Over recent weeks, I’ve been hearing from veterans who are feeling deeply unsettled, even distressed, by the stream of posts, images, and commentary about the tragic situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Some have told me the constant online debate is triggering powerful emotional responses, including suicidal thoughts.

Many of us have served in that region. We have seen its pain and complexity first-hand. Thousands of ADF veterans have been part of operations there over the past 77 years. For those with lived experience, some of the comments circulating on social media — especially from people who have never been there — can feel misinformed, unnecessarily inflammatory, or lacking compassion for the innocent people caught in the middle.

I've just returned from Timor where our 31st Timor Awakening program celebrated a dawn service in collaboration with the Australian and New Zealand Embassy staff, uniformed members of our Defence and Police Cooperation Programs, other Aussie and Kiwi veterans, and many interested Timorese. The venue was the new headquarters for the Timorese veterans association, co-incidentally the location of the Australian led UN hospital from 2000-2004 and proximate to where our 2/2nd Commando Coy resisted the Japanese invasion in 1942. In our ANZAC gathering, the Timorese veterans are fascinated by the “Togetherness” we have – their word is HAMUTUK – and the friendly and mutually supportive sense of purpose that we share in not only getting our own veterans healthier, but at the same time helping their poor and most needy people in the extensive humanitarian work we do. 

As I write this in the week before Easter, it seems like our whole world is now filled with uncertainty and anxiety about the future. Death and destruction continues in the Ukraine and in the Middle East. Our once solid security arrangements with the United States can no longer be guaranteed, and millions and millions of people around the world on the margins of society, are losing the provision of humanitarian aid, and will enter more deeply into poverty and starvation. Relatively speaking, Australians will probably do better out of this than many others, but whoever gets into government certainly will be…