Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over

time, evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that

gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the

current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.

Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

Yes, hello and welcome back dear listener.

The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast where we talk about news

and politics and sex and religion.

I'm Trevor, aka The Iron Fist, coming in loud and clear from regional

Queensland, Scott the Velvet Glove.

How are you, Scott?

Good, thanks, Trevor.

G'day, Joe.

G'day, Trevor.

G'day, listeners.

I hope everyone's

well.

Coming in loud and clear from Peter Dutton's electorate, Joe the Tech Guy.

Evening, all.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

In the chat room, John's there to say hi.

If you're in the chat room, say hello.

We will try and incorporate your comments and we're going to talk

about what's happened around the world in the last seven days.

A lot of it's going to be taken up with the ICC and their decision of

their prosecutor to call for arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister

and one of these other ministers.

And just the reaction of people to that is, ah, it's quite revealing.

I think.

So, Scott, you've had a busy week and you're having a chance to

read a lot, but have you kept up with any of that stuff at all?

Yeah, I have.

And I think to myself that I think what are the, what the, a lot of what

the news media is missing is they're missing that they, they're not only

indicted to Israelis, they've also called for the arrest of three Palestinians.

Yes.

You know, and that is a, what I think has been lost on all this because Israel has

overreacted, I've got no doubt about that.

They did have cause to react, considering they had a hell of people were murdered

and that type of thing, and raped, and then 1, 300 of them were taken hostage.

We'll get onto that.

Okay, that's coming up.

That's, there's a lot we can talk about with that.

So, so yeah, that'll take up a fair bit of it.

Who knows?

Scott, have you got to go to bed early again?

Yeah, I

do.

Okay,

we might keep going after you go to bed because there's a lot on

the list here and there's a bit of a risk that some of it will start to

get old and stale.

So we'll see how we go.

hang in there.

I mean, last week I said we're going to talk about Taiwanese democracy

and we never even got to it.

So I should try and get to that today.

Perhaps before Scott leaves.

So anyway, let's kick off, as we try to do regularly, is what are we grateful for?

And I would say, like, there's been a lot of stuff that I've been looking

at in the, in the non mainstream news sources, such as Twitter, such as

the John Menendew blog, such as other independent sort of media places.

And getting lots of really good stuff and, okay, sometimes you look at it

and you think, can I trust this source?

And you Google and you find that, yes, these things are reported in other

places, so it's more likely true.

And I just, so Twitter, dear listener, I

never really

did much with it.

I don't post anything.

I just read.

you can create what's called Twitter lists, where you basically put

in a list the people you want to see their comments in that list.

You don't get any of the other rubbish.

You just get the stuff that you want in that list, and I

reckon it works quite well.

I can bookmark it easily.

So, I'm grateful for Twitter lists, and I'm also grateful for my RSS feed reader.

Because there's been a lot of stuff, that I've been finding

in independent blogs that I can quickly bookmark and read later.

And, dear listener, if you've signed up for the newsletter,

Which you get three times a week.

there's been heaps and heaps of articles have been put on that.

So in the show notes, look for the link for the newsletter.

And, as I find these things, you can just get the email newsletter and

read them yourself if you want to.

Yeah.

Scott, have you signed up for the newsletter?

No, you don't have to now, cause you're, you're getting the word

document, so you're getting it anyway.

I'm getting the word document.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you grateful for anything, Scott?

You don't have to be.

I'm grateful for the Catholic Church for giving me a job for 12 months.

you know, it's not too bad.

It's a great job and everything else.

I've just got to keep with it and that type of thing.

I'm also grateful for the, I know that they, you do have some criticism

of the ABC and the Australian news media, but I think they

have actually turned the corner.

They are seeming to report a little bit more on what's actually

happening in Rafa right now.

You know, it's only just a little bit, but they have actually reported on it.

And they've actually said that, you know, there's a report on the ABC today.

I was reading that, they're saying that, Israel has launched

airstrikes on Rafa and 35 already dead in the opening salvos of that.

So, you know, it seems to be turning just a little bit.

Hmm, did they explain that Rafa was the place they told these people

to go to to be safe and then they started bombing the tents they were in?

They said there were a million or more people hiding down there, so I

assume that, they understood that their readers would understand that, that

was where the Israelis told them to go.

I'd have to say that between John Menardew's blog, Crikey,

Twitter, Caitlin Johnston, yeah, so between all those sources, Dozens

and dozens of interesting things to read, and I would tune to ABC

and The Guardian and find nothing.

It was very lightweight, it seemed to me, so, yeah.

Joe, did you have anything that you're grateful for?

You mean other than shiny new toys?

Yes, so no, nothing else?

not that I can think of off the top of my head, no.

Right, okay.

sat down and considered it.

Right.

Okay.

All right, dear listener.

Well, we will get into the stories and, in the chat room, yeah, John says

it's now your chance for a takeover, Joe, as my audio, failed there.

What else we got?

and John says, sadly, I have trouble keeping up with your emails.

Okay.

There's a lot there.

I get, get that.

So, all right.

Gaza.

Sorry.

Before we get into the ICC, Caitlin Johnson says U.

S.

intelligence estimates that Israel has only killed 30 35

percent of Hamas fighters in Gaza.

And Scott, the whole idea of going into RAFA was supposedly to clear

out the remaining Hamas fighters.

Well, that's just

impossible

possible.

Yeah, because you've got you've got them living amongst you've got them living

amongst the civilian population You can't liquidate them with airstrikes.

You're not going to do that Yeah, which means you've got to actually put boots

on the ground You've got to send them in there and the way and we've seen the way

the Israeli boots on the ground behave So I don't think they're going to be

able to eliminate any civilian casualties because they clearly, they clearly know

that, they're just going to shoot them.

It's, it's impossible

to just pick off what are Hamas fighters.

I mean, cause they don't wear a uniform

and leave non Hamas alone.

And at the same time, by virtue of their actions, they're creating more

Hamas fighters, because people who might previously have been neutral, so.

So she points out that Israel has come nowhere remotely close to

accomplishing its stated goals in Israel.

So, um, and she says either they must inflict much, much more horror upon

Gaza, or revise their official goals.

And she says of course there's option C which is that, Israel has been lying about

its stated goals of getting rid of Hamas and is actually accomplishing exactly

what it set out to accomplish, which is

Liquidate the Palestinians.

Yes, out of Gaza and to take even further control of it.

So I think that's sort of what their intention was.

Part of that is I've been reading a book, 10 Myths About Israel, Ilan Pape,

And he's an Israeli historian, political scientist, former politician, professor

of college, a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International

Studies at the University of Exeter.

He's a historian.

And okay, he's a controversial one and not everyone agrees with him and

his, his writings are not orthodox.

So he's one of Israel's new historians.

And, he has, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli

government documents in the 1980s, offered an unconventional view of

Israel's establishment in 1948 and the exodus of 700, 000 Palestinians.

Anyway, in his book, which I'm sort of two thirds of the way through, and this

is, you know, a controversial historian, but he provides a compelling argument

when he's referring Various documents.

in order to re evaluate the 1967 war, we need to first go back to the war of 1948.

The Israeli political and military elite regarded the 1948

war as a missed opportunity.

A historical moment in which Israel could and should have occupied the

whole of historic Palestine from River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

And the only reason they didn't do so was because of an

agreement they had with Jordan.

And he says, we can see from the takeover of the West Bank and the

Gaza Strip represents a completion of the job that began in 1948.

Back then, the Zionist movement took over 80 percent of the Palestine.

In 1967, they completed the takeover.

He, he sort of paints a picture in his book of, of regret by

military and political elite.

That they didn't use the opportunity to take more land and just be done with it.

And, and it would not surprise me if there was a large element in the Israeli

elite that were, if ever we get a, a half decent sort of retaliation from

Gaza, then we just go all out and just, Completely wipe out Gaza in response.

I think that's what, Likud and his right wing allies want.

Yeah.

You know, because they certainly, you know, Biden told

them not to invade Rafa, they've ignored him and just crushed Rafa.

And it's just one of those things, you know, I just think to myself that

Netanyahu is trying to extend the war as long as he possibly can because he

knows there can't be an election while they're at war, and he will actually

lose the election once it's called.

And also, I just, what was the word I was groping for?

It's, you know, you hear those right wing lunatics from his war cabinet and

that sort of stuff and they keep saying we've got to keep prosecuting this war.

None of them, and, you know, the one thing they refuse to discuss is what

actually happens once the shooting stops.

Because they've actually got, they've actually got to release those plans

about what they plan on doing with it.

But they're not actually, they're not actually prepared to tell the

world what they're going to do with it because they know it would

be unjust and incredibly cruel.

Yes,

yeah, develop the waterfront plan, waterfront land.

Yeah, I know that was the for

Jared Kushner.

Yeah, Jared Kushner.

Yeah.

So anyway, we've had, in the past, the, International Court of Justice,

received documents from South Africa, asking for the court to sort of

consider Israel as, committing genocide.

And, just recently, we've had the International Criminal Court, have

been involved via their prosecutor, who's applied for the arrest warrants

to be issued, for, Netanyahu and I think the Defence Minister, and then

the leaders of the Hamas, three of the leaders of the Hamas militant group.

So, Worth just talking about, well, what's the difference between the ICJ,

International Court of Justice, and the ICC, International Criminal Court?

So, the ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

It was established in 1945, consists of 15 judges, Elected

by the UN General Assembly.

On the other hand, the ICC, which is the one that's been in the news

recently, with this sort of, warrants for Netanyahu, that was established in 2001.

It's an independent international organization.

Created by a treaty called the Rome Statute and, basically for countries

to be bound by it, they have to have signed up to the Rome Statute.

So the International Court of Justice is more about dealing with

countries and states as to whether they've committed war crimes.

The ICC is more about individuals and whether those individuals have committed

war crimes, so, ICC doesn't have a police force, but state parties, so parties who

have signed up to that treaty that I just mentioned, the Rome Statute, are obliged

to comply with a requested arrest warrant.

So, even though they don't have a police force, if the ICC says, we've got a

warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu, and if you are a country, say, Germany, and

Netanyahu arrives at your international

airport, you're supposed to arrest him.

That's part of the deal of being, signing up to the statute.

Is Israel, is Israel signed up to the Rome Statute or not?

no.

We'll get onto that.

We will.

That's it.

Effectively, no, Israel did not sign up to it and the US, China and

Russia have not signed up to it.

But, Palestine has.

And the ICC claims that.

Jurisdiction because the war crimes alleged against Netanyahu are against

a people who Have signed up to it.

Namely the Palestinians.

So Yeah, it might be some legal arguments about that So Because

the ICC's jurisdiction covers crimes committed in the territory

of one of the 124 member states.

Maybe there's some argument that Gaza is not the territory of Palestine,

but apparently there's been a previous case where they said it would be.

So, It's looking more likely that they do have jurisdiction and the question

will now be whether these various member states, which do not include USA, China,

Russia or Israel, whether they would, well I don't think Netanyahu is going

to travel to any country that declares they're going to arrest him, so his

movements, he's a little bit like Putin now, he can't move, he's

got to be careful where he goes to.

Well

I mean is South Africa signed up to the ICC or not?

I'm sure they would

have.

Well, you know, that just goes to show the hypocrisy because, they've already said

that if Vladimir Putin travels to South Africa, they're not going to arrest him.

Oh, did they?

Yeah, maybe they did too.

Yeah.

You're right.

If they did say that, that would be another hypocritical move.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm just imagining South Africa has, but I'd be surprised

if they haven't, but you're, that does ring a bell, actually, Scott,

that they said something like that.

Yeah.

There's going to be a lot of hypocrisy that we're going to be

covering in this whole fiasco.

There's more than enough hypocrisy to go around.

Yes.

so anyway.

The prosecutor for the ICC, he's got the authority to launch an investigation

on his own initiative and that's what this guy has done on this occasion.

So, this is going to bring about a whole lot of discussion about the

international rules based order as opposed to international law.

And you'll hear the phrase used a lot in relation to this.

And, You know, international law is, is stuff like hard and fast law

that's been made and compliance with international bodies, kind of like

the ICC and the ICJ and things like the International Law of the Sea.

That's the sort of stuff that I would call international law.

And The International Rules Based Order is a far more nebulous concept,

which comes in quite handy if you want to be a little bit picky and

choosy about how you apply the law.

So, dear listener, in episode 348, we talked a bit about this idea of

the International Rules Based Order, and, it's this, it's this nebulous.

topic.

This article was by Mike Scrafton in the John Menendee blog that I'm going to be

reading from and he says, if there are rules Other than the international law

norms set out in treaties, or determined by authorised arbitrational institutions,

what are they, who sets them, and what is the obligation to comply?

So, it's a phrase commonly used by Americans when they're angry with

Russians and Chinese and other anti Western forces to say that they're

just not complying with the law.

The International Rules Based Order, but of course when the USA threatens

to arrest anyone in the ICC who did or arrest Netanyahu, they don't

consider themselves to be breaching the international rules based order.

So, as a term, it really, it didn't exist until, around 2010.

And, Australia was one of the ones behind it, actually.

I think Kevin Rudd was a big one for using the term and may

have, may have even invented it.

So, our, 2009 defense white paper made 11 references to rules based order and

only two references to international law.

And, seven years later, The 2016 white paper, there were 59 mentions of rule

based global order and international law was only used nine times.

So, in this article he says the shift from international law as

a phrase to rules based order, is a rational one on America's part

because international law, holds equality of state as a key principle.

and denies American exceptionalism and homogamy.

Whereas the rules based order kind of implies, let's just keep things everything

the way they are, which is what you

do when you're a hegemon.

So, yeah.

So that's just a bit of a riff on whenever I hear international rules based

order or, I just cringe a little bit.

I mentioned last week about Sam Harris.

and my disappointment with him on this whole issue.

And he was one to talk about international rules based order, and

I thought, Sam Harris, you are not reading widely enough on this topic.

So, it annoys me when I hear it.

Do you squirm at all when you hear international rules based order, Joe or

Scott, or you don't care when you hear it?

It's just water off a

duck's back.

It's probably just water off a duck's back with me.

You know, I've heard it so often that You know, I never equated it

to I never actually knew that there was a hell of a difference between

that and the international law.

But now that you've explained the differences, I will have, I will listen

out to it a little more attentively.

I just find it amusing that America lectured the rest

of the world on colonialism.

Yes.

and now is being a colonial power, a fading colonial power.

Yes.

Yes.

What I found extraordinarily hypocritical about the United States was

not just their actions and everything else that we've gone over and over again

in South America, but how they drive around the world telling the British

they had to dismantle their empire.

But when it came to the French and that sort of stuff, when Ho Chi Minh went over

to actually see them and said, well, all we want is your help to get rid of the

French, they said, oh, we can't do that.

You know, you know,

Yes, incredibly frustrating.

Yeah.

Let's, let's look at some of the reactions to the work of the prosecutor calling

for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and the, I think it was the defence minister.

Yeah, but his name is,

I'll have his name here somewhere, but, Gant,

Gant, wasn't it?

Yeah, I think that's right.

So, let's go to the first clip I've got here.

And this is, Lindsey Graham?

What's Lindsey Graham's title, Scott?

What's his, let me just see, Speaker of the House.

The U.

S.

Speaker of the House.

that's, um No, no, that's not Lindsey Graham.

that's a different guy.

I've got Lindsey Graham here, he's a Senator, I think, Republican Senator.

United States Senator.

Yes, I'll do him first and then I'll go back to the Speaker

of the House, so, here he is.

So, we hope By the way, he's speaking, and you'll hear laughter,

and that's not from other members of the Senate, it's from protesters

who are at this particular hearing.

Together, we'll find a way to, restore our displeasure

with the ICC, cause if they'll do this to Israel, we're next.

This group tried to come after our soldiers, yeah,

you can clap all you want to.

They tried to come after our soldiers in Afghanistan, but reason prevailed.

So at the end of the day here, what I hope to happen is that we level

sanctions against the ICC for this outrage to not only help our friends in

Israel, but protect ourselves over time.

Mr.

Secretary, your statement yesterday was excellent.

Excellent.

The President's statement was excellent.

Senator Schumer's statement on the floor was excellent about the outrage here.

They have destroyed the notion of complementarity.

They have misled people in the United States Senate about their intention,

and they shall and will pay a price.

Mr.

Secretary, I appreciate what you've said.

It is now time for us to act.

I like that bit where he said, if I can do this to Israel, I can do it to us.

And the protesters started clapping and going,

yeah!

Yeah, if your soldiers commit war crimes, why not?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Okay, got one from the Speaker of the House here,

He's that Christian Nutjob.

Yeah, Christian Nutjob, yeah.

That doesn't narrow it down much, Scott, but he is No, I know that.

Yes, yeah.

One of the, one of the Christian Nutjobs.

Speaker of the House, here he is.

America should punish the ACC ACC?

And put Kareem Khan back in his place.

And if the ICC is allowed to threaten Israel's leaders, we

know that America will be next.

There is a reason that we've never endorsed the International Criminal Court.

Because it is a direct affront to our own sovereignty.

We don't put any international body among, or above American sovereignty.

And Israel does that, doesn't do that either.

Congress is reviewing all of our options right now.

We have some very aggressive legislation that we're going

to push as quickly as possible.

It will impose sanctions.

And if the ICC moves forward with its absurd warrant arrest or

request, this is going to be an even bigger international problem.

What can they do?

Well, they can try.

It's like a criminal trial.

And, I'll get on to the charges against Netanyahu, but one of

the charges is of starving the Palestinians in Gaza as a war crime.

And he can raise a defence, like it's a trial, it's the prosecutor saying

there's a plausible case here that Netanyahu has committed these crimes.

I want him before our court and we'll run a trial.

So it's not like the ICC has said he's guilty.

They've simply charged and said he should come before the court and

explain himself and he'll have a chance to defend himself like any other.

person in a criminal child.

This, this goddamn hypocritical Americans are just like You'd,

for a start, you'd think it was,

Biden who was being brought before the ICC.

It's, it's an ally.

Who's, who's clearly committed some dodgy, horrendous stuff, and

whose defence minister and other ministers have said horrible things

about wiping out the Palestinians.

And these guys, with their outrage that they should be, that the ICC should

think that it might actually do this, they're just appalled, they're honestly,

I don't think they're putting it on.

They are shocked that, that somebody would.

That these uppity colonials, the uppity brown people, yeah, would do this.

I mean, he's black for a start, so he's not a white person.

Yeah,

exactly.

Now the other one we've got here, this is, find another video here.

This is, you know, have they had these spokespeople?

Which I find really strange in the whole American system, where rather than the

actual politician talking, you get these spokespeople who deal with the media.

But there's a bit more to ing and fro ing between the media

pack and these spokespeople as they talk about various issues.

So, have a listen to this one.

yeah.

I was kind of momentarily stunned by your original answers.

I, I forgot my question, but these will be brief.

So, are you okay, then, with the, application for arrest

warrants against Hamas?

we do not believe that they have jurisdiction over either

of the parties of this process.

Don,

you don't think that Homa leaders should be prosecuted?

We

absolutely believe that Hama should be held accountable.

That could be held on accountable.

Hold on.

Let me, let me, lemme finish.

Okay.

That could be either through the prosecution of the war effort by Israel.

It could be, in other words, on being killed.

Let, it could be by being killed.

It could by being, it could be by being brought to justice in an Israeli court.

We do not believe the ICC has jurisdiction over either of the parties

in this case because the Palestinian people do not represent a state, and

that includes the leaders of course.

But obviously the administration is also troubled by actions that

Israel has taken post October 7th.

So where, where, where is the accountability for that?

Where do the Palestinians go?

This is a question I asked Matt, I mean Ned, a long time ago,

over and over and over again.

Where do the Palestinians go to seek redress?

So let me answer this a couple different ways.

First of all, in the short term, with respect to questions of war crimes,

Israel does have open investigations, a number of open investigations.

We made this public when we released our report on National Security Memo

20, including some investigations that have become criminal investigations

into conduct by members of the IDF.

That is the first instance for, for judging, whether someone

has committed, a war crime or a violation of IDF, Code of Conduct.

That's one of the reasons why we have concerns about the ICC.

The ICC is set up to be a court of last resort.

If a country isn't properly holding itself and its personnel accountable,

that's when the ICC comes in.

Not in the middle of the process as they have, as they have done here.

That's it.

Ultimately, and you know this, Matt, because we've spoken about it a

lot, we believe that there should be the establishment of an independent

Palestinian state, and an independent Palestinian state would have the

ability to join the Rome Statute and, become a member of the international

Actually, I'm just going to interrupt, because he talked

there about, he talked there about how it should be of last resort.

But that would only be if Israel was conducting inquiries

into war crimes by its people,

and they're not.

So that's what he's claiming.

There are open investigations, but not into the prime minister.

No, exactly, and individual members of the IDF.

Yes, and earlier on he said, you know, the reporter

saying, well, what should Israel do?

The Palestinians be relying on to complain and he's basically saying internal

Israeli Investigations.

Yes

with a straight face, but we'll continue with a bit more

as every state in the, the world has the right to do.

But that's, but that's, but that's not, that is not, that is not, no, no.

So where do they go in the meantime?

They are not S.

O.

I.

First of all, Israel has its own investigations.

Second, we have, accountability mechanisms here.

We have, processes that are ongoing to look at Israel's compliance with

international humanitarian law.

So there are places to go.

To look at these questions, it's just, in our, in our view,

fundamentally not a role of the ICC.

And I should say, but remember, we have a jurisdictional complaint here and that we

don't believe the ICC has jurisdiction.

But if you looked at the statement the Secretary made that I echoed in my opening

remarks, that isn't our only problem with the action the prosecutor has taken.

We also have a problem that he has short circuited an investigation

and brought this action.

Without waiting to see where these Israeli investigations end up, without completing

the trip that he had planned to come to Israel to look into these questions.

So it's not just a question of jurisdiction, it's also a question of the

way the investigation is being conducted.

So let's just focus on jurisdiction for a second.

Who does have jurisdiction here?

So, the governor of Israel has, jurisdiction,

we have, we have jurisdiction

over Gaza, which is not entirely occupied.

We

have, they have jurisdiction into looking at, at, the actions

by their military personnel.

Okay, so the Palestinians, if they have

a complaint, they have to bring it to Israeli courts.

We, they, we have jurisdiction, and we have,

with the use of our equipment,

I'm

sorry,

with

the, with the use of our military equipment that we have provided.

How do you have jurisdiction?

If you look at the Leahy Law.

That's not jurisdiction in a criminal process.

Not in a criminal process,

but it has to do with the determinations that we make

and the policies that flow from it.

So, but Matt, long term, you were right that we want to see

I like that bit, where the guy said, have you looked at the Leahy Law,

and he said, straight away, that's nothing to do with the criminal prosecution.

So, so this American spokesman is trying to say that Israel's got jurisdiction,

and America's got jurisdiction, but not the ICC.

I'd say, it's

shameless, these people.

Just, just shameless.

There's also this idea that, Israel is an ally of the US, and Israel is

an ally of Israel, and nowhere else.

The rest are useful tools.

Okay, we've got, let's just get, Joe Biden himself.

What does Sleepy Joe have to say about this?

I think I've got him here somewhere.

Maybe I don't.

I ran out of room with,

No, don't have him.

Biden went burka at the ICJ and he said that, to equate

Israel with Hamas is wrong.

Hmm.

Which, I don't disagree with him, but like the, journalist just

said, he says, where do they go?

And it's not about equating, Israel with Hamas.

It's simply saying, here are things that we think Netanyahu has done

that constitute a type of war crime.

Hmm.

That's within the ICC jurisdiction and, and we, it seems plausible to us.

So, okay, at the same time he's laid charges against the, the

Hamas, but, actually I'll tell you what the differences are.

Let me find those here.

I've got them here somewhere, down the bottom here.

So, so, actually when, what Putin was accused of, When he was charged by the

ICC, Putin was charged with unlawful deportation and transfer of population.

So that was the charge against him.

Yeah, it was children, stealing children.

Yeah.

Netanyahu is accused of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,

willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, or

cruel treatment as a war crime, willful killing or murder as a war crime.

Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as war crime.

Extermination and or murder, including in the context of deaths caused by

starvation, as a crime against humanity.

And persecution as a crime against humanity.

And other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity.

So, the list against Netanyahu is, much longer than the one against Putin.

and normally starvation isn't one that you would think would make it,

because it's often hard to prove.

Take, for example, in the Ukraine, for example, human assistance is

free flowing across the border, so, starvation can't be said to be

difficult to pin on the Russians.

But Netanyahu and his minister, Gallant, are in control of the Gaza.

And they control what goes in and what, what comes out effectively.

And so this, this charge of starvation is one that's probably a good one to stick

on him because they have full control of, of what goes into the country.

So, yeah, that's that.

let me see.

so yeah, Biden said there's no genocide.

Equating the two is outrageous.

And, so that was that.

What has been the left's response to this?

You've heard a bit from the right, so let's do a little bit of the left.

And I think I do have this one, I'm not seeing all of them.

yeah, here it is.

So, this is a guy, Mehdi Hassan, who was on, debating sort of a pro Israeli

guy on American television on CNN.

So, this is what the left side of politics would have to say about the situation.

Can I just come in and respond to something Jonathan said a moment ago?

He said the only evidence we have of war crimes that's being collected is by UN

and by UNRWA and they're all compromised.

That's just not true.

I myself have interviewed on my show multiple American doctors who are on

the ground in Gaza who have testified to what is going on, what they're

seeing with their own lying eyes.

I have a friend who is a doctor who went out and served in

the European hospital in Gaza.

He saw children being brought into the hospital with gunshot

wounds to the head, right?

Those are crimes.

Those have been witnessed by American citizens, British

citizens, French citizens.

They're all on the record.

To pretend this is just about Hamas or UNRWA is nonsense, right?

The evidence is there for anyone who's been to Gaza.

Sorry, Matthew is not an international

lawyer and nor are the doctors.

It is not up to you to decide what a war crime is.

And by the way, I'm not even sure that it's up to the ICC agree, I

agree, I agree, it's up to the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, who

is a lawyer, a very respected one.

And can I finish my point, just to go back to what Abby said at the

start, you know, if they don't want to be charged with war crimes, maybe

they shouldn't have done war crimes.

Yoav Gallant is being charged with starvation.

This is a man, the Defense Minister of Israel, who said on October the 9th,

I'm ordering a total siege of Gaza.

No fuel, no electricity, no food.

It's closed.

Well, maybe he shouldn't have said and done that.

Maybe he wouldn't have an arrest warrant out, or an application

for an arrest warrant against him today if he hadn't done that.

Alright, Matty and Jonathan, we have to leave it there.

This man

is

seriously the

Yeah, the guy's frustrated there.

Ah, there you go.

I mean That's the whole point, isn't it?

You, you've got these international doctors and other international

people who have been on the ground, you get them into the court, you

give evidence, people decide whether they're telling the truth or not,

and whether the facts amount to the elements of a crime that's been alleged.

That's the whole point of it.

So, of course, Netanyahu will never get before the ICC, will he?

And so some people would say, what's the point?

And, Michael Bradley writing in Crikey was sort of saying

that it's all a bit of a farce.

It's in the sense of what's the point?

He's never going to get there.

But, I think it's, it's just super instructive in, In demonstrating that

the USA and others who are crying foul over this ICC indictment have no

interest in the international rules based order at all, like it just

exposes the hypocrisy and the bullshit of these people saying we want law and

order in our international relations.

When clearly you don't, when there's a international court set up with a

fair system and you've just totally denied any possibility that a Westerner

or an ally of the Western powers could be brought before this group.

It just could not contemplate that Netanyahu has maybe possibly committed

anything like what's been alleged.

And so when, when people say, oh, you know, America and all the West or whatever

is boohoo on China because they're a bunch of rogues and not interested

in international rules based order.

Well, neither are you,

because Exhibit A is the response.

To know who Criminal court.

Yeah.

Yeah.

On something that looks pretty obvious as a fairly plausible case, and

they're just not only thumbing their nose and saying it's outrageous, it's

they're threatening the ICC staff and saying, we'll come after you.

And they've already passed legislation previously, post Afghanistan, which

authorised the US to take military action and go into The Hague and

recover any American citizen who might find themselves in front of the ICC.

Like

they've already got a law on the books!

To go in and, and, and take back.

Invade another sovereign nation.

Yes.

And take back hostages that might've been taken by the ICC.

So they're going to invade the Netherlands, huh?

Yeah.

Already on the books like this.

So I think it's really instructive as

just to, to just show.

As Kaitlin Johnson says, Ah, it's useful insofar as it helps disabuse people of

the delusional belief that Western powers care one iota about international law.

and they make it clear to the whole world that Israel and its powerful

Western allies are openly violating the rules they pretend to stand by.

So, it's a useful counter narrative against the official imperative narrative.

but of course it's not going to actually get any justice.

And, yeah.

Yeah.

The U.

S.

has put in place the Hague Invasion Act, which it did between the invasions

of Afghanistan and Iraq to assure that it can use military force to

free any military personnel of the U.

S.

or its allies who wind up detained by the ICC.

Now, the actual prosecutor, Karim Khan, and he's the one who's instigated these.

Is

he a Pakistani?

I

don't know.

don't know.

Quite possibly by that name, you would think.

That's not because of the name, that's all.

Yeah.

He is quoted in an interview as saying this, quote, I've had some

elected leader speak to me and be blunt.

This court was built for Africa and thugs like Putin.

So that's what, that's what Western leaders are telling Karim Khan.

Up until this moment, the ICC had never issued arrest warrants against

leaders friendly to the West.

They'd always been African or Putin.

Sorry, Joe.

Ehrenberg.

Yes?

There were allegations that some of the, the firebombing of Dresden,

for instance, were war crimes.

But there was no interest in prosecuting any of those because

that was the side that won.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that would have been the British, wouldn't it?

They would have been the courts for the firebombing at Dresden.

Yeah, British and Americans, I would have thought.

So yeah, Harris, he was the commander of the bomb force, wasn't he?

Yeah.

I mean, you could say the same about the Tommy Bonds, couldn't you?

Like, there's Strong arguments to show that that was unnecessary.

That was completely unnecessary.

Right, so, um, what else we got here?

Germany, spokesman for the German Chancellor confirmed

German authorities would arrest Netanyahu if he enters the country.

So he won't be going there.

despite the ones What happened to Bandianus?

What's that, Joe?

What's that?

They, banned Bandianus from appearing?

Yes,

he was banned from conducting political activity.

Yeah, even by Zoom, wasn't he?

So is he banned entirely from Germany or just banned from conducting?

I thought he wasn't allowed to even visit.

Yeah, I think you might be right.

So, so yeah, Netanyahu won't be there and, and unfortunately,

neither will Yanis Varoufakis.

Francis expressed support for the ICC.

Belgium expressed support.

In contrast, the Italian Foreign Minister said it was, unacceptable,

to equate a government legitimately elected by its people in a democracy

with a terrorist organisation.

That is the cause of everything that is happening in the Middle East, you know?

Just because you've got a democracy, doesn't mean that everything that

happens in a democracy is okay, and, is it a democracy when a huge

proportion of the population, i.

e.

the Palestinians, aren't allowed to vote?

Like is it a democracy?

Well I thought they had their own, nation.

Well

they'd like to be able to vote in the affairs of, that affect their

land, but that's They're only entitled to vote on very minor things that they're

limited to by the Israeli occupation.

Well,

that's not entirely true because the Palestinian Authority

did host elections and that type of thing after, what's his name, died.

And they elect, sorry, Arafat?

Yes, after Arafat died, they had elections.

And that's how this came about.

Guy got into office, he was elected, but he's refused to hold a new election

because he knows he'd be tossed out.

this is, who are you talking about here?

This is

the, this is the guy that's the head of the Palestinian Authority.

Okay.

Yeah, he, he controls.

In the Gaza or the West Bank?

No, the West Bank.

Right.

The Gaza and everything like that, Hamas took control of that,

I'm not sure how they did that.

I don't know if it was a coup or whatever it was, but Hamas runs Gaza.

The West Bank was run by the Palestinian Authority.

Okay, let me put it this way.

The Palestinians were bounced out of the land that they actually

had, and then told

they couldn't vote on the land that they used to have.

I agree.

So maybe it's not a great

democracy.

It's not great, but they've got something.

It's not great, but they've got something.

I honestly believe they'd be better off in their own little country than

they would be trying to, trying to eke out an existence with Israel.

Just going on with more, international response, Czech Prime

Minister described the allegations against Netanyahu as appalling

and completely unacceptable,

Sorry, the, the, putting the allegations to him was appalling?

Or what he did was appalling?

Yeah.

No, the allegations were appalling.

Yeah, yeah.

let's see,

more hypocrisy.

There's a lot of hypocrisy when people were really quick to applaud the

ICC when it issued warrants against Putin and then very hesitant or

silent when the ICC issued or wanted to issue warrants against Putin.

Netanyahu.

So, someone like Keir Starmer, leader of the UK Labor Party, said in relation

to Putin, I welcome the International Criminal Court's decision to open war

crime cases against Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian figures for

their barbaric actions in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, complete silence from Keir Starmer about Netanyahu.

Um, what else we got here?

Oh, as you know, dear listener, I read Murdoch Press, so you don't have to.

And boy, are they going full on in support of Israel and in, in basically

declaring this obscene, what is happening in the Netanyahu's being charged.

So, It's all through the Murdoch papers, I read the Courier Mail headline,

Leaders slam PM on Israel's silence.

So because, Albanese has said nothing, they are sticking it to him.

some of the other headlines from yesterday's paper, Australia

threatened by anti Jewish hate opinion.

We, as decent Australians, have an obvious choice to live cravenly

beneath a malevolent cloud of Revived and revolting anti semitism, or to

continue standing tall and proud with our Jewish fellow citizens.

So, a big push to equate protests against Israeli actions as being anti semitic,

when it's not necessarily the case.

John Howard, blasted Albo for his failure to repudiate anti semitism.

yeah, Murdoch Press likes to refer to this as anti semitism.

Um, Rowan Dean from Sky News.

On behalf of all decent Australians, allow me to apologise directly to

Benjamin Netanyahu for Australian PM Anthony Albanese's disgusting failure

to condemn the anti Semites of the ICC.

Yet another in the long line of labour betrayals of the Jews

of Australia and of the world.

Ah, for God's sake.

Peter Dutton?

Chastised him, this is Albanese, for tarnishing and damaging our international

relationships with like minded nations, when he's not strong enough

to stand up alongside President Biden.

Quote, this is Peter Dutton, your local member, Joe, It's an

abomination and it needs to be ceased.

This action is anti Semitic and it's against the interests

of peace in the Middle East.

Charging Netanyahu.

With the war crime, for the actions of Israel in Gaza, has

nothing to do with anti Semitism.

Damaging international relationships, was joking about

waters lapping at the shores of your neighbours, Pacific neighbours.

Yes, as he did, about climate change.

Yes.

And he falsely claimed that the ICC consulted Albanese before

applying for the arrest warrants.

And Albanese didn't argue back hard enough, and of course,

it's complete bullshit.

It's not as if the prosecutor consulted the hundred, over a

hundred odd member states and asked them their opinion before.

What a

load of nonsense.

Yes,

but this is what we're getting from Dutton.

of course, it was John Howard who signed us up to the, ICC in the first place.

And, does anyone want to know Scott, Scott Morrison's view on this?

It's going to be mirroring, mirroring anything that comes

out of the US, isn't it?

It is.

he says the ICC has totally jumped the shark on this and

placed nations like Australia that became members in good faith in an

impossible position, blah, blah, blah.

By the way, Skomo's book, Crikey did an interview with a publishing

guru and he reckons he'll be lucky to sell a hundred copies in the US.

Really?

How many over here?

Maybe a thousand, a couple of thousand.

it's a hundred in the U.

S.

because nobody in the U.

S.

knows who he is.

He says, Lesson one in any market is never publish the autobiography

of someone you've never heard of.

And I suspect not even Joe Biden knows his name.

What did Albanese do?

We've made no commitment to arrest Netanyahu.

Even though the ICJ requires its signatory states to do so in response

to a determination by the court.

So he said nothing?

about whether Australia would arrest Netanyahu.

He's got to come over here first.

Yes.

Netanyahu's only been over here for the G20, hasn't he?

Yeah, but there's a whole bunch of countries that have said, if he

comes here we're going to arrest him.

Yeah.

In advance.

So it's kind of, you don't have to wait for him to arrive to say it.

Anyway.

Or you could let him come here.

But maybe, maybe that's Albanese's cunning plan, is to keep quiet.

And,

I've got a feeling in this environment, Netanyahu's

not going anywhere, that he doesn't completely trust.

No.

He's not going to leave Israel at this point, is he?

No.

Ah, yeah.

Um, yeah.

We're just doing nothing.

We're making no comment.

Unlike other nations foreign ministers, Penny Wong has not recalled

Australia's ambassador from Tel Aviv.

We haven't expelled Israel from Canberra.

We haven't offered to arrest Israeli or Hamas leaders.

And, we're just dithering a little bit.

Or a lot, and she makes the point, this is Alison Broynoski in the John

Menendoo blog, that, six decades ago, Australia, failed to condemn

apartheid in South Africa until Prime Ministers Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke

stared down their British and American counterparts and did so shaming them

into following suit a few years later.

So, That's a good point.

At some point decades ago we used to take the lead on some issues like this and

instead of just kowtowing to British and American opinion, we had our own opinions.

So yeah.

It was back in the day when we actually used to stand up for ourselves.

Yeah, when we were an independent sovereign nation and

not just the lapdog of the US.

Desmond Tutu, he's dead now.

Yes he is.

Hmm.

But while he was still alive he was asked to compare life in Apartheid South Africa

with conditions in Occupied Palestine.

And the Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu's judgement said, life in Palestine

is far more brutal and repressive than in Apartheid South Africa.

Really?

Fuck.

Hmm.

Ahhhh.

In Australia, don't mention the G word, the genocide word.

So, now this is probably going back a couple of weeks.

Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman.

Talking about the conflict in Gaza, she must be Labour, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, she is, and I gather she's also a Muslim.

Yes, I would think so.

She says, Instead of advocating for justice, I see our leaders

performatively gesture, defending the oppressor's right to oppress, while

gaslighting the global community about the rights of self defence.

My conscience has been overwhelmed.

Uneasy for too long, and I must call this out for what it is.

This is a genocide, and we must stop pretending otherwise.

I ask our Prime Minister and our fellow parliamentarians, how many

international rights laws must Israel break for us to say enough?

How many images of bloody limbs of murdered children must we see?

She, of course, came in for criticism from all directions.

She copped at everyone.

Her colleagues in Labor voted with the opposition to pass a

motion condemning her remarks.

Who?

The only opposition were the Greens and Senator Lydia Thorpe.

For fuck's sake, I'm so glad I didn't vote for Labor in that last election.

God, it's spineless.

It's worse than spineless.

Yes.

Because they're still opening coal mines, aren't they?

Yes.

Although, did you see about the, Ukraine has asked for coal?

No, more.

Didn't we send them a shipload of coal once?

Apparently 2022 we did.

Yes.

They've asked again.

Right.

Asked six months ago and apparently the government hasn't

bothered to reply to them.

Because it doesn't want to offend anybody and doesn't

know how to sell a story and just doesn't know how to tell them no.

Right.

What else have I got here, just on jurisdiction here, The Economist

Magazine, My brother, Glenn, is surprised when I keep saying

that The Economist is right wing.

But it is right wing, Glenn.

And, anyway.

I don't think it's right

wing.

I think it's fairly middle of the road.

Okay, let's make a note.

Discuss right wing leaning of The Economist.

Quote, The Economist, The ICC should prosecute only when states are

unwilling or unable to do so genuinely.

Israel is a democracy with an independent judiciary.

And, the response to that from Henry Reynolds as a historian, says, you've

got to ask, is the state actively investigating, prosecuting the same

persons for the same conduct as the ICC?

The answer is no.

Therefore.

I call bullshit on The Economist and its argument that

jurisdiction doesn't apply here.

For God's sake, if Israel was running a war crimes inquiry, with Netanyahu

having to defend himself for charges of starving the people in Gaza,

he may have an

argument that the ICC should wait and see if that process works.

run through to its conclusion.

But they're not, and they're never going to.

Of course they're never going to.

Genocide was what that lady mentioned before.

By the way, there's a chance this episode might get, removed from YouTube

for using the G word, apparently.

So, Ben Norton in the Geopolitical Economy Report, he said, Just says the

G word rather than genocide because apparently, I think it's demonetized.

Maybe that's what happens and I don't get any money out of YouTube.

So right.

The advantages of being so pathetic.

So Wikipedia says genocide is the intent.

Joe, you had a theory that Yanis Varoufakis had a definition of

genocide, which meant that, that this whole the Gaza story was not genocide.

What was that?

Can you recall what that argument was?

He was saying that, although he wasn't comparing them, that it wasn't a Holocaust

in the way that the Jews had been.

Because they weren't out to wipe out the Palestinians no matter where they are.

Right.

Whereas the Nazis were out to murder the Jews on the basis of them being Jewish.

Right.

So he's saying genocides in the past are other genocides have all been about.

Land or resources of some form, whereas the Holocaust was purely

about wiping out a race of people.

There we go.

Okay, so that didn't mean that he was dispelling the idea that

the Gaza thing was a genocide.

Okay, good.

So, so, believe it or not, in 1948, there was the United Nations Genocide

Convention, and It defined genocide as any of five acts committed with intent to

destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

And these five acts were killing members, causing them serious bodily

or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the

group, preventing births and forcibly transferring children out of the group.

Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership

of a group, not randomly.

So, So, to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or

religious group by killing members of the group would be genocide

according to that convention.

Looks like that's what's happening to me.

Now, of course, the repercussions of this flow all over the world

and for the good people of St.

Louis.

It's not easy, according to Republican Anne Wagner.

I mean, you thought things were tough for the people in Gaza, but,

imagine if, if your government was really slow in approving arms sales

and the economic effect that that could have on your local community.

Here we go.

And I want to focus right now, very specifically, sir, in particular

on the delay of the sale of 6500 JDAMs.

I'm sure you're familiar with them.

These are the high position GPS If you want the least amount of collateral

damage in an urban area, you want a JDAM, and we have sent out tons of

them to Israel and everywhere else.

They also just happen to be made, in, in the St.

Louis metropolitan area, in St.

Charles, in my area.

And since I have not yet received a response to this

letter, let me ask you why.

This.

Why has the administration failed to move forward with the notification process

for the sale of 6, 500 JDAMs to Israel?

And when will the administration resume the notification process?

What

we've got here is, she's complaining that people

can't pay their mortgages.

Childcare or car payments because the U.

S.

is not approving arms sales to Israel quickly enough.

That's, that's where we've stooped to in America at this moment.

Yeah, right.

That's enough of Gaza and Scott.

Bear with us for a little bit, because I know you'll like the next bit.

The census question.

Yeah.

Now, remember we were talking about that and I thought, you know,

I was kind of like, maybe this has gone a little bit too far, but that

was because the reporting by these religious groups was misleading.

so, previously, dear listener, in the last census, it was, what is

the person's religion, the first.

Box you could tick was no religion.

And then there was a series of options, Catholic, Anglican, Uniting Church,

Islam, Buddhism, Presbyterian, Hinduism, Greek, Orthodox, Baptist or Other.

And you could fill in the other.

This time, the reports from the religious groups was that you're going to be

asked, does the person have a religion?

And the response was no.

And then there would be boxes where you could fill in the name

of a religion if you have one.

But it's more than that.

It's got a box for no and a box for yes.

And then it says specify religion, which I think is completely fair.

So, so the new question, well, it's not new yet.

They're still arguing over it and of course getting more submissions

about this than they get about any other question in the census.

does the person have a religion?

The answering of this is optional.

The first checkbox is no.

The second checkbox is yes, and it says specify religion, and there's a

bunch of boxes that you could fill in.

So, Scott, if that gets up as the question for the census, then that's everything

we could possibly have ever hoped for.

Absolutely it is.

Yeah,

you know, I just don't understand why they didn't give them the option just

to tick the box and that sort of stuff.

You could have a few, you could have had up to a dozen boxes

that they could have ticked.

And if, if they didn't have it, then they could have actually said other.

And then they could have written that they could have written their religion

next to the other box if they wanted to.

That probably would have been fairer.

Well, is it?

You know, if people don't know what their religion is Well

then they don't have one.

Yeah.

So, and it creates a bias in favour of these favoured religions that

are, that are sort of listed there.

There would be a natural bias that people would be more likely to tick one

of those than to fill in some boxes.

They're going to argue that, you know, people write the name

of their religion differently.

Hmm.

And that some of their votes will be lost because they'll have been written in

a way that isn't recognised by the ABS.

Yes.

I think the ABS is intelligent enough to actually work out

what the differences are.

Yes.

Like if someone writes, if someone writes COA, they're going to be assuming

that would be Church of England.

But I guess Catholics are going to complain, Oh, they just wrote

Christian instead of Catholic and we sort of missed out on our number.

Well, I say you should have indoctrinated your flock better that they're Catholics.

I've never met a Roman Catholic that's called themselves a Christian.

They've always called themselves a Catholic.

I've perhaps chosen a bad example there.

But, that's the sort of thing that they're going to complain about.

Anyway, the Bureau of Statistics is, testing that question with focus

groups and others, just assessing what sort of responses they get.

So, yeah.

One of the biggest complaints was that people who were only nominally of a

religion, yeah, we will lose the cultural something or other was their claim.

Cultural Catholics?

Well, basically, it wasn't the cultural Catholics.

It was, were we losing people who identify with the culture

of the religion or whatever?

Yes.

In other words, we want to claim larger numbers than we really have.

Yes.

We want to claim cultural adherents who aren't necessarily religious.

Religious adherence.

People celebrate

Christmas and Easter and therefore they're Christians.

Yeah, yeah.

A couple more to run through.

Scott, how much longer have we got you for?

20

minutes tops.

5 minutes would be good.

Let

me stop snoring.

have you seen that picture of Gina Reinhardt?

Yeah, and, you know, she certainly, she certainly kicked a massive own

goal with her complaining about that.

Yes.

You know, it's one of those things like she complained about it,

she wanted it taken down and the guys and everything, they took over that

enormous Coca Cola sign at the front of

Times Square.

No, the front of the What the hell's the red light district in, in,

Kings

Cross?

Yeah,

yeah, they took that over and they put up that picture.

So that was a giant middle fingertiller.

Well, it's also going to be in Times Square.

Oh, is it?

Yes.

There was a Gay Fund Me type thing.

They've raised 30, 000.

Okay, it's an unflattering picture of her.

No, it's not flattering, but none of the pictures that were produced

in that series were flattering.

Correct.

It wasn't like he just did a picture of her and no one else.

He did it of a whole bunch of people.

And they're all this sort of comic caricature type thing that's quite

unflattering for nearly everybody.

Mm hmm.

And, this has been described as the Streisand Effect.

Have you heard of the Streisand Effect?

There was something about that she wanted, she didn't want anyone

in her house or something like that.

So she

Yeah, she had some beachside property or something.

She

sued, I think, To get, it was listed as some aerial photography

happened to catch her house and she sued to take it down.

And because it was a court case, all of the newspapers printed this

photograph that was at, issue.

Yes.

And I

think eventually the court found against her anyway.

yes.

But, but it was the point she was trying to be incognito and by bringing a a,

a trial to it, it brought attention.

Yes.

Well, John Sammons has hit the nail right on the head.

No one would have noticed it, and no one would have noticed

if she didn't say anything.

Exactly.

Ah, Joe, I, no, not Joe, sorry, Scott, I do

want to get this Taiwanese democracy thing in.

I better get this one in.

I just love this particular video of,

Okay, and this is the guy that stole that, piece of

legislation to get it out of the House so it couldn't be voted on?

Yeah, that's, that's the one.

this is I mean, because you are a man who's concerned that we might

lose that great democracy in Taiwan.

Yeah, I know, and it doesn't have a particularly long

history of being a democracy.

Like, when they first took it over, it was a military dictatorship,

and it took a long time.

Let's just have

a

quick sneak peek at how democracy works in Taiwan at the moment.

and off he goes.

So he basically grabs a bill and battles all these other people.

He's been given a job offer by the Lions, I hear.

I was looking at another picture the other day, or today actually, it was

another member of the parliament there, and she's wearing a bicycle helmet.

And sort of gloves and forearm protectors.

Like she's about to enter like the roller derby.

You remember those old roller derby ones where they would sling somebody through

against the evil characters and they'd.

She was dressed like that, basically, sitting in the parliament, as one of the

parliamentarians, ready to do battle in one of the regular fights that occurs

in that glorious democracy in Taiwan.

It's

one of those things, like, you know, that house does have a

history of getting into fisticuffs.

And that was the, Democrats and that sort of stuff that were very pissed off

at the Kuomintang because the Kuomintang bloated their numbers by retaining what

they called the Old Guard, which were the guys that were still representing

mainland seats, which they no longer, which they no longer controlled and

they hadn't been elected in years.

So these Old Guard, they never stood down or anything like that,

not until they actually finally voted themselves out of office.

And that was where you ended up with democracy actually flourishing.

Yes, so, it was a strange incident, the member of Taiwan's

parliament, picked up a bill and ran off with it to prevent it from being passed,

and, some of the commentators on social media, some of the comments were, Hey

Phil, can you just email it to all of us?

And, and fucking Harold just ran off with the hard copy again.

Another one said, is there a bill about stealing bills?

And, imagine the surprise when they just printed out another copy.

So, that's what's going on there.

And, legislator Chen Yu jen.

She wears a bicycle helmet these days, so she can de battle with them.

That's the democracy in Taiwan.

Speaking of democracies,

there's a survey done by the Latana Democracy Perception Index, where, where

people ask, well they ask people, how they feel about their countries, as

to whether they are democratic or not.

And, the three most democratic countries, based on the feelings of

their population, were Israel, 83%, Vietnam, 81%, And, drumroll, China on 79%.

Really?

Yes.

Third highest country considered that they have a, a democracy.

So,

least

democratic were Hungary, Venezuela and Iran.

So, I know talking to the Chinese homestays, so I know it's anecdotal

data, but a lot of Chinese people are very happy with their country.

System of government.

If you want to be into politics, join the Communist Party, work

your way up through the system.

That's how they do it.

And culturally we have to recognise other cultures have a different

way of running what they feel is a representative political class.

Yeah, I know that.

And it's just one of those things like, you know, China has a history

of it because one of the things that, shocked me was the difference

of opinion over Tiananmen Square.

Now, this has happened many years ago when my brother brought someone out

here from over there and, you know, he was talking quite freely because

he wasn't on China, Chinese territory.

He was out here in Australia.

He was just talking about it.

And he said that the reason why the Chinese government cracks down so

hard is because a number of them remember The, what's it called?

The, the revolution, not the actual revolution, but the cultural revolution.

And they didn't want a repeat of that.

So

that's why they cracked down so hard on it, because they thought that

the students were going to send the country to a second cultural revolution.

It's one of those things and, and, you know, I don't, aside from, you

know, China's threats to Taiwan and everything else, I don't really

have a major problem with them,

you know,

it's, and their own people, you know, will have to agree to disagree

over the, the people that were being, The Uyghurs and that sort of thing, but, it's

just, it doesn't have a real oppressive tone about it to the Han Chinese.

The Chinese, who are the majority, seem to get along okay.

But anyone that's a little bit different, they don't get along

as well as the Han Chinese do.

Hmm.

Anyway, if it's comforting, things are going much better in

the American political system.

No, it's

not.

It's a disaster.

They don't have, they don't have bicycles on, bicycle helmets on, but

given the sort of, the cat claws that are unfurled here, maybe they should.

I'd like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are

employing, Judge Mershon's daughter.

Please tell me what that has to do with Mary Garland.

Is she a porn star?

Oh, Goldman.

That's right.

He's advising.

Okay.

He's advising who?

What?

Do you, do you know what we're here for?

You know we're here about I don't think you know what you're here for.

Well, you're the one talking about I think your fake eyelashes are messing

up No, I ain't nothing Hold on, hold

on.

Order, Mr.

Chairman.

That's beneath even you, Ms.

Green.

That's beneath even you.

I do have a point of order, and I would like to move to take down Ms.

Green's words.

That is absolutely unacceptable.

How dare you, attack the physical appearance of another person.

Oh, it goes on and on and on.

John in the chatroom, yes, I did get it.

the latest episode of PIP has something about some US governor who's

gonna pardon a murderer, I believe.

That just reminded me with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Mm.

I am thankful for Randy Rainbow.

Randy Rainbow.

Yeah, he's, a YouTuber who does, take offs of Broadway musical numbers.

Yep.

That are of a political bent, and he did, Hanya a Karen?

About Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert, I think it was.

Right.

Right.

Right.

I haven't seen it.

I've just seen her on screen.

You have to find Randy Rainbow and get a little lost.

Okay.

there we go.

John says, I like it.

They have passion.

Was that about the Americans or the, Oh, John says, yeah, John

says he's already pardoned him.

It's worth a listen.

Yes, Pep is a very good, I haven't got round to Pep this week, but, there we go.

Okay.

well, Scots.

Ready for bed and this might be a good stage for us to stop and um, and

continue the stuff next week, I think.

Next week we could talk about The Iranian president who

died in the helicopter crash.

Mm hmm.

We could talk about It's

surprising that they haven't accused Israel of that.

Yeah.

we can talk about protectionism with tariffs and the chips and a

really interesting little video from A professor at MIT, an expert

on chips, basically saying China is unbeatable now when it comes to chips.

Um, the helicopter incident where an Australian helicopter

was supposedly conducting,

Enforcement of the, Sanctioned

enforcement stuff off North Korea.

But

Renewables, the latest, levelised cost of energy report.

Laura the Sea stuff, yeah.

And, Ayame, one of our supporters, wants us to talk about overpopulation, which

we will get to at some stage, Ayame.

So, yeah, plenty to talk about.

oh, Scott, and even the Greens.

What about them?

Wanting to bump up mining royalties.

Yeah, I know they want to bump them up.

Yeah, you'd be happy about that?

Well,

yes, I'm quite happy about that.

Another reason to vote Green.

No, I'm not looking forward to it, but I've already agreed to it.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think that we're going to find out just how bad they're going

to be after the state poll in October.

Because I think they're actually going to prop up a minority Myles government.

Yeah.

It's yeah.

If Myles can get enough seats, yeah.

If Myles can't get enough seats, then I think the Labour Party is

going to be propped up by the Greens.

Yeah.

Look, I've got one other clip.

I'll get rid of this clip.

So I've got more for other clips next week, but this one really.

Got me.

This is a guy who has just crossed over the Rio Grande and got into America and,

let me just see if I can find this one.

Not another Victorian.

this guy's Turkish and he's just being interviewed as he's, as

he's crossed over and, he's, he's, he's

Did you have to pay a cartel?

Yes.

How much?

Around 10, 000.

10, 000?

Yes.

In fact, the American people is right, completely true.

Who come into this country, they don't know.

Okay, I'm good, but how if they're not good?

How they have killers, psychopaths, elves?

No guarantee of that.

Like, no security check.

No background check.

No security check, no background check, you're worrying

about who's crossing the border?

Yes, yes, yes.

They are, of course, maybe because I'm like, people are not look normal.

Two seconds into crossing the border.

He's already, he's already turned into a xenophobe.

And he's

complaining about illegal immigrants.

Yeah.

And how are they, how are they letting these people in here?

It's going to stop because you don't know who they are.

They could be crazy people.

Exactly.

You know.

Talk about whipping the ladder up after you've climbed up, like, that guy is, is

still He's still wet, and he's saying, gotta stop this illegal immigration

Give it a generation and you get Suella Braverman He

doesn't even need a generation, he's crossed the border and he's

an instant Republican Yeah He's assimilated, yeah, Greg says, trying

to show he can assimilate Ha ha ha ha He definitely has done that.

Ah, boy.

There we go.

That's a good one to finish on.

Yeah.

It was very amusing.

All right.

Thanks for your comments in the chat room.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

We will be back next week.

Bye for now.

And it's a good night from me.

And it's a good night for him.