Israel-Palestine conflict
The Israel-Palestine conflict is one which has been distorted by the mainstream media for decades. It is up to the independent press to give a more realistic picture of these events.
Unfortunately, from reading the articles in Green Left Weekly by Rohan Pearce on Israel and Palestine, you see the narrowness of the mainstream media inversely reflected.
Although criticism of Israel pours out from all directions, not one mention is there of the attacks on civilians by Palestinian militants, such as the seven Israelis killed at a bus stop, or the teenagers killed at a pizza restaurant. The fact that Pearce writes two articles without any mention of Palestinian atrocities, leads me to believe that he is not neutral to these, is in support of them.
GLW is (in many cases) a great source of independent views. Vicarious Arab chauvinism does not add to this.
The key to the situation in Israel is the Jewish and Arab working class, uniting to break the rule of its racist ruling castes, and creating a socialist Middle East. The methods of Palestinian terrorists, whose only desire is to have all Jewish people thrown into the Mediterranean, is a dead end which socialists everywhere should clearly oppose.
David Murray
Valentine NSW [Abridged]
Best newspaper
Congrats on making the best newspaper in Australia. Although I am a member of the Greens I just love the real news that you bring every week.
Bill Weller
Adelaide
Abortion
It is useless for GLW to, on the one hand, constantly implore people to become actively involved in resistance for our many struggles, then on the other hand, effectively excommunicate very large groups of people, both men and women, who oppose abortion, by treating this vital issue as a done deal by consistently adopting a pro-abortion stance.
I feel it flies in the face of GLW's claim to promote individual freedom by not allowing equal time and space to the opponents of abortion.
We are all united in the political struggle. I just happen to believe very strongly that abortion enslaves women, it does not liberate them. The decision to abort is, I believe, for the vast majority of those seeking abortions, an uninformed one, one that is usually made for social and political reasons, and not because the woman just does not want to have a baby.
Women who just don't want to become mothers should be encouraged to give birth and adopt.
Unfortunately, most women placed in this position put their own interests before those of the child, and this is most unfair.
I oppose abortion unless it is clearly a case of our having to choose one life over another.
I strongly support legislation which forces women to have counselling, and I believe that they should have to acquaint themselves intimately with the nature of what they are about to do, by viewing a scan of a living zygote, embryo or foetus, whatever the case may be. Preferably this should be the scan of their own child.
Pamela Valemont
email
'Don't blame me'
Don't blame me, I just work here is what the prime minister may as well have said in the recent interview with Four Corners which I saw on March 5. Going by what his advisors informed him at the time of the "children overboard" scandal, how is he to blame for misleading national and international media which in turn misinformed the world? How indeed?!
The critical thinking abilities of our pm (he does not deserve capital letters) work fine and dandy when it comes to preparing an election campaign. Or should I say erection campaign? The erection of a wall of deceit that now, one would hope, is too big to scale.
Where is that ability to think laterally that our pm used when deciding to keep the peace with Indonesia while letting Timor burn. He used his brain there in one-way or another.
When deciding to ignore the pleas of millions of people, at home and abroad, asking for an apology regarding the genocide of Aboriginal people in Australia (or should I say Holocaustralia?), Howard was thinking very clearly.
We've got ruddockulous comments flying everywhere. Hollingworth is not of his worth. Reith has disappeared. Labor is looking more liberal by the hour and Howard is asking us, "How is this my fault?".
Common sense states that those who choose to ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
If Howard is totally blind to the facts of the present and the past, pray tell what is he doing as our leader? Who are you to take the people of this world with you Mr Howard, on your joyride through repression? Where are the people supposed to look for this mythical "fair go"?
Michael Brazel
Mackay Qld
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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