Israel intends to take control of all of Gaza: Netanyahu
NETANYAHU’S EXPANSION PLAN
Benjamin Netanyahu has told Fox News that Israel intends to take control of all of Gaza, as the United Nations warns such a move would have “catastrophic consequences”.
Speaking to the US broadcaster on Thursday ahead of a security cabinet meeting to discuss expanding military operations in Gaza, the Israeli prime minister was asked about the potential decision and responded: “We intend to”.
The BBC reports Netanyahu declared: “We intend to, in order to ensure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza and to pass it to civilian governance — that is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.” He added: “We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas.”
The broadcaster says the Israeli PM also claimed Israel does “not want to keep it [Gaza]. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body.”
Hamas said in a statement that Netanyahu’s comments “represent a clear reversal of the course of [ceasefire] negotiations and clearly reveal the true motives behind his withdrawal from the final round [of talks]”. Hamas said Netanyahu was “planning to continue his approach of genocide and displacement by committing more crimes”.
The New York Times points out that an Israeli attempt to take control of Gaza would go against “the advice of the Israeli military and warnings that expanding operations could endanger the hostages being held there and kill more Palestinian civilians”. The paper highlights Israel’s military chief of staff Eyal Zamir has reportedly pushed back against the plan.
The Guardian also says any military expansion would be launched in the face of opposition from many in Israel, including the families of hostages who remain in Hamas captivity. The newspaper highlights that local hospitals said at least 42 Palestinians were killed in airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the UN’s assistant secretary-general Miroslav Jenča told the Security Council that under international law, Gaza “is and must remain an integral part of a future Palestinian state”, the BBC reports.
The NYT says the expansion of Israeli military action in Gaza would also be in defiance of numerous countries urging Israel to end the conflict. This seemingly would not include the US, whose ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, told CBS News it wasn’t America’s job to “tell them [Israel] what they should or should not do”.
“Certainly, if they ask for wisdom, counsel, advice, I’m sure the president would offer it. But ultimately, it’s the decision that the Israelis and only the Israelis can make,” he said.
The Nine papers led overnight on a report which claims Australia “is considering recognising a Palestinian state before a major United Nations summit in September, without seeking approval from US President Donald Trump”.
The report said the Albanese government could announce the position it intends to take at the UN General Assembly next month, where the likes of France, Canada and the UK are expected to recognise Palestinian statehood.
TRUMP’S LATEST TARIFFS KICK IN
Thursday saw the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs on imports from more than 90 countries, as reported by the BBC.
Posting on his Truth Social platform, the 79-year-old wrote in his usual all-caps: “IT’S MIDNIGHT!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TARIFFS ARE NOW FLOWING INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!”
Reuters says the average US import duty is now at its highest in a century, and major American trade partners such as Brazil, India and Switzerland are “hurriedly searching for a better deal”.
Meanwhile, CNN points out that US stocks were “under pressure” on Thursday afternoon as investors assessed the latest round of tariffs. The US broadcaster also has a useful feature highlighting everything that could be getting more expensive for Americans due to Trump’s actions.
The Nine papers yesterday reported Australia’s Health Minister Mark Butler is planning on speeding up medicine approvals after Trump previously threatened to put tariffs of up to 250% on pharmaceutical products.
The report states: “Butler said Trump’s latest threat would not change the discount Australians received on medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, but revealed he would get advice within days about accelerating the approvals process for new drugs in Australia — a key issue that US pharmaceutical giants have raised with Trump.”
Reuters points out the likes of the European Union, Japan and South Korea have struck some form of a deal with the Trump administration to reduce their base tariff rates to 15%. Meanwhile, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines have reduced theirs to 19% or 20%, and the UK has secured a 10% rate.
As for Australia, The Conversation and the Nine papers suggest Prime Minister Anthony Albanese might not be meeting with Trump to discuss Australia’s rate anytime soon.
ROUND AND ROUND WE GO
You might have heard there’s a roundtable happening this month. The government was very keen to tell us all about it and what wonderful things it might achieve, only to aggressively put the handbrake on when people started suggesting actual reforms — none of that, thank you very much!
The Australian Financial Review highlighted Albanese yesterday “poured cold water on implementing any new tax changes before the next election”, with the PM saying his government would instead be sticking to the proposals it took into the May 3 election.
“The only tax policy that we’re implementing is the one that we took to the election,” the prime minister said.
The ABC was quick to point out that the government’s attempts to manage expectations came after Treasurer Jim Chalmers spent weeks telling everyone that absolutely nothing was off the (round) table during the forum later this month.
Albanese said on Thursday: “People can put forward whatever idea they want, and what you’ll see is five or six ideas coming forward a day. That’s a good thing … It’s not government policy, government policy is decided around a cabinet table.”
The AFR says government sources have claimed the roundtable will instead provide ideas to take to the next election in 2028.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Who among us hasn’t wanted a lightsaber to play with/slay our enemies?
Now we’ve all got the chance to purchase Darth Vader’s iconic weapon, just as long as we’re happy to part with a few million dollars along the way.
The BBC reports the lightsaber used by Darth Vader in the climactic battles in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi is being sold at auction next month.
The broadcaster says the prop (measuring 32cm) was used by actor David Prowse and stunt performer Bob Anderson during the films and could fetch up to A$4.5 million when it goes up for sale during the auction in Los Angeles.
The lightsaber is being sold along with more than 1,000 lots of film props and costumes.
Say What?
I will be sworn in as an ICE agent ASAP.
Dean Cain
The former Superman actor told Fox News he is planning on joining the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
CRIKEY RECAP
Is Dean Winter the sorest loser in Australian politics?
But he is undeterred. Tasmanians might have to keep voting until they deliver a result Winter deems acceptable. Alas, he might be waiting a long time: Tasmanian Labor hasn’t won more than 10 seats since 2006, when Winter was 20 years old. His party has the look and stench of the ACT Liberals and the Victorian Liberals, parties too dysfunctional to credibly vie for government.
Yet Winter acts as though a majority Labor government is just around the corner, if only those pesky voters would come to their senses and abandon their clearly expressed preference for a minority government. His robotic mantra is “no deals” with the Greens, who, in contrast to Labor, have increased their vote in the past three elections and now have a vote more than half that of Labor’s.
For Winter, it seems, the premiership must simply fall into his lap, rather than be earned either from voters or on the floor of parliament. It’s Major Party Mentality, of a politician whose entire career has been political staffing and lobbying, the beneficiary of the outsourcing of politics to a class of professional insiders — now clearly upset that Tasmanian voters have decided they’re no longer happy to leave it to people like him.
Chalmers on hotmic blasts the Oz, the Irwins’ g’day pay, and Hockey’s Instagram prowess
At yesterday’s investment roundtable, the treasurer was chatting with Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood in footage aired on SBS World News when he remarked, in audio recorded by a hot mic, that a particular newspaper had “basically done a headline of the opposite of what I’d said”.
Wood responded, “They’re getting so many things factually wrong”, to which Chalmers added, “Deliberately so.”
In a fuller recording of the conversation heard by Crikey, it is revealed the outlet the treasurer is referencing is The Australian, and that his comments were in reference to him relaying lines from Danielle Wood.
Why everyone will be talking about tennis and nobody will be talking about cycling
I described sport as a communal practice, and that communal aspect is mediated by TV and print coverage. What gets into the press? Players from populous countries.
As the global mass-media landscape shrinks to fewer global brands, a story on the tennis in The New York Times or The Economist makes an increasingly larger difference to global attention. The editors of these mastheads will commission those stories if Taylor Fritz (US) or Jack Draper (UK) make the final of the US Open. Likewise, the streaming rights for tennis will be a bigger prize for an outfit like Netflix if Naomi Osaka (Japan) or Coco Gauff (US) appear regularly at the business end of tournaments.
This is why we can expect to be hearing more about tennis and less about cycling in future.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Why Trump-Putin talks unlikely to bring rapid end to Ukraine war (BBC)
Parliament set to expel Gareth Ward after legal challenge fails (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($)
Kathleen Folbigg’s $2m compensation ‘a moral affront’ after two decades in jail for wrongful convictions, lawyer says (Guardian Australia)
ARN mulls national expansion plans for Kyle and Jackie O Show (Capital Brief) ($)
These jobs will thrive — but others may vanish — as AI transforms Australia’s workforce (The Conversation)
UK homelessness minister resigns after backlash over removing tenants and hiking rent (The i Paper) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The treasurer is telling us to stay calm, but this could be the time to panic — Waleed Aly (The Age): Chalmers acknowledges the possibility of significant unemployment, but believes it will not be widespread or structural. To this end, he makes the observation that while technological developments always eliminate jobs, they create more than they destroy. “We’ve seen this play out before,” he affirms.
But this is more an assumption than an argument. It assumes that all technological advancement is some single, undifferentiated phenomenon, such that its history broadly repeats. But this is something the Albanese government must know not to be true. It is, after all, implementing a ban on social media platforms for children under 16, a belated response to a damaging technology we spent years assuming would be as benign as, say, television.
Now we seem to be assuming similarly AI will neatly fit into a benign pattern. That assumption only holds to the extent AI is analogous with most of what has come before. And in the circumstances, we’d be wise to examine it far more rigorously before settling on it because there are good reasons to suppose it is a different species altogether, for which history is a poor guide.
Anthony Albanese marches cautiously towards Palestinian recognition — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): On Thursday, Albanese was asked whether he would talk with Trump before he made the decision about Palestinian recognition. “We’re a sovereign government and Australia makes decisions on behalf of the Australian government,” he said.
Incidentally, while there has been speculation that Albanese will catch up with Trump when he is in the US in September, there don’t seem to be any locked-in plans.
It’s hard to get the president’s time in Washington when so many leaders are knocking on the White House door in September. And there is no guarantee the president will be in New York during the leaders’ week at the UN, or have an opportunity for a meeting if he is. When the prime minister will catch up with the president continues to be a work in progress.
