Welcome to Deepcut Weekly – a new roundup of domestic and global news

We’re trialling a new weekly newsletter that updates you on the latest free speech news in Australia and global mayhem

Welcome to Deepcut Weekly. We’re conscious of inundating the inboxes of our time-poor readers, so we hope that a weekly roundup of the key news covering the state of democracy in Australia and global geopolitics (with a focus on West Asia) will keep you informed.

There’s another reason we’re combining a domestic and global focus into the one newsletter. Too often, Australian media has treated domestic and global news as separate items, siloed from one another. But this creates a false image of separation – that we are somehow removed from the ongoings of the world. This could not be further from the truth – as demonstrated by the $2.30+ fuel we’re paying this week courtesy of Israel’s war on Iran.

These issues are connected. Global crises affect Australians too. And the diminishing state of our democracy is very much tied to the dangerous shifts taking place beyond our shores. Keeping our eyes on both tracks is what we intend to do.

If you want to support our work as we continue to expand our coverage, you can buy a paid subscription from $3.20 a week.

And so, our first weekly wrap:

Democracy in Australia

By Alex

• The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) has accused the federal government of double standards for granting visas to a troupe of IDF soldiers for a “recovery trip”. The Australian Jewish News reported on Sunday that the soldiers’ Australian trip was designed to “restore self-confidence, treat physical and psychological injuries, and help veterans regain control of their lives”, with the group enjoying “puppy yoga, a MasterChef challenge, a visit to schools, and day trips to the Mornington Peninsula hot springs, wineries, surfing beaches, and Phillip Island”.
  
  Brothers For Life, an Israeli nonprofit run by IDF veterans that “supports those who have been injured defending Israel”, organised a similar Australian trip in 2024. “Palestinian voices are being silenced. Protest is being restricted. Speaking out is being targeted,” APAN said on social media. “At the same time, Australia is hosting Israeli soldiers to recover from a genocide that continues to devastate Palestine. This is not neutrality. It is complicity.”

• NSW Police are investigating an American DJ accused by Zionist lobby groups of “antisemitic” statements a Sydney Biennale event. Zubeyda Muzeyyen, aka DJ Haram, led chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “long live the resistance”, referred to “the Zio-Australian-Epstein empire” and said Australia was complicit in the “ongoing genocide by Israel” during her Biennale opening-night set at Sydney’s White Bay Power Station on Friday.
  
  Consultancy firm PwC has terminated its 24-year relationship with the Biennale over Muzeyyen’s remarks, while the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has reported them to NSW Police. Muzeyyen seemingly made a veiled reference to the media attention on Monday, posting “garbage ass bitches guess that why u talking trash🔻” on Instagram.

• Queensland human rights organisations, anti-genocide groups and unions are launching a campaign against new state laws criminalising the phrases “globalise the intifada” and “from the river, to the sea”. The Not Our Laws campaign will launch outside state Parliament on Friday, stating that “pro-Israel politicians and lobbyists just helped shape a Queensland law to silence Palestinian voices and protect [Israel] from criticism”. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised the laws on Sunday, telling a webinar hosted by Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler that “to the extent that you can influence other districts or states in Australia to do the same, that would be blessed”.

• NSW parliament will hold an inquiry into establishing a state human rights act. Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to establish the inquiry, which already has the support of the NSW Greens and five state independents. The NSW Bar Association and Amnesty International are among the more than 120 legal peak bodies, unions and civil society groups supporting the push. Greens NSW MP Jenny Leong, who first introduced the bill in October 2025, said a state human rights act would “would give people from across the community a valuable tool to use to ensure their basic human rights and dignity are respected, and to take action when they are not”.

Iran and Lebanon wars

By Antoun

• Donald Trump is in a jam in Iran, and his desperate pleas for other nations to help re-open the Strait of Hormuz have made that clear. Wherever he’s turned, from Berlin to Beijing, the answer has been the same: no. In Germany’s case, they were unusually blunt: “this is not our war”. Earlier in the week, Trump was talking of a “team effort”, urging “Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait” to “take care of that passage” with US help. By yesterday, he was excoriating allies from Europe to Japan, Australia and South Korea, all of whom had refused to send warships – “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!” Trump also delayed a meeting with Xi Jinping, reportedly in protest at China’s refusal to help with the strait.

  • What this means: Iran has the cards here. They’ve easily been able to close the strait through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily, and the US – as well as everyone else it seems – understands that sending warships to the strait is a suicide mission inviting Iranian drones and missiles.

• The war is also causing a rift within MAGA. Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an ardent Trump loyalist (up until now), resigned from the Trump administration, calling out Israel and “its powerful American lobby” for dragging the US into the Iran war. This came days after Axios reported a sentiment of “buyer’s remorse” within Trump’s inner circle, with several officials believing the attack on Iran was a mistake.

Joe Kent@joekent16jan19

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this

1:24 PM · Mar 17, 2026 · 76.9M Views

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62.4K Replies · 190K Reposts · 709K Likes

• Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia in particular, have ben urging the US to “neutralise Iran for good”. Despite official Saudi denials they have been urging Trump to go harder on Iran, there have now been numerous reports suggesting the Gulf states are supportive of the US-Israeli war.

  • The Gulf states have borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliation, with repeated missile and drone attacks targeting US bases and the closed Strait of Hormuz crippling their ability to export oil and gas. Goldman Sachs warns that if the strait is closed until the end of April, the economies of Qatar and Kuwait will contract by 14%, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE could shrink by 5% and 8% respectively. Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has told Gulf states to close US bases or face more attacks.

  • The Gulf predicament: Even if the Gulf states were to join the war, it’s hard to see what little difference they can make. Their forces are not the most fearsome (the Saudi/UAE were humiliated against the Houthis after their attempted invasion of Yemen in 2015). They have more to lose than gain from entering the war. All Iran needs to do is knock out their oil and gas facilities as well as their desalination plants (the Gulf states are desert, making them dependent on desalination for drinking water) and the Gulf states are toast.

• Israel has denied a report citing a US official who claims the country is running “critically low” on air defence interceptors. But that denial came hours after Israel approved US$826m in additional funds for “urgent and essential defence procurement”.

  • Israel announced the beginning of its ground invasion into Lebanon on Monday, its fifth into Lebanon in the last 50 years. But there’s mixed messages from Israel regarding their objectives. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested a broader campaign, saying hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese residents would not be able to return to their homes until “north Israel is safe”.
    
    A broad campaign is also sought by Benjamin Netanyahu’s allies. The Israeli prime minister – wanted by the ICC on charges of war crimes – last August expressed his support for a Greater Israel with expanded boundaries. But IDF officials are suggesting a limited campaign that would only push Hezbollah away from the border, saying they would not be able to stop Hezbollah rocket launches into northern and central Israel.

  • Israeli uncertainty: There’s perhaps a realistic understanding of the challenges of a Lebanon invasion within Israeli military circles who have experienced those challenges, as opposed to messianic politicians dreaming of a Greater Israel. Lebanon is mountainous terrain, making movement of hefty tanks cumbersome and easy prey. That’s already been proven. Hezbollah have released almost daily statements since they entered the war of targeting Merkava tanks (which cost about US$5m per tank) with anti-tank missiles. Just yesterday, Hezbollah said they had destroyed five tanks.

• The human toll of war continues to worsen by the week. In Lebanon, one million people – a fifth of the country – have been displaced with thousands of families sleeping in tents on the streets, after Israel gave forced displacement orders for south Lebanon and southern Beirut suburbs. In Iran, the UNHCR says up to 3.2 million people have been displaced.
  
  At least 1,444 Iranians have been killed, among them at least 200 women. In Lebanon, at least 912 have been killed, with 15% of them children. The Iranian Red Crescent says 67,414 civilian targets have been damaged or destroyed following direct or indirect US-Israeli airstrikes, including nearly 500 schools.