An excellent essay that gives Australians a non-violent way of supporting the Palestinians' struggle against a violent colonial regime.

Thank you Professor Rees. Please keep up your courageous work and ignore the haters.

Dear Stuart,

Thank you for the article, there is not much I don't agree with.

Please don't pay too much heed to the rabid pack. With a very few exceptions of posters like Yuyutsu most here do not have a dog this fight rather it is only their brand of politics that forces them to paint the occupiers as the victims. This is what makes them so reprehensible, they do it purely out of a far right ideology which most rational, thinking people recognise as base and racist.

We used sanctions against the South African regime. They do work and can drive change. Our foreign minister described those growing numbers of us supporting BDS as anti-Semitic. To me this was defamatory and unworthy of a person in that position. Hopefully Turnbull's ascent will temper her bombast and allow a more realistic view of the situation in Israel and Palestine.

To Mikk.

Only if you lose.

If ethnic cleansing is a war crime, then the entire Islamic world, including Mohammad himself, are war criminals. Islam spread from Arabia throughout the world entirely by force. It is no accident that the number of people from different religions who reside within the Ummah are reducing year by year. Islam is a religion which does not believe in your precious multiculturalism or cultural diversity. You either convert to Islam or you die. Or, if they choose not to kill you, they will make your life miserable until you do convert. How a supposedly humanitarian person like yourself can support such an Nazi ideology is beyond me.

The Jews have been driven out of the entire Middle East except for Israel. I see nothing wrong with the Jews doing to the Muslims, what the Muslims have been doing to the Jews (and everybody else) for 1400 years. The Arab Muslims can have the entire resource rich Middle East and they an stuff it up and make it unliveable as much as they choose. The Jews can have Israel, which is only a tiny country with no resources except the intelligence of it's people, and it can show the stupid Arabs what they could do if they had brains instead of a backward religion.

Multiculturalism is just like Socialism, how many times does it need to fail before "intelligent" people like yourself can flash on that? How many dysfunctional and violence prone multicultural countries have had to divide into two or more countries to get internal peace, before you realise that only one culture can run a country? Societies facing civil wars are those where two or more cultures have diametrically opposed value systems, and the minority culture is growing stronger through immigration or birth rate differentials. That sad fact is as immutable as the Law of Gravity.

The difference between "right wingers" and "left wingers" is that "right wingers" deal with brutal reality, while lefties live in a dream world where the world can be saved if everybody holds hands and sings "Kumbaya."

McCackie, Yuyutsu, Jonathan J. Ariel, Old Man, calwest, LEGO, well said, although calwest, i think communists should be reminded that they are 100% evil as often as possible.

mikk, i hear where you are coming from but not if you are cleansing your nation of criminals who are 100% evil.

INsanity check, 6 to 3 so far, you lose to an absolute majority.

Steele Redux, national socialism is left wing, just not as far left wing as international socialists like you. christian conservative centrists are in the middle, libertarians & anarchists are on the right. are we awake now? do you understand that your brand of evil is worse than the Nazis?

LEGO, i hear where you are coming from but leftists are not foolish, they want to destroy Australia quite deliberately. They will not stop committing sabotage until the capitalist patriarchy has been smashed, if that means your grand daughter gets raped by migrants from a primitive culture, then collateral damage is the price these feminists are willing for you & your grand daughter to pay.

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2005/01/susan-sontag-not-so-judicious/

http://capitalismmagazine.com/2015/03/socialism-is-based-on-a-philosophy-of-death/

I, personally, care little about Israelis and jews, except for the fact that their enemies are the enemies of all our basic freedoms.

The only ones to blame for the situation of the palestinians are the palestinians and Muslims. They use this issue to gain support. They like nothing better than a dead Muslim child or a weeping mother -- but only if caused by jews, or heartless non-Muslims. Dead Muslim children and crying women are no problem if done by other Muslims.

Its not just Muslims! If one were to consider only UN resolutions, one would think only Israel is evil!

There is no solution to this problem. It is physics -- two different objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and palestinians will not live in peace jews. Or as Golda said "there will only be peace when the palestinians love their children more than they hate jews. Don't hold your breath.

What is worst to jew-haters and/or Palestinian-lovers (like Mr. Rees) is that Israel will do what it has to do to survive, and in doing so it will prosper. Israeli leaders, unlike our own, give priority to their people. While the Palestinians and Arabs sink into an ever deepening pit of hate, violence and dispair, Israelis try to live normal lives.

Even if the BDS movement grows (and it is) and becomes 100%effective, it will make little difference because Israel will do what it has to survive.

On a more theological basis, is this not exactly what is predicted in the Bible? In the "last days" the nations (gentiles) will turn against Israel as God gathers his people back into Israel and there will be a war unlike any other. Has anybody noticed how many jews are returning to Israel because of the raising anti-semitism? This is mainly due to Muslim immigration (they come and bring their hate for the jews with them), traditional jew-hating (left and right) and yes, even BDS-type movements.

Isn't it great that Muslims and Mr. Rees are working hard to see a Christian fundamentalist scenario come true!

Lego, pleasssseee stop applying the same moral standards to Muslims and lefties that are required of jews and western countries. You should understand that killing, expelling people, violence, plunder, rape and discrimination are only wrong for some -- for others these are part of their culture, traditions and theology and should be respected as such. I hope you will be more mindful of the sensibilities of the culturally disadvantaged now that this has been brought to your attention.

Oh yes, by the way, Kumbayah is a great of music and should not be used in a derogatory context! Remember, it is the thought that counts -- a group of people singing kumbayah over a pile of dead bodies proves that those people really want peace and cooperation, so we shouldn't let a minor detail like bloody corpses distract from the important message of love. I hope you can understand this simple concept.

You have been warned.

jay Kactuz (too many jays here!)