Ramona Koval

Writer, journalist, and Honorary Fellow at the School of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

'Charging along, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a triumph of form into which she seems to squeeze her entire understanding of the world.' Thanks @ansusskind for your review article of #ALettertoLayla https://t.co/NZrlb3U5Zi @text_publishing

[Russell Blackford @Metamagician]

In the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre, state and federal governments had one job - to address and oppose the presence of jihadism in Australia. Admittedly, that gets a bit more complicated because it expands out to include the widespread hatred of Israel beyond just Islamists and jihadists, and the widespread hatred of Jews that now goes with it by association.

But this didn't mean using the opportunity to deal comprehensively with something much broader called "hate speech", whatever that is (there's no agreed definition and the concept is endlessly manipulable).

The remit was quite narrow, and it should have been possible to come up with a basket of narrowly tailored policies that would not have been all that controversial except among Islamists and jihadists and their cheer squad of secular identitarian ideologues. The vast majority of Australians would have been happy with a package that narrowly addressed Islamist/jihadist hate preachers, the irrational hatred of Israel that's proliferated, etc.

The one thing that the federal government has done right - and I've already praised it for this elsewhere - is inviting Isaac Herzog to visit Australia. We desperately need to repair relations with Israel, and that's a good first step. Beyond that, the policy response has been a mess. Part of the trouble is that the federal government seems incapable of even using the words "Islamism" and "jihadism", let alone condemning them and setting itself firmly in opposition to them.

[The Free Press @TheFP]

A grandmother wants to relocate to ‘the place that allows my soul to sing’—thousands of miles away from her daughters and grandkids. Our advice columnist responds. https://t.co/6RF5SHzndJ

[Eve Barlow @Eve_Barlow]

“These figures we have seen 10 and 12,000 are laughable in comparison to what we are seeing inside Iran. There is a massacre happening.”

Listen.
Share everywhere.
The people of Iran are being massacred in unfathomable numbers.
They need help now.

Where are the marches.
Where are the statements.
Speak up!!

[Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert @KMooreGilbert]

More news direct from Soheila Hejab in prison:
The prosecutor of Karaj and the supervising judge of Kachui prison came to inspect the female prisoners. They told Soheila, someone who has been in and out of prison since 2018 for her anti-regime activism, that this time they will be sentencing her to death, and that they are waiting to see her corpse.

[Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert @KMooreGilbert]

Message from Soheila Hejab, a Kurdish-Iranian political prisoner arrested for protesting last week and currently held in Kachui prison, Karaj:
“To those who ask about me, tell them that I am not important. Tell the world that in this prison there are a large number of young girls— ten and twelve years old, possibly around one hundred of them—who have been arrested, and they cannot endure this place of torture. They are not even allowed to inform their families" (of their arrest)

[נדב איל Nadav Eyal @Nadav_Eyal]

On the occasion of the Australian government doing what is both absolutely necessary and long overdue, this is a good moment to recommend 'Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post- October 7', a book published before the Bondi Beach attack. The volume brings together testimonies from Jewish women about identity, community and antisemitism after October 7.
Beyond showing that the writing was already on the wall, the book engages in a nuanced exploration of Jewish identity in this moment.
It was edited by Lee Kofman and Tamar Paluch. This book deserves wider attention.

[Josh Frydenberg @JoshFrydenberg]

Today as we pause, reflect, and commemorate the two year anniversary of Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7, we hope and pray that the war will end and the hostages will be returned home.

Events of the last two years have been “unbelievable’.”

Unbelievable that even after the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, 48 hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, still remain in the dungeons of Gaza, tortured by the monsters of Hamas as they are made to dig their own graves.

Unbelievable that there has been the tragic loss of so many innocent lives on both sides of this conflict, so much of which could have been avoided if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered their arms.

Unbelievable that Israel could suffer such an intelligence failure on that fateful day, October 7.

Unbelievable that Israel could achieve such intelligence successes against its enemies Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime in the days since.

Unbelievable that after Israel was attacked by Hamas, it was attacked again in the Western capitals of the world as a tidal wave of antisemitism was unleashed.

Unbelievable that in the face of this violent antisemitism, our leaders - political and civil - failed to uphold their fundamental duty to protect their own citizens and maintain cohesion in their own societies, preferring instead to turn the other way simply hoping it would all just go away.

Unbelievable that despite all the challenges of the last two years Israel’s formal ties with Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan have all held firm.

Unbelievable that President Trump so ridiculed by his opponents has got the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world, as well as Israel, to back in his plan to end the war and free the hostages.

Unbelievable that if the plan is implemented, Israelis and Palestinians can contemplate a future free of the tyranny of Hamas.

Unbelievable that with so much to gain from the Trump plan there are no calls from the pro-Palestinian crowd demanding Hamas immediately accept the ceasefire, but then again, these are same people that wouldn’t stop their hateful protests against Israel even for a day after two Jewish worshippers were murdered last week at a Manchester Synagogue.

Unbelievable that if the war ends and Hamas and Iran continue to be isolated, we just may see an extension of the Abraham Accords over time to Saudia Arabia, Lebanon and Syria, and with the Indonesian President so passionately defending Israel’s right to exist at the UN this month, maybe extending to our region too.

Over the last two years so much of what we have seen is unbelievable - but not in a good way - but in a bad, deeply disturbing way. But finally now, after two devastating years, there is a glimmer of hope. Hope we may soon see the hostages return to their families and this devastating war come to an end. If that happens, it will be a rare ray of light in what otherwise has been the darkest of times, and something to celebrate, not commemorate.

[Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert @KMooreGilbert]

For years now the Iranian-Australian community and other victims of the IRGC, including myself, have been literally screaming at rallies, to our local MPs, in parliamentary consultations and in reports to the national security hotline that Iranian agents are operating brazenly and with few consequences here on Australian soil. Overseas we have seen numerous incidents of Iran contracting organised crime to conduct attacks on journalists, dissidents and targets within the Jewish community. Many of us have long been saying that an Iranian hand lies behind some of the antisemitic attacks which have proliferated here in Australia since October 7. We have a Senate Inquiry dating back to 2023-4 recommending the IRGC be proscribed as a terror organisation. We have been calling for more than a year for Ahmad Sadeghi, the Iranian ambassador, to be expelled from Australia due to his repeated antisemitic remarks on social media, and due to his embassy's sinister role in sponsoring the surveillance of dissidents here in Australia. I personally have petitioned two foreign ministers to sanction IRGC officials directly complicit in the wrongful detention and effective hostage-taking of myself and at least four other Australian citizens, with no response. NOW FINALLY, THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING ACTION. I applaud Albanese and Wong for stepping up and taking decisive action against a brutal regime which has long shown itself to be an enemy of the Australian people. It's such a shame that it's taken them so long.

[Julie Szego @JulieSzego]

Melbourne last night: arson attack on a synagogue and a masked anti-Israel mob storms an Israeli restaurant (Miznon) shouting “death to the IDF.” My feature published today on one man’s crusade against “two tier policing” is sadly very timely.

https://t.co/22tbL5wHpR

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

American writer Edmund White died this week at 85.
Here’s our energetic conversation on Rimbaud: the Double Life of a Rebel, the brilliant and troubled Arthur Rimbaud who with lover Verlaine forged a new way of writing and an anarchistic way of living
https://t.co/kIhj8HhJqt

[The Saturday Paper @SatPaper]

Michael Gawenda writes on anti-Semitism in the context of Australia’s federal election campaign. https://t.co/MHHTfkBv2l

[The Monthly @THEMONTHLY]

How are we meant to sit with the devastating realities of history unfolding when we don’t allow ourselves the psychic or temporal space to truly grieve and mourn the deaths, to lament the rapes and terrors? | Christos Tsiolkas on hope in the worst of times
https://t.co/sbH0rtSEkt

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality – https://t.co/QKQLDz4Qyd via @aeonmag

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

Vale Damien Broderick Australian SF writer, brilliant, funny and eccentric. Credited by the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction for first using the term “Virtual reality” in his 1982 novel The Judas Mandala. Here's an interview.
https://t.co/VyQBbmSQCU

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

Peruvian Nobel prize for literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa died in Lima yesterday at the age of 89. I spoke to him in Edinburgh in 2004 on power, politics, dictatorships, his failure as a politician and his life in writing.

#MarioVargasLlosa
https://t.co/mfivfFdOjZ

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

Peruvian Nobel prize for literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa died in Lima yesterday at the age of 89. I spoke to him in Edinburgh in 2004 on power, politics, dictatorships, his failure as a politician and his life in writing.
https://t.co/tYiAqaAy95
#mariovargasllosa

[Julie McCrossin AM (She/Her) @JulieMcCrossin]

…”the three drivers” which impel me to speak out in support of the Jewish people during the current upsurge in antisemitism.” The Jewish Independent #antisemitism ⁦@NSWJBD⁩ https://t.co/5GDv2ZxJps

[nature @Nature]

Not only does Bennu contain all 5 of the nucleobases that form DNA and RNA on Earth and 14 of the 20 amino acids found in known proteins, the asteroid’s amino acids hold a surprise

https://t.co/M6VKLXFDQL

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

If you missed my live conversation with @JohnSafran fret no more! Here it is - on his book Squat, his bumbling methodology, his exploration of hiphop and antisemitism & how he got to where he is. And it's funny. https://t.co/sNo7L0LJnG via @YouTube @TJI_au

[Ramona Koval @ramonakoval]

So good to be in @SatPaper again.

[The Saturday Paper @SatPaper]

Ramona Koval on the fight against anti-Semitism in Australia:

https://t.co/mUbRlZgQsH