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PSNA’s Minto hits back at Gaza ‘genocide hotline’ critics, insists NZ should deny Israeli soldiers entry

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PSNA's Gaza
PSNA's Gaza "genocide hotline" . . . the movement condemns the "disgusting and despicable" criticisms. Image: PSNA screenshot APR

Asia Pacific Report

A national Palestine advocacy group has hit back at critics of its “genocide hotline” campaign against soldiers involved in Israel’s war against Gaza, saying New Zealand should be actively following international law.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) dismissed a “predictable lineup of apologists for Israel” for their criticisms of the PSNA campaign.

“Why is concern for the sensitivities of soldiers from a genocidal Israeli campaign more important than condemning the genocide itself?,” asked PSNA national chair John Minto in a statement.

PSNA's Gaza
PSNA’s Gaza “genocide hotline” . . . the movement condemns the “disgusting and despicable” criticisms. Image: PSNA screenshot APR

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow and the New Zealand Jewish Council have made statements “protecting” Israeli soldiers who come to New Zealand on “rest and recreation” from the industrial-scale killing of 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza until a truce went into force on January 19.

“We are not surprised to see such a predictable lineup of apologists for Israel and its genocide in Gaza from lining up to attack a PSNA campaign with false smears of anti-semitism,” Minto said.

He said that over 16 months Peters had done “absolutely nothing” to put any pressure on Israel to end its genocidal behaviour.

“But he is full of bluff and bluster and outright lies to denounce those who demand Israel be held to account.”

Deny illegal settler visas
Minto said that if Peters was doing his job as Foreign Minister, he would not only stop Israeli soldiers coming to Aotearoa New Zealand — as with Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war — he would also deny visas to any Israeli with an address in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Human Rights Commission had issued a “disingenuous media release”, he said.

Whlle the commission said it had received 90 complaints about the hotline, it had also received eight complaints about immigration policy allowing Israeli soldiers to enter New Zealand under the visa waiver scheme that applies to Israel.

“Our campaign has nothing to do with Israelis or Jews — it is a campaign to stop Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation after a campaign of wholesale killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” Minto said.

“To imply the campaign is targeting Jews is disgusting and despicable.

“Some of the soldiers will be Druse, some Palestinian Arabs and others will be Jews.”

The five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, shot 355 times by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024
The five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, shot 355 times by Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024. Image: @Onlyloren/Instagram

Israeli soldiers are facing a growing risk of being arrested abroad for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, with around 50 criminal complaints filed so far in courts in several countries around the world.

Earlier this month, a former Israeli soldier abruptly ended his holiday in Brazil and was “smuggled” out of the country after a Federal Court ordered police to open a war crimes investigation against him. The man fled to Argentina.

A complaint lodged by the Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) included more than 500 pages of court records linking the suspect to the demolition of civilian homes in Gaza.

‘Historic’ court ruling against soldier
The foundation called the Brazilian court’s decision “historic”, saying it marked a significant precedent for a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to enforce Rome Statute provisions domestically in the 15-month Israeli war on Gaza.

The foundation is named in honour of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was killed on 29 January 2024 by Israel soldiers while pleading for help in a car after her six family members were dead.

According to The New Arab, the foundation has so far tracked and sent the names of 1000 Israeli soldiers to the ICC and Interpol, and has been pursuing legal cases in a number of countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Cyprus, France, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, together with a former Hamas commander, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Minto accused the New Zealand Jewish Council of being “deeply racist” and said it regularly “makes a meal of false smears of anti-semitism”.

“It’s deeply problematic that this Jewish Council strategy takes attention away from the real anti-semitism which exists in New Zealand and around the world.

“The priority of the Jewish Council is to protect Israel from criticism and protect it from accountability for its apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

“We are demanding that accountability.”

NZ ‘going through the motions’
In a later statement, PSNA said the government had begun to “go through the motions” of questioning Israeli soldiers at the border but it was just a “look busy policy – too little too late”.

NZ requires Israelis to disclose IDF service details
NZ requires Israelis to disclose IDF service details as condition for entry – a similar policy to Australia. Image: Times of Israel screenshot APR

Immigration questioning Israeli of soldiers about their military service in Gaza at the New Zealand border was revealed in a Times of Israel report today which said:

“New Zealand’s government immigration authority has begun to require Israelis applying for a visa to report details of their military service as a condition for entry, and at least one person has been denied admission after doing so.”

PSNA’s Minto said the government must also uphold the ICJ advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 which called on global governments to end support for Israel’s illegal occupation.

“This means we should also deny entry to every Israeli wanting to visit here who has an address in an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” Minto added.

Caitlin Johnstone: Jordan and Egypt snub Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan

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COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Both Jordan and Egypt have put out statements rejecting President Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza and move its population to those nations.

“Our principles are clear, and Jordan’s steadfast position to uphold the Palestinians’ presence on their land remains unchanged and will never change,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told the press on Sunday.

Similarly, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry affirmed “Egypt’s continued support for the resilience of the Palestinian people on their land and their commitment to their legitimate rights in their homeland, in accordance with international law and international humanitarian law.”

It still remains to be seen if the Trump administration will find a way to bribe or coerce either or both nations to comply with Trump’s ethnic cleansing agenda, but the fact that they aren’t already on board means the empire still needs to jump through some significant hoops before this could happen.

❖

In response to my write-up about Trump’s plans to purge Gaza of Palestinians I’ve been getting a nice eclectic mix of American rightists telling me “Stop calling it ethnic cleansing, Trump’s just trying to rescue those people from a destroyed Gaza!” and Israeli rightists going “Haha yes, Trump will help us ethnically cleanse the terrorists and their spawn.”

Trump supporters are such shitbrained, knuckle-dragging bootlickers. They’re all up in my social media replies going “Well what do you expect Trump to do? What other possible solution is there but to empty out the population of Gaza to neighbouring Arab countries?”


Ethnic cleansing feared for Gaza.    Video: Dawn

And of course the obvious humanitarian solution is a heroic multinational push to rush massive amounts of aid to Gaza while rebuilding it at the expense of the states who destroyed it  —  but nope, they can’t even entertain that possibility. Only possible solution is to bend over backwards to give Israel the exact thing it’s desired from Gaza for many years, which will just coincidentally happen to delight Trump’s Zionist megadonors.

Worthless human livestock. Trump supporters claim to oppose wars and despise the neocons, but are always consistently paced into supporting all the worst agendas of the nastiest swamp monsters in Washington. Trump supporters are George W Bush supporters LARPing as Ron Paul supporters.

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Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah is free after days of imprisonment by Swiss authorities for expressing wrongthink about Israel.

When these things happen, it’s important to ensure that we make it cost them more than it benefits them. Make sure it damages Zionist PR interests more than it protects those PR interests from damage.

Use their iron-fisted authoritarian crackdowns to help show the world how much tyranny and abuse is necessary to uphold a status quo which has no basis in fact or morality.

If Israel and its Western backers were standing on the side of truth and justice, they wouldn’t be persecuting journalists for sharing inconvenient ideas and information. Every time they do so it should be brightly spotlighted and loudly amplified, to draw attention to the very tyrannical power structure whose public image they are trying to protect.

Any time they forcefully silence efforts to draw attention to their tyranny, make sure it draws more attention to their tyranny. Any time they assault freedoms of assembly and the press to gain a yard, make sure it costs them ten.

By doing this, at the very least we help change the cost-to-benefit analysis of our rulers when calculating whether such authoritarian measures are worthwhile, and at the most we harness their force and use it directly against them to weaken them in ways we never could without their help.

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If you’ve been ignoring or defending Biden’s genocidal criminality these last 15 months, then I don’t really care what you have to say about Trump or Musk or any of their cohorts. Your criticisms might be 100 percent accurate, but they’re not coming from a place of truth.

If you moved seamlessly from aggressively attacking Biden’s abuses to aggressively attacking Trump’s, then you have my attention, because I know your criticisms are coming from actual principles and not blind opposition to an opposing political faction. You are standing against tyranny instead of standing with one of America’s two tyrannical parties.

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It should deeply disturb us that there is no difference in worldview between the political class and the media class.

Ever think about how weird and freakish that is? Western pundits and reporters all have the exact same models for looking at the world as Western politicians and government officials. They break down ideologically along exactly the same narrow “progressive-ish versus conservative-ish” spectrum of debate; they all agree on who the Good Guys and Bad Guys are on the world stage; they all subscribe to the same perspectives on how electoral politics work, how their government works, how the economy works and how power works.

They don’t agree on every issue, but they all share the exact same conceptual frameworks for understanding the world which form the basis of their agreements and disagreements.

This is one of the things that makes Western propaganda so effective: the fact that there is no discrepancy at all between the way our governments describe the way the world works and the way all the most prominent journalists, analysts and pundits do. They never make any mention of the fact that we’re all being psychologically hammered with mass-scale propaganda every day to manipulate the way we think, speak, vote and work.

They ignore the fact that our elections are fake and everything we were taught in school about our government is a lie. They deny the self-evident reality that the US-centralised empire is by far the most murderous and tyrannical force on this planet and is the source of most of the world’s problems.

They all pretend capitalism is working fine and we will surely figure out how to consume our way out of our soaring injustices and looming ecological collapse any minute now. They all completely redact from their worldview the inconvenient truth that we are ruled by sociopathic plutocrats who are driving us to our doom.

The fact that government and political bodies omit from their perspective all the same information that pundits and reporters do means power never gets held to account by the press, because they’re all viewing the actions of the powerful through the same fraudulent reality tunnel.

This creates giant dark spots on the field of information in which immense depravities can hide, thereby allowing a gravely disordered status quo to continue uncontested by the news-consuming public.

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.

Trump’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ Gaza idea dismissed by analysts – rejected by Jordan, Egypt on ‘Day of Return’

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Asia Pacific Report

UN President Donald Trump’s idea of mass expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt has been dismissed by analysts as unacceptable “ethnic cleansing” and rejected by the governments of both neigbouring countries.

Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident research fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict, said the US and Israel would “fail” over such a plan.

President Trump’s suggestion had been to “clean out” Gaza and move 1.5 million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt.


The return to north Gaza.  Video: Al Jazeera

“Even if [President Trump] applies pressure on Jordan and Egypt, I think their leaderships will recognise the price of going along with Trump is going to be much greater than the price of resisting him — in terms of the survival of their leaderships for participating in something like this,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s plan as “ethnic cleansing”.

The rebuttals to the Trump idea came as Gaza experienced an historic day with jubilant scenes as tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed the so-called Netzarim Corridor to return home in the north showing their determination to survive under the 15-month onslaught by Israel’s military.

Al Jazeera journalist Tamer al-Misshal said it was a “significant and historic moment” for the Palestinians.

“It’s the first time since 1948 those who have been forced out of their homes and land managed to get back — despite the destruction and despite the genocide,” he said.

He quoted one Palestinian man who returned as saying he would erect a tent on his destroyed home, “which is much better than being forcibly displaced from Gaza”.

Al-Misshal noted Hamas recently said 18 more Israeli captives were alive and would be returned each Saturday in exchange for Palestinian prisoners over the next few weeks.

He said the next main step was to get the Rafah land crossing opened so aid could flow and thousands of badly wounded Palestinians could get medical treatment abroad.

‘Blanket refusal’

Analyst Mouin Rabbani
Analyst Mouin Rabbani . . . “Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war.” Image: Middle East Council on Global Affairs

Analyst Mouin Rabbani told Al Jazeera about the Trump displacement idea: “This isn’t going to happen because Israel is not going to succeed in ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip after a war, after having failed to do so during a war.”

When former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on a tour of Arab states to promote this idea late last year, he had been met with a “blanket refusal”, Rabbani added.

Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was feeling the heat from his coalition partners over the ceasefire deal who view the Israeli leader as succumbing to US demands, the analyst said.

“I think there’s a kind of a mix of personal, political and ideological factors at play,” Rabbani said.

“But ultimately, I think the key relationship to look at here is not that between Netanyahu and his coalition partners, or between Israelis and Palestinians, but between Washington and Israel — because Washington is the one calling the shots, and Israel has no choice but to comply.”

"Day of victory" . . . reports Al Jazeera
“Day of victory” . . . How Al Jazeera reported the return of Palestinians to north Gaza today. Image: AJ screenshot APR

A senior Hamas official, Basem Naim, has described the “return” day as “the most important day in the current history of this conflict”.

He said that Israel was “for the first time” obliged to allow Palestinians to return to their houses after being forced “by the resistance”, in a similar way that it was “forced to release” Palestinian prisoners.

‘Very symbolic day’ in conflict
“This is, I think, a very symbolic day,” he said. “This is a very important day in how to approach this conflict with the Israelis, which language they understand.”

Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reporting
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reporting on the “Day of Return” for Palestinians going back to north Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

Naim also reaffirmed Hamas’s commitment to the ceasefire agreement and said the group was “ready to do the maximum to give this deal a chance to succeed”.

He also accused Netanyahu and the Israeli government of playing “dirty games” in a bid to “sabotage the deal”.

Jordanian officials have rejected President Trump’s “clean out” Gaza suggestion with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi saying that all talk about an alternative homeland for the Palestinians was rejected and “we will not accept it”.

Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum reports
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reports from Salah al-Din Road, Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

He said any attempt to displace Palestinians from their land would not bring security to the region.

The Jordanian House of Representatives said: “The absurdity and denial of Palestinian rights will keep the region on a simmering and boiling plate.”

Jordan would not be an alternative homeland for displacement attempts against “the patient Palestinian people”.

In Cairo, the Foreign Ministry reaffirmed in a statement Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”

It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”

The 1948 Nakba
The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states and in Gaza. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia

Climate crisis: The carbon footprint of the Gaza genocide

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Climate crisis and the Israeli war on Gaza
Climate crisis and the Israeli war on Gaza . . . the planet-destroying emissions generated by the genocide committed against the Palestinians rarely makes the news. Image: Wafa News/Ali Hamad/apaimages

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jeremy Rose

The International Court of Justice heard last month that after reconstruction is factored in Israel’s war on Gaza will have emitted 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A figure equivalent to the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.

It seems somehow wrong to be writing about the carbon footprint of Israel’s 15-month onslaught on Gaza.

The human cost is so unfathomably ghastly. A recent article in the medical journal The Lancet put the death toll due to traumatic injury at more than 68,000 by June of last year (40 percent higher than the Gaza Health Ministry’s figure.)

An earlier letter to The Lancet by a group of scientists argued the total number of deaths — based on similar conflicts — would be at least four times the number directly killed by bombs and bullets.

Seventy-four children were killed in the first week of 2025 alone. More than a million children are currently living in makeshift tents with regular reports of babies freezing to death.

Nearly two million of the strip’s 2.2 million inhabitants are displaced.

Ninety-six percent of Gaza’s children feel death is imminent and 49 percent wish to die, according to a study sponsored by the War Child Alliance.

Truly apocalyptic
I could, and maybe should, go on. The horrors visited on Gaza are truly apocalyptic and have not received anywhere near the coverage by our mainstream media that they deserve.

The contrast with the blanket coverage of the LA fires that have killed 25 people to date is instructive. The lives and property of those in the rich world are deemed far more newsworthy than those living — if you can call it that — in what retired Israeli general Giora Eiland described as a giant concentration camp.

The two stories have one thing in common: climate change.

In the case of the LA fires the role of climate change gets mentioned — though not as much as it should.

But the planet destroying emissions generated by the genocide committed against the Palestinians rarely makes the news.

Incredibly, when the State of Palestine — which is responsible for 0.001 percent of global emissions — told the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, last month, that the first 120 days of the war on Gaza resulted in emissions of between 420,000 and 650,000 tonnes of carbon and other greenhouse gases it went largely unreported.

For context that is the equivalent to the total annual emissions of 26 of the lowest-emitting states.

Fighter planes fuel
Jet fuel burned by Israeli fighter planes contributed about 157,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Transporting the bombs dropped on Gaza from the US to Israel contributed another 159,000 tonnes of CO2e.

Those figures will not appear in the official carbon emissions of either country due to an obscene exemption for military emissions that the US insisted on in the Kyoto negotiations. The US military’s carbon footprint is larger than any other institution in the world.

Professor of law Kate McIntosh, speaking on behalf of the State of Palestine, told the ICJ hearings, on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, that the emissions to date were just a fraction of the likely total.

Once post-war reconstruction is factored in the figure is estimated to balloon to 52 million tonnes of CO2e — a figure higher than the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.
Far too many leaders of the rich world have turned a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza, others have actively enabled it but as the fires in LA show there’s no escaping the impacts of climate change.

The US has contributed more than $20 billion to Israel’s war on Gaza — a huge figure but one that is dwarfed by the estimated $250 billion cost of the LA fires.

And what price do you put on tens of thousands who died from heatwaves, floods and wildfires around the world in 2024?

The genocide in Gaza isn’t only a crime against humanity, it is an ecocide that threatens the planet and every living thing on it.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack.

Palestinians return home to Gaza ashes – if we want peace, face the truth

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Children at the forefront of an Ōtautahi protest over the Israeli genocide in Gaza
Children at the forefront of an Ōtautahi protest over the Israeli genocide in Gaza and calling for the temporary ceasefire that came into force last Sunday. Image: Saige England

COMMENTARY: By Saige England

Celebration time. Some Palestinian prisoners have been released. A mother reunited with her daughter. A young mother reunited with her babies.

Still in prison are people who never received a fair trial, people that independent inquirers say are wrongly imprisoned. Still in prison kids who cursed soldiers who walked into their villages wielding guns.

Still imprisoned far too many Palestinians who threw stones against bullets. Still imprisoned thousands of Palestinian hostages.

Children at the forefront of an Otauhi
Children at the forefront of an Ōtautahi protest over the Israeli genocide in Gaza and calling for the temporary ceasefire that came into force last Sunday. Image: Saige England

Many of us never knew how many hostages had been stolen, hauled into jails by Israel before 7 October 2023. We only heard the one-sided story of that day. The day when an offence force on a border was taken by surprise and when it panicked and blasted and bombed.

When that army guarding the occupation did more to lose lives than save lives.

Many never knew and perhaps never will know how many of the Palestinians who were kidnapped before and after that day had been beaten and tortured, including with the torture of rape.

We do know many have been murdered. We do know that some released from prison died soon after. We do not know how many more Palestinians will be taken hostage and imprisoned behind the prison no reporter is allowed to photograph.

Israelis boast over prison crime
The only clue to what happens inside is that Israelis have boasted this crime on national television. The clue is that Israeli soldiers have been tried for raping their own colleagues.

Make no mistake, this is a mean misogynist mercantile army. No sensible rational caring person would wish to serve in it.

No mother on any side of this conflict should lose her child. No father should bury his daughter or son. No grandparent should grieve over the loss of a life that should outlive them.

The crimes need to be exposed. All of them. Our media filters the truth. It does not provide a fair or full story. If you want that switch for pity’s sake go to Al Jazeera English.

When Radio New Zealand reports that people who fled are returning to Gaza it should report the full truth and not redact any part of the statement.

The Palestinian people were forced to flee their homes in Gaza. Those who were never responsible for any crime were bombed out of their homes, they fled as their families were murdered, burned to death, shot by snipers. They fled while soldiers mocked their dead children.

They return home to ashes. If we want peace we must face the truths that create conflict. We are all connected in peace and war and peace.

Peace is the strongest greeting. It sears the heart and soars the soul.

It can only be achieved when we recognise and stop the anguish that causes oppression.

Saige England is a freelance journalist and author living in the Aotearoa New Zealand city of Ōtautahi.

Gaza and the Western media (including NZ and the Pacific) – complicit in genocide

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COMMENTARY: By Steven Cowan

New Zealand’s One News interviewed a Gaza journalist last week who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

For some 15 months, the Western media have framed Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza as a “legitimate” war.

Pretending to provide an objective and impartial view of “the Gaza War”, the Western media has failed to report on the atrocities that the Israel has committed in Gaza. The true face of Israel’s genocidal assault has been hidden behind the Western media’s determination to sanitise genocide.


Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed’s appeal to the world and the Western media. Video: Dawn News

Even the deliberate targeting of journalists by the Israeli “Defence” Force (IDF), a war crime, has not moved the Western media to take action. More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza and the Western media has remained silent.

The New Zealand and Pacific media also have nothing to be proud of in their coverage of events in Gaza. They, too, have consistently framed Israel’s genocidal rampage as a legitimate war and swept Israel’s war crimes under the carpet.

Some news outlets, like NZ’s Newstalk ZB, have gone as far as to defend Israel’s actions.

With the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza last week, One News, for the first time since Israel began its murderous assault, chose to talk live to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. That journalist was 22-year-old Abubaker Abed.

Ignored by Western media
While One News introduced him as a reporter for the Associated Press, most of Abed’s reports have been for Palestinian news outlets like The Electronic Intifida.

On January 11, Abed made a speech condemning the Western media’s complicity in genocide. While the speech has been widely circulated in the social media, it has been ignored by the Western media.

In New Zealand, the important speech has failed to make it to the One News website.

Abubaker Abed
One News interviewing Gaza journalist Abubaker Abed who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide.

This article was first published on Steven Cowan’s website Against The Current. Republished with permission.

Marwan Barghouti – the world’s most important hostage – must be freed

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COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti.

During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian — a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

As reported last week, Egypt, Qatar and Hamas are all insisting Barghouti, the most popular leader in Palestine, be among the thousands of Palestinian hostages to be freed as part of the ceasefire agreement.

His release or retention in captivity will say volumes about which path the US and Israel wish to take: either more land thieving, more killings, more lawlessness or steps towards ending the occupation and choosing peace over territorial expansion.

Why is Barghouti potentially so important?  Despite long years in Israeli jails, he is a political giant who bestrides the Palestinian cause. He is an intellectual and both a fighter and a peace activist.

He is respected by all factions of the Palestinians. He is by far the most popular figure in Palestine and as such he is almost uniquely positioned to complete the vital task of uniting his people.

Back in July last year the Chinese government pulled off a diplomatic masterstroke by getting 14 factions, including Hamas and Fatah, to successfully come together for reconciliation talks and ink the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity. Now they need a unifying leader to move forward together.

Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas is despised as a US-Israeli tool by most Palestinians, 90 percent of whom, according to polling, want him gone. Hamas has represented the most effective resistance to Israel but the time may have come for them to accept partnership with, even leadership by, someone who can negotiate peace.

How Gaza and the West Bank is governed should be determined by the Palestinian people not by anyone else, especially not by Israeli leaders currently under investigation for genocide or US leaders who should join them in the dock for arming them.


The moment that Hamas released three women hostages.  Video: Al Jazeera

Hypocritical rejection of Hamas
Barghouti, however, could untie the Gordian knot that has formed around the West’s hypocritical rejection of Hamas on one hand and the Palestinian people’s determination not to be dictated to by their oppressors on the other.

Barghouti may also be a saviour for the Israelis.  Their society has turned into a psychotic perversion of the great hope Jews around the world placed in the Israeli state.

As Israeli soldiers have shown us in countless Tik-tok videos the IDF has become an army of rapists and child killers — these very deeds celebrated by the highest political and religious leaders in the country.

Israel is now the greatest killer of journalists in the history of war, the remorseless destroyer of hospitals and their patients and staff, the desecrator of countless churches and mosques.  Tens of thousands of women have been killed for the sake of killing.

Israel is guilty of the crime of crimes — genocide — and needs a way out of the mess it has created.

For all these reasons Marwan Barghouti is a very dangerous man to Netanyahu and the most fanatical Zionists.  He believes in peace.

In my profile of him a year ago I quoted his wife, lawyer and activist Fadwa Barghouti: “Marwan’s goal has always been ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Marwan Barghouti believes in politics. He’s a political and national leader loved by his people.

‘Fought for peace’
“He fought for peace with bravery and spent time on the Palestinian street advocating for peace. But he also believes in international law, which gives the occupied people the right to fight for their independence and freedom.”

Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, proposed freeing Barghouti because he is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”

Marwan Barghouti has the moral, political and popular stature to reach out to the Israelis, to see past their crimes and to sit down with them. If only. If only. If only.

The horrible reality is Israel and the US have been led by war criminals who fail to grasp the fact that peace is only possible if they abandon the vilification of the Palestinian people and their leaders; that a better world is only possible if the Palestinians are finally given freedom and dignity.

It will be a relief to everyone to see the remaining few dozen Israelis held by Hamas and other groups released.  They deserve to be home with their families.

It will be a relief that thousands of Palestinian hostages be freed, many of them, according to Israel’s leading human rights organisation B’tselem, victims of torture, sexual violence and medieval conditions.  Hundreds of Palestinian child hostages — all of them traumatised — will be returned to their families.

All these are welcome developments.  Strategically, however, Marwan Barghouti stands apart.

Palestinian Marwan Barghouti . . . a symbol of his people’s "legendary steadfastness"
Palestinian Marwan Barghouti . . . a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz/

Uniquely suited to lead Palestine
Long considered the “Palestinian Mandela” — not least because of his 22-years continuous imprisonment — the former Fatah leader, the former military leader, has attributes that make him almost uniquely suited to lead Palestine to freedom — if Israel and the US are prepared to abandon the Greater Israel project and accept peace can only come with justice for all.

That’s a big “If”.

Barghouti, returned to jail in 2002, after being convicted in what is considered by many scholars an illegal and deeply flawed Israeli show trial on five counts of murder.  He denies the charges and does not recognise the court.

He has lived for more than 22 years in conditions far more barbaric than the great South African leader had to endure on Robben Island.  According to Israeli human rights groups, family and international lawyers, Barghouti has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.

What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian – a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation and resistance to the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

Marwan Barghouti is the same age as me — 65 — and it fills me with horror that a man who has spent decades fighting for freedom, and, if possible, peace, has been subjected to the horrors of an Israeli gulag for so long.

I am not sure I would have had the physical or mental strength to endure what he has but — like Mandela — he kept his humanity and has remained an advocate for peace.

We should never forget that seven million Palestinians remain as hostages held in brutal conditions by the US and Israel.  Most are hostages without human rights, political rights, territorial rights.

As Palestinians have pointed out: imprisonment is now part of Palestinian consciousness. But — as Marwan Barghouti has shown with his iron will, his human decency, his determination to continue to be an advocate for peace with Israel — you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.

I’ll give the last word to his son, Arab Barghouti who told Mehdi Hasan on Zeteo this week, “My father used to always tell me that hope is sometimes a privilege, but being ‘hope-less’ is a privilege that we can’t have as Palestinians.”

In the same interview he also said:

“If any Israeli leader really wants an end to this and to have peace for the region, they would see that my father is someone that would bring that and is someone who still believes in the tiny chance left for the two-state solution.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

Netanyahu’s war on Hamas backfires as Gaza resistance holds strong

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The Gaza ceasefire begins with three Israeli women hostages in good health being reunited with their families in Israel and an expected 90 Palestinian prisoners set to be released
The Gaza ceasefire begins with three Israeli women hostages in good health being reunited with their families in Israel and an expected 90 Palestinian prisoners set to be released. Image: The Palestine Chronicle

An Al-Jazeera Arabic special report translated by The Palestine Chronicle staff details how Israel’s military strategy in Gaza, aimed at dismantling Hamas and displacing Palestinian civilians, has failed after 470 days of conflict.

ANALYSIS: By Abdulwahab al-Mursi

On May 5, 2024, nearly seven months into Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the main goal of the war was to destroy Hamas and prevent it from controlling Gaza.

However, over 250 days since this statement, and 470 days into the Israeli aggression, it has become clear that Netanyahu’s promises have faded into illusions.

In the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli military radio reported that Hamas forces were reasserting their control over Gaza, stating that Hamas, which had never lost control of any part of the territory during the war, was using the ceasefire to strengthen its grip.

This development highlights the gap between Israel’s strategic objectives and the reality on the ground, as images from Gaza continue to reveal widespread devastation and loss of life, yet Hamas remains firmly in control.

Popular Support: The backbone of Hamas
Military literature highlights the concept of “Center of Gravity” (COG) for military organisations, a concept that can vary depending on the organisation and context.

In the case of Hamas and Palestinian Resistance, the central element of their strength lies in the support of the local population.

This grassroots support provides Hamas with invaluable social depth, a continuous supply of human resources, and strong strategic backing.

The popular support and belief in the resistance’s strategic choices and leadership have allowed Hamas to maintain its popular mandate to achieve Palestinian national goals.

Recognising this, Israel has targeted Gaza’s civilian infrastructure both militarily and psychologically, aiming to raise the costs of supporting the resistance and weaken Hamas’s popular base.

Israel has treated Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure as military targets, believing that expanding the death toll among civilians and inflicting maximum suffering would force the population to turn against Hamas.

Yet, despite these efforts, images of celebrations in Gaza, even in areas heavily targeted by Israel, underscore the exceptional nature of the Gaza situation, where resistance culture is deeply rooted and unyielding.

The strategic consciousness of Gaza’s people
There appears to be a collective strategic awareness among Gaza’s people to maintain a victorious image at all costs, even in the midst of devastating humanitarian crises.

This desire to project an image of resistance and triumph, despite the overwhelming tragedy, has led to spontaneous public displays of support for Hamas and resistance forces, reinforcing their resolve against the Israeli onslaught.

Failure of forced displacement plans
In the initial weeks of the war, Israel revealed its plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s population.

Israeli media outlets reported in October 2023 that Netanyahu had proposed relocating Gaza’s residents to other countries.

However, after months of war, Gaza’s residents have shown an unshakable determination to remain, with displaced individuals in refugee camps celebrating their return to their homes, despite the widespread destruction they have suffered.

In northern Gaza, particularly in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jabaliya, and Shuja’iyya, Israel’s attempts to prevent the return of displaced residents became a significant obstacle to a ceasefire agreement, delaying it for months.

Israel’s plan, known as the “Generals’ Plan” by former Israeli military advisor Giora Eiland, aimed to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza by applying immense military and living pressures on the population.

However, as evident from the ongoing images from the region, the displaced population continues to resist and return, undermining Israel’s relocation goals.

Hamas’s military structure endures
One of Netanyahu’s primary goals was to dismantle Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

However, in the early hours of the first phase of the ceasefire, images showed Hamas fighters organising military parades in southern Gaza, signalling the resilience of Hamas’s military structure even before the ceasefire officially began.

Despite Israeli claims of killing thousands of Hamas fighters and destroying significant portions of Gaza’s tunnel network, the rapid and organized emergence of Al-Qassam forces on the ground suggests that these Israeli claims may have been aimed more at reassuring the Israeli public about the progress of the war, rather than reflecting the true situation on the ground.

Failure of post-war plans
In December 2023, Netanyahu rejected Palestinian proposals that Hamas be included in Gaza’s post-war governance, insisting, “There will be no Hamas in the post-war period; we will eliminate them.”

Throughout the war, Israel attempted various unilateral methods to manage Gaza, including direct military administration and creating a new technocratic authority with local leaders, but all efforts failed.

Israeli military attempts to distribute humanitarian aid in Gaza also proved ineffective, as the army struggled to manage these operations.

As the conflict nears what is supposed to be its final phase, the governance structure in Gaza has not changed.

Hamas’s leadership, especially the Al-Qassam Brigades, continues to operate effectively, and the ceasefire agreement has allowed for the resumption of local security forces.

Even after Israel’s targeted assassinations of 723 members of Gaza’s police and security apparatus, the resilience of Gaza’s security forces has remained evident.

This failure of Israel’s post-war vision was highlighted by a comment from a political analyst on Israeli i24 News, who questioned the results of the prolonged military operation: “What have we achieved in a year and five months?

“We destroyed many homes, lost many of our best soldiers, and in the end, the result is the same: Hamas rules, aid enters, and the Qassam Brigades return.”

Republished from The Palestinian Chronicle with permission.

Gaza genocide protesters welcome ceasefire but will fight on for justice

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A bouquet for the Gaza ceasefire in Auckland's Te Komititanga square today
A bouquet for the Gaza ceasefire in Auckland's Te Komititanga square today . . . on the reverse of the Palestine flag is the West Papuan Morning Star flag of independence, another decolonisation issue. Image: David Robie/APR

Asia Pacific Report

About 200 demonstrators gathered in the heart of New Zealand’s biggest city Auckland today to welcome the Gaza ceasefire due to come into force tomorrow, but warned they would continue to protest until justice is served with an independent and free Palestinan state.

Jubilant scenes of dancing and Palestinian folk music rang out across Te Komititanga square amid calls for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled from New Zealand and for the government to halt holiday worker visas for “Zionist terrorist” soldiers or reservists.

While optimistic that the temporary truce in the three-phase agreement agreed to between the Hamas resistance fighter force and Israel in Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday would be turned into a permanent ceasefire, many speakers acknowledged the fragility of the peace with at least 116 Palestinians killed since the deal — mostly women and children.

Many parts of the complex 42-day first phase of the agreement have the potential to derail peace.

New Zealand Palestinian Dr Abdallah Gouda speaking at today's Gaza ceasefire rally
New Zealand Palestinian Dr Abdallah Gouda speaking at today’s Gaza ceasefire rally . . . “We want to rebuild Gaza, we will rebuild hospitals . . . we will mend Gaza.” Image: David Robie/APR

“We have won . . . won. We are there, we are here. We are everywhere,” declared  defiant Gaza survivor Dr Abdallah Gouda, whose family and other Palestinian community members in Aotearoa have played a strong solidarity role alongside activist groups during the 15-month genocidal war waged on the besieged 365 sq km enclave.

He said the struggle would go on until Palestine was finally free and independent; Palestinians would not leave their land.

“They’re [Israelis] killing us. But Palestinians decided to fight [back] . . . No Palestinians want to leave Gaza. They want to stay . . .”

‘We want to rebuild Gaza’
Dr Gouda said in both Arabic and English to loud cheers, “We promise God, we promise the people that we will never leave.

“We can be starved, we can be killed , but we will never leave.


Dr Abdallah Gouda speaking at today’s rally.  Video: APR

“We want to rebuild Gaza, we will rebuild hospitals, we will rebuild schools, we will rebuild churches . . .

“We will mend Gaza. It’s not too difficult because Gaza was beautiful, we will rebuild Gaza as the best!”

His son Ali, who has been the most popular cheerleader during the weekly protests, treated the crowd to resounding chants including “Free, free Palestine” and “Netanyahu, you can’t hide”.


PSNA’s Neil Scott speaking.   Video: APR

Commenting on the ceasefire due to start tomorrow, Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) national secretary Neil Scott said: “This is just the end of the beginning — and now we will fight for justice.”

Scott said the continued struggle included the BDS — boycott, divest, sanctions — campaign. He appealed to the crowd to check their BDS apps and then monitor their “cupboards at home” to remove and boycott Israeli-sourced products.

He also said the PSNA would continue to keep pressing the NZ government to ban Israelis with military service visiting New Zealand on working holiday visas.

“Even now, stop allowing young Zionist terrorists — because that’s what they are — to come to Aotearoa to live among the decent people of New Zealand and wash the blood off their hands and feel innocent again,” Scott said.

“Not a chance, we are pushing this government to end that working holiday visa.”

Speakers also called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from New Zealand.


Ali Gouda’s flagwaving challenge to the crowd.  Video: APR

New Palestine documentary
In his final chant, Ali appealed to the crowd: “Raise and wave your Palestinian flags and keffiyeh.”

Future rallies will include protest marches in solidarity with Palestine.

RNZ reports that New Zealand’s Justice for Palestine co-convenor Samira Zaiton said she would only begin to breathe easy when the ceasefire began on Sunday.

“It feels as though I’m holding my breath and there’s a sigh of relief that’s stuck in my throat that I can’t quite let out until we see it play out.”

In Sydney, Australian Jewish author Antony Loewenstein, who visited New Zealand in 2023 to speak about his award-winning book, The Palestine Laboratory, has been a consistent and strong critic of Israel throughout the war.

“I often think about what Israel has unleashed in Gaza — the aim is complete devastation, and Palestinians there have a long history of suffering under this arrogant and criminal war-making,” he said today in a post on X.

“My first visit to Gaza was in July 2009, six months after Israel’s Operation Cast Lead war, and I made a short film about what I saw and heard:”


Gaza Reflections.   Video: Antony Loewenstein

His new documentary based on his book, The Palestine Laboratory, will be broadcast by Al Jazeera later this month.

Protesters at today's Gaza ceasefire rally in Auckland today
Protesters at today’s Gaza ceasefire rally in Auckland today. Image: David Robie/APR

Caitlin Johnstone: None of these war criminals will face justice while the US empire exists

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Two journalists were ejected from a State Department press conference yesterday for asking inconvenient questions about Gaza. One of them, Sam Husseini, was physically carried out by security while demanding to know why Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not in The Hague for his war crimes.

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal was also made to leave while asking Blinken why he allowed hundreds of journalists to be murdered in Gaza, telling State Department spokesman Matt Miller that he “smirked through a genocide”.

Husseini was then forcibly removed for asking questions about Gaza, and about Israel’s nuclear programme and Hannibal directive.

Blinken told Husseini to “respect the process,” to which Husseini replied, “Respect the process? Respect the process?

“While everybody from Amnesty International to the ICJ says Israel’s doing genocide and extermination, and you’re telling me to respect the process? Criminal! Why aren’t you in the Hague?”


None of these war criminals will face justice.  Video: Caitlin Johnstone

The Western political-media class is expressing outrage over the incident, not because of journalists being manhandled for asking critical questions of their government, but because those journalists asked critical questions.

The talking heads on CNN described the journalists interrogating government officials as “cringeworthy heckling by activists”, initially expressing bafflement at how those “activists” could have got into a press room intended for accredited journalists (both Blumenthal and Husseini are in fact members of the press who often attend State Department press briefings).


Chaos erupts at Antony Blinken’s final press conference. Video: New York Post

Longtime State Department swamp monster Aaron David Miller tweeted of the exchange, “In 27 years at State, never seen a situation where a Secretary of State  —  a caring compassionate man  —  is heckled in his own building by a heckler yelling ‘Why aren’t you in The Hague.’ A new low in civility and discourse.”

Western liberalism in a nutshell
This is Western liberalism in a nutshell. The problem isn’t the genocide, the problem is people being insufficiently “polite” about the genocide. Western officials feeling inconvenienced and insulted is a greater concern than children being shredded and burned by US military explosives.


Blinken’s farewell address interrupted.     Video: PBS News

Husseini’s question is an interesting one. Why isn’t Blinken in The Hague? Why hasn’t he faced justice for his facilitation of the starvation, sickness and daily massacres he’s been helping Israel inflict on civilians in Gaza for the last 15 months?

And more importantly, why does it seem like a safe assumption that he never will?

This is after all the “rules-based international order,” is it not? Surely when you’ve got mainstream human rights organisations asserting that genocidal atrocities are being committed with the facilitation of the government which purports to uphold that order, some legal repercussions should be seen as at least within the realm of possibility, should they not?

And yet we all know this won’t be happening any time in the foreseeable future. We all know that as long as the US empire exists in the way that it exists, Tony Blinken and Matt Miller will enjoy prosperous free lives after their time with the Biden administration draws to a close.

This is because “international law” only exists to the extent that it can be enforced. If a superpower doesn’t want its lackeys being carted off to war crimes tribunals in the Netherlands then they won’t be, because as things sit right now nobody’s going to war with the US empire to put Tony Blinken behind bars. Or George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, for that matter.

As long as the US empire exists, none of these monsters will ever face justice for their actions. They will move on from their time in government to lucrative careers in think tanks or working as lobbyists until another Democratic administration calls for their services again  — or, in Biden’s case, enjoy a comfortable retirement until a peaceful death surrounded by family members in the lap of luxury.

Tormenting the innocents
Until the empire has been dismantled, the world will never know justice. These swamp creatures will be able to worm their way around back and forth through the revolving door between Washington’s official government and its unofficial government while murdering, displacing and tormenting as many innocents as they please, with total impunity.

One way or another, the slaughter in Gaza will end at some point. And as long as the US-centralised power structure still dominates our world, there will be no meaningful consequences for this.

It will be filed away in the history books, and the propagandists will pace us along into the next imperial horror show. There will be more Gazas in the future, perhaps overseen by different Tony Blinkens or perhaps by the same ones, and they will keep happening for as long as this murderous empire remains standing.

This world can have justice when it finds a way to end the US empire. Until then the world will be ruled by tyrants who do exactly as they please, and anyone who questions them will be removed from the room by any force necessary.

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.

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