About 2000 New Zealand protesters marched through the heart of Auckland city today chanting “no justice, no peace” and many other calls as they demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli atrocities in its brutal war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.
For more than 73 days, Israel has blocked all food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, creating a man-made crisis with the Strip on the brink of a devastating famine.
Israel’s attacks killed more than 150 and wounded 450 in a day in a new barrage of attacks that aid workers described as “Gaza is bleeding before our eyes”.
in Auckland, several Palestinian and other speakers spoke of the anguish and distress of the global Gaza community in the face of Western indifference to the suffering in a rally before the march marking the 77th anniversary of the Nakba — the “Palestinian catastrophe”.
“There are cracks opening up all around the world that haven’t been there for 77 years,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto in an inspired speech to the protesters.
“We’ve got politicians in Britain speaking out for the first time. Some conservative politician got standing up the other day saying, ‘I supported Israel right or wrong for 20 years, and I was wrong.’
‘The world is coming right’
“Yet a lot of the world has been wrong for 77 years, but the world is coming right. We are on the right side of history, give us a big round of applause.”
Minto was highly critical of the public broadcasters, Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand, saying they relied too heavily on a narrow range of Western sources whose credibility had been challenged and eroded over the past 19 months.
PSNA co-chair John Minto . . . .capturing an image of the march up Auckland’s Queen Street in protest over the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Image: APR
He also condemned their “proximity” news value, blaming it for news editors’ lapse of judgment on news values because Israelis “spoke English”.
Minto told the crowd that that they should be monitoring Al Jazeera for a more balanced and nuanced coverage of the war on Palestine.
His comments echoed a similar theme of a speech at the Fickling Centre in Three Kings on Thursday night and protesters followed up by picketing the NZ Voyager Media Awards last night with a light show of killed Gazan journalists beamed on the hotel venue.
Protesters at the NZ Voyager Media Awards protesting last night against unbalanced media coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Image: Achmat Eesau/PSNA
About 230 Gazan journalists have been killed in the war so far, many of them allegedly targeted by the Israeli forces.
Minto said he could not remember a previous time when a New Zealand government had remained silent in the face of industrial-scale killing of civilians anywhere in the world.
“We have livestreamed genocide happening and we have our government refusing to condemn any of Israel’s war crimes,” he said.
NZ ‘refusing to condemn war crimes’
“Yet we’ve got everybody in the leadership of this government having condemned every act of Palestinian resistance yet refused to condemn the war crimes, refused to condemn the bombing of civilians, and refused to condemn the mass starvation of 2.3 million people.
“What a bunch of depraved bastards run this country. Shame on all of them.”
Palestinian speaker Samer Almalalha . . . “Everything we were told about international law and human rights is bullshit.” A golden key symbolising the right of return for Palestinians is in the background. Image: APR
Palestinian speaker Samer Almalalha spoke of the 1948 Nakba and the injustices against his people.
“Everything we were told about international law and human rights is bullshit. The only rights you have are the ones you take,” he said.
“So today we won’t stand here to plead, we are here to remind you of what happened to us. We are here to take what is ours. Today, and every day, we fight for a free Palestine.”
Nakba survivor Ghazi Dassouki . . . a harrowing story about a massacre village. Image: Bruce King survivor
and he told a harrowing story from his homeland. As a 14-year-old boy, he and his family were driven out of Palestine during the Nakba.
He described “waking up to to the smell of gunpowder” — his home was close to the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, 1948, when Zionist militias attacked the village killing 107 people, including women and children.
‘Palestine will be free – and so will we’
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said: “What we stand for is truth, justice, peace and love.
“Palestine will be free and, in turn, so will we.”
Israel has blocked all food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, creating a man-made crisis, with the integrated food security agency IPC warning that famine could be declared any time between now and September, reports Al Jazeera.
The head of the UN Children’s Fund, Catherine Russell, said the world should be shocked by the killing of 45 children in Israeli air strikes in just two days.
Instead, the slaughter of children in Gaza is “largely met with indifference”.
“More than 1 million children in Gaza are at risk of starvation. They are deprived of food, water and medicine,” Russell wrote in a post on social media.
“Nowhere is safe for children in Gaza,” she said.
“This horror must stop.”
“The coloniser lied” . . . a placard in today’s Palestine rally in Auckland. Image: APR
Famine worst level of hunger
Famine is the worst level of hunger, where people face severe food shortages, widespread malnutrition, and high levels of death due to starvation.
According to the UN’s criteria, famine is declared when:
At least 20 percent (one-fifth) of households face extreme food shortages;
More than 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition; and
At least two out of every 10,000 people or four out of every 10,000 children die each day from starvation or hunger-related causes.
Famine is not just about hunger; it is the worst humanitarian emergency, indicating a complete collapse of access to food, water and the systems necessary for survival.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), since Israel’s complete blockade began on March 2, at least 57 children have died from the effects of malnutrition.
“Stop Genocide in Gaza” . . . the start of the rally with PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal on the right. Image: APR
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Fiji’s coalition government are “detached from the values that Fijians hold dear”, says the NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR).
The rights coalition has expressed deep concern over Rabuka’s ongoing engagements with Indonesia.
“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment. We must not stay silent when Pacific people are being occupied and killed,” said NGOCHR chair Shamima Ali.
“Is Fiji’s continuing silence on West Papua yet another example of being muzzled by purse strings?”
“As members of the Melanesian and Pacific family, bound by shared ancestry and identity, the acceptance of financial and any other benefit from Indonesia—while remaining silent on the plight of West Papua—is a betrayal of our family member and of regional solidarity.”
“True leadership must be rooted in solidarity, justice, and accountability,” Ali said.
“It is imperative that Pacific leaders not only advocate for peace and cooperation in the region but also continue to hold Indonesia to account on ongoing human rights violations in West Papua.”
Nakba Day today marks 15 May 1948 — the day after the declaration of the State of Israel — when the Palestinian society and homeland was destroyed and more than 750,000 people forced to leave and become refugees. The day is known as the “Palestinian Catastrophe”.
By Soumaya Ghannoushi
US President Donald Trump’s tour of Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha is not diplomacy. It is theatre — staged in gold, fuelled by greed, and underwritten by betrayal.
A US president openly arming a genocide is welcomed with red carpets, handshakes and blank cheques. Trillions are pledged; personal gifts are exchanged. And Gaza continues to burn.
Gulf regimes have power and wealth. They have Trump’s ear. Yet they use none of it — not to halt the slaughter, ease the siege or demand dignity.
In return for their riches and deference, Trump grants Israel bombs and sets it loose upon the region.
This is the real story. At the heart of Trump’s return lies a project he initiated during his first presidency: the erasure of Palestine, the elevation of autocracy, and the redrawing of the Middle East in Israel’s image.
“See this pen? This wonderful pen on my desk is the Middle East, and the top of the pen — that’s Israel. That’s not good,” he once told reporters, lamenting Israel’s size compared to its neighbours.
To Trump, the Middle East is not a region of history or humanity. It is a marketplace, a weapons depot, a geopolitical ATM.
His worldview is forged in evangelical zeal and transactional instinct. In his rhetoric, Arabs are chaos incarnate: irrational, violent, in need of control. Israel alone is framed as civilised, democratic, divinely chosen. That binary is not accidental. It is ideology.
Obedience for survival Trump calls the region “a rough neighbourhood” — code for endless militarism that casts the people of the Middle East not as lives to protect, but as threats to contain.
His $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia in 2017 was marketed as peace through prosperity. Now, he wants trillions more in Gulf capital. As reported by The New York Times, Trump is demanding that Saudi Arabia invest its entire annual GDP — $1 trillion — into the US economy.
Riyadh has already offered $600 billion. Trump wants it all. Economists call it absurd; Trump calls it a deal.
This is not realpolitik. It is a grotesque spectacle of decadence, delusion and disgrace
Across the Gulf, a race is underway — not to end the genocide in Gaza, but to outspend one another for Trump’s favour, showering him with wealth in return for nothing.
The Gulf is no longer treated as a region. It is a vault. Sovereign wealth funds are the new ballot boxes. Sovereignty — just another asset to be traded.
Trump’s offer is blunt: obedience for survival. For regimes still haunted by the Arab Spring, Western blessing is their last shield. And they will pay any price: wealth, independence, even dignity.
To them, the true threat is not Israel, nor even Iran. It is their own people, restless, yearning, ungovernable.
Democracy is danger; self-determination, the ticking bomb. So they make a pact with the devil.
Doctrine of immunity That devil brings flags, frameworks, photo ops and deals. The new order demands normalisation with Israel, submission to its supremacy, and silence on Palestine.
Once-defiant slogans are replaced by fintech expos and staged smiles beside Israeli ministers.
In return, Trump offers impunity: political cover and arms. It is a doctrine of immunity, bought with gold and soaked in Arab blood.
They bend. They hand him deals, honours, trillions. They believe submission buys respect. But Trump respects only power — and he makes that clear.
He praises Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Is Putin smart? Yes . . . that’s a hell of a way to negotiate.” He calls Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “a guy I like [and] respect”. Like them or not, they defend their nations. And Trump, ever the transactional mind, respects power.
Arab rulers offer no such strength. They offer deference, not defiance. They don’t push; they pay.
And Trump mocks them openly. King Salman “might not be there for two weeks without us”, he brags. They give him billions; he demands trillions.
It is not just the US Treasury profiting. Gulf billions do not merely fuel policy; they enrich a family empire. Since returning to office, Trump and his sons have chased deals across the Gulf, cashing in on the loyalty they have cultivated.
The message was clear: access to the Trumps has a price, and Gulf rulers are eager to pay.
Now, Trump is receiving a private jet from Qatar’s ruling family — a palace in the sky worth $400 million.
This is not diplomacy. It is plunder.
And how does Trump respond? With insult: “It was a great gesture,” he said of the jet, before adding: “We keep them safe. If it wasn’t for us, they probably wouldn’t exist right now.”
That was his thank you to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar; lavish gifts answered with debasement.
And what are they rewarding him for? For genocide. For 100,000 tonnes of bombs dropped on Gaza. For backing ethnic cleansing in plain sight. For empowering far-right Israeli politicians, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as they call for Gaza’s depopulation.
For presiding over the most fanatically Zionist, most unapologetically Islamophobic administration in US history.
Still, they ask nothing, while offering everything. They could have used their leverage. They did not.
The Yemen precedent proves they can act. Trump halted the bombing under Saudi pressure, to Netanyahu’s visible dismay. When they wanted a deal, they struck one with the Houthis.
And when they sought to bring Syria in from the cold, Trump complied. He agreed to meet former rebel leader turned President Ahmed al-Sharaa — a last-minute addition to his Riyadh schedule — and even spoke of lifting sanctions, once again at Saudi Arabia’s request, to “give them a chance of greatness”.
No US president is beyond pressure. But for Gaza? Silence.
Price of silence While Trump was being feted in Riyadh, Israel rained American-made bombs on two hospitals in Gaza. In Khan Younis, the European Hospital was reportedly struck by nine bunker-busting bombs, killing more than two dozen people and injuring scores more.
Earlier that day, an air strike on Nasser Hospital killed journalist Hassan Islih as he lay wounded in treatment.
As Trump basked in applause, Israel massacred children in Jabalia, where around 50 Palestinians were killed in just a few hours.
This is the bloody price of Arab silence, buried beneath the roar of applause and the glitter of tributes.
This week marks the anniversary of the Nakba — and here it is again, replayed not through tanks alone, but through Arab complicity.
With every cheque signed, Arab rulers do not secure history’s respect. They seal their place in its sordid footnotes of shame
The bombs fall. The Gaza Strip turns to dust. Two million people endure starvation. UN food is gone.
Hospitals overflow with skeletal infants. Mothers collapse from hunger. Tens of thousands of children are severely malnourished, with more than 3500 on the edge of death.
Meanwhile, Smotrich speaks of “third countries” for Gaza’s people. Netanyahu promises their removal.
And Trump — the man enabling the annihilation? He is not condemned, but celebrated by Arab rulers. They eagerly kiss the hand that sends the bombs, grovel before the architect of their undoing, and drape him in splendour and finery.
While much of the world stands firm — China, Europe, Canada, Mexico, even Greenland – refusing to bow to Trump’s bullying, Arab rulers kneel. They open wallets, bend spines, empty hands — still mistaking humiliation for diplomacy.
They still believe that if they bow low enough, Trump might toss them a bone. Instead, he tosses them a bill.
This is not realpolitik. It is a grotesque spectacle of decadence, delusion and disgrace.
With every cheque signed, every jet offered, every photo op beside the butcher of a people, Arab rulers do not secure history’s respect. They seal their place in its sordid footnotes of shame.
Soumaya Ghannoushi is a British Tunisian writer and expert in Middle East politics. Her journalistic work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Corriere della Sera, aljazeera.net and Al Quds. This article was first published by the Middle East Eye. A selection of her writings may be found at: soumayaghannoushi.com and she tweets @SMGhannoushi.
The iconic Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warriorwill return to Aotearoa this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original campaign ship at Marsden Wharf in Auckland by French secret agents on 10 July 1985.
The return to Aotearoa comes at a pivotal moment — when the fight to protect our planet’s fragile life-support systems has never been as urgent, or more critical.
Here in Aotearoa, the Luxon government is waging an all-out war on nature, and on a planetary scale, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and accelerating species extinction pose an existential threat.
Greenpeace Aotearoa’s Dr Russel Norman . . . “Our ship was targeted because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective.” Image: Greenpeace
As we remember the bombing and the murder of our crew member, Fernando Pereira, it’s important to remember why the French government was compelled to commit such a cowardly act of violence.
Our ship was targeted because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective. We posed a very real threat to the French government’s military programme and colonial power.
It’s also critical to remember that they failed to stop us. They failed to intimidate us, and they failed to silence us. Greenpeace only grew stronger and continued the successful campaign against nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
Forty years later, it’s the oil industry that’s trying to stop us. This time, not with bombs but with a legal attack that threatens the existence of Greenpeace in the US and beyond.
We will not be intimidated
But just like in 1985 when the French bombed our ship, now too in 2025, we will not be intimidated, we will not back down, and we will not be silenced.
We cannot be silenced because we are a movement of people committed to peace and to protecting Earth’s ability to sustain life, protecting the blue oceans, the forests and the life we share this planet with,” says Norman.
In the 40 years since, the Rainbow Warrior has sailed on the front lines of our campaigns around the world to protect nature and promote peace. In the fight to end oil exploration, turn the tide of plastic production, stop the destruction of ancient forests and protect the ocean, the Rainbow Warrior has been there to this day.
Right now the Rainbow Warrior is preparing to sail through the Tasman Sea to expose the damage being done to ocean life, continuing a decades-long tradition of defending ocean health.
This follows the Rainbow Warrior spending six weeks in the Marshall Islands where the original ship carried out Operation Exodus, in which the Greenpeace crew evacuated the people of Rongelap from their home island that had been made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons testing by the US government.
In Auckland this year, several events will be held on and around the ship to mark the anniversary, including open days with tours of the ship for the public.
The iconic Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warriorwill return to Aotearoa this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original campaign ship at Marsden Wharf in Auckland by French secret agents on 10 July 1985.
The return to Aotearoa comes at a pivotal moment — when the fight to protect our planet’s fragile life-support systems has never been as urgent, or more critical.
Here in Aotearoa, the Luxon government is waging an all-out war on nature, and on a planetary scale, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and accelerating species extinction pose an existential threat.
Greenpeace Aotearoa’s Dr Russel Norman . . . “Our ship was targeted because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective.” Image: Greenpeace
As we remember the bombing and the murder of our crew member, Fernando Pereira, it’s important to remember why the French government was compelled to commit such a cowardly act of violence.
Our ship was targeted because Greenpeace and the campaign to stop nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific were so effective. We posed a very real threat to the French government’s military programme and colonial power.
It’s also critical to remember that they failed to stop us. They failed to intimidate us, and they failed to silence us. Greenpeace only grew stronger and continued the successful campaign against nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
Forty years later, it’s the oil industry that’s trying to stop us. This time, not with bombs but with a legal attack that threatens the existence of Greenpeace in the US and beyond.
We will not be intimidated
But just like in 1985 when the French bombed our ship, now too in 2025, we will not be intimidated, we will not back down, and we will not be silenced.
We cannot be silenced because we are a movement of people committed to peace and to protecting Earth’s ability to sustain life, protecting the blue oceans, the forests and the life we share this planet with,” says Norman.
In the 40 years since, the Rainbow Warrior has sailed on the front lines of our campaigns around the world to protect nature and promote peace. In the fight to end oil exploration, turn the tide of plastic production, stop the destruction of ancient forests and protect the ocean, the Rainbow Warrior has been there to this day.
Right now the Rainbow Warrior is preparing to sail through the Tasman Sea to expose the damage being done to ocean life, continuing a decades-long tradition of defending ocean health.
This follows the Rainbow Warrior spending six weeks in the Marshall Islands where the original ship carried out Operation Exodus, in which the Greenpeace crew evacuated the people of Rongelap from their home island that had been made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons testing by the US government.
In Auckland this year, several events will be held on and around the ship to mark the anniversary, including open days with tours of the ship for the public.
That date in 1987 is also the date of the first military coup in Fiji.
More than 60,000 men, women and children were brought to Fiji under an oppressive system of bonded labour between 1879 and 1916.
Today, Indo-Fijians make up 33 percent of the population.
While Fiji is part of the Pacific, Indo-Fijians are not classified as Pacific peoples in New Zealand; instead, they are listed under “Indian” and “Asian” on the Stats NZ website.
Lasting impact on Fiji
The Fiji Centre’s Nik Naidu, who is also a co-founder of the Whānau Community Centre and Hub, said that he understood Fiji was the only country in the Pacific where the British implemented the indentured system.
“It is also a sad legacy and a sad story because it was basically slavery,” he said.
“The positive was that the Fiji Indian community made a lasting impact on Fiji.
“They continue to be around 30 percent of the population in Fiji, and I think significantly in Aotearoa, through the migration, the numbers are, according to the community, over 100,000 in New Zealand.”
Fiji Centre co-founder Nikhil Naidu . . . Girmit Day “is also a sad legacy and a sad story because it was basically slavery.” Image: Asia Pacific Report
“His basic argument was, well, ethnographically, Fijian Indians do not fit the profile of Pacific Islanders,” he said.
Then-minister Aupito William Sio said in 2021 that, while he understood the group’s concerns, the classification for Fijian Indians was in line with an ethnographic profile which included people with a common language, customs and traditions.
Aupito said that profile was different from indigenous Pacific peoples.
StatsNZ and ethnicity
“StatsNZ recognises ethnicity as the ethnic group or groups a person self-identifies with or has a sense of belonging to,” Aupito said in a letter at the time.
It is not the same as race, ancestry, nationality, citizenship or even place of birth, he said.
“They have identified themselves now that the system of government has not acknowledged them.
“Those conversations have to be ongoing to figure out how do we capture the data of who they are as Fijian Indians or to develop policies around that to support their aspirations.”
Girmitiyas – Indentured labourers – in Fiji . . . shedding light on the harsh colonial past in Fiji. Image: RNZ Pacific/Fiji Girmit Foundation
Naidu believes the ethnographic argument was a misunderstanding of the request.
“The request is not to say, like Chinese in Samoa, they are not indigenous to Samoa, but they are Samoans, and they are Pacific Chinese.
“So there is the same thing with Fijian Indians. They are not wanting to be indigenous.
Different from mainland Indians
“They do want to be recognised as separate Indians in the Pacific because they are very different from the mainland Indians.
“In fact, most probably 99 percent of Fijian Indians have never been to India and have no affiliations to India because during the Girmit they lost all connections with their families.”
However, Naidu told Pacific Waves the community was not giving up.
“There was a human rights complaint made — again that did not progress in the favour of the Fijian Indians.
“Currently from . . . Fiji Centre’s perspective, we are still pursuing that.
“We have also had a discussion with Stats NZ about the numbers and trying to ascertain just why they have not managed to put a separate category, so that we can look at the number of Fijian Indians and also relative to Pacific Islanders.”
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told RNZ Pacific that as far as Fiji is concerned, Fijians of Indian descent are Fijian.
In a statement, his office said: “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is undertaking ongoing policy work to better understand this issue.”
Meanwhile, the University of Fiji’s vice-chancellor is asking the Australian and British governments to consider paying reparation for the exploitation of the indentured labourers more than a century ago.
Professor Shaista Shameem told the ABC that they endured harsh conditions, with long hours, social restrictions and low wages.
She said the Australian government and the Colonial Sugar Refinery of Australia benefitted the most financially and it was time the descendants were compensated.
While some community leaders have been calling for reparation, Naidu said there were other issues that needed attention.
He said it had been an ongoing discussion for many decades.
“It is a very challenging one, because where do you draw the line? And it is a global problem, the indenture system. It is not just unique to Fiji.
“Personally, yes, I think that is a great idea. Practically, I am not sure if it is feasible and possible.”
Focus on what unites, says Rabuka Fiji is on a path for reconciliation, with leaders from across the political spectrum signing a Forward Fiji Declaration in 2023, hoping to usher in a new era of understanding between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians.
Rabuka announced a public holiday to commemorate Girmit Day in 2023.
In his Girmit Day message this year, Rabuka said his government was dedicated to bringing unity and reconciliation between all races living in Fiji.
“We all know that Fiji has had a troubled past, as it was natural that conflicts would arise when a new group of people would come into another’s space,” he said.
“This is precisely what transpired when the Indians began to live or decided to live as permanent citizens.
“There was distrust as the two groups were not used to living together during the colonial days. Indigenous Fijians did not have a say in why, and how many should come and how they should be settled here. Fiji was not given a time to transit.
“The policy of indenture labour system was dumped on us. Naturally this led to tensions and misunderstandings, reasons that fuelled conflicts that followed after Fiji gained independence.”
He said 146 years later, Fijians should focus on what unites rather than what divides them.
“We have together long enough to know that unity and peace will lead us to a good future.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Stuck in a state of disbelief for months, journalist Coralie Cochin was one of many media personnel who inadvertently put their lives on the line as New Caledonia burned.
“It was very shocking. I don’t know the word in English, you can’t believe what you’re seeing,” Cochin, who works for public broadcaster NC la 1ère, said on the anniversary of the violent and deadly riots today.
She recounted her experience covering the civil unrest that broke out on 13 May 2024, which resulted in 14 deaths and more than NZ$4.2 billion (2.2 billion euros) in damages.
“It was like the country was [at] war. Every[thing] was burning,” Cochin told RNZ Pacific.
The next day, on May 14, Cochin said the environment was hectic. She was being pulled in many directions as she tried to decide which story to tell next.
“We didn’t know where to go [or] what to tell because there were things happening everywhere.”
She drove home trying to dodge burning debris, not knowing that later that evening the situation would get worse.
“The day after, it was completely crazy. There was fire everywhere, and it was like the country was [at] war suddenly. It was very, very shocking.”
Over the weeks that followed, both Cochin and her husband — also a journalist — juggled two children and reporting from the sidelines of violent demonstrations.
“The most shocking period was when we knew that three young people were killed, and then a police officer was killed too.”
She said verifying the deaths was a big task, amid fears far more people had died than had been reported.
Piled up . . . burnt out cars block a road near Nouméa after last year’s riots in New Caledonia. Image NC 1ère TV screenshot APR
‘We were targets’ After days of running on adrenaline and simply getting the job done, Cochin’s colleagues were attacked on the street.
“At the beginning, we were so focused on doing our job that we forgot to be very careful,” she said.
But then,”we were targets, so we had to be very more careful.”
News chiefs decided to send reporters out in unmarked cars with security guards.
They did not have much protective equipment, something that has changed since then.
“We didn’t feel secure [at all] one year ago,” she said.
But after lobbying for better protection as a union representative, her team is more prepared.
She believes local journalists need to be supported with protective equipment, such as helmets and bulletproof vests, for personal protection.
“We really need more to be prepared to that kind of riots because I think those riots will be more and more frequent in the future.”
Protesters at Molodoï, Strasbourg, demanding the release of Kanak indigenous political prisoners being detained in France pending trial for their alleged role in the pro-independence riots in May 2024. Image: @67Kanaky/X
Social media She also pointed out that, while journalists are “here to inform people”, social media can make their jobs difficult.
“It is more difficult now with social media because there was so [much] misinformation on social media [at the time of the rioting] that we had to check everything all the time, during the day, during the night . . . ”
She recalled that when she was out on the burning streets speaking with rioters from both sides, they would say to her, “you don’t say the truth” and “why do you not report that?” she would have to explain to then that she would report it, but only once it had been fact-checked.
“And it was sometimes [it was] very difficult, because even with the official authorities didn’t have the answers.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
France preaches one thing and practices another.
France declared a state of emergency in its colony of New Caledonia after an anti-colonial uprising broke out there
New Caledonia has long sought independence, hoping to support itself through mining. The French sent in the… pic.twitter.com/g7RKXKaXNM
An Australian solidarity group for West Papuan self-determination has called on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to raise the human rights crisis in the Melanesian region with the Indonesian president this week.
Albanese is visiting Indonesia for two days from tomorrow.
AWPA has written a letter to Albanese making the appeal for him to raise the issue with President Prabowo Subianto.
“The Australian people care about human rights and, in light of the ongoing abuses in West Papua, we are urging Prime Minister Albanese to raise the human rights situation in West Papua with the Indonesian President during his visit to Jakarta,” said Joe Collins of AWPA.
He said the solidarity group was urging Albanese to support the West Papuan people by encouraging the Indonesian government to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory.
The West Papuan people have been calling for such a visit for years.
Concerned over military ties
“We are also concerned about the close ties between the ADF [Australian Defence Force] and the Indonesian military,” Collins said.
“We believe that the ADF should be distancing itself from the Indonesian military while there are ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua, not increasing ties with the Indonesian security forces as is the case at present.”
Collins said that the group understood that it was in the interest of the Australian government to have good relations with Indonesia, “but good relations should not be at the expense of the West Papuan people”.
“The West Papuan people are not going to give up their struggle for self-determination. It’s an issue that is not going away,” Collins added.
A group of New Zealand academics at Otago University have drawn up a “Declaration on Palestine” against genocide, apartheid and scholasticide of Palestinians by Israel that has illegally occupied their indigenous lands for more than seven decades.
The document, which had already drawn more than 300 signatures from staff, students and alumni by the weekend, will be formally adopted at a congress of the Otago Staff for Justice in Palestine (OSJP) group on Thursday.
“At a time when our universities, our public institutions and our political leaders are silent in the face of the daily horrors we are shown from illegally-occupied Palestine, this declaration is an act of solidarity with our Palestinian whānau,” declared Professor Richard Jackson from Te Ao O Rongomaraeroa — The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
“It expresses the brutal truth of what is currently taking place in Palestine, as well as our commitment to international law and human rights, and our social responsibilities as academics.
“We hope the declaration will be an inspiration to others and a call to action at a moment when the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is accelerating at an alarming rate.”
Scholars and students at the university had expressed concern that they did not want to be teaching or learning about the Palestinian genocide in future courses on the history of the Palestinian people, Professor Jackson said.
Nor did they want to feel ashamed when they were asked what they did while the genocide was taking place.
‘Collective moral courage’
“Signing up to the declaration represents an act of individual and collective moral courage, and a public commitment to working to end the genocide.”
The declaration commits its signatories to an academic boycott as part of the wider Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign “until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide”, they had national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The declaration says that given the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled there is a “plausible” case that Israel has been committing genocide, and that all states that are signatory to the Genocide Convention must take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide, the signatories commit themselves to an academic boycott.
BDS is a campaign, begun in 2005, to promote economic, social and cultural boycotts of the Israeli government, Israeli companies and companies that support Israel, in an effort to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and win equal rights for Palestinian citizens within Israel.
It draws inspiration from South African anti-apartheid campaigns and the United States civil rights movement.
The full text of the declaration:
The Otago Declaration on the Situation in Palestine
We, the staff, students and graduates, being members of the University of Otago, make the following declaration.
We fully and completely recognise that: – The Palestinian people have a right under international law to national self-determination; – The Palestinians have the right to security and the full enjoyment of all human and social rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
And furthermore that: – Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian nation, according to experts, official bodies, international lawyers and human rights organisations; – Israel operates a system of apartheid in the territories it controls, and denies the full expression and enjoyment of human rights to Palestinians, according to international courts, human rights organisations, legal and academic experts; – Israel is committing scholasticide, thereby denying Palestinians their right to education;
We recognise that: – Given the International Court of Justice has ruled that there is a plausible case that Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, that all states that are signatory to the Genocide Convention, which includes Aotearoa New Zealand, have a responsibility to take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide;
We also acknowledge that as members of a public institution with educational responsibilities: – We hold a legal and ethical responsibility to act as critic and conscience of society, both individually as members of the University and collectively as a social institution; – We have a responsibility to follow international law and norms and to act in an ethical manner in our personal and professional endeavours; – We hold an ethical responsibility to act in solidarity with oppressed and disadvantaged people, including those who struggle against settler colonial regimes or discriminatory apartheid systems and the harmful long-term effects of colonisation; – We owe a responsibility to fellow educators who are victimised by apartheid and scholasticide;
Therefore, we, the under-signed, do solemnly commit ourselves to: – Uphold the practices, standards and ethics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in terms of investment and procurement as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. – Adopt as part of the BDS campaign an Academic Boycott, as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Otago Declaration congress meeting will be held on Thursday, May 15, 2025, at 12 noon at the Museum Lawn, Dunedin.
The escalation of violence in West Papua is on par with some of the most intense times of conflict over the past six decades, a human rights researcher says.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) claims that Indonesia killed at least one civilian and severely injured another last Tuesday in Puncak Regency.
In a statement, ULMWP interim president Benny Wenda said Deris Kogoya, 18, was killed by a rocket attack from a helicopter while riding his motorbike near Kelanungin Village.
Jemi Waker, meanwhile, sustained severe violent injuries, including to both his legs.
The statement said Waker had refused to go to hospital, fearing he would be killed if he went.
Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said that over the past month he had received an unusually high number of messages accompanied by gruesome photos showing either Indonesian soldiers or civilians being killed.
“The fighting is much more frequent now,” Harsono said.
More Indonesian soldiers
“There are more and more Indonesian soldiers sent to West Papua under President Pradowo.
“At the same time, indigenous Papuans are also gaining more and more men, unfortunately also boys, to join the fight in the jungle.”
He said the escalation could match similarly intense periods of conflict in 1977, 1984, and 2004.
A spokesperson for Indonesia’s Embassy in Wellington said they could not confirm if there had been a military attack in Puncak Regency on Tuesday.
However, they said all actions conducted by Indonesia’s military were in line with international law.
They said there were attacks in March and April of this year, instigated by an “armed criminal group” targeting Indonesian workers and civilians.
Harsono said if the attack was on civilians, it would be a clear breach of human rights.
Confirmation difficult
However, he said it was difficult to confirm due to the remoteness of the area. He said it was common for civilians to wear army camouflage because of surplus Indonesian uniforms.
Israel is in a weak position and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremism knows no bounds. The only other way around an eventual regional war is the ousting of the Israeli prime minister.
US President Donald Trump has closed his line of communication with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to various reports citing officials.
This comes amid alleged growing pressure on Israel regarding Gaza and the abrupt halt to American operations against Ansarallah in Yemen. So, is this all an act or is the US finally pressuring Israel?
On May 1, news broke that President Donald Trump had suddenly ousted his national security advisor Mike Waltz. According to a Washington Post article on the issue, the ouster was in part a response to Waltz’s undermining of the President, for having engaged in intense coordination with Israeli PM Netanyahu regarding the issue of attacking Iran prior to the Israeli Premier’s visit to the Oval Office.
Some analysts, considering that Waltz has been pushing for a war on Iran, argued that his ouster was a signal that the Trump administration’s pro-diplomacy voices were pushing back against the hawks.
This shift also came at a time when Iran-US talks had stalled, largely thanks to a pressure campaign from the Israel Lobby, leading US think tanks and Israeli officials like Ron Dermer.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Trump publicly announced the end to a campaign designed to destroy/degrade Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government in Sana’a on May 6.
Israeli leadership shocked
According to Israeli media, citing government sources, the leadership in Tel Aviv was shocked by the move to end operations against Yemen, essentially leaving the Israelis to deal with Ansarallah alone.
After this, more information began to leak, originating from the Israeli Hebrew-language media, claiming that the Trump administration was demanding Israel reach an agreement for aid to be delivered to Gaza, in addition to signing a ceasefire agreement.
The other major claim is that President Trump has grown so frustrated with Netanyahu that he has cut communication with him directly.
Although neither side has officially clarified details on the reported rift between the two sides, a few days ago the Israeli prime minister released a social media video claiming that he would act alone to defend Israel.
On Friday morning, another update came in that American Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth would be cancelling his planned visit to Tel Aviv.
Can Trump and Netanyahu remake the Middle East? Video: Palestine Chronicle
Is the US finally standing up to Israel? In order to assess this issue correctly, we have to place all of the above-mentioned developments into their proper context.
The issue must also be prefaced on the fact that every member of the Trump government is pro-Israeli to the hilt and has received significant backing from the Israel Lobby.
Mike Waltz was indeed fired and according to leaked AIPAC audio revealed by The Grayzone, he was somewhat groomed for a role in government by the pro-Israel Lobby for a long time.
Another revelation regarding Waltz, aside from him allegedly coordinating with Netanyahu behind Trump’s back and adding journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a private Signal group chat, was that he was storing his chats on an Israeli-owned app.
Yet, Waltz was not booted out of the government like John Bolton was during Trump’s first term in office, he has instead been designated as UN ambassador to the United Nations.
The UN ambassador position was supposed to be handed to Elise Stefanik, a radically vocal supporter of Israel who helped lead the charge in cracking down on pro-Palestine free speech on university campuses. Stefanik’s nomination was withdrawn in order to maintain the Republican majority in the Congress.
If Trump was truly seeking to push back against the Israel Lobby’s push to collapse negotiations with Iran, then why did Trump signal around a week ago that new sanctions packages were on the way?
He announced on Friday that a third independent Chinese refiner would be hit with secondary sanctions for receiving Iranian oil.
Israeli demands in Trump’s rhetoric
The sanctions, on top of the fact that his negotiating team have continuously attempted to add conditions the the talks, viewed in Tehran as non-starters, indicates that precisely what pro-Israel think tanks like WINEP and FDD have been demanding is working its way into not only the negotiating team, but coming out in Trump’s own rhetoric.
There is certainly an argument to make here, that there is a significant split within the pro-Israel Lobby in the US, which is now working its way into the Trump administration, yet it is important to note that the Trump campaign itself was bankrolled by Zionist billionaires and tech moguls.
Miriam Adelson, Israel’s richest billionaire, was his largest donor. Adelson also happens to own Israel Hayom, the most widely distributed newspaper in Israel that has historically been pro-Netanyahu, it is now also reporting on the Trump-Netanyahu split and feeding into the speculations.
As for the US operations against Yemen, the US has used the attack on Ansarallah as the perfect excuse to move a large number of military assets to the region.
This has included air defence systems to the Gulf States and most importantly to Israel.
After claiming back in March to have already “decimated” Ansarallah, the Trump administration spent way in excess of US$1 billion dollars (more accurately over US$2 billion) and understood that the only way forward was a ground operation.
Meanwhile, the US has also moved military assets to the Mediterranean and is directly involved in intensive reconnaissance over Lebanese airspace, attempting to collect information on Hezbollah.
An Iran attack imminent? While it is almost impossible to know whether the media theatrics regarding the reported Trump-Netanyahu split are entirely true, or if it is simply a good-cop bad-cop strategy, it appears that some kind of assault on Iran could be imminent.
Whether Benjamin Netanyahu is going to order an attack on Iran out of desperation or as part of a carefully choreographed plan, the US will certainly involve itself in any such assault on one level or another.
The Israeli prime minister has painted himself into a corner. In order to save his political coalition, he collapsed the Gaza ceasefire during March and managed to bring back his Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to his coalition.
This enabled him to successfully take on his own Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, in an ongoing purge of his opposition.
However, due to a lack of manpower and inability to launch any major ground operation against Gaza, without severely undermining Israeli security on other fronts, Netanyahu decided to adopt a strategy of starving the people of Gaza instead.
He now threatens a major ground offensive, yet it is hard to see what impact it would have beyond an accelerated mass murder of civilians.
The Israeli prime minister’s mistake was choosing the blocking of all aid into Gaza as the rightwing hill to die on, which has been deeply internalised by his extreme Religious Zionism coalition partners, who now threaten his government’s stability if any aid enters the besieged territory.
Netanyahu in a difficult position
This has put Netanyahu in a very difficult position, as the European Union, UK and US are all fearing the backlash that mass famine will bring and are now pushing Tel Aviv to allow in some aid.
Amidst this, Netanyahu made another commitment to the Druze community that he would intervene on their behalf in Syria.
While Syria’s leadership are signaling their intent to normalise ties and according to a recent report by Yedioth Ahronoth, participated in “direct” negotiations with Israel regarding “security issues”, there is no current threat from Damascus.
However, if tensions escalate in Syria with the Druze minority in the south, failure to fulfill pledges could cause major issues with Israeli Druze, who perform crucial roles in the Israeli military.
Internally, Israel is deeply divided, economically under great pressure and the overall instability could quickly translate to a larger range of issues.
Then we have the Lebanon front, where Hezbollah sits poised to pounce on an opportunity to land a blow in order to expel Israel from their country and avenge the killing of its Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Trigger a ‘doomsday option’?
Meanwhile in Gaza, if Israel is going to try and starve everyone to death, this could easily trigger what can only be called the “doomsday option” from Hamas and other groups there. Nobody is about to sit around and watch their people starve to death.
As for Yemen’s Ansarallah, it is clear that there was no way without a massive ground offensive that the movement was going to stop firing missiles and drones at Israel.
What we have here is a situation in which Israel finds itself incapable of defeating any of its enemies, as all of them have now been radicalised due to the mass murder inflicted upon their populations.
In other words, Israel is not capable of victory on any front and needs a way out.
The leader of the opposition to Israel in the region is perceived to be Iran, as it is the most powerful, which is why a conflict with it is so desired. Yet, Tehran is incredibly powerful and the US is incapable of defeating it with conventional weapons, therefore, a full-scale war is the equivalent to committing regional suicide.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specialising in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle and it is republished with permission.
The Aotearoa Philippines Solidarity national assembly has condemned the National Party-led Coalition government in New Zealand over signing a “deplorable” visiting forces agreement with the Philippine government
“Given the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ appalling human rights record and continuing attacks on activists in the Philippines, it is deplorable for the New Zealand government to even consider forging such an agreement,” the APS said in a statement today.
Activists from Filipino communities and concerned New Zealanders gathered in Auckland yesterday to discuss the current human rights crisis in the Philippines and resolved to organise solidarity actions in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The visiting forces agreement (VFA), signed in Manila last month, allows closer military relations between the two countries, including granting allowing each other’s militaries to enter the country to participate in joint exercises.
“By entering into a VFA with the Philippines, the coalition government is being complicit in crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the AFP and the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against the Filipino people,” the statement said.
Having such an agreement in place with the Philippine military tarnished New Zealand’s global reputation of respecting human rights and having an independent foreign policy.
“The APS reiterates its call to the New Zealand government to junk the VFA with the Philippines and to end all ties with the Philippine military,” the statement said.
Mid-term general election tomorrow
“Assembly participants also discussed the mid-term general election campaign in the Philippines “and the violence borne out of it”.
“Elections are typically a bloody affair in the country, but the vote set to occur on Monday [May 12] is especially volatile given the high stakes,” the statement said.
“The country’s two dominant political factions, the Marcos and Duterte camps, are vying for control of the country’s political arena and there is no telling how far they would go to obtain power.”
The statement said there were reports of campaigners going missing, being extrajudicially killed and also being detained without due process.
“We expect electoral fraud and violence will again be committed by the biggest political dynasties especially against the progressive candidates representing the most marginalised sectors.
“The Philippine government must do everything it can to avoid further bloodshed and violent skirmishes that aim to preserve power for the competing political dynasties.”
The statement said that the APS called for the immediate and unconditional freedom for Bayan Muna campaigner Pauline Joy Panjawan.
“Her abduction, torture and continuing detention on trumped up charges speak volumes about the reality of the ongoing human rights crisis in the Philippines.
With yesterday’sassembly, the APS renewed its commitment to raise awareness over the human rights crisis in the Philippines and to do everything it could to raise solidarity with the Filipino people struggling to “achieve a truly just and democratic society”.
IMO, this sounds like an expression of sorrow and regret about the conflict, and about the evils it is feeding and fostering. Regardless, the institute has described that comment by Davis as antisemitic.
“‘You cannot claim to champion social cohesion while minimising or rationalising antisemitic hate,’ the institute said. ‘Social trust depends on moral consistency, especially from those in leadership. Peter Davis’s actions erode that trust.’”
For the record, Davis wasn’t rationalising or minimising antisemitic hate. His comments look far more like a legitimate observation that the longer the need for a political-diplomatic solution is violently resisted, the worse things will be for everyone — including Jewish citizens, via the stoking of antisemitism.
The basic point at issue here is that criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government do not equate to a racist hostility to the Jewish people. (Similarly, the criticisms of Donald Trump’s actions cannot be minimised or rationalised as due to anti-Americanism.)
Appalled by Netanyahu actions
Many Jewish people in fact, also feel appalled by the actions of the Netanyahu government, which repeatedly violate international law.
In the light of the extreme acts of violence being inflicted daily by the IDF on the people of Gaza, the upsurge in hateful graffiti by neo-Nazi opportunists while still being vile, is hardly surprising.
Around the world, the security of innocent Israeli citizens is being recklessly endangered by the ultra-violent actions of their own government.
If you want to protect your citizens from an existing fire, it’s best not to toss gasoline on the flames.
To repeat: the vast majority of the current criticisms of the Israeli state have nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. At a time when Israel is killing scores of innocent Palestinians on a nightly basis with systematic air strikes and the shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, when it is weaponising access to humanitarian aid as an apparent tool of ethnic cleansing, when it is executing medical staff and assassinating journalists, when it is killing thousands of children and starving the survivors . . . antisemitism is not the reason why most people oppose these evils. Common humanity demands it.
Ironically, the press release by the NZ Israel Institute concludes with these words: “There must be zero tolerance for hate in any form.” Too bad the institute seems to have such a limited capacity for self-reflection.
Footnote One: For the best part of 80 years, the world has felt sympathy to Jews in recognition of the Holocaust. The genocide now being committed in Gaza by the Netanyahu government cannot help but reduce public support for Israel.
It also cannot help but erode the status of the Holocaust as a unique expression of human evil.
One would have hoped the NZ Israel Institute might acknowledge the self-defeating nature of the Netanyahu government policies — if only because, on a daily basis, the state of Israel is abetting its enemies, and alienating its friends.
Footnote Two: As yet, the so-called Free Speech Union has not come out to support the free speech rights of Peter Davis, and to rebuke the NZ Israel Institute for trying to muzzle them.
This is a section of Gordon Campbell’s Scoop column published yesterday under the subheading “Pot Calls Out Kettle”; the main portion of the column about the new Pope is here. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.
As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7200 Hiroshima explosions.
During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”.
Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy — one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.
Between March and April, we travelled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing:
Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests;
Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted; and
Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a US medical experiment to test humans’ exposure to radiation.
This isn’t fiction, nor the distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today.
Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.
These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability.
Our mission: why are we here? With the permission and support of the Marshallese government, a group of Greenpeace science and radiation experts, together with independent scientists, are in the island nation to assess, investigate, and document the long-term environmental and radiological consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.
Our mission is grounded in science. We’re conducting field sampling and radiological surveys to gather data on what radioactivity remains in the environment — isotopes such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240. These substances are released during nuclear explosions and can linger in the environment for decades, posing serious health risks, such as increased risk of cancers in organs and bones.
But this work is not only about radiation measurements, it is also about bearing witness.
We are here in solidarity with Marshallese communities who continue to live with the consequences of decisions made decades ago, without their consent and far from the public eye.
Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll — the dome that shouldn’t exist
At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 US nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world — the Runit Dome.
Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome — cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimetres thick in some places — lies 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater — they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time.
The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.
We collected coconut from the island, which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks.
The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination.
They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.
One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure — it is in direct contact with the environment, while containing some of the most hazardous long-lived substances ever to exist on planet Earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change.
The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities?
We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed is an emotional and surreal journey.
Stop 2: Bikini — a nuclear catastrophe, labelled ‘for the good of mankind’
Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident.
The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.
Bikini Atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.
Castle Bravo alone released more than 1000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations, together with thousands of US military personnel.
Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited, and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island.
As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard — behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, US military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.
On our visit, we noticed there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the US Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.
On dusty desks, we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots.
The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated.
We collected samples of coconuts and soil — key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: What does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide?
The US declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.
The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll, anchoring one mile from the centre of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun.
n 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash — fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The US government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The US government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 — but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more.
In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and four trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes, bringing everything with them — including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material — where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll.
It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage — in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.
Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — a period when the US Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe — a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before.
Here, once again, we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks — especially for communities considering whether and how to return.
Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.
We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living with their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades.
There are 9700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons — and the legacy persists today.
We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands.
And we will keep telling these stories — until justice is more than just a word.
Kommol Tata (“thank you” in the beautiful Marshallese language) for following our journey.
Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine and was part of the Rainbow Warrior team in the Marshall Islands. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa and is republished with permission.
This article was initially set out to focus onThe Encampments, Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman’s impassioned documentary that chronicles the Columbia University student movement that shook the United States and captured imaginations the world over.
But then it came to my attention that a sparring film has been released around the same time, offering a staunchly pro-Israeli counter-narrative that vehemently attempts to discredit the account offered by The Encampments.
October 8 charts the alleged rise of antisemitism in the US in the wake of the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian fighters.
A balanced record though, it is not. Wendy Sachs’s solo debut feature, which has the subhead, “The Fight for the Soul of America”, is essentially an unabashed defence of the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices.
Its omissions are predictable; its moral logic is fascinatingly disturbing; its manipulative arguments are the stuff of Steven Bannon.
It’s easily the most abhorrent piece of mainstream Israeli propaganda this writer has come across .
Ignoring October 8 would be injudicious, however. Selected only by a number of Jewish film festivals in the US, the film was released in mid-March by indie distribution outfit Briarcliff Entertainment in more than 125 theatres.
The film has amassed more than $1.3 million so far at the US box office, making it the second-highest grossing documentary of the year, ironically behind the self-distributed and Oscar-winning No Other Land about Palestine at $2.4 million.
October 8 has sold more than 90,000 tickets, an impressive achievement given the fact that at least 73 percent of the 7.5 million Jewish Americans still hold a favourable view of Israel.
“It would be great if we were getting a lot of crossover, but I don’t know that we are,” Sachs admitted to the Hollywood Reporter.
Zionist films have been largely absent from most local and international film festivals — curation, after all, is an ethical occupation — while Palestinian stories, by contrast, have seen an enormous rise in popularity since October 7.
The phenomenon culminated with the Oscar win for No Other Land.
October 8 . . . “easily the most abhorrent piece of mainstream Israeli propaganda this writer has come across.” Image: Briarcliff Entertainment
But the release of October 8 and the selection of several Israeli hostage dramas in February’s Berlin Film Festival indicates that the war has officially reached the big screen.
With the aforementioned hostage dramas due to be shown stateside later this year, and no less than four major Palestinian pictures set for theatrical release over the next 12 months, this Israeli-Palestinian film feud is just getting started.
Working for change The Encampments, which raked in a highly impressive $423,000 in 50 theatres after a month of release, has been garnering more headlines, not only due to the fact that the recently detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil happens to be one of its protagonists, but because it is clearly the better film.
Pritsker and Workman, who were on the ground with the students for most of the six-week duration of the set-in, provide a keenly observed, intimate view of the action, capturing the inspiring highs and dispiriting lows of the passionate demonstrations and wayward negotiations with Columbia’s administrations.
The narrative is anchored from the point of views of four students: Grant Miner, a Jewish PhD student who was expelled in March for his involvement in the protests; Sueda Polat, a protest negotiator and spokesperson for the encampments; Naye Idriss, a Palestinian organiser and Columbia alumni; and the soft-spoken Khalil, the Palestinian student elected to lead the negotiations.
A desire for justice, for holding Israel accountable for its crimes in Gaza, permeated the group’s calling for divesting Columbia’s $13.6 billion endowment funds from weapons manufacturers and tech companies with business links to the Netanyahu’s administration.
Each of the four shares similar background stories, but Miner and Khalil stand out. As a Jew, Miner is an example of a young Jewish American generation that regard their Jewishness as a moral imperative for defending the Palestinian cause.
Khalil, meanwhile, carries the familiar burden of being a child of the camps: a descendant of a family that was forcibly displaced from their Tiberias home in 1948.
The personal histories provide ample opportunities for reflections around questions of identity, trauma, and the youthful desire for tangible change.
Each protester stresses that the encampment was a last and only resort after the Columbia hierarchy casually brushed aside their concerns.
These concerns transformed into demands when it became clear that only more strident action like sit-ins could push the Columbia administration to engage with them.
In an age when most people are content to sit idly behind their computers waiting for something to happen, these students took it upon themselves to actively work for change in a country where change, especially in the face of powerful lobbies, is arduous.
Only through protests, the viewers begin to realise, can these four lucidly deal with the senseless, numbing bloodshed and brutality in Gaza.
Crackdown on free speech Through skilled placement of archival footage, Pritsker and Workman aptly link the encampments with other student movements in Columbia, including the earlier occupation of Hamilton Hall in 1968 that demonstrated the university’s historic ties with bodies that supported America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
Both anti-war movements were countered by an identical measure: the university’s summoning of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to violently dismantle the protests.
Neither the Columbia administration, represented by the disgraced ex-president Minouche Shafik, nor the NYPD are portrayed in a flattering fashion.
Shafik comes off as a wishy-washy figure, too protective of her position to take a concrete stance for or against the pro-Palestinian protesters.
The NYPD were a regular fixture outside universities in New York during the encampments during 2024 Image: MEE/Azad Essa
The NYPD’s employment of violence against the peaceful protests that they declared to have “devolved into antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric” is an admission that violence against words can be justified, undermining the First Amendment of the US constitution, which protects free speech.
The Encampments is not without flaws. By strictly adhering to the testimonials of its subjects, Pritsker and Workman leave out several imperative details.
These include the identity of the companies behind endowment allocations, the fact that several Congress senators who most prominently criticised the encampments “received over $100,000 more on average from pro-Israel donors during their last election” according to a Guardianfinding, and the revelations that US police forces have received analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict directly from the Israeli army and Israeli think tanks.
The suggested link between the 1968 protests and the present situation is not entirely accurate either.
The endowments industry was nowhere as big as it is now, and there’s an argument to be made about the deprioritisation of education by universities vis-a-vis their endowments.
A bias towards Israel or a determination to assert the management’s authority is not the real motive behind their position — it’s the money.
Lastly, avoiding October 7 and the moral and political issues ingrained within the attack, while refraining from confronting the pro-Israel voices that accused the protesters of aggression and antisemitism, is a major blind spot that allows conservatives and pro-Israel pundits to accuse the filmmakers of bias.
One could be asking too much from a film directed by first-time filmmakers that was rushed into theatres to enhance awareness about Mahmoud Khalil’s political persecution, but The Encampments, which was co-produced by rapper Macklemore, remains an important, urgent, and honest document of an event that has been repeatedly tarnished by the media and self-serving politicians.
The politics of victimhood The imperfections of The Encampments are partially derived from lack of experience on its creators’ part.
Any accusations of malice are unfounded, especially since the directors do not waste time in arguing against Zionism or paint its subjects as victims. The same cannot be said of October 8.
Executive produced by actress Debra Messing of Will & Grace fame, who also appears in the film, October 8 adopts a shabby, scattershot structure vastly comprised of interviews with nearly every high-profile pro-Israel person in America.
The talking heads are interjected with dubious graphs and craftily edited footage culled from social media of alleged pro-Palestinian protesters in college campuses verbally attacking Jewish students and allegedly advocating the ideology of Hamas.
Needless to say, no context is given to these videos whose dates and locations are never identified.
The chief aim of October 8 is to retrieve the victimisation card by using the same language that informed the pro-Palestine discourse
Every imaginable falsification and shaky allegation regarding the righteousness of Zionism is paraded: anti-Zionism is the new form of antisemitism; pro-Palestinian protesters harassed pro-Israel Jewish students; the media is flooded with pro-Palestinian bias.
Other tropes include the claim that Hamas is conspiring to destabilise American democracy and unleash hell on the Western world.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas co-founder who defected to Israel in 1997, stresses that “my definition of Intifada is chaos”.
There is also the suggestion that the protests, if not contained, could spiral into Nazi era-like fascism.
Sachs goes as far as showing historical footage of the Third Reich to demonstrate her point.
The chief aim of October 8 is to retrieve Israel’s victimhood by using the same language that informs pro-Palestine discourse. “Gaza hijacked all underdog stories in the world,” one interviewee laments.
At one point, the attacks of October 7 are described as a “genocide”, while Zionism is referred to as a “civil rights movement”.
One interviewee explains that the framing of the Gaza war as David and Goliath is erroneous when considering that Hamas is backed by almighty Iran and that Israel is surrounded by numerous hostile countries, such as Lebanon and Syria.
In the most fanciful segment of the film, the interviewees claim that the Students for Justice in Palestine is affiliated and under the command of Hamas, while haphazardly linking random terrorist attacks, such as 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting to Hamas and by extension the Palestinian cause.
A simmering racist charge delineate the film’s pro-Israel discourse in its instance on pigeonholing all Palestinians as radical Muslim Hamas supporters.
There isn’t a single mention of the occupied West Bank or Palestinian religious minorities or even anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza.
Depicting all Palestinians as a rigid monolith profoundly contrasts Pritsker and Workman’s nuanced treatment of their Jewish subjects.
The best means to counter films like October 8 is facts and good journalism
There’s a difference between subtraction and omission: the former affects logical form, while the latter affects logical content.
October 8 is built on a series of deliberate omissions and fear mongering, an unscrupulous if familiar tactic that betrays the subjects’ indignation and their weak conviction.
It is thus not surprising that there is no mention of the Nakba or the fact that the so-called “civil rights movement” is linked to a state founded on looted lands or the grand open prison Israel has turned Gaza into, or the endless humiliation of Palestinians in the West Bank.
There is also no mention of the racist and inciting statements by far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Nor is there mention of the Palestinians who have been abducted and tortured and raped in Israeli prisons.
And definitely not of the more than 52,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza to date.
Sachs’ subjects naturally are too enveloped in their own conspiracies, in the tightly knotted narrative they concocted for themselves, to be aware of their privilege.
The problem is, these subjects want to have their cake and eat it. Throughout, they constantly complain of being silenced; that most institutions, be it the media or college hierarchies or human rights organisations, have not recognised the colossal loss of 7 October 7 and have focused instead on Palestinian suffering.
They theorise that the refusal of the authorities in taking firm and direct action against pro-Palestinian voices has fostered antisemitism.
At the same time, they have no qualms in flaunting their contribution to New York Times op-eds or the testimonies they were invited to present at the Congress.
All the while, Khalil and other Palestinian activists are arrested, deported and stripped of their residencies.
The value of good journalism October 8, which portrays the IDF as a brave, truth-seeking institution, is not merely a pro-Israel propaganda, it’s a far-right propaganda.
The subjects adopt Trump rhetoric in similarly blaming the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies for the rise of antisemitism, while dismissing intersectionality and anti-colonialism for giving legitimacy to the Palestinian cause.
As repugnant as October 8 is, it is crucial to engage with work of its ilk and confront its hyperboles.
Last month, the Hollywood Reporter set up an unanticipated discussion between Pritsker, who is in fact Jewish, and pro-Israel influencer Hen Mazzig.
The heated exchange that followed demonstrated the difficulty of communication with the pro-Israeli lobby, yet nonetheless underlines the necessity of communication, at least in film.
Mazzig spends the larger part of the discussion spewing unfounded accusations that he provides no validations for: “Mahmoud Khalil has links to Hamas,” he says at one point.
When asked about the Palestinian prisoners, he confidently attests that “the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners” — hostages, as Pritsker calls them — they have committed crimes and are held in Israeli prisons, right?
“In fact, in the latest hostage release eight Palestinian prisoners refused to go back to Gaza because they’ve enjoyed their treatment in these prisons.”
Mazzig dismisses pro-Palestinian groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and the pro-Palestinian Jewish students who participated in the encampments.
“No one would make this argument but here we are able to tokenise a minority, a fringe community, and weaponise it against us,” he says.
“It’s not because they care about Jews and want Jews to be represented. It’s that they hate us so much that they’re doing this and gaslighting us.”
At this stage, attempting for the umpteenth time to stress that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not one and the same — a reality that the far-right rejects — is frankly pointless.
Attempting, like Khalil, to continually emphasise our unequivocal rejection of antisemitism, to underscore that our Jewish colleagues and friends are partners in our struggle for equality and justice, is frankly demeaning.
For Mazzig and Messing and the October 8 subjects, every Arab, every pro-Palestinian, is automatically an antisemite until proven otherwise.
The best means to counter films like October 8 is facts and good journalism.
Emotionality has no place in this increasingly hostile landscape. The reason why The Bibi Files and Louis Theroux’s The Settlers work so well is due to their flawless journalism.
People may believe what they want to believe, but for the undecided and the uninformed, factuality and journalistic integrity — values that go over Sachs’ head — could prove to be the most potent weapon of all.
Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer. He is the Arab delegate of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, a former member of Berlin Critics’ Week and the ex director of programming of the Cairo International Film Festival. This article was first published by Middle East Eye.
Auckland film maker Paula Whetu Jones has spent nearly two decades working pro bono on a feature film about the Auckland cardiac surgeon Alan Kerr, which is finally now in cinemas.
She is best known for co-writing and directing Whina, the feature film about Dame Whina Cooper.
She filmed Dr Kerr and his wife Hazel in 2007, when he led a Kiwi team to Gaza and the West Bank to operate on children with heart disease.
What started as a two-week visit became a 20 year commitment, involving 40 medical missions to Gaza and the West Bank and hundreds of operations.
Paula Whetu Jones self-funded six trips to document the work and the result is the feature film The Doctor’s Wife, now being screened free in communities around the country.
I met Alan and Hazel Kerr in 2006 and became inspired by their selflessness and dedication. I wanted to learn more about them and shine a light on their achievements.
I’ve been trying to highlight social issues through documentary film making for 25 years. I have always struggled to obtain funding and this project was no different. We provided most of the funding but it wouldn’t have been possible to complete it without the generosity of a small number of donors.
Others gave of their time and expertise.
Film maker Paula Whetu Jones . . . “Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre 2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers.” Image: NZ On Film
Our initial intention was to follow Dr Alan in his work in the West Bank and Gaza but we also developed a very special relationship with Hazel.
While Dr Alan was operating, Hazel took herself all over the West Bank and Gaza, volunteering to help in refugee camps, schools and community centres. We tagged along and realised that Dr Alan and his work was the heart of the film but Hazel was the soul. Hence, the title became The Doctor’s Wife.
I was due to return to Palestine in 2010 when on the eve of my departure I was struck down by a rare auto immune condition which left me paralysed. It wasn’t until 2012 that I was able to return to Palestine.
Wheelchair made things hard
However, being in a wheelchair made everything near on impossible, not to mention my mental state which was not conducive to being creative. In 2013, tragedy struck again when my 22-year-old son died, and I shut down for a year.
Again, the project seemed so far away, destined for the shelf. Which is where it sat for the next few years while I tried to figure out how to live in a wheelchair and support myself and my daughter.
The project was re-energised when I made two arts documentaries in Palestine, making sure we filmed Alan while we were there and connecting with a NZ trauma nurse who was also filming.
By 2022, we knew we needed to complete the doco. We started sorting through many years of footage in different formats, getting the interviews transcribed and edited. The last big push was in 2023. We raised funds and got a few people to help with the logistics.
I spent six months with three editors and then we used the rough cut to do one last fundraiser that helped us over the line, finally finishing it in March of 2025.
Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre-2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers who were told in 2006 that no one cares about old people, sick Palestinian children or Palestine.
They were wrong. We cared and maybe you do, too.
What is happening in 2025 means it’s even more important now for people to see the ordinary people of Palestine
Dr Alan and his wife, Hazel are now 90 and 85 years old respectively. They are the most wonderfully humble humans. Their work over 20 years is nothing short of inspiring.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Thought I’d share with you an attempt to hold my MP to account for Westminster’s shameful complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. The talking-points may help if you’re about to do the same with your MP or senator.
Israel: after 19 months of non-stop genocide where do you stand Mr Cooper?
ku.tnemailrapnull@pm.repooc.nhoj
Dear Mr Cooper,
In your communications to me in February and October last year some remarks were misleading and sounded as if penned by Israel’s propaganda scribblers in Tel Aviv. Given your journalistic background it was hoped you would sniff out and reject such disinformation. With the situation in Gaza now so horrific a more considered reply would be welcome, please, from our representative at Westminster.
You said: “Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history at the hands of Hamas.”
But you omitted the context. In the 23 years prior to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Why overlook this? 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, were held in Israeli jails on that fateful day. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’ (B’Tselem figures). October 7 was therefore a retaliation against extreme provocation. Or were we expecting the Palestinians to take all that lying down?
Evidence is now emerging that the IDF inflicted many of the casualties on their own people that day in order to provide a pretext for their long-planned genocidal assault.
Early in the genocide JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, described the situation leading up to October 7 rather well:
The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence…. For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation….
For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.
For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.
The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.
You said: “I support Israel’s right to defend itself, in line with international humanitarian law.”
The UN itself has made it clear that “Israel cannot claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies”, and many law experts have said the same.
On the other hand the Palestinians’ right to resist is confirmed in UN Resolution 3246 which calls for all States to recognize the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subject to colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, and to assist them in their struggle, and reaffirms the Palestinians’ right to use “all available means, including armed struggle” in their fight for freedom.
Furthermore UN Resolution 37/43 gives them an unquestionable right, in their struggle for liberation, to “eliminate the threat posed by Israel by all available means including armed struggle”. And as China reminded everyone at the ICJ, “armed resistance against occupation is enshrined in international law and is not terrorism”.
You said “There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the democratically elected Government of Israel.”
How right you are! Under international law Palestinians have an inalienable right to self-determination. They properly elected Hamas under international scrutiny in 2006, at the last permitted election. Hamas are the lawful and legitimate rulers in Gaza.
Israel is not the Western-style democracy it pretends to be. It is a deeply unpleasant ethnocracy with recently enacted discriminatory nation-state laws to emphasise its apartheid ‘bottom line’. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization, has documented entrenched discrimination and socioeconomic differences in “land, urban planning, housing, infrastructure, economic development, and education.”
You said: “Leaving Hamas in power in Gaza would be a permanent roadblock to a two-state solution…..A sustainable ceasefire must mean that Hamas is no longer there, able to threaten Israel.”
The US and UK have no right to attempt coercive regime change. Besides, Israel has been a fatal threat to Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) since well before Hamas was even founded.
Sections 16 and 20 of Hamas’s 2017 Charter are in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.
(s.16) “Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.
(s.20) “Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”
The correct and lawful way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, theft of Palestinian resources, and destruction of Palestinian heritage.
You said: “I support all steps to bring about a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders.”
Palestinians should not have to negotiate their freedom and self-determination. Under international law it’s their basic right and doesn’t depend on anyone else, such as Israel or the US, agreeing to it. The UK disrespects that, otherwise we would long ago have recognised Palestinian statehood along with the vast majority of nations that have already done so. And why is only Israel allowed to be “safe and secure”?
Britain’s refusal to recognise Palestine is disgraceful. We promised the Palestinian Arabs independence in 1915 in return for their help in defeating the Turks but reneged in 1917 (in favour of the shameful Balfour Declaration). We should have granted Palestine provisional independence in 1923 in accordance with our responsibilities under the League of Nations Mandate Agreement, but didn’t. In 1947 the UN Partition Plan allocated the Palestinians a measly portion of their own homeland and, without consulting them, handed the lion’s share to incomer Jews with no ancestral connection to it… thanks in large part to the Balfour betrayal.
The following year Britain walked away from its mandate responsibilities leaving Palestinians at the mercy of Israel’s vicious plan for annexing the Holy Land by military force – “from the river to the sea” – which they’ve pursued relentlessly ever since in defiance of international and humanitarian law, bringing terror, misery, wholesale destruction and ruination to the Palestinians. And now genocide.
Today Britain still refuses to recognise Palestinian independence although 138 other UN member states do.
You said: “Settler violence and the demolition of Palestinian homes is intolerable, and I expect to see Ministers firmly raising these issues with the Israeli Government, and taking robust action where necessary.”
The Israeli regime has long ignored representations on such issues, so where is the “robust action” you speak of?
According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, “The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence…. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.”
Law expert Ralph Wilde provides this opinion:
There is no right under international law to maintain the occupation pending a peace agreement, or for creating ‘facts on the ground’ that might give Israel advantages in relation to such an agreement, or as a means of coercing the Palestinian people into agreeing on a situation they would not accept otherwise.
Implanting settlers in the hope of eventually acquiring territory is a violation of occupation law by Israel and a war crime on the part of the individuals involved. And it is a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the sovereignty of another state and a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; also a violation of Israel’s obligations in the international law on the use of force. Ending these violations involves immediate removal of the settlers and the settlements from occupied land and an immediate end to Israel’s exercise of control, including its use of military force….
You said: “The UK is doing everything it can to get more aid in and open more crossings, and we played a leading role in securing the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2720, which made clear the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access.”
That went well, didn’t it? It’s sickening how Westminster still won’t accept the truth – that Israel is a depraved and repulsive regime, devoid of humanity, and we should not be supporting it in any way, shape or form.
For decades before October 7 Israel’s illegal control over the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza and military aggression, ethnic cleansing, restrictions on movement of goods and people, dispossession of prime lands, theft of Palestine’s key resources and destruction of its economy have bordered on slow-motion genocide.
And now the International Court of Justice has clarified that “a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent, it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit”.
The many means available to the British Government include sanctions – which it readily applies to other delinquent nations – and withdrawal of favoured-nation privileges, trade deals, scientific/security collaboration, and cessation of arms supplies. In Israel’s case the British Government, far from using its available deterrent means, has militarily assisted Israel in its genocide.
So let’s remind ourselves of the UK Lawyers’ Open Letter Concerning Gaza of 26 October 2023 which arrived at the UK Government with important warnings regarding breaches of international law — for example:
⦁ The UK is duty-bound to “respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law as set out in the Four Geneva Conventions in all circumstances (1949 Geneva Conventions, Common Art 1). That means the UK must not itself assist violations by others.
⦁ The UK Government must immediately halt the export of weapons from the UK to Israel, given the clear risk that they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law and in breach of the UK’s domestic Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, including its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.
The Department for Business and Trade (whose committee I believe you now sit on) dismissed a petition calling for all licences for arms to Israel to be revoked. Their excuse was that “we rigorously assess every application on a case-by-case basis against strict assessment criteria, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (or SELC)…. The SELC provide a thorough risk assessment framework for export licence applications and require us to think hard about the impact of providing equipment and its capabilities. We will not license the export of equipment where to do so would be inconsistent with the SELC.”
But they didn’t explain how Israel managed to satisfy those “strict assessment criteria” and survive such a “rigorous” process. Were we supposed to take it all on trust? There are 8 criteria and, on reading them, any reasonably informed person might conclude that Israel fails to satisfy at least 5.
You said: “In the longer term, I will continue to support the UK’s long held-position, that there should be a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security for both nations and the wider region.”
Why the longer term? Why not now? If Palestinian statehood had been recognised at the proper time (in 1923, or at least by 1948 when Israeli statehood was ‘accepted’) these unspeakable atrocities would never have happened.
QME and Plan Dalet
These are the never-mentioned driving forces behind the evil that poisons the Holy Land.
In 2008 Congress enacted legislation requiring that US arms sales to any country in the Middle East other than Israel must not adversely affect Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). It ensures the apartheid regime always has the upper hand over it neighbours. This is central to US Middle East policy and guarantees the region is kept at or near boiling point and ripe for exploitation.
Sadly the UK has superglued itself to America’s cynical partnership with Israel for ‘security’ and other dubious reasons.
Plan D, or Plan Dalet, is the Zionist terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland written 77 years ago. It was drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency and later to become the first president of ‘New Israel’. .
Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there to prevent it. As Plan D shows, “expulsion and transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) has always been a key part of the Zionists’ scheme, and Ben-Gurion reminded his military commanders that the prime aim of Plan D was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The Deir Yassin massacre signalled the beginning of a deliberate programme to depopulate Arab towns and villages – destroying churches and mosques – in order to make room for incoming Holocaust survivors and other Jews. In July 1948 Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population. They massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Of all the blood-baths they say this was the biggest. Israel’s great hero Moshe Dayan was responsible.
By 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash we still see today. The knock-on effects have created around 6 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN plus an estimated 1 million others worldwide.
Israel Lobby
Considering Britain’s obligations towards the Holy Land since WW1, would you please let me know what you and your colleagues are now doing to stop this appalling extermination of the Palestinian people? And I do mean action not empty words. And would you please explain why Conservative Friends of Israel, which works to promote and support Israel in Parliament and at every level of the Party and claims 80% of Conservative MPs as signed-up members, are allowed to flourish at Westminster?.
MPs who put themselves under the influence of an aggressive foreign military power are surely in flagrant breach of the principles of public life (aka the Nolan Principles) which are written into MPs’ code of conduct and the ministerial code.
Being a Friend of Israel, of course, means embracing the terror on which the state of Israel was built, approving the dispossession of the innocent and the oppression of the powerless, and applauding the discriminatory laws against non-Jews who resisted being ejected and inconveniently remain in their homeland.
It means aligning oneself with the vile mindset that abducts civilians — including children — and imprisons and tortures them without trial, imposes hundreds of military checkpoints, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, and interferes with Palestinian life at every level.
And it means giving the thumbs-up to Israeli gunboats shooting up Palestinian fishermen in their own territorial waters, the strangulation of the West Bank’s economy, the cruel 19-year blockade on Gaza and the bloodbaths inflicted on the tiny enclave’s packed population. Also the religious war that humiliates the Holy Land’s Muslims and Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places.
I prefer to think that you know all this but must be mindful that the Israel lobby have Conservative Central Office in their pocket.
The New Zealand Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa made a high profile appeal to Foreign Minister Winston Peters over Gaza today, calling for urgent action over humanitarian supplies for the besieged Palestinian enclave.
“Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court,” said the open letter published by the two organisations as full page advertisements in three leading daily newspapers.
Noting that New Zealand has not joined the International Court of Justice for standing up to “condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war”, the groups still called on the government to use its “internationally respected voice” to express solidarity for humanitarian aid.
The plea comes amid Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza which have killed at least 61 people since dawn, targeting civilians in crowded places and a Gaza City market.
The more than two-month blockade by the the enclave by Israel has caused acute food shortages, accelerating the starvation of the Palestinian population.
Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies — while more than 3000 trucks laden with supplies are stranded on the Egyptian border blocked from entry into Gaza.
At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade. The overall death toll, revised in view of bodies buried under the rubble, stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1139 people killed in Israel.
The open letter, publlshed by three Stuff-owned titles — Waikato Times in Hamilton, The Post in the capital Wellington, and The Press in Christchurch, said:
Rt Hon Winston Peters Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz
Open letter requesting government action on the future of Gaza
Kia ora Mr Peters,
The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.
We urge our country to speak out and join other nations demanding humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
For more than two months, Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Food Programme says food stocks in Gaza are fully depleted. UNICEF says children face “growing risk of starvation, illness and death”. The International Committee of the Red Cross says “the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse”.
Meanwhile, 3000 trucks laden with desperately needed aid are lined up at the Occupied Gaza border. Israeli occupation forces are refusing to allow them in.
Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of International Humanitarian Law and a War Crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.
At the International Court of Justice many countries have stood up to condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war and to demand accountability for Israel to end its industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
New Zealand has not joined that group. Our government has been silent to date.
After 18 months facing what the International Court of Justice has described as a “plausible genocide”, it is grievous that New Zealand does not speak out and act clearly against this ongoing humanitarian outrage.
Minister Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs you are in a position of leadership to carry New Zealand’s collective voice in support of humanitarian aid to Gaza to the world. We are asking you to speak on behalf of New Zealand to support the urgent international plea for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and to initiate calls for a no-fly zone to be established over the region to prevent further mass killing of civilians.
We believe the way forward for peace and security for everyone in the region is for all parties to follow international law and United Nations resolutions, going back to UNGA 194 in 1948, so that a lasting peace can be established based on justice and equal rights for everyone.
New Zealand has an internationally respected voice — please use it to express solidarity for humanitarian aid to Gaza, today.
Nā
Ann Kendall QSM, Co-chair Tā Taihākurei Durie, Pou [cultural leader] NZ Māori Council
Maher Nazzal and John Minto, National Co-chairs Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)
The NZ Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa advertisement in New Zealand media today. Image: PSNA
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
After three solid days of talks in retreat mode, New Caledonia’s political parties have yet to reach an agreement on the French Pacific territory’s future status.
The talks, held with French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and French Prime Minister’s special advisor Eric Thiers, have since Monday moved from Nouméa to a seaside resort in Bourail — on the west coast of the main island, about 200 km from the capital — in what has been labelled a “conclave”, a direct reference to this week’s meeting of Catholic cardinals in Rome to elect a new pope.
However, the Bourail conclave is yet to produce any kind of white smoke, and no one, as yet, claims “Habemus Pactum” to say that an agreement has been reached.
Under heavy security, representatives of both pro-France and pro-independence parties are being kept in isolation and are supposed to stay there until a compromise is found to define New Caledonia’s political future, and an agreement that would later serve as the basis for a pact designed to replace the Nouméa Accord that was signed in 1998.
The talks were supposed to conclude yesterday, but it has been confirmed that the discussions were going to last longer, at least one more day, probably well into the night.
Valls was initially scheduled to fly back to Paris today, but it has also been confirmed that he will stay longer.
Almost one year after civil unrest broke out in New Caledonia on 13 May 2024, leaving 14 dead and causing 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion) in damage, the talks involve pro-France Les Loyalistes, Le Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble and pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), UNI-PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).
Wallisian ‘third way’
Éveil Océanien, a Wallisian-based party, defends a “neither pro, nor against independence” line — what it calls a “third way”.
The talks, over the past few days, have been described as “tense but respectful”, with some interruptions at times.
The most sensitive issues among the numerous topics covered by the talks on New Caledonia’s future, are reported to be the question of New Caledonia’s future status and relationship to France.
Other sensitive topics include New Caledonia’s future citizenship and the transfer of remaining key powers (defence, law and order, currency, foreign affairs, justice) from Paris to Nouméa.
Valls, who is visiting New Caledonia for the third time since February 2025, said he would stay in New Caledonia “as long as necessary” for an inclusive and comprehensive agreement to be reached.
Earlier this week, Valls also likened the current situation as “walking on a tightrope above embers.”
“The choice is between an agreement and chaos,” he told local media.
Clashing demands
On both sides of the discussion table, local parties have all stated earlier that bearing in mind their respective demands, they were “not ready to sign at all costs.”
The FLNKS is demanding full sovereignty while on the pro-France side, that view is rejected after three referendums were held there between 2018 and 2021 said no to independence.
Valls’s approach was still trying to reconcile those two very antagonistic views, often described as “irreconcilable”.
“But the thread is not broken. Only more time is required”, local media quoted a close source as saying.
Last week, an earlier session of talks in Nouméa had to be interrupted due to severe frictions and disagreement from the pro-France side.
Speaking to public broadcaster NC la 1ère on Sunday, Rassemblement leader Virginie Ruffenach elaborated, saying “there had been profound elements of disagreements on a certain number of words uttered by the minister (Valls)”.
One of the controversial concepts, strongly opposed by the most radical pro-French parties, was a possible transfer of key powers from Paris to Nouméa, as part of a possible agreement.
Loyalists opposed to ‘independence-association’ “In what was advanced, the land of New Caledonia would no longer be a French land”, Ruffenach stressed on Sunday, adding this was “unacceptable” to her camp.
She also said the two main pro-France parties were opposed to any notion of “independence-association”.
“Neither Rassemblement, nor Les Loyalistes will sign for New Caledonia’s independence, let this be very clear.”
The pro-France camp is advocating for increased powers (including on tax matters) for each of the three provinces of New Caledonia, a solution sometimes regarded by critics as a form of partition of the French Pacific territory.
In a media release on Sunday, FLNKS “reaffirmed its . . . ultimate goal was Kanaky (New Caledonia’s) accession to full sovereignty”.
Series of fateful anniversaries On the general public level, a feeling of high expectations, but also wariness, seems to prevail at the news that discussions were still inconclusive.
In 1988, the Matignon-Oudinot peace talks between pro-independence leader at the time, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, were also held, in their final stage, in Paris, behind closed doors, under the close supervision of French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard.
The present crucial talks also coincide with a series of fateful anniversaries in New Caledonia’s recent history — on 5 May 1988, French special forces ended a hostage situation and intervened on Ouvéa Island in the Gossana grotto, where a group of hard-line pro-independent militants had held a group of French gendarmes.
The human toll was heavy: 19 Kanak militants and 2 gendarmes were killed.
On 4 May 1989, one year after the Matignon-Oudinot peace accords were signed, Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy Yeiwene Yeiwene were gunned down by hard-line pro-independence Kanak activist Djubelly Wea.
Valls attended most of these commemoration ceremonies at the weekend.
On 5 May 1998, the 27-year-old Nouméa Accord was signed between New Caledonia’s parties and then French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
De facto Constitution
The Nouméa pact, which is often regarded as a de facto Constitution, was placing a particular stress on the notions of “re-balancing” economic wealth, a “common destiny” for all ethnic communities “living together” and a gradual transfer of powers from Paris to Nouméa.
The Accord also prescribed that if three self-determination referendums (initially scheduled between 2014 and 2018) had produced three rejections (in the form of “no”), then all political stakeholders were supposed to “meet and examine the situation thus generated”.
The current talks aimed at arriving at a new document, which was destined to replace the Nouméa Accord and bring New Caledonia closer to having its own Constitution.
Valls said he was determined to “finalise New Caledonia’s decolonisation” process.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
After 19 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and drawn accusations of war crimes against Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is once more preparing to escalate Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The latest plan puts Israel on course for full occupation of the Palestinian territory and would drive Gazans into ever-narrowing pockets of the shattered strip.
It would lead to more intensive bombing and Israeli forces clearing and holding territory, while destroying what few structures remain in Gaza.
This would be a disaster for 2.2 million Gazans who have already endured unfathomable suffering.
Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land. For two months, Israel has blocked delivery of all aid into the strip.
Child malnutrition rates are rising, the few functioning hospitals are running out of medicine, and warnings of starvation and disease are growing louder. Yet the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation.
They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.
In brief remarks on Sunday, US President Donald Trump acknowledged Gazans were “starving”, and suggested Washington would help get food into the strip.
But, so far, the US president has only emboldened Netanyahu. Trump returned to the White House promising to end the war in Gaza after his team helped broker a January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Under the deal, Hamas agreed to free hostages in phases, while Israel was to withdraw from Gaza and the foes were to reach a permanent ceasefire.
But within weeks of the truce taking hold, Trump announced an outlandish plan for Gaza to be emptied of Palestinians and taken over by the US.
In March, Israel collapsed the ceasefire as it sought to change the terms of the deal, with Washington’s backing. Senior Israeli officials have since said they are implementing Trump’s plan to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.
On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu insists an expanded offensive is necessary to destroy Hamas and free the 59 remaining hostages. The reality is that the prime minister has never articulated a clear plan since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack killed 1200 people and triggered the war.
Instead, he repeats his maximalist mantra of “total victory” while seeking to placate his extremist allies to ensure the survival of his governing coalition.
But Israel is also paying a price for his actions. The expanded offensive would imperil the lives of the hostages, further undermine Israel’s tarnished standing and deepen domestic divisions.
Israel has briefed that the expanded operation would not begin until after Trump’s visit to the Gulf next week, saying there is a “window” for Hamas to release hostages in return for a temporary truce.
Arab leaders are infuriated by Netanyahu’s relentless pursuit of conflict in Gaza yet they will fete Trump at lavish ceremonies with promises of multibillion-dollar investments and arms deals.
Trump will put the onus on Hamas when speaking to his Gulf hosts. The group’s murderous October 7 attack is what triggered the Israeli offensive.
Gulf states agree that its continued stranglehold on Gaza is a factor prolonging the war. But they must stand up to Trump and convince him to pressure Netanyahu to end the killing, lift the siege and return to talks.
The global tumult triggered by Trump has already distracted attention from the catastrophe in Gaza. Yet the longer it goes on, the more those who remain silent or cowed from speaking out will be complicit.
The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.
Eyes of Fire . . . the earlier 30th anniversary edition in 2015. Image: Little Island Press/DR
“You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.
“A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”
He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.
Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.
Plantu’s cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers from the slideshow. Image: David Robie/Plantu
“This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.
“It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”
Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.
The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.
World Press Freedom Day is a poignant reminder that journalists and media workers are essential for a healthy, functioning society — including the Pacific.
Held annually on May 3, World Press Freedom Day prompts governments about the need to respect press freedom, while serving as a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics.
Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom.
It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom situation has worsened in the Asia-Pacific region, where 26 of the 32 countries and territories have seen their scores fall in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
The region’s dictatorial governments have been tightening their hold over news and information with increasing vigour.
No country in the Asia-Pacific region is among the Index’s top 15 this year, with Aotearoa New Zealand falling six places to 19. [Editor’s note: these figures are outdated — from last year’s 2024 Index. Go to the 2025 index here).
Although experiencing challenges to the right to information, other regional democracies such as Timor-Leste (20th), Samoa (22nd) and Taiwan (27th) have also retained their roles as press freedom models.
Storytelling a vital art
Storytelling is inherent in Pacific peoples, and it is vital this art is nurtured, and our narrative is heard loud and clear — a priority goal for Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL) and Pasifika TV.
Chief executive officer of PCBL Natasha Meleisea says Pacific-led storytelling is critical to regional identity, but like all media around the world, it faces all sorts of challenges and issues.
“Some of those current concerns include the need for journalism to remain independent, as well as the constructive use of technology, notably AI and that it supports the truth and does not undermine it,” Meleisea said.
Forums such as the Pacific Media Summit are critical to addressing, and finding a collective response to the various challenges, she added.
Resilient media sector
Meleisea said some solutions to these issues were being implemented, to provide a resilient and sustainable media sector in the Pacific.
“It is a matter of getting creative, and looking at alternative platforms for content, as well as seeking international funding and building an infrastructure which supports these new goals,” she says.
“There is no doubt journalists and media workers are essential for a healthy, functioning society and when done right, journalism can hold those in power to account, amplify underrepresented stories, bolster democratic ideals, and spread crucial information to the public.
“With press freedom increasingly under threat, we must protect Pacific story sovereignty, and our voice at the table.”
Republished from Pasifika TV strategic communications.
World Press Freedom Day is a poignant reminder that journalists and media workers are essential for a healthy, functioning society — including the Pacific.
Held annually on May 3, World Press Freedom Day prompts governments about the need to respect press freedom, while serving as a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics.
Just as importantly, World Press Freedom Day is a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom.
It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the press freedom situation has worsened in the Asia-Pacific region, where 26 of the 32 countries and territories have seen their scores fall in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
The region’s dictatorial governments have been tightening their hold over news and information with increasing vigour.
No country in the Asia-Pacific region is among the Index’s top 15 this year, with Aotearoa New Zealand falling six places to 19. [Editor’s note: these figures are outdated — from last year’s 2024 Index. Go to the 2025 index here).
Although experiencing challenges to the right to information, other regional democracies such as Timor-Leste (20th), Samoa (22nd) and Taiwan (27th) have also retained their roles as press freedom models.
Storytelling a vital art
Storytelling is inherent in Pacific peoples, and it is vital this art is nurtured, and our narrative is heard loud and clear — a priority goal for Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL) and Pasifika TV.
Chief executive officer of PCBL Natasha Meleisea says Pacific-led storytelling is critical to regional identity, but like all media around the world, it faces all sorts of challenges and issues.
“Some of those current concerns include the need for journalism to remain independent, as well as the constructive use of technology, notably AI and that it supports the truth and does not undermine it,” Meleisea said.
Forums such as the Pacific Media Summit are critical to addressing, and finding a collective response to the various challenges, she added.
Resilient media sector
Meleisea said some solutions to these issues were being implemented, to provide a resilient and sustainable media sector in the Pacific.
“It is a matter of getting creative, and looking at alternative platforms for content, as well as seeking international funding and building an infrastructure which supports these new goals,” she says.
“There is no doubt journalists and media workers are essential for a healthy, functioning society and when done right, journalism can hold those in power to account, amplify underrepresented stories, bolster democratic ideals, and spread crucial information to the public.
“With press freedom increasingly under threat, we must protect Pacific story sovereignty, and our voice at the table.”
Republished from Pasifika TV strategic communications.
World Media Freedom Day reflections of a protester
Yesterday, World Media Freedom Day, we marched to Television New Zealand in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to deliver a letter asking them to do better.
Their coverage [of Palestine] has been biased at its best, silent at its worst.
I truly believe that if our media outlets reported fairly, factually and consistently on the reality in Gaza and in all of Palestine that tens of thousands of peoples lives would have been saved and the [Israeli] occupation would have ended already.
Instead, I open my Instagram to a new massacre, a new lifeless child.
I often wonder how we get locked into jobs where we leave our values at the door to keep our own life how (I hope) we wish all lives to be. How we all collectively agree to turn away, to accept absolute substandard and often horrific conditions for others in exchange for our own comforts.
Yesterday I carried my son for half of this [1km] march. He’s too big to be carried but I also know I ask a lot from him to join me in this fight so I meet him in the middle as I can.
Near the end of the march he fell asleep and the saying “dead weight” came to mind as his body became heavier and more difficult to carry.
I thought about the endless images I’ve seen of parents in Gaza carrying their lifeless child and I thought how lucky I am, that my child will wake up.
How small of an effort it is to carry him a few blocks in the hopes that something might change, that one parent might be spared that terrible feeling — dead weight.
Republished from an Instagram post by a Philippine Solidarity Network Aotearoa supporter.
About 1000 pro-Palestinian protesters marked World Press Freedom Day — May 3 — today by marching on the public broadcaster Television New Zealand in Auckland, accusing it of 18 months of “biased coverage” on the genocidal Israeli war against Gaza.
They delivered a letter to the management board of TVNZ from Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) co-chair John Minto declaring: “The damage [done] to human rights, justice and freedom in the Middle East by Western media such as TVNZ is incalculable.”
The protesters marched on the television headquarters near Sky Tower about 4pm after an hour-long rally in the heart of the city at a precinct dubbed “Palestine Square” in the Britomart transport hub’s Te Komititanga Square.
Several opposition politicians spoke at the rally, calling for a ceasefire in the brutal war on Gaza that has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians with no sign of a let-up.
Labour Party’s disarmament and arms control spokesperson Phil Twyford was among the speakers that included Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson and Ricardo Menéndez March.
All three spoke strongly in support of Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Davidson said the opposition parties were united behind the bill and all they needed were six MPs in the coalition government to “follow their conscience” to support it.
Appeals for pressure
They appealed to the protesters to put pressure on their local MPs to support the humanitarian initiative.
Protesters outside the Television New Zealand headquarters in Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
In The Hague this week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard evidence from more than 40 countries and global organisations condemning Israel over its actions in deliberately starving the more than 2 million Palestinians by blockading the besieged enclave for more than the past two months.
Only the United States and Hungary spoke in support of Israel.
Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Qatari Ambassador to The Netherlands, also said there were “new trails of tears in the West Bank mirroring Gaza’s fate”.
Israel executing ‘genocidal war’ against Gaza, Qatar tells ICJ. Video: Al Jazeera
Among the speakers in the Auckland rally, one of about 30 similar protests for Palestine across New Zealand this weekend, was coordinator Roger Fowler of the Auckland-based Kia Ora Gaza humanitarian aid organisation, who denounced the overnight drone attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience in international waters after leaving Malta.
The ship was crippled by the suspected Israel attack, endangering the lives of some 30 human rights activists on board. Fowler said: “That’s 2000 km away from Israel, that’s how desperate they are now to stop the Freedom Flotilla.”
A protester placard declaring “TVNZ, you’re biased reporting is shameful. Where is your integrity?” Image: Asia Pacific Report
He reminded protesters that Marama Davidson and retired trade unionist Mike Treen had been on previous aid protest voyages in past years trying to break the Israeli blockade, but there was no New Zealander on board in the current mission.
Media ‘credibility challenge’
Journalist and Pacific Media Watch convenor Dr David Robie spoke about World Media Freedom Day. He paid a tribute to the sacrifices of 211 Palestinian journalists killed by Israel — many of them targeted — saying Israel’s war on Gaza had become the “greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times”.
Many protesters carried placards declaring slogans such as “TVNZ your biased reporting is shameful. Where is your integrity?”, “Journalists are not targets” and “Caring for the children of Palestine is what it’s about.”
After marching about 1km between Te Komititanga Square and the TVNZ headquarters, the protesters gathered outside the entrance chanting for fairness and balance in the reporting.
“TVNZ lies. For the past 18 months they have been nothing but complicit,” said one Palestinian speaker to a chorus of: “Shame!”
He said: “Every time TVNZ lies, a little boy in Gaza dies.”
Another Palestinian speaker, Nadine, said: “Every time the media lies, a little girl in Gaza dies.”
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) letter to Television New Zealand’s board. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Deputation delivers TVNZ letter
A deputation from the protesters delivered the letter from PSNA’s John Minto addressed to the TVNZ board chair Alastair Carruthers but found the main foyer main entrance closed so the message was left.
Minto’s two-page letter calling for an independent review of TVNZ’s reporting on Palestine and Israel said in part:
“Over the past 18 months of industrial scale killing of Palestinians by the Israeli military in Gaza we have been regularly appalled at the blatantly-biased reporting on the Middle East by Television New Zealand.
“TVNZ’s reporting has been relentlessly and virulently pro-Israel. TVNZ has centred Israeli narratives, Israeli explanations, Israeli justifications and Israeli propaganda points on a daily basis while Palestinian viewpoints are all but absent.
“When they are presented they are given rudimentary coverage at best. More often than not Palestinians are presented as the incoherent victims of Israeli brutality rather than as an occupied people fighting for liberation in a situation described by the International Court of Justice as a “plausible genocide”.
“This pattern of systemic bias and unbalanced reporting is not revealed by TVNZ’s complaints system which focuses on individual stories rather than ingrained patterns of pro-Israel bias.
“Every complaint we have made to TVNZ has, with one minor exception, been rejected by your corporation with the typical refrain that it’s not possible to cover every aspect of an issue in a single story but that over time the balance is made up.
“Our issue is that the bias continues throughout TVNZ’s reporting on a story-by-story, day-by-day basis — the balance is never achieved. The reporting goes ahead just the way the pro-Israel lobby is happy with.”
The rest of the letter detailed many examples of the alleged systematic bias, such as failing to describe Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem and as “Occupied” territory as they are designated under international law, and failing to state the illegality of Israel’s military occupation.
Minto concluded by stating: “It is prolonging Israel’s illegal occupation, its apartheid policies, its ethnic cleansing and theft of Palestinian land. TVNZ is part of the problem – a key part of the problem.”
The letter called for an independent investigation.
Palestinian protesters at TVNZ headquarters while demonstrating against the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Israeli war against Gaza on World Press Freedom Day. Image: Asia Pacific Report
In recent years, the idea of a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine has re-emerged as the best solution to the conflict, and it has begun to gain increasing popular support. This idea is not new; the Palestinian national liberation movement, both before and after the Nakba, embraced it, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), until its engagement in peace negotiations in the late 1980s, culminating in the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The Palestinian leadership envisioned this agreement as a transition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967.
A human rights agency has called for an investigation into the drone attacks on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aid ship Conscience with Israel suspected of being responsible.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the deliberate targeting of a civilian aid ship in international waters was a “flagrant violation” of the United Nations Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibits the targeting of humanitarian objects.
It added: “This attack falls within a recurring and documented pattern of force being used to prevent ships from reaching the Gaza Strip, even before they approach its shores.”
The monitor is calling for an “independent and transparent investigation under Maltese jurisdiction, with the participation of the United Nations”.
It is also demanding “guarantees for safe sea passage for humanitarian aid bound for Gaza”.
“Any failure to act today will only encourage further attacks on humanitarian missions and deepen the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza,” said the monitor.
A spokesperson for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla said the group blamed Israel or one of its allies for the attack, adding it currently did not have proof of this claim.
Israeli TV confirms attack
However, Israel’s channel 12 television reported that Israeli forces were responsible for the attack.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The organisation said its goals included:
breaking Israel’s more than 17-year illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip;
educating people around the world about the blockade of Gaza;
condemning and publicising the complicity of other governments and global actors in enabling the blockade; and
responding to the cry from Palestinians and Palestinian organisations in Gaza for solidarity to break the blockade.
The MV Conscience — with about 30 human rights and aid activists on board — came under direct attack in international waters off the coast of Malta at 00:23 local time.
An 11th-hour blitzkrieg for the Australian election 2025 tomorrow claims the Greens are enabling extremists who “will do anything in their power to establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate”. Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon investigate the Dark Money election.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Wendy Bacon and Yaakov Aharon
Minority Impact Coalition is a shadowy organisation which appeared on Australia’s political landscape in February of this year.
According to its constitution, its object is to promote “mutual respect and tolerance between groups of people in Australia by actively countering racism and bringing widespread understanding and tolerance amongst all sectors of the community”.
However, it is spreading ignorance, fear and Islamophobia to millions of mostly male Australians living in the outer suburbs and the regions.
Advance is ‘transparent … easy to deal with’ Speaking to an Australian Jewish Association webinar, Roslyn Mendelle, who is of Israeli-American origin and a director of Minority Impact Coalition (MIC), said the rightwing Advance introduced her to the concept of a third party.
“Advance has been nothing but absolutely honest, transparent, direct, and easy to deal with,” Mendelle said.
The electoral laws, which many say are “broken by design”, mean that it will be several months before MIC’s major donors are revealed. Donors making repeated donations below $15,900 are unlisted “dark money”. (This threshold will change to $5000 in 2026).
Who’s paying to undermine Australian democracy? Scam of the week Video: MWM
Coming in second place, are the returns from the Australian Taxation Office.
In NSW, it is targeting Greens candidates everywhere and is also focussed on the Labor-held seat of Gilmore, challenged by Liberal Party candidate Andrew Constance.
Independent journalist Alex McKinnon reported that MIC spokesperson and midwife, Sharon Stoliar, wrote in an open letter:
“When you chant ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ . . . while wearing NSW Health uniforms, you are representing NSW Health in a call for genocide of Jews. YOU. ARE. SUPPORTING. TERRORISM… I. WILL. REPORT. YOU.”
Its campaign material is authorised by Joshu Turier, a retired boxer and right-wing extremist.
According to Facebook library, MIC’s ads are targeted at men, particularly between ages 35 and 54 in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.
In mid-April, the group paid for an ad so extreme that Instagram pulled it, leading to Turier reposting on his own Facebook page again this week. He complained that “It’s beyond troubling when our media platforms remove simple, factual material.”
They are ‘coming for us’ {Editor … oh no!} By Wednesday, the video was back on MIC’s Facebook account. The video says that the Greens are deliberately enabling pro-Palestine student protesters, who
“Don’t actually believe in the concept of a nation. They don’t believe in borders. They don’t believe there is a national identity. They believe in the Islamic brotherhood.”
“. . . It is just the beginning. When antisemitism starts, it’s not going to stop. They are going to come for Christians, for Atheists, for Agnostics.”
MIC is spending big on billboards, campaign trucks, and professional videos targeting at least five electorates. But despite their big spending, they cannot be found on the Australian Electoral Commission transparency register.
According to the transparency advocacy group WhoTargets.Me, MIC has spent more than $50,000 on Google and Meta ads in the last month alone. This doesn’t account for billboards, trucks, labour, or the 200,000 addresses letterboxed in late March.
More investigation shows their donations will all flow through the QJ Collective Ltd (QJC), which also “powers” the Minority Impact Coalition website. QJC is registered as a significant third party with the Australian Electoral Commission.
Clones with ghost offices
Advance director Sandra Bourke and Roslyn Mendelle. Image: QJ Collective, Instagram
MIC and Queensland Jewish Collective are virtually identical. They have always had the same directors — with Azin Naghibi replacing Roslyn’s partner, Hava Mendelle, as both QJC and MIC director in March 2025.
When QJC first came to MWM’snotice last year, it was running a relatively well-funded campaign — although limited to several seats — to “Put the Greens Last” in the Queensland state election.
In September 2024, the group’s website stated that it was “non-partisan and not left or right-wing”, and that its “goal was to support Queenslanders in making informed decisions when voting for our leaders”. MIC is the vehicle for this campaign.
Today, neither the QJC nor MIC makes any such claim. The Collective’s website lists its leading “campaign’” as “exposing the two-faced nature of the Labor party”.
The alarming detail While the two “grassroots” groups share several of their total five different associated addresses, mostly consisting of shared offices, it is not a perfect match.
For both groups, directors Mendelle and Turier list their address as 470 St Pauls Terrace, Fortitude Valley, Queensland. There was no name or company, just an address, however, shared offices run by Jubilee Place are available at that location.
QJC and MIC director Naghibi lists her address on both extracts as 740 St Pauls Terrace, a non-commercial building.
Either Mendelle and Turier are living out of a shared office, or Naghibi is unable to remember the address of the shared office she has little real connection to.
Last year, MWM contacted the owners of QJC’s listed office address at Insolvency Company Accountants in Tewantin, Queensland. At first, the firm said that no one had heard of them. Following that, the firm said that the Collective is a client of the firm, however denied any further connection.
A fresh search this year showed an additional contact address listed by the grassroots Collective — this time 1700 km away — at 1250 Malvern Road, Malvern, Victoria. Again there was no name or company, just an address.
Located at that address is boutique accounting firm Greenberg & Co, which specialises in serving clients who are “high net worth individuals”. MWM contacted senior partner Jay Greenberg who said his role was only one of ‘financial compliance’. He said that he did have personal views on the election but these were not relevant. He declined to discuss further details.
Attack of the clones Better Australia is a third party campaigner that, like QJ Collective in 2024, claims to be bipartisan.
Its communications are authorised by Sophie Calland, an active member of NSW Labor’s Alexandria Branch. Her husband Ofir Birenbaum — from the nearby Rosebery Branch — is also a member of the third party Better Australia.
Co-convenor of Labor Friends of Israel, Eric Roozendaal, and former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secretary, Yaron Finkelstein, provided further campaign advice at a members meeting.
Patron of Labor Friends of Israel and former Senator Nova Peris teamed up with Better Australia for a campaign video last week.
“When Greens leader Adam Bandt refuses to stand in front of the Australian flag,” Peris said, “I ask, how can you possibly stand for our country?”
Better Australia’s stated goal is to campaign for a major government “regardless of which major party is in office”.
The group urges voters to “put the Greens and Teals last”, warning that a Labor minority government would be chaos. The “non-partisan” third party has made no statements on the Liberal-National Coalition, nor on a minority government with One Nation.
Some Better Australia workers — who wear bright yellow jackets labelled “community advisor” — are paid, and others volunteer.
“Isabella” told MWM that her enlistment as a volunteer for the third party campaigner is “not political” — rather it is all “about Israel”.
Previously Isabella had protested in support of the Israeli hostages and prisoners of war held in Gaza.
Better Australia’s “community advisor” “Isabella” at a Bondi Junction polling booth. Image: Wendy Bacon/MWM
Another campaigner told us he was paid by Better Australia. He spoke little English and declined to say more.
Two schoolgirls campaigning at Rose Bay told MWM that they were paid by their father who had chaired a Better Australia meeting the previous evening. They declined to disclose his name.
Calland addressing her Israeli volunteers. Image: Better Australia/Instagram/MWM
MWM later interviewed this woman who is an Israeli on a working holiday visa. She was supporting the campaign because it fits her political “vision”: the Greens and independent MPs like Allegra Spender must be removed from office because they are “against Israel” and for a “Free Palestine” which would mean the end of “my country”.
Allegra Spender denies these assertions.
Greens leader Adam Bandt remained determinedly optimistic, telling MWM that organisations such as Better Australia and MIC,
“are able to run their disinformation campaigns because Australia has no truth in political advertising laws, which enables them to lie about the priorities of the Greens and crossbench without consequence, as well as huge corporate money flowing into politics.
“In this term of Parliament, Labor failed to progress truth in political advertising laws, and instead did a dirty deal with the Liberals on electoral reforms to try and shut out third parties and independents.”
Labor’s candidate for Wentworth, Savannah Peake, told MWM on Tuesday that she had known Calland for 18 months.
Peake said that while she knew Calland had previously founded Better Council, she had only discovered Calland was authorising Better Australia when she arrived at the booth that morning.
Peake told MWM that she had contacted the NSW Labor Head Office to voice her objections and was confident the issue would be “dealt with swiftly”.
The third party campaign runs contrary to Peake’s preferences, which tells supporters in Wentworth to vote #1 Labor and #2 Allegra Spender. MWM repeatedly tried to follow up with Peake throughout the week to find out what action NSW Labor had taken but received no reply.
Liberal candidate for Wentworth, Ro Knox, complies with Better Australia’s call to put Greens last on her voting preferences.
Many people in NSW Labor know about their fellow members’ involvement in Better Australia. The Minister for Environment and MP for Sydney Tanya Plibersek, state member Ron Hoenig and NSW Labor have all previously refused to answer questions.
A Labor volunteer at a Wentworth pre-poll booth told MWM that he disapproved if a fellow party member was involved with the third party. Two older Labor volunteers were in disbelief, having incorrectly assumed that the anti-Teal posters were authorised by the Trumpet of Patriots party.
Another said he was aware of Calland’s activities but had decided “not to investigate” further.
Better Australia focuses on Richmond By the end of the week, Better Australia had left a trail of “Put the Greens last’ placards across Sydney’s Inner West, one of them outside the Cairo Takeaway cafe where the third party’s organiser Ofir Birenbaum was first exposed.
The third party have extended their polling campaign to the seat of Richmond, on the North coast of NSW where campaign sources are expecting more volunteers on election day.
As parties dash to the finishing line, they are calling for more donations to counter the astroturfers. According to website TheyTargetYou, the major parties alone have spent $11.5 million on Meta and Google ads over the last month.
Better Australia splurged $200,000 on ads targeting digital TV, social media, and the Australian Financial Review. Digital ads will continue in the final three days of the election, exploiting loopholes in the mandated political advertising blackout.
The Australian public has made little progress towards transparency in the current term of government.
Until reforms are made, Silicon Valley tech giants will continue to profit from dodgy ads and astroturfing groups sowing division with each Australian election cycle.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.
Yaakov Aharon is a Jewish-Australian living in Wollongong. He enjoys long walks on Wollongong Beach, unimpeded by Port Kembla smoke fumes and AUKUS submarines. The article was first published by Michael West Media and is republished with permission.
The advocacy group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned the New Zealand government fpr failing to make a humanitarian submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings at The Hague this week into Israel blocking vital supplies entering Gaza.
The ICJ’s ongoing investigation into Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave is now considering the illegality of Israel cutting off all food, water, fuel, medicine and other essential aid entering Gaza since early March.
Forty three countries and organisations have been submitting this week — including the small Pacific country Vanuatu (pop. 328,000) — but New Zealand is not on the list for making a submission.
Only Israel’s main backer, United States, and Hungary have argued in support of Tel Aviv while other nations have been highly critical.
“If even small countries, such as Vanuatu, can commit their meagre resources to go to make a case to the ICJ, then surely our government can at the very least do the same,” said PSNA national co-chair Maher Nazzal.
He said in a statement that the New Zealand government had gone “completely silent” on Israeli atrocities in Gaza.
“A year ago, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were making statements about how Israel must comply with international law,” Nazzal said
NZ ‘avoided blaming Israel’
“They carefully avoided blaming Israel for doing anything wrong, but they issued strong warnings, such as telling Israel that it should not attack the city of Rafah.
“Israel then bombed Rafah flat. The New Zealand response was to go completely silent.
Nazzal said Israeli ministers were quite open about driving Palestinians out of Gaza, so Israel could build Israeli settlements there.
PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal . . . New Zealand response on Gaza is to “go completely silent”. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“And they are just as open about using starvation as a weapon,” he added.
“Our government says and does nothing. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had nothing to say about Gaza when he met British Prime Minister Keir Stamer in London earlier in the month.
“Yet Israel is perpetuating the holocaust of the 21st century under the noses of both Prime Ministers.”
Nazzal said that it was “deeply disappointing” that a nation which had so proudly invoked its history of standing against apartheid and of championing nuclear disarmament, yet chose to “not even appear on the sidelines” of the ICJ’s legal considerations.
ICJ examines Israel’s obligations in Occupied Palestine. Video: Middle East Eye
“New Zealand cannot claim to stand for a rules-based international order while selectively avoiding the rules when it comes to Palestine,” Nazzal said.
“We want the New Zealand government to urgently explain to the public its absence from the ICJ hearings.
“We need it to commit to participating in all future international legal processes to uphold Palestinian rights, and fulfil its ICJ obligations to impose sanctions on Israel to force its withdrawal from the Palestinian Occupied Territory.”
Thousands of senior hospital doctors and specialists walked off the job today for an unprecedented 24-hour strike in protest over stalled contract negotiations and thousands of other health workers protested across Aotearoa New Zealand against the coalition government’s cutbacks to the public health service Te Whatu Ora.
In spite of the disruptive bad weather across the country, protesters were out in force expressing their concerns over a national health service in crisis.
Among speakers criticising the government’s management of public health at a rally at the entrance to The Domain, near Auckland Hospital, many warned that the cutbacks were a prelude to “creeping privatisation”.
“Health cuts hurt services, the patients who rely on them, and the workers who deliver them,” said health worker Jason Brooke.
“Under this coalition government we’ve seen departments restructured, roles disestablished, change proposals enacted, and hiring freezes implemented.
“Make no mistake. This is austerity. This is managed decline.
“The coalition can talk all they like about spending more on healthcare, the reality for ‘those-of-us-on-the-ground’ is that we know that money is not being spent where it’s needed.”
Placards said “Fight back together for the workers”, “Proud to be union”, “We’re fighting back for workers rights”, and one poster declared: “Don’t bite the hand that wipes your bum — safe staffing now”.
Palestine supporters also carried a May Day message of solidarity from Palestinian Confederation of Trade Unions.
