In which "Ned" offers a late arvo Everest climb strictly for masochists...

The pond relegated "Ned" to a late arvo Sunday slot for many reasons.

There was the way it was a 19 minute read. Few people make it out of base camp to survive the climb to the Everest summit of any nattering "Ned", but even oxygen wasn't a help this time.

And then there was the way it was tainted, though the taint was only revealed in a closing line.

Paul Kelly visited Israel as part of an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council media tour.

That's why the lizard Oz is widely known these days as the Australian Zionist Daily (formerly Catholic Boys' Daily).

Any publisher worth their salt would have resisted the freebie, and paid their own way. 

The alternative for this sort of junket is to end up hopelessly corrupted, like the Nine mob celebrated in Media Watch with I Wake Up in Dubai.

How can you head off to Israel and purport to write about Gaza, knowing that won't be allowed any access to Gaza? And that your sponsor will be lining up people to talk to that conform with the sponsor's view of the world ...

The pond has already noted Martin Bell's In 1973, I reported freely on Israel at war. Now its censorship has made that impossible ... and will note the end bit of it again ...

...I would urge the following: that the foreign press, especially the TV networks, continue to stand their ground, and that the Israeli press machine does itself a favour and relaxes the rules to allow some independent access to Gaza. This will not only limit the tides of propaganda (on both sides, it must be said) but perhaps hold the frontline troops to higher standards of behaviour, just as it did beside the Suez canal in 1973.
It is important to both sides to reestablish at least the limited level of trust that used to exist between them. Here is an example. In the 1973 war, we were able transmit the news by satellite on the day that it happened. Our office was a chair beneath a palm tree near the feed point. In the 1967 war, the exposed news film was bundled into onion bags – blue for the BBC, red for NBC – and taken to the censor who stamped his approval on the masking tape around the neck, before it was air-freighted to London. But he had to take our word for what the film actually showed.
The public had a more accurate account back then of events on the battlefield than it does today through the fog of war in Gaza. When access is denied, everyone loses. And, Israel, that includes you.

And "Ned", that also includes you, as you do your usual Chicken Little, rubbing your paws together and sighing to the heavens routine ...

The header, which attempts to establish "Ned's" attempt at bothsiderism: Netanyahu is strong in war, but when does the peace come?, The Israeli Prime Minister has been revealed as a bold war leader – but he seems incapable of mobilising his gains.

The caption for the uncredited collage, suggesting AI was used: In Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu fights a war with mass Palestinian casualties – the sort of war Israel has never fought before.

The truly tedious instruction, repeated incessantly: This article contains features which are only available in the web version, Take me there

A reminder that the reptiles clocked this as a 19 minute read. It's interminable, and it's full of visual distractions.

If you want a long and interesting read, why not jump ship right now and head off to Haaretz? (archive link):

Ah, the lies we tell each other... the pond has similar family lies and mythologies haunting its past, best not dwelt on.

Still here? Then you must be a masochist, interested in the lies the reptiles tell their readers. Take it away "Ned", let us leave base camp and begin the Everest climb...

Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu has made transforming military gains – breaking the Hamas leadership, liberating southern Lebanon from Hezbollah, penetrating Iran’s defences and helping to open a new chapter in Syria – yet Israel’s global standing is besmirched, its society is fractured and its legitimacy is under assault.
The Middle East is consumed by war yet ripe with opportunity. Contradictions fill every event and conversation.
Yet the focus of conversation is Netanyahu – Prime Minister for the third time and the longest-serving PM in the nation’s history – now revealed as a bold war leader who seems incapable of mobilising his gains and knowing how to make peace.
For Israel and Netanyahu, the US remains the great ally. President Donald Trump is with Israel but less often with Netanyahu, with the tensions between them unmistakeable. Trump has his own vision for the Middle East, outlined in May during his visit to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, where Trump proclaimed a coming age of peace and prosperity. “My greatest hope is to be a peacemaker and a unifier,” Trump said. “I don’t like war.”
His vision is to partner with the Saudis to transform the economics and politics of the region – the geopolitical apex being Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. If achievable, it would be a regional and world-transforming event: the nation hosting the holiest sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina, saying it can live with Israel.
The opportunities beckon. Yet Israel needs a leader who not only can fight terrorists but also can build bridges with the Arab world. Israel needs to be feared by its enemies but loved by the world – its tragedy, reflected in Netanyahu, is that success on the first front often leads to failure on the second front.

"Ned" was off to a solid bothsiderist start of the kind familiar to NY Times readers, a rag always sensitive to its Zionist readership, as the reptiles flung in their first set of visual distractions, Netanyahu’s tactics in Gaza have provoked international condemnation and domestic Israeli anger. Picture: Handout / Israeli Prime Minister Office / AFP; The Gaza health ministry says more than 55,000 people have been killed in the war. It makes no distinction between civilians and terrorists. Picture: Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP

Only 15 more distractions to go ... and none of them sourced from an in-house photographer ...

Yet this was not always the case. Israel has changed. Netanyahu in Gaza fights a war with mass Palestinian casualties – the sort of war Israel has never fought before.
Netanyahu governs in a coalition that depends on the far right. The upshot is an ongoing military campaign in Gaza and a reluctance to offer the Saudis the incentives they need to close the deal that the region, Israel and the US all want.
The Gaza war has passed the 600-day mark. The ultimate instigator of its violence, former Hamas leader and architect of the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Yahya Sinwar, is long since dead, killed by Israeli forces in October 2024.
Yet Sinwar’s cunning and butchery still haunt Israel – he provoked a retaliation against Hamas that has alienated Israel’s friends as well as its enemies, elevated Palestinian protests across the capitals of the West and ignited the worst anti-Semitism since WWII.
Under Netanyahu, Israel is a hard-power colossus but a soft-power child.
Operation Gideon’s Chariots, authorised by Netanyahu in May, seeks a comprehensive defeat of Hamas, entrenching Israeli security control over all of Gaza, severing the bulk of the population from Hamas penetration and seeking conditions for full hostage release.
Even if this plan were capable of implementation the project itself is fraught and flawed – a military plan devoid of a political strategy. Talks with senior political and military analysts in Israel affirm that Netanyahu has no agenda to create, in conjunction with Arab support, a new governing authority for Gaza. Polls in May reveal Israeli society, weary of the war, turning against Netanyahu’s agenda, the main motive being to secure the release, alive and dead, of the remaining hostages.
The assault on Netanyahu is fierce. Two former Israeli leaders – Ehud Barak, a former general, defence minister and prime minister from 1999 to 2001; and Ehud Olmert, prime minister from 2006 to 2009 – have savaged Netanyahu, with the devastating accusation that he maintains the war for his domestic political interests, to keep alive his coalition with the far right. Criticism of Netanyahu is far more virulent inside Israel’s democracy than outside in Western capitals.

Say what? The pond must be reading a different rag, because criticism of anyone who criticises Netanyahu is subject to the lizard Oz curse, and the likes of the dog botherer and prattling Polonius wil berate you furiously. Criticism of Netanyahu critics is virulent in the lizard Oz.

Never mind, another visual distraction, Israeli society is turning against Netanyahu’s agenda. Picture: Leo Correa/AP; A woman defaces a picture of the Prime Minister during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. Picture: Jack Guez / AFP

This all might feel bold, and defiant, as if "Ned" was biting the hand that had fed his freebie trip.

But the only real interest in reading this monolith is to track the cunning way that he manages to move himself over to the dark side, helped by not having the first actual clue or experience of being in Gaza and seeing what's going down, a situation faced by the world's media ...
Yet his most striking military success has been against the once formidable Hezbollah terror group. This began with the exploding walkie-talkie innovation that immobilised the group’s communications and confidence. Israeli military action terminated Hezbollah’s role in the post-October 7 war, its constant attacks on Israel, secured southern Lebanon and allowed Israeli citizens to return to their homes in the north.
Middle East politics is in a condition of massive fluidity, a function of Israel’s successful war on several fronts after the October 7 attacks; the unresolved future of Gaza; the vulnerability of Iran exposed at its weakest moment and desperate to keep its uranium enrichment program; the ambitious but unpredictable initiatives of Trump; and the virtue-signalling Western democracies with their threats to recognise a Palestinian state – a step guaranteed only to provoke Netanyahu’s retaliation, possibly annexation moves on the West Bank. The response of much of Western public opinion seeks to deny that Israel’s wars are genuinely existential – a fusion of territory, religion and identity.
The 47-minute video produced by the Israel Defence Forces from the cameras of terrorists and soldiers on October 7 showing Israelis, young and old, being murdered, women dismantled, corpses being mutilated, beheaded and paraded as trophies, is conspicuous for the incessant chant “Allah is Great” – the slaughter is a celebration.
The video documents a religious event. The murders are done to honour Allah.
War changes everything – and religious wars change everything absolutely.

See how he sails his ship? 

A slight veer of course and then a correction. Talk of virtue signalling and genuine existential dilemmas, and one slaughter justifying another, and so never mind the mass starvation and ethnic cleansing and the sheer madness of the revenge, and here, have snaps of Jewish suffering ... A Hanukkah menorah on a counter of a home destroyed during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in Kissufim, Israel. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images; A first responder’s photograph of a child’s bedroom in Kibbutz Be’eri. Picture: South First Responders; Mourners grieve for Liel Hetzroni, 12, and her aunt, Ila Hetzroni who were killed at Kibbutz Be’eri. The massacres on October 7 have scarred Israel’s soul and hardened its heart. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Image

Are there any balancing images? It's not like there's no images or stories about the wanton destruction and the killing fields and the suffering ...

Not particularly being into starvation or ethnic cleansing porn, the pond will leave those many snaps out there on the full to overflowing intertubes.

As for the reptiles offering balancing, emotional and disturbing images.

Nah, remember the basic premise of the junket? 

"Ned" never made it into Gaza, that's not allowed ... he could only ever indulge his Everest climb from one side of the mountain ... and so it goes ...

October 7 surprised, shocked, enraged and transformed Israel. As the greatest death of Jews since the Holocaust, it will be remembered, along with its unfolding future consequences, for many hundreds of years. More than 1200 Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed and 251 people taken as hostages. In the cities of the West progressive left-wing atheists went into the streets cheering this religious war, joining with radical Palestinians and Islamists calling for the elimination of Israel, seeing the event as a potentially glorious opening.
British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore likened the event to a “medieval tribal raid” for massacre and booty. The present merely invokes the past. At the conclusion of his book on the history of Jerusalem, Montefiore wrote: “Israelis and Palestinians are both nations with rightful claims to the land; neither has anywhere else to go, nor any intention of leaving; and no choice but to find a way to live side by side.”
The attack created a permanent dilemma for Netanyahu – how to balance the campaign to defeat Hamas with the need to secure the release of hostages.
The massacres on October 7 have scarred Israel’s soul and hardened its heart. The massacre shattered any notion of a Palestinian partner for peace; it made political backing in Israel for a two-state solution even more untenable. It eroded public confidence in the Netanyahu government’s security credentials. It was vivid proof of the enduring quest of Hamas and Hezbollah and their Iranian backers to eliminate the Israeli state.
The supreme irony of this event is that while Hamas was repelled and defeated, its political goal of delegitimising Israel as a state has gained immense traction across much of the world. The legacy was a moral dilemma for the Jewish state – how to prosecute a war against terrorists integrated into the civilian infrastructure.
In 16 years of ruling Gaza, Hamas built virtually nothing but advanced a grand project – an elaborate tunnel structure to turn any Israeli military success into defeat. Its tunnel system is astonishing, running over an estimated 500km, many concrete reinforced, able to store food and weapons, hold prisoners and host Hamas military planners and leaders.

Cue another tainted source from the Australian zionist channel also known as Sky Noise down under, Channel 13 News political correspondent Lior Kenan says the state of Israel “cares much more” about the civilian population of Gaza than Hamas does. A joint statement issued by 23 foreign ministers around the world, including Penny Wong, has slammed Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza and administer aid via IDF-controlled zones. “We see Hamas using them as human shields, we see them launch missiles from hospitals and schools, we see them take over the humanitarian aid,” Ms Kenan told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

Ah, the dog bothering Zionist. At least by running "Ned", the pond could avoid him doing his Zionist routine this weekend.

And as a bonus that gets readers through half of the visual distractions ... as "Ned" regurgitates the official line, which is to blame the victims ...

This is the Hamas human shield strategy. The tunnels run under hospitals and schools – a guarantee that Hamas can be targeted and the tunnels destroyed only with large-scale civilian casualties. This is the purpose. It explains the frequent Israeli claim that “Hamas will fight Israel to the last Palestinian”. The moral dilemma facing Israel arises from the Hamas game plan.
A former legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, veteran peace negotiator and key author of the Abraham Accords, Tal Becker summarised the origins of the current war during his address to the International Court of Justice in the case brought by South Africa, a nation with close ties to Hamas.
Becker said: “Hamas has systematically and unlawfully embedded its military operations, militants and assets throughout Gaza within and beneath densely populated civilian areas. It has built an extensive warren of underground tunnels for its leaders and fighters several hundred miles in length throughout the Strip, with thousands of access points and terrorist hubs located in homes, mosques, UN facilities, schools and perhaps most shockingly hospitals.
“It is an integrated, pre-planned, extensive and abhorrent method of warfare. Purposely and methodically murdering civilians. Stealing and hoarding humanitarian supplies – allowing those under its control to suffer, so that it can fuel its fighters and terrorist campaign.”
Under the auspices of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, an Australian media delegation visited Israel on a recent study tour seeing a wide range of people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, visiting the south where the massacres occurred and the north where the population had been forced to evacuate because of the Hezbollah missile assaults.

FFS, wasn't that the time for "Ned" to confess he was part of the junket, that he was part of the (pause for pompous word) "delegation", that his "study tour" was just a soft form of propaganda? ("delegation": a body of delegates or representatives; a deputation. Who were they representing with their delegating?)

Cue a snap, A woman holds an Israeli flag with red paint on to resemble blood as protesters block a main road in Tel Aviv during a rally calling for a hostages deal. Picture Amir Levy/Getty Images

The junket allowed "Ned" to pretend he was Neddy on the spot, but of course there's no impressions of Gaza. That's not allowed...

Two impressions stand out – Israel is a profoundly divided polity but possessed of an abiding sense of purpose. It is fractured by the war yet more reinforced than ever in the Zionist concept: a homeland in its ancestral land. Military service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18 with religious exemptions. The women of Israel are extraordinary – every woman you meet in her early 20s is formed by two years of military service.
The hostages are a constant presence. “Bring Them Home Now” is the appeal and the demand, plastered in the streets, on shops, on restaurants.
The faces and names are kept before the nation. Each testifies to a family tragedy. They constitute an accumulated failure for Netanyahu.
This is a society far different from Australia, driven by a mission of survival, devoid of complacency, the national flag everywhere, the sense of sacrifice in every family, an opinionated and argumentative people still able to enjoy life while fighting a war. More multicultural than Australia, Israel’s 10 million population includes two million Arabs with political rights. It is a religious community with Jerusalem the home for three great religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Political rights? 

Funny, Haaretz had a story about that, back in April ... (archive link)

'There's a Fear': Why These Palestinians in Israel Didn't Strike in Support of Gaza, While Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem participated en masse in a general strike on Monday, many working in predominantly Jewish settings went to work – but not necessarily out of choice

She didn't even dare offer her name:

If a Palestinian citizen of Israel were to strike in solidarity with the people in Gaza, would their Israeli employer fire them? That's the question many are asking themselves after Monda‎y's general strike called by a coalition of Palestinian political movements protesting Israel's actions in the Strip.
While most residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Arab towns in Israel participated in the widely supported strike, Palestinians working in mixed Israeli workplaces say they feared expulsion, harassment or legal repercussions if they joined in – and so attended work as usual.
N., a 24-year-old nurse originally from Taibeh and now working at a hospital in Jerusalem, spoke to Haaretz during her shift to explain why she wasn't among those taking part in the strike. (Like everyone interviewed here, N. spoke on condition of anonymity.)
"I couldn't strike today simply because I'm on duty," she said. "But being here while so many others are out striking leaves me feeling helpless. The strike is the bare minimum we can do – and seeing so many commit to it just intensifies that feeling."
N. described the quiet but heavy burden of working in a predominantly Jewish-Israeli environment, where voicing even the most personal opinion about Gaza or the war can prove dangerous.

And so on, but back to the reptiles pleading the cause with a snap, Tal Becker at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2024. Picture: Remko de Waal / ANP / AFP

On with "Ned" ...

Netanyahu’s tactics in Gaza have provoked international condemnation and domestic Israeli anger. The Gaza health ministry says more than 55,000 people have been killed in the war. It makes no distinction between civilians and terrorists. Israel claims to have killed about 20,000 terrorists. The longer the war has lasted the more global opinion has turned against Israel. This has reached a new zenith with the recent 10-week blockade on humanitarian and food aid followed by a new offensive to “take control of all areas” of Gaza along with a new US-Israeli system of aid and food distribution rejected by the UN.
Western governments, led by France, Britain and Canada, with Australia not far behind, have condemned Israel.
Anthony Albanese called Israel’s actions “completely unacceptable” and “outrageous”, said its excuses were “completely untenable and without credibility”, and said he made Australia’s views clear to Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, when they briefly met in Rome.
During their visit, the Australian delegation met Herzog, who spoke off the record with frankness but put on the record his invitation for the Australian Prime Minister to visit Israel to discover the facts for himself.
It is most unlikely Albanese would accept such an invitation. Labor’s distaste for Netanyahu and his government’s policies is visceral; witness Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s shift of Australian policy on the Middle East and her infamous visit to Israel in January 2024. Wong declined to make the 90-minute car ride to the site of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. More than a diplomatic snub, it was an act of moral contempt – a refusal to honour Israel’s plight by visiting the site of the medieval-type slaughter where the crimes against women were unspeakable.

Speaking of contempt, what about this Haaretz story? (archive link)

And so on, and you won't find "Ned" going there, instead you'll find more lobbying, more pressure from the Australian Zionist Daily, the sponsor's message so to speak, Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council's Joel Burnie discusses the continued “one-sided criticism” from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about Israel’s war against Hamas. Israeli President Isaac Herzog has told media in Jerusalem that he wants Anthony Albanese to visit Israel to engage with the problems of the region in person. “Essentially, what the president is saying, that if you are so concerned about what is going on here, how about you come here and you visit,” Mr Burnie said. “Instead of throwing mud or criticising through words, how about you come here with your actions, see how things are going, see what’s happening on the ground here and come up with practical solutions.”

Uh huh ...here's a practical solution. 

Ethnic cleansing in a way Adolf might admire, story courtesy of Haaretz ...

And so on, but you won't read any of that in "Ned's" gently propagandistic piece... forget the desire to exterminate, think of the politeness ...

Israel’s government remains polite in its dealings with Australia. Senior Australian officials say the working relationship is unimpaired. But in virtually every discussion held by the media delegation the sentiment towards Australia ranged from dismay to betrayal.
The media was escorted around the remains of the burnt-out Kibbutz Be’eri by a survivor, Danny Majzner, brother of the only Australian killed on October 7, Galit Carbone, one of more than 100 victims in what was once a truly beautiful place to live. The survivors were left with the blackened rooms where their families were murdered.
Majzner told the author: “My sister rang me on the day, about midday, telling me the terrorists were in her house and she didn’t know what to do. I told her to stay quiet. But that was it. It was our last conversation. She was shot, probably about 20 minutes later.

Stand by now for a heart rending tale of nine children killed ... you know, Gaza doctor whose nine children were killed in Israeli strikes dies from injuries.

The pond keeds.

Sorry, those sorts of stories aren't allowed, only certain kinds of victims should apply to Sharri, full disrespect, The brother of the only Australian victim of the October 7 massacre has hit out at Penny Wong after the foreign minister chose not to visit their family during her most recent trip to Israel. Galit Carbone, 66, was killed by Hamas terrorists in a kibbutz 5km from the Gaza Strip where more than 100 people were killed. “You are the foreign minister of a big country called Australia. You come over to Israel, you have got one citizen who was murdered, I think it’s the only Australian citizen on the attack,” Ms Carbone’s brother Danny Majzner told Sky News host Sharri Markson. “Please make a little effort. I’m not saying much, contact us, contact her kids, come and see what happened firsthand.”

By this point "Ned" has abandoned the initial dissembling and gone full in ... it's sponsor's message time all the way ...

“When Foreign Minister Penny Wong arrived in Israel … she didn’t even bother to contact, not me, not my sister’s kids, no one, she didn’t come to Be’eri to visit. Nothing. At least the ambassador came to the funeral and did visit Be’eri.”
Albanese and Wong use the constant refrain that Israel, as a democracy, must be held to a higher standard. That’s right. But what of Australia’s diplomatic standards as a democracy? We need to reflect on the moral basis on which Australia passes judgment.
Australia, along with other Western governments and the UN, has long called for a ceasefire. The facts are that if Israel had acted on such demands, its people would be in a far more dangerous situation today and Israel’s decisive military gains in the region would not have been achieved. What price that morality?
A prominent Israeli analyst said of this situation: “Israel has fought more wars than Australia. It has a system of universal military service for men and women. It has been surrounded by hostile forces for decades, many openly declaring its destruction, an existential situation that none of the critical Western governments faces. Yet it is the subject of moral condemnation by other countries who lecture Israel on how it must conduct itself in a situation that none of these nations face or are ever likely to face.”
Former Netanyahu adviser and Israeli ambassador to Britain Mark Regev, who was raised in Australia and is co-host of the podcast Israel Undiplomatic, said on his blog: “The United Nations and humanitarian organisations that worked with the UN have been up in arms about aid and the lack of humanitarian support going into Gaza, and have been highly critical of a joint US-Israel plan to supply aid. They say it has to be done through the UN and organisations working with the UN.
“Here I have to say, straight out, they are wrong in their criticism. Hamas has been running the Gaza Strip since the first decade of this century. They control the population of Gaza with their guns. The idea that all the humanitarian and UN organisations within Gaza are somehow independent humanitarians is just incorrect. All the hundreds and thousands of Palestinians who worked for these different organisations have to do so with the blessing of Hamas.
“Israel cannot win this war without defeating Hamas politically, and as long as Hamas is deciding who gets the aid and who doesn’t and has the ability to take over the aid and sell it at inflated prices, as long as Hamas is in charge, directly or indirectly, there won’t be a political victory over Hamas. If humanitarians are just saying nothing but the existing UN system, I’m sorry, that is something Israel can’t accept.
“What people don’t understand is they’re counter-productive, they are giving inadvertent support to Hamas … We have no one like the United States, but our best friends, the British, the Canadians, the French, have all now come out against Israel, critical of our behaviour, threatening to take steps, to sanction Israel. The argument, of course, is if your friends are saying this, you must be doing something wrong.”

Still no snap of the Gaza carnage, with the best the reptiles could offer coming with this snap, and then it seems grimly triumphant, A portrait of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah amid debris in the Rouweiss neighbourhood of Beirut, Lebanon, where the US has urged Israel to avoid Gaza-like military action. Picture: AFP

At this point, "Ned" realises he might have gone a little too far and at last paid attention to Haaretz ...

But that argument is being made much closer to home, within Israel’s high politics. Former prime ministers Barak and Olmert were conspicuous in power for offering the Palestinians viable peace agreements, only to be repudiated. Barak now points to Israel’s significant military gains to argue the nation “can now afford to pivot towards a broader deal: release all hostages, living and dead, end the war and pursue a peaceful regional order”.
Barak called on Netanyahu to abandon what he brands Israel’s “war of deception” and embrace “Trump’s vision of a new Middle East including normalisation with Saudi Arabia”. He warns against the notion of “total victory” against Hamas and says a further campaign is futile: “When this new war inevitably halts – under diplomatic pressure, humanitarian crisis, battlefield events or domestic political developments – we would find ourselves in precisely the same situation as today.”
His distrust of Netanyahu runs deep. Barak says accepting a peace settlement “would break Netanyahu’s coalition and likely end his political career”.
Olmert recently said: “What we are doing in Gaza is a war of annihilation: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal and criminal killing of civilians. Yes, we are committing war crimes.” Writing for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Olmert said: “Recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals. This is now a private political war.
“The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning, and with no chances of success. Never since its establishment has the state of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history.”
Such comments only reinforce the determination – if it needs reinforcing – of Western governments, apart from the US, to intensify the pressure on Israel and threaten measures against it never previously contemplated.

So good of the reptiles to at last notice... (archive link)

The lizard Oz followed up with a snap, A demonstrator dressed as US President Donald Trump in a clown costume holds a doll depicting a baby with the head of Netanyahu. Picture: Jack Guez / AFP

"Ned" kept on trying to claw his way out of the sponsor's message...

The moral dilemma is on every street. The Australian media met Viki Cohen, mother of 20-year-old soldier Nimrod, now a hostage for more than 600 days. She spoke with passion and love for her son but disillusionment with the government. “The Prime Minister is not connected to us,” she said of Netanyahu. After meeting him, she felt “there was no hope or plan”. She branded the government’s response and its incremental hostage steps as “cruel”.
The contradiction at the heart of government policy is obvious: pursuing the war conflicts with the quest to release all the hostages. Because Netanyahu’s priority is pursuing the war, he faces a moral attack from much of the community. Trump has plunged into this Middle East cauldron. As usual he aspires to be the man of destiny but his hold on the fundamentals verges on the tenuous.
The Trump administration operates at three levels: it seeks a ceasefire in Gaza; it teams up with Saudi Arabia in a project where Trump aspires to remake the region; and it negotiates with Iran to terminate Tehran’s nuclear program or perhaps be outwitted by the Iranians.
Hamas seems to have rejected or seeks to amend the latest US 60-day ceasefire proposal for Gaza along with some hostage releases as presented by American special envoy Steve Witkoff. The terror group demands a permanent ceasefire and complete Israeli withdrawal. Witkoff says the Hamas response is “totally unacceptable”. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says Hamas must accept or be destroyed.

Eventually the moral dilemma even made it into an AV distraction ... People in Gaza face starvation as aid distribution falters. Many fear death at GHF aid hubs, while hospitals struggle with blood shortages.

Many fear death at the few GHF aid hubs, controlled by a fundamentalist Xian Zionist, and designed not to offer relief so much as prolong misery? 

Many have experienced actual death trying to get a feed for themselves and their loved ones, with the IDF pretending the killings had nothing to do with them, but do go on and and be so bold as to allow a few more saucy doubts and bothsiderist fears to creep in ...

The UN has branded Gaza “the hungriest place on earth”. The IDF has reported that it killed Mohammed Sinwar, brother of Yahya Sinwar, in a strike on a hospital in May. Any failure of the agreement condemns 2.2 million people to even more desperation and deaths.
In his visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump invoked the Abraham Accords negotiated in his first presidential term, fostering relations and diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab nations including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, and declared his wish that Saudi Arabia would soon join the accords.
“You’ll do it in your own time,” Trump said. “But it will be a special day in the Middle East.” This lies at the heart of the Trumpian and Israeli strategy for the region. If the Saudis declare they can live with Israel, how can the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in our streets declare they want Israel eliminated? The chant “from the river to the sea” ringing across Australian and Western cities and university campuses becomes a worthless incantation at that point.
But how will this game plan unfold? The Saudis cannot make any such deal while the war continues. But can Netanyahu ever offer the Saudis sufficient incentive for such a transforming event?
The optimism in Israel for this agreement overlooks the obstacles in its path. It is improbable to think the far right in the government would accept it.

But the chant “from the river to the sea” ringing out across Israel, especially amongst fundamentalist right wingers, will surely result in the transformation of Gaza into a new Riviera, the real estate deal of a lifetime, with just the man ready to do the deal (the other one not so much) US President Donald Trump, left, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The pond supposes that the mango Mussolini had to make his way into the discussion, and never mind the way he's fucking over Ukraine and incapable of dealing with China...

He actually said this ...

“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled,” Trump told reporters while hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office.
“Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart. And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday. I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting and suffering a lot’ because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart before they’re able to be pulled apart.”

From peace in a day before even being sworn in to peace on a never never Vlad the sociopath timetable, and that Nobel peace prize receding over the horizon.

He may as well keep on making a mess of the middle East too ...

On Iran, Trump has raised expectations only to be rebuffed by the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has dismissed US proposals for his nation’s nuclear program as “rude and arrogant” and “100 per cent against our interests”. Iran and the US are on the brink – with Israel awaiting the outcome.
There are reports that Trump recently prevented an Israeli strike on Iran. Trump has told Netanyahu to avoid a military option. “I told him this would be very inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution.” Really, like the Ukraine non-solution?
Israel’s judgment is that Iran is at a moment of maximum vulnerability: this is the time to end its nuclear program, by negotiation or military action.
“Israel will never accept an Iranian nuclear weapon,” a former senior official says. Trump says the right thing: “If I can make a deal with Iran, I’ll be very happy. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump says Iran must dismantle its enrichment program, given enrichment delivers both civil nuclear power and weapons-grade material. Yet the “deal” negotiated by Witkoff allows Iran to keep domestic enrichment capability for a time before relying on a regional consortium. Israel won’t be satisfied.
In a dangerous move, the Iranian leader has defied Trump, probably assuming he will never back his big talk with military action. It has become a conflict over red lines – Trump’s supposed red line is to stop the nuclear program and Iran’s red line is that it cannot end domestic enrichment. “Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment,” Khamenei told the Americans.

Israel’s numerous fears were spelt out to the Australian media: it fears Trump may negotiate a weak deal; it fears that even if the US-Iranian talks fail, Trump will still oppose any Israeli military action; and it is concerned about the viability of any Israeli strike without US active co-operation.

And so to another snap, Trump shakes hands with Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in April. Picture: Saul Loeb / AFP

At this point, the question arises, was it all worth it?

Would "Ned" have been better off staying at home and writing up a set of notes from secondary sources?

He might have cut the climb down from 19 minutes to the usual 10-12 and saved a lot of time and needless suffering.

And there'd be no reason to wonder why he wandered off, because in this read, the impression is that his impressions are second hand, borrowed from random podcasts...

The impression, whether right or wrong, is that Trump has a vision for the region and Israel needs to fit into that Trumpian vision. Ultimately, Netanyahu needs Trump.
Israel has a bizarre status – the only democracy in the Middle East and the only state whose legitimacy is seriously questioned.
Becker, in a May 29 podcast interview, addressed the moral complexities of the current war: “There’s been so much misinformation and disinformation that it’s hard to get a handle on what’s happening. I don’t think that excuses us from thinking about the moral principles we need to apply and how we retain our humanity in the face of Hamas’s inhumanity.
“There isn’t an easy moral answer to these questions. For example, the challenge of humanitarian aid – where it sits exactly is, on the one hand, the danger of empowering Hamas and that means not just empowering your enemy but empowering the force that is terrorising the Palestinian population, potentially making the end of the war more difficult, potentially enabling Hamas to reconstitute itself, all on the one hand – and on the other hand, you have the suffering of Palestinians civilians.
“Even if you think, as I do, this is a just war, to be cognisant of the costs and suffering is a moral obligation on anyone but certainly on Jews. What I think we are obliged to do as a Jewish state and a country that wants to have partners in the world in dealing with these issues morally is to articulate clearly what the moral dilemma is, and how we are trying to grapple with it, (saying) this is the approach we are taking in an impossible dilemma.
“Zionism is also a product of a people who felt abandoned by the world. October 7 has in some way put on steroids this sense of an aloneness – nobody understands us, the media is against us, the disinformation is there. It reinforces this sense of being on our own with our own trauma.
“But that is a betrayal, I think, of Zionism’s aspirations – and of a victory in this war that isn’t just a victory on the battlefield but a preservation of our soul as we are fighting this irreconcilably evil enemy.”
Becker made a distinction between justified and unjustified war aims: “If the purpose of continued military operation is to prevent Hamas from being a force within Gaza and that enables Palestinians to have a government that isn’t dominated by Hamas, that in my view is a legitimate objective. If the purpose is to create conditions for a hostage deal, I think there’s legitimacy to that. But if the objective is the way some in the radical right are describing, to create conditions for a permanent occupation or for settlements in Gaza, then no, I don’t think that’s a just purpose.”

And so at last to the final snap, and fittingly, it strikes the right kind of note, A supporter of Netanyahu outside the Damascus Gate of the walled Old City of Jerusalem. Picture: Ahmad Gharabli / AFP

Then "Ned" has a final bothsidereist attempt at insight ...

Yet Israel is changing in decisive ways – its domestic politics has moved decisively to the right, a factor that underpins changing Western views, notably in Australia.
This means that any Western move to recognise a Palestinian state will be an act of virtuous futility – having no impact on the ground and certain to drive Netanyahu into more Israeli assertion on the West Bank.
Referring to an attack by Israel on the Houthi terrorists in Yemen, Netanyahu outlined his philosophy: “We work according to a simple rule: Whoever harms us, we harm them.” It is a stance of strength based on the reality that no peace agreement will ever be finalised with a weak Israel.
A former adviser to Netanyahu says the Prime Minister doesn’t want to be defined by the October 7 failure and that he has three goals: to win the war against Hamas, eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and see ties established with Saudi Arabia. That is an agenda of transformation but seems far beyond his policy capabilities and the limits of his governing coalition.
The longer the war continues the more Israel’s enemies will celebrate its depiction as a rogue state. Any Israeli government that allows this to happen violates the aspirations of its founders and the values of its history. Herein lies the moral dilemma of the Netanyahu ascendancy.

Sorry, you don't have to be an enemy of Israel to think that the current government has transformed it into a rogue state. 

Those who write for, and those who read Haaretz aren't enemies of the state, but if you read the paper enough, you get the sense that there are a fair number of Israelis who think they're living in a rogue state.

And that's not a moral dilemma, that's just the bleeding obvious, that's living with a cynical politician doing his best to stay out of the clink...

But if you look too closely at all that, it's easy to spot a different moral dilemma.

How can a junketeer bite the hand that feeds the junket?

Paul Kelly visited Israel as part of an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council media tour.

And so to a few cartoons to help "Ned" out and provide a reward for the few that reached the end and topped this dismal Everest summit, shrouded in the fog and junket of war ....