I take issue with the assertion, that Tony Burke represents a Gillard Govt view!
Tony Burke may be a little economical with the truth from time to time.
But hey, he is a politician, and definitely, a budding diplomat.
Given he is not a puppet dancing on a Gillard string, he can and does represent his own views from time to time, which sometimes also beggar belief.
Like that nonsense about locking away vast tracts of our marine economic zone, simply done, I believe, to lock away a few green preferences, which are never ever, truly guaranteed?
Rhrosty.

Why are the Irish descendents though who suffered British occupation so pleased and happy to say they support the making of and occupation of Palestine?

And all the Gillard backers are spivs. who are not allowed to think for themselves or have any form of dissent.

Talk about alarm bells!

"The first alarm bell should have rung. Northern Ireland endured three decades of military occupation by the foreign forces of Britain until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998."

Ahem. "Military occupation?"

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom. It has sent specifically Northern Irish representatives to Westminster since 1920, following the formation of the Irish Free State. Before that, both South and North had been represented in the Westminster parliament, since 1801.

Mr Wakim, reality check. For over two hundred years, Northern Ireland has been part of the United Kingdom. Or Britain, as it is sometimes known.

Mind you, I should also reassure you, that your understanding of the situation in Northern Ireland is only a bees-dick more deficient than the bulk of the Australian public.

It does fit the neo-colonialism of the Labor administration that members like Tony Burke feel free to intervene in Syrian politics, as though they were Syrian. Burke would have been more careful if he were commenting on the UK, Britain, France or Ireland. Joe Hakim is right to ridicule the parallel Burke draws between the British army in Ireland (an occupation with eight centuries of history) and the foreign backed, mostly fundamentalist and often non-Syrian armed gangs in Syria. It seems Burke knows little about the longer Syrian story, also over eight centuries, of Damascene Islam versus fundamentalist salafism. That might have helped him understand why Sunni fundamentalists recently murdered Sunni Sheikh al Bouti and dozens of moderate Sunni muslims, in Damascus.

Pericles,
England went into Ireland & unwittingly saved them from the threat of total incest as was the case with all these locked away & out of the way communities in those hidden valleys of southern Europe..

Thank you Joe. Insightful. Tony Burke and the Gillard government are involved in this war-crime against Syria, supporting, funding, and encouraging Al Qaeda & FSA terrorists. We have seen how Bob Carr has been visiting FSA camps in Jordan, where wounded terrorists are being treated so they can return to commit atrocities in Syria. Burke & his Labor Party have no shame. ...And most politicians have very murky morals.