I think this is a terrific piece, passionate, even fierce but funny too. Szego is a great talent. That her old paper does not publish her is a disgrace.
All the labels have been switched. Something that really doesn't need any nuance at all - that a transwoman is not female - is now deemed inscrutably complex, and we must side with the marginal transwoman over privileged and bigoted sex-realists seeking to defend the safety and integrity of actual female-kind. And then, something that really does need nuance - the deeply difficult complexities of the Palestine and Israel interface in the context of intractable regional opposition to the State of Israel since its formation - is now supposedly transparent and morally clear, and all right-thinking people must side with Hamas. One the one hand, nuance is used as a tool of confusion to deny the most obviously commonsense realities. On the other hand, blunt moral invective, without any appreciation for long trains of historical and regional complexity, is wielded like a polemic axe in the cause of essentially ignorant virtue signalling. Thanks for countering both label switches Julie. We are much in your debt.
I have read the Khalidi volume. It actually is more nuanced, thoughtful and pragmatic in important respects than most partisan pro-Palestinian works, but it also leaves the reader in no doubt that Khalidi is a Palestinian and a partisan of the Palestinians.
There are, I think, understandable historical and cultural reasons why Australian political and intellectual elites are more transported by Israel/Palestine than by (say) Syria or Yemen or Sudan. The puzzle remains why members of those elites who are not themselves Jewish or Israeli, Muslim or Palestinian, nonetheless become uncritical partisans of one side or another when, as Geoffrey Brahm Levey has argued, surely the most useful thing Australians interested in the issue can do is to achieve an emotional distance from partisans on both sides to match the physical distance of Australia from the Middle East, and try to encourage efforts towards peace and mutual recognition.
Paul, the puzzle is partly solved if you put aside notions of Jews and Muslims, etc and see that this elite, beautifully satirised by Julie, is the Australian chapter of the global left. They are dedicated to the agenda set long ago by the old Soviets of denouncing and subverting the capitalist Anglosphere. And, like it or not, Israel is treated by them as a member of the Anglosphere, or at the very least, a proxy of the US. Currently dominated by leftist governments, the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK are now furiously leading the charge to topple the rightist Netanyahu government and nobble Israel through the international pressure of the ICC and the UN before the political right, with Trump in the vanguard, displaces them.
To be clear I am a proud citizen of the Anglosphere as, also, are over half of the worlds Jews. It is one of humanitie's great achievements and Israel is very a close ally and affiliate. Apparently though for our socialist compatriots, great is just not good enough.
You don't have to be Jewish to want Israel to continue to exist. You just have to read a bit of history and resist the inclination to think in slogans. It probably helps to have come from a radical left background and so be inoculated against the self-righteous nonsense that passes for analysis among "good people". I have started reading Khalidi's tract, and am trying to do so open-mindedly, but you only have to read the title and subtitle -- "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance" -- to see that he has assumed at the outset what he purports to have set out to prove.
I’m currently reading The War of Return with great interest, having watched Einat Wilf speaking online at various events. I find it really informative and have started to look at historians like Benny Morris and his book 1948. The podcast “Call me back” with Don Senor has introduced me to the journalist Haviv Rettig Gur whose lectures on both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives are very - ah - nuanced! (Not sure if I can use that word without a grimace now!).
I've not read any of the books mentioned, so my comment is only a general observation. The fact the list is largely made up of Muslim writers suggests the perspective being offered deliberately excludes the Jewish one. It appears this is not an attempt to foster nuanced debate but to make the simplistic claim Palestine is completely right and Israel completely wrong. Seeing Palestinian women and children die is bloody awful. So is watching the footage of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Krakow, Sobibor and on and on. Any discussion of Israel that does not include the Holocaust and the thousands of years of Jewish persecution is no discussion at all. How anyone can completey condemn Israel when the Holocaust is only 80 years ago beggers belief. It is entirely possible to want peace in the Middle East without pretending Israel is the problem. And then there is the fact of Israel's support of gay men, lesbians and women's rights and Palestine's opposition to all this, but that's for another discussion.
I was catching up with a podcast today, which was an interview with Jenny Lindsay on Late Night Live about her book 'Hounded'.
As she was describing her experiences being hounded - ie bullied - by transgender ideologues and how she felt perplexed by her fellow writers of the Left persuasion turning on her, I recognized the tactic in a whole new light. The past year has seen a parallel bullying by those of a particular Left persuasion of those who disagree with them in regards to the Israel/Palestine situation.
She also made a point about the use and misuse of language - a particularly egregious act from a community of writers. I come home, read your piece Julie and see that you echoing her dismay at the misuse of language by professional writers.
The parallels become more and more uncanny - I just had not seen it before.
I should add that Lindsay specifically called out the failure of political leadership to curb the hounding of those asking for a moderate discourse about a complex situation, which led to an escalation of bad behaviour and a normalization of hateful language and actions. Of course, we have seen the same in Australia in regards to anti-Jewish hate.
The advantage of all those authors nailing their flags to the mast now makes it so much easier to choose new books. After all, too much choice is so confusing. We should really thank them. Well done Julie. As always.
While I can certainly understand the sentiment behind your comments, I am not sure that I agree with dismissing the work of authors simply because they may hold political views that I personally find abhorrent. I dislike any form of cancel culture and believe we should divorce the art from the artist.
Julie, I found more nuance in this single piece than many current writers can muster in a whole book on this difficult and complex problem. Indeed, as you conclude, they want it to be simple, such that no further discussion need be entered upon.
Something tells me Penny Wong will only read the 5 books endorsed by the great and the good but bravo to Michael Gawenda and his supporters for having a crack at a rejoinder.
A significant fact to note is that traditional ethics in professional fields have always included recusing oneself from matters that one has an attachment to and cannot maintain objectivity on. Indeed doing so even where there may only be the appearance of such...
Wherever you look, you actually have people actively using their pulpits to advance their agendas - blatantly so with academics pushing gender policies, as well as the journalistic Lattoufs. The recent departure of Paul Barry from Media Watch wasn't stated to be due fallout from the Gaza issue, however anyone following it would have clearly perceived a pro-Palestine bias from him (if they weren't emotionally entangled themselves). How can someone in that position fail to have such self-awareness? Maybe they are in so deep its inconceivable there can be an alternative perspective. You can say the same for the Crikey lot. Or more likely they know full well they have crossed into being activists.
Why is it so hard for a producer to say "I think there may be a perception of bias if you cover this issue so please recuse yourself"? There are plenty of journos idling away covering BS human interest stories to step in.
There's quite a lot "movement at the station" - ABC personnel going and being re-purposed. Some really are tired and pale, some making an effort to be more "entertaining". Lynton Besser is a great pick for MediaWatch, but he'd be good anywhere. IMO the re-run of 'Muster Dogs' is a waste of time & space, but who is listening?
I'll be more than interested to watch how ABC keeps up with events following on from this morning's fire-bombing. Sounds like Mike Burgess is involved.
Whatever, such a shocking occurrence may produce some kind of rapprochement among the literati.
Julie, this sums up the (doubtful) intelligence and (nil) ability to be critical thinkers of the MPs who were sent those books and the careless signing on to a 'thought bubble' to get on board with 'fashionable' anti-Israel efforts of the day by those authors. Thanks for the list, as I shall never purchase another of their books, not ever again ! I'm glad that a more realistic set of information was sent as a counter effort... But knowing how our politicians are and how behold'n to their need to keep votes up to maintain their cushy jobs they all are now - Do they actually ever read anything other than the Redbridge Polls and Facebook feeds? Thanks again for bringing this effort to divide Australia to our attention - and bring on the 2025 Federal Election ! Albo a one term PM me thinks!
Julie, as well as passion you have honour and I am learning how to argue in situations like this better. I haven't read any of the books mentioned, only media articles, but I clearly need more than that.
I've been wondering how or if we can have public debates on issues as old, complex and pain-filled as this. There seems no way people will feel there is a fair solution.
The gender debates are different. The demands of trans ideologues are off the wall. Irrational. Unscientific. Govt knows this which is partly why debate or even questioning is shut down.
Interestingly here in Paris it was announced that President Marcon would be hosting a conference next year with the Saudi Crown Prince on establishing a Palestinian state, it was also announced that Saudi Arabia would donate 50 million euros for the rebuilding of the Pompidou which closes next year, (both reports are in today’s La Monde) is this the last gasp of a failed President? I note that neither has been reported in the Australian press that I read.
I think this is a terrific piece, passionate, even fierce but funny too. Szego is a great talent. That her old paper does not publish her is a disgrace.
Michael, huge thanks. I learned from the best!
All the labels have been switched. Something that really doesn't need any nuance at all - that a transwoman is not female - is now deemed inscrutably complex, and we must side with the marginal transwoman over privileged and bigoted sex-realists seeking to defend the safety and integrity of actual female-kind. And then, something that really does need nuance - the deeply difficult complexities of the Palestine and Israel interface in the context of intractable regional opposition to the State of Israel since its formation - is now supposedly transparent and morally clear, and all right-thinking people must side with Hamas. One the one hand, nuance is used as a tool of confusion to deny the most obviously commonsense realities. On the other hand, blunt moral invective, without any appreciation for long trains of historical and regional complexity, is wielded like a polemic axe in the cause of essentially ignorant virtue signalling. Thanks for countering both label switches Julie. We are much in your debt.
Thanks you so much Paul. What a great observation about the weaponisation of “nuance”!
Thank you for this insightful and thought-provoking view.
I have read the Khalidi volume. It actually is more nuanced, thoughtful and pragmatic in important respects than most partisan pro-Palestinian works, but it also leaves the reader in no doubt that Khalidi is a Palestinian and a partisan of the Palestinians.
There are, I think, understandable historical and cultural reasons why Australian political and intellectual elites are more transported by Israel/Palestine than by (say) Syria or Yemen or Sudan. The puzzle remains why members of those elites who are not themselves Jewish or Israeli, Muslim or Palestinian, nonetheless become uncritical partisans of one side or another when, as Geoffrey Brahm Levey has argued, surely the most useful thing Australians interested in the issue can do is to achieve an emotional distance from partisans on both sides to match the physical distance of Australia from the Middle East, and try to encourage efforts towards peace and mutual recognition.
Paul, the puzzle is partly solved if you put aside notions of Jews and Muslims, etc and see that this elite, beautifully satirised by Julie, is the Australian chapter of the global left. They are dedicated to the agenda set long ago by the old Soviets of denouncing and subverting the capitalist Anglosphere. And, like it or not, Israel is treated by them as a member of the Anglosphere, or at the very least, a proxy of the US. Currently dominated by leftist governments, the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK are now furiously leading the charge to topple the rightist Netanyahu government and nobble Israel through the international pressure of the ICC and the UN before the political right, with Trump in the vanguard, displaces them.
To be clear I am a proud citizen of the Anglosphere as, also, are over half of the worlds Jews. It is one of humanitie's great achievements and Israel is very a close ally and affiliate. Apparently though for our socialist compatriots, great is just not good enough.
Absolutely.
But that would get them zero virtue points in today's anti-Israel climate
You don't have to be Jewish to want Israel to continue to exist. You just have to read a bit of history and resist the inclination to think in slogans. It probably helps to have come from a radical left background and so be inoculated against the self-righteous nonsense that passes for analysis among "good people". I have started reading Khalidi's tract, and am trying to do so open-mindedly, but you only have to read the title and subtitle -- "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance" -- to see that he has assumed at the outset what he purports to have set out to prove.
Janita, after you've finished Khalidis tract try Einat Wilf's War of Return as an antidote/chaser.
I’m currently reading The War of Return with great interest, having watched Einat Wilf speaking online at various events. I find it really informative and have started to look at historians like Benny Morris and his book 1948. The podcast “Call me back” with Don Senor has introduced me to the journalist Haviv Rettig Gur whose lectures on both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives are very - ah - nuanced! (Not sure if I can use that word without a grimace now!).
Thank you. I will.
I've not read any of the books mentioned, so my comment is only a general observation. The fact the list is largely made up of Muslim writers suggests the perspective being offered deliberately excludes the Jewish one. It appears this is not an attempt to foster nuanced debate but to make the simplistic claim Palestine is completely right and Israel completely wrong. Seeing Palestinian women and children die is bloody awful. So is watching the footage of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Krakow, Sobibor and on and on. Any discussion of Israel that does not include the Holocaust and the thousands of years of Jewish persecution is no discussion at all. How anyone can completey condemn Israel when the Holocaust is only 80 years ago beggers belief. It is entirely possible to want peace in the Middle East without pretending Israel is the problem. And then there is the fact of Israel's support of gay men, lesbians and women's rights and Palestine's opposition to all this, but that's for another discussion.
I was catching up with a podcast today, which was an interview with Jenny Lindsay on Late Night Live about her book 'Hounded'.
As she was describing her experiences being hounded - ie bullied - by transgender ideologues and how she felt perplexed by her fellow writers of the Left persuasion turning on her, I recognized the tactic in a whole new light. The past year has seen a parallel bullying by those of a particular Left persuasion of those who disagree with them in regards to the Israel/Palestine situation.
She also made a point about the use and misuse of language - a particularly egregious act from a community of writers. I come home, read your piece Julie and see that you echoing her dismay at the misuse of language by professional writers.
The parallels become more and more uncanny - I just had not seen it before.
I should add that Lindsay specifically called out the failure of political leadership to curb the hounding of those asking for a moderate discourse about a complex situation, which led to an escalation of bad behaviour and a normalization of hateful language and actions. Of course, we have seen the same in Australia in regards to anti-Jewish hate.
The advantage of all those authors nailing their flags to the mast now makes it so much easier to choose new books. After all, too much choice is so confusing. We should really thank them. Well done Julie. As always.
While I can certainly understand the sentiment behind your comments, I am not sure that I agree with dismissing the work of authors simply because they may hold political views that I personally find abhorrent. I dislike any form of cancel culture and believe we should divorce the art from the artist.
You know in theory I agree with you.., but …
I appreciate how difficult it can be.
Julie, I found more nuance in this single piece than many current writers can muster in a whole book on this difficult and complex problem. Indeed, as you conclude, they want it to be simple, such that no further discussion need be entered upon.
Something tells me Penny Wong will only read the 5 books endorsed by the great and the good but bravo to Michael Gawenda and his supporters for having a crack at a rejoinder.
A significant fact to note is that traditional ethics in professional fields have always included recusing oneself from matters that one has an attachment to and cannot maintain objectivity on. Indeed doing so even where there may only be the appearance of such...
Wherever you look, you actually have people actively using their pulpits to advance their agendas - blatantly so with academics pushing gender policies, as well as the journalistic Lattoufs. The recent departure of Paul Barry from Media Watch wasn't stated to be due fallout from the Gaza issue, however anyone following it would have clearly perceived a pro-Palestine bias from him (if they weren't emotionally entangled themselves). How can someone in that position fail to have such self-awareness? Maybe they are in so deep its inconceivable there can be an alternative perspective. You can say the same for the Crikey lot. Or more likely they know full well they have crossed into being activists.
Why is it so hard for a producer to say "I think there may be a perception of bias if you cover this issue so please recuse yourself"? There are plenty of journos idling away covering BS human interest stories to step in.
There's quite a lot "movement at the station" - ABC personnel going and being re-purposed. Some really are tired and pale, some making an effort to be more "entertaining". Lynton Besser is a great pick for MediaWatch, but he'd be good anywhere. IMO the re-run of 'Muster Dogs' is a waste of time & space, but who is listening?
I'll be more than interested to watch how ABC keeps up with events following on from this morning's fire-bombing. Sounds like Mike Burgess is involved.
Whatever, such a shocking occurrence may produce some kind of rapprochement among the literati.
I completely agree, two great talents, Julie and Michael and yes, their old paper is fast becoming unreadably trashy.
Julie, this sums up the (doubtful) intelligence and (nil) ability to be critical thinkers of the MPs who were sent those books and the careless signing on to a 'thought bubble' to get on board with 'fashionable' anti-Israel efforts of the day by those authors. Thanks for the list, as I shall never purchase another of their books, not ever again ! I'm glad that a more realistic set of information was sent as a counter effort... But knowing how our politicians are and how behold'n to their need to keep votes up to maintain their cushy jobs they all are now - Do they actually ever read anything other than the Redbridge Polls and Facebook feeds? Thanks again for bringing this effort to divide Australia to our attention - and bring on the 2025 Federal Election ! Albo a one term PM me thinks!
Julie, as well as passion you have honour and I am learning how to argue in situations like this better. I haven't read any of the books mentioned, only media articles, but I clearly need more than that.
I've been wondering how or if we can have public debates on issues as old, complex and pain-filled as this. There seems no way people will feel there is a fair solution.
The gender debates are different. The demands of trans ideologues are off the wall. Irrational. Unscientific. Govt knows this which is partly why debate or even questioning is shut down.
Julie, you and your readers may be interested in this discussion about Khalidi and his book:
https://www.commentary.org/jonathan-schanzer/bidens-radical-reading/
Interestingly here in Paris it was announced that President Marcon would be hosting a conference next year with the Saudi Crown Prince on establishing a Palestinian state, it was also announced that Saudi Arabia would donate 50 million euros for the rebuilding of the Pompidou which closes next year, (both reports are in today’s La Monde) is this the last gasp of a failed President? I note that neither has been reported in the Australian press that I read.