Credit: Matt Golding
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Taking a stand
While I am appalled, as are most Australians, at the attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue by a couple of cowards in black masks, I am also appalled that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, turns his anger on our government because of what he calls ″anti-Israel sentiment″.
Netanyahu seems to make a habit of using the term ″antisemitism″ when anyone takes a stance that he doesn’t like. Does he not realise that most nations on the planet share Australia’s position calling for an end to Israel’s ″unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory″?
I stand with our government in that UN call, and I also stand with the rights of Jewish people to practise their faith in freedom, and similarly for Palestinians to do the same.
Damien Ryan, Berwick
Despicable acts
The burning of a place of worship is despicable but I still think that what the IDF has done in Gaza in creating refugees, smashing apartment blocks and roads and destroying sewerage, water, electricity and gas and targeting schools and hospitals is also despicable. Am I allowed to think that?
David Baylis, Drouin East
Stop the posturing
For once, I wish Peter Dutton could acknowledge a deeply wounding event while also acknowledging the complexity and the pain felt by people on all sides, rather than opting for scoring political points. Simplistic slogans and political posturing help nobody, hurt many and make a workable solution even more
distant.
Jane Edwards, Peterhead, SA
Hate is not the answer
The burning of the synagogue in Melbourne should be deplored by all Australians. Hate will not solve anything, it will cripple those who preach it. Australia’s democracy may allow freedom of expression, however our society surely recognises the difference between opinions and hateful acts.
Peter Roche, Carlton
Safety shattered
Banning Nazi symbols and salutes are wet-lettuce responses to the rise of antisemitism in Australia. What right does any group have to band together under cloaks and hoods of black while spreading messages of hate and terrorising innocent people?
When I see a declared white supremacist walking freely spouting their vile views, I ask why that person is not in jail. The argument that it is their democratic right is weak: rights are tiered and the democratic right of all innocent Australians to feel safe and free of persecution overrides any trumped-up right to spread hatred and drive social unrest and worse. Those actions run contrary to the core tenets of democracy, so perpetrators cannot rely on democracy to defend them: they have invalidated themselves. I extend my heartfelt support and sympathy to those gentle, good people of Ripponlea whose democratic right to feel safe has been shattered.
Emma Borghesi, Rye
Beyond reprehensible
If Benjamin Netanyahu sees the arson of a synagogue as ″reprehensible″, he must also think the bombing of hospitals, schools and refugee camps and the killing of thousands of innocent women and children is beyond reprehensible.
Marg D’Arcy, Rye
US lapdogs
Defence Minister Richard Marles has asked former Defence secretary Dennis Richardson to subject the Australian Submarine Agency to “ruthless scrutiny”. There was no evidence of even friendly scrutiny before the highly controversial, secretly negotiated $368 billion AUKUS deal was waved through by the Albanese government.
Some commentators asserted that the lack of proper debate was driven by fear of being “wedged” on national security. If so, the chances of any serious assessment of some elements of our US alliance are remote. It’s “All the way with LBJ” again – regardless of the consequences. What a frightening and depressing picture of the nature of contemporary Australian politics.
Norman Huon, Port Melbourne
Not crossing the line
Fair Work can say what it likes, but for me there is now a ″notional″ picket line across the doorway of all Woolworths supermarkets that I refuse to cross.
Mick Hussey,
Beaconsfield
United we fight
Some of us old unionists understand the nature and purpose of a good picket line, and it is a tragedy to see how far to the right Western societies run by ″labour″ governments have gone when the legal and industrial framework is so heavily weighted towards the employer and capital.
The striking workers at the Woolworths warehouse in Dandenong deserve everyone’s support. Their campaign for reasonable pay and conditions might seem like a local fight, but, as so often in history, these unionists are in fact in the vanguard of the continued battle against the interests of corporate profits at the expense of fairness and dignity for workers.
In the early 21st century, they are also taking a stand on every worker’s behalf against the techno-feudalism that is the latest rapacious feature of late capitalism. They all deserve our support.
Being now retired, we will be mounting our version of a picket line and boycotting Woolworths until the dispute is settled to the satisfaction of the workers and their union.
All good unionists should do the same.
Steve Halliwell and
Lil Rijneveld, North Fitzroy
How to move on
I have to disagree with your correspondent that truth telling is not the way forward for First Nations people (Letters, 7/12). Another correspondent rightly observes “the scant understanding of the persecution of Indigenous peoples .. is a national scandal that has never been adequately addressed” (Letters, 6/12). Cathy Wilcox’s cartoon nailed it (6/12) in showing the devastation for people when “all you knew” is gone.
Thomas Mayo in his recent book Always Was, Always Will Be shows us how to move on from the defeat of the Voice referendum. He advocates informing ourselves and having conversations with others to enhance our knowledge of past persecutions. Had we truly understood the past, the referendum could have succeeded. Let’s not make it ″us and them″, let’s make it ″all of us together″ for the advancement of our nation.
Jan Marshall, Brighton
Hear what women say
The recent articles in The Age recounting women’s experiences with the medical profession, with regard to their pain, has brought back many memories of the way my own pain has been ignored over the years.
At 19, I was suffering abdominal pain and was referred to a specialist. He told me I was worried about something and when I stopped worrying the pain would go away. It went away but only after surgery six months later to remove an ovarian cyst, the size of an orange, that had attached to the bowel.
In my 30s I suffered severe abdominal pain and constant haemorrhoids and was told it was just something, as a woman, I had to endure. Finally after a referral by a woman doctor to a Jean Hailes clinic, and explorative surgery, I was diagnosed with endometriosis.
Hopefully things are changing but obviously not fast enough.
Women have a right to be believed. They understand their bodies better than anyone else.
Pam Christensen,
Leongatha North
Foster joy in community
Thankfully we won the fight to keep Fitzroy Pool, but the battle for a good life for everyone is not over. (“How people power saved Fitzroy Pool from closure”, 7/12) In fact, it is more challenging than ever. Remember the joy we find in community and keep fighting for a better tomorrow.
Lesley Walker,
Northcote