"The amount of overwhelming sentiments that I have received in terms of the heartache, the pain, the loss of hope, not knowing, you know - seeing the devastation, the destruction. I know it’s quite early to be talking about this, but seeing limbs of young children being blown off and, you know, amputations taking place without any anaesthetics, these are live-streamed. The genocide that’s taking place in Gaza and impacting Palestinians is being live-streamed and it’s impacting so many Australians who are a people of a fair-go, who are a people that want to see freedom, want to see Palestinians have the right to self-determination and statehood. So it’s been a very heartbreaking last 10 months and hopefully I will continue to use my voice in spaces and platforms that I get granted to raise concerns because these are universal principles of justice, equality and freedom that we all should share and advocate for.”
A quote from Senator Payman this morning. She's right about the impact of live streaming in popular sentiment towards war and civilian casualties. People might accept a death toll of say 40 000 as an abstract figure, but their indifference subsides when confronted by ongoing live images of children being incinerated. Precisely where majority community sentiment lies in this conflict is hard to tell, but support for Israel is lower now with the exposure of what their invasion means on the ground than it was going into the conflict. If ever there's a country that needs public support outside its own borders its Israel. Do they really want a future where the west is either indifferent to them, or backing the Arab side?
