Timing of ‘anniversary’ pro-Palestine protests unconscionable

Palestine Action Group member Josh Lees has vowed that pro-Palestine protests on the anniversary eve of Hamas’s October 7 slaughter of innocent Israelis would go ahead – legal or not (“Damn your ban: October 7 rally organisers to ignore court orders”, 3/10). Lees justified the timing of the October 6 evening demonstration as being “one year since Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza began”. A strange justification since Israel’s retaliatory Gaza attacks on Hamas began on October 8 – a day after, and in response to, Hamas’s horrific October 7 attacks. The evening of October 6 was when Hamas would have been undertaking last-minute preparations for its incursions into Israel and the brutal and bloody massacres and hostage-taking that would entail.

The timing of this pro-Palestinian protest, coinciding with the anniversary eve of Hamas’s imminent attacks, begs the question whether the protest is designed to incorporate and commemorate that fateful evening and the subsequent hell unleashed by Hamas on unsuspecting Israeli innocents. Regardless, the timing of both the October 6 eve and October 7 pro-Palestinian demonstrations is unconscionable. How much more powerful would be a candlelight vigil in memory of all who now suffer as a result of the terrorism of Iran’s proxies – Hamas and Hezbollah.

Deborah Morrison, Malvern East, Vic

Richard Miles is delusional if he thinks that anti-Israel protesters will “bear in mind that October 7 is the anniversary of the loss of significant numbers of Israeli civilians”, unless it is to double down on their protests and defy the government and police.

George Fishman, Vaucluse, NSW

Those who choose to join pro-Palestinian rallies on October 7 can only have one mission – to commemorate the atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent men, women and children (“Damn your ban, rally to ignore court orders”, 3/10)

Kim Keogh, Claremont, WA

Public sector price gouging

I concur 100 per cent with Jeremy Browne from South Australia (Letters, 1/10); it’s all very noble condemning Coles and Woolworths for their attributes to price gouging who are far from blameless in their “buy one get one free” campaigns. Here in Western Australia, we too have been subjected to continual price hikes from local government authorities for a number of years of around 4 per cent and upwards, which aren’t hidden behind the usual thin veil of secrecy. Just yesterday a local farmer stated his government charges had increased again this year in a depressed market forcing the reintroduction of red ink to his bookkeeping practices. Yet across the board government charges continue to spiral upward without fear of reprimand or correction from higher levels. New administration complexes with new departments who turn their back on the very people who elect them to govern; some practices make the Sheriff of Nottingham look like a boy scout!

John Bain, South Bunbury, WA

We’re a laughing stock

The three “might is right” threats Peta Credlin outlines – militarist Russia, Islamist Iran and Communist China – must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the Australian government (“Who would you rather be, Israel or Ukraine?”, 3/10). In Defence, as Credlin says, Labor, rather than donate surplus military equipment such as helicopters and tanks to Ukraine, is instead selling them on a military eBay site. In Foreign Affairs, the minister has gifted tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in several tranches for Gaza since the atrocities of October 7, supposedly for humanitarian aid, and continues to finger-wag to Israel about its right to defend itself, but with the pusillanimous caveat, “how it does so matters”. In The Lodge, the prime ministerial reaction to any “wolf warrior” provocation from the Chinese Communist Party has been to cite the predictable inanity about co-operating where we can and disagreeing where we must. As a result in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing, Labor’s trio of “useful idiots” are turning themselves, and our nation, into a laughing stock.

Mandy Macmillan, Singleton, NSW

My father and me

If Jill Johnson finds my stance on Palestine-Israel “incomprehensible” (Letters, 1/10), all she needed to do was to contact me to discuss it. Had she done so, she might have been less eager to slur me as an anti-Semite and terrorist supporter, and might have appreciated that opposition to genocide and support for Palestine are equivalent to neither of those things. She would also have learned that, were he still alive, my father – who was indeed the object of anti-Semitic persecution by the Nazis but did not, contrary to her assertion, identify as Jewish – would certainly have shared my positions, and would have taken part in pro-Palestine protests, just as he did during his lifetime.

Nick Riemer, Glebe, NSW