Israelis accused of firing on Gaza aid centre
Samantha Donovan: First this evening to Gaza, where Israeli forces have reportedly again fired on people waiting for aid in the town of Rafah in the enclave's south. There are reports more than 20 people have been killed. Matthew Doran is the ABC's Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem. Matthew, what's known about this incident so far?
Matthew Doran: Well, Sam, the details are still coming through. But what we know is that as Palestinians were waiting to access this aid distribution site in Rafah in southern Gaza, local authorities are saying that Israeli forces opened fire. There are differing accounts at this early stage as to exactly what has happened there. But certainly all of the Palestinian media outlets and the Palestinian authorities are definitely saying Israeli forces were involved here. We are seeing some figures, and I must stress that these are unconfirmed at this stage, that at least 24 people have been killed so far. And we are seeing some reports that more than 200 have been wounded in this incident. There are reports in Palestinian media saying that this is not only a case of Israeli soldiers opening fire, but we are also seeing some reports of Israeli shelling being involved in this incident as well. What happens at these sites is that they open quite early in the morning. Palestinians are told to arrive to go through the screening processes. They then go into these sites and they pick up the supplies that they can access and that they can carry back to their families. It is quite a controlled process. We know that the Palestinians are told to take certain roads, for example, to enter these sites. And it appears that, again, this is an incident of a third in as many days where there has been a shooting attack near one of these sites.
Samantha Donovan: This appears to have happened quite early in the morning. And I imagine a lot of these people queuing up have had to walk great distances.
Matthew Doran: They certainly have because there aren't that many of these aid distribution sites actually operating across Gaza. The main ones that we are hearing a lot about in the last few days are in the south of Gaza and around the area of Rafah. This is an area which is totally controlled by the IDF. It has been for a number of weeks now after they cleared the Palestinian population out of there. So people are making a trek through an IDF-controlled area. There are no distribution points in the north at this stage. So if you imagine not only people having to travel from central regions of Gaza, but also northern areas if they want to try to access this aid, it is a very long journey for many of these people.
Samantha Donovan: So, Matthew, what has the Israeli military had to say about these reports that more than 20 people have been killed and perhaps hundreds injured?
Matthew Doran: So they haven't commented specifically on those figures. What the IDF has said, they have confirmed that there has been an incident at one of these sites where Israeli forces fired some warning shots at what they are describing as Palestinian suspects who deviated from that agreed access route. When those individuals didn't change course, more shots were fired. And it says that this happened around 500 metres or so from where the aid distribution site is, not actually within the confines of it, but from where that site, outside of where that site is. It says it's investigating this incident and we may well hear more details throughout the day here. It is still fairly early in the day here in the Middle East. Very, very particular wording being used at this stage. And it appears there's still a lot of confusion as to exactly what's happened there, even though the Palestinian authorities say it's very clearly the work of Israel.
Samantha Donovan: Matthew Doran is the ABC's Middle East correspondent. He was speaking to me from Jerusalem.
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
If Iran's regime fell tomorrow, Iranians wouldn't be united on what comes next
From 2015 to 2018, I spent 15 months doing research work in Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city. As an anthropologist, I was interested in everyday life in Iran outside the capital Tehran. I was also interested in understanding whether the ambitions of the 1979 Revolution lived on among "ordinary" Iranians, not just political elites. I first lived on a university campus, where I learned Persian, and later with Iranian families. I conducted hundreds of interviews with people who had a broad spectrum of political, social and religious views. They included opponents of the Islamic Republic, supporters, and many who were in between. What these interviews revealed to me was both the diversity of opinion and experience in Iran, and the difficulty of making uniform statements about what Iranians believe. When Israel's strikes on Iran began on June 13, killing many top military commanders, many news outlets — both international and those run by the Iranian diaspora — featured images of Iranians cheering the deaths of these hated regime figures. Friends from my fieldwork also pointed to these celebrations, while not always agreeing with them. Many feared the impact of a larger conflict between Iran and Israel. Trying to put these sentiments in context, many analysts have pointed to a 2019 survey by the GAMAAN Institute, an independent organisation based in the Netherlands that tracks Iranian public opinion. This survey showed 79 per cent of Iranians living in the country would vote against the Islamic Republic if a free referendum were held on its rule. Viewing these examples as an indicator of the lack of support for the Islamic Republic is not wrong. But when used as factoids in news reports, they become detached from the complexities of life in Iran. This can discourage us from asking deeper questions about the relationships between ideology and pragmatism, support and opposition to the regime, and state and society. The news reporting on Iran has encouraged a tendency to see the Iranian state as homogeneous, highly ideological and radically separate from the population. But where do we draw the line between the state and the people? There is no easy answer to this. When I lived in Iran, many of the people who took part in my research were state employees — teachers at state institutions, university lecturers, administrative workers. Many of them had strong and diverse views about the legacy of the revolution and the future of the country. They sometimes pointed to state discourse they agreed with, for example Iran's right to national self-determination, free from foreign influence. They also disagreed with much, such as the slogans of "death to America". This ambivalence was evident in one of my Persian teachers. An employee of the state, she refused to attend the annual parades celebrating the anniversary of the revolution. "We have warm feelings towards America," she said. On the other hand, she happily attended protests, also organised by the government, in favour of Palestinian liberation. Or take the young government worker I met in Mashhad: "We want to be independent of other countries, but not like this." In a narrower sense, discussions about the "state" may refer more to organisations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, the paramilitary force within the IRGC that has cracked down harshly on dissent in recent decades. Both are often understood as being deeply ideologically committed. Said Golkar, a US-based Iranian academic and author, for instance, calls Iran a "captive society". Rather than having a civil society, he believes Iranians are trapped by the feared Basij, who maintain control through their presence in many institutions like universities and schools. Again, this view is not wrong. But even among the Basij and Revolutionary Guard, it can be difficult to gauge just how ideological and homogeneous these organisations truly are. For a start, the IRGC relies on both ideologically selected supporters, as well as conscripts, to fill its ranks. They are also not always ideologically uniform, as the US-based anthropologist Narges Bajoghli, who worked with pro-state filmmakers in Tehran, has noted. As part of my research, I also interviewed members of the Basij, which, unlike the IRGC proper, is a wholly volunteer organisation. Even though ideological commitment was certainly an important factor for some of the Basij members I met, there were also pragmatic reasons to join. These included access to better jobs, scholarships and social mobility. Sometimes, factors overlapped. But participation did not always equate to a singular or sustained commitment to revolutionary values. For example, Sāsān, a friend I made attending discussion groups in Mashhad, was quick to note that time spent in the Basij "reduced your [compulsory] military service". This isn't to suggest there are not ideologically committed people in Iran. They clearly exist, and many are ready to use violence. Some of those who join these institutions for pragmatic reasons use violence, too. In addition, Iran is an ethnically diverse country. It has a population of 92 million people, a bare majority of whom are Persians. Other minorities include Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Turkmen and others. It is also religiously diverse. While there is a sizeable, nominally Shia majority, there are also large Sunni communities (about 10-15 per cent of the population) and smaller communities of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha'is and other religions. Often overlooked, there are also important differences in class and social strata in Iran, too. One of the things I noticed about state propaganda was that it flattened this diversity. James Barry, an Australian scholar of Iran, noticed a similar phenomenon. State propaganda made it seem like there was one voice in the country. Protests could be dismissed out of hand because they did not represent the "authentic" view of Iranians. Foreign agitators supported protests. Iranians supported the Islamic Republic. Since leaving Iran, I have followed many voices of Iranians in the diaspora. Opposition groups are loud on social media, especially the monarchists who support Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah. In following these groups, I have noticed a similar tendency to speak as though they represent the voice of all Iranians. Iranians support the shah. Or Iranians support Maryam Rajavi, leader of a Paris-based opposition group. Both within Iran, and in the diaspora, the regime, too, is sometimes held to be the imposition of a foreign conspiracy. This allows the Islamic Republic and the complex relations it has created to be dismissed out of hand. Once again, such a view flattens diversity. Over the past few years, political identities and societal divisions seem to have become harder and clearer. This means there is an increasing perception among many Iranians of a gulf between the state and Iranian society. This is the case both inside Iran, and especially in the Iranian diaspora. Decades of intermittent protests and civil disobedience across the country also show that for many, the current system no longer represents the hopes and aspirations of many people. This is especially the case for the youth, who make up a large percentage of the population. I am not an Iranian, and I strongly believe it is up to Iranians to determine their own futures. I also do not aim to excuse the Islamic Republic — it is brutal and tyrannical. But its brutality should not let us shy away from asking complex questions. If the regime did fall tomorrow, Iran's diversity means there is little unanimity of opinion as to what should come next. And if a more pluralist form of politics is to emerge, it must encompass the whole of Iran's diversity, without assuming a uniform position. It, too, will have to wrestle with the difficult questions and sometimes ambivalent relations the Islamic Republic has created. Simon Theobald is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame Australia. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful sacking exposed the power of lobbying on the Australian media
Last weekend, I wrote a piece about the news-gathering model and media literacy. It mentioned how governments, militaries, and lobby groups try to stop the media telling stories, and it wondered if news audiences would like major media outlets to talk about it more: "They might be shocked to learn about the orchestrated bullying that goes on, which is designed to discourage editors and journalists from reporting on certain topics and framing stories in certain ways, even speaking to certain people," the piece said. "Would it improve media literacy if the media wrote about these issues openly and regularly?" Then, three days later, we heard relevant news. On Wednesday, the Federal Cout ruled that the ABC had unlawfully sacked journalist Antoinette Lattouf, in December 2023, for reasons including that she held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Justice Darryl Rangiah found external pressure from "pro-Israel lobbyists" had played a role in the ABC's decision. Ms Lattouf had been employed by the ABC on a small five-day contract, as a fill-in summer radio host. But Justice Rangiah found that soon after Ms Lattouf presented her first program that summer, the ABC began to receive complaints from members of the public. "The complaints asserted she had expressed antisemitic views, lacked impartiality and was unsuitable to present any program for the ABC," he wrote. "It became clear that the complaints were an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air." For journalism students, it's an important case study. Many of you would have discussed it in class last week. But everyone should read Justice Rangiah's judgement. It details what went on behind the scenes at the ABC when the email campaign against Ms Lattouf began, and how it contributed to a "state of panic" among some senior ABC managers (many of whom have since left the organisation). It also showed how such pressure campaigns work. Not only had pro-Israel lobbyists sent dozens of emails to the ABC calling for Ms Lattouf to be taken off air, but their complaints found their way to News Corp's The Australian newspaper, which then told the ABC it was planning to report on the fact that the ABC had received complaints (which fed the growing panic inside the ABC). That's how the game is played. After the Federal Court's ruling was published on Wednesday, the ABC's new managing director, Hugh Marks, said the ABC had let down its staff and audiences. "Any undue influence or pressure on ABC management or any of its employees must always be guarded against," he said. A large number of articles were also written about the court's ruling. Alan Sunderland, a former editorial director of the ABC, said the public broadcaster had lessons to learn from the saga. "The world these days is filled with those who seek to control, bully and pressure public interest journalism in all its forms," he wrote. "The role of senior managers is to stoutly resist that pressure, and protect journalists from it as much as possible." Paula Kruger, the chief executive of Media Diversity Australia (and a former ABC radio host), made other points. She said news audiences had to trust that news outlets were capable of telling truthful stories, but the impact that that orchestrated pressure campaign had on the ABC had "shaken trust internally and externally". "You break trust with the broader community when an interest group can go to the top of an organisation and get its way. Lobbyists skip the process that everyone else must follow," she wrote. She also raised the topic of media literacy and trust. She said we often talk about ways to improve the public's media literacy, but the decline in trust in the media should not be a problem for audiences to fix; it was the responsibility of news organisations. "Silencing one side of the story isn't success. Shutting down voices isn't 'social cohesion,'" she wrote. "But silencing and shutting down were the preferred responses of senior ABC management under pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists. We need a different approach to our most difficult conversations." That last point is worth thinking about. In last weekend's article, I made a reference to Hannah Arendt's famous 1971 essay on the Pentagon Papers. But she wrote another essay, in 1967, that deserves a reference today. In that earlier essay, Truth and Politics, Arendt famously argued that "objectivity" and "impartiality" were revolutionary concepts that helped to usher in the modern world. In fact, she left her readers with the impression that those concepts were pillars of so-called "western civilisation": "The disinterested pursuit of truth has a long history," she wrote. "I think it can be traced to the moment when Homer chose to sing the deeds of the Trojans no less than those of the Achaeans, and to praise the glory of Hector, the foe and the defeated man, no less than the glory of Achilles, the hero of his kinfolk [...] "Homeric impartiality echoes throughout Greek history, and it inspired the first great teller of factual truth, who became the father of history: Herodotus tells us in the very first sentences of his stories that he set out to prevent 'the great and wondrous deeds of the Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory'. "This is the root of all so-called objectivity ... without it no science would ever have come into being." So, according to Arendt's logic, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated into privileging certain voices when reporting on major global conflicts, and silencing other voices, we'll be abandoning a pillar of "western civilisation". And that was the same essay in which Arendt wrote her famous line about the disorienting affect that relentless propaganda can have on the human brain. "It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism — an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established," she wrote. "In other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs. falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed," she said. Arendt said we could try to keep our bearings in the world — and combat such propaganda — by building and protecting "certain public institutions" that revered truth above politics. And she said an independent judiciary, the historical sciences and the humanities, and journalism were among them. But let's wrap things up. It's naive to think "the media" is always and everywhere obsessed with "the truth." There are plenty of players in the media that are motivated by other things. But consider the editors and journalists that really do try to tell the truth. As we discussed last week, there's a global multi-billion-dollar industry dedicated to capturing, controlling, and confusing the "trusted stories" the media tells every day: Different governments, militaries, multi-nationals, and lobby groups are always trying it on. The ABC was involved in a different controversy six years ago when concerns were raised internally about Adani's apparent ability to squash an ABC radio story about the economics of Adani's Carmichael mine. Readers say once they start noticing things like that about the media, it can damage their trust in the media's stories. If you spend any time on social media these days, you may have also noticed how millions of people are now teaching each other about the subtle ways in which media outlets use language and imagery to privilege certain perspectives and diminish others in their daily news reports. The type of critical media analyses you'll get in every journalism and communications degree at university has jumped out of the academy and onto peoples' phones. For example, consider the headlines below and see if you can spot the differences in language: Why is the language in the first headline so passive and vague? Why is the language in the second headline active and precise? Modern audiences are regularly engaging in that kind of media "decoding" in private now, while they're doom-scrolling, so it presents an opportunity for media outlets to start having deeper conversations with their audiences about the way things work, if they choose to. Those conversations could be uncomfortable for some. But they may lead to more truthful storytelling.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
How does the Lattouf judgment affect employees' freedom of speech?
Those hoping the Federal Court's findings in the Antoinette Lattouf case will go some way to answering a question surrounding the rights of workers to express their political opinion ‒ and the rights of employers to prevent them ‒ will probably be disappointed. Lattouf's case was mounted on the basis that her employment contract was unlawfully terminated, in breach of section 772 of the Fair Work Act, due to her expression of her political opinion, or, alternatively, her race and political opinion. A secondary but related issue was that the ABC breached the staff enterprise agreement. The ABC relied on the defence that it had terminated Lattouf's employment for reasons that did not include her political opinion, race or national extraction but because of her failure to follow a direction from her producer not to post anything about the Israel-Gaza war and because she had contravened the ABC's 'Personal use of social media - Guidelines'. The court found in Lattouf's favour, noting that Lattouf had not been given a direction, but simply general guidance. It also found that the ABC was ultimately unable to identify any breaches of the social media guidelines or editorial guidelines or policies. The decision is helpful in highlighting that employers are in general able to issue directions to employees about publicly expressing their views. The judgment refers to the established right of employers to issue 'lawful and reasonable' directions. It also suggests that these directions must be made clearly and, ideally, rely on established and accessible policies. Loading Doing so enables employers to point to a specific employee breach if they wish to take disciplinary action. If they can't, then they leave themselves open, as did the ABC, to accusations of discrimination under provisions such as section 772. The decision is helpful, but not groundbreaking, leaving one big question unanswered: the one we are still asking after a series of messy disputes ‒ think Folau, Khawaja, Gillham to name some recent examples. That is, how far can employers go in attempting to control employees' 'freedom of speech'? In the Lattouf case, the Federal Court was not required to make any finding on this. It was required only to consider whether a direction was issued or a policy in place, not when the making of such directions or policies itself impinges on an individual's freedom of political expression. In thinking about this question, we must consider the delicate balance between employers' rights to protect their reputation and their obligation to maintain a safe workplace and employees' rights to self-expression. Where is the line that can't be crossed? And what are the institutional protections that might come into play in deciding where to draw that line?
