Three new polls this week provide an early indications of a slight revival in the Coalition’s fortunes after the MH17 disaster and, some might claim, the carbon tax repeal. However, this week’s BludgerTrack poll aggregate result differs only slightly from the one I published a week ago, for two reasons. The first is that a data entry error led an undercooked Labor lead last week of 53.5-46.5, which should have been 54.1-45.9. The second is that this week’s polls only imperfectly capture the effect of a news event which Australia woke up to on Friday morning. The earliest of the three was Nielsen, conducted from Thursday to Saturday, which showed no change to the recent trend in having Labor leading 54-46. Then came this week’s Essential Research sample which was surveyed from Friday to Monday, and caused the fortnightly rolling average to move a point in the Coalition’s favour. Most timely of the three was Monday night’s ReachTEL poll, which was the Coalition’s best result from the pollster since late March. After a fairly flat period since the budget, this makes next week’s Newspoll of particular interest.
Going off a corrected result for last week, this week’s seat projection has the Coalition up one in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania, but down one in Queensland. The last federal poll we will ever get from Nielsen provides this week’s only new contribution on leadership ratings, and it’s enough to produce an upward tick for Tony Abbott for the first time since the budget, and also to narrow the gap on preferred prime minister. Bill Shorten meanwhile maintains a slow descent that has been evident since a spike in the wake of the budget. Full results as always on the sidebar.
Lots of Israelis are critical of IDF actions in the occupied territories, where (it must be remembered), they genuinely have no right to be.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-gideon-levy-the-most-hated-man-in-israel-or-just-the-most-heroic-2087909.html
That includes a lot for former IDF too.
TAhe real problem here is that influential swathes of Israel’s political classes and their supporters dont want a two-state solution, and are only pretending to under sufferance. With the collusion and diplomatic cover of a lot of the west.
In short, its all bollocks. Maybe we could all stop kidding ourselves about this one, and take Middle Eastern politics from there. Here’s Haaretz:
[“The single most overwhelming item of evidence of Israel’s rejection of peace is, of course, the settlements project…. In plain words: The builders of settlements want to consolidate the occupation, and those who want to consolidate the occupation do not want peace. That’s the whole story in a nutshell.” ]
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.601112#.U8XM6nJYA10.facebook
Josh Taylor @joshgnosis 13m
Worth noting that the discussion paper obtained by @BernardKeane is the one AGD told me didn’t exist when I sought it under FOI a month ago.
Josh Taylor @joshgnosis 6m
I requested a review on the grounds of ‘wtf?’ And they got an extension on the review today because someone’s away.
Someone is interfering with Freedom of Information Requests.
guytaur@797. So Israel should start letting Hamas bring in more modern and powerful weapons so that Hamas could make more targeted attacks on Israeli targets? So then Israel could scale back its responses?
Is that your logic.
Ironically, Waleed Ali left out the Second Congo War.
Not only was this the deadliest of all wars by far since WW2, it is possible that more people died in the Second Congo War war than in all other wars put together since WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War
I dare say that not one person in fifty thousand in the rest of the world knew (or knows) anything much about the Second Congo War, let alone felt outrage about its human impacts.
Boerwar @ 780
[So, if Israel withdrew completely from the West Bank and Gaza, leaving the area to its own devices entirely:]
So because the West Bank and Gaza are not economically viable under Israeli occupation and all the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians, they shouldn’t be allowed to have their own state?
If you walled off Sydney from the rest of the world and severely restricted what the city could import and prevented most exports what do you think would happen to its economy?
Also, how much does Israel pay for all the water it takes from the WB and Gaza, which is the primary reason it wants to continue its occupation?
When did Israel’s economy become self sustaining, reliant neither on American foreign aid or material assistance including research, and contributions from mostly American Jews? Answer here: PDF
ruawake
Both sides have used “grad” rockets which have been around since WWII . The Ukraine according to wiki has a number of the smerch systems.
The old school ones may be old but I still wouldn’t like to be anywhere near them. Short video of Bulgarians practising with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-lGwyySrwY
Boerwar
I don’t think the Growth rate in the area would continue as you project. The demographics of the area are similar to other 3rd world countries, increased education and health tends to result in lower population growth.
[It beats me why the Greens, ostensibly secular, are so keen on deus ex machina ‘solutions’.
The problem of being more and more environmentally and economically unsustainable is manna from heaven.]
Don’t really understand this…. So the greens are Secular, yes, but what has that got to do with economic solutions for the future Palestinian State? Should one every exist (I doubt I will see it). Of course if there is a chance for a Palestinian State to exist other countries will move to support it.
I really don’t know what you are talking about in the second sentence. Seems to be some weird attack on the Greens. God knows why, this has nothing to do with the Greens.
[Abbott is hedging his bets, “if the operation goes ahead” is his latest position. Oh and another 100 AFP plod off to the UK (to do what, I have no idea).]
So the AFP must be terribly over resourced then?
ZOILORDS – Lots of voters out there are going to be SO UNHAPPY with Gorgeous George interfering with their internet. What a vote loser. But Georgie wouldn’t understand that because he’s a 17th century man who thinks that bookshelves are a modern gadget.
baba
At least that way casulties of Israelis would equal those in Gaza.
This would dramatically reduce the desire for war.
[KEVIN-ONE-SEVEN
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 4:38 pm | Permalink
BOERWAR – So let me get this right. The Israelis crush the palestinian economy…]
The Israelis collect MOST of the taxes used by the Palestinian Government.
There used to be a much larger economic integration between Israel and the Palestinian Territories but the Intifatah was only made possible by large-scale cross border movement of people and goods. So Israel now uses large numbers of 457 equivalents from elsewhere in the world.
[… and that gives them an excuse for continuing to crush them.]
Who said anything about ‘exuses’?
[Actually, the wealthy gulf states would be very happy to step in help the palestinians get back on their feet.]
The good old Greens’ manna from heaven solution to everything. There is always somebody else’s capital from somewhere else to solve every problem.
Boerwar
[The good old Greens’ manna from heaven solution to everything. There is always somebody else’s capital from somewhere else to solve every problem.]
What is your stupid obsession with the Greens? Jeepers get over it.
Boerwar @ 812
[There is always somebody else’s capital from somewhere else to solve every problem.]
Seemed to work well for Israel. Still does.
So Hamas is Gillard and Israel is Rudd?
Boerwar
Your point about economics… Well the various statements you make about the economics of the Palestinian territories need to be explained as at the moment they are a series of disconnected statements.
“@sarahinthesen8: Mr Morrison is a spectacular failure by his own measure, as well as the measure of the international community and decent caring Australians”
K17
Brandis will console us with vouchers fr $25000 bookshelves.
[Astrobleme
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
I don’t think the Growth rate in the area would continue as you project. The demographics of the area are similar to other 3rd world countries, increased education and health tends to result in lower population growth.]
Gaza has a population density of around 4000 people per sqk. The West Bank has a population density of around 400 people per sqk. Gaza has the classic demographic bomb profile: 40% of its population is less than 14 years old. The next generation is more or less locked in. That would give Gaza a population density of 8000 people per square kilometre and fewer natural resources. Have a think about what that really means in terms of sustainability.
[ It beats me why the Greens, ostensibly secular, are so keen on deus ex machina ‘solutions’.
The problem of being more and more environmentally and economically unsustainable is manna from heaven.]
[Don’t really understand this…. So the greens are Secular, yes, but what has that got to do with economic solutions for the future Palestinian State? Should one every exist (I doubt I will see it). Of course if there is a chance for a Palestinian State to exist other countries will move to support it.]
What it means is that there is no obvious foreseeable internal pathway to environmental or economic sustainability and that the trends are all bad for the Palestinian Territories. There might be small incremental gains from having free foreign movement to and from the Palestinian territories. But it is extremely difficult to see that this would reverse the really large deficits in the current account, national debt and trade balance.
That is to say, the real issue for the Palestinian Territories is that they are in a totally unsustainable condition.
The Greens solution to this is foreign donors. Just like that.
These would be same foreign donors who are funding ISIS, Heshbollah and the like. They are not funding these groups for any sort of sustainability reasons. They are funding them in the pursuit of power through violent means.
No, don’t arm the Palestinians. Get the UN to occupy the Palestinian Territories. Keep doing this until both sides don’t want to continue hostilities anymore. Both sides rebuild. Win-win.
It’s a bit like Bosnia and Kosovo but even more imbalanced.
I agree with Waleed. The Palestine-Israel conflict is very minor conflict on a world scale. In the fifty years or so it’s been going on, only 22,000 people have been killed. That’s about 500 a year.
More people died in one day at Antietam in the US Civil War.
It’s a storm in a teacup that the Right and Left love whipping up.
[slothy
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5:02 pm | Permalink
Boerwar @ 812
There is always somebody else’s capital from somewhere else to solve every problem.
Seemed to work well for Israel. Still does.]
Much of Israel’s capital is self-generated. Capital borrowings are serviced.
There is no real prospect of the Palestinians being able to do either in the foreseeable future.
But the issue here is not the sustainability of Israel.
The issue is whether all the temporary sound and fury of the periodic wars, and indeed of the effective siege of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, hides a more important issue: the thorough-going environmental, economic, social and political unsustainability of the Palestinian Territories, now.. and in any possible configuration of a Palestinian state.
For mine it is really simple:
Israel was given an area of land in 1948 but it has never been enough for them so they encroach on Palestine by sending rockets over there in an attempt to gain more Palestinian land.
Shame on them!
Netanyahu is an egomaniac and deserves to be condemned.
Let’s hope that the US and others will seek some conclusion before we have an all out war – that would be just what we need.
821 Diogenes
[The Palestine-Israel conflict is very minor conflict on a world scale]
That’s a fair statement. Africa’s going through much worse as a whole and the world doesn’t care.
Still it doesn’t make any death any less tragic.
822
The Yanks still give a large chunk of their foreign budget to Israel don’t they?
824
I’ve found it.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/heres-how-much-america-really-spends-on-israels-defense-2012-9
$3B from the US. About another $10 comes from Israel’s taxpayers. This is purely on Israel’s defence.
Summary of US aid to Israel since 1949
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html
Boerwar
[The Greens solution to this is foreign donors. Just like that.
These would be same foreign donors who are funding ISIS, Heshbollah and the like. They are not funding these groups for any sort of sustainability reasons. They are funding them in the pursuit of power through violent means.]
What is wrong with your brain? Jesus…
GDP of Israeli economy is around 300 billion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
Percentage of US aid as a percentage of Israel’s GDP in later years: 1%.
Most of that goes straight into military equipment.
Dio
[I agree with Waleed. The Palestine-Israel conflict is very minor conflict on a world scale. In the fifty years or so it’s been going on, only 22,000 people have been killed. That’s about 500 a year.
More people died in one day at Antietam in the US Civil War.
It’s a storm in a teacup that the Right and Left love whipping up.]
This is mostly ture. The conflict really started in the 1920s though so it’s almost 100 years.
Yes, it’s more of a conflict with symbolism. However, should the World (or even the people that live there) one day find a solution, it may be possible to emulate that around the World.
[Astrobleme
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5:19 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
The Greens solution to this is foreign donors. Just like that.
These would be same foreign donors who are funding ISIS, Heshbollah and the like. They are not funding these groups for any sort of sustainability reasons. They are funding them in the pursuit of power through violent means.
What is wrong with your brain? Jesus…]
OK. Sorry for getting my Greensthink wrong. This is what I really meant:
The reason that foreign countries are funding Heshbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, sundry bands of noble rebels in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and ISIS is because they want to improve the social, environmental and political sustainability of the civilians in areas in which these organisations operate.
Boerwar @ 882
[The issue is whether all the temporary sound and fury of the periodic wars, and indeed of the effective siege of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, hides a more important issue: the thorough-going environmental, economic, social and political unsustainability of the Palestinian Territories, now.. and in any possible configuration of a Palestinian state.]
So how will Israel manage this because much will be the case with, or without a state? More vigorous culling than now occurs?
The only difference is that the demographics issue is likely to be far worse in the long term as an occupied territory than as a sovereign state and the peace that will hopefully bring.
In a sovereign state the Palestinians will also have an opportunity to work elsewhere, for example in the Gulf states which currently import labour from Africa and SE Asia, etc.
Boerwar
[The reason that foreign countries are funding Heshbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, sundry bands of noble rebels in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and ISIS is because they want to improve the social, environmental and political sustainability of the civilians in areas in which these organisations operate.]
I have no idea why you wrote this.
Measures in place before the Abbott Government took office had cut the rate of asylum boat arrivals by about 90% by early December 2013 without significant new actions or changes of policy on the part of the new government. At a rate of about 90 arrivals per week, with further falls likely, especially given that it was the Monsoon season, Scott Morrison could have taken credit for the reduction while blaming Labor for any failures, which in fact was what he seemed to be doing late last year. The media, especially that consumed by voters who hear the dog whistle, would have actively supported this lie while most of the rest (like our ABC) would have repeated it with little challenge.
Meanwhile, he could have gone about negotiating with our neighbours and transit countries to come up with a proper regional plan, with a view to eventually closing Manus and Nauru. There was no need to violate Indonesia’s territorial waters, lock people up on prison ships, abondon asylum seekers on orange lifeboats, trash Australia’s international reputation, involve the military in what is essentially a civilian matter nor for the whole ‘hide the boats’ thing.
We may have still been experiencing a one or two boat arrivals per month. Nothing beyond the wit of a wealthy, grown up country to deal with.
If Abbott manages to get any Australians killed in the Ukraine I doubt that he will be getting much applause for it.
Ch 10 news on MH17 had the obligitory shots of Abbott and JBishop but most of the story centred around EU people in the area. They actually mentioned that the Dutch would be leading any mission. This is the first time I have seen any real reference to what other countries are doing in Oz media.
This is a crucial turning point in the story. Anything Australia does from here on will be as part of a larger international effort led by the Dutch and the EU.
The world’s foremost negotiator will no longer be playing a game changing leading role.
[slothy
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 4:55 pm | Permalink
Boerwar @ 780
So, if Israel withdrew completely from the West Bank and Gaza, leaving the area to its own devices entirely:
So because the West Bank and Gaza are not economically viable under Israeli occupation and all the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians, they shouldn’t be allowed to have their own state?]
I support a two state solution. I was pointing out that there are huge underlying sustainability problems that are, IMHO, far more serious than intermittent, low-level warfare.
[If you walled off Sydney from the rest of the world and severely restricted what the city could import and prevented most exports what do you think would happen to its economy?]
The traffic would improve out of sight.
The comparison is, however, false. If the walls around Gaza fell down, there is no hinterland for Gaza. Sydney has two hinterlands: the state of NSW and the, for example, the financial hinterland of the whole of Australia.
[Also, how much does Israel pay for all the water it takes from the WB and Gaza, which is the primary reason it wants to continue its occupation?]
(1) I agree that a two state solution would need to include a settlement of water allocations, nothing that Israel produces 50% of its domestic needs from desalination.
(2) I would be reasonably sure that if the outcome was a stable, sustainable Palestine which posed no threat to Israel, the Israelis would come to the table on water.
[hen did Israel’s economy become self sustaining, reliant neither on American foreign aid or material assistance including research, and contributions from mostly American Jews? Answer here: PDF]
I provided a table which shows that Israel would be economically sustainable without direct capital transfers from the US.
The Palestinians, incidentally, are among the world’s biggest per capita recipients of foreign aid with the US being one of the largest donors to Palestinians. I don’t have figures for the latter but it would run to billions of dollars.
I repeat my original view: the Palestinian Territories are environmentally and economically unsustainable. They run budget deficits, have a huge debt-to-GDP ratio and they run huge trade deficits.
This issue is far larger, far more significant and far more intractible than the results of temporary and limited war fighting.
Yet it never rates a mention anywhere.
Re Darn @834: and I doubt he’d call a Royal Commission to investigate it.
[Astrobleme
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
Boerwar
The reason that foreign countries are funding Heshbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, sundry bands of noble rebels in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and ISIS is because they want to improve the social, environmental and political sustainability of the civilians in areas in which these organisations operate.
I have no idea why you wrote this.]
When I wrote about the economic unsustainability of the Palestinian Territories several Greensish posters suggested that gulf states or the Saudis would be glad to fund the Palestinians.
My point is that they might want to do so but that their interests in doing so might have absolutely nothing to do with the economic or environmental sustainability of the Palestinian Territories.
@JakeSaulwick: Passengers have been evacuated from pltfms 24 and 25 at Central. Some are saying people on a train started coughing http://t.co/srpSseJR2t
@michaelkoziol: Devonshire St tunnel closed, hazardous material team investigating: http://t.co/aane9kVIaz via @smh
feeney@776
Israel supports a Palestinian State. Provided it has continually shrinking territory. 🙁
[slothy
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5:27 pm | Permalink
Boerwar @ 882
The issue is whether all the temporary sound and fury of the periodic wars, and indeed of the effective siege of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, hides a more important issue: the thorough-going environmental, economic, social and political unsustainability of the Palestinian Territories, now.. and in any possible configuration of a Palestinian state.
So how will Israel manage this because much will be the case with, or without a state? More vigorous culling than now occurs?]
I don’t know. Australia faces distant echoes of the same conundrum: what do we do about economically-failed island Pacific states and what do we do when they are forced to evacuate their homelands because of rising sea levels? At least in Australia’s case the people concerned don’t hate us enough to want to kill large numbers of us.
[The only difference is that the demographics issue is likely to be far worse in the long term as an occupied territory than as a sovereign state and the peace that will hopefully bring.]
I support a two state solution. You appear to believe that a Palestinian state would become environmentally and economically sustainable as if by magic and in defiance of all the current trends.
[In a sovereign state the Palestinians will also have an opportunity to work elsewhere, for example in the Gulf states which currently import labour from Africa and SE Asia, etc.]
Gazans can’t do that ATM because of the Israeli and Egyptian blocade but large numbers of West Bank Palestinians work in foreign countries. That might explain why those on the West Bank have average incomes for times those of Gazans.
The pernicious impacts of Israeli restrictions are summarized in the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_freedom_of_movement#Economic_effects
So, whats on the menu this evening.
Israel vs Palestine
Abbott vs Putin
Morriscum vs Defenceless Refugees
Boewar vs Bludger
Boerwar
[When I wrote about the economic unsustainability of the Palestinian Territories several Greensish posters suggested that gulf states or the Saudis would be glad to fund the Palestinians.
My point is that they might want to do so but that their interests in doing so might have absolutely nothing to do with the economic or environmental sustainability of the Palestinian Territories.]
Well you may be right, but when we said that the various states would support Palestine it wasn’t in that context. It was simply an opinion of what would happen, rather than an opinion of what we would like to happen.
mikehilliard
[Morriscum vs Defenceless Refugees]
mh
*laughs*
Cruel but true.
Rua
[BM-30 Smerch rockets]
The Rebels use them shoulder launched. 😀
Incidentally, and while we are talking about how sustainable the Palestinian Territories are, stone cutting is still a significant industry.
[CTar1
Posted Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5:53 pm | Permalink
Rua
BM-30 Smerch rockets
The Rebels use them shoulder launched.]
My wayward brain keeps reading that as:
‘BM-30 Smersh rockets’
The have mlrs units now. .