Tuesday, January 29, 2008

WHO FAILED GAZA?

I was sitting in a St. Kilda cafe on a sunny afternoon on the Monday Australia Day holiday and I overheard a group who were drinking their coffee and discussing some articles in yesterday's Melbourne Age. I was surprised that they were discussing the Middle East and in particular two separate opinion pieces on the situation in Gaza and even more surprised that they had reached a consensus that Hamas and the terrorist organisations should be held in contempt for the plight of the Palestinians.

I've cancelled my subscription to the Age and generally access it only through the online Age. Somehow, I had missed the two opinion pieces published on the subject. First, an article by Professor Fania Oz-Salzberger (chairman of modern Israel studies at Monash University) - No easy solution while Hamas keeps warring. The other was written by the public advocate for Australians for Palestine Michael Shaik - Palestinians suffer as the world fails Gaza.

I managed to read both but one of the women at the neighbouring table, an artist who incidentally is not Jewish, summed up both articles quite succinctly. She described the Professor's article as "a call for peace" and the AFP item, "a hateful cry for vengeance".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All this goes to show that some Age readers haven't been taken in by O'Loughlin's one sided lecturing on the subject.