GALACTIC CRIMES
Distruction in Gaza
“Imagine that we’re the only place where there is intellegence in the galaxy - How should we behave? Life means something to you and me, so meaning exists. It follows that this may be the only place in the Milky Way where meaning exists. The only island of meaning in the galaxy.”
—Professor Brian Cox
What if Brian Cox is right and that our world is the only place where meaning exists in the galaxy, what are we doing?
Climate collapse, billionaires hoarding money while people starve, vanity trade disputes crippling economies. If we are the meaning in the galaxy, then we're fucking it up on every level, and there’s nowhere that we’re fucking it up more than in Palestine.
What the Netanyahu settler regime is doing in Palestine is monstrous. Tens of thousands of civilians - bombed, shot, starved, tortured. Hospitals bombed, booby-trapped food left for starving children, schools torched with the kids inside. They bombed a media tent the other day and burned a journalist alive. He was the 232nd journalist killed by the Israeli military. Video has now emerged of the Israeli military attacking a convoy of clearly marked ambulances, killing 15 medical staff.
And before anyone says, “Yeah but Hamas started it October 7th…”, shut the fuck up and google “modern history of the Gaza strip.”
in the 19th and early 20th century, Palestine was a melting pot of cultures and communities, all living side by side. Yeah, there were tensions, but on the whole, things went along ok. Ya’akov Elazar was the final member of a generation of Sephardi historians and figures who experienced the 20th century across the Ottoman, British, and Israeli periods. Elazar remembers how “Muslim women respected Jewish religious customs... Muslim neighbors let Jewish women pump water before the Sabbath.”
In “Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron”, author Menachem Klein talks of a time when Jews and Arabs lived together as neighbours. The book focuses on the late 1800s and early 1900s, showing how people worked, studied, celebrated, and grieved side by side. It challenges the belief—still taught in some Israeli schools—that this kind of shared life never existed.
Klein writes about times when Muslims joined Jews in prayer, a Jewish school in Sheikh Jarrah—run by Hacham Gershon—welcoming Arab children, and even romantic relationships between Jews and Arabs, despite social disapproval. But after painting this picture of coexistence, Klein ends on a sad note: the world he describes has mostly vanished, dismantled by conflict and division.
In the 1930s, things started to fall apart. More and more Jewish immigrants arrived, fleeing the Nazi round-ups, while the Zionist movement pushed to create a Jewish state in the region. The Jewish people needed somewhere they could live without fear of concentration camps and gas chambers.
The problem was that when that place was created in 1948, no one asked the people already living in Palestine—mostly Arabs— if they minded. The west didn’t bother consulting the people who had been there for untold generations. The United Nations voted to partition Palestine, establishing separate Jewish and Arab states. The Jews, understandably accepted the plan, the Arabs understandably rejected it. This lead to a war that the Jews won.
When Israel declared independence, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes in the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”) Gaza was set up as a holding pen for these Palestinians.
Arab refugees, mostly women and children, from a village near Haifa begin a three mile hike carrying large bundles of personal possessions to the Arab lines in Tulkarim, West Bank, on June 26, 1948.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Since 2007, Israel has enforced an illegal military siege of Gaza—cutting off food, clean water, and hope. In 2022, Human Rights Watch accused Israeli authorities of committing “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
In 2023 before October 7th Zionist settler mobs torched Palestinian homes in the West Bank. Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich openly called for the erasure of Palestinian villages—echoing decades of de facto government policy. That same year, he was handed full authority to build 4,500 new illegal settlements. Days later, the Israeli military killed six Palestinians.
Pogrom-style attacks spread across Palestinian towns, backed by settlers and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Netanyahu settler regime’s murder squad). In July, the army stormed Jenin hospital, bombed a refugee camp, and fired on journalists—ALL WAR CRIMES.
By October, after 16 years of siege, Hamas launched a brutal attack inside Israel, killing civilians and taking hostages.
Israel’s response was predictable. Collective punishment, also a war crime, as international humanitarian law, including the “1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols, explicitly prohibits collective punishment.” Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions on July 6, 1951, not that they meant it.
Netanyahu didn’t care. Airstrikes on homes. Neighbourhoods erased. Starvation as a weapon. The targeting of civilians and vital infrastructure in Gaza isn’t self-defence—it’s a campaign of extermination.
This isn’t about security. It’s about control, land, and erasure.
“But Israel has the right to defend itself.” Well, under international law, countries that occupy or enforce apartheid do not have a legal right to defend those systems. It’s the people being occupied who have a legal right to resist and fight for their freedom. In other words, the Palestinians have the legal right to take up arms against Israel’s illegal settlement. Israel does not have a legal right to defend territories it occupied illegally.
So why does much of the Western governments look on, saying nothing or supporting Israel, when around the world, the people , including Jews are protesting in their tens of thousands? Geopolitcal reasons, politics at home, and they are quietened by their own history of colonialism. Then there’s the fear of being accused of antisemitism. Lets be clear, this is criticism of a small group of extreme right-wing religious fanatics, not the Jewish people.
Rabbi Dovid Feldman, member of the "Neturei Karta International," an orthodox religious Jewish organization worldwide, denounced "months of genocide, mass murder of masses of innocent men, women, and children" in Gaza.
It’s a tactic that the Israeli government has perfected. If you are not a Jew and criticise the murder of babies, they say you’re anti-semetic. If you are a Jew and criticise them, they say you’re mentally unwell or a “self-hating Jew". The Zionists want to conflate anti-occupation with antisemitism as a way to shut down opposition. Politiicians, cynitally using this situation as a way to score points are making real antisemitism much worse. If they keep proposing that opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza is antisemetic, what they’re saying is that the bombing of civilians is the action of Jews. Where is that going to lead?
Even before October 7th, 2023 had been the deadliestyear on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank
Between October 7th, 2023 and the March 26, 2025, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children.
Destroying life, the way Israel is doing in Gaza isn’t just brutal, it’s a crime against life itself. Because if we are alone—if this is the one place in the cold silence of space where consciousness took root—then everything we do matters. Every act means so much more than the act itself. We’re not just failing each other. We’re defiling the only known place where meaning exists in the galaxy.
So, don’t tell me “It’s complicated” or “it’s about defence.” If your safety depends on snipers shooting children and bombing hospitals, your system is broken.
This is no longer about politics. This is about whether intelligence in the universe means anything at all. Whether consciousness is something sacred, or just a failed experiment in cruelty.
If we are alone—if we are the only ones out here—then the story of the galaxy is being written across the stars with our sins.
If we are the only island of meaning in the galaxy... the galaxy is fucked.
Below, a proforma letter you can write to your MP demanding action over Gaza.
If you want to do something about what’s happening in Gaza, but don’t know what. Writing to your MP is a good start. Below is a letter that you can use. You can find you can find your
Federal MP at https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&mem=1&par=-1&gen=0&ps=0
Victorian MP at https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/members/member-search/?page=1&pageSize=10&sortType=2
A LETTER TO YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT OVER WHAT’S HAPPENING IN GAZA
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, Postcode]
[Email Address]
[Phone Number]
[Date]
[Member of Parliament’s Name]
[Member of Parliament’s Title]
[Constituency Office Address]
[City, Postcode]
Dear [Member of Parliament’s Name],
I am writing to you as a concerned constituent regarding the ongoing violence and human rights abuses committed by the Israeli government in Gaza and other parts of Palestine. The actions of the Israeli military and government have left countless innocent lives lost and have caused unspeakable suffering to civilians. As a nation that prides itself on its commitment to human rights and international law, I urge you to take immediate and decisive action to condemn these actions and demand that Israel comply with its obligations under international law.
The continuing military operations, airstrikes, and sieges of Gaza, alongside the targeting of civilian infrastructure, have resulted in an overwhelming loss of life and destruction. These actions, along with reports of the forced displacement of Palestinian families, collective punishment, and restrictions on essential services such as food, water, and medical care, are violations of numerous principles enshrined in international law, particularly the Geneva Conventions.
War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity under International Law
Under the Geneva Conventions, which Israel is a signatory to, deliberate attacks on civilians, disproportionate use of force, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are classified as war crimes. The United Nations defines war crimes as serious breaches of international humanitarian law, including the killing of civilians, torture, and the taking of hostages. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In addition to war crimes, the Israeli government's actions may also constitute crimes against humanity. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as any act committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, including murder, enslavement, extermination, and the forcible transfer of populations. These actions, carried out by the Israeli government, are violations of the basic principles of humanity and justice.
As a member of (name of your electorate), I request that you, as my elected representative, take immediate action in the following ways:
Publicly condemn the actions of the Israeli government and military in Gaza and Palestine.
Demand that the Israeli government halt its attacks on civilians and adhere to international law.
Urge the Australian government to advocate for international investigations into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories.
Support initiatives at the United Nations to hold Israel accountable for its actions under international law and to ensure compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
Call for sanctions or diplomatic pressure on Israel to prevent further violations and to encourage a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I urge you to act swiftly and decisively on this matter. As my representative in Parliament, it is essential that you stand in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine and demand justice. Failure to do so will only contribute to the continued suffering of innocent civilians and the further erosion of international humanitarian principles.
I look forward to hearing your response and hope to see your leadership on this critical issue.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]