ANALYSIS: By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report
In what is probably one of its most shameful acts ever, the Pacific Islands Forum has betrayed one of its founding principles in admitting Israel — already a global rogue pariah state — as a development partner in the middle of the genocide of an Indigenous people, the Palestinians.
As decisions of this nature are made by consensus, it means that all 18 member states of the region’s main political body – including Australia and New Zealand – have given their blessing.
The move undermines the Forum’s founding commitment in 1971 to regional decolonisation.
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And there are also questions about West Papua with supporters of independence long claiming the 1969 Act of Free Choice was fraudulent process – and branded as an “Act of No Choice”.
A perception of arrogance and deceit about the Israel partnership process has also angered many in the Pacific.
Israel move condemned
Already, two regional civil society groups have condemned the move after news emerged about the controversial move – not by a Forum announcement, but by a social media post by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
They are the Suva-based ecumenical Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), which has called for a review of the decision, and the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGO), which has challenged the “Blue Pacific” mantra, arguing “an ocean of peace is not built on occupation – Pacific civil society questions the Pacific Forum on Israel partnership”.
Another diplomatic achievement: Israel joins the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) as a Forum Partner.
The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Baron Divavesi Waqa, has informed me that Israel has been accepted as a Forum Partner, following a decision at the meeting of the Forum’s member state leaders in Palau.
This follows my visit to Fiji in June, where I met with the Secretary General and presented Israel’s request to join the Forum.
Strengthening ties with the Pacific Island nations is one of my objectives. Earlier this year, I opened Israel’s Embassy in Fiji, which also serves nine other Pacific Island nations, all friendly to Israel.
Under the current government, three of these countries, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Nauru, have opened embassies in Jerusalem.As a Forum Partner, Israel will participate in a framework for cooperation in areas of mutual interest, based on regional priorities and Israel’s expertise in water management, desalination, agriculture, tackling climate change, innovation and sustainable development.
Israel and the Forum will also develop a joint action plan setting out practical areas of cooperation and a mechanism to monitor progress.
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) October 20, 2026
Reminding the Pacific over the failure of partnership with Indonesia regarding accountability over the Melanesian region of West Papua, “inviting another state that perpetrates occupation and denies self-determination repeats that mistake, and weakens the principle on which our decolonisation depends”, PRNGO warned the move could split the Pacific.
This controversy comes at a time when Israel has been ranked as the world’s most unpopular country because it has consistently trampled on international law, and ignored eight decades of resolutions by the United Nations, the very body that created the State of Israel in 1947 through Resolution 181 — by partitioning Palestine when the Zionists only controlled 7 percent of the land in the British mandate of Palestine with 30 percent of the population, yet granting it 55 percent as their share of land at independence.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem would become an international zone. Palestine with about 70 percent of the population of almost 1.9 million, comprising mostly Arabs, and other non-Jewish communities, would have been left with 45 percent of the land under the UN Partition plan and, unsurprisingly, rejected it.
Israel unilaterally declared independence the following year and armed Zionist militia and terrorist gangs began a campaign of ethnically cleansing and expelling some 750,000 Palestinians and razing at least 450 Arab villages known as the Nakba (the “catastrophe”).
This set in motion eight decades of illegal occupation, militarisation, wars and repression of the Indigenous Palestinian people. Since October 2023, Israel has launched 100,000 attacks on five Middle East countries and territories.
Voted against decolonisation
At the UN Decolonisation Committee (C-24) meeting earlier this month, Israel and the United States were the only two countries that voted against decolonisation, and the US unsuccessfully attempted to end the committee’s mandate.
In a statement issued on Friday, the PRNGO Alliance declared: “We understand our communities’ real needs for water, food security, agriculture, development and climate adaptation. The urgent need for resources across the region is increasing, and partnerships to secure such are important.”
However, “our concern is that the Forum family will welcome, without condition, a state in continuing breach of international law. We reject antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and mourn every civilian life lost, Israeli and Palestinian.”
Israel’s war on Gaza since the “breakout” attack on southern Israel from the “world’s largest open air prison”, by Hamas and other resistance fighters on 7 October 2023, has led to more than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — being slaughtered.
Although a sham ceasefire was declared in October 2025, Israel has continued attacking the besieged enclave almost daily since then killing at least 1500 people, mostly children, and has failed to honour the terms of the first phase of the peace agreement. US President Donald Trump’s brokered Board of Peace is widely regarded to be a failure.
Last year, the Belgian-based Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar — the very person who announced the Forum partnership.
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Seeking an arrest warrant
The foundation announced at the time that it was seeking an arrest warrant for Sa’ar for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s military assault on Gaza since October 2023.
It was alleged by the foundation that as a senior member of Netanyahu’s cabinet, Sa’ar had played “a central role in shaping and implementing policies that have led to mass displacement, collective punishment, and systematic attacks on Palestinian civilians”.
Although it is understood Sa’ar is not being formally investigated by the ICC, the court had already issued arrest warrants in November 2024 against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and is believed to be investigating other officials.
The PRNGO Alliance statement cited the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, Advisory Opinion on 19 July 2024 that found Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful and that it must be ended “as rapidly as possible”.
The UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016) affirmed that the Israeli settlements had “no legal validity” and were “a flagrant violation under international law”. Also, the UNSC Resolution 478 (1980) called on States to withdraw their diplomatic missions from Jerusalem.
Yet “three Forum members of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Naoero [formerly Nauru] have opened embassies there; Samoa has announced plans to follow, and Israel’s announcement cites them,” said the PRNGO statement.
Israeli forces launch a “targeted” raid in Hebron after a shooting killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded several others, as Palestinians fear “collective punishment” days ahead of Israel’s October 27 elections.
🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/FL4SrZ5U5K https://t.co/DHUJNFknqd
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 24, 2026
Deprivation of Gaza’s water
Noting the mounting death toll with Israeli violations since October 2025 “ceasefire”, the statement said: “Human Rights Watch found Israel’s deliberate deprivation of Gaza’s water amounts to extermination and acts of genocide.
“FAO reports nearly 87 percent pf Gaza’s cropland damaged. The war’s emissions, an estimated 33 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, fall on islands like ours. Water, food and climate security cannot be offered with one hand and destroyed with the other.”
The PRNGO statement highlighted the fact that under international law, “a ceasefire requires a complete halt to the attacks, and allows unimpeded entry of humanitarian relief at scale.
“It would end unprecedented Israeli settlement expansion and terror, guaranteeing the right of displaced Palestinians to return home, prohibit forcible transfers and end collective punishment.
“Our Forum leaders have called on all the world to uphold the UN Charter, including the sovereign equality of all states and the rights of all peoples to exist in peace and security.”
The PRNGO statement recalled that in September 2025, “our leaders declared the Blue Pacific as an Ocean of Peace, grounded in the UN Charter and international law.”
“As we said in July, a genuine Ocean of Peace means security ‘founded on justice, sovereignty, self-determination, environmental stewardship and the wellbeing of our peoples’. It rests on a strong rejection of militarisation and great power rivalry at our expense.
“A regional partnership with Israel would further facilitate and advance security cooperation, military technologies and infrastructures, in addition to the growing military exercises and security treaties crowding our ocean.”
Pacific regionalism rested on solidarity based on shared values, not merely on shared resources, PRNGO said.
Whose voice will be silenced?
“This partnership will unravel: not strengthen, that weave. It risks dividing the Forum family, tying our voice at the United Nations to bilateral favours, and making the Pacific complicit in a conflict far from our shores. Who stands to benefit from this partnership? Whose voice will it silence?
“The Pacific remembers the cost of occupation, and our peoples continue to struggle under colonisation, nuclear testing and environmental destruction. In Kanaky New Caledonia, Ma’ohi Nui, Guahan and West Papua, the struggle for self-determination continues.
“West Papua is a long standing item on our leaders’ agenda. Since 2019, they have asked Indonesia, a Forum Dialogue Partner since 2001, to allow a visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — a visit Jakarta offered in 2018.
“It has not eventuated, yet a similar partnership has brought delay: not accountability. Inviting another state that perpetrates occupation and denies self-determination repeats that mistake, and weakens the principle on which our decolonisation depends.”
- The Forum Troika — Solomon Islands, Palau and New Zealand — reflect on its concerns over partnerships;
- Forum leaders review Israel’s partnership and suspend all engagements until Israel complies with the ICJ and UN Security Council resolutions;
- The Forum Secretariat publish the basis for the Israel decision and ensure any partnership agreement commits to international law;
- Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Naoero return their embassies to Tel Aviv, consistent with Resolution 478, and Samoa reconsider its plan; and
- All Forum members ensure no partnership, aid, or security, cyber or surveillance cooperation helps maintain the occupation.
The day before the response by PRNGO, the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), an umbrella organisation representing Christian churches and national councils across 18 countries and territories in the region, called for all engagement with Israel to be suspended until it complied with international court rulings and UN resolutions.
General secretary Reverend James Bhagwan told RNZ Pacific Waves that the region needed to apply consistent standards to its international relationships.
“We cannot invoke the [International Court of Justice] for our islands and ignore the fact that the ICJ, in 2024, stated that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian territory as soon as possible,” he said.
Reverend Bhagwan, who is also a signatory to the PRNGO statement, was speaking in response to Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka who had claimed the “entire Pacific Islands identify with Israel” and their relationship with the country was “biblical, ageless and real”.
Responses from New Zealand
In New Zealand, the coalition government of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon which is fighting desperately to be re-elected on November 7 with tight opinion polls predicting a possible hung Parliament, has been struggling to justify support for the Forum move.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters described criticism of Israel’s inclusion in PIF as an “insult” to Pacific Island countries, adding that the decision by the Pacific leaders should be respected. However, the opposition parties led by Labour demanded explanations.
John Minto, national organiser of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), the largest activist group in New Zealand, which has been organising weekly protests against Israel for the past three years, said: “Wow – a tiny country in the Middle East is now joining the Pacific Islands forum [as a second-tier partner].
“This has nothing to do with supporting the Pacific but has everything to do with using Pacific nations to provide cover and legitimacy to a racist, apartheid state currently committing genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and conducting pogroms against Palestinian Communities across the Occupied West Bank.
“Sickening complicity by Pacific leaders!”
The chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, Maher Nazzal, has called on the government to “explain itself”, especially in view of New Zealand becoming the host for the Pacific Islands Forum next year.
“Technical cooperation must not shield any state from scrutiny under international law,” he said.
Support Palestinian self-determination
Writing in the Otago Daily Times, John Hobbs, a doctoral scholar and former career public official at the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, has a clear-cut message for the incoming post-election government next month:
“New Zealanders and our political parties must act and be part of the global momentum to end the brutality in Gaza, to reverse the illegal occupation of the West Bank, support Palestinian self-determination and hold Israel to account.
“To do otherwise represents a moral failure as citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand and it will severely damage our reputation among many of our traditional allies, trading partners, and the international community.”
A poignant lesson also for the Pacific.
