On October 10, as the world was still reeling from the Hamas attacks on Israel three days earlier, US President Joe Biden stood in the White House State Dining Room and declared, “…there are moment...
Explore the impact of Australian political polls on elections, voter engagement, and policymaking in our comprehensive guide to Australia's political landscape.
While most of the world's attention is focused on the immediate consequences for countries directly involved, such as Israel, Palestine, and their neighbouring nations, the repercussions of this co...
Your views matter and we invite you to submit your own ideas for a National Poll.
We should do a poll on cost of living
Should the media be required to only report true facts, and not be permitted to favor a single political ideology?
Are we becoming a more aggressive society. Do we know how to resolve issues without violence. Have we become desensitised by engaging in violent electronic or combat games. Do we play these games for fun. Do children understand that when a real weapon is
Should local councils be scrutinised more on rates, charges top tips etc? Especially the amount of administrative people they have.
Should New Zealand continue to enact tax relief at this time. I believe that most New Zealanders would not vote for this it is a flawed policy
Now that Indigenous Australia and its people have not, are not and never will be formally legally recognised, acknowledged and included in the CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OR AUSTRALIA... How does Human Rights and Equal opportunity apply?
Is the current workers compensation practices fair or outdated
Does the federal government need to support farmers more with the supply of food dairy grain and vegetable prices
a poll on stopping wind farms in our whale migratory field on the east coast of Australia , for the 450 million the labour grubberment spent on the voice it could hav ebeen better spent on addressing the power crisis with out blackout Bowens stupid ideas
Parents being alienated from their children. When a parent gets caught making up stories to authorities why aren’t they held to account.
Do people believe we are been sprayed by chemtrails,and if so why hasn't climate change activists condemned it ,
I would like a poll taken to instruct the government that an Audit into where the millions of dollars of tax payers money given to the numerous Aboriginal Land Councils and similar indigenous organisations has been spent, since it obviously isn't getting
One vote count and no preference giving
Should the politicians that gifted well camp to the people who got paid to build it pay for it out of there own pockets back to tax payers
Gain insights into Australians thoughts and understanding about public education, curriculum, parental involvement, influences over education, and choice in education.
Fund dental services the same as Medicare and allow bulk billing
Do you agree Australian government are just puppets to UN, WHO and WEF? Do you agree the Australian government took away your constitutional rights over COVID period? Do you approve of Australian Government becoming a corporation with ABN?
The cost of living is rising while wages are staying the same!
All Covid-19 mandates should be removed in workplaces, particularly health sector and should not be a requirement for patients requiring surgery.
Should children under 18 be able to access gender transition opportunities? Should their parents be able to intervene?
She’s to much up herself she doesn’t care about anyone but herself she’s the biggest liaring premier in Queensland history good bye and good riddance
Housing for young people in their 20's. Should they rent with friends to save for their own home??Mum dad rent free, should they pay board at home??Should they buy an existing home once they have enough deposit?? Should they have money in another bank acc
I would like a poll done on the slaughter and killing of our heritage brumbies and the inhumane treatment off them to be shot and left to rot shot mares in foal and with foals at foot
If the vote wins then all funding stops and they pay their own way from the rent money. Indigenous looks after themselves and no white money goes to them. Can't have it both ways. All funding including job start stops. They fund themselves.
WORK & HUMAN RIGHTS (disability) -Does society understand what workplace adjustments are for people with disabilities actually mean? Like, actually making an effort to do mentoring and letting them do part-time work. Accessibility requirements such as liv
Should it be compulsory that all students undertaking any education degree at a uni level learn more extensively on how to teach children with special needs.
We need a national poll on whether the ABC should be funded by the Australian tax payer.
I would like to see a poll conducted about transgender athletes in sport
Should victims of domestic violence get better support and fast tracked response through family court
I want to do a poll in relation to which issues are most important to Queensland voters today. I'd like for the poll to survey city voters verse regional voters
I want to know everyone's thoughts on what we can do about housing affordability. I think we need to completely cut the negative gearing benefits to break this asset class.
I want to know what the nation thinks about the fast rail between the east coast states! I think it's a waste of money.
I think you should do a poll discussing how the high inflation is causing HECS/HELP debt to balloon while wages aren't catching up!
On October 10, as the world was still reeling from the Hamas attacks on Israel three days earlier, US President Joe Biden stood in the White House State Dining Room and declared, “…there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world.”
Around the same time, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “These innocents were killed for one single reason. For being Jewish and living in the State of Israel. It is an ancient evil…”And on October 16 in Australia’s own parliament, opposition leader Peter Dutton asserted, “what occurred nine days ago was the embodiment of evil.”
It is not only Hamas that has been condemned with that kind of language. Israel has been repeatedly accused of genocide in its attacks on Gaza. As Dov Waxman, the chair of Israel Studies at UCLA pointed out, ‘accusing Israel of genocide also contributes to a narrative that portrays the country as “exceptionally evil”’.
Describing incomprehensible violence – from either side – in the Israel/Gaza conflict as ‘evil’ sounds strong and decisive when you are standing at a podium or banging out an angry tweet. It gives the speaker a moral righteousness that challenges the audience to either agree, or side with the devil.
It makes good copy, but it is a disastrous way understand the crisis. Declaring a particular group or ideology as ‘evil’ in effect absolves us of any responsibility for comprehension. After all, if something is ‘evil’, to get your head around why someone would commit such atrocities means entering the mind of the devil himself.
This is not to suggest there is always moral equivalence. Or that everyone always has equally valid points of view. (That would be like saying, ‘well, the Nazis were only responding to their world view when they gassed six million Jews…’). Sometimes people are just plain wrong. But if there is one thing I’ve learned after almost 25 years as a journalist covering conflict, it is that nobody behaves irrationally. It may not be completely logical, but there is always a way of rationalising behaviour that is internally consistent, that fits an understanding of history and a world view.
In any conflict that can only truly end with a negotiated settlement (and that is most of them), we need to have the courage and intellectual rigour to stand in the shoes of those we disagree with. You can only truly say you’ve understood a war when you can convincingly articulate why each side thinks and behaves the way they do. And that is the only point at which we might begin to find a way through that doesn’t involve wholesale slaughter.
To be clear, understanding is not the same as justifying. Empathy does not mean sympathy. And nor is it weakness. The ultimate in courageous pragmatism is to recognise how someone you profoundly disagree agree with came to their position, however horrific it may seem through your own eyes.
In this case, it means understanding how deeply Palestinians see themselves as refugees in their own land, forced from their homes in the original 1948 “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when the state of Israel was first formed. It means recognising how every attempt at reconciliation and peace with Israel has left them with less power, less land, and less autonomy, and that for some, violent resistance is the only rational path left. It also means understanding that however cynical its October 7 attacks might have been Hamas knew exactly what it was doing, making a bid for full political legitimacy among Palestinians divided between those they control in Gaza, and those under their rivals, Fatah, in the West Bank.
It also means recognising the devastating impact of Hamas’s terrorism on the psychology of Israelis. It is to feel their need not just for vengeance, but a victory so complete and decisive that such a thing can never happen again. It is to see how Israel regards itself as so constantly threatened by its neighbours that each conflict is fundamentally existential. And to understand how the far right in Israel’s complicated politics might be driving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military response.
As Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid recently wrote, ‘to describe the things we can’t comprehend as evil is a cop-out. It allows us to believe something is wrong with “them” but not with us. And, paradoxically, it exposes an unwillingness to take terrorists seriously, reducing them to “crazy” or “irrational” adversaries. They usually aren’t.’
* Peter Greste is a Professor of Journalism at Macquarie University, and Executive Director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.