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How the US became blind to Israeli terror

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Israeli troops invading Lebanon in 1982
Israeli troops invading Lebanon in 1982 . . . Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a former Irgun terrorist against British authorities, vowed to “destroy” the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Image: Wikipedia

ANALYSIS: By Derek Leebaert

The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) finding in January of a “plausible genocide” in Gaza, and subsequent ruling that Israel is responsible for an apartheid system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would not have surprised former Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, or indeed Reagan, who famously denounced Israel’s 1982 levelling of West Beirut to Prime Minister Menachem Begin as a “holocaust”.

Israel is the only US ally that has been exercising such oppression and terror for a lifetime.

For many years, consecutive American administrations, both Democratic and Republican, condemned Israel’s recurring practice of terror.  Today, however, the Biden-Harris administration has been supporting these practices to the extreme.

Harry S Truman recognised Israel in May 1948, yet once re-elected in November, wrote of his “disgust” over how “the Jews are approaching the refugee problem”. Then his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, joined Winston Churchill, who had returned as the UK’s prime minister, to censure Israel in the UN Security Council in November 1953.

Paratroopers under Colonel Ariel Sharon, a future Israeli prime minister, had “shot every man, woman and child they could find,” in the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Qibya, according to Time magazine, leaving 69 dead. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion cried “anti-Semitism.”

Eisenhower had Israel censured twice more: In March 1955, after a self-described Israeli “terror unit” bombed US consulate libraries in Cairo and Alexandria, seeking to blame Egypt, followed by an attack on Egyptian-controlled Gaza that killed 38; and in March 1956 over a so-called “retaliation” against Syria that killed 56 soldiers and civilians.

“Upward of 2,700 Arab infiltrators, and perhaps as many as 5,000, were killed by the [Israeli military], police, and civilians along Israel’s borders between 1949 and 1956,” writes Israeli historian Benny Morris, “the vast majority of those killed were unarmed.” They were shepherds, farmers, Bedouins, and refugees.

Unpersuaded by ‘self-defence’ claim
Eisenhower was unpersuaded by Israeli ambassador Abba Eban’s claims of self-defence, and Israel would keep inflicting vastly asymmetric episodes of terror for decades.

In October 1956, after killing some 49 civilians in the village of Kafir Qasim near Tel Aviv, Israel invaded Egypt and immediately began massacring refugees in Khan Younis and Rafah. Eisenhower responded by declaring that the US would “apply sanctions” on Israel.  When Israel still refused to withdraw from Gaza and Sharm El Sheikh, the US president threatened to block its access to US financial markets. The Israeli retreat followed.

In November 1966, Lyndon Johnson once again put “the Palestine Question” on the UN agenda to condemn Israel, this time after a massive attack on Jordan involving more than 3,000 soldiers. “The Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to their own,” concluded his National Security Adviser W W Rostow, adding that “they’ve wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation.”

All-out war followed in 1967, after which Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.  The martial law imposed on the Arab population in Israel since the founding of the state was lifted in 1966, but Jimmy Carter described the conditions imposed on Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory after the beginning of illegal Israeli settlement there as “apartheid”.

With nothing resolved by 1982, Prime Minister Begin, a former Irgun terrorist against British authorities, vowed to “destroy” the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He oversaw then-Defence Minister Ariel Sharon’s killing of some 18,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, overwhelmingly civilians, in Beirut.

Belatedly, Reagan stopped the slaughter with a phone call, given Israel’s dependence. It was then that he described the Israeli onslaught as a “holocaust”.

Despite using a word with such weight, however, the White House did not demand the UN censure Israel. The US had not attempted to sanction Israel even over its illegal settlements which spawned from the 1967 war. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren explained why in his 2007 book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present.

Impeding US official opposition
In the mid-1970s, he wrote, Israel’s supporters began to achieve “the financial and political clout necessary to sway congressional opinion” — meaning that they had acquired enough power to impede US official opposition to Israel at the UN or elsewhere. Ever since, Israel has taken US backing for granted, no matter the record of wildly disproportionate atrocities.

In 1991, Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, who had approved the murder of UN negotiator Folke Bernadotte, tried to explain why terrorism was “acceptable” for Jews, but not Arabs: Palestinians are “fighting for land that is not theirs. This is the land of the people of Israel”.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel was distinct. It was the only time that Palestinian resistance groups were able to react to decades of  Israeli terror on a similar scale.

In response to the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply doubled down on Israel’s recurring massacre-making, now backed by starvation and disease.  The  US administration took no meaningful action to stop “plausible genocide”.

At this time, Israel has also become the only entity in the world that Washington allows to kill US citizens with impunity. The ever-growing list from the West Bank includes Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Mohammad Khdour, and Shireen Abu Akleh — each killed with a shot to the head.

No sanctions or renditions followed their deaths. The White House simply suggested the sniper-killings were “not acceptable” and asked Israel to “investigate” itself. The issue was swiftly dismissed.

More needed than ‘mutterings’
As Gaza’s torment enters its second year, Israel’s killing has reached unprecedented levels in the West Bank, and Lebanon once again becomes a target of Israel’s self-described retaliation.

More is needed from Israel’s patron than mutterings to perhaps halt some arms shipments. Washington should not only stop upholding Israeli brutality, which includes apartheid but, like the UK, it can support the pending International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments which are to, finally, include an Israeli prime minister.

Past US presidents had tried to reign in Israeli behaviour of the sort that statesman Abba Eban came to describe, during Israel’s previous bombing of Beirut, as “wantonly inflicting every possible measure of death and anguish on civilian populations”.

Time is overdue for Washington’s decisionmakers to follow those presidents’ examples, and to rescind diplomatic protection as well as weapons exports for Israel.

Derek Leebaert is a Truman Book Award winner whose writing includes Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations. He is a founding editor of International Security and serves as an adviser to Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Republished from Al Jazeera. 

Caitlin Johnstone: On human rights, ‘friendly’ war crimes and Western hypocrisy

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The death toll has risen to 12 from Israel’s terror attack in Lebanon on Tuesday which detonated explosive materials hidden in thousands of pagers.

Another 20 people were then killed in another attack the following day with a second wave of explosions, this time using walkie talkies and home solar energy systems.

The total death toll now sits at 32. Two children and four healthcare workers are among the dead. Thousands have been wounded.

As you would expect, Western empire managers are getting really squirmy about this.

White House spokesman John Kirby adamantly refused to answer any questions involving Israel’s responsibility for the attacks during a press conference on Wednesday, despite Israel being widely reported as the responsible party, with outlets like The New York Times citing US officials as their source.

“I’m not gonna speak to the details of these incidents,” Kirby said repeatedly when questioned about Israel’s role and what the US response will be.

It goes without saying that if a government like Russia, China or Iran were even suspected of being responsible for similar attacks, Kirby and his fellow podium people would be not just naming the suspected aggressor but fervently denouncing the attack as an act of terrorism.

Leaked memo
And it is here worth reminding readers that in 2017, a leaked State Department memo explained in plain language that it is standing US policy to overlook the abuses of US allies while denouncing the abuses of US enemies in order to undermine enemies and show other countries the perks of being aligned with the United States.

The memo showed neoconservative empire manager Brian Hook teaching a previously uninitiated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that for the US government, “human rights” are only a weapon to be used for keeping other nations in line.

In a remarkable look into the cynical nature of imperial narrative management, Hook told Tillerson that it is US policy to overlook human rights abuses committed by nations aligned with US interests while exploiting and weaponising them against nations who aren’t.

“In the case of US allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, the Administration is fully justified in emphasising good relations for a variety of important reasons, including counter-terrorism, and in honestly facing up to the difficult tradeoffs with regard to human rights,” Hook explained in the memo.

“One useful guideline for a realistic and successful foreign policy is that allies should be treated differently — and better — than adversaries,” Hook wrote.

“We do not look to bolster America’s adversaries overseas; we look to pressure, compete with, and outmaneuver them. For this reason, we should consider human rights as an important issue in regard to US relations with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

“And this is not only because of moral concern for practices inside those countries. It is also because pressing those regimes on human rights is one way to impose costs, apply counter-pressure, and regain the initiative from them strategically.”

Highlight the discrepancies
“It’s tedious going “If Group X did this Western politicians and pundits would condemn it but because Group Y did it they’re fine with it” over and over again, but it’s important to highlight these discrepancies because they show how we’re being deceived.

Westerners are indoctrinated from birth into believing they live in a society that is basically good with governments that, while imperfect, are still far superior to the tyrants and corrupt autocrats of the global south.

In reality the Western power structure centralised around the United States is the single most murderous and tyrannical force on earth by an extremely massive margin, but that obvious fact is always omitted from the indoctrination curriculum.

By pointing out the glaring discrepancies between the way the Western political-media class responds to things like Israel turning electronic devices into thousands of bombs placed throughout civilian populations and the way they respond when other groups detonate explosives among civilians, you’re helping to punch holes in the veil of indoctrination they have cast over our collective understanding of the world.

The more you recognise that you only see your society as good and others as bad because of the way world events are framed by Western news media and politicians, the closer you get to having your “Are we the baddies?” epiphany.

Hypocrisy and contradiction are not great moral evils in and of themselves, but they often run cover for great moral evils. The fact that we are trained to think about the world by people who facilitate great evils perpetrated by their own side when they’d condemn identical evils committed by their enemies shows that they do not stand against evil, and are deeply evil themselves.

Recognising the problems in our world is the first step to solving them. That’s what the propagandists and empire managers work to prevent us from doing, and that’s what we try to do by pointing out the glaring plot holes and inconsistencies in their narratives over and over again.

Mock their denunciations
The correct thing to do when Western leaders talk about human rights or denounce abuses by enemy governments is to mock them and dismiss them. They’re not saying anything true about their actual values and beliefs; if they were there wouldn’t be so much hypocrisy in the way they denounce governments they don’t like for offences they ignore and make excuses for in governments they do like.

They’re never saying what they’re saying to stop human rights abuses or make the world a better place, they’re only saying what they’re saying to undermine their enemies so that the Western empire can rule the world and be the only one administering abuse.

And the same is true of the mainstream Western press. You’ll see them completely ignore the abuses of US-aligned governments while showing immense interest in alleged abuses by empire-targeted groups, often on very flimsy evidence.

Mock them and dismiss them when they act like they care about human rights abuses. They don’t care. They just want to make sure the abusive power structure they conduct propaganda for is the one in charge.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Great journalism overview of troubling politics and violence in the Pacific region

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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The title of the book is based on a photograph of a young ni-Vanuatu girl with a “no nukes” placard
The title of the book is based on a photograph of a young ni-Vanuatu girl with a “no nukes” placard stating “Please don’t spoil my beautiful face,” which was taken by Robie at the third Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

BOOK REVIEW: By Anna-Karina Hermkens

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific is a sequel to two earlier published books by David Robie and draws on his journalism and educational viewpoints since embarking on a Pacific media education career at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1993.

As such, the book is a personal account of Robie’s career in relation to the various political issues, tensions, human rights violations, and conflicts that have affected the Pacific (and the Philippines and Canada), such as the Kanak struggle in New Caledonia, the 1987 military coup in Fiji, and the Bougainville conflict.

The title of the book refers to yet another struggle and protest in the Pacific. It is based on a photograph of a young ni-Vanuatu girl with a “no nukes” placard stating “Please don’t spoil my beautiful face,” which was taken by Robie at the third Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) conference in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face
Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face cover

The twenty-four chapters of the book are divided into six parts, dealing with: Robie’s own career and journey into the Pacific; colonial legacies conflicts; indigenous struggles; forgotten wars; environmental struggles; and media education. The broad geographical area, themes, and timeframe covered (from before 1974 to 2013), means Robie presents us with a series of snapshots detailing elements of troubling events that have happened and are happening in the Pacific and beyond.

Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face starts with a foreword (xiii-xv) by Kalafi Moala, deputy chair of Pasifika Media Association, who was jailed in Tonga in 1996 for contempt of Parliament. He acknowledges Robie’s journalistic work in the Pacific and, in particular, Robie’s efforts to set him and his fellow prisoners free. Robie’s subsequent introduction, titled “Trust and transparency,” discusses the interplay between journalism and political power in relation to, in particular, Murdoch. He also highlights his own position as an independent journalist, providing testimonies by third parties to indicate that he is an “impassioned chronicler of Pacific currents” (8) and events.

The first part of the book (Out of Africa), details Robie’s career, the various topics he covered and agencies he worked for across the world, and how he ended up setting his own Pacific News Agency in New Zealand (chapters 2–4). Part 2 covers an array of events and topics that are grouped together as “Colonial legacy conflicts.” It contains Robie’s work in New Caledonia on the Kanak revolt and massacre of Hienghène in New Caledonia in 1984, and the 1987 “nomadization” policy and the aftermath of the siege of Ouvèa (chapters 5, 6, and 8); the “Rise of the Flosse dynasty in Tahiti, 1986 (chapter 7); the 1987 Fiji coup (chapter 9); anti-Chinese riots in Tonga in 1991 (chapter 10); Human rights abuses in the Pacific (chapter 11); and the jailing of the “Tongan three” in 1996, which involved the imprisonment of the earlier mentioned Kalafi Moala (chapter 12). Part 3 of the book is titled “Indigenous Struggles” and covers First Nation Rights in Canada (chapter 13); indigenous people’s struggles in the Philippines (chapter 14); and the Hagahai “biopiracy” affair, whereby the US government issued a patent on the human cell line of a Hagahai (Papua New Guinea) tribesman in 1995 (chapter 15). In part 4, titled “Forgotten wars, elusive peace,” Robie covers the Bougainville conflict (chapter 16); the political instability and violence caused by rogue military leaders in the Philippines (chapter 17); and the victims of this violence and the role of the Philippine Independent Church (chapter 18). The final chapter in this part contains Robie’s reflections on the horror of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in Timor-Leste (chapter 19).

The fifth part of the book (“Moruroa, mon amour”) focuses on climate change and nuclear refugees in the Pacific (Chapter 20); and the politics surrounding the Rainbow Warrior, which was bombed by French secret agents in Auckland in 1985 (chapter 21).

The sixth and final part of the book focuses on media education in the Pacific. The first chapter discusses the issue of freedom of speech, which is centred around Robie’s Pacific Journalism Review article on the topic published in 2002 and an article published in the same year with the subtitle “Don’t shoot the messenger” (chapter 22). The subsequent chapter deals with conflict reporting in the Pacific (chapter 23). In the final chapter (chapter 24), Robie engages with changing paradigms in Pacific journalism, exploring models of news media and news values in the Pacific, journalism’s rights and responsibilities, and that journalists covering issues such as the abuse of power and violations of human rights in the Pacific need to become more critical and deliberative, thereby “becoming part of the solution rather than being part of the problem” (340). Robie’s epilogue consists of a series of snapshots on journalists, the media, and media education in the Pacific, and the responsibilities a new generation of educated journalists have in encouraging positive change in the region.

With the exception of chapter 24, the chapters in Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face are based upon Robie’s earlier work that was disseminated in the media or elsewhere. Most of the chapters consist of earlier published media articles that are briefly introduced and updated. Although Robie’s engaged and critical journalism is very informative and illustrative, the way the book is organized also implies a lack of depth and engagement with, for example, academic work on these topics. This could have been partially addressed by adding a short bibliography to each chapter with key academic works on the issue, instead of providing a short selected biography at the end.

What Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face does offer is a great overview of troubling politics and violence in the region and Robie’s reporting of these events. As such, it is of interest to anyone who is interested in Pacific media and politics, and Robie’s work and coverage of these issues in particular.

Up close and friendly with Vietnam’s war resistance Củ Chi tunnels

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David Robie
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COMMENTARY: By David Robie in Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam’s famous Củ Chi tunnel network was on our bucket list for years.

For me, it was for more than half a century, ever since I had been editor of the Melbourne Sunday Observer, which campaigned against Australian (and New Zealand) involvement in the unjust Vietnam War — redubbed the “American War” by the Vietnamese.

For Del, it was a dream to see how the resistance of a small and poor country could defeat the might of colonisers.

“I wanted to see for myself how the tunnels and the sacrifices of the Vietnamese had contributed to winning the war,” she recalls.

“Love for country, a longing for peace and a resistance to foreign domination were strong factors in victory.”

We finally got our wish last month — a half day trip to the tunnel network, which stretched some 250 kilometres at the peak of their use. The museum park is just 45 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh city, known as Saigon during the war years (many locals still call it that).

Building of the tunnels started after the Second World War after the Japanese had withdrawn from Indochina and liberation struggles had begun against the French. But they reached their most dramatic use in the war against the Americans, especially during the spate of surprise attacks during the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The Viet Minh kicked off the network, when it was a sort of southern gateway to the Ho Chi Minh trail in the 1940s as the communist forces edged closer to Saigon.

Checking out the Củ Chi tunnel network
Checking out the Củ Chi tunnel network near Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Image: David Robie/APR

Eventually the liberation successes of the Viet Minh led to humiliating defeat of the French colonial forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Cutting off supply lines
The French had rebuilt an ex-Japanese airbase in a remote valley near the Laotian border in a so-called “hedgehog” operation — in a belief that the Viet Minh forces did not have anti-aircraft artillery. They hoped to cut off the Viet Minh’s guerrilla forces’ supply lines and draw them into a decisive conventional battle where superior French firepower would prevail.

However, they were the ones who were cut off.


The Củ Chi tunnels explored.    Video: History channel

The French military command badly miscalculated as General Nguyen Giap’s forces secretly and patiently hauled artillery through the jungle-clad hills over months and established strategic batteries with tunnels for the guns to be hauled back under cover after firing several salvos.

Giap compared Dien Bien Phu to a “rice bowl” with the Viet Minh on the edges and the French at the bottom.

After a 54-day siege between 13 March and 7 May 1954, as the French forces became increasingly surrounded and with casualties mounting (up to 2300 killed), the fortifications were over-run and the surviving soldiers surrendered.

The defeat led to global shock that an anti-colonial guerrilla army had defeated a major European power.

The French government of Prime Minister Joseph Laniel resigned and the 1954 Geneva Accords were signed with France pulling out all its forces in the whole of Indochina, although Vietnam was temporarily divided in half at the 17th Parallel — the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and the republican State of Vietnam nominally under Emperor Bao Dai (but in reality led by a series of dictators with US support).

Debacle of Dien Bien Phu
The debacle of Dien Bien Phu is told very well in an exhibition that takes up an entire wing of the Vietnam War Remnants Museum (it was originally named the “Museum of American War Crimes”).

But that isn’t all at the impressive museum, the history of the horrendous US misadventure is told in gruesome detail – with some 58,000 American troops killed and the death of an estimated up to 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. (Not to mention the 521 Australian and 37 New Zealand soldiers, and the many other allied casualties.)

The section of the museum devoted to the Agent Orange defoliant war waged on the Vietnamese and the country’s environment is particularly chilling – casualties and people suffering from the aftermath of the poisoning are now into the fourth generation.

"Peace in Vietnam" posters and photographs
“Peace in Vietnam” posters and photographs at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Image: David Robie/APR
"Nixon out of Vietnam" daubed on a bombed house
“Nixon out of Vietnam” daubed on a bombed house in the War Remnants Museum. Image: Del Abcede/APR

The global anti-Vietnam War peace protests are also honoured at the museum and one section of the compound has a recreation of the prisons holding Viet Cong independence fighters, including the torture “tiger cells”.

A shackled Viet Cong suspect (mannequin) in a torture "tiger cage"
A shackled Viet Cong suspect (mannequin) in a torture “tiger cage” recreation. Image: David Robie/APR

A guillotine is on display. The execution method was used by both France and the US-backed South Vietnam regimes against pro-independence fighters.

A guillotine on display at the Remnants War Museum
A guillotine on display at the Remnants War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Image: David Robie/APR

A placard says: “During the US war against Vietnam, the guillotine was transported to all of the provinces in South Vietnam to decapitate the Vietnam patriots. [On 12 March 1960], the last man who was executed by guillotine was Hoang Le Kha.”

A member of the ant-French liberation “scout movement”, Hoang was sentenced to death by a military court set up by the US-backed President Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime.

In 1981, France outlawed capital punishment and abandoned the use of the guillotine, but the last execution was as recent as 1977.

Museum visit essential
Visiting Ho Ch Min City’s War Remnants Museum is essential for background and contextual understanding of the role and importance of the Củ Chi tunnels.

Also for insights about how the last US troops left Vietnam in March 1973, Nixon resigned the following year under pressure from the Watergate revelations, and a series of reverses led to the collapse of the South Vietnam regime and the humiliating scenes of the final Americans withdrawing by helicopter from the US Embassy rooftop in Saigon in April 1975.

The Sunday Observer coverage of the My Lai massacre
The Sunday Observer coverage of the My Lai massacre. Image: Screenshot David Robie/APR

Back in my protest days as chief subeditor and then editor of Melbourne’s Sunday Observer, I had published Ronald Haberle’s My Lai massacre photos the same week as Life Magazine in December 1969 (an estimated 500 women, children and elderly men were killed at the hamlet on 16 March 1968 near Quang Nai city and the atrocity was covered up for almost two years).

Ironically, we were prosecuted for “obscenity’ for publishing photographs of a real life US obscenity and war crime in the Australian state of Victoria. (The case was later dropped).

So our trip to the Củ Chi tunnels was laced with expectation. What would we see? What would we feel?

A tunnel entrance at Ben Dinh
A tunnel entrance at Ben Dinh. Image: David Robie/APR

The tunnels played a critical role in the “American” War, eventually leading to the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance in Saigon. And the guides talk about the experience and the sacrifice of Viet Cong fighters in reverential tones.

The tunnel network at Ben Dinh is in a vast park-like setting with restored sections, including underground kitchen (with smoke outlets directed through simulated ant hills), medical centre, and armaments workshop.

ingenious bamboo and metal spike booby traps, snakes and scorpions were among the obstacles to US forces pursuing resistance fighters. Special units — called “tunnel rats” using smaller soldiers were eventually trained to combat the Củ Chi system but were not very effective.

David at the Chu Chi tunnels
David at the Chu Chi tunnels. Image: FB screenshot

We were treated to cooked cassava, a staple for the fighters underground.

A disabled US tank demonstrates how typical hit-and-run attacks by the Viet Cong fighters would cripple their treads and then they would be attacked through their manholes.

The park also has a shooting range where tourists can fire M-16s and AK-47s — by buying their own bullets.

‘Walk’ through showdown
When it came to the section where we could walk through the tunnels ourselves, our guide said: “It only takes a couple of minutes.”

It was actually closer to 10 minutes, it seemed, and I actually got stuck momentarily when my knees turned to jelly with the crouch posture that I needed to use for my height. I had to crawl on hands and knees the rest of the way.

David at a tunnel entrance
David at a tunnel entrance — “my knees turned to jelly” but crawling through was the solution in the end. Image: David Robie/APR

A warning sign said don’t go if you’re aged over 70 (I am 79), have heart issues (I do, with arteries), or are claustrophobic (I’m not). I went anyway.

People who have done this are mostly very positive about the experience and praise the tourist tunnels set-up. Many travel agencies run guided trips to the tunnels.

How small can we squeeze to fit in the tunnel?
How small can we squeeze to fit in the tunnel? The thinnest person in one group visiting the tunnels tries to shrink into the space. Image: David Robie/APR
A so-called "clipping armpit" Viet Cong trap
A so-called “clipping armpit” Viet Cong trap in the Củ Chi tunnel network. Image: David Robie/APR

“Exploring the Củ Chi tunnels near Saigon was a fascinating and historically significant experience,” wrote one recent visitor on a social media link.

“The intricate network of tunnels, used during the Vietnam War, provided valuable insights into the resilience and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. Crawling through the tunnels, visiting hidden bunkers, and learning about guerrilla warfare tactics were eye-opening . . .

“It’s a place where history comes to life, and it’s a must-visit for anyone interested in Vietnam’s wartime history and the remarkable engineering of the Củ Chi tunnels.”

“The visit gives a very real sense of what the war was like from the Vietnamese side — their tunnels and how they lived and efforts to fight the Americans,” wrote another visitor. “Very realistic experience, especially if you venture into the tunnels.”

Overall, it was a powerful experience and a reminder that no matter how immensely strong a country might be politically and militarily, if grassroots people are determined enough for freedom and justice they will triumph in the end.

There is hope yet for Palestine.

The Củ Chi tunnel network
The Củ Chi tunnel network. Image: War Remnants Museum/APR

Ramzy Baroud: Itamar Ben-Gvir and the acceleration of the collapse of Israel

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in 2021
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in 2021 . . . he has advocated a religious war, calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Image: Shay Kendler, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

ANALYSIS: By Ramzy Baroud

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir vowed on August 26 to build a synagogue inside the Muslim holy site Al-Haram Al-Sharif.

Ben-Gvir, as a representation of Israel’s powerful religious Zionist class in the government and society at large, has been candid regarding his designs in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine.

He has advocated a religious war, calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the starvation or killing of prisoners and the annexation of the West Bank.

In his capacity as a minister in the equally extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir has worked hard to translate his language into action. He has raided the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Mosque repeatedly, and implemented his starvation policies against Palestinian detainees, going as far as defending rape inside Israeli military detention camps and calling the accused soldiers “our best heroes”.

His supporters have carried out hundreds of assaults and dozens of pogroms targeting Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 670 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza war. A large number among those killed and injured were victims of illegal Jewish settlers.

But not all Israelis in the political or security establishments agree with Ben-Gvir’s behavior or tactics. For example, on August 22, Israel’s Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar, warned against the “indescribable damage” to Israel caused by Ben-Gvir’s actions in East Jerusalem.

Damage to Israel ‘indescribable’
“The damage to the State of Israel, especially now . . .  is indescribable: global delegitimisation, even among our greatest allies,” Bar wrote in a letter sent to several Israeli ministers.

Bar’s letter may seem odd. The Shin Bet has been instrumental in the killing of numerous Palestinians, in the name of Israeli security. Bar himself is a strong supporter of the settlements, and as hawkish as is required for the person who leads such a notorious organization.

Bar’s conflict with Ben-Gvir, however, is not that of substance, but style. This conflict is only an expression of a much greater ideological and political war among Israel’s top institutions. This war, however, began before the October 7 attack and the ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza.

Seven months before the start of the war, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a televised speech that “those who think that a real civil war . . .  is a border we won’t cross, have no idea.”

The context of his comments was the “real, deep hate” among Israelis resulting from the attempts by Netanyahu and his extremist government coalition partners to undermine the power of the judiciary.

Demonstration against judicial reform near the Knesset
Demonstration against judicial reform near the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 20, 2023. Image: Hanay, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The fight over the Supreme Court, however, was merely the tip of the iceberg. The fact that it took Israel five elections in four years to settle on a stable government in December 2022 was itself indicative of Israel’s unprecedented political conflict.

The new government may have been “stable” in terms of the parliamentary balances, but it destabilised the country on all fronts, leading to mass protests, involving the powerful, but increasingly marginalised military class.

Time of social, political vulnerability
The October 7 attack took place at a time of social and political vulnerability, arguably unprecedented since the founding of Israel atop the ruins of historic Palestine in May 1948.

The war, but particularly the failure to achieve any of its objectives, deepened that existing conflict. This led to warnings from politicians and military men that the country was collapsing.

The clearest of these warnings came from Yitzhak Brik, a former top Israeli military commander. He wrote in Haaretz on August 22 that the “country . . .  is galloping towards the edge of an abyss,” and that it “will collapse within no more than a year”.

Though Brik was blaming, among various factors, Netanyahu’s losing war in Gaza, the anti-Netanyahu political class believes that the crisis mainly lies in the government itself.

This solution, according to recent comments made by Herzog himself, is that “Kahanism needs to be removed from the government.”

Kahanism here is a reference to the Kach Party of Rabbi Meir Kahane. Though now banned, Kach has resurfaced in numerous forms, including in Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party.

As a disciple of Kahane, Ben-Gvir is set to achieve the vision of the extremist rabbi, that of the complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Kahane addressing his followers in Tel Aviv, 1984
Kahane addressing his followers in Tel Aviv, 1984. Image: Dan Hadani, National Library of Israel, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Historic opportunity
Ben-Gvir and his ilk are fully aware of the historic opportunity that is now available to them as they hope to ignite the much-coveted religious war. They also know that if the war in Gaza ends without advancing their main plan of colonizing the rest of the occupied territories, the opportunity may not present itself ever again.

Ben-Gvir’s rush to achieve the religious Zionist agenda contradicts the traditional form of Israeli colonialism, predicated on the ‘incremental genocide’ of Palestinians and the slow ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities from East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Though the Israeli military believes that illegal settlements are essential, they perceive these colonies in strategic language as a “security buffer” for Israel.

The winners and losers of Israel’s ideological and political war are most likely to emerge following the end of the Gaza war, the outcomes of which will determine other factors, including the very future of the state of Israel, per the estimation of General Yitzhak Brik himself.

Dr Ramzy Baroud is a widely published and translated author, an internationally syndicated columnist and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, 2018). He earned a PhD in Palestine studies from the University of Exeter (2015), and was a non-resident scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB. This article is republished from Z Network.

West Papuan independence advocate seeks NZ support against ‘genocide, ecocide’

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United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) vice-president Octo Mote
United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) vice-president Octo Mote . . . “We are in a very dangerous situation right now." Image: Screenshot Te Ao Māori News

SPECIAL REPORT: By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News

West Papuan independence advocate Octovianus Mote is in Aotearoa New Zealand to win support for independence for West Papua, which has been ruled by Indonesia for more than 60 years.

Mote is vice-president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and is being hosted in New Zealand by the Green Party, which Mote said had always been a “hero” for West Papua.

He spoke at a West Papua seminar at the Māngere Mountain Education Centre tonight.

Former ULMWP president Benny Wenda has alleged more than 500,000 Papuans have been killed since the occupation, and millions of hectares of ancestral forests, rivers and mountains have been destroyed or polluted for “corporate profit”.

Current president is Manasa Tabuni.

The struggle for West Papuans
“Being born a West Papuan, you are already an enemy of the nation [Indonesia],” Mote says.

“The greatest challenge we are facing right now is that we are facing the colonial power who lives next to us.”

If West Papuans spoke up about what was happening, they were considered “separatists”, Mote says, regardless of whether they are journalists, intellectuals, public servants or even high-ranking Indonesian generals.

“When our students on the ground speak of justice, they’re beaten up, put in jail and [the Indonesians] kill so many of them,” Mote says.

Mote is a former journalist and says that while he was working he witnessed Indonesian forces openly fire at students who were peacefully demonstrating their rights.

“We are in a very dangerous situation right now. When our people try to defend their land, the Indonesian government ignores them and they just take the land without recognising we are landowners,” he says.

The ‘ecocide’ of West Papua
The ecology in West Papua is being damaged by mining, deforestation, and oil and gas extraction. Mote says Indonesia wants to “wipe them from the land and control their natural resources”.

He says he is trying to educate the world that defending West Papua means defending the world, especially small islands in the Pacific.

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, bordering the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. New Guinea has the world’s third-largest rainforest after the Amazon and Congo and it is crucial for climate change mitigation as they sequester and store carbon.

Mote says the continued deforestation of New Guinea, which West Papuan leaders are trying to stop, would greatly impact on the small island countries in the Pacific, which are among the most vulnerable to climate change.

Mote also says their customary council in West Papua has already considered the impacts of climate change on small island nations and, given West Papua’s abundance of land the council says that by having sovereignty they would be able to both protect the land and support Pacific Islanders who need to migrate from their home islands.

In 2021, West Papuan leaders pledged to make ecocide a serious crime and this week Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa submitted a court proposal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to recognise ecocide as a crime.

Support from local Indonesians
Mote says there are Indonesians who support the indigenous rights movement for West Papuans. He says there are both NGOs and a Papuan Peace Network founded by West Papuan peace campaigner Neles Tebay.

“There is a movement growing among the academics and among the well-educated people who have read the realities among those who are also victims of the capitalist investors, especially in Indonesia when they introduced the Omnibus Law.”

The so-called Omnibus Law was passed in 2020 as part of outgoing President Joko Widodo’s goals to increase investment and industrialisation in Indonesia. The law was protested against because of concerns it would be harmful for workers due to changes in working conditions, and the environment because it would allow for increased deforestation.

Mote says there has been an “awakening”, especially among the younger generations who are more open-minded and connected to the world, who could see it both as a humanitarian and an environmental issue.

The ‘transfer’ of West Papua to Indonesia
“The [former colonial nation] Dutch [traded] us like a cow,” Mote says.

The former Dutch colony was passed over to Indonesia in 1963 in disputed circumstances but the ULMWP calls it an “invasion”.

From 1957, the Soviet Union had been supplying arms to Indonesia and, during that period, the Indonesian Communist Party had become the largest political party in the country.

The US government urged the Dutch government to give West Papua to Indonesia in an attempt to appease the communist-friendly Indonesian government as part of a US drive to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

The US engineered a meeting between both countries, which resulted in the New York Agreement, giving control of West Papua to the UN in 1962 and then Indonesia a year later.

The New York Agreement stipulated that the population of West Papua would be entitled to an act of self-determination.

The ‘act of no choice’
This decolonisation agreement was titled the 1969 Act of Free Choice, which is referred to as “the act of no choice” by pro-independence activists.

Mote says they witnessed “how the UN allowed Indonesia to cut us into pieces, and they didn’t say anything when Indonesia manipulated our right to self-determination”.

The manipulation Mote refers to is for the Act of Free Choice. Instead of a national referendum, the Indonesian military hand-picked 1025 West Papuan “representatives” to vote on behalf of the 816,000 people. The representatives were allegedly threatened, bribed and some were held at gunpoint to ensure a unanimous vote.

Leaders of the West Papuan independence movement assert that this was not a real opportunity to exercise self-determination as it was manipulated. However, it was accepted by the UN.

Pacific support at UN General Assembly
Mote has came to Aotearoa after the 53rd Pacific Island Forum Leaders summit in Tonga last week and he has come to discuss plans over the next five years. Mote hopes to gain support to take what he calls the “slow-motion genocide” of West Papua back to the UN General Assembly.

“In that meeting we formulated how we can help really push self-determination as the main issue in the Pacific Islands,” Mote says.

Mote says there was a focus on self-determination of West Papua, Kanaky/New Caledonia and Tahiti. He also said the focus was on what he described as the current colonisation issue with capitalists and global powers having vested interests in the Pacific region.

The movement got it to the UN General Assembly in 2018, so Mote says it is achievable. In 2018, Pacific solidarity was shown as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and the Republic of Vanuatu all spoke out in support of West Papua.

They affirmed the need for the matter to be returned to the United Nations, and the Solomon Islands voiced its concerns over human rights abuses and violations.

ULMWP vice-president Octo Mote
ULMWP vice-president Octo Mote . . . in the next five years Pacific nations need to firstly make the Indonesian government “accountable” for its actions in West Papua. Image: Poster screenshot

What needs to be done
He says that in the next five years Pacific nations need to firstly make the Indonesian government accountable for its actions in West Papua. He also says outgoing President Widodo should be held accountable for his “involvement”.

Mote says New Zealand is the strongest Pacific nation that would be able to push for the human rights and environmental issues happening, especially as he alleges Australia always backs Indonesian policies.

He says he is looking to New Zealand to speak up about the atrocities taking place in West Papua and is particularly looking for support from the Greens, Labour and Te Pāti Māori for political support.

The coalition government announced a plan of action on July 30 this year, which set a new goal of $6 billion in annual two-way trade with Indonesia by 2029.

“New Zealand is strongly committed to our partnership with Indonesia,” Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said at the time.

“There is much more we can and should be doing together.”

Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. Republished by Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific with permission.

Jonathan Cook: Israeli torture chambers aren’t new. They are what provoked the violence of October 7

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Palestinians in Gaza protesting over the February 2013 death of Arafat Jaradat in Megiddo prison
Palestinians in Gaza protesting over the February 2013 death of Arafat Jaradat in Megiddo prison. Image: Joe Catron/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0

Those who can’t connect barbaric abuses of Palestinians by Israelis — generation after generation — and the crimes of October 7, have little understanding of human nature, writes Jonathan Cook.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

For many years I lived just up the road from Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where new film of Israeli guards torturing Palestinians en masse has been published by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.

I drove past Megiddo prison on hundreds of occasions. Over time I came to barely notice the squat grey buildings, surrounded by watch towers and razor wire.

There are several large prisons like Megiddo in Israel’s north. It is where Palestinians end up after they have been seized from their homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel, and the Western media, say these Palestinians have been “arrested,” as though Israel is enforcing some kind of legitimate legal procedure over oppressed subjects — or rather objects — of its occupation.

In truth, these Palestinians have been kidnapped.

The prisons are invariably located close to major roads in Israel, presumably because Israelis find it reassuring to know Palestinians are being locked up in such large numbers. (As an aside, I should mention that transferring prisoners out of occupied territory into the occupier’s territory is a war crime. But let that pass.)

Even before the mass round-ups of the past 11 months, the Palestinian Authority estimated that 800,000 Palestinians — or 40 percent of the male population — had spent time in an Israeli prison.

Many had never been charged with any crime and had never received a trial. Not that that would make any difference — the conviction rate of Palestinians in Israel’s military courts is near 100 percent. There is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, it seems.

Terrifying rite of passage
Rather, imprisonment is a kind of terrifying rite of passage that has been endured by generations of Palestinians, one required of them by the bureaucracy managing Israel’s apartheid-occupation system.

Torture, even of children, has been routine in these prisons since the occupation began nearly 60 years ago, as Israeli human rights groups have been regularly documenting.

View of Meggido prison
View of Meggido prison (on right) from Meggido Hill in 2007. Image: Golf Bravo/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

The imprisonment and torture of Palestinians serve several goals for Israel. It crushes the spirit of Palestinians individually and collectively. It traumatises generation after generation, creating fear and suspicion.

And it helps to recruit a large class of Palestinian informants and collaborators who secretly work with Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, to foil Palestinian resistance operations against Israel’s illegal occupation forces.

This kind of Palestinian resistance, we should note, is specifically permitted in international law. In other words, what the West denounces as “terrorism” is actually legal under the principles the West established after the Second World War.

Paradoxical, to put it mildly.

The humiliation and trauma systematically inflicted on these hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the wider Palestinian society — and the complete lack of concern from the “international community”, or, worse, its complicity — have inevitably fed into growing religious extremism among parts of a Palestinian society that was once largely secular.

No justice, then resistance
If there is no justice, no redress to be offered by the international institutions created by a West that both trumpets its secularism while also flaunting its Christian values, then, Palestinians conclude, maybe they can find justice — or at least retribution — not through futile, rigged “negotiations” but through greater commitment to violent resistance carried out in the name of Islam.

That explains the emergence of the group Hamas in the late 1980s and its relentless growth in popularity.

Hamas’ unapologetic Islamic militancy contrasted with the more accommodationist secular nationalism of Fatah, long led by Mahmoud Abbas. Support for Hamas was something Israel was only too happy to cultivate. It understood that Islamism would discredit the Palestinian cause in the eyes of Westerners and further bond the West to Israel.

But Israel’s system of torture — whether in “normal” prisons like Megiddo or in the giant open-air prison that Israel made of Gaza — also led to an ever greater determination among groups like Hamas to liberate themselves through violence.

If Israel could not be reasoned with, if it only understood the sword, then that was the language Palestinians would speak to Israel. This was precisely the rationale for the atrocities of October 7.

If you were horrified by October 7, but are not more horrified by what Israel has been doing to Palestinians for more than half a century in its prisons, then you are either in a state of deep ignorance — hardly surprising given the lack of media coverage of Israel’s despotic rule over Palestinians — or in deep denial.

If you cannot see the causal connection between the barbaric abuses of Palestinians generation after generation and the crimes committed on October 7, then you have no understanding of human nature.

Family trauma passed down
You have no inner awareness of how you would act had you, your father and your grandfather been tortured in an Israeli prison, a trauma passed down through families little differently than hair colour or build.

The scenes filmed at Megiddo. The images of emaciated men, broken from their beatings in prison. The disappearance of hundreds of doctors into Israel’s torture chambers. The video of a Palestinian man being raped by Israeli prison guards.

The findings by Israeli and international organisations that this is going on systematically.

The horrors are staring us in the face. But too many of us are looking away, reverting to the magical thinking of our babyhoods in which, when we cover our eyes, the world disappears.

The horrors of Israel’s prison system aren’t new. They have been going on for decades. What’s new is that Israel has intensified the abuse. It now relishes atrocities it previously hid away like a dark secret.

Israel is lost. It is deep in a black, genocidal hole. The question is, are you going to allow yourself to be sucked into the same void? Are you going to keep covering your eyes? Does the torture end just because you prefer not to see it?

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the UK in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). Republished from here with the author’s permission. If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.

How Māori media and iwi united during historic news coverage of Kiingi Tuheitia tangihanga

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Riria Dalton-Reedy during a live cross for Te Ao Māori News
Riria Dalton-Reedy during a live cross for Te Ao Māori News. Image: Te Ao Māori News/File

COMMENTARY: By Jessica Tyson

In recent years Kiingi Tuheitia became known as the “king of unity” with his determined drive for kotahitanga involving rangatahi.

So last week, through his tangihanga and the accession of his successor, a unique first took shape as the largest group of Māori broadcasters to ever work together collaborated with iwi in honouring his “wairua wind”.

Every day during the week-long tangihanga, news and radio teams from many Māori media outlets worked together to broadcast live news breakout shows on Whakaata Māori, online and on social media, showing what was happening on the ground at Tūrangawaewae Marae.

On the final day, Thursday, September 5, an official outside broadcast aired on Whakaata Māori and TVNZ presented by reporters from a variety of Māori media outlets covering the nehu (burial) of Kiingi Tuheitia and the whakawahinga (coronation) of Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po Pootatau Te Wherowhero te Tuawaru.

Aukaha executive producer Roihana Nuri led the news breakout shows throughout the week, with the inclusion and support of kaimahi from news and iwi radio outlets; Te Ao Maōri News, Te Ao with Moana, The Hui, Te Karere, TVNZ, Aukaha News, Tahu News, Tainui Live, Waatea Radio, Nga Iwi FM, Maniapoto FM and Te Reo o Te Uru.

The shows aired live on Facebook and attracted audiences of many thousands from around the country and Australia.

“The highlight was seeing the collaboration of all Māori news and current affairs programmes coming together and having some real old hands and young up-and-coming journos in the mix,” Nuri said. “We were all there for the one kaupapa which was to poroporoaki Kiingi Tuheitia.”

“This is the beginning of what reshaping Māori news media and working together is. We all talk collaboration — this is actual collaboration and action and is about succession because the oldies, like me, we’re not going to be here forever, and we need to start getting our rangatahi in the mix.

“We need to start to be able to share the knowledge, share the skills, the tricks of the trade.”

Peata Melbourne and Tumamao Harawira
Peata Melbourne and Tumamao Harawira presented the lives breakouts from the studio at Whakaata Māori. Image: Te Ao Māori News/File

On day one, six reporters presented the news breakouts but that quickly increased later in the week as more regional and national news services freed up their resources to join the collaboration.

“On the final uhunga day, I think we had 13 reporters and presenters in the mix of that two hour pre-show before the big broadcast started,” Nuri recalled.

“All of the reporters and presenters had kaupapa to talk about; parking, roadblocks, mahi ringawera, hauora stuff. It’s a lot of information to give to the tens of thousands going to descend on Tūrangawaewae.”

The news breakouts were presented by Peata Melbourne and Tumamao Harawira in the Whakaata Māori studio. They crossed live to reporters at Tūrangawaewae including Riria Dalton-Reedy, Michael Cugley, Kereama Wright, Moana Maniapoto, Matai Smith, Shakayla Andrews-Alapaki, Regan Paranihi, Aroha Broughton, Te Kawa Paora, Herewini Waikato, Kawe Roes, Te Okiwa Mclean and Timoti Tiakiwai.

Te Kawa Paora
Aukaha reporter Te Kawa Paora during his live cross. Image: Te Ao Māori News/File

Working behind the scenes were more than 50 kaimahi (staff) including studio operators, producers, engineers, editors, camera operators, journalists and digital content creators from across the Māori media sector.

“There are so many moving pieces,” Nuri said “I was really extremely proud of every single individual who participated in our news breakouts over the seven days of Kiingi Tuheitia’s tangihanga.”

Te Ao with Moana journalist Te Rina Kowhai jumped in to help manage the operational grunt across the broadcast as line-up producer, pulling on her vast experience both technically and editorially.

Although it was a sad occasion, the Kiingitanga, for Kowhai, brought kotahitanga for the Māori media sector.

“For me unity, reo me ona tikanga, has always driven me and the kaupapa in this industry,” Kowhai said.

She also reflected on veteran Māori broadcasters, who had mentored her such as the late Whai Ngata, Hone Edwards, Miki Apiti, and especially the late Derek Wooster who had directed Te Arikinui Te Atarangikaahu’s tangihanga.

“Derek would tell me all the stories, the fond memories, the technical logistics of how they covered the late Te Arikinui Te Atarangikaahu tangi and now I have my own stories to tell. We’ve made history through this Māori media sector collaboration and I feel optimistic for our rangatahi coming into this space. It’s been a huge privilege.”

Aroha Broughton
Behind the scenes as Te Reo o Te Uru reporter Aroha Broughton goes live. Image: Te Ao Māori News/File

Strong advocate for rangatahi
With Kiingi Tuheitia such a strong advocate for rangatahi, producers wanted to prioritise the rangatahi voice in the news breakouts. Many of the young reporters were paired up with senior reporters to help produce their live crosses.

“We’ve got these amazing senior journos and presenters in the mix but it was about bringing the rangatahi in there on a sad occasion but quite a historical moment.

“We have a new queen, nearly a rangatahi queen, Kuini Nga Wai hono i te po. So a lot of things said to me, in terms of my experience, we needed to get as many of our rangatahi from all of our programmes into this.”

Shakayla Andrews-Alapaki from Tahu News said she felt “really honoured to be here because nō Te Wai Pounamu ahau (I’m from the South Island). I’ve travelled all this way to be a kairipoata (reporter) and it’s the biggest kaupapa in my lifetime so far as a Māori. So, nōku te hōnore ki te tae mai ki kōnei ki te whakanui tō tātou nei kiingi (I’m honoured to be here to celebrate our king).”

Te Reo o Te Uru reporter Regan Paranihi said, “Mōku ake, he mea nui i te mea ko ia te Kiingi. Ko ia te Kiingi mō ngāi tātou te iwi Māori. Nā reira, i runga i tērā āhuatanga, nōku anō te maringa nui kia whai wāhi ki tēnei kaupapa i runga anō i te kotahitanga o te noho me te ao pāpāho Māori. Koira tāna i whai nei i roto i tēnei tau tata nei, ko te kotahitanga me te kite i te kotahitanga i roto i te ao pāpāho Māori. Koirā pea te ōhākī i waiho e ia mō mātou. Nō reira nōku te maringa nui, ka mutu, ka mahara ake au i tēnei wā mo te roanga o tōku oranga.”

“For me personally, it’s significant because he’s the king. He is our Māori king. So, because of that, I feel fortunate to be a part of this event, and to be a part of this united effort by the Māori broadcasting industry. That’s what he was striving for over the last year or so, it was unity, and now we’re seeing unity in the Māori media. Perhaps that is the legacy he has left us. So, I feel very fortunate, and I will remember this time for the rest of my life.”

Waikato-Tainui communications and engagement manager Jason Ake said he heard the phrase ‘Ko koe te kiingi o kotahitanga, ko koe te kiingi o te rangatahi (You are the king of unity, You are the king of the youth)’ said by speakers on the ātea during the pōwhiri.

“So what we did see is absolutely those two things in full force. We got to see Māori media organisations collaborate, kotahitanga, and we also got to have a significant part of that reflected in the rangatahi voice as well. So I think we achieved absolutely what he was known for and what he was being recognised for in that space. So well done.”

‘Iwi-led and media-supported’
On the final day, thousands from across Aotearoa and the world tuned into the official broadcast led by the Kiingitanga, aired live on Whakaata Māori and TVNZ of the historic coronation of Kuini Nga Wai hono i te po and the nehu of Kiingi Tuheitia.

Experienced journalists presented the show including Julian Wilcox, Stacey Morrison, Tom Roa, Mihingarangi Forbes, Tini Molyneux, Scotty Morrison, John Campbell, Oriini Kaipara, Matai Smith, Te Arahi Maipi and Maiki Sherman.

In a social media post, Kaipara said: “May this new wave of solidarity continue to grow alongside our inherent right to mana motuhake. May it strengthen us all as a collective in a turbulent industry. May us oldies and not-so-oldies hear, see, value and nurture our awesome rangatahi to become their best selves and let them lead the way from time to time”.

Whakaata Māori news and current affairs director Blake Ihimaera said the official broadcast was “iwi-led and media supported”.

“For me personally, I’ve always been a big believer in iwi and the power of iwi and watching the Kiingitanga, Waikato-Tainui waka in action was amazing to witness,” she said.

“That official broadcast, being made by the Kiingitanga and taken by all of the stations, was another collaboration; one emphasising that iwi are in control of their narrative. It’s their kaupapa but we can support it and make it amazing.”

Collaboration with iwi radio
Another highlight was the inclusion of iwi radio outlets including Tainui Live, Waatea Radio, Nga Iwi FM, Maniapoto FM and Te Reo o Te Uru.

As well as having radio journalists on the ground at Tūrangawaewae, Te Reo o Te Uru executive producer and Te Korimako o Taranaki station manager Tipene O’Brien travelled to Whakaata Māori in Auckland during the week to watch and learn the process of delivering a broadcast from behind the scenes in the studio.

“That was a big eye-opener for us. The overall goal for us is to be able to take those ideas and implement them at a regional level. Obviously, the difference is that we don’t have the big budgets and we don’t have the human resources that they do, but I think, if we understand the concepts of how they do it, we can figure out how to adapt it and customise to our needs and wants.”

Before each newsbreak ended, presenters handed over the audience to the Kiingitanga Facebook page to continue to watch the live coverage of each pōwhiri at Tuurangawaewae.

Ake said: “It was really exciting for us because at one point there we handed over an audience of between 120,000 and 130,000 viewers straight into the Kiingitanga page, so it wasn’t starting off cold and it gave good context leading into it every morning and afternoon.”

Ake said it was important for national and regional news to continue to collaborate because “a lot of regionally significant stories would otherwise be lost on a national platform.”

“Sometimes those stories have equal weight back home. It’s great listening to some of the nationally focused news that takes place but, equally, I think the focus for regional stories, there is a hunger for them and the landscape is moving very, very quickly in that regard,” Ake said.

He said linear broadcasting would probably be dead or defunct within the next five years so news outlets needed to create content where “our people are either listening or watching”.

“We can’t carry on delivering content on platforms where our people actually have a [lower] consumption rate. We need to go to them and we know more and more they are consuming stuff digitally and online and TVNZ and Whakaata Māori have recognised that.”

The future is collaboration
Ihimaera said now that Māori media had collaborated on “the biggest kaupapa of our lifetime”, she expected it to continue to happen.

“We’ve set a foundation for that to happen further. The future is collaboration and so, whatever kaupapa it might be, we probably will be using all of our our partners because it’s only right.”

Ihimaera said Whakaata Māori and Te Ao Māori News would work to collaborate with other Māori media during Te Matatini next year.

O’Brien said Te Reo o Te Uru would “certainly be contributing in a big way” to produce content in collaboration with other outlets during Te Matatini.

“It’s a messaging that’s coming clear from Te Māngai Pāho that we need to look at collaborating and working together.”

Te Māngai Pāho is the government-funded agency that provides funding for media and content to promote Māori language and culture. Whakaata Māori is also government-funded but is expected to receive a $10.3 million funding decrease over the next two financial years.

“We made history — we are right now being supported by the government [but] they could support a lot more,” Nuri said.

“I feel we just demonstrated and showed the power of kotahitanga within Māori media. I think the government will be willing to have a conversation about how we create an innovative digital future for us.”

This week Whakaata Māori and Te Ao Māori News have already collaborated with the Ngā Manu Kōrero to bring a livestream of its pōwhiri online.

Jess Tyson is a multimedia journalist and digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. She has also worked as co-presenter for Rereātea, Māori Television’s online midday news bulletin, as well as an Online Reporter. This article was first published by Te Ao Māori News and is republished with the author’s permission.

Caitlin Johnstone: ‘Why should I care about Gaza?’

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We need to begin thinking, feeling, and living in accordance with this new reality
We need to begin thinking, feeling, and living in accordance with this new reality. We cannot continue along the ecocidal, omnicidal trajectory that our small circles of compassion have made possible, or else we will go extinct. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au

We can’t keep living like this. Our species cannot continue living on this planet as though what happens to other people and other organisms around the world has nothing to do with us. We don’t live in that kind of world anymore, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The other day someone on Twitter asked me why he should care about what’s happening in Gaza, saying, “Why should I care about anyone that isn’t in a 20 mile radius of where I live?”

I was a bit taken aback by this. I must confess I live in a bit of an echo chamber when it comes to caring about the world; most people I interact with from day to day either agree with me or disagree with me about the abusive nature of the empire and what our problems are and what should be done about them, but the one thing they all have in common is that they care.

Outside my little bubble I suspect this “why should I care?” sentiment is probably pretty common, though.

LISTEN:  A reading of this article by Tim Foley

There’s a 2017 Huffington Post article by Kayla Chadwick titled “I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People” which expresses frustration at this type of attitude, because it is very difficult to argue against. If you’re not already the sort of person who would naturally care about the death and suffering in Gaza, it’s going to be hard to get you to see why you should.

If you’re missing the part of yourself which hurts when it sees children ripped apart by Israeli bombs, you’re going to have a hard time understanding the value of that part.

But I like a challenge. So I’ve had a bit of a think about it, and I’ve come up with the most honest and complete answer to this question that I am able to produce right now. It might not convince anyone, but it is a well-reasoned answer.

Why should you care about Gaza? Because we can’t keep living like this. Our species cannot continue living on this planet as though what happens to other people and other organisms around the world has nothing to do with us. We don’t live in that kind of world anymore.

For better or for worse, we now live on a planet with eight billion humans who are no longer separated by distance in the way we used to be. This species which spent so much of its development relating to itself in units of small tribes is now an intimately networked global community whose behavior is literally altering the face of this planet, and we need to start acting like it.

We need to start doing what Einstein called “widening our circle of compassion” beyond our small tribal units of people we personally know and like, or we simply won’t be able to survive and thrive on this planet.

The inability of ordinary people to think globally is directly affecting our lives in the here and now.

The ability of plutocrats to exploit cheap labor overseas directly affects how much you and your neighbours can earn to provide for yourselves and your families. If we had true international class solidarity, they wouldn’t be able to get away with that anymore.

The ability of corporations to feed our biosphere into the capitalism machine and offload costs of production onto the ecosystem to maximise profits directly affects the kind of environment we’ll all be living in in the coming years. Corporate suits can only get away with this because the citizenry who vastly outnumber them have been manipulated into accepting their cancerous behavior.

The ability of war profiteers and empire managers to push for more war and militarism around the world directly affects how much of our nation’s wealth and resources are allocated to supporting the needs of ordinary people at home, and threatens us all with the looming possibility of nuclear armageddon.

The imperial propaganda machine works so hard to manufacture consent for this madness because otherwise nobody would consent to it.

The oligarchs and government agencies who run the US-centralised empire are able to exploit our tendency to only care about our immediate surroundings to construct global mechanisms which affect everything  —  including our immediate surroundings. All it takes is a little narrative manipulation coupled with our own nearsightedness to keep us from seeing what they’re doing.

They destabilise entire regions in the Global South with war and imperialist extraction, and when people start fleeing those horrible conditions they use propaganda to manipulate those in the Global North into hating immigrants instead of focusing on what’s driving the mass exoduses.

They deliberately maintain a level of unemployment to artificially depress wages, and then propagandise the working poor into thinking the unemployed are parasitic welfare moochers.

They create a controlled opposition false dichotomy between two mainstream political factions who both serve the capitalist empire in every meaningful way, and then manipulate both sides into blaming all the problems this causes on the other side instead of on the architects of this whole disaster.

These manipulations would not work if our circles of compassion were sufficiently wide. The same moral myopia which causes us to fail to see a Palestinian child as worthy of our care and attention also causes us to fail to recognise the underlying causes of all the major problems we see all around us.

It’s true that caring about that Palestinian child, in and of itself, will yield you no personal material gain. But being the sort of person who would care about that Palestinian child will help pave the way from hell on earth to paradise.

Enough humans having a wide enough circle of compassion to care about the suffering of other humans who they will never meet is all it will take for us to create a healthy world.

Our species can no longer existentially afford small circles of compassion. We can no longer afford ignorance and apathy. We’ve got to start learning about what’s happening in the world, thinking in terms of global community, and caring about our fellow beings on this planet in the way we care for our friends and neighbors.

Sure that’s not our tendency right now, but every species eventually hits a point where it needs to adapt or go the way of the dinosaur. That’s where we’re at right now.

The days where “rugged individualism” could be defended as a rational worldview are long over, if it was ever rational to begin with.

This isn’t the 12th century. We’re not going from birth to death in tiny communities unconnected to the rest of the world. Whatever device you’re reading this on has parts from multiple foreign countries, which passed through countless foreign hands to come into yours.

We all touch one another’s lives around the world from distances which used to have no relevance to the human experience of this planet.

We need to begin thinking, feeling, and living in accordance with this new reality. We cannot continue along the ecocidal, omnicidal trajectory that our small circles of compassion have made possible, or else we will go extinct.

That’s why you should care about Gaza. Because humanity’s collective failure to care about such things is driving our species further and further into misery and dystopia, and closer and closer to the precipice of eternal oblivion.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

Mediawatch: Kiingi Tuheitia’s tangihanga – epic broadcast marks new epoch for te ao Māori

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Kiingi Tuheitia is laid to rest at Taupiri maunga this week
Kiingi Tuheitia is laid to rest at Taupiri maunga this week. Image: RNZ/Nick Monro

RNZ MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock

“Anticipation is growing. The warriors are ready. They’re preparing themselves. The paddlers are already on their waka,” Scotty Morrison, alongside veteran journalist Tini Molyneux, told viewers from the banks of the Waikato River.

It was Thursday, and the body of Kiingi Tuheitia was being escorted to the barge to take him to his resting place on Taupiri maunga.

That prompted Morrison — the presenter of TVNZ’s Te Karere and Marae — to recall that council permission was required in 2006 for Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu to make the same journey.

RNZ MEDIAWATCH AND READ MORE:

Times have changed.

“In 2008 after the Waikato River settlement … a request was put in by Waikato Tainui that they had more control over the river. This time they could say: ‘We’re taking our King on the awa at this particular time,’” Morrison said.

“That’s mana motuhake for you,” Molyneux replied.

Times have changed a lot for the media since 2006 too.

Whakaata Māori now has two TV channels, which both carried live coverage of the ceremonies over five days.

The Kiingitanga’s own channel also broadcast live throughout on YouTube and Facebook as well.

The Kiingitanga’s own channel live broadcast.

Another broadcaster who joined that epic broadcast on Friday, Matai Smith, reminded viewers that the notion of media is not what it was in 2006 either.

“We know that we live in a world of TikTok and Instagram. [We know] the relevance of the Kiingitanga to Waikato Tainui, but also to us here in Aotearoa — and many of us could be seen as quite ignorant of the significance of this kaupapa,” Smith said.

After Kuini Nga wai hono i te po became the eighth Māori monarch — and the second youngest ever anointed — Mihingarangi Forbes also made the point about social media on RNZ’s Morning Report.

Kuini Nga wai hono i te po is crowned
Kuini Nga wai hono i te po is crowned . . . “it’s going to be interesting to see how she shapes Kiingitanga into this modern age.” Image: Kiingitanga/RNZ

“I’ve been checking the socials because she is 27 years old, and the average age of Māori is also 27 years old. This is the way that this generation communicates,” Forbes said, noting that her own social feeds filled up with tributes to the new Kuini.

While the tangihanga itself was a sombre and highly ceremonial occasion, the live coverage also had moments of levity on the paepae — and between broadcasters and their guests.

All this played out at Tuurangawaewae marae less than a fortnight after dignitaries and the media gathered for the annual Koroneihana celebration of the coronation of Kiingi Tuheitia.

The historic moment in te ao Māori and New Zealand history was covered comprehensively over five days thanks to collaboration between Whakaata Māori and the iwi radio network Te Whakaruruhau. It was probably the longest continuous multimedia coverage of any event in our media’s history.

So how was all this done?

Paora Maxwell explains his decision to step down as chief executive of Maori Television to presenter Kawe Roes.
Kawe Roes hosting Kawe Korero on Whakaata Māori. Image: Maori Television screenshot

One of those in the media pack at Tuurangawaewae throughout was former Whakaata Māori presenter Kawe Roes, who is now a digital media reporter for Waatea News.

The Auckland-based Waatea also provides news to Te Whakaruruhau o Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori — the national iwi radio network.

“Tainui and the Kiingitanga already have systems in place to make it easy for broadcasting. They’ve been doing live streams for nearly 15 years,” Roes told Mediawatch.

“In my years of broadcasting, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the amount of talent that was put into making sure Kiingi Tuheitia had the best broadcast for his tangihanga for the whole world to watch.

“Once Tuheitia had taken the throne, he literally became the king of social media. By doing that so early Kiingitanga and Koroneihana events were able to transition from a special broadcast that might have been done in the TVNZ days to a livestream.

“The hardest part wasn’t getting anyone there. We had so many people to choose from, including journalists like myself who are versed in te reo and English. You also had Māori journalists who were just versed in English and Iwi radio networks were also part of that.”

The Morning Report team at the tangi for Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII and the naming of the new Māori monarch, 5 September 2024.
The Morning Report team at the tangi for Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII and the naming of the new Māori monarch, 5 September 2024. Image: Layla Bailey-McDowell/RNZ

Roes said it was one big collective effort.

“The kaupapa was that the broadcast was more important than the brands. Even though we’re in different organisations, we all know each other. We’re a very small family, and I think by having that rapport made the job easier.

“We shared all our knowledge. I was sharing knowledge of Kiingitanga and Tainui whakapapa with a New Zealand Herald reporter.”

Just last month, Waatea News cut ties with the New Zealand Herald after it published Hobson’s Pledge adverts opposing iwi applications for customary marine titles.

“We put that to the side. If I, as a Māori journalist, can’t help him then what am I doing on my job, really?

“At the end of the day, we’re here to put out an amazing story. And for me, that’s what made it beautiful.”

Were they broadcasting in the service of Kiingitanga and iwi around the country? Or to be the eyes and ears of people who could not be there? To capture it all for history? Or all of the above?

“From our Māori broadcasting perspective, it was all about quality … because we knew it was going to be historic. The journalists, they took all the knowledge around them, and they put out some amazing content.”

Back to the future

Dr Ruakere Hond speaks to Morning Report at the tangi for Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII and the naming of the new Māori monarch.
Dr Ruakere Hond speaks to Morning Report at the tangi for Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII and the naming of the new Māori monarch. Image: RNZ/Layla Bailey-McDowell

The Kiingitanga evolved to deal with the Crown over urgent matters such as land sales and alienation. Now there is a young queen who is of the digital generation at a time when Māori/Crown relations are again tense and controversial.

“So it’s going to be interesting to see how she shapes Kiingitanga into this modern age. She is the boss. She is now the queen of Māoridom and how she wants to roll with tikanga, how she wants to roll in a digital space is up to her,” Roes said.

“From what I can tell, a lot of the status quo will remain. The only thing I would suggest is be careful who you’re talking to, not because of what you’re going to say, but we don’t want to overuse the majesty, and people end up hōhā listening to her.

“The reality is — in my Tainui perspective — we look at them with a sense of tapu. That means you don’t naturally go up to them and start talking. But we might see her going to Waitangi for instance.

“With young people, that might be where she thrives a bit more, and she can connect more with rangatahi — and she’s an easy lady to talk to.”

Māori media have treated the Kuini’s accession in a reverential way. But when seeking the voice of Māoridom on political or controversial things, that will have to change.

“I think the King changed the media landscape when throwing out support for the Māori Party. We’ve got an example there on how we can critique and how we can ask questions.

“But you’ll only ever get to the monarch through spokespersons, and that’s why you have people like Rahi Papa and (Kīngitanga’s chief of staff and adviser) Ngira Simmonds, who bring those thoughts to the media. Tainui are across how to deal with media — an iwi who have been dealing with the Crown for 166 years.”

Colin Peacock is the RNZ Mediawatch presenter. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

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