Search here...
Home Blog Page 17

Palestine protesters stage Gaza ‘die-in’ as leaders call for step up in boycotts

By
David Robie
-
0

By David Robie

A score of Palestine solidarity protesters draped themselves in white shrouds with mock blood in a sombre “die-in” demonstration at Te Komitanga Square — the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city — today as speakers urged people to take a stronger boycott against Israeli products.

The rally by hundreds of protesters marked Israel’s killing of more than 34,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and wounding more than 77,000 in its genocidal war on Gaza.

The war has lasted 205 days so far with no let-up in the deadly assault on the besieged enclave and protesters staged 35 events around New Zealand this week as global demonstrations continue to grow.

One of the about 20 mock bodies in the Gaza die-in at Te Komititanga Square today
One of the about 20 mock bodies in the Gaza “die-in” at Te Komititanga Square today – symbolising more than 34,000 people killed by Israel in the six month war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR

Opposition MPs took part in the rally, including Labour’s Shanan Halbert and Green Party’s Steve Abel and Ricardo Menéndez March.

Activist and educator Maryam Perreira called on Palestine supporters to step up their boycott and divestments pressure — “it’s working, sanctions brought down apartheid South Africa and this will bring down the Israeli genocidal regime”.


“Food not bombs for Gaza”.    Video: Café Pacific

She said the courage and commitment of the Palestinian resistance had become an inspiration to the world.

Send Israeli ambassador home
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott called for sanctions action by the New Zealand government.

He urged Palestine supporters to call on the government to:

• Send the Israeli ambassador home, and
• End the working holiday visa for 200 Israelis who come to New Zealand to rest and relax “after committing genocide in Gaza”.

Scott called on New Zealanders to email Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Immigration Minister Erica Stanford to take action.

“Try just one email and see how it goes. Then another on another topic. Then another. That’s how I started a while ago,” Scott said.

“We need a tide of emails to get them to understand that Kiwis don’t want the Israeli ambassador here.

“Neither do we want the young Israelis committing genocide today and to walk among us tomorrow.”

More than 13,000 people have signed a petition calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy in Welington.


“They can’t demonise an entire nation.”  Video: Café Pacific

Superfund divestment
Scott said divestment pressure also worked – it is one of the driving forces for student protests at some 70 universities across the US over the past week with police arresting hundreds.

He spoke about the NZ government’s Superfund which has investments all over the world.

“A few years ago, they invested in Israeli banks which were investing in the building of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territories. They were involved in investing and enabling crimes against humanity,” Scott said.

“Our efforts got the NZ Superfund to divest from those banks in 2021.”


“BDS – more action call.”    Video: Café Pacific

He called on people with KiwiSaver fund accounts to check them out for investments in “Israeli companies who are in any way involved in the occupation”.

“We’re now calling for everyone to boycott Israeli products — or those companies which are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity or the illegal occupation, land theft, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and now genocide.”

Scott cited the boycott target list of the global BDS movement — Ahava (“Dead Sea mineral skin care products”), BP and Caltex, Hewlett-Packard, McDonalds, Obela Hummus and SodaStream.

“The key is for all of us to take action today. Remember — boycott, divest, sanction.”

Palestinian flags in Auckland's Te Komititanga Square
Palestinian flags in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR

Meanwhile, 1News reports that three New Zealand doctors planning to sail with an independent flotilla carrying aid to Gaza have had their mission “scuppered at the last minute”. They blame Israel for the delay.

The doctors — Dr Ali Al-Kenani, Dr Wasfi Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais — left for Istanbul 10 days ago where they joined other international volunteers in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, said 1News.

Organisers of the humanitarian aid mission said the boats were set to sail under the flag of the West African nation of Guineau Bisseau but said the country had withdrawn permission to use its flag under pressure from Israel.

A Gaza "die-in body" in Te Komititanga Square
A Gaza “die-in body” in Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR

Craig Murray: Western and Arab political class utterly divorced from their people over Gaza

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0
Genocide Joe Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu
Genocide Joe Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai. Image: www.craigmurray.org.uk

COMMENTARY: By Craig Murray

Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.

The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.

In the UK, several different government ministries had to coordinate. Even within only a single ministry, the FCDO, views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.

That process would include seeking the views of British ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.

It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.

Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.

All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination — weeks in advance — between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.

No evidence pf UNRWA complicity
And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.

I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the Zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood.

The refusal by Starmer and Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.

The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour, following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, and drove from the media headlines the adverse ruling against Israel.

This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from the genocide by international law or institutions.

The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.

Genocide goal of the West
This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.

I have never believed the spin that Biden is trying to restrain Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using US forces to fight alongside him.

Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.

My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed 10 unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza. Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law.

Joe Biden as Vice-President defended Israel staunchly then. It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe.

Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the US public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organisers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza.

“So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3000 rockets on my people.’”

Actively abetting Netanyahu
Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai.

He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the US and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East — Greater Israel, and US hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.

If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israel atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.

I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza.

What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.

The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and US security services and surveillance for protection from their own people. The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.

Anti-Iranian card a trick
The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven — and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.

The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza. We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the UK old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.

This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to Zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.

Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.

Naomi Klein: Jews must raise their voices for Palestine – oppose the ‘false idol of Zionism’

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0

DEMOCRACY NOW! Address by Naomi Klein

Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel.

“At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now!

“The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.”

One of several speakers at the rally was award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein. She said: “Too many of our people are worshipping a false idol. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it.

“And that false idol is called Zionism.”


Naomi Klein speaking at the Passover protest. Video: Democracy Now!

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: Among those who addressed the crowd during the Seder was award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein. This is some of what she had to say.

NAOMI KLEIN: My friends, I’ve been thinking about Moses and his rage when he came down from the Mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. The ecofeminist in me has always been uneasy about this story. What kind of god is jealous of animals? What kind of god wants to hoard all the sacredness of the Earth for himself?

But there is, of course, a less literal way of understanding this story. It is a lesson about false idols, about the human tendency to worship the profane and shining, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you this evening at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery, the story of Passover itself, and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the Promised Land, a metaphor for human liberation that has travelled across faiths to every corner of this globe, and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militarist ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba. From the start, it has been at war with collective dreams of liberation.

At a seder, it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism has long equated Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and unfreedom and client state. From the start, it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings, but as demographic threats, much as the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites and thus ordered the death of their sons.

And as we know, Moses was saved from that by being put in a basket and adopted by an Egyptian woman.

Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm, and it is time that we say clearly it has always been leading us here. It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments — “Thou shall not kill,” “Thou shall not steal,” “Thou shall not covet” — the commandments brought down from the Mount. It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.

Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value that we place on questioning a practice embedded in the seder itself with its four questions asked by the youngest child. It also betrays the love that we have as a people for text and for education.

Today this false idol dares to justify the bombing of every single university in Gaza, the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses, the killing of hundreds of academics, scholars, journalists, poets, essayists. This is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the infrastructure and the means of education.

Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students asking them . . .

CROWD: Shame!

US author and activist Naomi Klein
US author and activist Naomi Klein . . . “too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again.” Image: Democracy Now! screenshot CP

NAOMI KLEIN: . . .  students embodying the spirit of the seder, asking the most basic question, asking questions like “How can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?”

The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long. So tonight we say it ends here. Our Judaism cannot be contained by an ethnostate, for our Judaism is internationalist by its very nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military of that ethnostate, for all that military does is sow sorrow and reap hatred, including hatred against us as Jews.

Our Judaism is not threatened by people raising their voices in solidarity with Palestine across lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations. Our Judaism is one of those voices and knows that in this chorus lies both our safety and our collective liberation.

Our Judaism is the Judaism of the Passover Seder, the gathering in ceremony to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike. This ritual, light enough to carry on our backs, in need of nothing but one another, even with — we don’t need walls. We need no temple, no rabbi.

And there is a role for everyone, including especially the smallest child. The seder is portable, a diaspora technology if ever there was one. It is made to hold our collective grieving, our contemplation, our questioning, our remembering, and our reviving and rekindling of the revolutionary spirit.

So, tonight — so, look around. This here is our Judaism. As waters rise and forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray at the altar of solidarity and mutual aid, no matter the cost. We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name.

We want freedom from the ideology that has no plan for peace, except for deals with the murderous, theocratic petrostates next door, while selling the technologies of robo-assassinations to the world.

We seek to liberate Judaism from an ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid, that wants our children afraid, that wants us to believe that the world is against us so that we go running to its fortress, or at least keep sending the weapons and the donations.

That is a false idol. And it’s not just Netanyahu. It’s the world he made and the world that made him. It’s Zionism. What are we? We, in these streets for months and months, we are the exodus, the exodus from Zionism.

So, to the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say, “Let our people go.” We say, “We have already gone, and your kids, they are with us now.”

AMY GOODMAN: Award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein, speaking at what was called the “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on Tuesday at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, a block from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home.

Special thanks to Hana Elias, Eric Halvarson and Ishmael Daro of Democracy Now!

The original content of this programme is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International. Originally published by  democracynow.org.

Palestine protesters challenge TVNZ over Israeli ambassador’s ‘propaganda’

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0

Pacific Media Watch

Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side gate entrance for media workers for about an hour.

The protest climaxed a week of critical responses from commentators and critics of TVNZ’s Q&A senior reporter/presenter Jack Tame’s 45-minute interview with Israel ambassador Ran Yaakoby last Sunday which Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott described as “a platform for propaganda to excuse the genocide happening in Gaza over the last six months”.

Waving Palestine flags and placards declaring “Bias”, “silence is complicity — free Palestine,” and “Balanced journalism — my ass,” the protesters chanted “Jack Tame, you cannot hide – you’re complicit with genocide.”

Protester Joseph with a Palestine flag outside the entrance to TVNZ's headquarters today
Protester Joseph with a Palestine flag outside the entrance to TVNZ’s headquarters today. Image: APR

Chalked on the pavement and on the walls were slogans such as “Jack ‘Shame’ helped kill MSM”, “TVNZ stop platforming genocide and Zionism”, “TVNZ genocide apologists” and “137 journalists killed” in reference to the mainly Palestinian journalists targeted by Israeli military forces.

Across the street, a wall slogan said: “TVNZ (Q&A) broadcast Israeli lies about Gaza”. Other slogans condemned the lack of Palestinian voices in TVNZ coverage – there are about 288 Palestinian people in New Zealand, according to the 2018 Census.

Palestinian advocate Billy Hania of the Palestinians in Aotearoa Coordinating Committee (PACC) said: “We demand TVNZ refrain from parroting the Israeli propaganda narrative and return to practise its duty of professional journalism.”

Ironically, TVNZ tonight screened a rare Palestinian story — a heart-rending report about the tragic death in Gaza of a baby girl, Sabreen Joudeh, “Patience” in Arabic, who had been saved from her dying mother’s womb after an Israeli air strike on their family home.

The TVNZ report interviewed the related Gouda family in Auckland hours before Abdallah Gouda, a doctor, flew out to Turkiye to join a humanitarian aid flotilla leaving for Gaza.


PSNA’s Neil Scott criticises TVNZ coverage of Gaza.      Video: Café Pacific

Criticism of ‘complicity’?
“Jack Tame, you’re a professional,” yelled PSNA secretary Scott through a loud hailer addressing TVNZ. “You know what would be set up, you have to know.

“But you allowed it to happen!”

“I don’t get you Jack, stupid or complicit? Complicit or stupid? One of the two.”

Critics are understood to be filing complaints about the alleged “one-sidedness” of the programme citing many specific criticisms.

“We’re here today because of Jack Tame’s Q&A report for TVNZ,” said Scott.


A Palestine protester calls out TVNZ journalist Jack Tame for alleged bias over Gaza. Video: Café Pacific

With the war having passed 200 days this week with more than 34,000 Palestinians having been killed — mostly children and women — and 392 bodies having been recovered from three separate mass graves discovered at two hospitals after they were destroyed by the Israeli military, some of his complaints were that presenter Tame:

  • Interviewed Ambassador Yaakoby at the Israeli Embassy in Wellington instead of at a TVNZ studio with the New Zealand flag being showed alongside the Israeli flag. “Tying the two countries together – a professional would have had the New Zealand flag removed”;
  • Did not provide context around the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel at the start of the interview – “more than 75 years of repression since 750,000 Palestinians were expelled as refugees from their homeland in the 1948 Nakba”;
  • Asking a series of questions that the Israeli ambassador “avoided, changed, or outright lied” in his response;
  • Did not follow up with the questions as needed; and
  • Avoided the questions that “would have placed the issue of the Israeli attack on Gaza” in context.
TVNZ's Q&A presenter Jack Tame (right) talks to Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakabi
TVNZ’s Q&A presenter Jack Tame (right) talks to Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakabi on last Sunday’s controversial programme. Image: Q&A screenshot APR

Platform for propaganda
“Essentially, Tame gave Israel a platform for propaganda to excuse the genocide happening in Gaza over the last six months,” said Scott.

Among the contextual questions that Scott claimed Tame should have questioned Ambassador Yaakoby on were the envoy’s unchallenged claim that “1400 people had been butchered” by Hamas fighters.

In fact, the documented figure is 1139 — 695 civilians, including 36 children, and 373 security force members, according to a France 24 report citing official sources.

“The ambassador didn’t mention that more than 350 Israeli soldiers were among those killed — at their military posts,” Scott said.

“Many of the others were aged between 18 and 40 and in the military reserves.”

Also, no mention was made of the controversial Hannibal Directive which reportedly led to the Israeli military killing many of its own countrymen and women captives as the resistance fighters retreated back to Gaza.


The controversial Q&A interview with Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakoby. Video: TVNZ

Among other responses to TVNZ’s Q&A this week, Palestine solidarity advocate and PSNA chair John Minto declared in an open letter to TVNZ published by The Daily Blog that the programme “breached all the standards of decent journalism. In other words it was offensive, discriminatory, inaccurate and grossly unfair.”

A protester holding up a "Bias" placard outside TVNZ
A protester holding up a “Bias” placard outside TVNZ in Auckland today. Image: APR

‘Unchallenged lies’
“It wasn’t journalism – it was 45-minutes of uninterrupted and unchallenged Israeli lies, misinformation and previously-debunked propaganda. It was outrageous. It was despicable,” Minto wrote.

“The country which for six months has conducted genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza was given free rein to pour streams of the most vile fabrications and misinformation against Palestinians directly into the homes of New Zealanders. And without a murmur of protest from Jack Tame.

“Even the most egregious lies such as the ‘beheaded babies’ myth were allowed to be broadcast without challenge despite this Israeli propaganda having been discredited months ago.

“The interview showed utter contempt for Palestine and Palestinians as well as New Zealanders who were assailed with this stream of racist deceits and falsehoods with Q&A as the conduit.”

Among a stream of social media comments, one person remarked “On John Tame’s YouTube channel it gained a lot of comments fairly quickly . . .

“These comments were encouraging as at least 95 percent were denouncing the interview . . . with a lot of them debunking the endless stream of blatant lies and atrocity propaganda that poured out of the Israeli ambassador’s mouth.

“Most of the posters were obviously from our country and it was a great example of how Israel’s actions have shattered its reputation with their propaganda fooling hardly anyone anymore.

“It’s a bit like a little child with chocolate all over their face denying they ate the chocolate . . . except in Israel’s case it’s civilian blood all over their face . . .

“Anyway, when I revisited the thread the comments had been purged and deleted.”

On the Q&A YouTube channel, @ZaraLomas commented: “The fact that Q&A are deleting critical comments speaks volumes about their integrity (or lack thereof), and their faith in this shocking piece of ‘journalism’.”

PACC call for ‘truth and accuracy’
In a statement calling for “truth and accuracy in the face of state propaganda”, the Palestinians in Aotearoa Coordinating Committee (PACC) said that Palestinian New Zealanders were in a community that needed “accurate journalism, as we witness the deadliest period of modern history unfold for our people”.

A “hasty two-minute Palestinian response” in a news bulletin to follow the ambassador’s 45-minute interview as arranged by TVNZ was inadequate and rejected.

“Our stake in this is irrefutable. Palestinian perspectives need to be heard on their own terms, not just in brief response to Israeli propaganda,” said the PACC.

The committee called for a comprehensive 45-minute Q&A session with a Palestinian advocate to “ensure a balanced perspective”.

Television New Zealand
Television New Zealand . . . under fire over its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: APR

Nelson Mandela’s grandson joins Gaza flotilla, slams ‘genocide complicit’ leaders

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0

Asia Pacific Report

Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in Istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza.

Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine.

When he met with flotilla participants yesterday, including the Kia Ora Gaza team from Aotearoa New Zealand, he said: “It was not only our efforts in South Africa that defeated the apartheid regime, but it was also efforts in every corner of the world through international solidarity of the anti-apartheid campaign.”

Chief Mandla Mandela (right) chats with Dr Adnan Ali
Chief Mandla Mandela (right) chats with Dr Adnan Ali, leader of the Kia Ora Gaza team from Aotearoa New Zealand . . . “Palestine is the greatest moral issue of our time.” Image: Kia Ora Gaza


Chief Mandla Mandela talks to the Freedom Flotilla.   Video: Freedom Flotilla/Palestine Human Rights

Mandela said that while his grandfather was incarcerated for life imprisonment on Robben Island, he drew “immense inspiration” from the Palestinian struggle.

He added that Palestine “was the greatest moral issue of our time, yet many governments choose to remain silent and look away”.

“Many have been complicit in the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, the war crimes, and crimes against humanity that have been meted out on a daily basis against our Palestinian brothers and sisters — not just the 7th of October, but for the past 76 years.”

— Chief Mandla Mandela

Caitlin Johnstone: In this dystopia, opposing a genocide is considered worse than committing one

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0
Try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilisation
Try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilisation than one which gets more angry at people protesting genocidal atrocities than it does at people committing them. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

All the frenzied shrieking about pro-Palestine protests at universities these last few days makes it clear that our civilization is so twisted and insane that it sees protesting against a genocide as far worse than committing one. Which is about as backwards as any society could possibly be.

Seriously, try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilisation than one which gets more angry at people protesting genocidal atrocities than it does at people committing them.

A civilization where people wear their pants on their head and walk backwards all day? That would be less crazy. A civilization where the dogs own the people and the children go to work while the parents go to school? That would be less crazy.

It’s as wrong as you can possibly get anything in this world. It’s actually hard to imagine how anyone could get anything more wrong.

If you’ve accepted daily massacres of innocent civilians as the baseline normal and appropriate thing, and regard any opposition to this as a freakish and evil abomination, then you’re as screwed up and confused about reality as any other stark raving lunatic in town. Maybe worse.

To view nonstop mass military slaughter as moral and opposition thereto as immoral is to live in a mental moral universe that has been flipped on its head. It’s to inhabit a reality tunnel that has become completely divorced from reality.

But that’s the kind of mainstream worldview that the political-media class in this society are working to indoctrinate us into day in and day out throughout our entire lives.

I just saw a tweet from the commentator Briahna Joy Gray saying that in order to find any mention in The New York Times of the hundreds of Palestinians in mass graves that are being discovered in Gaza, she had to scroll past no fewer than four stories about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses  —  including two op-eds which criticised the protesters.

What kind of warped, screwed up dystopia is this where that’s the kind of mainstream news outlet people are getting their information and ideas from? Our entire civilization is saturated with reality-distorting propaganda like this, and it’s making people insane.

It’s got our moral compasses flipped 180 degrees from our true north, and our inner sensemaker tuning in to frequencies of nothing but garbled static.

That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning Empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny. They need us thinking up is down and black is white.

They need us not just unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, but actually believing that wrong is right and right is wrong. So they pound our collective consciousness day in and day out with extremely aggressive psyops in the form of mass media propaganda to ensure that our insides are scrambled around enough to consent to the amount of depravity necessary for our rulers to continue dominating this planet.

This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal, as Aaron Bushnell said moments before lighting himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza.

A society where mass graves get less media attention than university protesters. A society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children.

A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good.

Caitlin Johnstone is an independent Australian 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 was first published here and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

From Gallipoli to Gaza: remembering the Anzacs not as a ‘coming of age’ tale but as a lesson for the future

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0
The question of why New Zealand soldiers ended up on Turkish beaches
The question of why New Zealand soldiers ended up on Turkish beaches in April 1915 is typically not part of these Anzac Day commemorations. Image: Getty/The Conversation

ANALYSIS: By Olli Hellmann

When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity.

The battle of Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire, the story goes, was where the young nation passed its first test of courage and determination.

The question of why New Zealand soldiers ended up on Turkish beaches in April 1915 is typically not part of these commemorations. Rather, our collective memories begin with the moment of the early morning landing.

Consider, for example, the timing of the Anzac Day dawn service, or the Museum of New Zealand-Te Papa Tongarewa’s exhibition, Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War, which plunges visitors straight into the action.

This selective retelling of history is necessary for the “coming of age” narrative to work. It helps conceal that Britain was pursuing its own colonial ambitions against the Ottomans, and that New Zealand took part in World War I as “a member of the British club”, as historian Ian McGibbon puts it, loyally devoted to the imperial cause.

Against the background of the recent horrors and escalating tensions in the Middle East, however, it seems more important than ever to make these silences speak in our commemorations of Gallipoli.

Dawn service at Auckland War Memorial Cenotaph
Where collective memory begins . . . dawn service at the Auckland War Memorial Museum cenotaph. Image: Getty Images

Britain’s colonial interests
While the causes of World War I are complex and multifaceted, historians have extensively documented that Britain had long seen parts of the decaying Ottoman Empire as prey for colonial expansion.

Already, in the late 1800s, Britain had taken control of Cyprus and Egypt.

Turkey’s Middle Eastern possessions were of interest to the government in London because they provided not only a land route to the colony in India, but also rich oil reserves.

Hence, when the Ottoman Empire signed an alliance with Germany — mainly to guard against Russian territorial aspirations – and somewhat reluctantly entered World War I, the British did not lament this as a diplomatic defeat.

“The decrepit Ottoman Empire was more useful to them as a victim than as a dependent ally,” as the late historian Michael Howard explained.

The day after Britain declared war on the Ottomans on November 5, 1914, British troops attacked Basra (in today’s southern Iraq) to secure nearby oil facilities.

In the following months, the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia won a number of easy victories, which fuelled the belief the Turkish military was weak. This in turn led Britain to devise a plan to launch a direct strike on Constantinople, the Ottoman capital.

First, however, they had to clear the Gallipoli peninsula of enemy defences. And who better suited to this task than the first convoy of Anzac troops, just a short distance away in Egypt after passing through the Suez Canal?

Australian, British, New Zealand and Indian soldiers on camels in Palestine during World War I.
Australian, British, New Zealand and Indian cameliers in Palestine during World War I.

Palestine: a complex tangle of pledges
As is well known, war planners in London had underestimated the enemy’s military strength. The battle of Gallipoli ended in a Turkish victory over Britain and its allies.

Nevertheless, fortunes eventually turned against the Ottoman Empire.

Although a whole century has gone by, British diplomatic efforts and secret agreements that were meant to accelerate the collapse of the Ottoman Empire still shape the Middle East today.

Most significantly, it is the violent conflict over Palestine that can be traced back to colonial power dealings during World War I. The crux of the problem is that Britain affirmed three irreconcilable wartime commitments in relation to Palestine.

First, in the hope of initiating an Arab revolt against Ottoman rule, the British made promises to Sharif Husayn, the emir of Mecca, about the creation of an independent Arab kingdom.

Second, in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Ottomans’ Arab lands into British and French spheres of interest, Palestine was designated for international administration.

Third, in the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, the British government pledged support for a “Jewish national home” in Palestine — a move motivated by a mixture of realpolitik and Biblical romanticism.

In the end, it was the third commitment that turned out to be the most enduring.

Lord Balfour inspecting troops at York Cathedral during World War I.
Lord Balfour inspecting troops at York Cathedral during World War I. Image: Getty Images

How should we remember Gallipoli?
Amid this complex history, we must not forget the thousands of New Zealand soldiers who died in World War I — men who had either volunteered, expecting a quick and heroic war, or served as draftees.

However, we need to have a public discussion about whether it is still appropriate for our commemorations to skip over the question of why these men fought in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Facing up to this question not only makes us aware of our responsibilities towards the Middle East problem, but it can also serve as a lesson for the future — not to blindly follow great powers into their military adventures.The Conversation

Olli Hellmann is associate professor of political science, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Sydney University students set up Gaza solidarity camp as war marks 200 days

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0

Asia Pacific Report

Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States.

The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of infrastructure haunted Gaza with Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave passing the 200 days milestone.

Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,500 children killed in the attack, which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance.

Al Jazeera reflects on 200 days of Israel's war on Gaza
Al Jazeera reflects on 200 days of Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: AJ screenshot APR

In Sydney, according to the university’s student newspaper, Honi Soit, the camp was established on the campus when tents were pitched “emblazoned with graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘from the river to the sea’”.

Students form several Australian universities were in attendance for the launch of the encampment, which was inaugurated with a student activist “speak out” on the subject of the war on Gaza and the demand for USyd management to drop any ties to the state of Israel.

According to the student newspaper: “Many chants that were used on US campuses in the past week were repeated at the encampment tonight like “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” followed by “Albanese/Sydney Uni you will see, Palestine will be free”.

Pro-Palestinian protests are gaining momentum at colleges and universities across the United States with street protests outside campuses as police have cracked down on the demonstrators.

Students at New York University, Columbia, Harvard and Yale are among those standing in solidarity with Palestinians and demanding an end to the war on Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from New York, said student demonstrators from New York University (NYU) gathered for hours in a park just off the campus to protest against the genocide.

The protest moved to the park following the mass arrest of 133 students and academic staff who had participated in a protest on the NYU campus the night before.

“As news spread of their arrests, so have demonstrations around the country — at other colleges and universities,” Saloomey said.

Columbia announced that it was introducing online classes for the the rest of the year to cope with the protests.

Watch Saloomey’s AJ report:


Columbia protests: Chants of ‘Azaadi’.               Video: Al Jazeera

The Al Jazeera Explainers team have put together a comprehensive report detailing the numbers that highlight the unprecedented level of violence unleashed by Israel on Gaza in the 200 days of war.

The massive infrastructure damage caused by the Israeli war on Gaza
The massive infrastructure damage caused by the Israeli war on Gaza . . . . making the strip “unlivable”.

OPM leader’s open letter condemns Australia’s ‘treachery’ over Papua

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0
The Papuan Infantry Battalion in the Second World War
The Papuan Infantry Battalion in the Second World War . . . "Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves." Image Australian War Memorial

Asia Pacific Report

The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence.

The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day 2024.

Praising the courage and determination of Papuans against the Japanese Imperial Forces in World War Two, Bomanak said: “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea.

“Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!”

The Papuan Infantry Battalion in the Second World War
The Papuan Infantry Battalion in the Second World War . . . “Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves.” Image Australian War Memorial

Bomanak’s open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden, declared:

“If you cannot stand by those who stood by you, then your idea of ‘loyalty’ and ‘remembrance’ being something special is a myth, a fairy tale.

“There is nothing special in treachery. Six decades of treachery following the Republic of Indonesia’s invasion and fraudulent annexation, always knowing that we were being massacred, tortured, and raped. Our resources, your intention all along.

“When the Japanese Imperial Forces came to our island, you chose our homes to be your defensive line. We fed and nursed you. We formed the Papuan Infantry Brigade. We became your Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

“We even fought alongside you and shared the pain and suffering of hardship and loss.

“There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea. Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!

OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . his open letter condemns Australia and the US leadership for preventing decolonisation of West Papua. Image: OPM

“Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves. The photos [in the open letter] are from the Australian War Memorial. The part of the legend always ringing true — my people — Papuans! – with your WWII defence forces.

“My message is to you, not ANZAC veterans. We salute the ANZACs. Your unprincipled greed divided our island. Exploitation, no matter what the cost.

“West Papua is filled with Indonesia’s barbarity and the blood and guts of 500,000 Papuans — men, women, and children. Torture, slaughter, and rape of my people in our ancestral homes led by your betrayal.

“In 1969, to help prevent our decolonisation, you placed two of our leaders on Manus Island instead of allowing them to reach the United Nations in New York — an act of shameless appeasement as a criminal accomplice to a mass-murderer (Suharto) that would have made Hideki Tojo proud.

“RAAF Hercules transported 600 TNI [Indonesian military] to slaughter us on Biak Island in 1998. Australian and US subsidies, weapons and munitions to RI, provide logistics for slaughter and bombing of our highland villages. Still happening!

“You were silent about the 1998 roll of film depicting victims of the Biak Island massacre, and you destroyed this roll of film in March 2014 after the revelations from the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal were aired on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. (Grateful for the integrity of Edmund McWilliams, Political Counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta, for his testimony.)

“Every single act and action of your betrayal contravenes Commonwealth and US Criminal Codes and violates the UN Charter, the Genocide Act, and the Torture Convention. The price of this cowardly servitude to assassins, rapists, torturers, and war criminals — from war criminal Suharto to war criminal Prabowo [current President of Indonesia] — complicity and collusion in genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.

“Friends, we will not forget you? You threw us into the gutter! As Australian and American leaders, your remembrance day is a commemoration of a tradition of loyalty and sacrifice that you have failed to honour.”

The OPM chairman and commander Bomanak concluded his open letter with the independence slogan “Papua Merdeka!” — Papua freedom.

Malcolm Evans: A new low in NZ media’s record of bias over Palestine

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0
The mask comes off . . . how cartoonist Malcolm Evans characterised the Jack Tame Q&A interview
The mask comes off . . . how cartoonist Malcolm Evans characterised the Jack Tame Q&A interview with Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakoby last Sunday. Cartoon: © 2024 Malcolm Evans

COMMENTARY: By Malcolm Evans

Last week’s leaked New York Times staff directive, as to what words can and cannot be used to describe the carnage Israel is raining on Palestinians, is proof positive, since those reports are published verbatim here in New Zealand, that our understanding of the conflict is carefully managed to always reflect a pro-Israel bias.

Forget the humanity of 120,000 dead and wounded Palestinians and countless others facing famine and disease sheltering in tents or what’s left of destroyed buildings, even internationally recognised terms and phrases such as “genocide,” “occupied territory,” “ethnic cleansing” and even “refugee camps” are discouraged, along with “slaughter”, “massacre” and “carnage”.

Though such language restrictions are claimed to be in the interests of “fairness”, an earlier investigation showed that between October 7 and November 14, The Times used the word “massacre” 53 times when it referred to Israelis being killed by Palestinians and only once in reference to Palestinians being killed by Israel.

By that date, thousands of Palestinians had perished, the vast majority of whom were women and children, and most of them were killed inside their own homes, in hospitals, schools or United Nations shelters.

This carefully managed use of words is deliberate and insidious and, as Jack Tame’s interview with Israel’s ambassador on last Sunday’s Q&A programme showed, even our most experienced media people are not immune to its effects.

From his introduction, “establishing” that the genocide taking place in Gaza had its genesis in the October 7 attack by Hamas, and not in the Nakba of 1948, Jack Tame and TVNZ facilitated an almost hour-long presentation of pro-Israel propaganda, justifying its atrocities.

For its appalling lack of balance, including Tame’s obsequious allowance and nodding agreement with the Israeli ambassador’s thoroughly discredited claims of Hamas atrocities; “beheadings” “necrophilia” and for describing Israelis’ as being “butchered” (five times he used the word) while Palestinians were merely “killed”, this was a new low in our media’s record of bias when it comes to the presentation of the facts about the Palestine/Israel conflict.

In the very week that we prepare to remember the horrific sacrifices made in previous wars and even as Israel‘s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians brings us closer to World War Three than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis, that TVNZ should have, pre-recorded and so had time to edit, such a disgraceful presentation is simply appalling — and heads should roll.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

1...161718...90Page 17 of 90

Popular Posts

Twitter

Follow, subscribe, interact via Café Pacific's social platforms (below).

DavidRobie.nz

The latest

An indictment of NZ’s settler colonial and ‘Five Eyes’ spy paranoia over political critics

Articles 0
REVIEW: By David Robie Four months ago, a group of...

Caitlin Johnstone: Biden administration finally declares that a genocide is happening – in Sudan

Articles 0
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone The Biden administration, which has been...

Five Pacific region geopolitical ‘betrayals’ in 2024

Analysis 0
COMMENTARY: By David Robie With the door now shut on...

Subscribe

© 2023 DavidRobie.nz. All Rights Reserved. Served by Multimedia Investments Ltd.