John Menadue: America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world

August 15, 2024

The mainstream [Australian] media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media. Image: Pearls and Irritations

Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to ministers, writes John Menadue.

INTERVIEW: John Menadue talks with Michael Lester

Michael Lester: Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.

Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.

As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.

READ MORE: Other Pearls and Irritations articles

And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.

These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.

John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.

ML: You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?

JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.

We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.

Pearls and Irritations publisher John Menadue . . . “I’m afraid some of [the mainstream media] are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.” Image: Independent Australian

ML: So you made a real contribution through this and you’ve given the opportunity for so many expert, experienced, independent voices to commentate on public policy issues of great importance, not least vis-a-vis, might I say, mainstream media treatment of a lot of these issues. This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?

JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.

It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.

But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.

It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.

It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.

ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?

JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.

And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.

But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.

Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.

Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.

We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.

ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?

JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.

Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.

Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.

One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.

But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.

The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.

The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.

ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?

JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.

But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.

Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China. It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.

I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.

China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.

America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.

But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.

But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.

The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.

We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.

ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?

JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.

Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.

It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.

Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.

Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.

ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.

John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.

Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?

JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.

For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.

Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.

Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.

But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.

ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?

JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.

It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.

And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.

My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.

For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.

Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.

But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.

These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.

In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.

The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.

Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.

Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.

Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.

And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.

When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.

But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.

ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.

You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?

JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.

And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.

These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.

China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.

Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.

ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?

JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.

The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.

I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.

I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.

We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.

Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.

ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?

JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.

ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?

JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.

We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.

They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.

I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.

ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.

Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.

JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.

John Menadue, founder and publisher of Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission.

Jonathan Cook: Israel is in a death spiral – who will it take down with it?

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 14, 2024

If there are no red lines for Israel when it comes to brutalising Palestinian civilians trapped inside Gaza, why would there be any red lines for those kidnapped off its streets and dragged into its dungeons? Image: www.jonathan-cook.net

Israel’s zealots are ignoring the pleas of the top brass. They want to widen the circle of war, whatever the consequences.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

There should be nothing surprising about the revelation that troops at Sde Teiman, a detention camp set up by Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, are routinely using rape as a weapon of torture against Palestinian inmates.

Last month, nine soldiers from a prison unit, Force 100, were arrested for gang-raping a Palestinian inmate with a sharp object. He had to be hospitalised with his injuries.

At least 53 prisoners are known to have died in Israeli detention, presumed in most cases to be either through torture or following the denial of access to medical care. No investigations have been carried out by Israel and no arrests have been made.

Why should it be of any surprise that Israel’s self-proclaimed “most moral army in the world” uses torture and rape against Palestinians? It would be truly surprising if this was not happening.

After all, this is the same military that for 10 months has used starvation as a weapon of war against the 2.3 million people of Gaza, half of them children.

It is the same military that since October has laid waste to all of Gaza’s hospitals, as well as destroying almost all of its schools and 70 percent of its homes. It is the same military that is known to have killed over that period at least 40,000 Palestinians, with a further 21,000 children missing.

It is the same military currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court in the world.

No red lines
If there are no red lines for Israel when it comes to brutalising Palestinian civilians trapped inside Gaza, why would there be any red lines for those kidnapped off its streets and dragged into its dungeons?

I documented some of the horrors unfolding in Sde Teiman in these pages back in May.

Months ago, the Israeli media began publishing testimonies from whistleblowing guards and doctors detailing the depraved conditions there.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to the detention camp, leaving it entirely unmonitored.

The United Nations published a report on July 31 into the conditions in which some 9400 captive Palestinians have been held since last October. Most have been cut off from the outside world, and the reason for their seizure and imprisonment was never provided.

The report concludes that “appalling acts” of torture and abuse are taking place at all of Israel’s detention centres, including sexual violence, waterboarding and attacks with dogs.

The authors note “forced nudity of both men and women; beatings while naked, including on the genitals; electrocution of the genitals and anus; being forced to undergo repeated humiliating strip searches; widespread sexual slurs and threats of rape; and the inappropriate touching of women by both male and female soldiers”.

There are, according to the investigation, “consistent reports” of Israeli security forces “inserting objects into detainees’ anuses”.

Children sexually abused
Last month, Save the Children found that many hundreds of Palestinian children had been imprisoned in Israel, where they faced starvation and sexual abuse.

And this week B’Tselem, Israel’s main human rights group monitoring the occupation, produced a report — titled “Welcome to Hell” — which included the testimonies of dozens of Palestinians who had emerged from what it called “inhuman conditions”. Most had never been charged with an offence.

It concluded that the abuses at Sde Teiman were “just the tip of the iceberg”. All of Israel’s detention centres formed “a network of torture camps for Palestinians” in which “every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering”. It added that this was “an organised, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities”.

Tal Steiner, head of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, which has long campaigned against the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees, wrote last week that Sde Teiman “was a place where the most horrible torture we had ever seen was occurring”.

In short, it has been an open secret in Israel that torture and sexual assault are routine at Sde Teiman.

The abuse is so horrifying that last month Israel’s High Court ordered officials to explain why they were operating outside Israel’s own laws governing the internment of “unlawful combatants”.

The surprise is not that sexual violence is being inflicted on Palestinian captives. It is that Israel’s top brass ever imagined the arrest of Israeli soldiers for raping a Palestinian would pass muster with the public.

Toxic can of worms
Instead, by making the arrests, the army opened a toxic can of worms.

The arrests provoked a massive backlash from soldiers, politicians, Israeli media, and large sections of the Israeli public.

Rioters, led by members of the Israeli Parliament, broke into Sde Teiman. An even larger group, including members of Force 100, tried to invade a military base, Beit Lid, where the soldiers were being held in an attempt to free them.

The police, under the control of Itamar Ben Gvir, a settler leader with openly fascist leanings, delayed arriving to break up the protests. Ben Gvir has called for Palestinian prisoners to be summarily executed — or killed with “a shot to the head” — to save on the costs of holding them.

No one was arrested over what amounted to a mutiny as well as a major breach of security.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, helped whip up popular indignation, denouncing the arrests and describing the Force 100 soldiers as “heroic warriors”.

Other prominent cabinet ministers echoed him.

Three soldiers freed
Already, three of the soldiers have been freed, and more will likely follow.

The consensus in Israel is that any abuse, including rape, is permitted against the thousands of Palestinians who have been seized by Israel in recent months — including women, children and many hundreds of medical personnel.

That consensus is the same one that thinks it fine to bomb Palestinian women and children in Gaza, destroy their homes and starve them.

Such depraved attitudes are not new. They draw on ideological convictions and legal precedents that developed through decades of Israel’s illegal occupation. Israeli society has completely normalised the idea that Palestinians are less than human and that any and every abuse of them is allowed.

Hamas’s attack on October 7 simply brought the long-standing moral corruption at the core of Israeli society more obviously out into the open.

In 2016, for example, the Israeli military appointed Colonel Eyal Karim as its chief rabbi, even after he had declared Palestinians to be “animals” and had approved the rape of Palestinian women in the interest of boosting soldiers’ morale.

Religious extremists, let us note, increasingly predominate among combat troops.

Compensation suit dismissed
In 2015, Israel’s Supreme Court dismissed a compensation suit from a Lebanese prisoner that his lawyers submitted after he was released in a prisoner swap. Mustafa Dirani had been raped with a baton 15 years earlier in a secret jail known as Facility 1391.

Despite Dirani’s claim being supported by a medical assessment from the time made by an Israeli military doctor, the court ruled that anyone engaged in an armed conflict with Israel could not make a claim against the Israeli state.

Meanwhile, human and legal rights groups have regularly reported cases of Israeli soldiers and police raping and sexually assaulting Palestinians, including children.

A clear message was sent to Israeli soldiers over many decades that, just as the genocidal murder of Palestinians is considered warranted and “lawful”, the torture and rape of Palestinians held in captivity is considered warranted and “lawful” too.

Understandably, there was indignation that the long-established “rules” — that any and every atrocity is permitted — appeared suddenly and arbitrarily to have been changed.

The biggest question is this: why did the Israeli military’s top legal adviser approve opening an investigation into the Force 100 soldiers — and why now?

The answer is obvious. Israel’s commanders are in panic after a spate of setbacks in the international legal arena.

‘Plausible’ Gaza genocide
The ICJ, sometimes referred to as the World Court, has put Israel on trial for committing what it considers a “plausible” genocide in Gaza.

Separately, it concluded last month that Israel’s 57-year occupation is illegal and a form of aggression against the Palestinian people. Gaza never stopped being under occupation, the judges ruled, despite claims from its apologists, including Western governments, to the contrary.

Significantly, that means Palestinians have a legal right to resist their occupation. Or, to put it another way, they have an immutable right to self-defence against their Israeli occupiers, while Israel has no such right against the Palestinians it illegally occupies.

Israel is not in “armed conflict” with the Palestinian people. It is brutally occupying and oppressing them.

Israel must immediately end the occupation to regain such a right of self-defence — something it demonstrably has no intention to do.

Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICJ’s sister court, is actively seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes.

The various cases reinforce each other. The World Court’s decisions are making it ever harder for the ICC to drag its feet in issuing and expanding the circle of arrest warrants.

Countervailing pressures
Both courts are now under enormous, countervailing pressures.

On the one side, massive external pressure is being exerted on the ICJ and ICC from states such as the US, Britain and Germany that are prepared to see the genocide in Gaza continue.

And on the other, the judges themselves are fully aware of what is at stake if they fail to act.

The longer they delay, the more they discredit international law and their own role as arbiters of that law. That will give even more leeway for other states to claim that inaction by the courts has set a precedent for their own right to commit war crimes.

International law, the entire rationale for the ICJ and ICC’s existence, stands on a precipice. Israel’s genocide threatens to bring it all crashing down.

Israel’s top brass stand in the middle of that fight.

They are confident that Washington will block at the UN Security Council any effort to enforce the ICJ rulings against them — either a future one on genocide in Gaza or the existing one on their illegal occupation.

No US veto at ICC
But arrest warrants from the ICC are a different matter. Washington has no such veto. All states signed up to the ICC’s Rome Statute – that is, most of the West, minus the US — will be obligated to arrest Israeli officials who step on their soil and to hand them over to The Hague.

Israel and the US had been hoping to use technicalities to delay the issuing of the arrest warrants for as long as possible. Most significantly, they recruited the UK, which has signed the Rome Statute, to do their dirty work.

It looked like the new UK government under Keir Starmer would continue where its predecessor left off by tying up the court in lengthy and obscure legal debates about the continuing applicability of the long-dead, 30-year-old Oslo Accords.

A former human rights lawyer, Starmer has repeatedly backed Israel’s “plausible” genocide, even arguing that the starvation of Gaza’s population, including its children, could be justified as “self-defence” — an idea entirely alien to international law, which treats it as collective punishment and a war crime.

But now with a secure parliamentary majority, even Starmer appears to be baulking at being seen as helping Netanyahu personally avoid arrest for war crimes.

The UK government announced late last month that it would drop Britain’s legal objections at the ICC.

That has suddenly left both Netanyahu and the Israeli military command starkly exposed — which is the reason they felt compelled to approve the arrest of the Force 100 soldiers.

Top prass pretexts
Under a rule known as “complementarity”, Israeli officials might be able to avoid war crimes trials at The Hague if they can demonstrate that Israel is able and willing to prosecute war crimes itself. That would avert the need for the ICC to step in and fulfil its mandate.

The Israeli top brass hoped they could feed a few lowly soldiers to the Israeli courts and drag out the trials for years. In the meantime, Washington would have the pretext it needed to bully the ICC into dropping the case for arrests on the grounds that Israel was already doing the job of prosecuting war crimes.

The patent problem with this strategy is that the ICC isn’t primarily interested in a few grunts being prosecuted in Israel as war criminals, even assuming the trials ever take place.

At issue is the military strategy that has allowed Israel to bomb Gaza into the Stone Age. At issue is a political culture that has made starving 2.3 million people seem normal.

At issue is a religious and nationalistic fervour long cultivated in the army that now encourages soldiers to execute Palestinian children by shooting them in the head and chest, as a US doctor who volunteered in Gaza has testified.

At issue is a military hierarchy that turns a blind eye to soldiers raping and sexually abusing Palestinian captives, including children.

The buck stops not with a handful of soldiers in Force 100. It stops with the Israeli government and military leaders. They are at the top of a command chain that has authorised war crimes in Gaza for the past 10 months – and before that, for decades across the occupied territories.

What is at stake
This is why observers have totally underestimated what is at stake with the rulings of the ICC and ICJ.

These judgments against Israel are forcing out into the light of day for proper scrutiny a state of affairs that has been quietly accepted by the West for decades. Should Israel have the right to operate as an apartheid regime that systematically engages in ethnic cleansing and the murder of Palestinians?

A direct answer is needed from each Western capital. There is nowhere left to hide. Western states are being presented with a stark choice: either openly back Israeli apartheid and genocide, or for the first time withdraw support.

The Israeli far-right, which now dominates both politically and in the army’s combat ranks, cares about none of this. It is immune to pressure. It is willing to go it alone.

As the Israeli media has been warning for some time, sections of the army are effectively now turning into militias that follow their own rules.

Israel’s military commanders, on the other hand, are starting to understand the trap they have set for themselves. They have long cultivated fascistic zealotry among ground troops needed to dehumanise and better oppress Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. But the war crimes proudly being live-streamed by their units now leave them exposed to the legal consequences.

Israel’s international isolation means a place one day for them in the dock at The Hague.

Israeli society’s demons exposed
The ICC and ICJ rulings are not just bringing Israeli society’s demons out into the open, or those of a complicit Western political and media class.

The international legal order is gradually cornering Israel’s war machine, forcing it to turn in on itself. The interests of the Israeli military command are now fundamentally opposed to those of the rank and file and the political leadership.

The result, as military expert Yagil Levy has long warned, will be an increasing breakdown of discipline, as the attempts to arrest Force 100 soldiers demonstrated all too clearly.

The Israeli military juggernaut cannot be easily or quickly turned around.

The military command is reported to be furiously trying to push Netanyahu into agreeing on a hostage deal to bring about a ceasefire — not because it cares about the welfare of Palestinian civilians, or the hostages, but because the longer this “plausible” genocide continues, the bigger chance the generals will end up at The Hague.

Israel’s zealots are ignoring the pleas of the top brass. They want not only to continue the drive to eliminate the Palestinian people but to widen the circle of war, whatever the consequences.

That included the reckless, incendiary move last month to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran — a provocation with one aim only: to undermine the moderates in Hamas and Tehran.

If, as seems certain, Israel’s commanders are unwilling or incapable of reining in these excesses, then the World Court will find it impossible to ignore the charge of genocide against Israel and the ICC will be compelled to issue arrest warrants against more of the military leadership.

A logic has been created in which evil feeds on evil in a death spiral. The question is how much more carnage and misery can Israel spread on the way down.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the author’s blog with permission.

NZ rallies protest over Israeli killings of children as world condemns latest school ‘bloody massacre’

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 10, 2024

A "Stop the genocide" banner in today's "Stop the killing of children" protest in the Te Komititanga Square in New Zealand's largest city Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR

Asia Pacific Report

Speakers at a large rally in the heart of New Zealand’s largest city today strongly condemned Israel’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinian children in its 10-month genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The 2000-strong rally was replicated in “Stop the war on children” protests across New Zealand this weekend.

Ironically, the demonstrations came as world leaders and humanitarian organisations condemned the latest atrocity by the Israeli military.

"School time" on Israel's genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip enclave — “School time” on Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip enclave in downtown Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR

An Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City during prayers has killed more than 100 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian officials who expect the death toll to rise.

Almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war on Gaza, more than 15,000 of them chidren, and at least 92,002 have been wounded.

While the Israeli military claimed in a statement that its air force on Saturday struck a “command and control centre” that “served as a hideout for Hamas terrorists and commanders” at the al-Tabin school.

However, it did not provide evidence and claimed it had taken steps to reduce the risk of harming civilians while questioning the accuracy of the reported death toll.

“There has been no evidence to back up the claims made by the Israeli military over the last 10 months when targeting civilian infrastructure and densely populated areas that are filled with displaced Palestinians,” reports Hamdah Salhut of Al Jazeera.

“Right after the Gaza City school was struck with three air strikes by the Israeli army, the military released a statement claiming that they were targeting Hamas operatives inside both the school and the mosque.

The Israeli carnage at Gaza's al-Tabin school — The Israeli carnage at Gaza’s al-Tabin school . . . world condemnation. Image: AJ screenshot APR

“They say that they use precise munitions in order to minimise the civilian damage and death, that this was an intelligence-based attack carried out in coordination with the Shin Bet, the internal security agency.

‘Pictures show different story’
“But pictures show a different story. The sources on the ground, the medics and the Civil Defence workers who are picking up body parts of Palestinians that have been blown to pieces tell a different story.

“We also heard from an Israeli army spokesperson in English who said that the military is denying the fact that more than 100 Palestinians were killed, based on Israeli military intelligence, which again was not provided.”

Al Jazeera has been banned by the Israeli government from reporting or broadcasting within Israel. It is reporting the Israeli side of the war from Amman, capital of the neighbouring state of Jordan.

Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Israel’s attack went against “all humanitarian values” and was “an indication of the Israeli government’s attempt to block [peace] efforts and postpone them”.

It added that “the absence of a decisive international stance to restrain Israeli aggression and compel it to respect international law and stop its aggression against Gaza” was resulting in “unprecedented killings, deaths and human catastrophe”.

Five Israeli attacks on Gaza schools this week . . . at least 179 people killed and 154 wounded or missing. Graphic: Al Jazeera CC (creative commons) 10 August 2024

Other reactions to the attack include:

Qatar
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the attack constituted a “horrific massacre and a brutal crime against defenceless civilians”.

It called for an independent UN fact-finding mission to investigate attacks on shelters for displaced Palestinians in Gaza and demanded that the international community oblige Israel to ensure their protection and uphold international law.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States are the mediators between Israel and Gaza and have called for a new round of ceasefire negotiations for Thursday as fears grow of a broader conflict involving Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

Auckland "Stop The War on Children" protesters in Te Komititanga Square — Auckland “Stop The War on Children” protesters in Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR

Hamas
“The massacre at al-Tabin school in the Daraj neighbourhood in central Gaza City is a horrific crime that constitutes a dangerous escalation,” said the movement that governs the Gaza Strip.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Palestinian group’s political bureau, said there were no armed men at the school.

Hamas said in its statement that Israel’s claims of the school being used as the group’s command centre were “excuses to target civilians, schools, hospitals, and refugee tents, all of which are false pretexts and expose lies to justify its crimes”.

“We call on our Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to fulfill their responsibilities and take urgent action to stop these massacres and halt the escalating Zionist aggression against our people and defenseless citizens,” the statement said.

Ismail al-Thawabta, the director-general of Gaza’s Government Media Office, called on the international community and UN Security Council “to pressure Israel to end this cascading bloodbath among our people, namely innocent women and children”.

Fatah
Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction that last month signed a “national unity” agreement with Hamas, said the attack was a “heinous bloody massacre” that represented the “peak of terrorism and criminality”.

“Committing these massacres confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt its efforts to exterminate our people through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble,” it said in a statement.

A distraught Gazan mother wails for her family killed in an Israeli attack on al-Tabin school killing at least 100 people people. Image: AJ screenshot APR

Iran
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, said the Israeli government’s goal was to thwart ceasefire negotiations and continue the war.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Israel had again shown it was not committed to international law as he condemned the attack as genocide and a war crime.

He urged immediate action from the UN Security Council and said Israel’s actions in Gaza were a threat to international peace and security.

Protesters at the "Stop the War on Children" rally in Auckland — Protesters at the “Stop the War on Children” rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR

Egypt
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Israel’s “deliberate killing” of unarmed Palestinians showed it lacked the political will to end the war in Gaza.

In a statement cited by the state-run Middle East News Agency, it accused Israel of repeatedly committing “large-scale crimes” against “unarmed civilians” whenever there was an international push for a ceasefire.

It said such attacks reflected “an unprecedented disregard” for international law.

Saudi Arabia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it denounced the attack in the “strongest terms” and stressed that “mass massacres” in the enclave “need to stop”.

Gaza is “experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe due to the ongoing violations of international law”, the ministry said.

Lebanon
The strike offered clear evidence of the Israeli government’s disregard for international humanitarian law and its intention to prolong the war and expand its scope, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

It called on the international community to take a unified stance and stressed that stopping the war in Gaza is necessary to prevent an escalation in the region.

Turkey
“Israel has committed a new crime against humanity by massacring more than a hundred civilians who had taken refuge in a school,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said.

It accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of wanting “to sabotage ceasefire negotiations”.

UNRWA
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, called for an end to the “horrors unfolding under our watch”.

“We cannot let the unbearable become a new norm,” he wrote on X.

“The more recurrent, the more we lose our collective humanity,” he said, reiterating his call for a “ceasefire now”.

Gaza civil defence workers and community volunteers trying to save lives after the Israeli bombing of the al-Tabin school in Gaza City. Image: AJ screenshot APR

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The strike was “an extension of the brutal massacres and genocide committed by the Israeli occupation for more than ten months in the Gaza Strip”, the OIC said.

It called on the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to oblige Israel to respect its obligations as an occupying power under international law and provide protection to the Palestinian people.

European Union
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said he was “horrified” by the images of the attack, adding that at least 10 schools had been targeted in the past week.

“There’s no justification for these massacres,” he said.

Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike, w/ reportedly dozens of Palestinian victims.

At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There’s no justification for these massacres

We are dismayed by the terrible overall death toll. 1/2

— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) August 10, 2024

UN rapporteur
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, condemned the world’s “indifference” to mass bloodshed in Gaza.

“Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one ‘safe zone’ at the time. With US and European weapons,” Albanese posted on X.

“May the Palestinians forgive us for our collective inability to protect them, honouring the most basic meaning of international law.”

Gaza: In the largest and most shameful concentration camp of the 21st century, Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one ‘safe zone’ at the time. With US and European… https://t.co/bHmrFbySYi

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) August 10, 2024

Save the Children
Tamer Kirolos, a regional director for the United Kingdom-based charity, called it the “deadliest attack on a school since last October”.

“It is devastating to see the toll this has taken, including so many children and people at the school for dawn prayers,” Kirolos said, adding that “children make up around 40 percent of the population and of people killed and injured since October” in the enclave.

“Civilians, children, must be protected. An immediate definitive ceasefire is the only foreseeable way that will happen.”

Jonathan Cook: Nothing’s changed since 1948 – except now Israel’s excuses don’t work

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 9, 2024

News headline of another Israeli operation to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the tiny, besieged and utterly destroyed enclave of Gaza. Image: www.jonathan-cook.net

“We have been lied to for decades about the creation of Israel. It was born in sin, and it continues to live in sin.”

COMMENTARY: By Jonathan Cook

The headline above, about yet another Israeli operation to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the tiny, besieged and utterly destroyed enclave of Gaza, was published in yesterday’s Middle East Eye.

When I began studying Israeli history more than a quarter of a century ago, people claiming to be experts proffered plenty of excuses to explain why Israelis should not be held responsible for the 1948 ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes — what Palestinians call their Nakba, or Catastrophe.

1. I was told most Israelis were not involved and knew nothing of the war crimes carried out against the Palestinians during Israel’s establishment.

2. I was told that those Israelis who did take part in war crimes, like Operation Broom to expel Palestinians from their homeland, did so only because they were traumatised by their experiences in Europe. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, these Israelis assumed that, were the Jewish people to survive, they had no alternative but to drive out the Palestinians en masse.

3. From others, I was told that no ethnic cleansing had taken place. The Palestinians had simply fled at the first sign of conflict because they had no real historical attachment to the land.

4. Or I was told that the Palestinians’ displacement was an unfortunate consequence of a violent war in which Israeli leaders had the best interests of Palestinians at heart. The Palestinians hadn’t left because of Israeli violence but because they has been ordered to do so by Arab leaders in the region. In fact, the story went, Israel had pleaded with many of the 750,000 refugees to come home afterwards, but those same Arab leaders stubbornly blocked their return.

Every one of these claims was nonsense, directly contradicted by all the documentary evidence.

That should be even clearer today, as Israel continues the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of the Palestinian people more than 75 years on.

1. Every Israeli knows exactly what is going on in Gaza – after all, their children-soldiers keep posting videos online showing the latest crimes they have committed, from blowing up mosques and hospitals to shooting randomly into homes. Polls show all but a small minority of Israelis approve of the savagery that has killed many tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children. A third of them think Israel needs to go further in its barbarity.Today, Israeli TV shows host debates about how much pain soldiers should be allowed to inflict by raping their Palestinian captives. Don’t believe me? Watch this from Israel’s Channel 12:

🔴SHOCKING🔴

Israel is quite possibly the only nation in the world where it is permissable and commonplace to go on TV and openly declare that the RAPING of prisoners should be a LEGITIMATE and OFFICIAL POLICY of the state and must be widely implemented.
pic.twitter.com/1PyRXk8fxU

— Niz (@NizMhani) August 7, 2024

2. If the existential fears of Israelis and Jews still require the murder, rape and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians three-quarters of a century on from the Holocaust, then we need to treat that trauma as the problem – and refuse to indulge it any longer.

3. The people of Gaza are fleeing their homes — or at least the small number who still have homes not bombed to ruins — not because they lack an attachment to Palestine. They are fleeing from one part of the cage Israel has created for them to another part of it for one reason alone: because all of them — men, women and children — are terrified of being slaughtered by an Israeli military, at best, indifferent to their suffering and their fate.

The official death toll in Gaza is a lie. The casualty numbers are far, far higher.

In my latest article, I explain how the trick has been pulled off: https://t.co/WfH4wt1bJM pic.twitter.com/qI0NFfRL8v

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 31, 2024

4. No serious case can be made today that Israel is carrying out any of its crimes in Gaza — from bombing civilians to starving them — with regret, or that its leaders seek the best for the Palestinian population. Israel is on trial for genocide at the world’s highest court precisely because the judges there suspect it has the very worst intentions possible towards the Palestinian people.

We have been lied to for decades about the creation of Israel. It was always a settler colonial project.

And like other settler colonial projects — from the US and Australia to South Africa and Algeria — it always viewed the native people as inferior, as non-human, as animals, and was bent on their elimination.

What is so obviously true today was true then too, at Israel’s birth. Israel was born in sin, and it continues to live in sin.

We in the West abetted its crimes in 1948, and we’re still abetting them today. Nothing has changed, except the excuses no longer work.

Call for collective global action over ‘horrific’ Israeli crimes against Palestinian prisoners

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 8, 2024

Welcome to Hell detail B'Tselem 680swide — "Welcome to Hell" . . . B’Tselem has collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities since 7 October 2023. Thirty of the witnesses are residents of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; 21 are residents of the Gaza Strip; and four are Israeli citizens. Image: B'Tselem screenshot APR

COMMENTARY: By Qadura Fares

On August 3, last Saturday, prisoner rights institutions and Palestinians all around the world were standing in solidarity with Gaza and Palestininian prisoners. This day is dedicated to highlighting Israeli crimes and violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and the continuing genocide in Gaza.

The machinery of brutality that punishes and tortures in secrecy in Israeli prisons must be brought to light.

Since October 7, Palestinian detainees have faced horrific crimes.

Shortly after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced that Israel was cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel to Gaza, effectively announcing the start of the genocide, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir launched his own war against Palestinian political prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails and camps, by declaring a policy of “overcrowding”.

Since then, the Israeli army and security services have launched mass arrest campaigns, which have swelled the number of Palestinian citizens from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to 9800.

At least 335 women and 680 children have been arrested. More than 3400 have been put under administrative detention — that is, they are held indefinitely without charge. Among them, there are 22 women and 40 children.

There has never been such a high number of administrative detainees since 1967.

Gaza arrests number unknown
Israel has also arrested an unknown number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, possibly exceeding thousands, according to our humble estimates. They are held under the 2002 “Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law”, which allows the Israeli army to detain people without issuing a detention order.

Israeli prisons cut food rations for Palestinians to the point of starvation since 7 Oct.

Testimonies of freed prisoners reveal that Israeli authorities rapidly converted more than a dozen prison facilities into a network of torture camps for Palestinian detainees. >> pic.twitter.com/BzciJGfzGY

— B’Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) August 7, 2024

Under Ben-Gvir’s orders, the already grave conditions in Israeli prisons have been made even worse. The prison authorities sharply reduced food rations and water, closing down the small shops where Palestinian detainees could purchase food and other necessities.

The cover of "Welcome to Hell" — The cover of “Welcome to Hell”, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s report on systemic violations against Palestinian prisoners. Image: APR screenshot

They also cut off water and power and even reduced the time allocated to using the restrooms. Prisoners are also prohibited from showering, which has resulted in the spread of diseases, especially skin-related ones like scabies.

There have been reports of Palestinian prisoners being deprived of medical care.

The systematic malnutrition and dehydration Palestinian prisoners are facing has taken a toll. The few that are released leave detention centres in horrific physical condition.

Even the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that such weaponisation of food is “unacceptable”.

The use of torture, including rape and beatings, has become widespread. There have been shocking reports about prison guards urinating on detainees, torturing them with electric shock and using dogs to sexually assault them.

Human shield detainees
There have been even testimonies of Israeli forces using detainees as human shields during combat in Gaza.

The systemic use of torture and other ill-treatment has predictably gone as far as extrajudicial killings.

According to a recent report by Hebrew daily Haaretz, 48 Palestinians have died in detention centres. Among them is Thaer Abu Asab, who was brutally beaten by Israeli prison guards in Ketziot Prison, and died of his injuries at the age of 38.

According to Haaretz, 36 Gaza detainees have also died in the Sde Teiman camp. Testimonies from Israeli medical staff working at the detention centre have revealed horrific conditions for Palestinians held there.

Detainees are reportedly often operated on without anaesthesia and some have had to have their limbs amputated because they were shackled even when sleeping or receiving treatment.

Palestinians who have been released have said what they were subject to was more horrific than what they had heard took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo detention centres, where American forces tortured and forcibly disappeared Arabs and other Muslim men.

They have also testified that some detainees were killed through torture and severe beatings. One prisoner from Bethlehem, Moazaz Obaiat, who was released in July, has alleged that Ben-Gvir personally took part in torturing him.

Denied lawyer, family visits
Israeli authorities have denied prisoners visits by lawyers, family, and even medics, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. They have carried out acts of collective punishment, destroying the homes of their families, arresting their relatives and holding them hostage, and illegally transferring some to secret detention camps and military bases without disclosing their fate, which constitutes the crime of enforced disappearance.

Despite condemnations from various human rights orgaisations, Ben-Gvir and the rest of the Israeli governing coalition have doubled down on these policies. “[Prisoners] should be killed with a shot to the head and the bill to execute Palestinian prisoners must be passed in the third reading in the Knesset […]

“Until then, we will give them minimal food to survive. I don’t care,” Ben-Gvir said on July 1.

Electric shocks, rape, and torture to death.. Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons face serious violations, with some families receiving news of their deaths weeks later.

Euro-Med Monitor regularly documents dozens of testimonies from released Palestinian detainees and… pic.twitter.com/o04T1JS9bG

— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) August 7, 2024

By using mass detention, Israel, the occupying power, has systematically destroyed Palestinian social, economic and psychological fabric since 1967. Over one million Palestinians have been arrested since then, thousands have been held hostage for extended periods under administrative detention and 255 detainees have died in Israeli prisons.

Israeli crimes against the Palestinians did not begin in October 2023, but are a continuation of a systematic process of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and apartheid that began even before 1948.

But Israel’s colonial regime overlooks the Palestinian people’s resilience. Inspired by the experiences of the free nations of Ireland, South Africa and Vietnam, we draw strength from our determination to achieve our right to self-determination, freedom and independence.

This is why on this day, August 3, we urged the world to collectively protest against Israeli occupation crimes and racist laws and we call on governments to uphold their legal duties to prevent such crimes from happening.

Political prisoners solidarity
We also called on unions, universities, parliaments and political parties to effectively participate in large-scale events, demonstrations and digital campaigns in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners.

The international community should hold the occupying power to account by imposing a complete arms embargo on it, applying economic sanctions, and suspending its UN membership.

They should also nullify bilateral agreements, and halt Israel’s participation in international forums and events until it abides by international law and human rights. The international community must compel Israel to protect civilians according to its obligations as an occupying power.

Israel must also reveal the identities and conditions of people it has forcibly disappeared. We demand an end to arbitrary and administrative detention policies. The bodies of those who have died inside and outside prisons must also be released, and all prisoners must receive legal protection.

Israel, the occupying power, is under the obligation to allow special rapporteurs, United Nations experts, and the International Criminal Court prosecutor to visit Palestine, inspect prisons and deliver justice for the victims, including material and moral compensation.

Israel must not be allowed to get away with these horrific crimes.

Qadura Fares is head of the Commission of Detainees Affairs in Palestine. Republished from Al Jazeera.

Gavin Ellis: AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 6, 2024

RNZ Mediawatch’s Hayden Donnell did an excellent job in "outing" The Herald’s practice. Donnell had the insight to put it through AI detection software and, like the Customs Service’s First Defender against drugs on Border Patrol, it returned a positive reading. Image: RNZ screenshot APMN

COMMENTARY: By Dr Gavin Ellis

Integrity is the most valued element of a news organisation’s reputation. Without it, it cannot expect its audience to lend credence to what it publishes or broadcasts. So, The New Zealand Herald has dealt itself an awful blow.

Its admission that it used generative AI to scrape content and then create an editorial about the All Blacks came only after it was caught out by Radio New Zealand. RNZ’s subsequent revelation that it may have found another three robot editorials in The Herald was met with sullen silence.

All the country’s largest newspaper will say its that it should have employed more “journalistic rigour”.

That is not good enough. It does not explain why the paper made the bizarre choice to employ Gen AI to create what should be its own opinion. It does not explain why there was no disclosure of its use (although to do so on an editorial should raise more red flags than a North Korean Workers Party anniversary). It does not tell us how widespread the practice is within publications owned by NZME (The Herald editorial was reprinted in its regional titles).

It does not explain why even the most basic subediting was not applied to an obviously deficient piece of writing when editorials have previously been checked and rechecked to prevent the most minor of errors. And it does not reveal what went wrong in the editorial chain of command to allow all or any of the foregoing to occur…or not.

RNZ Mediawatch’s Hayden Donnell did an excellent job in “outing” The Herald’s practice. I admit that when I read the All Blacks editorial my reaction was that it was a particularly badly written leader that had been shoved into the paper unedited. That would have been bad enough, but it never occurred to me that it might be the scribbles of a robot hand.

Donnell had the insight to put it through AI detection software and, like the Customs Service’s First Defender against drugs on Border Patrol, it returned a positive reading. It indicated it was most likely the product of Gen AI. His finding was revealed on Mediawatch last Wednesday. A follow-up fronted by Colin Peacock on Sunday’s Mediawatch revealed a further three editorials — all on sporting subjects — had returned similar readings to the first.

Peacock told listeners the publisher had declined to comment.

AI-created editorials: What in HAL’s name was the Herald thinking?

The Herald’s own disclosure of the issue to its readers was buried in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column. Headed “AI and that NZ Herald editorial”, it was the fourth item after an interminable piece on TVNZ’s ongoing fight with former Breakfast host Kamahl Santamaria, TVNZ’s CEO paying her own way to the Olympics, and the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Moscow on fabricated charges.

The item about itself assumed everyone had already caught up with the RNZ story and simply began by saying newsroom staff had been called to a meeting “to discuss use of artificial intelligence (AI), following a case in which NZME says it should have applied more “journalistic rigour” in the way AI was used to help create a recent NZ Herald editorial”.

It quoted Herald editor-in-chief (and NZME’s chief content officer-publishing) Murray Kirkness setting out the general principles on which The Herald and other publishers used artificial intelligence. He went on to say:

“I’m keen to hold another of our regular All Hands meetings next week, which will include discussion about our use of AI now and into the future.
“As always, trust and credibility are vitally important to us and will be part of the discussion.
“Next week’s session will be an opportunity for us to talk further about our use of AI and the standards we need to maintain as we use it.”

That does not signal to me — or to other Herald readers — that he accepts there is a major issue facing him and his editorial department. Much as NZME might like to minimise what has happened, this is a serious matter that requires no small amount of damage control.

That daily column headed “We say” is more than just one of the many opinion columns peppered throughout the paper. To my way of thinking, it was supposed to be the considered, intellectually rigorous view of the masthead, one from which the public might form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions.

It was also the place from which the powerful could be called to account. As such it always played a significant role in determining the integrity of the masthead and the trust that readers resided in it. That is why its production each day was the direct responsibility of the editor or deputy editor.

I have been both an editorial writer and an editor. I know, from direct experience, the rigour that must be applied to the processes in its production — from robust discussion of the subject, to determining a justified point of view, and ensuring its accuracy and quality. I have felt the weight of responsibility in its publication each day, a weight that is the greater when calling people to account. Our editorials were unsigned because they represented the view of the masthead. The editor took direct responsibility for what it said.

My mentor, and one of my predecessors as editor of The New Zealand Herald, John Hardingham, wrote in the Manual of Journalism about the delegating nature of the editorial structure. He added the following:

One duty, however, is never delegated. That is the expression of the newspapers’ opinions through its leading articles or editorials. The editor, or the deputy editor, personally chooses the daily topics for comment, defines the approach in consultation with the specialist leader writers, and sub-edits the completed work.

The New Zealand Herald's first editorial 1863 — The New Zealand Herald’s first editorial 13 November 1863. Image: knightlyviews.com

That signalled the significance attached to the editorial column. Even if its readership level is low compared with other parts of the newspaper, that significance is not lost on those in power, and they have learned over time that they ignore editorials at their peril. What is said in the name of the masthead may be the touchpaper that ignites a crowd.

Shayne Currie informed readers on Saturday: “Once upon a time, The Herald had a dedicated team of editorial writers, or at least senior editors who had a special focus to consider the newspaper’s opinion on daily issues. Now, the responsibility falls on a wide cross-section of staff, including journalists who might be specialists in particular areas.”

I sense this is yet another indication of NZME’s laser focus on its digital content. The print edition is a legacy medium which, like a geriatric, is offered palliative services while the real effort is devoted to those with the promise of longer life. The fact the editorial is now written by a “wide cross section” suggests (along with the truncation of letters and addition of forgettable photographs) that the company is unwilling to devote resources to the page that was once the most direct link between paper and public.

That would not be lost on staff who could then be forgiven for regarding the editorial writing assignment as a chore rather than a privilege. Using AI to write the editorial may be a manifestation of that attitude. Sadly, all of this ignores the fact that the editorial also appears in digital form and should be accorded the same status it used to enjoy in print.

Shayne Currie used an unfortunate turn of phrase in the paragraph reproduced above. He said “responsibility falls”. The duty may fall to that wide cross-section but responsibility continues to sit where it has always been — with the person at the top of the editorial tree.

As such it falls to Murray Kirkness to fix what is a deepening problem that has been created not only for The Herald and its fellow NZME publications but for the wider media as well.

The AI generated editorial disclosure is a gift from the gods for those who seek to undermine news media and other institutions. I can hear the repeated refrain: “Don’t believe what they say: It is written by a robot”.

Doubtless, it will be extrapolated to embrace the entire content of the paper: “There aren’t any reporters: It’s written by robots.” Sound implausible? If people believed the claim the country’s reporters and editors had been bribed by the Public Interest Journalism Fund, anything is possible.

The editor-in-chief will have to deal with two related issues.

The first is integrity. I have no doubt that AI can be a useful tool in researching the subject of an editorial but never in writing one. The view of the newspaper must be created by the women and men who know and understand the intrinsic values that cannot be scraped from existing data.

Murray Kirkness must give readers an ironbound guarantee that Gen AI-written editorials have stopped, and will not happen again.

The second is transparency. Artificial intelligence has an undoubted place in the future of journalism where it can have immense benefits in, for example, the “digesting” of vast amounts of data and the processing of information. However, its use must be carefully proscribed by a publicly accessible AI code of conduct, which must also set out standardised forms of guaranteed disclosure of when and how it is employed. Failure to follow the code should be a disciplinary offence that could lead to dismissal.

The Herald must show that it is putting its house in order. It is always ready to hold others accountable. It did so last year over an RNZ staff member’s “Russia-friendly edits” of stories on the war in Ukraine, and did so this year over TVNZ’s missteps with redundancies.

It’s time to hang out its own laundry and show that it intends to be whiter-than-white.

There is a lot riding on the “regular All Hands meeting” at NZME tomorrow. If it minimises or ignores the damage done, it could reap the product of a seed unintentionally sown at the top of the first New Zealand Herald editorial on 13 November 1863. It was a quotation:

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Sage advice, true, but we should also not lose sight of the fact that the quotation is from Act 1 Scene 3 of Hamlet – one of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes the website knightlyviews.com where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Ilan Pappé: To end Gaza genocide, uproot the source of all violence – Zionism

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 5, 2024

"Violence as a permanent and massive aspect of life can only be removed when its source is removed. In the case of Palestine, it is the ideology and praxis of the Israeli settler state, not the existential struggle of the colonised Palestinian people." Graphic: Lucie Wimetz/TNA

Since the arrival of Zionism in Palestine, the impulse of the Palestinians has not been about violence or revenge. The impulse remains the return to normal and natural life, writes Ilan Pappé.

ANALYSIS: By Ilan Pappé

“When we revolt, it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”

— Franz Fanon

Since the 1948 Nakba and arguably before, Palestine has not seen levels of violence as high as those experienced since October 7, 2023. But we need to address how this violence is being situated, treated, and judged.

Indeed, mainstream media often portrays Palestinian violence as terrorism while depicting Israeli violence as self-defence. Rarely is Israeli violence labelled excessive.

Meanwhile, international legal institutions hold both sides equally responsible for this violence, which they classify as war crimes.

Both perspectives are flawed. The first perspective wrongly differentiates between the “immoral” and “unjustified” violence of Palestinians and Israel’s “right to defend itself.”

The second perspective, which assigns blame to both sides, provides a misguided and ultimately harmful framework for understanding the current situation — likely the most violent chapter in Palestine’s modern history.

And all of these perspectives overlook the crucial context necessary to understand the violence that erupted on October 7.

This is not merely a conflict between two violent parties, nor is it simply a clash between a terrorist organisation and a state defending itself.

Rather, it represents a chapter in the ongoing decolonisation of historic Palestine, which began in 1929 and continues today. Only in the future will we know whether October 7 marked an early stage in this decolonisation process or one of its final phases.

Throughout history, decolonisation has been a violent process, and the violence of decolonisation has not been confined to one side only. Apart from a few exceptions where very small, colonised islands were evicted “voluntarily” by colonial empires, decolonisation has not been a pleasant consensual affair by which colonisers end decades, if not centuries, of oppression.

But for this to be our entry point to discuss Hamas, Israel, and the various positions held towards them in the world, one has to acknowledge the colonialist nature of Zionism and therefore recognise the Palestinian resistance as an anti-colonialist struggle — a framework negated totally by American administrations and other Western countries since the birth of Zionism, and so therefore also by other Western countries.

Framing the conflict as a struggle between the colonisers and the colonised helps detect the origin of the violence and shows that there is no effective way of stopping it without addressing its origins.

The root of the violence in Palestine is the evolvement of Zionism in the late 19th century into a settler colonial project.

Like previous settler colonial projects, the main violent impulse of the movement — and later the state that was established — was and is to eliminate the indigenous population. When elimination is not achieved by violence, the solution is always to use more extraordinary violence.

Therefore, the only scenario in which a settler colonial project can end its violent treatment of the indigenous people is when it ends or collapses. Its inability to achieve the absolute elimination of the native population will not deter it from constantly attempting to do so through an incremental policy of elimination or genocide.

The anti-colonial impulse, or propensity, to employ violence is existential — unless we believe that human beings prefer to live as occupied or colonised people.

The colonisers have an option not to colonise or eliminate but rarely cease from doing so without being forced to by the violence of the colonised or by outside pressure from external powers.

Indeed, as is in the case of Israel and Palestine, the best way to avoid violence and counter-violence is to force the settler colonial project to cease through pressure from the outside.

The historical record is worth recollecting to give credence to our claim that the violence of Israel must be judged differently — in moral and political terms — from that of the Palestinians.

This, however, does not mean that condemnation for violation of international law can only be directed towards the coloniser; of course not.

It is an analysis of the history of violence in historical Palestine that contextualises the events of October 7 and the genocide in Gaza and indicates a way to end it.

The history of violence in Modern Palestine: 1882-2000
The arrival of the first group of Zionist settlers in Palestine in 1882 was not, by itself, the first act of violence. The violence of the settlers was epistemic, meaning that the violent removal of the Palestinians by the settlers had already been written about, imagined, and coveted upon their arrival in Palestine — debunking the infamous “land without people” myth.

To translate the imagined removal into reality, the Zionist movement had to wait for the occupation of Palestine by Britain in 1918.

A few years later in the mid-1920s, with assistance from the British mandatory government, 11 villages were ethnically cleansed following the purchase of the regions Marj Ibn Amer and Wadi Hawareth by the Zionist movement from absentee landlords in Beirut and a landowner in Jaffa.

This had never happened before in Palestine. Landowners, whoever they were, did not evict villages that had been there for centuries since Ottoman law enabled land transactions.

This was the origin and the first act of systemic violence in the attempt to dispossess the Palestinians.

Another form of violence was the strategy of “Hebrew Labour” meant to drive out Palestinians from the labour market. This strategy, and the ethnic cleansing, pauperised the Palestinian countryside, leading to forced emigration to towns that could not provide work or proper housing.

It was only in 1929, when these violent actions were coupled with a discourse on constructing a third temple in place of Haram al-Sharif, that the Palestinians responded with violence for the first time.

This was not a coordinated response, but a spontaneous and desperate one against the bitter fruits of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine.

Seven years later, when Britain permitted more settlers to arrive and supported the formation of a nascent Zionist state with its own army, the Palestinians launched a more organised campaign.

This was the first uprising, lasting three years (1936-1939), known as the Arab Revolt. During this period, the Palestinian elite finally recognised Zionism as an existential threat to Palestine and its people.

The main Zionist paramilitary group collaborating with the British army in quelling the revolt was known as the Haganah, meaning “The Defence,” and hence the Israeli narrative to depict any act of aggression against Palestinians as self-defence — a concept reflected in the name of the Israeli army, the Israel Defence Forces.

From the British Mandate period to today, this military power was used to take over land and markets. It was deployed as a “defence” force against the attacks of the anti-colonialist movement and as such was not different from any other coloniser in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The difference is that in most instances of modern history where colonialism has come to an end, the actions of the colonisers are now viewed retrospectively as acts of aggression rather than self-defence.

The great Zionist success has been to commodify their aggression as self-defence and the Palestinian armed struggle as terrorism. The British government, at least until 1948, regarded both acts of violence as terrorism but allowed the worst violence to take place against the Palestinians in 1948 when it watched the first stage of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Between December 1947 and May 1948, when Britain was still responsible for law and order, the Zionist forces urbicided, that is obliterated, the main towns of Palestine and the villages around it. This was more than terror; this was a crime against humanity.

After completing the second stage of the ethnic cleansing between May and December 1948, through the most violent means that Palestine has witnessed for centuries, half of Palestine’s population was forcefully expelled, half of its villages destroyed, as well as most of its towns.

Israeli historians would later claim that “the Arabs” wanted to throw the Jews into the sea. The only people who were literally thrown into the sea — and drowned — were those expelled by the Zionist forces in Jaffa and Haifa.

Israeli violence continued after 1948 but was answered sporadically by Palestinians in an attempt to build a liberation movement.

It began with refugees trying to retrieve what was left of their husbandry and crops in the fields, later accompanied by Fedayeen attacking military installations and civilian places. It only gelled into a significant enterprise in 1968, when the Fatah Movement took over the Arab League’s PLO.

The pattern before 1967 is familiar — the dispossessed used violence in their struggle, but on a limited scale, while the Israeli army retaliated with overwhelming, indiscriminate violence, such as the massacre of the village of Qibya in October 1953 where Ariel Sharon’s unit 101 murdered 69 Palestinian villagers, many of them blown up within their own homes.

No group of Palestinians have been spared from Israeli violence. Those who became Israeli citizens were subjected, until 1966, to the most violent form of oppression: military rule. This system routinely employed violence against its subjects, including abuse, house demolitions, arbitrary arrests, banishment, and killings. Among these atrocities was the Kafr Qassem massacre in October 1956, where Israeli border police killed 49 Palestinian villagers.

This same violent system was transited to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the June 1967 War. For 19 years, the violence of the occupation was tolerated by the occupied until the mostly non-violent First Intifada in December 1987. Israel responded with brutality and violence that left 1,200 Palestinians dead, 300 of them children — 120,000 were injured and 1,800 homes were demolished. 180 Israelis were killed.

The pattern here continued — an occupied people, disillusioned with their own leadership and the indifference of the region and the world, rose in a non-violent revolt, only to be met with the full, brutal force of the coloniser and occupier.

Another pattern also emerges. The Intifada triggered a renewed interest in Palestine — as has the Hamas attack on October 7 — and produced a “peace process”, the Oslo Accords that raised the hopes of ending the occupation but instead, it provided immunity to the occupier to continue its occupation.

The frustration led, inevitably, to a more violent uprising in October 2000. It also shifted popular support from those leaders who still put their faith in the diplomatic way of ending occupation to those who were willing to continue the armed struggle against it — the political Islamic groups.

Violence in 21st century Palestine
Hamas and Islamic Jihad enjoy great support because of their choice of continuing to fight the occupation, not because of their theocratic vision of a future Caliphate or their particular wish to make the public space more religious.

The horrific pendulum continued. The Second Intifada was met by a more brutal Israeli response.

For the first time, Israel used F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters against the civilian population, alongside battalions of tanks and artillery that led to the 2002 Jenin massacre.

The brutality was directed from above to compensate for the humiliating withdrawal from southern Lebanon forced upon the Israeli army by Hezbollah in the summer of 2000 — the Second Intifada broke out in October 2000.

The direct violence against the occupied people from 2000 took also the form of intensive colonisation and Judaisation of the West Bank and Greater Jerusalem area.

This campaign was translated into the expropriation of Palestinian lands, encircling the Palestinian areas with apartheid walls, and giving a free license to the settlers to perpetrate attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories and East Jerusalem.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society tried to offer the world a different kind of struggle through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – a non-violent struggle based on a call to the international community to put a stop to the Israeli colonialist violence, which has not been heeded, so far, by governments.

Instead, Israeli brutality on the ground increased and the Gaza resistance in particular fought back resiliently to the point that forced Israel to evict its settlers and soldiers from there in 2005.

However, the withdrawal did not liberate the Gaza Strip, it transformed from being a colonised space into becoming a killing field in which a new form of violence was introduced by Israel.

The colonising power moved from ethnic cleansing to genocide in its attempt to deal with the Palestinian refusal, in particular in the Gaza Strip, to live as a colonised people in the 21st century.

Since 2006, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have used violence in response to what they view as ongoing genocide by Israel against the people of the Gaza Strip. This violence has also been directed at the civilian population in Israel.

Western politicians and journalists often overlooked the indirect and long-term catastrophic effects of these policies on the Gaza population, including the destruction of health infrastructure and the trauma experienced by the 2.2 million people living in the Gaza ghetto.

As it did in 1948, Israel alleges that all its actions are defensive and retaliatory in response to Palestinian violence. In essence, however, Israeli actions since 2006 have not been retaliatory.

Israel initiated violent operations driven by the wish to continue the incomplete 1948 ethnic cleansing that left half of Palestinians inside historic Palestine and millions of others on Palestine’s borders. The eliminatory policies, as brutal as they were, were not successful in this respect; the desperate bouts of Palestinian resistance have instead been used as a pretext to complete the elimination project.

And the cycle continues. When Israel elected an extreme right-wing government in November 2022, Israeli violence was not restricted to Gaza. It appeared everywhere in historical Palestine. In the West Bank, the escalating violence from soldiers and settlers led to incremental ethnic cleansing, particularly in the southern Hebron mountains and the Jordan Valley. This resulted in an increase in killings, including those of teenagers, as well as a rise in arrests without trial.

Since November 2022, a different form of violence has plagued the Palestinian minority living in Israel. This community faces daily terror from criminal gangs that clash with each other, resulting in the murder of one or two community members each day. The police often ignore these issues. Some of these gangs include former collaborators with the occupation who were relocated to Palestinian areas following the Oslo agreement and maintain connections with the Israeli secret service.

Additionally, the new government has exacerbated tensions around the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, permitting more frequent and aggressive incursions into the Haram al-Sharif by politicians, police, and settlers.

It is too difficult to know yet whether there was a clear strategy behind the Hamas attack on October 7, or whether it went according to plan or not, whatever that plan may be. However, 17 years under Israeli blockade and the particularly violent Israeli government of November 2022 added to their determination to try a more drastic and daring form of anti-colonialist struggle for liberation.

Whatever we think about October 7, and we do not have yet a full picture, it was part of a liberation struggle. We may raise both moral questions about Hamas’ actions as well as questions of efficacy; liberation struggles throughout history have had their moments when one could raise such questions and even criticism.

But we cannot forget the source of violence that forced the pastoral people of Palestine after 120 years of colonisation to adopt armed struggle alongside non-violent methods.

On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a significant ruling regarding the status of the West Bank, which went largely unnoticed. The court affirmed that the Gaza Strip is organically connected to the West Bank, and therefore, under international law, Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza. This means that actions against Israel by the people of Gaza are considered part of their right to resist occupation.

Once again, under the guise of retaliation and revenge, Israeli violence following October 7 bears the marks of its previous exploitation of cycles of violence.

This includes using genocide as a means to address Israel’s “demographic” issue — essentially, how to control the land of historical Palestine without its Palestinian inhabitants. By 1967, Israel had taken all of historical Palestine, but the demographic reality thwarted the goal of complete dispossession.

Ironically, Israel established the Gaza Strip in 1948 as a receptor for hundreds of thousands of refugees, “willing” to concede 2% of historical Palestine to remove a significant number of Palestinians expelled by its army during the Nakba.

This particular refugee camp has proven more challenging to Israel’s plans to de-Arabize Palestine than any other area, due to the resilience and resistance of its people.

Any attempt to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza must be made in two ways. First, immediate action is needed to stop the violence through a ceasefire and, ideally, international sanctions on Israel. Second, it is crucial to prevent the next phase of the genocide, which could target the West Bank. This requires the continuation and intensification of the global solidarity movement’s campaign to pressure governments and policymakers into compelling Israel to end its genocidal policies.

Since the late 19th century and the arrival of Zionism in Palestine, the impulse of the Palestinians has not been about violence or revenge. The impulse remains the return to normal and natural life, a right that has been denied to the Palestinians for more than a century, not only by Zionism and Israel but by the powerful alliance that allowed and immunised the project of the dispossession of Palestine.

This is not a wish to romanticise or idealise Palestinian society. It was, and would continue to be, a typical society in a region where tradition and modernity often coexist in a complex relationship, and where collective identities can sometimes lead to divisions, especially when external forces seek to exploit these differences.

However, pre-Zionist Palestine was a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted peacefully, and where most people experienced violence only rarely — likely less frequently than in many parts of the Global North.

Violence as a permanent and massive aspect of life can only be removed when its source is removed. In the case of Palestine, it is the ideology and praxis of the Israeli settler state, not the existential struggle of the colonised Palestinian people.

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor of history at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. He is also the author of the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld) and many other books. Republished with permission by the author from The New Arab.

Gaza killings and the death of Western journalism – why the shocking silence?

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 3, 2024

Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul (right) and cameraman Rami al-Rifi targeted and killed by Israel military this week — Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul (right) and cameraman Rami al-Rifi who were targeted and killed by Israel military this week . . . what would the Western journalistic reaction be if Russian forces killed more than 100 journalists in Ukraine in under a year? Image: RSF

COMMENTARY: By Mohamad Elmasry

On Wednesday, 31 July 2024, the Israeli army killed two more Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi were working when they were struck by Israeli forces in Gaza City.

Al-Ghoul, whose Al Jazeera reports were popular among Arab audiences, was wearing a press vest at the time he was killed.

The latest killings bring Israel’s world-record journalist kill total to at least 113 during the current genocide in Gaza, according to the more conservative estimate. However, the Gaza Media Office has documented at least 165 media people being killed by Israeli forces.

No other world conflict has killed as many journalists in recent memory.

Israel has a long history of violently targeting journalists, so their Gaza kill total is not necessarily surprising.

In fact, a 2023 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report documented a “decades-long pattern” of Israel targeting and killing Palestinian journalists.

Targeted attacks
For example, a Human Rights Watch investigation found that Israel targeted “journalists and media facilities” on four separate occasions in 2012. During the attacks, two journalists were killed, and many others were injured.

In 2019, a United Nations commission found that Israel “intentionally shot” a pair of Palestinian journalists in 2018, killing both.

More recently, in 2022, Israel shot and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.

Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh . . . killed by an Israeli sniper in 2022 with impunity. Image: AJ screenshot APR

Israel attempted to deny responsibility, as it almost always does after it carries out an atrocity, but video evidence was overwhelming, and Israel was forced to admit guilt.

There have been no consequences for the soldier who fired at Abu Akleh, who had been wearing a press vest and a press helmet, or for the Israelis involved in the other incidents targeting journalists.

CPJ has suggested that Israeli security forces enjoy “almost blanket immunity” in incidents of attacks on journalists.

Given this broader context, Israel’s targeting of journalists during the current genocide is genuinely not surprising, or out of the ordinary.

Relative silence
However, what is truly surprising, and even shocking, is the relative silence of Western journalists.

While there has certainly been some reportage and sympathy in North America and Europe, particularly from watchdog organisations like the CPJ and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), there is little sense of journalistic solidarity, and certainly nothing approaching widespread outrage and uproar about the threat Israel’s actions pose to press freedoms.

Can we imagine for a moment what the Western journalistic reaction might be if Russian forces killed more than 100 journalists in Ukraine in under a year?

Even when Western news outlets have reported on Palestinian journalists killed since the start of the current war, coverage has tended to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, often framing the killings as “unintentional casualties” of modern warfare.

Also, Western journalism’s overwhelming reliance on pro-Israel sources has ensured the avoidance of colourful adjectives and condemnations.

Moreover, overreliance on pro-Israel sources has sometimes made it difficult to determine which party to the conflict was responsible for specific killings.

BREAKING: Al Jazeera “journalist” Ismail al-Ghoul has reportedly been killed in Gaza.

Everything you need to know about him can be found in my thread below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/HZq9I3b0wP

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) July 31, 2024

A unique case?
One might assume here that Western news outlets have simply been maintaining their devotion to stated Western reporting principles of detachment and neutrality.

But, in other situations, Western journalists have shown that they are indeed capable of making quite a fuss, and also of demonstrating solidarity.

The 2015 killing of 12 Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists provides a useful case in point.

Following that attack, a genuine media spectacle ensued, with seemingly the entire institution of Western journalism united to focus on the event.

Thousands of reports were generated within weeks, a solidarity hashtag (“Je suis Charlie,” or “I am Charlie”) went viral, and statements and sentiments of solidarity poured in from Western journalists, news outlets and organisations dedicated to principles of free speech.

For example, America’s Society of Professional Journalists called the attack on Charlie Hebdo “barbaric” and an “attempt to stifle press freedom”.

Freedom House issued a similarly harsh commendation, calling the attack “horrific,” and noting that it constituted a “direct threat to the right of freedom of expression”.

PEN America and the British National Secular Society presented awards to Charlie Hebdo and the Guardian Media Group donated a massive sum to the publication.

All journalists threatened
The relative silence and calm of Western journalists over the killing of at least 100 Palestinian journalists in Gaza is especially shocking when one considers the larger context of Israel’s war on journalism, which threatens all journalists.

In October, around the time the current war began, Israel told Western news agencies that it would not guarantee the safety of journalists entering Gaza.

Ever since, Israel has maintained a ban on international journalists, even working to prevent them from entering Gaza during a brief November 2023 pause in fighting.

More importantly, perhaps, Israel has used its sway in the West to direct and control Western news narratives about the war.

Western news outlets have often obediently complied with Israeli manipulation tactics.

For example, as global outrage was mounting against Israel in December 2023, Israel put out false reports of mass, systematic rape against Israeli women by Palestinian fighters on October 7.

Western news outlets, including The New York Times, were suckered in. They downplayed the growing outrage against Israel and began prominently highlighting the “systematic rape” story.

ICJ provisional measures
Later, in January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures against Israel.

Israel responded almost immediately by issuing absurd terrorism accusations against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

Western news outlets downplayed the provisional measures story, which was highly critical of Israel, and spotlighted the allegations against UNRWA, which painted Palestinians in a negative light.

These and other examples of Israeli manipulation of Western news narratives are part of a broader pattern of influence that predates the current war.

One empirical study found that Israel routinely times attacks, especially those likely to kill Palestinian civilians, in ways that ensure they will be ignored or downplayed by US news media.

During the current genocide, Western news organisations have also tended to ignore the broad pattern of censorship of pro-Palestine content on social media, a fact which should concern anyone interested in freedom of expression.

It’s easy to point to a handful of Western news reports and investigations which have been critical of some Israeli actions during the current genocide.

But these reports have been lost in a sea of acquiescence to Israeli narratives and overall pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing.

Several studies, including analyses by the Centre for Media Monitoring and the Intercept, demonstrated overwhelming evidence of pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian framing in Western news reportage of the current war.

Is Western journalism dead?
Many journalists in the United States and Europe position themselves as truth-tellers, critical of power, and watchdogs.

While they acknowledge mistakes in reporting, journalists often see themselves and their news organisations as appropriately striving for fairness, accuracy, comprehensiveness, balance, neutrality and detachment.

But this is the great myth of Western journalism.

A large body of scholarly literature suggests that Western news outlets do not come close to living up to their stated principles.

Israel’s war on Gaza has further exposed news outlets as fraudulent.

With few exceptions, news outlets in North America and Europe have abandoned their stated principles and failed to support Palestinian colleagues being targeted and killed en masse.

Amid such spectacular failure and the extensive research indicating that Western news outlets fall well short of their ideals, we must ask whether it is useful to continue to maintain the myth of the Western journalistic ideal.

Is Western journalism, as envisioned, dead?

Mohamad Elmasry is professor in the Media Studies programme at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Republished from Al Jazeera.

Pacific Journalism Review at 30 – a strong media legacy

David Robie

August 3, 2024

COMMENTARY: By David Robie in Devpolicy Blog

Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) began life three decades ago in Papua New Guinea and recently celebrated a remarkable milestone in Fiji with its 30th anniversary edition and its 47th issue.

Remarkable because it is the longest surviving Antipodean media, journalism and development journal published in the Global South. It is also remarkable because at its birthday event held in early July at the Pacific International Media Conference, no fewer than two cabinet ministers were present — from Fiji and Papua New Guinea — in spite of the journal’s long track record of truth-to-power criticism.

Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad, a former economics professor at The University of the South Pacific (USP) and a champion of free media, singled out the journal for praise at the event, which was also the occasion of the launch of a landmark new book.

READ MORE: Other Pacific Media 2024 reports

Designer Del Abcede at the media crush in last month's 30th anniversary celebration of Pacific Journalism Review — Designer Del Abcede at the media crush in last month’s 30th anniversary celebration of Pacific Journalism Review in Suva, Fiji, where it was published for five years at the University of the South Pacific. Image: Khairiah Rahman/APMN

As co-editor of Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific with Shailendra Singh and Amit Sarwal, Prasad says the book aimed to analyse recent developments in the Pacific because if sustainable peace and stability remain elusive in the region then long-term development is impeded.

Papua New Guinea’s Information and Communication Technologies Minister Timothy Masiu, who has faced criticism over a controversial draft media policy (now in its fifth version), joined the discussion, expressing concerns about geopolitical agendas impacting on the media and arguing in favour of “a way forward for a truly independent and authentic Pacific media”.

Since its establishment in 1994, the PJR has been far more than a research journal. As an independent publication, it has given strong support to Asia-Pacific investigative journalism, socio-political journalism, political-economy perspectives on the media, photojournalism and political cartooning in its three decades of publication. Its ethos declared:

While one objective of Pacific Journalism Review is research into Pacific journalism theory and practice, the journal has also expanding its interest into new areas of research and inquiry that reflect the broader impact of contemporary media practice and education.

A particular focus is on the cultural politics of the media, including the following issues: new media and social movements, indigenous cultures in the age of globalisation, the politics of tourism and development, the role of the media and the formation of national identity and the cultural influence of Aotearoa New Zealand as a branch of the global economy within the Pacific region.

It also has a special interest in climate change, environmental and development studies in the media and communication and vernacular media in the region.

PJR has also been an advocate of journalism practice-as-research methodologies and strategies, as demonstrated especially in its Frontline section, initiated by one of the mentoring co-editors, former University of Technology Sydney professor and investigative journalist Wendy Bacon, and also developed by retired Monash University Professor Chris Nash. Five of the current editorial board members were at the 30th birthday event: Griffith University’s Professor Mark Pearson; USP’s Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, the conference convenor; Auckland University of Technology’s Khairiah Abdul Rahman; designer Del Abcede; and current editor Dr Philip Cass.

The cover of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: PJR

As the founding editor of PJR, I must acknowledge the Australian Journalism Review which is almost double the age of PJR, because this is where I first got the inspiration for establishing the journal. While I was head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1993, I was really frustrated at the lack of quality Pacific-specific media and journalism literature and research to draw on as resources for both critical studies and practice-led education.

So I looked longingly at AJR, and also contributed to it. I turned to the London-based Index on Censorship as another publication to emulate. And I thought, why not? We can do that in the Pacific and so I persuaded the University of Papua New Guinea Press to come on board and published the first edition at the derelict campus printer in Waigani in 1994.

We published there until 1998 when PJR moved to USP for five years. Then it was published for 18 years at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), mostly through the Pacific Media Centre, which closed in 2020. Since then it has been published by the nonprofit NGO Asia Pacific Media Network.

When celebrating the 20th anniversary of the journal at AUT in 2014, then AJR editor professor Ian Richards noted the journal’s “dogged perseverance” and contribution to Oceania research declaring:

Today, PJR plays a vital role publishing research from and about this part of the world. This is important for a number of reasons, not least because most academics ground their work in situations with which they are most familiar, and this frequently produces articles which are extremely local. If “local” means London or Paris or New York, then it’s much easier to present your work as “international” than if you live in Port Vila of Pago Pago, Auckland or Adelaide.

Also in 2014, analyst Dr Lee Duffield highlighted the critical role of PJR during the years of military rule and “blatant military censorship” in Fiji, which has eased since the repeal of its draconian Media Industry Development Act in 2023. He remarked:

The same is true of PJR’s agenda-setting in regard to crises elsewhere: jailing of journalists in Tonga, threatened or actual media controls in Tahiti or PNG, bashing of an editor in Vanuatu by a senior government politician, threats also against the media in Solomon Islands, and reporting restrictions in Samoa.

Fiji's Deputy PM Professor Biman Prasad (sixth from left) and PNG's Communications Minister Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of PJR — Fiji’s Deputy PM Professor Biman Prasad (sixth from left) and PNG’s Communications Minister Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of PJR in Suva, Fiji. Image: Khairiah Rahman/APMN

At the 30th anniversary launch, USP’s Adjunct Professor in development studies and governance Dr Vijay Naidu complimented the journal on the wide range of topics covered by its more than 1,100 research articles. He said the journal had established itself as a critical conscience with respect to Asia-Pacific socio-political and development dilemmas, and looked forward to the journal meeting future challenges.

I outlined many of those future challenges in a recent interview with Global Voices correspondent Mong Palatino. Issues that have become more pressing for the journal include responding to the changing geopolitical realities in the Pacific and collaborating even more creatively and closely on development, the climate crisis, and unresolved decolonisation issues with the region’s journalists, educators and advocates. To address these challenges, the PJR team have been working on an innovative new publishing strategy over the past few months.

Flashback to the 20th anniversary of PJR - collaborators on board the vaka: — Flashback to the 20th anniversary of PJR – collaborators on board the vaka: From left: Pat Craddock, Chris Nash, Lee Duffield, Trevor Cullen, Philip Cass, Wendy Bacon, Tui O’Sullivan, Shailendra Singh, Del Abcede, Kevin Upton (in cycle crash helmet), and David Robie. Riding the sail: Mark Pearson, Campion Ohasio, Ben Bohane, Allison Oosterman and John Miller. Also: Barry King (on water skis) and the cartoonist, Malcolm Evans, riding a dolphin. © 2014 Malcolm Evans/Pacific Journalism Review/Devpolicy Blog

View the latest Pacific Journalism Review: Gaza, genocide and media – PJR 30 years on, special double edition. The journal is indexed by global research databases such as Informit and Ebsco, but it is also available via open access for a Pacific audience here on the Tuwhera publications platform at Auckland University of Technology.

This article is republished from ANU’s Devpolicy Blog. Dr David Robie is founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review, former director of the Pacific Media Centre, and previously a head of journalism at both the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific.

Caitlin Johnstone: Promoting peace and stability in the Middle East by unconditionally backing its worst aggressor

Cafe Pacific Publisher

August 2, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden at the White House . . . "nothing emphasises the importance of de-escalating broader tensions in the region like pledging unconditional military support for the region’s single most belligerent actor no matter how reckless and insane its aggressions become." Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

President Joe Biden — if you feel like pretending Biden is still serving as President and still making the decisions in the White House — has pledged to support Israel against any retaliations for its recent assassination spree in Iran and Lebanon which killed high-profile officials from Hamas and Hezbollah.

A White House statement asserts that Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday and “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,” and “discussed efforts to support Israel’s defence against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive US military deployments.”

Hilariously, the statement also claims that “the President stressed the importance of ongoing efforts to de-escalate broader tensions in the region.”

Yep, nothing emphasises the importance of de-escalating broader tensions in the region like pledging unconditional military support for the region’s single most belligerent actor no matter how reckless and insane its aggressions become.

This statement from the White House echoes comments from Secretary of “Defence” Lloyd Austin a day earlier, who said “We certainly will help defend Israel” should a wider war break out as a result of Israel’s assassination strikes.

Biden promises Netanyahu the U.S. will defend Israel from any reprisal attacks pic.twitter.com/9meq2hTBmq

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) August 1, 2024

All this babbling about “defending” the state of Israel is intended to convey the false impression that Israel has just been sitting there minding its own business, and is about to suffer unprovoked attacks from hostile aggressors for some unfathomable reason.

As though detonating military explosives in the capital cities of two nations to conduct political assassinations would not be seen as an extreme act of war in need of a violent response by literally all governments on this planet.

Helping Israeli attacks
In reality, the US isn’t vowing to defend the state of Israel, the US is vowing to help Israel attack other countries.

If you’re pledging unconditional support to an extremely belligerent aggressor while it commits the most demented acts of aggression imaginable, all you’re doing is condoning those acts of aggression and making sure it will suffer no consequences when it conducts more of them.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has reiterated its calls for Israeli forces “to minimize the impact of military operations on civilians in Gaza and to end the killing of journalists.”

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/zy5TRLrI15 pic.twitter.com/U3wHa464IQ

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 1, 2024

Washington’s position is made even more absurd after all the hysterical shrieking and garment-rending from the Washington establishment following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Israel murdered the leader of the Hamas political bureau, not a military commander, and he was the primary negotiator in the mediated ceasefire talks with Israel.

This was a political assassination just like a successful attempt on Trump’s life would have been, but probably a lot more consequential. And yet the only response from Washington has been to announce that it will help Israel continue its incendiary brinkmanship throughout the Middle East.

Washington swamp monsters talk all the time about their desire to promote “peace and stability in the Middle East”, while simultaneously pledging loyalty and support for a Middle Eastern nation whose actions pose a greater obstacle to peace and stability in the region than any other.

These contradictions are becoming more and more glaring and apparent before the entire world.

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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