"Black day" . . . . How the New Zealand Herald today featured the massive news of plans to cut TV3's entire Newshub team and TVNZ slashing 68 media jobs. Image: NZH screenshot APR
A grim 48 hours for news media has resulted in many jobs being lost in the sector — as TV3 confirmed the closure of Newshub, and TVNZ announced it was going ahead with axing its current affairs flagship Sunday, consumer affairs Fair Go and two news bulletins.
About 250 jobs are being lost in the shutdown of Three’s national news service, which will close in July.
How the country’s largest daily newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, reported the news and current affairs closure plans today. NZH screenshot APR
He was among seven senior Newshub journalists who pushed back against the company’s proposal and put forward their own plan.
The proposal, led by his colleague Michael Morrah, was “radical”, “aggressive” and would have pared the news operation back to the bone, he said.
It centred on the 6pm bulletin which brought in a lot of advertising revenue, retain the website and would later build up the digital operation.
“Basically it was a cutdown radical proposal to hang on to the 6pm bulletin and find digital solutions out into the future.”
While management gave them access to figures and helped them in other ways they ultimately decided not to go ahead.
Newshub journalist Paddy Gower . . . “It’s gonna be a dark time for news in this country.” Image: RNZ/Nick Monro
He said when the closure was confirmed, there was a feeling of “the weight of history” at the loss of a taonga which Kiwis would miss when it disappeared.
“It’s gonna be a dark time for news in this country,” he said.
Gower said Warner Bros Discovery would have “a helluva time” keeping viewers without Newshub providing news and current affairs.
“We tried. That’s the Kiwi way. That’s the Newshub way.”
He said another media company, such as Stuff or NZME, could now come in and further their own news brand and their reputation by saving part of a significant news operation.
They would oversee the making of a 6pm news bulletin that would be sold to Warner Bros Discovery and in the process be working with one of the world’s leading media companies.
“That has to be a possibility . . . They would be seen to be saving news in New Zealand and that’s a big ups for them . . .
“The company that is able to get that deal done …. is going to get some incredible journalists on board to help them do it,” Gower said.
It would probably save about 40 to 50 jobs, he said.
Warner Brothers Discovery declined to be interviewed by Morning Report.
NZ’s Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee . . . accused of “having no vision at all” for media. Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
Broadcasting Minister accused of lack of vision Former head of news at TV3 Mark Jennings believed Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee was “all at sea” as the country veered towards a media crisis.
He found her response to the Newshub closure confusing and did not believe the cabinet paper she has been working on would provide anything beneficial.
“I think you’re likely to have three parties, New Zealand First, ACT and National, all with different points of view and I can’t see them agreeing on any forward course of action, particularly not with Melissa Lee who appears to have no vision here at all.”
Jennings said he was notsurprised the Morrah-Gower plan did not succeed, because employers had considered other options and then made up their minds before the consultation period began.
If an offer from an outside organisation did get the go-ahead, it would be a “basic product” and would be “news-light”, he said.
It might be shot on i-Phones and edited by journalists and would not resemble Newshub’s current flagship bulletin.
While both the pandemic and social media had lowered the quality threshold of what viewers might accept, it would still be compared to what TVNZ was screening.
“The challenge will be for them to hold on to their ratings and more importantly, their share. Their share has been decreasing over time and if it gets too much lower, they’ll find themselves back at square one really.”
Minister Lee was unwilling to be interviewed by Morning Report.
She said she was focused on ensuring New Zealand’s media industry was sustainable and modernised, and she was looking at reviewing the Broadcasting Act.
Lee said she had talked to international companies on how they could support and increase New Zealand screen production, but it would not include a quota.
She said it would not have helped the situation at Newshub.
Not much scope for NZ on Air
New Zealand on Air chief executive Cam Harland said the agency had a limited ability to intervene because its remit was to provide funding for a large number of audiences across a range of genres.
He heads the agency responsible for distributing public funds but its budget isn’t nearly enough to address shortfalls.
Daily television news was expensive to produce, so he considered it unlikely NZ on Air would help much, he told Morning Report.
The loss of jobs and talent was “monumental” and NZ on Air bosses intended to meet with TVNZ and Newshub as well as senior journalists, such as Jennings, to get more information before making any decisions.
“We absolutely want to help . . . so I guess our view now is: Can we be more innovative with what we’re funding, can we get more bang for the buck?”
The organisation was also faced with reviewing its spending in line with the government’s requirements for the public sector.
Union files claim against TVNZ
Michael Wood . . . “It’s an urgent matter now . . .” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
The union representing journalists has filed a claim against TVNZ alleging the company breached its own consultation requirements in its job cuts process.
E Tu’s negotiation specialist, Michael Wood, said the broadcaster should have involved its employees before the proposal was presented.
Talks were continuing with the Employment Relations Authority to see if a legal case could be heard as quickly as possible.
“It’s an urgent matter now . . . We’ll be trying to get an outcome there as soon as possible and we want to see an outcome that respects the process.”
He said mediation between the parties might be a part of the process.
While the union and employees had a small victory with a handful of jobs being saved, there was still “a massive loss of capacity” with the axing of several programmes.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
Fresh clashes in New Caledonia have erupted in the suburbs of Nouméa between security forces and pro-independence protesters who oppose a nickel pact offering French assistance to salvage the industry.
The clashes, involving firearms, teargas and stone-throwing, went on for most of yesterday, blocking access roads to the capital Nouméa, as well as the nearby townships of Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore.
Traffic on the Route Provinciale 1 (RP1) was opened and closed several times, including when a squadron of French gendarmes intervened to secure the area by firing long-range teargas.
The day began with tyres being burnt on the road and then degenerated into violence from some balaclava-clad members of the protest group, who started throwing stones and sometimes using firearms and Molotov cocktails, authorities alleged.
Security forces said one of their motorbike officers, a woman, was assaulted and her vehicle was stolen.
Two of the protesters were reported to have been arrested for throwing stones.
Banners were deployed, some reading “Kanaky not for sale”, others demanding that New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou (pro-independence) resign.
Northern mining sites also targeted Other incidents took place in the northern town of La Foa, in the small mining village of Fonwhary, near a nickel extraction site, where Société Le Nickel trucks were not allowed to use the road.
Pro-independence protesters banners demand territorial President Louis Mapou resign. Image: 1ère TV
Mont-Dore Mayor Eddy Lecourieux told local Radio Rythme Bleu they had the right to demonstrate, “but they could have done that peacefully”.
“Instead, there’s always someone who starts throwing stones.”
At dusk, the Saint-Louis and Mont-Dore areas were described as under control, but security forces, including armoured vehicles, were kept in place.
“On top of that, there are more marches scheduled for this weekend,” Lecourieux said.
Pro-independent parties, however, strongly oppose the project, saying this would be tantamount to making indigenous Kanaks a minority at local polls, and would open the door to a “recolonisation” of New Caledonia through demographics.
A similar high-risk configuration of two marches took place on March 28 in downtown Nouméa, with more than 500 French security forces deployed to keep both groups away from each other.
French authorities are understood to be holding meeting after meeting to fine-tune the security setup ahead of the weekend.
Florent Perrin, the president of Mont-Dore’s “Citizens’ Association”, told media local residents were being “taken hostage” and the unrest “must cease”.
He urged political authorities to “make decisions on all political and economic issues” New Caledonia currently faces.
Perrin called on the local population to remain calm, but invited them to “individually lodge complaints” based on “breach of freedom of circulation”.
“On our side too, tensions are beginning to run high, so we have to remain calm and not respond to those acts of provocation,” he said.
Pro-independence indigenous Kanak protesters in New Caledonia blockade the village of La Foa yesterday. Image: 1ère TV
In return, France is asking that New Caledonia’s whole nickel industry should undergo a far-reaching slate of reforms in order to make nickel less expensive and therefore more attractive on the world market.
The pact aims to salvage New Caledonia’s embattled nickel industry and its three factories — one in the north of the main island, Koniambo (KNS), and two in the south, Société le Nickel (SLN), a subsidiary of French giant Eramet, and Prony Resources.
KNS’ nickel-processing operations were put in “sleep”, non-productive mode in February after its major financier, Anglo-Swiss Glencore, said it could no longer sustain losses totalling 14 billion euros (NZ$25 billion) over the past 10 years, and that it was now seeking an entity to buy its 49 percent shares.
The other two companies, SLN and Prony, are also facing huge debts and a severe risk of bankruptcy due to the new nickel conditions on the world market, now dominated by new players such as Indonesia, which produces a much cheaper and abundant metal.
New ultimatum from Northern Province On Tuesday, Northern province President Paul Néaoutyine added further pressure by threatening to suspend all permits for mining activities in his province’s nine sites, where southern nickel companies are also extracting.
In a release, Néaoutyine made references to payment guarantees deadlines on April 10 that had not been honoured by SLN.
It is understood SLN’s owner, Eramet, was scheduled to meet in a general meeting in Paris later on Tuesday.
The French pact — France is also a stakeholder in Eramet — would also help SLN provide longer-term guarantees.
Southern province President and Les Loyalists (pro-France) party leader Sonia Backès alleged on Tuesday that Néaoutyine wants to do everything he can to shut down SLN and block the nickel pact
“Now things are very clear — before it was all undercover; now it’s out in the open,” she said.
“Now we will do everything to maintain SLN, because this means 3000 jobs at stake.”
Congress dragging its feet Yesterday, New Caledonia’s Congress was holding a meeting behind closed doors to again discuss the French pact.
The Congress decided to postpone its decision and, instead, suggested setting up a “special committee” to further examine the pact and the condition it is tied to, and more generally, “the nickel industry’s current challenges”.
Opponents to the agreement mainly argue that it would pose a risk of “loss of sovereignty” for New Caledonia on its precious metal resource.
They also consider the nickel industry stake-holding companies are not committing enough and that, instead, New Caledonia’s government is asked to raise up to US$80 million (NZ$132 million), mainly by way of new taxes imposed on taxpayers.
Last week, a group of Congressmen, mostly from pro-independence Union Calédonienne, one of the four components of the pro-independence FLNKS, with the backing of one pro-France party, Avenir Ensemble, had a motion adopted to postpone one more time the signing of the pact.
President Mapou defies pro-independence MPs President Louis Mapou, himself from the pro-independence side, urged the supporters of the motion to “let [him] sign” last week during a Congress public sitting.
“Let’s do it . . . Authorise us to go at it . . . What are you afraid of?” he said.
“Are we afraid of our militants?”
Mapou said if there was no swift Congress response and support to sign the pact, for which he himself had asked the Congress for endorsement, he would “take [his] responsibility” and go ahead anyway.
“I will honour the commitment I made to the French State.”
He said if they wanted to to sanction him with a motion of no confidence to go ahead. He was not afraid of this.
Mapou also told the pro-independence side in Congress that he believed they khad ept postponing any Congress decision “because you want to engage in negotiations as part of [New Caledonia’s] political agreements”.
Last week, Backès, who expressed open support for Mapou’s “courage”, told Radio Rythme Bleu she and Mapou had both received death threats.
Patrick Decloitre is the RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
Fiji’s stance over Israel . . . implications for the safety and security of Fijian peacekeeping troops deployed in the Middle East. Image: Republic of Fiji Military Forces/Islands Business
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been described as involving two competing narratives: one, about a displaced Palestinian people denied their right to self-determination, and the other, about the Jewish people who, having established an independent state in their historical homeland after generations of persecution in exile, have been under threat from hostile neighbours ever since.
When Fiji joined the United States as the only two countries to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory at the ICJ in February, it was seen as walking head-on into one of the longest running conflicts in history, leaving Fijians, as well as the international community struggling to figure out which narrative that position fits into.
Following Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel in October, Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Gaza has provoked international consternation and has seen a humanitarian crisis unfolding, resulting in the motions against Israel in the ICJ.
Shame on you Tarakinikini” . . . a placard at a weekly Black Thursday protest held by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre in solidarity with Palestine and calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s War on Gaza. Image: FWCC
And since then other cases such as Nicaragua this month against Germany alleging the enabling by the European country of the alleged genocide by Israel as the second-largest arms supplier.
Fiji’s pro-Israel position was on another matter — the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had requested the ICJ’s advisory opinion into Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
Addressing the ICJ, Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini said the ICJ should not render an advisory opinion on the questions posed by the General Assembly. He said the court had been presented “with a distinctly one-sided narrative. This fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context.”
How Islands Business introduced the Fiji and Israel policy article. Image: IB screenshot APR
The UNGA request was “a legal manoeuvre that circumvents the existing internationally sanctioned and legally binding framework for resolution of the Israel-Palestine dispute,” said Tarakinikini.
“And if the ICJ is to consider the legal consequences of the alleged Israeli refusal to withdraw from territory, it must also look at what Palestine must do to ensure Israel’s security,” he said.
On the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, “Fiji notes that the right to self-determination is a relative right.
“In the context of Israel/Palestine, this means the Court would need to ascertain whether the Palestinians’ exercise of their right to self-determination has infringed the territorial
integrity, political inviolability or legitimate security needs of the State of Israel,” he added.
Crossing the line
Long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its historically established foreign policy of friends-to-all -and-enemies-to-none.
Nair, Fiji’s first ambassador to the Middle East, said Fiji had always chosen to be an international peacekeeper, trusted by both sides to any argument or conflict that requires its services.
“The question being asked is, how is it in the national interest of Fiji to buy into the Israeli-Palestine dispute, particularly when it has been a well-respected international peacekeeper in the region?
“Fiji has either absented itself or abstained from voting on any decisions at the United Nations concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issues, particularly since 1978 when Fiji began taking part in the UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations in the Middle East,” Nair told Islands Business.
Nair said it was worth noting that in keeping with its traditionally neutral position on Israeli-Palestinian issues, Fiji had initially abstained on the UN General Assembly resolution asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion.
Former Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola asks why that position has changed. “Fiji’s rationale for showing interest now is not so much about the real issue on the ground — the genocide taking place, but the niceties of legal processes. Coming from Fiji with its history of coups, it is a bit over-pretentious, one may say”.
At odds with past conduct
Former Deputy Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, now professor in law at the University of Fiji, Aziz Mohammed, says the change of position does not reconcile with Fiji’s past endorsement of international instruments and conventions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute on war crimes at play in the current proceedings at the ICJ.
“That endorsement happened by the government that was in power at the time of the current Prime Minister (Sitiveni Rabuka’s administration in the 1990s),” says Mohammed.
“We became the fifth country to endorse it. So, it was very early that we planted a flag to say, ‘we’re going to honour this international obligation’. And that happened. But subsequently, we brought the war crimes (section from the ICC statute) into our Crimes Act. Not only that, but we also adopted the international humanitarian laws into our laws — three Geneva Conventions, and three protocols. So, in terms of laws, most countries only have adopted two, but we have adopted all the international instruments. But then we’re not adhering to it.”
Fiji was among six Pacific Island countries — including Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia — that voted against a UN resolution in October calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza.
That vote caused significant political ruptures. One of Rabuka’s two coalition partners, the National Federation Party (NFP), said Fiji should have voted for the resolution. “It was a motion that called for peace and access to humanitarian aid, and as a country, we should have supported that,” said NFP Leader, Professor Biman Prasad, who is Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.
Prasad’s fellow party member and former NFP Leader, Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, served in the Fiji peacekeeping forces deployed to Lebanon in the 1990s, and recounted the horrors of war he had seen in the region.
“I can still vividly remember the blood, the carnage and the mothers weeping for their children and the children finding out that they no longer had parents,” he said.
“In any war, no matter how justified your cause may be, it is always the innocent that suffer and pay the price. Those images, those memories are seared into my memory forever . . . that is why NFP has taken the position of supporting a ceasefire in Gaza contrary to Fiji’s position at the UN.”
Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, Major-General Jone Kalouniwai said the “decision has significant implications for the safety and security of RFMF troops currently deployed in the Middle East” and called on the government to reevaluate its stance on the Israel-Hamas issue.
“Their safety and security should remain a top priority, and it is crucial that their contribution to international peacekeeping efforts are fully supported and respected,” an RFMF statement said.
Interesting cocktail
Writing in the Asia-Pacific current affairs publication, The Diplomat, Melbourne-based Australia and the Pacific political analyst, Grant Wyeth said Pacific islanders’ faith and foreign policy make an “interesting cocktail” that drives their UN votes in favour of Israel. He knocks any theories about the United States having bought off these island nations.
“Rather than power, faith may be the key to understanding the Pacific Islands’ approach,” writes Wyeth. “Much of the Pacific is highly observant in their Christianity, and they have an eschatological understanding of humanity.”
He notes that various denominations of Protestantism see the creation of Israel in 1948 as the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy in which the Jewish people — “God’s chosen” — return to the Holy Land.
“Support for Israel is, therefore, a deeply held spiritual belief, one that sits alongside Pacific
Islands’ other considerations of interests and opportunities when forming their foreign policies.”
In September, Papua New Guinea moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Prime Minister James Marape was quoted as saying at the time: “For us to call ourselves
Christian, paying respect to God will not be complete without recognising that Jerusalem is the universal capital of the people and the nation of Israel.”
“I am ashamed of my own government” protester placards at a demonstration by Fijians outside the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) . . . commentators draw a distinction between the matter of political recognition/state identity and the humanitarian issues at stake. Image: FWCC
Political vs humanitarian
The commentators draw the distinction between the matter of political recognition/state identity and the humanitarian issues at stake.
Says Mohammed: “This is not about recognising the state of Israel. This is about a conflict where people wanted to protect the unprotected. All they were saying is, ‘let’s’ support a ceasefire so [that] women, children, elderly … could get out [and] food supplies, medical supplies could get in …’ and it wasn’t [going to be] an indefinite ceasefire, which we [Fiji]
agreed to later.”
Fiji eventually did vote for the ceasefire when it came before the UN General Assembly again in December, following a major outcry against its position at home. The key concern going forward is the impact on the future of Fiji’s decades-long peacekeeping involvement in the Middle East.
Fiji-born political sociologist, Professor Steven Ratuva, is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Canterbury.
“The security of Fijian soldiers overseas will be threatened, as well as Fijian citizens themselves,” says Ratuva. “There are already groups campaigning underground for a tourist boycott of Fiji. I’ve personally received angry emails about ‘your bloody dumb country.’”
Nair says when 45 peacekeeping Fijian soldiers were taken hostage by the al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group al-Nusra Front in the Golan Heights in 2014, when all else — including the UN — had failed to secure their release, Fiji’s only bargaining power was the value of its peacekeeping neutrality.
“No international power stepped up to help Fiji in its most traumatic time in international relations in its entire history. Fiji had to fall back on itself, to use its own humble credentials. I successfully used our peace-keeping credentials in the Middle East and over many decades, including the shedding of Fijian blood, to ensure peace in the Middle East, to free our captured soldiers.”
Punishing the RFMF?
Mohammed agrees with the concern about the implications of Fiji’s compromised neutrality.
“I think what’s on everybody’s mind is whether we’re going to continue peacekeeping or suddenly, somebody is going to say, ‘enough of Fiji, they have compromised their neutrality, their impartiality, and as such, we are withdrawing consent and we want them to go back,’” he says.
Fiji’s Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua has been dismissive of such concerns, saying Fiji’s position on Israel at the ICJ did not diminish the capability of its peacekeepers because Fiji had “very professional people serving in peacekeeping roles”.
Mohammed, with an almost 40-year military career and having held the rank of Deputy Commander and once a significant figure on Fiji’s military council, asks whether Fiji’s position on Israel is a strategic manoeuvre by the government to reign in the military.
“Do they really want Fijian peacekeepers out there? Or are they going to indirectly punish the RFMF [Republic of Fiji Military Forces]?” he said in an interview with Islands Business.
He floats this theory on the basis that Fiji’s position on Israel came from two men acutely aware of what is at stake for the Fijian military — Prime Minister Rabuka and Tarakinikini, both seasoned army officers with extensive experience in matters of the Middle East.
“We all know that in recent times, the RFMF has been vocal (in national affairs). And they have stood firm on their role under Article 131 (of Fiji’s 2013 Constitution which states that it is the military’s overall responsibility to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians).
“And they have pressured the government into positions, so much so, the government has had difficulty. And they (government) say, ‘the RFMF are stepping out of position. Now, how do we control the RFMF? How do we cut them into place? One, we can basically give them everything and keep them quiet, or two, we take away the very thing that put them in the limelight. How do we do that? We take a position, knowing very well that the host countries will withdraw their consent, and the Fijians will be asked to leave’.
“Fiji will no longer have peacekeepers. No peacekeeping engagements, the numbers of the RFMF will have to be reduced. So, all they will do is be confined to domestic roles.
“People are questioning this,” says Mohammed. “Military strategists are raising this issue because the government knows they can’t openly tell the Fijian public that we are withdrawing from peacekeeping. There’ll be an outcry because every second household in Fiji has some member who has served in peacekeeping.
“So, strategically, we [government] take a position. It may not be perceived that way. But the outcome is happening in that direction.”
Richard Naidu is editor of Islands Business. This article was published in the March edition of the magazine and is republished here with permission.
"We cannot allow [the Western political-media class] to neuter this political moment with spin and propaganda. We need to make sure their criminality remains front and centre of public awareness, and we need to push for the real revolutionary changes that Gaza plainly proves are needed." Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
Opposition to the slaughter in Gaza appears to be getting more mainstream, which is obviously great, but when political impulses go mainstream it means there’s going to be a massive and concerted effort to funnel public sentiment in a direction that doesn’t damage the interests of the Empire.
They’re going to try to blame this all on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
They’re going to insist that Israel itself is fine and the only thing that went wrong was a fluke incident in which an aberrational rightwing faction briefly got into power.
They’re going to try to wash the Western Empire’s hands of the mass atrocities it directly facilitated in Gaza.
They’re going to try to frame Biden as a basically decent politician who found himself trapped in an impossible situation.
They’re going to keep pretending a two-state solution is right around the corner and doing everything they can to stall out meaningful change on Palestinian rights, while blaming any obstacles to peace on the Palestinian resistance.
They’re going to pollute the information ecosystem with a deluge of messaging which is all designed to counter the notion that Gaza means the entire status quo needs to be overhauled — with regard to Israel-Palestine, with regard to US foreign policy, with regard to the US government itself, and with regard to the Western power structure in general.
Opposition to the slaughter in Gaza appears to be getting more mainstream, which is obviously great, but when political impulses go mainstream it means there’s going to be a massive and concerted effort to funnel public sentiment in a direction that doesn’t damage the interests… pic.twitter.com/BD3TBs5TU7
Ensuring the status quo
They’re going to say everything they need to say to ensure that everyone understands that the basic status quo in Israel, the United States and the Western world is working perfectly fine, and this was all just an innocent little oopsie poopsie caused by a few bad apples.
They’ll justify, they’ll excuse, they’ll exonerate, and then they’ll distract, moving public attention on to the next big thing and allowing the amnesia of the daily news churn to wash Gaza from our attention — all while pretending to be on our side.
This messaging will need to be fought tooth and claw. We cannot allow them to neuter this political moment with spin and propaganda. We need to make sure their criminality remains front and centre of public awareness, and we need to push for the real revolutionary changes that Gaza plainly proves are needed.
Let mainstream sentiment turn against the current Israeli regime and bring an end to the butchery in Gaza, but don’t let the imperial narrative managers co-opt anything. Don’t let them hijack the zeitgeist that’s been building.
View all words and actions of the Western political-media class with aggressive scepticism, and push back forcefully every time they try to push public sentiment in a direction that advantages the Empire.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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 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 . . . volume 4 (1997, PNG), volume 8 (2002, Fiji), and volume 29 (2023, NZ). Montage: PJR
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.
“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.
My latest analysis on yet another Israeli criminal policy that also fails & backfires… or, where zionist thuggery meets incompetence. Watching the Watchdogs: Israel’s attacks on journalists are backfiring https://t.co/e6VXvzmUoj
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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 . . . 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 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.”
![We cannot allow [the Western political-media class] to neuter this political moment with spin and propaganda](https://davidrobie.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Ceasefire-Now-CJ-1300wide-696x429.png "Ceasefire Now CJ 1300wide")
