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Reb Halabi: Witness to horror upon horror in Gaza, I scream underwater

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There’s no escape for Gazans
There’s no escape for Gazans but there is the inescapable conclusion that this is exactly what Israel wants and has planned since October. They want to make Gaza uninhabitable for even a dog to survive. Image: Pearls and Irritations

COMMENTARY: By Reb Halabi

I recently heard the British-Palestinian Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah tell of the horrors of Israel’s total destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare system.

Many children who have lost both parents and extended family in Israel’s inhumane and incomprehensible slaughter of Gazans, have also lost their limbs, eyes and certainly their futures.

Dr Abu-Sittah alerts the world that these children are destined for what can only be described as an appalling and destitute future. When one toddler drowns in a pool in Australia, we all mourn and sympathise with the family.

Why are 13,000 children not mourn-worthy?

Child amputees (some of whom were amputated without anaesthetic) will need reconstruction on their amputated limbs. They will need new prosthetics every six months because as a child they grow so fast; but none of this is going to be possible because of Israel’s complete decimation of the health care system in Gaza.

There is no escape for Gazans but there is the inescapable conclusion that this is exactly what Israel wants and has planned since October. They want to make Gaza uninhabitable for even a dog to survive.

Then Israel can cruise in and, in Jared Kushner’s words, “clean up” Gaza’s valuable waterfront and develop their new Riviera.

Inhumane catastrophe
I know we have been witnessing this since October and I know it is in the news, if not the irresponsible and heartless mainstream media, but it is on such channels as Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera. Regardless of how often I hear or see of this inhumane catastrophe, I still believe it to be utterly inconceivable that this slaughter is going on and the

world…is…not…stopping…it.

Q. When your plans are to displace your neighbour and clear out their belongings, how do you implement those plans and where are you going to shove your neighbour to?

A. Into the barren desert next door.

There’s no mistaking the full intent of the US and Israeli governments now that representatives have been caught whispering in a dark corner with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. If anyone was in doubt as to the long view of the Israeli government, then this bit of information should be crystal clear.

Machinations between countries and international bodies took place recently. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has couched the “loan” they are offering Egypt as supposed financial support due to, “[the] economic difficulties posed [to Egypt] by the Israel-Gaza war”. (It’s not a war, it’s the attempted eradication of defenceless people, a genocide, an ethnic cleansing and an end game to get rid of the thorn in Israel’s side).

The IMF goes on to say that the $10 billion offering to Egypt is to “help the Egyptian economy survive amid local and external factors”. The external factors of this dark plan is to open the gates on the border of Egypt and Gaza, and for the IDF to herd (they are “human animals” after all) the Palestinians across into the desolate Sinai, never to return.

Israel will slam the gates shut, turn back, and start on the redevelopment of a fabulous Israeli Riviera. Jared Kushner will be pleased. He and his family, possibly, have already optioned prime real estate lots.

Egypt’s ‘another prison’
Egypt’s part in this plan, for their financial gain, is to construct another outdoor prison for the Palestinians to set up camp, then perhaps the US and Israel hope the prisoners will be forgotten by the world.

The poor Palestinians will be moved from prison Gaza to prison Sinai. Most have been born in a prison, will live in a prison and die in a prison — and they have committed no crime. What a blight on the world’s conscience.

The Christian nation of the US sermonises loudly and incessantly to other nations regarding human rights violations, such as in China, Russia and Iran.

They have admonished many regions of the world for their inhumane treatment of people, yet there they are, laying out their hypocrisy without any attempt to pull the veil over their faces and hide their shame.

Mid-February a headline in France 24 read, “Egypt building ‘enclosure’ for displaced Gazans in Sinai”. It goes on to say that the construction of a walled camp is to “receive” Palestinians.

Let’s just look at those two words, displaced and receive. Displaced makes it sounds like a terrible flood or natural disaster has befallen certain areas and in order to help people out in a time of dire need the Egyptian government are preparing to “receive” them, like a host welcoming them with champagne and canapés. WTF?

Another expression is that the new prison in the Sinai is a “contingency plan”. What? As opposed to a ceasefire and sovereignty which would make the most humane sense of all?

Repellent euphemisms
These softly, softly words and euphemisms are truly repellent. What we are witnessing is not a safe haven for the Palestinians to escape to, but the opening of the prison gates which will lead directly to the next prison for the next seven decades.

And who are guarding the prison gates on both sides? Israel and the United States, that’s who.

President el-Sisi has caved in to two of the most bullying and oppressive nations.

Apparently, he will sell out his Muslim brothers, sisters, grandmothers and children for $10 billion. This money, primarily from the IMF, has a whiff of facilitating the removal of people from their indigenous land.

They must surely know what they are doing, and that is to brush the demands and cause of the Gazans and Palestinians right under the Egyptian carpet.

Gary Field’s book titled Enclosure is a must read for those interested in the dispossession of Palestinians from their land. Power and space are examined with a focus on orchestrated exclusionary landscapes; like the one that occurred in 1948.

The Palestinians have been moved from what was their entire homeland, to ever decreasing scraps of land. Now it appears they will be shoved off entirely from the Gaza strip in the long-awaited plan of Netanyahu and his dark-hearted ilk unless world leaders step up to the decency plate.

I feel like I’m screaming underwater. Why aren’t the other 193 countries in the world screaming above the water line as they witness this horror right in front of their eyes? Why aren’t more leaders made of strong moral fibre which should naturally be horrified by the actions of the US and Israel?

Reb Halabi is a PhD candidate focusing on the intersection of religion and geopolitics. This article was first published on John Menadue’s public policy journal Pearls and Irritations and is republished here with permission.

PJR to celebrate 30 years of journalism publishing at Pacific Media 2024 conference

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Pacific Media Watch

Pacific Journalism Review, the Pacific and New Zealand’s only specialist media research journal, is celebrating 30 years of publishing this year — and it will mark the occasion at the Pacific Media International Conference in Fiji in July.

Founded at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994, PJR also published for five years at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji before moving on to AUT’s Pacific Media Centre (PMC).  It is currently being published by the Auckland-based Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

Founding editor Dr David Robie, formerly director of the PMC before he retired from academic life three years ago, said: “This is a huge milestone — three decades of Pacific media research, more than 1000 peer-reviewed articles and an open access database thanks to AUT’s Tuwhera digital research platform.

PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024
PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024

“These days the global research publishing model often denies people access to research if they don’t have access to libraries, so open access is critically important in a Pacific context.”

Current editor Dr Philip Cass told Asia Pacific Report: “For us to return to USP will be like coming home.

“For 30 years PJR has been the only journal focusing exclusively on media and journalism in the Pacific region.

Pacific Journalism Review Vol 27(1-2), July 2022
Pacific Journalism Review Vol 28(1-2), July 2022 . . . now turning 30. Image:

“Our next edition will feature articles on the Pacific, New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia.

“We are maintaining our commitment to the Islands while expanding our coverage of the region.”

Both Dr Cass and Dr Robie are former academic staff at USP; Dr Cass was one of the founding lecturers of the degree journalism programme and launched the student journalist newspaper Wansolwara and Dr Robie was head of journalism 1998-2002.

The 20th anniversary of the journal was celebrated with a conference at AUT University. At the time, an Indonesian-New Zealand television student, Sasya Wreksono, made a short documentary about PJR and Dr Lee Duffield of Queensland University of Technology wrote an article about the journal’s history.

Many journalism researchers from the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) and other networks have been strong contributors to PJR, including professors Chris Nash and Wendy Bacon, who pioneered the Frontline section devoted to investigative journalism and innovative research.


The Life of Pacific Journalism Review.  Video: PMC/Sasya Wreksono

The launch of the 30th anniversary edition of PJR will be held at the conference on July 4-6 with Professor Vijay Naidu, who is adjunct professor in the disciplines of development studies and governance at USP’s School of Law and Social Sciences.

Several of the PJR team will be present at USP, including longtime designer Del Abcede.

A panel on research journalism publication will also be held at the conference with several editors and former editors taking part, including former editor Professor Mark Pearson of the Australian Journalism Review. This is being sponsored by the APMN, one of the conference partners.

Conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, head of journalism at USP, is also on the editorial board of PJR and a key contributor.

Three PJR covers and three countries
Three PJR covers and three countries . . . volume 4 (1997, PNG), volume 8 (2002, Fiji), and volume 29 (2023, NZ). Montage: PJR

Why Israel’s attacks on journalists are backfiring and it is losing its war on truth

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ANALYSIS: By Rami G Khouri

For the past six months, Israel has put a lot of effort into covering up its genocidal crimes in Gaza. One of the most brutal ways it does this is by routinely threatening, targeting and assassinating Palestinian journalists.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported that at least 95 Palestinian journalists have been killed since October 7 alongside two Israelis and three Lebanese.[Café Pacific comments: Al Jazeera has reported 137 journalists killed in Gaza, citing the Media Office statistics. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports more than 103 journalists killed in Gaza].

This is the highest death toll of journalists in any modern conflict that CPJ has monitored. Another 25 Palestinian journalists have been detained by Israeli forces, and four are missing.

Israel also bans foreign media outlets from entering Gaza, forcing them to report from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or southern Israel. On Israeli territory, they must comply with the rules and censorship of the Israeli Military Censor, which is part of the Israeli army and requires media materials be submitted for its review prior to publication or broadcasting.

On Monday, the Israeli Knesset also passed a law allowing its government to shut down news networks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to use the legislation to ban Al Jazeera.

Killing journalists and censoring media operating in Israel are supposed to ensure that global coverage reflects Israel’s spin on events or ignores aspects of its scorched earth conduct in Gaza.

But this strategy is failing for three reasons. First, because scores of highly motivated Palestinian journalists continue to brave Israeli bombardment and fire to report on events on the ground. Second, because ordinary Palestinians also document and share on social media their coverage of events. Third, because international media increasingly question Israeli accounts of events and demand more verified facts.

‘Kill first’ behaviour
Worse for Israel, its behaviour to kill first, accuse the dead of terrorism and then not answer any questions is actually backfiring.

It is generating greater global attention and media coverage of the assassinations of Palestinian journalists along with demands for Israeli political and legal accountability, which increased after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) proclaimed that Israel is “plausibly” carrying out genocidal acts in Gaza.


Is the horror of Rafah being downplayed or do we not have the words to describe it? Video: Al Jazeera

This backlash is increasingly apparent even in American mainstream media, which tend to slant pro-Israel. In an unusually bold article published on CNN’s website on March 20, Oliver Darcy, the channel’s senior media reporter, openly criticised the Israeli armed forces and government for the deaths of journalists in Gaza.

“With each death, the world sees a little less from the war-torn region. It is incumbent on Israel, which is responsible for the conduct of its military forces, to fully explain its actions when a member of the press is killed. So far, however, the [Israeli military] has been less than forthcoming,” Darcy wrote.

United States media outlets have also launched their own investigations into the assassinations of Palestinian journalists. The Washington Post, for example, investigated the killings of four Palestinian journalists — among them Al Jazeera’s Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya — by an Israeli missile that hit their car on January 7 near Khan Younis.

Its research raised significant doubts about Israel’s claim that the men were “terrorists” who threatened Israeli troops.

Representatives of major US media outlets — including NBC, CNN, The New York Times and The New Yorker — also signed a letter with other foreign media organisations calling on Israel to protect Palestinian journalists’ rights and hold to account those responsible for their deaths.

Covering the violations
Meanwhile, various nonprofit organisations have dedicated significant resources to covering the violations against and killings of Palestinian journalists. The CPJ, RSF and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which represents 600,000 journalists in 140 countries, have issued regular reports on the situation in Gaza.

On February 26, the IFJ observed the International Day for Palestinian Journalists and called on its affiliates to support and come out in solidarity with them.

The Security in Context network of international scholars published a paper revealing how Israel restricts media “beyond detentions and assassinations, to target media institutions, resulting in the complete or partial destruction of over 60 local and foreign media institutions”.

The United Nations has also extensively documented the plight of Palestinian journalists. In early February, five special rapporteurs of the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights warned:

“We have received disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked ‘press’ or traveling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack, which would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting.”

They asked the ICJ and the International Criminal Court to pay special attention to crimes committed against Palestinian media workers.

Many more international expressions of support for Palestinian journalists have come from their colleagues around the world.

Experienced an attack
Seasoned American journalist Lawrence “Larry” Pintak, for decades a CBS foreign correspondent and later the founding dean of the Edward R Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, is certain that Israel has attacked and killed journalists — because he experienced one such attack on his own film crew in southern Lebanon in 1984.

“This is not a new story,” he told me in a recent interview. “Journalists who know the Middle East have no doubt that Israel has targeted journalists, as many of us witnessed first-hand. But it is also likely that some were killed by random hits.”

Only independent investigations can reveal the facts of any killing, but Israel never allows these to happen. The cumulative evidence of Israel assassinating journalists causes more international media organisations and individuals to doubt Israeli accounts of new deaths, Pintak said.

“We journalists are a tribe, and we become defensive when someone attacks us. This is happening with Israel’s repeated denial that it kills journalists. It creates a backlash, for sure, as the media now demands more facts before believing or rejecting Israel’s accounts, and media organisations themselves now conduct many of the forensic investigations that generate facts.”

Israel’s attacks on journalists increase scrutiny, rather than curtail it, as scores of highly motivated younger Palestinian journalists simply “pick up the fallen cameras of their assassinated colleagues and keep filming”, he said.

Apart from extending solidarity within the profession, media professionals across the world are also concerned about the larger effect of the impunity with which Israel targets Palestinian journalists.

Endangers colleagues
Julia Bacha, award-winning producer of Boycott and other documentaries on Palestine-Israel, explained in a phone interview that beyond Israel’s criminal actions and Palestinian families’ grief, the targeting of Palestinian journalists endangers their colleagues elsewhere as well.

“This issue is critical because what happens here will impact journalism elsewhere for years. We cannot let this moment in modern history of the unprecedented rate of killing journalists pass without urgent action to protect the media during wars,” she explained.

“It would send a very bad message to others in the world, especially autocrats who feel they can ignore laws and kill journalists as they wish. Journalists must be allowed to work safely because we can only hold people accountable for criminal deeds if we have the facts that only on-the-spot journalists can gather, verify and disseminate.”

Indeed, by mass killing Palestinian journalists, Israel positions itself alongside other brutal regimes that deny or restrict media coverage of their actions, which further exposes the big holes in its democratic credentials that it tries to project to international media.

By attacking Palestinian journalists and denying foreign media access to Gaza, it has shot itself in the foot and weakened its own credibility.

Israel is clearly losing its war on truth.

Rami G Khouri is a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East. He is also a contributor to Al Jazeera where this article was first published.

Caitlin Johnstone: Six months of hell on Earth

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Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Half a year of atrocities in Gaza
Half a year of atrocities justified by something that happened way back in October, and didn’t even happen the way the news media tell us it happened. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Six months of this now. Half a year.

Half a year of genocide apologia.

Half a year of the most outrageous lies you can possibly imagine.

Half a year of seeing children’s bodies ripped to pieces and starved to skeletons on our social media feeds.

Half a year of atrocities justified by something that happened way back in October, and didn’t even happen the way the news media tell us it happened.

Half a year of western government officials pretending obvious evidence of war crimes is just some ineffable mystery that we’ll hopefully have answers to someday.

Half a year of Israeli officials openly stating their genocidal intentions in Hebrew for their Israeli audience and paying lip service to human rights and compassion in English for their western liberal audience.

Half a year of seeing reports that the IDF did something unbelievably evil, thinking “That can’t be right, let me check it out,” and then going “Oh, nope, it’s actually even more evil than I thought.”

Half a year of the Western political-media class trying to frame the direct sponsorship of an active genocide as something other than what it is.

Half a year of passive-language “Palestinian child walks into bullet” headlines from the mainstream press.

Half a year of insulting our intelligence.

Half a year of insulting our humanity.

Half a year of unfathomable suffering.

Half a year of irreparable trauma.

Half a year of irreplaceable loss.

This fucking sucks, man. It sucks so bad. I’ve always enjoyed doing commentary on the crimes of the empire, but these last six months have been truly harrowing. It’s awful having to stare directly at hell on earth from day to day with compassion in your heart. The only thing keeping this project going is the fact that it needs to be done, and the knowledge that my own suffering isn’t the faintest shadow of what the Palestinians are going through right now.

This needs to end. It needs to end with desperate urgency. But we’re seeing no signs that it’s about to.

I don’t have anything wise or insightful to add to any of this right now. Some days all you can do is point to the nightmare and call it what it is, and we can all just be real about reality and feel our feelings about that.

I guess all I can really say is that at least we’re not alone in seeing what we’re seeing. The whole world is watching Israel commit a horrifying mass atrocity backed by the full might of the empire, and more and more eyes are opening to the reality of what this means for their society and everything they’ve been told to believe about it.

Every positive change in human behavior is always preceded by an expansion of consciousness, and Gaza is expanding Western consciousness like nothing ever before.

So at least there’s that. At least there’s the possibility that something good might one day grow out of this steaming pile of shit.

And that’s all I’ve got for you. That’s the best I can do right now.

Caitlin Johnstone is an independent Australian journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article was first published here and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

APR editor criticises NZ media coverage over Israel’s war on Gaza

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Pacific Media Watch

Pacific media commentator and Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie has criticised New Zealand media coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as “lopsided” in favour of Tel Aviv.

He said New Zealand media was too dependent on American and British news services, which were based in two of the countries most committed to Israel and in denial of the genocide that was happening.

New Zealand media were tending to treat the conflict as “just another war” instead of the reality of a “horrendous” series of massacres with a long-lasting impact on Western credibility and commitment to a global rules-based order.

Dr Robie was interviewed on Plains FM 96.9 community radio by Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths.

Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths.
Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths.

Lois asked: “What is happening to Gaza now is a nightmare, very disturbing, or should be, and yet are we, the public, in New Zealand and other countries, are we getting the true picture from journalists?”

Dr Robie replied, “No, we are getting a very sanitised version through our media, particularly in New Zealand, less so in Australia, but it’s pretty bad there . . .”

He explained the reasons for his criticism.

Praise for AJ and TRT coverage
During the half-hour interview, Dr Robie praised television coverage of the “real war” by independent news services such as the Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Turkey-based TRT World News, which have had Arabic-speaking Palestinian journalists on the ground in Gaza throughout the six-month-old war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Al Jazeera this week with closure of the network’s operations in Israel — under the powers of a new law — because of its graphic and uncensored coverage from the besieged enclave.

Al Jazeera called Netanyahu’s attack “slanderous” and managing editor Mohamed Moawad said: “What we are doing is trying to give voice to the voiceless and try and make sure that the suffering of civilians on the ground is heard by the entire world.”

Almost 33,000 Palestinians and more than 75,000 others have been wounded as outrage grows globally following Israel’s strike and killing of aid workers in Gaza this week.

Dr Robie is the founding director of the Pacific Media Centre and is pioneering editor of Pacific Journalism Review.


Plains FM’s Earthwise talks to journalist David Robie.   Video/Audio: Plains FM

Three NZ Arab doctors joining Kia Ora Gaza humanitarian aid mission

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Kia Ora Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition
Kia Ora Gaza and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition . . . “Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it isn't sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza.”

Asia Pacific Report

Three New Zealand doctors — two Palestinian and one Iraq-born — are planning to join the charity Kia Ora Gaza in its mission this month to provide humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave, reports 1News.

But reporter Simon Mercep says “they’re not completely sure whether they’ll reach the Gaza coast and step on dry land”.

Mercep asked Gaza-born Dr Wasfi Shahin how hopeful was he?

“He paused before smiling as he told 1News tonight: ‘Fifty percent. Not more’.

But Mercep said he remained determined.

Dr Shain said: “I hope I can reach there to see what I left 50 years ago.”

1News asked Faiez Idais, a Jordan-trained doctor, how dangerous he expected the mission to be.

‘We’ll be in danger’
“If they [the people of Gaza] are in danger, we’ll be in danger. It’s not a problem for us,” he said.

“They don’t have even water to drink. They don’t have food to eat.”

“I am a physician,” he added. “I can’t do anything from here.”

Dr Idais was born in Jerusalem and has never been to the Gaza Strip.

The third doctor, Iraqi-born Dr Adnan Al-Kenani, took a pragmatic approach, reports Mercep.

The three doctors off to Gaza
The three doctors off to Gaza . . . Dr Faiez Idais (from left), Dr Adnan Al-Kenani and Gaza-born Dr Wasfi Shahin (seated) . . . “If we get an opportunity, if we land there, we can do service.” Image: 1News screenshot APR

“If we get an opportunity, if we land there, we can do service on land,” he said. “It depends on the circumstances there. But we are purely a health organisation.”

The doctors will fly out of Auckland next week to join the Freedom Flotilla Coalition international humanitarian effort, which is assembling ships at the port of Istanbul in Turkiye.

A container vessel and one ship for volunteers is already there, and a third is expected to join soon.

Seven aid workers killed
Since the doctors were interviewed for the report last weekend, seven international charity workers were killed in a drone attack by Israeli forces in Gaza — six foreigners and a Palestinian.

This took the death toll of aid workers to at least 203 aid workers in Israel’s deadly six-month war on Gaza, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.

The killing has caused outrage around the world and the founder of the charity World Central Kitchen that employed the aid workers, Spanish American celebrity chef Jose Andres,  said they were “targeted systematically”.

This took the death toll of aid workers to 195 in Israel’s deadly six-month war on Gaza.

Dr Adnan Ali, a GP and surgeon from Auckland, and Kia Ora Gaza coordinator Roger Fowler
Dr Adnan Al-Kenani , a GP and surgeon from Auckland, and Kia Ora Gaza coordinator Roger Fowler speaking at a Palestine solidarity rally in Aotea Square last Sunday. Image: David Robie/APR

‘Catastrophic hunger’
Meanwhile, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition reports that it will be sailing in mid-April with several vessels carrying 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of international human rights observers to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

“This is an emergency mission as the situation in Gaza is dire, with famine setting in in northern Gaza, and catastrophic hunger present throughout the Gaza Strip as the result of a deliberate policy by the Israeli government to starve the Palestinian people,” the coalition said in a statement.

“Time is critical as experts predict that hunger and disease could claim more lives than have been killed in the bombing.

“Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza.”

The statement added that “allowing Israel to control what and how much humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in Gaza is like letting the fox manage the henhouse.”

Asia Pacific Report with 1News and Freedom Flotilla Coalition reporting.

The Majestic, one of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition ships
The Majestic, one of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition ships bound for Gaza. Image: 1News screenshot APR

Israel’s Al Jazeera ban ‘alarms’ media watchdog on free press stranglehold

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Pacific Media Watch

The New York-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists says the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of his intention to ban Al Jazeera follows a similar pattern of media interference, including the killing of media workers.

“We’ve seen this kind of language before from Netanyahu and Israeli officials in which they try to paint journalists as ‘terrorists’, as ‘criminals’. This is nothing new,” CPJ’s chief executive Jodie Ginsberg told Al Jazeera.

“It’s another example of the tightening of the free press and the stranglehold the Israeli government would like to exercise. It’s an incredibly worrying move by the government.”


War on Gaza – Israel’s planned Al Jazeera ban condemned         Video: Al Jazeera

Mohamed Moawad, the managing editor of Al Jazeera, said: “What we are doing is trying to give voice to the voiceless and try and make sure that the suffering of civilians on the ground is heard by the entire world.”

Netanyahu wrote on X on Monday that “Al Jazeera harmed Israel’s security, actively participated in the October 7 massacre, and incited against Israeli soldiers.

“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity.’

The Qatar-based network rejected what it described as “slanderous accusations” and accused Netanyahu of “incitement”.

“Al Jazeera holds the Israeli Prime Minister responsible for the safety of its staff and network premises around the world, following his incitement and this false accusation in a disgraceful manner,” it said in a statement.

‘Slanderous accusations’
“Al Jazeera reiterates that such slanderous accusations will not deter us from continuing our bold and professional coverage, and reserves the right to pursue every legal step.”

Netanyahu has long sought to shut down broadcasts from Al Jazeera, alleging anti-Israel bias, the network reports on its website.

The law, which passed in a 71-10 vote in the Knesset, gives the prime minister and communications minister the authority to order the closure of foreign networks operating in Israel and confiscate their equipment if it is believed they pose “harm to the state’s security”.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that an Israeli move to shut down Al Jazeera would be “concerning”.

“The United States supports the critically important work of journalists around the world and that includes those who are reporting in the conflict in Gaza,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

“So we believe that work is important. The freedom of the press is important. And if those reports are true, it is concerning to us.”

The legislation’s passage comes nearly five months after Israel said it would block Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen. It refrained from shutting Al Jazeera at the same time.

Move with closure
After the vote on Monday, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said he intended to move forward with the closure. He said Al Jazeera had been acting as a “propaganda arm of Hamas” by “encouraging armed struggle against Israel”.

“It is impossible to tolerate a media outlet, with press credentials from the Government Press Office and offices in Israel, acting from within against us, certainly during wartime,” he said.

According to news agencies, his office said the order would seek to block the channel’s broadcasts in Israel and prevent it from operating in the country. The order would not apply to the occupied West Bank or Gaza.

Israel has often lashed out at Al Jazeera, which has offices in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

In May 2022, Israeli forces shot dead senior Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.

A UN-commissioned report concluded that Israeli forces used “lethal force without justification” in the killing, violating her “right to life”.

During the war in Gaza, several of the channel’s journalists and their family members have been killed by Israeli bombardments.

On October 25, an air raid killed the family of Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, including his wife, son, daughter, grandson and at least eight other relatives.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 32,782 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.

Pacific Media Watch, Asia Pacific Report and news agencies.

From Gaza to West Papua, the long struggle for justice and freedom

By
David Robie
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ANALYSIS: By David Robie

On my office wall hangs a framed portrait of Shireen Abu Akleh, the inspiring and celebrated American-Palestinian journalist known across the Middle East to watchers of Al Jazeera Arabic, who was assassinated by an Israeli military sniper with impunity.

State murder.

She was gunned down in full blue “press” kit almost two years ago while reporting on a raid in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, clearly targeted for her influence as a media witness to Israeli atrocities.

West Papua . . . Indonesia is claiming to oppose genocide in Gaza
West Papua . . . “Indonesia is claiming to oppose genocide in Gaza while committing their own genocide in West Papua.” Image: AJ screenshot APR

As in the case of all 22 journalists who had been killed by Israeli military until that day, 11 May 2022, nobody was charged.

Now, six months into the catastrophic and genocidal Israeli War on Gaza, some 137 Palestinian journalists have been killed — murdered – by Israeli snipers, or targeted bombs demolishing their homes, and even their families.

Also in my office is pasted a red poster with a bird-of-paradise shaped pen in chains and the legend “Open access for journalists – Free press in West Papua.”

The poster was from a 2017 World Media Freedom Day conference in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, which I attended as a speaker and wrote about. Until this day, there is still no open door for international journalists

Harassed, beaten
Although only one killing of a Papuan journalist is recorded, there have been many instances when local news reporters have been harassed, beaten and threatened – beyond the reach of international media.

Ardiansyah Matra was savagely beaten and his body dumped in the Maro River, Merauke. A spokesperson for the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Victor Mambor, said at the time: “‘It’s highly likely that his murder is connected with the terror situation for journalists which was occurring at the time of Ardiansyah’s death.”

Dr David Robie . . . author and advocate.
Dr David Robie . . . author and advocate. Image: Café Pacific

Frequently harassed himself, Mambor, founder and publisher of Jubi Media, was apparently the target of a suspected bomb attack, or warning, on 23 January 2023, when Jayapura police investigated a blast outside his home in Angkasapura Village.

At first glance, it may seem strange that comparisons are being made between the War on Gaza in the Middle East and the long-smouldering West Papuan human rights crisis in the Asia-Pacific region almost 11,000 km away. But there are several factors at play.

Melanesian and Pacific activists frequently mention both the Palestinian and West Papuan struggles in the same breath. A figure of up to 500,000 deaths among Papuans is often cited as the toll from 1969 when Indonesia annexed the formerly Dutch colony in controversial circumstances under the flawed Act of Free Choice, characterised by critics as the Act of “No” Choice.

The death toll in Gaza after the six-month war on the besieged enclave by Israel is already almost 33,000 (in reality far higher if the unknown number of casualties buried under the rubble is added). Most of the deaths are women and children.

At least 27 children have died of malnutrition so far with numbers expected to rise sharply.

Indonesian soldiers gag journalists in West Papua
Indonesian soldiers gag journalists in West Papua – the cartoon could easily be referring to Gaza where attacks on Palestinian journalists have been systemic with 137 killed so far, by far the biggest journalist death toll in any conflict. Image: ProtetAnakMelanesia/APR

Ethnic cleansing
But there are mounting fears that Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Gazans has no end in sight and the lives of 2.3 million people are at stake.

Both Palestinians and West Papuans see themselves as the victims of violent settler colonial projects that have been stealing their land and destroying their culture under the world’s noses — in the case of Palestine since the Nakba of 1948, and in West Papua since Indonesian paratroopers landed in a botched invasion in 1963.

They see themselves as both confronting genocidal leaders; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose popularity at home sinks by the day with growing protests, and Indonesia’s new President-elect Prabowo Subianto who has an atrocious human rights reputation in both Timor-Leste and West Papua.

And both peoples feel betrayed by a world that has stood by as genocides have been taking place — in the case of Palestine in real time on social media and television screens, and in the case of West Papua slowly over six decades.

Last November, outgoing Indonesian President Joko Widodo confronted US President Joe Biden on his policies over Gaza, and appealed for Washington to do more to prevent atrocities in Palestine.

Indonesian politicians such as Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi have been quick to condemn Israel, including at the International Court of Justice, but Papuan independence leaders find this hypocritical.

“We have full sympathy for the struggle for justice in Palestine and call for the restoration of peace,” said United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda.

Pacific protesters for Palestine
Pacific protesters for a Free Palestine in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR

‘Where’s Indonesian outrage?’
“But what about West Papua? Where was Indonesia’s outrage after Bloody Paniai [2014], or the Wamena massacre in February?

“Indonesia is claiming to oppose genocide in Gaza while committing their own genocide in West Papua.”

“Over 60 years of genocidal colonial rule, over 500,000 West Papuans have been killed by Indonesian forces.”

Wenda said genocide in West Papua was implemented slowly and steadily through a series of massacres, assassinations and policies, such as the killings of the chair of the Papuan Council Theys Eluay in 2001; Mako Tabuni (2012); and cultural curator and artist Arnold Ap (1984).

He cited many independent international and legal expert reports for his “considered position”, such as Yale University Law School, University of Wollongong, and the Asian Human Rights Commission – The Neglected Genocide.

In the South Pacific, Indonesia is widely seen among civil society, university and community groups as a ruthless aggressor with little or no respect for the Papuan culture.

Jakarta is engaged in an intensive diplomacy campaign in an attempt to counter this perception.


Unarmed Palestinians killed in Gaza – revealing Israel’s “kill zones”.  Video: Al Jazeera

Israel’s ‘rogue’ status
But if Indonesia is unpopular in the Pacific over its brutal colonial policies, it is nothing compared to the global “rogue” status of Israel.

In the past few weeks, as atrocity after atrocity pile up and the country’s disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions increasingly shock, supporters appear to be shrinking to its long-term ally the United States and its Five Eyes partners with New Zealand’s coalition government failing to condemn Israel’s war crimes.

On Good Friday — Day 174 of the war – Israel bombed Gaza, Syria and Lebanon on the same day, killing civilians in all three countries.

In the past week, the Israeli military ratcheted up its attacks on the Gaza Strip in defiance of the UN Security Council’s order for an immediate ceasefire, expanded its savage attacks on neighbouring states, and finally withdrew from Al-Shifa Hospital after a bloody two-week siege, leaving it totally destroyed with at least 350 patients, staff and displaced people dead.

Fourteen votes against the lone US abstention after Washington had earlier vetoed three previous resolutions produced the decisive ceasefire vote, but the Israeli objective is clearly to raze Gaza and make it uninhabitable.

As The Guardian described the vote, “When Gilad Erdan, the Israeli envoy to the UN, sat before the Security Council to rail against the ceasefire resolution it had just passed, he cut a lonelier figure than ever in the cavernous chamber.”

The newspaper added that the message was clear.

‘Time was up’
“Time was up on the Israeli offensive, and the Biden administration was no longer prepared to let the US’s credibility on the world stage bleed away by defending an Israeli government which paid little, if any, heed to its appeals to stop the bombing of civilian areas and open the gates to substantial food deliveries.”

Al Jazeera interviewed Norwegian physician Dr Mads Gilbert, who has spent long periods working in Gaza, including at al-Shifa Hospital. He was visibly distressed in his reaction, lamenting that the Israeli attack had “destroyed” the 78-year legacy of the Strip’s largest and flagship hospital.

Speaking from Tromso, Norway, he said: “This is such a sad day, I’ve been weeping all morning.”

Dr Gilbert said he did not know the fate of the 107 critical patients who had been moved two days earlier to an older building in the complex.

“The maggots that are creeping out of the corpses in al-Shifa Hospital now,” he said, “are really maggots coming out of the eyes of President Biden and the European Union leaders doing nothing to stop this horrible, horrible genocide.”

Australia-based Antony Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, who has been reporting on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories for two decades, described Israel’s attack on the hospital as the “actions of a rogue state”.

Gaza health officials said Israel was targeting all the hospitals and systematically destroying the medical infrastructure. Only five out of a total of 37 hospitals still had some limited services operating.

Doctors Without Borders “horrified” at the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital
The non government organisation Doctors Without Borders says it is “horrified” at the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City . . . “Gaza’s largest hospital is now out of service, people in the north are left with even fewer healthcare options.” Image: AJ/Anadolu

Strike on journalists’ tent
Yesterday, four people were killed and journalists were wounded in an Israeli air strike on a tent in the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

The Israeli military claimed the strike was aimed at a “command centre” operated by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group, but footage screened by Al Jazeera reporter Hind Khoudary clearly showed it was a tent where displaced people were sheltering and journalists and photographers were working.

The Israeli military have killed another photojournalist and editor, Abdel Wahab Awni, when they bombed his home in the Maghazi refugee camp. This took the number of journalists killed since the start of the war to 137, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

Al Jazeera has revealed that Israel was using “kill zones” for certain combat areas in Gaza. Anybody crossing the “invisible” lines into these zones was shot on sight as a “terrorist”, even if they were unarmed civilians.

The chilling practice was exposed when footage was screened of two unarmed civilians carrying white flags being apparently gunned down and then buried by bulldozer under rubble. A US-based civil rights group described the killings as a “heinous crime”.

The kill zones were confirmed at the weekend by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which said the military had claimed to have killed 9000 “terrorists”, but officials admitted that many of the dead were often civilians who had “crossed the line” of fire.

Call for sanctions
The Israeli peace advocacy group Gush Shalom sent an open letter to all the embassies credited to Israel calling for immediate sanctions against the Israeli government, saying Netanyahu was “flagrantly refusing” to comply with the ceasefire resolution.

“We, citizens of Israel,” said the letter, “are calling on your government to initiate a further meeting of the Security Council, aiming to pass a resolution which would set effective sanctions on Israel — in order to bring about an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip until the end of Ramadan and beyond it.”

A Palestinian-American professor of law Dr Noura Erakat, of Rutgers University, recently told a BBC interviewer that Israel had made its end game very clear from the beginning of the war.

“Israel has made its intent clear. Its war cabinet had made its intent clear. From the very beginning, in the first week of October 7, it told us its goal was to depopulate Gaza.

“They have equated the decimation of Hamas, which they cannot achieve militarily, with the depopulation of the entire Gaza strip.”

A parallel with Indonesia’s fundamentally flawed policies in West Papua. Failing violent settler colonialism.

Dr David Robie is editor of Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific. This article was first published at Asia Pacific Report.

Caitlin Johnstone: The plan is to turn Palestine into a historical footnote so it’s too late to save it

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
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Once Palestine is erased
Once Palestine is erased, it’s highly unlikely that it can ever be restored. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au/

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The Zionist plan for the Palestinians is to kill them and drive them off their land by whatever cruelty is necessary, with the understanding that one day people will look back on it in the same way they look back on the genocides of other indigenous populations, saying, “Yeah it was bad, but that was in the past so there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The Zionists take a long view of history, understanding that all the outrage and backlash they’re facing over Gaza right now will one day be irrelevant if they can carry out their plan for the territory today.

They know that future generations of Israeli settlers will be able to say “Sure there was an ethnic cleansing in Gaza and a bunch of mass atrocities were committed, but that all happened before I was born; I had nothing to do with it.

“What do you want me to do, give up the home I’ve lived in all my life? That’s nuts.”

And they’re absolutely right: if Israel succeeds in driving the Palestinians out of Gaza (and assuming humanity doesn’t destroy itself via nuclear armageddon or environmental collapse), that is exactly the future they can expect to have. The genocidal atrocities against the Palestinians will be something kids learn about in history class.

Israel itself might even be able to be a lot more honest about what happened, once the Palestinian problem has been fully resolved and the threat of a Palestinian state no longer exists.

So they do what they need to do in the meantime, with the understanding that this will one day all be rubbed away by the sands of time. They commit what atrocities they need to commit, they lie in whatever ways they need to lie, and they exert influence wherever they need to exert influence until they can get this thing locked down.

Once they have, they can sit back and let old father time do the rest of the work for them.

That’s why it’s so important to oppose this thing now: because once Palestine is erased, it’s highly unlikely that it can ever be restored.

We see what an uphill battle it is to obtain any rights at all for indigenous populations in other nations founded on genocidal settler-colonialism, and they haven’t even been driven out of their national borders into foreign countries.

The sins of the present and the recent past are much, much easier to correct than the sins of the distant past. That’s why the Zionists are so keen to move these atrocities into the “sins of the distant past” category.

Caitlin Johnstone is an independent Australian journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article was first published here and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

USP faces a ‘gathering storm’ over leadership and a looming strike

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
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0
University of the South Pacific staff protesting last November in black with placards calling for “fair pay”
University of the South Pacific staff protesting last November in black with placards calling for “fair pay” and for vice-chancellor Professor Ahluwalia to resign. Image: Association of USP Staff (AUSPS)

Asia Pacific Report

The University of the South Pacific — one of only two regional universities in the world — is facing a “gathering storm” over leadership, a management crisis and a looming strike, reports Islands Business.

In the six-page cover story in the latest edition of the regional news magazine this week, IB reports that pay demands by the 12-nation institution “headline other contentions such as the number of unfilled vacancies and the strain that the unions say it’s causing staff”.

The magazine also reported concerns about the “diminishing presence of Pacific Island academics” at what is a regional institution with 30,000 students representing Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The Islands Business cover story on the University of the South Pacific this week
The Islands Business cover story on the University of the South Pacific this week . . . concerns over leadership, USP Council, declining student numbers and threatened strike action. Image: IB screenshot APR

The world’s other regional university is the Jamaica-based University of the West Indies with five campuses in 18 countries and 50,000 students.

Another factor at USP is the “absence of female academics, and questions over the way some key contracts have been handled by management”.

Staff say there are no longer any female professors at the Pacific university and the institution recently failed to renew the contract of Nobel Prize-winning academic Dr Elisabeth Holland, formerly professor of ocean and climate change and the longtime director of USP’s Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), in controversial circumstances.

She had been one of USP’s most distinguished staff members and a key Pacific climate crisis voice in global forums.

Plunged into crisis
“In February 2021, the University of the South Pacific (USP) was plunged into crisis when vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia was unceremoniously thrown out of Fiji following a middle-of-the-night raid on his campus residence, accused by the then [FijiFirst] government of Voreqe Bainimarama of breaching the country’s immigration laws,” wrote the magazine’s Fiji correspondent Joe Yaya, himself a former graduate of the university who was a member of the award-winning USP student journalism team covering the George Speight attempted coup in May 2000.

“Within months of taking up the job in 2019, a bombshell report by Ahluwalia had alleged widespread financial mismanagement within the university under former administrations. It triggered an independent investigation by New Zealand-based accounting firm BDO and Ahluwalia’s eventual expulsion from Fiji.

“Three years later, USP finds itself beset by a host of new problems, most prominent among them an overwhelming vote this month by staff across Fiji (97 percent of academic staff and 94 percent of administration and support personnel) to go on strike over pay issues.”

USP's Professor Pal Ahluwalia
USP’s Professor Pal Ahluwalia . . . facing mounting opposition from the university’s staff with unions planning strike action. Image: Fijivillage News

Some of the concerns about pay and appointments are shared by key members of the USP Council and its senior management team.

“Leadership emerged as a major point of discussion in interviews conducted by Islands Business,” wrote Yaya.

Dr Ahluwalia reportedly retains firm support from some USP Council members, and also the student association.

However, Islands Business reported that the university management had refused to respond to the magazine’s questions.

Several interview efforts
“Over a seven-week period beginning January 22, we made several efforts to reach vice-chancellor Ahluwalia. In mid-February, his office said he would not be able to provide an interview while at Laucala Campus ‘because of his busy schedule’ (they specified ‘engagements with stakeholders and other university-related activities’),” the magazine reported.

“On March 6, Dr Ahluwalia responded in an email: ‘Many of the questions that you ask in relation to staff are being discussed with the respective unions and it is inappropriate for me to make comments through the media.

“‘Most of your other questions relate directly to matters that are the business of our Council and its deliberations are confidential so it is inappropriate too for me to discuss these matters outside of Council.’”

Islands Business also sought a response from Professor Pat Walsh, acting pro-chancellor of USP, and chair of the Council. Dr Walsh is the New Zealand government’s representative on the Council. He did not respond to Islands Business.

Former USP pro-chancellor and chair, now Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine, told Islands Business that during her term with USP, one of the “strong challenges we faced was the issue with the vice-chancellor”.

Professor Ahluwalia’s extended work contract is expected to be finalised at next month’s Council meeting which has been moved from May to April 26-27.

The vice-chancellor is due to meet the staff unions in mediation on Tuesday in a bid to avoid a staff strike.

Republished from Asia Pacific Report.

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