A whisper from the distant shores of Down Under,
news drifts closer, a thunderous blunder.
Funding for our halls of thought and art,
slashed away, tearing hope apart.
If accusations ring of anti-semitism,
the definition bends, loses its rhythm.
It doesn't pass the pub test, you see,
where free speech whispers, "Let it be."
Under age and knowing well,
criticize Israel—dangerous spell.
Mention genocide, the blood-stained truth,
death chants in shadows, uncouth.
"Death to the IDF," echoes aloud,
forced to witness a genocide unbowed.
Out in the open, horrors unfold,
while governments collude, silent, cold.
In this tangled web of silence and shame,
the truth is burning, calling our name.
A plea for justice, a cry to see,
the human cost of tyranny.
G is for generalisation's claim
E is for echo chamber’s refrain
N stands for neoconservative’s might
O opens doors to truth and spite
C is for collusion’s dark embrace
I labels Israel a terrorist’s face
D for denial, a stubborn wall
E for extermination, camps cruel call
This poem was inspired by the news from Australia where special envoy Segal (an Isaraeli lobbyist) has proposed funding cuts for unis and arts foundations if they fail to crack down on anti-semitic speech. Whilst it has been criticised in mainstream media and there has been acknowledgment that anti-semitism has been equated to anti-Israel speech, there is still an impression given in some media out lets that there is an anit-semitism problem when it is in fact a fabrication. There is also none to little mention of the real underlying problem at all - which is Israel is being facilitated to carry out a genocide. Thanks for reading.
Example of some coverage -
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/11/australia-must-combat-antisemitism-but-not-simply-defer-to-demands-of-some-voices-ntwnfb
It's so bloody transparent - it's like a two year old can see what's going on yet still it's happening.
I don't understand how people can get anti semitism and anti Zionist/death to the IDF so fkn confused.
Victorian here ✋
Thannks for your supportive comment
and this is happening everywhere, just like the covid con.
Thanks for all your support friend
This is nothing like the COVID panic. Declaring war on a mostly harmless virus was total idiocy bred from mass panic (and worse) and led to mass infringements of basic human rights of billions of citizens around the world.
Everyone personally experienced the COVID panic.
I was right on COVID (unjabbed) and protested infringements and I am right on this.
Iran's genocidal war on Israel, waged via proxies like Hamas and directly is a REAL WAR.
But the vast majority of the people expressing their opinion have ZERO experience of war or the Middle East.
Gazans are part of Hamas's military machine. They are not innocent.
They took hostages, returned escaped hostages to Hamas, store Hamas weapons in their homes for Hamas combatants to use, have entrances to military facilities (tunnels) in their homes etc.
But despite this, the IDF treats them as civilians and protects them far better than any army in history has.
Ah, after reading your feelings on Gaza, I was wondering when and how I decided your ideas were closely aligned with mine. I see now it was about the covid con. Good for you, thank you for refusing. As for what's going on in the middle east, I can go back as far as the Iran contra affair, after which I have seen a long line of government interference, obfuscations and downright lies. I'm sure those same lies and obfuscations have been going on for centuries if not for as long as there have been rulers, but the Carter/Reagan show when I started thinking "something is not right here, that is not what we were told just yesterday." I now read conventional sources only to see what lies we are being told today. Their goal is, I believe, to keep us living on the edge of a knife, ready to slit each others throats, which is the sentiment I read in your words about Gaza.
Where do you get your information on these events? There are a great many sources, for instance, that refute your statement that the IDF treats Gazans well. The only sources that say they do, that I know of, are Israeli government-approved. Governments have ulterior motives for everything they wish us to believe and not a single one of them can be trusted.
Here is a video that explains what is going on.
This explains nothing. It is rhetoric. It is slick. It is theoretical. It is propaganda.
Have you gone to Gaza? If the reports are true, Gazans suffer much more than hearing sirens, watching fireplay in the skies and being afraid.
I don't believe much of what I am simply told. I prefer primary sources, first hand accounts. Not a pretty woman reading from a script, telling me what she thinks I think, and what she thinks I should think.
Cease your blood libel anti-semitism.
The only genocide is the one Hamas and Iran has tried to commit against Jews.
Gazans are being fed by Israel -the only example of feeding an enemy population in wartime ever - total stupidity.
Gazans are INCREASING in population. Opposite of genocide.
The vast majority of Gazan casualties are military age males.
The civilian to combatant death ratio is by far the lowest in the history of urban warfare.
You are a useful idiot to the most evil terrorists on the planet.
Gosh I'm a little shocked by this @apshamilton ... Where on earth are you getting your information from?
None of this backlash against Israel is anti semitic, it's anti indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in targeted attacks by their army. All of what the IDF do and have done is well documented. It's not a defensive army, it's ruthless, calculated machine that is hell bent on eliminating Gaza. It's so well documented I'm a little shocked you don't see this. And lest you say I am pro Hamas, that's obviously not the case, as everyone that's anti genocide by IDF keep saying and should not have to keep saying.
I'm also a bit shocked at you calling people idiots. That's not how we interact on Hive, surely, even if our opinions differ?
Dear @riverflows I get this information first hand because I actually LIVE in Israel, unlike you and @saltycat who have likely NEVER visited Israel, or Iran, or Gaza or Lebanon or indeed anywhere in the Middle East.
My family with 3 young special needs kids has had to shelter in the safe room night after night as Iran and its proxies like Hamas, Hizbollah and Houthis fired huge missiles at entirely civilian targets, sometimes (fortunately rarely) hitting apartment blocks quite near my home and my kids schools and kindergartens.
I hear the interceptors fire and blow most, but not all, these genocidal missiles out of the sky. I speak directly to soldiers who have served in Gaza and witnessed the weapons, tunnels and hate material in almost EVERY home. They are SO careful (far too careful IMHO) to protect Gazans not directly firing at them.
If Israel wanted to kill as many Gazans as possible there would be ZERO Gazans alive today. We would have simply stopped supplying food, water and electricity (which we are perfectly entitled to do in wartime and they have a border with Egypt (who they are not at war with) to get supplies).
The the so called "documented" information you are referring to is utterly false, terrorist propaganda debunked by real military experts like Maj Andrew Fox (UK) & Col. John Spencer (US) & Col Richard Kemp (UK) and many others who HAVE actually visited the battlefields.
Ask yourself what you really know, from first hand experience and you will realise it is NOTHING! You are relying on news sources that parrot Hamas propaganda because they are paid billions by Qatar and Iran or are just rank anti-semites.
Anyone who believes and repeats the propaganda of a proscribed terrorist group like Hamas not only breaks the law by supporting a proscribed terrorist group, but is also complicit in Iran & its proxies attempted genocide of Jews. If that is not idiocy, I don't know what is.
Western countries are increasingly recognise that "pro-palestine" groups and those that falsely claim genocide in Gaza are domestic terrorists that endanger their own countries and are pure anti-semites. Mass arrests are already happening in the US, UK & parts of Europe.
You are on the wrong side of history on this. Making false accusations against Jews to justify their murder is EXACTLY what the German Nazis did.
I suggest you reconsider your position.
If you truely cared about the Gazan people you would be protesting about Egypt not letting them leave a war zone.
I am sorry you live in a war zone. It must be very difficult. But could your fear not be skewing your understanding, just as it skewed the understandin of most people during the covid con? Did you experience, as I did, calls for me to be placed in a concentration camp for my lifestyle choice to not be jabbed? Were you thought to be a deadly force, an enemy of the people, a terrorist? I was called all of those things, I moved to a different part of NYS just to feel safer from that enmity, that government-fed enmity. I was on the front lines then, you are on the front lines now. I appreciate your perspective, and certainly with first hand experience like this you have much for us to learn from, but those in Gaza are saying the exact same things about you. The conflict has been deliberately managed by our ruling class, and has little to nothing to do with the actions of civilians living in those areas. Lies about both of you abound!
And Hamas is STILL holding Israeli hostages, in appalling conditions.
If they released them the WAR, not genocide, would stop.
So cease your utter BS and rank Jew-hate.
Remember everything you write on this platform is FOREVER.
Your appalling support of the worst evil this planet has ever experienced will be remembered for all time.
The term Semites refers to speakers of Semitic languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic. When you refer to antisemitism, you do not refer to all Jews, but to Arabs, Palestinians, and some Jews that speak Hebrew. Many Jews do not speak Hebrew, as you must well know.
You falsely ascribe opposition to the subterfuge that your current Prime Minister undertakes to use his proxy force Hamas to create false justification for ethnic cleansing of Semites from Palestine as 'Jew-hate'. By doing this you are associating that covert use of terrorist proxies Hamas with Judaism, because it is that criminal treachery and terrorism bought and paid for by your Prime Minister that the people you accuse are opposed to, and all the bloody suffering it has been used to create. If you mean to associate Jews with terrorism in that way, then I submit it is you that hate Jews, and appear, from your comments, to hate Palestinians too.
The only antisemite I see here is you.
Everyone else here is opposed to these things.
Well said.
Did you watch the video by @valued-customer above? How do you justify that? You keep insisting it's Jew hate as if that's an argument when it's clear that we aren't at all condemning Jews and anyone reading these comments can see exactly what we are condemning.
That account has posted anti-semitic claptrap for years.
If you really thought Israel was committing genocide then you should be very worried because we might just nuke you for fun or because we are sick of Aussie anti-semitism. Australia can be destroyed with just 7 nukes. It has no defences against nuclear missiles.
If we were trying to kill all the Gazans they would have all been dead on Oct 8. Instead we provide them food, water and electricity.
But you don't really believe this - you are just trying to justify your Jew hatred.
You will pay a heavy personal price for this.
Anti-semitism is corrosive to the soul and destroys people and nations that engage in it.
Did you just threaten to nuke me? 😂 No wonder Israelis have a bad reputation. 😂
Also, enough already with the 'poor me everyone hates jews' bullshit. Either you're paranoid delusional or you're trying to use it as a deflective argument and a poor one at that, or both.
My attempt at civility and intelligent discussion along with @owasco has ended up with your threats, which honest to goodness speaks absolute volumes.
You have ZERO real knowledge of what is going on & are parroting utterly false terrorist propaganda.
Have you actually been to Israel or Gaza? Or Iran, whose evil Islamist government has been spending hundreds of billions to murder Jews while repressing their own citizens.
Iran & Hamas have been firing missiles, some huge ones with 1 ton warheads at MY FAMILY for years. Not at military targets. At civilian homes.
Have you actually watched the real footage of Hamas & Gazan "civilians" raping and murdering Israeli civilians?
No you fall for fake terrorist propaganda which is ALWAYS proven to be false.
You consider yourself a truth seeker but you have fallen for evil lies.
Are you certain that you have not?
I'm really glad that @apshamilton joined in as it reveals a LOT about the mentality of people who support the genocide and why they do.
Thanks for your encouraging comment