigenous people of the area? A. Palestinians. B. Jewish Israelis. #3. There is much talk about ethnic cleansing in the area. In the conflict which people have been ethnically cleansed? A. Jews. B. Palestinians. #4. Under the United Nations are Palestinians treated the same as any other refugees? A. Yes. B. No. #5. Israel is often accused of committing genocide. The Palestinian population is: A. Falling. B. Rising. [Image: Luigi Mayer, City of Bethlehem, late 18th-early 19th C.]

The Australian government gather with Australia’s media has successfully brainwashed the population with its daily misinformation and wild exaggeration of the Covid19 pandemic that 60% of people agree with its draconian measures which include shut borders, prolonged block down and brutal police enforcement, when in reality the country has very few cases and no one in Hospital. Each new variant of the virus supposedly spreads “faster than lightening” and is very deadly. In its latest while exaggeration, the claim is that the latest variant is 300 times more dangerous than the original, yet the facts do not bear this out. The Delta variant is up to 60% more transmissible however when the figures are small, even a small rise we will appear large in percentage points. A person infected with the original strain will infect 2.5 other people whereas in the same environment the Delta strain would spread from one person to maybe 3.5 or 4 others. Yet two false positive cases resulted in yet another brutal block down that was extended when people started protesting. Australian once was paragon of democracy and civil liberty has descended into a brutal dictatorship ruling by fear and lies. [Image: Source unknown]

In a disgusting anti-Semitic gesture, Philadelphia’s Eat Up The Borders has banned Jews from participating in a multicultural event that, according to the organisers, is supposed to provide a “platform to peacefully gather around the table to share history, culture, language, and most importantly, food”. They claim that their initiative is “to give people from all nationalities a platform to showcase what their cultures have to offer”. In a disgraceful rationalisation of this decision, they claim that they excluded Jews so that they “could deliver an optimal experience for all”. It is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. That this has been met with silence from the authorities and human rights groups says a lot about today’s America which is fast becoming Germany 1938.

Antisemitism is now pervasive in the USA, Canada, the UK and Western Europe. It has established itself in the Universities – recently the Chancellor of Rutger University was bullied into apologising for a previous statement condemning antisemitism that he issued, because that statement had “caused offence”. Antisemitic comments are regularly made in the US Congress. The recent confrontation in which Israel had to defend itself against 4,300 rockets fired at its citizens drew violent attacks on Jews in the US, UK and Western Europe. Huge antisemitic convoys and protests were held in London, with shouts of “Rape their [Jews’] daughters”. The police in the UK gave the green light to such follow-up rallies. Police stood by while Jews were attacked. Antisemitic posters even appeared in Melbourne. Mainstream media, including the BBC, NYT, the Guardian, Sky News and News.com stoke the flames with their misrepresentation of Israel. The UK government, which has betrayed Jews throughout history, has done it again. For British citizens born in Israel it now lists the place of birth as “Occupied Palestinian Territories”. This is reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany, and is not only antisemitic but a blatant disregard for historical fact. Boris Johnson and his government must be held to account.

Australia, once at the forefront of democracy, has descended into a brutal dictatorship. Federally, the government has shut its borders to people arriving or leaving, on pain of 5 years’ imprisonment and a $65,000 fine to those caught trying. The Australian passport is worthless as even citizens cannot return. People over 50 years of age are considered dispensable. Vaccination was denied to Australians for many months, then they were offered an inferior one with potential deadly side effects while reserving the proven Pfizer vaccine for politicians and certain favoured groups. Over 50 year old citizens are being blamed for Australia’s problems. The Prime Minister told people trapped in the country but whose partners, children and jobs are overseas that they would rather be in Australia than with their families and jobs. He claims that he is doing G-d’s work. Even worse is the leadership of the state of Victoria, effectively run by a psychopathic Chief Medical Officer. He seems to enjoy keeping the populace off guard by imposing random and unannounced lock downs, which are brutally enforced by a police force which is absent when crime happens but descends in huge numbers in riot gear when people defy the strict measures. Police intimidate journalists who do not write favourable reports. The government has a daily fear campaign, announcing some new variant of the Covid 19 virus that spreads at lightening speed and kills huge numbers of people, when in reality it has trouble finding any cases. It relies on scaring people into getting Covid 19 tests to get a tiny number of positive results, well within the error rate for false positives. When he was called out for his lies, he decided to punish the people by extending the brutal lockdown. The economic devastation is catastrophic. Even worse, the population is suffering depression and anxiety at a high level. School children, frequently shut out of schools, have psychological scars. The government has also succeeded in pitting the rural population against the metropolitan population. All of these are straight out of the European communist playbook. There is no end in sight to this nightmare.

The Middle East is the only part in the world in which countries, human rights groups and mainstream media support colonisers and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people. The Jews are the indigenous people in what is now Israel, and had thriving communities throughout the Arab world. The Arabs, who migrated to the area, have regularly persecuted the Jews, and since the 1920s have been ethnic cleansing the area from them. Through violence, including murder, they pushed the Jews out of Jewish cities such as Hebron. When Israel became a state, the Arabs immediately attacked, pushing them out of the rest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and communities were expelled from other Arab lands, creating some 850,000 Jewish refugees. The majority of today’s Israeli Jews are the descendants of these refugees, yet the world considers them colonisers. The Arab refugees from the 1948 war were created by the Arab League, not by the Jews, yet the Jews are blamed. The Arabs’ failure to drive the Jews into the sea in 1948 is today called the Naqba. The world is sympathetic to calling the failure to murder people a tragedy. Time and again the Arabs have rejected a second Arab state in the area (the first created out of the Palestinian mandate was Jordan). In 1969 Yasser Arafat renamed the Arabs “Palestinians” and instantly the world accepted this, and the Arab colonisers are now regarded as the indigenous people of the area. The Arabs constantly fire rockets at Israeli civilians, including schools and kindergartens, and burn Israeli crops, doing so using children and women as human shields, yet the world regards the Jews as the aggressors. There is one word that explains this: antisemitism. [Photo: Expelled Yemenite Jews in the desert, 1948]

In his book “Homage to Catalonia” George Orwell describes his experience as a fighter in the Spanish Civil War. On his return to England he found that in reading newspaper accounts of the battles in which he fought were unrecognisable compared to the reality. The same can be said of the reporting in the current Israeli-Palestinian war. Much of the West’s media makes it appear that Israel is the aggressor, when it is only defending itself. The immediate causes of the war began when Arab Palestinians started attacking Jews and posting film clips on TikTok. The Arabs then portrayed a commercial rent dispute in Sheikh Jarrah as a political rally call. When the Jews fought back police set up barricades at the Damascus Gate where much of the violence occurred. Then Arabs on the Temple Mount started rioting and throwing rocks at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below. Police on the Temple Mount intervened. Arab rioting then spread and Hamas started sending incendiary balloons from Gaza, burning crops in Israel, and then started firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. About a third of the rockets fell short in Gaza, killing civilians including their own children. The media left much of the context out, blaming the Israelis for defending themselves. The wider context of the battle is that Hamas, which rules Gaza, feels emboldened by the new US administration, which is distancing itself from Israel and is restoring funding which is used for terrorism, wanting to win the support of West Bank and Israeli Arabs following the cancellation of elections by the Palestinian Authority. Of course, this is orchestrated by Iran, which is the puppet-master of its proxy Hamas. [Image; Saving Torah scrolls from the ruins of a synagogue in Lod which was burned down by rioting Arabs.]

Australia’s response to the Covid19 pandemic was swift however it quickly showed the incompetence of both the state and federal governments. Swift, prolonged and in some states brutal government lockdowns which included police beatings and house arrests for anyone protesting, even in on line, were followed by refusal to organise a vaccination program. It was obvious early on that there was no exit strategy. Despite their rhetoric, the governments sought an eradication policy, one that can only work if Australia remains shut out from the outside world. A too-late and totally incompetent vaccine drive saw the government effectively declare that anyone over 50 years of age no longer mattered, and now borders have now been shut indefinitely. Emigration is not allowed. Those who managed to escape are now facing government proceedings for extradition back to the country for prolonged jail terms. People returning voluntarily are also facing long jail terms. The people, through no fault of their own, now live in a communist style dictatorship.

The Australian government’s descent into dictatorship with trampling of human rights continues. The government has shut its borders, preventing people leaving the country, with heavy fines and 5 year jail terms for those who try, even foreign nationals. It has now introduced 5 year jail terms for Australian citizens who want to return to Australia. On the inside front cover of Australian passports it states, “The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, being the representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, requests all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer, an Australian Citizen, to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him or her every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need”. The Australian government totally disregards its own words.

The Australian government has totally failed in its vaccination program. It did not consider a program until other countries were well on the way, and then it decided to rely on only one vaccine, from AstraZeneca, with some additional Pfizer vaccines for politicians and some select groups of people. Unlike other countries, it also did not set up mass vaccination centres. It was a mistake to rely on a single vaccine for most of the population, and to choose a significantly less protective one. Now that there have been additional problems with the AstraZeneca vaccine, with many countries stopping its usage, the program is in disarray. In response, the government has decided that those over 50 years of age are expendable, and will be forced to take the inferior vaccine and one prone to deadly reactions, or miss out altogether, while younger people, which the virus affects less, will be protected. Instead of admitting it had failed and putting in place a totally revised plan to move forward, the government’s answer is to rely on advertising companies to create spin to convince those over 50 years of age to play a vaccination version of Russian roulette, risking death whatever they do. Considering that at present there is no virus in the community, this is the most disgraceful conduct of any elected government in the country’s history. The government appears to forget that it faces an election in 6 months’ time.

While countries are vaccinating their populations, Australia, a wealthy Western country which once had an enviable health system, is now behind even poor countries such as Rwanda. Australia has eradicated the virus, a combination of being an island and draconian lockdowns which saw people virtually locked in their houses for up to 7 months at a time. Then, while other countries began to vaccinate their populations in late December, Australia refused to allow vaccines to be imported into the country, finally relenting in late February, promising that 4 million would be vaccinated by the end of March. To date only just over 500,000 people have got their first dose. Australia imported the superior and proven Pfizer vaccine for certain groups of people which, in the words of one politician, “deserve it”, including the Prime Minister, while the rest of the population will only get the inferior AstraZeneca vaccine, a vaccine that 21 countries have stopped using over safety fears. The government refuses to allow other vaccines such as those from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson to be imported. Once the envy of the world, Australia has become an incompetent and cruel third world dictatorship.

Trust is the most precious characteristic that a person can possess. It is an abstract psychological idea that a person is dependable, with behaviour that can be predicted, and who can be relied on no matter what. It is the essence that binds relationships, whether they be romantic, friendships or business. It creates a sense of confidence and security, which is most crucial in times of crises. Trust also creates vulnerability, leaving a person exposed to possible damage, whether psychological or material. Trust may be betrayed by words, actions or failure to act when called for. Once betrayed, it is almost impossible to regain. People may reach a new understanding, however at least some doubt will always persist, and the relationship will never return to what it was.

This week Jordan prevented the Israeli Prime Minister from attending a high level meeting at the UAE by not allowing his aeroplane to fly over its airspace. This follows a disagreement when the Jordanian Prince tried to enter Israel on a visit to the Temple Mount with a security contingent far larger than had been agreed to in negotiations for the visit. Jordan regularly creates crises and falsely accuses Israel of jeopardising peace. Jordan should be reminded that it was created through treachery, when the British illegally gave 70% of the land designated for Israel to the Arabs to create Jordan. When Israel was established on the remaining 30% Jordan invaded the new country, ethnic cleansing Jews from what is now the West Bank and from East Jerusalem, which was the Jewish quarter of the city. Jordan destroyed some 60 synagogues and desecrated the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery in that quarter. Jordan held those areas for 19 years, during which it would not allow Jews to pray at their most holy site, when the Israelis reclaimed their own land in a war of defence in 1967. Israel graciously turned control of the Temple Mount to the Jordanians, who to this day prevent Jews from praying there. It is galling that the Jordanians continue to diplomatically attack Israel at every opportunity despite having signed a peace agreement with Israel. [Image: Gezicht op de Tempelberg van Jeruzalem vanuit het oosten 1652–1708]