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She was the face of Picasso's Weeping Woman. But there was more to Dora Maar than a woman crushed

She was the face of Picasso's Weeping Woman. But there was more to Dora Maar than a woman crushed

A notable surrealist photographer and painter in her own right, Dora Maar is best remembered for her eight-year relationship with Pablo Picasso. Often regarded as a muse to Picasso's genius, Maar modelled for many of the artist's anguished 'weeping women' portraits, painted while he created his anti-fascist masterpiece, Guernica. Yet, Paris-born Maar also painted Picasso, transforming him into her subject and similarly distorting his features.
'What most people also don't realise is that Maar was a radical, subversive and respected artist before she met Picasso,' says David Greenhalgh, the National Gallery of Australia's expert on international art. 'Her photography, her politics and her Surrealist provocations challenged Picasso.'
Maar's artistic legacy is highlighted alongside Picasso's in the National Gallery of Australia's blockbuster Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen/ Neue Nationalgalerie which runs until September.
The exhibition draws from the extraordinary collection of art dealer Heinz Berggruen, who, after World War II, established a small gallery on Paris's Left Bank and collected avant-garde works.
The exhibition will feature some 100 major works by six modern masters – Picasso, Paul Klee, Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti. These will be shown with 75 works from the National Gallery's collection to demonstrate the revolutionaries' influence on Australia's leading artists.
The exhibition notably features works by Maar, with whom Berggruen felt a particular affinity, perhaps due to his empathy for her tragic life and tumultuous, ultimately destructive relationship with Picasso.
'She never quite recovered from her separation with Picasso, and turned away from her great talent as a photographer and a painter,' Berggruen's son Nicolas says.
Long-overdue credit finally came to Maar with a 2019 retrospective of her work at Tate Modern, part of an international curatorial effort to reframe collections with greater biographical honesty. This move followed the highlighting of Cézanne's muse, Hortense Fiquet, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Madame Cézanne exhibition five years earlier.
Cézanne to Giacometti offers another important opportunity, says co-curator Deirdre Cannon, to examine who these women painted by the modernists were and their true role in the creation of the art.
Maar's most striking photograph, Portrait of Ubu – an extreme close-up of an armadillo fetus – will hang alongside four other works by her.
Her 1936 pastel of Picasso similarly depicts her lover in a fractured, Cubist-inspired style, emphasising his wide cat's eyes, moustache, distinctive nose, and wide mouth in cool green shades, all composed like an inverted comma.
'We acknowledge now that artists do not work in a vacuum, and the idea of the sole, primarily male genius making art from god-given talent or through an act of divine intervention has been repudiated for a long time now,' Cannon says.
'This has included a reappraisal of the subjectivity of the muse. These individuals, often artists in their own right, influenced other aspects of artists' practice and personal lives.'
The concept of the muse dates back to Greek mythology, where nine sister goddesses, daughters of Zeus, served as patrons of the arts.
Homer himself invoked these ethereal women of divine inspiration to narrate the tales of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad. Later, masters from Raphael to Rembrandt embraced the muse as an object of beauty, personifying their creative expression.
In the 19th century, model Elizabeth Siddal embodied the ideal of virginal beauty and rectitude in John Everett Millais's Ophelia, leading the BBC to describe her as art's greatest supermodel.
'Often, those identified as muses are depicted in a very idealised manner and described in literature as having striking physical attributes or a distinctive presence,' Cannon says.
'Or, in the case of an artist like Picasso, their likenesses are rearranged and experimented with in pursuit of breaking new artistic ground. Traditional understandings of the muse involve feminine subservience to the creative will of men.
'The term itself has specific connotations that prompt reflection on the role of inspiration in visual art.'
Among European modernists, Cézanne's radical yet doubt-laden experiments in colour and composition were the first to challenge accepted artistic ideas of the figurative form, emboldening generations of subsequent artists.
'Every artist in Cézanne to Giacometti is linked in a huge genealogy or family tree of influence, as they found inspiration in each other's example,' says Greenhalgh. 'In a sense, the 'muse' we investigate is how artists inspire each other.'
Cézanne's model across two decades of often plodding experimentation was Hortense Fiquet, the mother of his only son, Paul, whom he first met in 1869 when she was a 19-year-old model. Among the works on display in Cézanne to Giacometti are one of 29 paintings and four of the approximately 50 drawings he made of Fiquet, including Portrait of Madame Cézanne (c. 1885).
Her inscrutable expression has led historians to suggest emotional distance between the pair or to interpret it as evidence of Fiquet's dour character. British critic Roger Fry even described her as 'that sour bitch,' and her husband's friends nicknamed her 'La Boule' (French for 'the ball').
However, Greenhalgh argues that characterising muses like Fiquet as 'crones' or Maar as 'unstable' is simply an example of misogyny.
'But we must remember that history is a discourse, and that we can always see things from new perspectives.'
Context is everything. Cézanne and Fiquet lived an unconventional life; she resided in cosmopolitan Paris while the artist painted the Provence countryside. Their relationship was characterised by social and financial inequality, common in many marriages of the period. They only married to secure his family's inheritance.
'Cézanne was incredibly slow when he painted, and it is thought that this was because he doubted everything he created,' Greenhalgh says. 'It drove his sitters crazy, as they had to pose motionless for a dozen hours each day, sometimes for hundreds of sittings, only for him to abandon the painting.
'There are letters that demonstrate Fiquet's supportive business dealings to try and sell Cézanne's work, but the most direct and simple evidence we have of her importance to his practice is that she sat for Cézanne's paintings time and time again, and that to me is a demonstration of their love for one another.'
European art history is full of stories where the female perspective is hidden or missing, says artist Natasha Walsh. At best, the women subjects are frequently depicted either as passive vehicles for the artist's talent or in an exploitative and violent manner.
'When artists are painting, they are painting their own perception,' Walsh says. 'It's only problematic when the muse exists solely in the context of the artist, when we look at it as a child does, only within the frame.'
Walsh is one of several contemporary artists who are reimagining the portrayal of the female sitter. Instead of a passive subject, these artists seek to show the creative insight originating from the female subject herself, or through a collaborative, reciprocal exchange between the artist and their subject.
As a teenage art student, Walsh often faced requests to sit for male painters, which she declined. She recalls one artist advising her to agree soon, 'as if my worth were reduced to solely my physical appearance and my value was temporary and fleeting'.
In her series Hysteria, Walsh challenged the male gaze by reinterpreting Gustav Klimt's 1907 painting Danaë, which romanticised an ancient Greek myth of rape.
Reimagining herself as the mother of Perseus, she painted her eyes actively gazing back at the viewer – Klimt painted them closed – and vanished Zeus's impregnating shower of 'golden rain' that glossed over rape in the original painting.
Walsh has since painted fashion duo Nicol and Ford in the likeness of 16th-century Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her sisters. It was a finalist in the 2024 Archibald Prize.
Walsh has continued to reinterpret art history, painting fashion duo Nicol and Ford in the likeness of the 16th-century Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters (a finalist in the 2024 Archibald Prize). She also depicted musician Montaigne as Medusa, and posed artist Atong Atem as Matisse's Yellow Odalisque, shifting the focus to Atem's African heritage.
Walsh collaborated with writer Bri Lee on a collage of Picasso nudes, created in the Brett Whiteley studio. Their aim was to reimagine a nude free from Picasso's gaze, depicting the figure in an act of self-pleasure. Lee later posed for Walsh's Hysteria exhibition the following year, with Walsh stating, 'We wanted to create a nude that existed for herself.'
Walsh is particularly scathing of Picasso's depiction of Dora Maar as an archetypal figure of suffering. It was a portrayal that Maar herself rejected.
'All these portraits of me are lies. They are all Picasso; none is Dora Maar,' she says. 'Picasso does an immense disservice to Maar's practice and rich individual identity present in her work to reduce her to mad crying women.'
According to independent curator and writer Julie Ewington, the reevaluation of women's roles has significantly increased over the last 50 years, running 'absolutely hand in glove with social movements' like women's equality and #MeToo.
'By 1975, when the UN recognised International Women's Day, it was already well established that women were not just the subject of other people's pictures, they were the makers of their own,' Ewington says. 'Younger women are very clear where they stand on all this. That doesn't mean there isn't still a lively trade in pictures of beautiful and desirable women.'
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, a pioneer of self-expression, famously declared, 'I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.' She depicted her disability, physical pain, and emotions, even as her relationship with Diego Rivera influenced both their lives and art.
Julie Ewington also points to earlier female artists who challenged norms: Suzanne Valadon defied 19th-century conventions by painting nudes of herself and other women, and German expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker was the first woman artist to depict herself pregnant and nude.
Georgia O'Keeffe, whose fame was initially overshadowed by her partner, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, is now celebrated as a feminist icon, her legacy casting a far greater shadow today.
Progress, says Walsh, is when 'everyone becomes a muse to someone'. It doesn't have to be a beautiful, young woman serving the artist in some way. If we embrace all kinds of perspectives, then all kinds of muses can come into being.
Artist Deborah Kelly, whose animation Beastliness was included in Art Gallery of NSW show Her Hair, a collection of 'sexy and salty' collage and animation works, now considers an artist's muse to be 'the curator who believes in your work, encourages your wildest dreams, and helps you realise them.' Her Hair examined how female hair has functioned as a powerful symbol in art, with braided hair representing profane love and long, unruly hair signifying penitence, virginity, or youth.
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'For me, it's mainly been other women who are keen to enable the more preposterous of my aspirations – I mean, right now, I'm founding a religion of climate change and queer identity and giving it meaning and expression in art and performance – and I see this as a significant historical shift from the era when women were supposed to view each other primarily as rivals for male attention,' Kelly says. 'So that makes me think that the idea of the muse is obsolete – but that actual human beings make and hold space for artists and their support is priceless.'
As new generations of artists find fresh inspiration, so Dora Maar is being recognised as a more fully rounded artist. Only Maar was allowed to photograph the painting of Guernica. Her radical leftwing politics stood behind Picasso's rage at the bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica, which gave rise to his masterpiece, painted in a monochromatic style, almost photographic in its detail, and said to have borrowed from her work.
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This is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind
This is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind

The Advertiser

time3 hours ago

  • The Advertiser

This is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind

The images of starving children coming out of Gaza reminded me of the images of the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. Victims and perpetrators come in all colours, races and religions. Maybe Shakespeare would have said: "If you starve us, do we not look skeletal". In Tel Aviv last week, Jewish people took to the streets holding photographs of children whose starvation is being caused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's illegal waging of an aggressive war and the illegal withholding of food in Gaza. If you offend decency, do we not protest. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week: "Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered which was a decision that Israel made in March." He said, "You can't hold innocent people responsible" for the actions of Hamas. Indeed, the only lawful warfare is defence. What Israel is doing in Gaza has for months now gone well beyond what would be a legitimate defensive response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023. It is similar to the unnecessary Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Waging an aggressive war is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind. It is worse than the crimes of serial killers or serial rapists. Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be compared to Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Columbine School shooters, or Martin Bryant - not just other authoritarian leaders of nations. Those who wage an aggressive war do not just condone or turn a blind eye to death and suffering; they cause it - as surely as a serial killer. Worse, because they bring many of the resources of the state and its people to join in to their crime - wittingly or unwittingly - the scale of the crime is much greater than that of the serial killer or mass shooter, and so is the scale of evil. Netanyahu's action a breach of international law the same as Putin's action because he is waging war beyond the borders of his own nation as recognised by the United Nations. It is the same as Putin's because its aim is the genocidal removal of the civilian populations. "Netanyahu's action" is the deliberate starvation of innocent civilians, particularly children. There is more than enough food to prevent the starvation of anyone in Gaza. The reason people are starving is that the food is not getting through. And getting it through or not getting it through is within the power of Netanyahu. He is causing the starvation and death. "To starve" is a peculiar verb. It is too often used in the passive voice, as in, "The child starved to death." It is rarely used in the active voice, as in, "Netayanhu starved the child to death." The passive voice removes any active person. It removes responsibility, as if the words "the child starved to death" mean that the child caused their own starvation. Ironically, the passive voice is part of the armoury of war. A reporter can write or broadcast the words: "Ten civilians were killed in the Middle East conflict yesterday" - and the people who did the killing are not identified. Similarly: "A hospital was bombed today, killing 23 people." The words "shooting", "killing", "bombing", and the like, however, can just as easily, and without any awkwardness, be used in the active voice, as in "Houthi rebels fired a missile at a Greek oil tanker yesterday." But using the verb "to starve" in the active voice, as in "Netanyahu starved the child", is awkward so people avoid it, thereby shielding the perpetrator. Moving from the passive voice to the active voice is critical to the effective rule of law. The rule of law only enters the picture after the passive voice. "Veronica Victim was murdered" is in the passive voice. "Peter Perpetrator murdered Veronica Victim" is in the active voice and, in rule-of-law countries, is usually only uttered after a legal finding of guilt. READ MORE CRISPIN HULL: Unfortunately, that might never happen in the case of Netanyahu. He has visited the US three times and Hungary once since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2024 under the Statute of Rome. The US has never signed up to the International Criminal Court, nor to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a member of the World Trade Organisation but has effectively neutered it by vetoing appointments to its judicial arm. Even so, it used to support a rules-based international order. Now it has even dispensed with that pretence. Israel (under Netanyahu) and Hungary (Under Viktor Orban), once rule-of-law democracies, have done likewise. Albanese can take credit for expressing Australia's traditional rule-of-law values this week. In doing so he further distanced himself for the US which has been complicit in the starvation by withholding humanitarian aid and complicit in the slaughter at food-distribution centres and in general because it supplies weapons. Unlike President Donald Trump and the US leadership generally he has not been silent. If we want a rules-based international order, however, nations must seek out the individual leaders who are accused of crimes on the basis of credible evidence and under the rule of law bring them to account. The images of starving children coming out of Gaza reminded me of the images of the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. Victims and perpetrators come in all colours, races and religions. Maybe Shakespeare would have said: "If you starve us, do we not look skeletal". In Tel Aviv last week, Jewish people took to the streets holding photographs of children whose starvation is being caused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's illegal waging of an aggressive war and the illegal withholding of food in Gaza. If you offend decency, do we not protest. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week: "Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered which was a decision that Israel made in March." He said, "You can't hold innocent people responsible" for the actions of Hamas. Indeed, the only lawful warfare is defence. What Israel is doing in Gaza has for months now gone well beyond what would be a legitimate defensive response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023. It is similar to the unnecessary Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Waging an aggressive war is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind. It is worse than the crimes of serial killers or serial rapists. Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be compared to Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Columbine School shooters, or Martin Bryant - not just other authoritarian leaders of nations. Those who wage an aggressive war do not just condone or turn a blind eye to death and suffering; they cause it - as surely as a serial killer. Worse, because they bring many of the resources of the state and its people to join in to their crime - wittingly or unwittingly - the scale of the crime is much greater than that of the serial killer or mass shooter, and so is the scale of evil. Netanyahu's action a breach of international law the same as Putin's action because he is waging war beyond the borders of his own nation as recognised by the United Nations. It is the same as Putin's because its aim is the genocidal removal of the civilian populations. "Netanyahu's action" is the deliberate starvation of innocent civilians, particularly children. There is more than enough food to prevent the starvation of anyone in Gaza. The reason people are starving is that the food is not getting through. And getting it through or not getting it through is within the power of Netanyahu. He is causing the starvation and death. "To starve" is a peculiar verb. It is too often used in the passive voice, as in, "The child starved to death." It is rarely used in the active voice, as in, "Netayanhu starved the child to death." The passive voice removes any active person. It removes responsibility, as if the words "the child starved to death" mean that the child caused their own starvation. Ironically, the passive voice is part of the armoury of war. A reporter can write or broadcast the words: "Ten civilians were killed in the Middle East conflict yesterday" - and the people who did the killing are not identified. Similarly: "A hospital was bombed today, killing 23 people." The words "shooting", "killing", "bombing", and the like, however, can just as easily, and without any awkwardness, be used in the active voice, as in "Houthi rebels fired a missile at a Greek oil tanker yesterday." But using the verb "to starve" in the active voice, as in "Netanyahu starved the child", is awkward so people avoid it, thereby shielding the perpetrator. Moving from the passive voice to the active voice is critical to the effective rule of law. The rule of law only enters the picture after the passive voice. "Veronica Victim was murdered" is in the passive voice. "Peter Perpetrator murdered Veronica Victim" is in the active voice and, in rule-of-law countries, is usually only uttered after a legal finding of guilt. READ MORE CRISPIN HULL: Unfortunately, that might never happen in the case of Netanyahu. He has visited the US three times and Hungary once since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2024 under the Statute of Rome. The US has never signed up to the International Criminal Court, nor to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a member of the World Trade Organisation but has effectively neutered it by vetoing appointments to its judicial arm. Even so, it used to support a rules-based international order. Now it has even dispensed with that pretence. Israel (under Netanyahu) and Hungary (Under Viktor Orban), once rule-of-law democracies, have done likewise. Albanese can take credit for expressing Australia's traditional rule-of-law values this week. In doing so he further distanced himself for the US which has been complicit in the starvation by withholding humanitarian aid and complicit in the slaughter at food-distribution centres and in general because it supplies weapons. Unlike President Donald Trump and the US leadership generally he has not been silent. If we want a rules-based international order, however, nations must seek out the individual leaders who are accused of crimes on the basis of credible evidence and under the rule of law bring them to account. The images of starving children coming out of Gaza reminded me of the images of the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. Victims and perpetrators come in all colours, races and religions. Maybe Shakespeare would have said: "If you starve us, do we not look skeletal". In Tel Aviv last week, Jewish people took to the streets holding photographs of children whose starvation is being caused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's illegal waging of an aggressive war and the illegal withholding of food in Gaza. If you offend decency, do we not protest. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week: "Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered which was a decision that Israel made in March." He said, "You can't hold innocent people responsible" for the actions of Hamas. Indeed, the only lawful warfare is defence. What Israel is doing in Gaza has for months now gone well beyond what would be a legitimate defensive response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023. It is similar to the unnecessary Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Waging an aggressive war is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind. It is worse than the crimes of serial killers or serial rapists. Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be compared to Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Columbine School shooters, or Martin Bryant - not just other authoritarian leaders of nations. Those who wage an aggressive war do not just condone or turn a blind eye to death and suffering; they cause it - as surely as a serial killer. Worse, because they bring many of the resources of the state and its people to join in to their crime - wittingly or unwittingly - the scale of the crime is much greater than that of the serial killer or mass shooter, and so is the scale of evil. Netanyahu's action a breach of international law the same as Putin's action because he is waging war beyond the borders of his own nation as recognised by the United Nations. It is the same as Putin's because its aim is the genocidal removal of the civilian populations. "Netanyahu's action" is the deliberate starvation of innocent civilians, particularly children. There is more than enough food to prevent the starvation of anyone in Gaza. The reason people are starving is that the food is not getting through. And getting it through or not getting it through is within the power of Netanyahu. He is causing the starvation and death. "To starve" is a peculiar verb. It is too often used in the passive voice, as in, "The child starved to death." It is rarely used in the active voice, as in, "Netayanhu starved the child to death." The passive voice removes any active person. It removes responsibility, as if the words "the child starved to death" mean that the child caused their own starvation. Ironically, the passive voice is part of the armoury of war. A reporter can write or broadcast the words: "Ten civilians were killed in the Middle East conflict yesterday" - and the people who did the killing are not identified. Similarly: "A hospital was bombed today, killing 23 people." The words "shooting", "killing", "bombing", and the like, however, can just as easily, and without any awkwardness, be used in the active voice, as in "Houthi rebels fired a missile at a Greek oil tanker yesterday." But using the verb "to starve" in the active voice, as in "Netanyahu starved the child", is awkward so people avoid it, thereby shielding the perpetrator. Moving from the passive voice to the active voice is critical to the effective rule of law. The rule of law only enters the picture after the passive voice. "Veronica Victim was murdered" is in the passive voice. "Peter Perpetrator murdered Veronica Victim" is in the active voice and, in rule-of-law countries, is usually only uttered after a legal finding of guilt. READ MORE CRISPIN HULL: Unfortunately, that might never happen in the case of Netanyahu. He has visited the US three times and Hungary once since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2024 under the Statute of Rome. The US has never signed up to the International Criminal Court, nor to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a member of the World Trade Organisation but has effectively neutered it by vetoing appointments to its judicial arm. Even so, it used to support a rules-based international order. Now it has even dispensed with that pretence. Israel (under Netanyahu) and Hungary (Under Viktor Orban), once rule-of-law democracies, have done likewise. Albanese can take credit for expressing Australia's traditional rule-of-law values this week. In doing so he further distanced himself for the US which has been complicit in the starvation by withholding humanitarian aid and complicit in the slaughter at food-distribution centres and in general because it supplies weapons. Unlike President Donald Trump and the US leadership generally he has not been silent. If we want a rules-based international order, however, nations must seek out the individual leaders who are accused of crimes on the basis of credible evidence and under the rule of law bring them to account. The images of starving children coming out of Gaza reminded me of the images of the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. Victims and perpetrators come in all colours, races and religions. Maybe Shakespeare would have said: "If you starve us, do we not look skeletal". In Tel Aviv last week, Jewish people took to the streets holding photographs of children whose starvation is being caused by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's illegal waging of an aggressive war and the illegal withholding of food in Gaza. If you offend decency, do we not protest. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week: "Quite clearly it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered which was a decision that Israel made in March." He said, "You can't hold innocent people responsible" for the actions of Hamas. Indeed, the only lawful warfare is defence. What Israel is doing in Gaza has for months now gone well beyond what would be a legitimate defensive response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023. It is similar to the unnecessary Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Waging an aggressive war is the worst criminal conduct known to humankind. It is worse than the crimes of serial killers or serial rapists. Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be compared to Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, the Columbine School shooters, or Martin Bryant - not just other authoritarian leaders of nations. Those who wage an aggressive war do not just condone or turn a blind eye to death and suffering; they cause it - as surely as a serial killer. Worse, because they bring many of the resources of the state and its people to join in to their crime - wittingly or unwittingly - the scale of the crime is much greater than that of the serial killer or mass shooter, and so is the scale of evil. Netanyahu's action a breach of international law the same as Putin's action because he is waging war beyond the borders of his own nation as recognised by the United Nations. It is the same as Putin's because its aim is the genocidal removal of the civilian populations. "Netanyahu's action" is the deliberate starvation of innocent civilians, particularly children. There is more than enough food to prevent the starvation of anyone in Gaza. The reason people are starving is that the food is not getting through. And getting it through or not getting it through is within the power of Netanyahu. He is causing the starvation and death. "To starve" is a peculiar verb. It is too often used in the passive voice, as in, "The child starved to death." It is rarely used in the active voice, as in, "Netayanhu starved the child to death." The passive voice removes any active person. It removes responsibility, as if the words "the child starved to death" mean that the child caused their own starvation. Ironically, the passive voice is part of the armoury of war. A reporter can write or broadcast the words: "Ten civilians were killed in the Middle East conflict yesterday" - and the people who did the killing are not identified. Similarly: "A hospital was bombed today, killing 23 people." The words "shooting", "killing", "bombing", and the like, however, can just as easily, and without any awkwardness, be used in the active voice, as in "Houthi rebels fired a missile at a Greek oil tanker yesterday." But using the verb "to starve" in the active voice, as in "Netanyahu starved the child", is awkward so people avoid it, thereby shielding the perpetrator. Moving from the passive voice to the active voice is critical to the effective rule of law. The rule of law only enters the picture after the passive voice. "Veronica Victim was murdered" is in the passive voice. "Peter Perpetrator murdered Veronica Victim" is in the active voice and, in rule-of-law countries, is usually only uttered after a legal finding of guilt. READ MORE CRISPIN HULL: Unfortunately, that might never happen in the case of Netanyahu. He has visited the US three times and Hungary once since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in November 2024 under the Statute of Rome. The US has never signed up to the International Criminal Court, nor to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is a member of the World Trade Organisation but has effectively neutered it by vetoing appointments to its judicial arm. Even so, it used to support a rules-based international order. Now it has even dispensed with that pretence. Israel (under Netanyahu) and Hungary (Under Viktor Orban), once rule-of-law democracies, have done likewise. Albanese can take credit for expressing Australia's traditional rule-of-law values this week. In doing so he further distanced himself for the US which has been complicit in the starvation by withholding humanitarian aid and complicit in the slaughter at food-distribution centres and in general because it supplies weapons. Unlike President Donald Trump and the US leadership generally he has not been silent. If we want a rules-based international order, however, nations must seek out the individual leaders who are accused of crimes on the basis of credible evidence and under the rule of law bring them to account.

Chris Uhlmann unveils upcoming Sky News special event 'The War Cabinet', exploring whether Australia is ready for war
Chris Uhlmann unveils upcoming Sky News special event 'The War Cabinet', exploring whether Australia is ready for war

Sky News AU

time19 hours ago

  • Sky News AU

Chris Uhlmann unveils upcoming Sky News special event 'The War Cabinet', exploring whether Australia is ready for war

Sky News will premiere an exclusive one-hour special event, The War Cabinet, presented by award-winning journalist and Sky News Political Contributor Chris Uhlmann on Monday, August 11 at 7.30pm AEST. The War Cabinet will be available to view for subscribers. Join to watch the exclusive special event on August 11. Set in an immersive "war cabinet" environment, Uhlmann convenes a distinguished panel of former ministers, military leaders, and defence specialists to investigate if Australia is ready to defend itself and support our allies in a time of growing tensions in our region and across the world. Uhlmann will lead a rigorous, solutions-focused discussion diving deep into Australia's defence capabilities and the evolving global strategic landscape. The panel will explore Australia's alliance with the US amid Trump's 'America-first' approach, AUKUS uncertainty, China's increasing militarisation and the potential for conflict over Taiwan. The war cabinet will also examine lessons learned from the Middle East, the war in Ukraine and past conflicts, and workshop how we might respond to potential flashpoints. The experts will take a close look at our defence spending, and debate if we are spending enough, and on the right things. Joining The War Cabinet will be former Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, former Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs Michael Pezzullo, former Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon and Director at Strategic Analysis Australia, Peter Jennings. Also featuring in the speical event are defence expertJennifer Parker, defence aviation expert Dr Oleksandra Molloy, Executive Director at CyberCX, Katherine Mansted, CEO at Strategic Forum, Dr Ross Babbage, and retired Major General, Mick Ryan. Chris Uhlmann said: 'The War Cabinet will return to the heart of Old Parliament House, where John Curtin and his ministers steered the nation through World War II." "Today, with China rising, America shifting, and the global order fragmenting, the threat of major conflict in our region looms once again. 'We bring together former ministers, defence leaders, and national security experts around the Cabinet table to answer a single question: is Australia ready for war?' In today's tense defence climate, this special program is especially timely and designed to be deeply relevant to all Australians.

Kremlin not ruling out Putin-Trump talks in Beijing
Kremlin not ruling out Putin-Trump talks in Beijing

West Australian

time21-07-2025

  • West Australian

Kremlin not ruling out Putin-Trump talks in Beijing

The Kremlin is not ruling out the possibility of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump if the Russian and US presidents are both in Beijing at the same time in September. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Putin will visit China for events to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, but says Moscow has not heard if Trump plans to go. "You know that we are preparing for a trip to Beijing, our president is preparing for this trip... But we have not heard that President Trump is also going there, to Beijing," Peskov said when asked if the two leaders could meet, including possibly in a three-way format with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "If it so happens that (Trump) is there, then, of course, we cannot rule out that the question of the expediency of holding a meeting will be raised," Peskov told reporters. The Times newspaper reported last week that China was positioning itself to hold a summit between Trump and Putin. Putin and Trump have spoken at least six times since Trump returned to the White House in January. The Kremlin has said it is in favour of a face-to-face meeting between them, but this would need careful preparation in order to produce results. Trump has expressed growing frustration with the Russian leader over a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, saying earlier this month that "we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin". Trump said last week he would impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports in 50 days unless Moscow agreed to a peace deal. That deadline will expire in early September, coinciding with the war anniversary events in Beijing.

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