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Peace in our time

By Howard Dewhirst - posted Wednesday, 14 January 2026


It seems for some that peace in our time will only come when Hamas has destroyed Israel and swept away all of its citizens, from the river to the sea, including 2 million non-Jews; this latter caveat usefully removes the charge of genocide being raised against Hamas. However there have been hundreds of destructive acts against synagogues all over the world just in this century, which brings the charge of genocide against the pro-Palestine movement back into focus.

They in their turn accuse the Israelis, and all diaspora Jews, of genocide for unleashing the IDF onto the poor defenceless Palestinians in Gaza, but fail to explain why the IDF allowed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to leave the targeted areas unmolested. They also fail to explain how the unannounced Hamas October 7th attack on Israeli and other civilians living close to the Gazan border, or attending an open-air concert, was all Israel’s fault.

Just as those who demonstrated in front of the Sydney Opera House Steps just a little over 24 hours after Hamas began their slaughter of the innocents, claimed it was a justified attack and was to be supported. Leaders of this demo, such as Assala Sayara, who later attended a rally in Jordan in support of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, led the chanting cries of “Globalise the Intifada” and “** the Jews” and “Free-Free Palestine, from the River to the Sea”, while other supports such as Randa Abdel-Fatah, pushed similar messages at the University of Sydney described as “Beautiful scenes of hope and solidarity”.

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What do all these cries mean? They are demands for never ending attacks on Jews all over the world, until they have been wiped clean of the face of the earth; does this not sound more like genocide?

That these first global stirrings of the International Pro-Palestine movement should have taken place in Australia is symptomatic of the global smoke and mirrors campaign that is being developed against Jews everywhere, not just in ‘Palestine’.

What has Australia ever done for the people of Palestine one could ask. In 1915 they, together with New Zealand shipped the first ever Anzac troops to Egypt, to join an Allied army fighting against Germany and Turkey. This prompted Australia’s very first Islamic confrontation, both at home and abroad. On January 1st 1915 a train load of Australian families left Broken Hill for a New Year’s Day picnic in the country. They travelled in open waggons pulled by a steam train to a planned picnic site, but never arrived, as the local Muslim ice cream seller and his friend the mullah, attacked the train, shooting down unarmed holidaying civilians, as did Sajid and Naveed Akram at Bondi.

The ANZAC involvement in the early part of WWI, was only ever to be a side show, to distract Germany’s war machine in Europe. The first push in Gallipoli failed in that purpose, miserably, and 8,700 Australian Anzacs died, out of a total of 142,00 Allied deaths. The second push under General Allenby, became known as the Sinai and Palestine campaign, and was more successful, pushing Turkey and her German advisers and equipment all the way from the Egyptian border to what became the modern Turkish border. Australian deaths were just under 1,000. A campaign in which Arabic troops under Sherif Hussein and his son Feisal, aided by one Lawrence of Arabia, evicted the Turks from what would become Saudi Arabia.

The Light Horse troops wore emu feathers in their hats which, in typical Aussie fashion quickly became known as Kangaroo feathers – as did their chivalry towards the enemy, which this Wikipedia snippet attests:

During one of the patrols, on 19 August, a group of 68 Ottoman soldiers was found half dead from thirst by the 5th Light Horse Regiment (2nd Light Horse Brigade) who, rather than attacking them, gave them water and their rides. The commanding officer and his men led the Ottoman Army soldiers on their horses for 5 miles (8.0 km) through deep sand until met by transport. "This was a very queer sight and worthy of a moving picture [of these] poor sacrifices of the Huns.”
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The capture of Jerusalem in December 1917 marked the liberation of a city that has played host to Jews, Christians and Muslims; so, lest we forget, this is just part of what Australia has done for Palestine. Those who disfigure ANZAC war memorials should hang their heads in shame and apologise. Had the Allied armies failed, the people now living in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Egypt, as well as previous Ottoman colonies in Europe, would still be carrying Turkish passports.

Had Germany and Turkey won that war, both would have expanded their territories, Germany would have added Papua to its colony of New Guinea, plus all of the Solomon Islands it didn’t already have, which included the Bismark Island Chain and Bougainville, and possibly even the Torres Straights Islands, all as ‘reparations’.  Turkey would have retaken Egypt and Saudi Arabia and possibly other parts of the North African coast that it had only recently lost. Those who bellyache about the madness of Australians fighting “other people’s (GB) wars” should remember this, and perhaps apologise to those who died defeating Germano-Ottoman aggression?

Peace in our time will never come until Jews everywhere are allowed to live in peace, wherever they are.

Homework

  1. How many known radical Islamists have been raided since the bond massacre?
  2. How many malignant influencers who use their public grants and platforms to incite against the Jewish community have been defunded?
  3. How many proponents of radical Islam and other forms of violent anti-Semitism have been arrested, deported or defunded?
  4. How many of the thousands of Australian social media users who have mocked, praised or glorified the slaughter of innocent people have been visited by the police, or at the very least had their accounts deactivated?
  5. Has the government provided enough financial support to the bereaved, the wounded and the traumatised?

Answer in the comments below.

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About the Author

Howard Dewhirst is a geologist.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Howard Dewhirst

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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