Israel has lost legitimacy because of its Gaza response

Israel has made a two-state solution impossible with the decades-long expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

Author Antony Lowenstein says: "The two-state solution is the answer to a question that nobody serious is proposing ... It's the zombie solution that's resurrected every time the Middle East is on fire ... Making it a reality would require putting pressure on the more powerful party, Israel, to cease its obsession with colonising more Palestinian land."

Israel is to continue the attacks. It says it has to destroy Hamas completely.

But they can't do that militarily; ideas aren't defeated by bombs. There will just be thousands more Palestinian civilian deaths, including children.

What is needed is pressure and sanctions on Israel from Western governments to force it to change direction.

I am sick to death of demographers and economists, without a shred of environmental awareness, pronouncing on demographic issues. Such was the case with Rocky Scopelliti ("The declining birth rate must be treated similar to climate change", November 29) who wanted to lift the birthrate.

Does he not understand that the world is in the midst of a climate crisis? Should the world warm by three degrees as the UN predicted last week in its sobering Emissions Gap report, then much of the world will become uninhabitable, including parts of Australia.

The report said "scientists predict the world could pass several catastrophic points of no return, from the runaway melting of ice sheets to the Amazon rainforest drying out".

Scientists have already warned the increasing incidence of extreme weather events will make it difficult for food production to keep up with growing populations. That means famine. It means millions of people on the move in search of land to grow food.

Issues like maintaining the workforce pale into insignificance alongside probable future scenarios.

Since the incursion by Hamas terrorists into Israel on 7 October, murdering 1200 people and taking hundreds of hostages, the Israeli Defence Force has interned thousands of Palestinians, including from the West Bank. It's hard not to perceive this as the Israeli government engaging in tit-for-tat hostage-taking.

One of the interned, or hostage, Palestinians is the famous Ahed Tamimi, reportedly detained because of an Instagram post that her family dispute she even wrote (and may have been a fake account).

I wish these accounts were more available to Australians.

All the fine words uttered by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will amount to nothing if the Albanese government does not recognise the gross inadequacy of its emissions reduction policy and make more realistic commitments.

Climate scientists insist that Australia should be aiming for an emissions reduction target of at least 50 per cent and up to 75 per cent by 2030 if is to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The IPCC's 1.5-degree Paris Agreement limit has already been passed, and the two degree absolute limit is vulnerable.

Wealthy countries, including Australia, must make radical cuts to their emissions if the world is to avoid disaster.

Prior to the last election Anthony Albanese demanded the Morrison government expel Russian diplomats. More than a year has passed since he was elected and they are still here. So, too, are the protesters outside the Russian embassy every lunchtime from Monday to Saturday. If only Albo could be as staunch in his belief as they have been.