The United Kingdom, Canada and Australia on Sunday all recognized a putative Palestinian state, acting amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

The synchronized announcements, coming within minutes of each other, defied opposition from the American and Israeli governments, which said such a move would be a reward for terrorism.

“Since 1947, it has been the policy of every Canadian government to support a two-state solution for lasting peace in the Middle East,” read a written statement by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “This envisioned the creation of a sovereign, democratic and viable State of Palestine, building its future in peace and security alongside the State of Israel.

“Hamas has terrorized the people of Israel and oppressed the people of Gaza, wreaking horrific suffering,” the statement continued. “It is imperative that Hamas release all hostages, fully disarm and play no role in the future governance of Palestine. Hamas has stolen from the Palestinian people, cheated them of their life and liberty, and can in no way dictate their future.

“The current Israeli government is working methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established. … It is in this context that Canada recognizes the State of Palestine and offers our partnership in building the promise of a peaceful future for both the State of Palestine and the State of Israel,” Carney said.

Delusional in so many ways. The two-state solution was a dream that was worth pursuing, but it has become abundantly clear that the Palestinians don’t support it and that it is now a mere fantasy. You can’t have a two-state solution when one state wants to obliterate the other.

And a country such as Canada can say all it wants that it is imperative that Hamas release all hostages, fully disarm, and play no future role in “Palestine.” Empty blather. What are you going to do to make that happen, Carney? Reward them with a recognized state – at present, when they have steadfastly refused to do any such things (au contraire) and have toyed with useful idiots such as you?

But perhaps the worst part of Carney’s message was this slander:

The current Israeli government is working methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established.

Oh, if only there was no Netanyahu and his administration, working so hard to prevent a glorious and peacefully co-existing Palestinian state that the Palestinians have tried so hard to establish, the dream of peace would be realized. Either Carney knows zero about the history of the area or is lying in order to placate his constituents (among them quite a few local Muslims; Canada was about 5% Muslim in 2021 and that percentage has probably only increased since then, whereas its Jewish population is about 1%) – or he’s both ignorant and pandering.

I vote for both. There may be a dose of anti-Semitism thrown in there as well. A toxic brew.

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“Australia will recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own. We will work with the international community to make this right a reality,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

Albanese claimed that a two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict is “humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” AFP reported.

The two-state solution or a magic wand, whichever comes first. Albanese is a fool and a knave, but he’s got a lot of company. Most of the English-speaking world seems determined to go down that path, except Trump. It occurs to me, however, that if Kamala Harris had been elected, the US probably would be following in their footsteps right about now.

And the hostages? What of them? It would be obvious to a second-grader that these promises to recognize a state would end any pressure on Gaza to release them in a deal. Why agree to a deal and give up the precious hostages, when the West is already promising to reward the Palestinians?

This concession by Australia represents a change:

The decision “undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence,” added the [Israeli ambassador to Australia], noting that Albanese’s government previously set strict conditions for it to recognize a Palestinian state, including “renouncing violence, freeing hostages and establishing credible, accountable governance.

“However, the Australian government has abandoned those conditions and proceeded with recognition for symbolic reasons rather than genuine progress toward peace,” Maimon wrote in an X post.

I think the word “symbolic” there is accurate. After all, what does this “recognition” mean in practical terms? I’m not sure, but it is morally repugnant and quite obviously rewards some of the worst terrorists and Jew-haters the world has ever known. Yes, these nations getting ready to do the recognition also say that Hamas has got to go, but in the meantime they are helping them and causing a prolongation of the war – without a single suggestion or even thought of how it is that Hamas will indeed go, or any proof whatsoever that the PA would be any better.

The post Sympathy for the terrorists: as the UK, France, and Canada go, so goes Australia … appeared first on The New Neo.

The man stabbed shoppers as he moved through the shopping centre – including a mother and her nine-month-old baby.

– Video footage appears to show a shopper confronting the attacker on an escalator in the centre by holding a bollard [see this] towards him.

– Emergency services were called to Westfield Bondi Junction at around 3.30pm, following reports that multiple people had been stabbed.

– A female police officer who was nearby went into the centre alone and approached the attacker who had by this point moved to level five of the shopping centre.

– The officer shot the attacker after he turned to face her, raised a knife and lunged at her.

– The officer conducted CPR on the attacker until the arrival of paramedics, who worked on the man; however, he could not be revived.

Knives can be very very deadly, and of course just about everyone possesses one. Five of the six dead are women; I don’t know how many of the injured are women. Did the killer target women, or is it just that most of the mall shoppers were women?

In addition, we have this statement:

Police did confirm the attacker acted alone and was known to them. They also said that they do not believe his motive was related to terrorism.

“If it is the person we believe it is, we don’t have fear for that person holding an ideation,” Webb said.

“In other words, that it’s not a terrorism incident.

“We believe that this person acted alone and there’s no ongoing threat to the community.”

I’ll believe it when you tell me more about the attacker – his name and his history, for starters. He could be a random crazy. Or he could indeed be a terrorist, although a free-lancer.

The baby is in critical condition; the mother has died. Absolutely horrific.

The police officer who shot the killer is reported to have been at the mall on an unrelated matter. It’s a good thing she was there, because the death toll almost undoubtedly would have been higher if she hadn’t been already on the scene.

It might have been lower, however, if some of the regular shoppers had been armed, or if the assailant had the notion that they might be. Gun laws in Australia are quite strict:

In the last two decades of the 20th century, following several high-profile killing sprees, the federal government coordinated more restrictive firearms legislation with all state governments.

Gun laws were largely aligned in 1996 by the National Firearms Agreement. In two federally funded gun buybacks and voluntary surrenders and State Governments’ gun amnesties before and after the Port Arthur Massacre, more than a million firearms were collected and destroyed, possibly a third of the national stock.[1]

A person must have a firearm licence to possess or use a firearm. Licence holders must demonstrate a “genuine reason” (which does not include self-defence) for holding a firearm licence[2] and must not be a “prohibited person”. All firearms must be registered by serial number to the owner.

In December 2023 National Cabinet agreed to implement a national firearms register within four years.

None of the articles I’ve seen mention whether the mall was a gun-free zone.

RIP to the victims.

UPDATE: Random crazed killer it is: the perp had a history of mental illness (schizophrenia) and obsession with weapons, especially knives.

We now have pretty good drugs for schizophrenia, but it’s not unusual for patients to make a decision to go off them without telling anyone. It’s possible that happened in this case, although that’s a total guess on my part.

Five women were killed and the sole male victim is said to have been a security guard. This makes me wonder once again whether the killer was targeting women.

And now, just a couple of minutes after writing the above paragraph, I read this:

Chilling footage showed Cauchi ignore a man who had bravely attempted to confront him during the attack.

Speculation has been raised the knifeman had been targetting women.

Today show host Karl Stefanovic said he had ‘no words’.

‘I don’t care what the excuses are, and I hope there’s a special place in hell reserved for him, given the fact that he walked past men, and didn’t do anything about it and attacked women,’ he said.

‘A woman with a baby.’

Seems to be young women he was intent on attacking – plus the baby. I haven’t read anything describing the victims who survived (they are now reported to number 12), and whether they were young women, too. One of the murder victims was Dawn Singleton, 25, the daughter of a wealthy businessman. She was engaged to marry her childhood sweetheart.

The post Knife attack in Sydney [scroll down for UPDATE] appeared first on The New Neo.

And that has panned out, because—surprise, surprise!— “Morrison celebrates ‘miracle’ win”:

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has thanked voters for re-electing his conservative coalition in a shock result at the federal polls.

He told supporters he had “always believed in miracles” as partial results showed the Liberal-National Coalition close to a majority.

Opposition Labor Party leader Bill Shorten has announced he is resigning after accepting defeat.

Exit polls had suggested a narrow Labor win for the first time in six years…

Try finding someone who says they saw this result coming.

For well over two years, the coalition has trailed behind Labor in the opinion polls, and the assumption had been it would be Labor’s turn to govern.

But somehow Scott Morrison managed to turn things around at the 11th hour – and he did it largely on his own.

And this reminded me of Nixon’s “silent majority”:

Thanking his opponent, Mr Morrison paid tribute to “the quiet Australians” who had voted for the Coalition.

I’ve read speculation about why the polls keep being wrong these days, and often in the same direction of underestimating votes on the right. Some say it’s because a significant number of respondents on the right lie to pollsters about their prospective votes. There probably are such people, of course. But I don’t think that’s really what’s going on for the most part. My hunch is that people on the right (and certainly Trump voters of either party in 2016) are less likely to answer pollsters at all, and are more likely to hang up. Pollsters try to correct for low cooperation rates by correcting their samples for party balance, but I think in the current climate that’s especially inadequate. Turnout is very very difficult to predict.

Of course, a great many people would disagree with me, and say that the pollsters are purposely getting it wrong in order to motivate people on the left to go out and vote. For various reasons, I don’t think that’s what’s happening. The first is that it’s not clear whether overestimating or underestimating is the greater motivator, so it’s a big gamble if that’s what they’re doing. The second is that pollsters’ reputations are damaged by faulty polls that fail to accurately predict the outcome. Maybe at the beginning of a campaign they’re fudging the results somewhat for motivational reasons, but as the election draws closer I think they are quite motivated to get it right.

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