.@johnmenadue Pearls and Irritations 'Antidotes against the Allure of War: Information and Empathy' #Images: -Decorations hanging for both Christmas and Eid, Damascus, 2008 -Nobel Peace Laureate #MaireadMaguire, #Syria, 2013 #Article: johnmenadue.com/antidotes-ag…

On #GlobalRoaming, @GeraldineDoogue interviewed Lord Andrew Roberts, advocate for #Israel, supporter of Iraq war, Churchill fan = racist. abcdissent.substack.com/p/wh… #Gaza #abc730 #4corners @mattdoran22 @TheLyonsDen @adharves @PeterCronau @antoinette_news

IMPORTANT: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR #STUDENTS AND #TEACHERS in response to @ABCaustralia RN #GlobalRoaming interview with Lord Andrew Roberts. @GeraldineDoogue interviewed Roberts. See: abc.net.au/listen/programs/g… #RadioNational #Gaza #Zionism #Israel #Palestine #genocide #HannibalDoctrine #Churchill #BorisJohnson #racism #rape #October7 #RapeofNanking #TonyBlair #GeoPolitics #MediaStudies #InternationalRelations #GlobalPolitics #InformationWarfare @RandaAFattah @IRanalyst @antoinette_news @JoshBBornstein @antloewenstein @MichaelWestBiz @SenatorJordon @DavidShoebridge @DeclassifiedAus Question 1: Context and Credibility — The Missing Background Doogue introduced Roberts without mentioning his peerage, his Iraq War advocacy, or the funding of the Roberts Report. She also described the report as something he “did for your sit in the House of Lords” — a framing that implies it is an official parliamentary document. It is not. The Roberts Report explicitly states that it is not an official publication of the House of Commons or the House of Lords, and has not been approved by either Chamber or their committees. It was commissioned by an unelected cross-party group, funded by a private company controlled by two former chairs of Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel, and produced for the stated political purpose of combating “October 7 denial.” Questions: How does the absence of this context affect the credibility of the claims Roberts made? What responsibility do interviewers have to accurately describe the status of documents their guests are promoting? If a report is presented as “parliamentary” but is not an official parliamentary document, what obligation does a public broadcaster have to clarify that distinction? Question 2: Iraq, Moral Authority, and the ABC’s Duty to a Multicultural Australia Roberts was an outspoken supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He compared Tony Blair to Winston Churchill and predicted that Blair’s “apotheosis” would come when weapons of mass destruction were found. When no WMDs were found, Roberts did not retract his support. He continued to defend the invasion on strategic grounds. That war led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the displacement of millions of people. It destabilised an entire region. Its consequences are still being felt today. Questions: What moral authority does Roberts have to pronounce on war, atrocity, and civilian suffering, given his record of supporting a war based on false premises and refusing to acknowledge the error? In the minds of Australians whose families come from Iraq, Afghanistan, or the broader Middle East — communities directly affected by the wars Roberts championed — how might his authority be perceived? What does it mean for a public broadcaster to platform such a figure without acknowledging this history? Australia is a multicultural society with a colonial history of its own. Does the ABC have a particular obligation to provide this context, given that the wars Roberts supported were fought in the name of “the West” and caused suffering disproportionately borne by non-Anglo peoples? Question 3: The Lancet Study and the Death Toll A peer-reviewed study in The Lancet Global Health (February 2026) found that the Gaza Ministry of Health undercounted deaths by approximately 35%, and estimated 75,200 violent deaths by January 2025 — with 42,200 women, children, and older people killed (56.2% of all violent deaths). Roberts said he didn’t “believe anything like 70,000 died.” Questions: If you were advising Doogue before the interview, how would you suggest she handle this discrepancy? What does it mean when a public figure’s belief conflicts with peer-reviewed evidence — and what obligation does an interviewer have to introduce that evidence? Why do you think the Lancet study was not mentioned in the interview or in the post-interview discussion? Question 4: The ABC’s Own Reporting — The Hannibal Directive, the IDF Probes, and the Aguilar Testimony The ABC has reported on the Hannibal Directive, the killing of journalists and aid workers, and the warnings to Netanyahu before October 7. Doogue did not reference any of this. The ABC has also reported extensively on the IDF’s own internal investigations. In August 2026, ABC News reported that the IDF had, for the first time, acknowledged that its soldiers fired on the car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab, and that a criminal investigation had been opened. The same ABC report noted that no criminal investigation would be pursued into the strike that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six colleagues from World Central Kitchen. The ABC quoted Human Rights Watch describing the system as “not justice, it’s a whitewash.” Separately, in August 2025, ABC Radio’s AM and The World Today programs broadcast interviews with Anthony Aguilar, a retired US Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel who worked as a security contractor at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution site. Aguilar told the ABC: “As civilians were travelling to the sites or civilians were travelling away from the sites, I witnessed the IDF shooting at the crowds using tank fire, machine gun fire, rifle fire to control the crowds, shooting at their feet, over their heads, sometimes into the crowds. I did witness the indiscriminate targeting and shooting at unarmed civilians on a daily basis.” Aguilar also said that GHF’s own armed guards adopted the same practices because “we lacked any types of rules of engagement.” Questions: Why do you think the ABC’s own reporting — on the IDF probes, on Hind Rajab, on Zomi Frankcom, and on Aguilar’s testimony — was absent from the interview? If the ABC’s own news division has reported that the IDF acknowledged firing on Hind Rajab’s car and that an Australian aid worker was killed in a strike that will not be criminally investigated, what obligation did Doogue have to raise these facts with Roberts? Aguilar is a retired Lieutenant Colonel who witnessed the conduct he described. Roberts is a historian who has not spent a day in Gaza. Why was Roberts’ assertion given a platform, while Aguilar’s testimony was not brought into the conversation? What does it suggest about editorial standards when a public broadcaster’s own journalism contradicts a guest’s claims, and the interviewer does not raise it? Question 5: The Churchill Problem — Selective Contextualism Roberts admires Churchill and invokes him as a model of leadership. Churchill also held explicitly racist views — he wrote that Islam was “as dangerous as rabies,” described Africans as “savages,” and argued for white superiority. Roberts has said these should be understood “in the context of his times.” Questions: Is this a valid approach? When should historical context be applied — and when does contextualising become excusing? Roberts asks us to contextualise Churchill’s racism but frames Palestinian resistance without context. What does this double standard reveal about his framework? In a multicultural Australia, what message does it send when a public broadcaster platforms a figure who admires Churchill without acknowledging Churchill’s racism? Question 6: Jewish Intellectuals and Anti-Zionism — A Suppressed Tradition Over 70 Jewish Australian academics, students, and alumni signed a statement in Overland (May 2025) rejecting the conflation of Zionism with Jewish identity and rejecting the claim that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Einstein and Arendt made similar arguments in 1948, when they compared Begin’s party to the Nazi and Fascist parties and condemned the Deir Yassin massacre. Questions: How does this tradition complicate Roberts’ framing that criticism of Israel is a symptom of antisemitism? What does it mean that this tradition — and these voices — were not mentioned in the interview? What message does the absence of this tradition send to Jewish Australians who oppose Israeli government policy? Question 7: Proportionality and International Law Doogue asked Roberts about proportionality. He deflected by asking “What do you mean by proportionality?” and then said “You’ve got to, of course, kill as many terrorists as possible.” Questions: How would you define proportionality in the context of international humanitarian law? What evidence would you need to assess whether Israel’s actions in Gaza have been proportionate? If 56.2% of the dead were women, children, and older people, what does that tell you about the claim that 20,000 “terrorists” were killed? Question 8: The Nanjing Comparison and the Legal Status of Occupied Peoples Roberts compares October 7 to the Nanjing Massacre. But in Nanjing, Japan was the aggressor and occupier; in Palestine, according to the International Court of Justice (2024 and 2025), Israel is the occupying power, and the Palestinian people are the occupied. Under international law, occupied peoples have a right to resist — the ICRC states that “organised resistance movements and genuine national liberation movements may resist the occupation.” Questions: How does this legal distinction change how we should understand Roberts’ comparison? If the ICJ has found Israel’s occupation unlawful and the Palestinian people deprived of self-determination, what does that mean for how we characterise Palestinian resistance? Roberts compares Palestinian resistance to Nazi atrocities. Is this a legal argument, a moral argument, or a political designation? What is the difference? Question 9: Kinocide and “Face-to-Face Cruelty” Roberts claims Israelis do not commit “face-to-face cruelty” — that Israeli warfare is “tanks and aeroplanes,” categorically different from Palestinian violence. The UN has documented children shot in the head at close range (73 out of 168 gunshot cases), amputations without anaesthetic, and sexualised torture in detention. Aguilar’s testimony — broadcast by the ABC — describes IDF soldiers shooting at unarmed civilians “on a daily basis,” including with tank fire, machine gun fire, and rifle fire. Questions: How do you evaluate Roberts’ claim against this evidence? If a doctor amputates a child’s limb without anaesthetic, holding the child down while they scream — is that “face-to-face cruelty”? How does it differ from the cruelty Roberts attributes only to Palestinians? What does it mean for a public broadcaster to allow such a claim to go unchallenged when its own news division has broadcast a whistleblower describing the IDF shooting at unarmed civilians “on a daily basis”? Question 10: Media Responsibility and the ABC’s Charter The ABC is a public broadcaster with obligations to inform the public accurately and impartially under its Charter. Questions: What does this interview suggest about how well the ABC is meeting those obligations when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict? What could the ABC do differently — in terms of guest selection, background research, and post-interview analysis? What role should the ABC’s own investigative journalism play in shaping its interview programs? Question 11: Australian Legal Obligations Australia is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. Under the Convention, states parties have an obligation to prevent and punish genocide. The UN has verified 31 cases of rape and sexual violence against Palestinians by Israeli forces; the Lancet study found the Gaza Ministry of Health undercounted deaths by 35%. Questions: If this evidence constitutes evidence of genocide, what obligations does Australia have? Doogue’s interview did not mention these obligations. Should it have? What responsibility do Australian media have to inform the public about Australia’s international law obligations? Question 12: Australian Students and the Demand for Better Media Australia is a close ally of Israel, a signatory to the Genocide Convention, and a multicultural society with its own colonial history. The killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom — and the IDF’s decision not to pursue a criminal investigation — is a direct Australian connection to the conflict. Questions: How should Australian students respond to evidence that contradicts claims made by public figures on issues of war and peace? What role can students play in demanding better media coverage — and in holding public broadcasters to their editorial standards? What does it mean to be a responsible consumer of news in a democracy, when the news itself may be curated to legitimise certain claims and marginalise others? Question 13: The Ethics of Interviewing Doogue is a skilled broadcaster. Global Roaming is a valuable program. But even skilled broadcasters can fail to meet editorial standards when they do not provide context, do not challenge false claims, and do not cite their own organisation’s reporting. Questions: What is the difference between “balance” and “rigour” in journalism? Is it enough to give a guest a platform and let them speak, or does the interviewer have an obligation to test their claims against evidence? What does it mean when a public broadcaster provides the appearance of balance while concealing a failure of rigour? If you were producing this interview, what would you do differently? Question 14: Palestinian Voices, Editorial Choice, and the Reverence Extended to Roberts Doogue’s interview presented Roberts as a figure of authority whose views warranted a national platform. But the interview excluded any Palestinian voice, and it excluded the analytical work that has directly addressed the claims Roberts made. Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, has published detailed investigations into the October 7 rape allegations, the Hannibal Directive, and the role of sources such as ZAKA. His analysis is not marginal; it is part of the international debate, and its central factual claims have been corroborated by Israeli media. Its absence from the interview meant that Roberts’ claims about sexual violence and about Israeli military conduct were never tested against the most substantive critical response available. This pattern extends beyond the ABC. In January 2026, the Adelaide Festival board disinvited the Palestinian-Australian writer and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers’ Week, citing her past statements about Israel and Zionism and claiming it would not be “culturally sensitive” for her to appear so soon after the Bondi Beach attack. The decision triggered an extraordinary response: more than 180 authors withdrew from the festival in protest, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Zadie Smith, Helen Garner, and Peter Greste. Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler — herself the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors — resigned, saying she could not be party to “silencing writers.” The entire festival board ultimately resigned and the event was cancelled. The board later apologised, but Abdel-Fattah rejected the apology as “disingenuous,” noting that it addressed only how the decision was communicated, not the decision itself. The contrast is instructive. Roberts — a British peer, an advocate for the Iraq War, and the chair of a report funded by pro-Israel political figures — was granted a respectful hearing on the national broadcaster. Abdel-Fattah — an Australian citizen, a Macquarie University academic, and one of Australia’s most prominent Palestine advocates — was excluded from a literary festival on the grounds that her presence would be “culturally insensitive.” When she was excluded, the response from Australian writers and the broader public was not acquiescence but mass refusal. Questions: If the ABC’s Global Roaming were genuinely interested in presenting a range of perspectives on October 7, what would it mean to include the analysis of Ali Abunimah alongside the claims of Lord Roberts? What does its absence suggest about whose expertise is treated as authoritative and whose is treated as beyond the pale? The disinvitation of Randa Abdel-Fattah was reversed in effect by the collective action of hundreds of writers and the resignation of the festival director. What does this tell you about the relationship between institutional decisions and public pressure — and about the role that Australians can play in defending freedom of expression? Is there a double standard at work when an English peer who supported a war of aggression is treated with deference, while an Australian Palestinian academic is treated as a risk to “cultural sensitivity”? What does this reveal about whose suffering is legible, whose voice is heard, and whose presence is considered disruptive? What responsibility do Australian cultural and media institutions have to ensure that Palestinian Australians are not systematically excluded from public conversation about a conflict that directly concerns them? Question 15: The Youth, Social Media, and the Moral Authority of Empathy In the interview, Roberts attributed young people’s criticism of Israel to social media, shortened attention spans, and exposure to “essentially antisemitic propaganda.” Doogue did not challenge this framing. But the content young people encounter on social media includes documented testimony from doctors in Gaza who have treated over 114 children with single gunshot wounds to the head or chest, and a joint letter from 65 American medical professionals describing the systematic nature of these injuries. Many of these young people are Jewish. The decline in support for Israel among younger Jewish Americans is well documented. Their opposition is not primarily a product of “propaganda” but of direct exposure to evidence that traditional media have marginalised or refused to contextualise. Questions: If young people are seeing evidence of atrocities on social media that mainstream media have not reported or have reported only in fragments, is it accurate to describe their conclusions as “propaganda-driven”? What responsibility does a public broadcaster have to engage with the content of what young people are seeing, rather than dismissing the medium through which they see it? Doogue did not raise the question of Jewish youth. If Jewish young people are turning away from Israel because of what they see in Gaza, what does that mean for the framing that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic? When a guest claims that young people are “bored after a few minutes,” and the interviewer does not challenge it, what does that say about whose moral responses are taken seriously? Ref: abcdissent.substack.com/p/wh…