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Mediawatch: Apocalypse now for NZ news – take 2?

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Television New Zealand
Television New Zealand . . . killing off some major news and current affairs programmes. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi

RNZ MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock

Television New Zealand’s proposals to balance its worsening books by killing news and current affairs programmes mean New Zealanders could end up with almost no national current affairs on TV within weeks.

It is a response to digital era changes in technology, viewing and advertising — but also the consequence of political choices.

“I can see that I’ve chosen a good night to come on,” TVNZ presenter Jack Tame said mournfully on his stint as a Newstalk ZB panelist last Wednesday.

The news that TVNZ news staff had been told to “watch their inboxes” the next morning had just broken.

It was less than a week since Newshub’s owners had announced a plan to close it completely in mid-year and TVNZ had reported bad financial figures for the last half of 2023.

The following day — last Thursday — TVNZ’s Midday News told viewers 9 percent of TVNZ staff — 68 people in total — would go in a plan to balance the books.

“The broadcaster has told staff that its headcount is high and so are costs,” said reporter Kim Baker-Wilson starkly on TVNZ’s Midday.

On chopping block
Twenty-four hours later, it was one of the shows on the chopping block — along with late news show Tonight and TVNZ’s flagship weekly current affairs show Sunday.

“As the last of its kind — is that what we want in our media landscape . . . to have no in-depth current affairs show?” said Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo (also the host of the weekend show Marae).

Consumers investigator Fair Go — with a 47-year track record as one of TVNZ’s most popular local shows — will also be gone by the end of May under this plan.

TVNZ staff in Auckland
People at TVNZ’s building in central Auckland. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi

If Newshub vanishes from rival channel Three by mid year, there will be just one national daily TV news bulletin left — TVNZ’s 1News — and no long form current affairs at all, except TVNZ’s Q+A and others funded from the public purse by NZ on Air and Te Mangai Paho.

Tellingly, weekday TVNZ shows which will carry on — Breakfast and Seven Sharp — are ones which generate income from “partner content” deals and “integrated advertising” — effectively paid-for slots within the programmes.

TVNZ had made it known cuts were coming months ago because costs were outstripping fast-falling revenue as advertisers tightened their belts or spent elsewhere.

TVNZ executives had also made it clear that reinforcing TVNZ’s digital-first strategy would be a key goal as well as just cutting costs.

Other notable cut
So the other notable service to be cut was a surprise — the youth-focused digital-native outlet Re: News.

After its launch in 2017, its young staff revived a mothballed studio and gained a reputation for hard work — and then for the quality of its work.

It won national journalism awards in the past two years and reached younger people who rarely if ever turn on a television set.

Reportedly, the staff of Re: News staff is to be halved and lose some of its leaders.

The main media workers’ union E tū said it will fight to save jobs and extend the short consultation period.

Some staff made it plain that they weren’t giving up just yet either and would present counter-proposals to save shows and jobs.

In a statement, TVNZ said the proposals “in no way relate to the immense contribution of the teams that work on those shows and the significant journalistic value they’ve provided over the years”.

Money-spinners
But some were money-spinners too.

Fair Go and Sunday still pull in big six-figure live primetime TV audiences and more views now on TVNZ+. Its marketers frequently tell the advertisers that.

TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell knows all about that. She was previously TVNZ’s commercial director.

So why kill off these programmes now?

Jodi O'Donnell, new TVNZ chief executive
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell . . . “I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows.” Image: TVNZ

Mediawatch’s requests to talk to O’Donnell and TVNZ’s executive editor of news Phil O’Sullivan were unsuccessful.

But O’Donnell did talk to Newstalk ZB on Friday night.

“I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows. And we need to find some ways to stop doing some things for us to reduce our costs,” O’Donnell told Newstalk ZB.

“TVNZ’s still investing over $40 million in news and current affairs — so we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs. But we have a situation right now that our operating model is more expensive than the revenue that we’re making. And we have to make some really tough, tough decisions,” she said.

“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep the operating model in line with what our revenue is. Within the TVNZ Act it’s clear that we need to be a commercial broadcaster, We are a commercial business, so that’s the remit that we need to work on.

“Our competitors these days are not (Newstalk ZB) or Sky or Warner Brothers (Discovery) but Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. Ninety cents of every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of NZME, TVNZ, Stuff and any of the other local broadcasters.”

Jack Tame also pointed the finger at the titans of tech on his Newstalk ZB Saturday show.

Force of digital giants ‘irrepressible’
“Ultimately the force of those digital giants is irrepressible. Trying to save free-to-air commercial TV, with quality news, current affairs and local programming in a country with five million people . . .  is like trying to bail out the Titanic with an empty ice cream container. I’m not aware of any comparable broadcast markets where they’ve managed to pull it off,” he told listeners.

But few countries have a state-owned yet fully-commercial broadcaster trying to do news on TV and online, disconnected from publicly-funded ones also doing news on TV and radio and online.

That makes TVNZ a state-owned broadcaster that serves advertisers as much as New Zealanders.

But if things had panned out differently a year ago, that wouldn’t be the case now either.

What if the public media merger had gone ahead?
A new not-for-profit public media entity incorporating RNZ and TVNZ — Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM)  — was supposed to start one year ago this week.

It would have been the biggest media reform since the early 1990s.

The previous government was prepared to spend more than $400 million over four years to get it going.

Almost $20 million was spent on a programme called Strong Public Media, put in place because New Zealand’s media sector was weak.

“Ailing” was the word that the business case used, noting “increased competition from overseas players slashed the share of revenue from advertising.”

But the Labour government killed the plan before the last election, citing the cost of living crisis.

The new entity would still have needed TVNZ’s commercial revenue, but if it had gone ahead, would that mean TVNZ wouldn’t now be sacrificing news shows and journalists?

Tracey Martin has been named as the head of a new governance group.
Tracey Martin who had been named as chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running . . . “Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer.” Image: RNZ/Nate McKinnon

“Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer. Something radical had to change,” Tracey Martin — the chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running — told Mediawatch.

“I don’t have any problem believing that (TVNZ) would have had to change what they were delivering. But would it have been cuts to news and current affairs that we would have been seeing? There would have been other decisions made because commerciality . . . was not the major driver (of ANZPM),” Martin said.

“That was where we started from. If Armageddon happens — and all other New Zealand media can no longer exist — you have to be there as the Fourth Estate — to make sure that New Zealanders have a place to go to for truth and trust.”

What were the assumptions about the advertising revenue TVNZ would have been able to pull in?

“[TVNZ] was telling us that it wouldn’t be as bad as we believed it would be. TVNZ modeling was not as dramatic as our modeling. We were happy to accept that [because] our modeling gave us a particular window by which to change the ecosystem in which New Zealand media could survive to try and stabilise,” Martin told Mediawatch.

The business case document tracked TVNZ revenue and expenses from 2012 until 2020 — the start of the planning process for the new entity.

By 2020, a sharp rise in costs already exceeded revenue which was above $300 million.

And as we now know, TVNZ revenue has fallen further and more quickly since then.

“We were predicting linear TV revenue was going to continue to drop substantially and relatively quickly — and they were not going to be able to switch their advertising revenue at the same capacity to digital,” Martin said.

“They had more confidence than we did,” she said.

The ANZPM legislation estimated it as a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.

TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”.

TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament's EDSI committee last Thursday on the ANZPM legislation.
Then TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament’s EDSI committee last year on the ANZPM legislation. Image: Screenshot/EDSI Committee Facebook

“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better,” the chief executive at the time Simon Power told Mediawatch in 2023.

“It was a very rosy picture they painted. They had a mandate to be a commercial business that had to give confidence to the advertisers and the rest of New Zealand but they were very confident two years ago that this wouldn’t happen,” she said.

In opposition, National Party leader Christopher Luxon described the merger as “ideological and insane” and “a solution looking for a problem”.

He wasn’t alone.

National Party MP Melissa Lee
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee . . . Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver

But if that was based on TVNZ’s bullish assessments of its own revenue-raising capacity — or a disregard of a probable downturn ahead, was that a big mistake?

“I won’t comment for today’s government, but statements being made in the last couple of days about people getting their news from somewhere else; truth and trust has dropped off; linear has got to be transferred into the digital environment . . . none of those things are new comments,” Martin told Mediawatch.

“They’re all in the documentation that we placed into the public domain — and I asked the special permission, as the chair of the ANZPM group, to brief spokespersons for broadcasting of the Greens, Act and National to try and make sure that everybody has as much and as much information as we could give them,” she said.

Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee said this week she was working on proposals to help the media to take to cabinet.

“I don’t give advice to the minister, but I would advise officials to go back and pull out the business case and paperwork for ANZPM — and to look at the submissions and the number of people who supported the concept, but had concerns about particular areas,” Tracey Martin told Mediawatch.

“Don’t let perfection get in the way of action.”

Colin Peacock is RNZ’s Mediawatch presenter. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

‘Not complicated’ over killing children, Swarbrick tells Gaza ceasefire rally

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Asia Pacific Report

About 5000 protesters calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli’s genocidal  war on Gaza today took part in a rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square and a march up Queen Street in the business heart of New Zealand’s largest city.

This was one of a series of protests across more than 25 cities and towns across Aotearoa New Zealand in one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began last October 7.

Many passionate Palestinian and indigenous Māori speakers and a Filipino activist condemned the Israeli settler colonial project over the destruction caused in the occupation of Palestinian lands and the massive loss of civilian lives in the war.

The most rousing cheers greeted Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick who condemned the killing of “more than 30,000 innocent civilian lives” — most of them women and children with International Women’s Day being celebrated yesterday.


Stop the genocide in Gaza.  Video: Café Pacific

“The powers that be want you to think it is complicated . . .,” she said. “it’s not. Here’s why.

“We should all be able to agree that killing children is wrong.

“We should all be able to agree that indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians who have been made refugees in their own land is wrong,” she said and was greeted with strong applause.

“Everybody in power who disagrees with that is wrong.”

‘Stop the genocide’
Chants of shame followed that echoing the scores of placards and banners in the crowd declaring such slogans as “Stop the genocide”, “From Gaza to Paekākāriki, this govt doesn’t care about tamariki. Free Palestine”, “Women for a free Palestine”, “Unlearn lies about Palestine”, “Food not bombs for the tamariki of Gaza”, “From the river to the sea . . . aways was, always will be. Ceasefire now.”

Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick addressing the crowd
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick (third from left) addressing the crowd . . . “killing children is wrong.” Image: David Robie/APR

Three young girls being wheeled in a pram held a placard saying “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around”, in reference to a protest against the New Zealand government joining a small US-led group of nations taking reprisals against Yemen.

The Yemeni Houthis are blockading the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestine to prevent ships linked to Israel, UK or the US from getting through the narrow waterway. They say they are taking this action under the Genocide Convention.

Swarbrick vowed that the Green Party — along with Te Pati Māori — the only political party represented at the rally, would pressure the conservative coalition government to press globally for an immediate ceasefire, condemnation of Israeli atrocities, restoration of funding to the Palestine refugee relief agency UNRWA, and expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.

Meanwhile, as protests took place around the country, national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) declared on social media from Christchurch that “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon and [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters can’t find the energy to tweet for an end to Israel’s genocidal starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.

He added that Israel continued to turn away humanitarian convoys of desperately needed aid from northern Gaza.

“But PM Christopher Luxon has been silent while FM Winston Peters has been indolent.”

Palestine will be free"
Palestine will be free” . . . three friends show their solidarity for occupied Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR

Death toll rising
Al Jazeera reports that the death toll is ris­ing as Is­rael in­ten­si­fies at­tacks on Rafah in southern Gaza, and also in cen­tral Gaza.

Three more children have died of malnutrition and dehydration at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, according to health officials, taking the total confirmed toll from starvation to 23.

The US military has denied responsibility for an airdrop of humanitarian aid that Gaza officials say killed five people and injured several others when parachutes failed to open while Israeli forces again opened fire on aid seekers in northern Gaza.

President Joe Biden’s plan of a temporary port for maritime delivery of aid has been widely condemned by UN officials and other critics as an “election year ploy”.

Dr Rami Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, said the plan was “a ruse most of the world can see through”. It could give Israel even tighter control over what gets into the Gaza Strip in the future while completing “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.

"All children are precious"
“All children are precious” . . . a child and her mother declare their priorities at the protest. Image: David Robie/APR

Protesters stop US lecturer
Wellington Scoop reports that students and activist groups at Victoria University of Wellington yesterday protested against a lecture by the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Dr Bonnie Jenkins.

Dr Jenkins is a senior official in charge of AUKUS implementation, a military alliance currently between Australia, UK and USA.

About 150 people, mostly students from groups including Justice for Palestine, Student Justice for Palestine-Pōneke (SJP), Stop AUKUS and Peace Action Wellington rallied outside the university venue in Pipitea to protest against further collaborations with the US.


Thousands in the Auckland Gaza ceasefire protest.    Video: Café Pacific

A peaceful protest was undertaken inside the lecture hall at the same time.

An activist began by calling for “a moment of silence for all the Palestinians killed by the US-funded genocide in Gaza”.

He then condemned the weapons that the US was sending to Gaza, before eventually being ejected from the lecture theatre.

Shortly after, another activist stood up and said “Karetao o te Kāwana kakīwhero!” (“Puppets of this redneck government”) and quoted from the women’s Super Rugby Aupiki team Hurricanes Poua’s revamped haka: “Mai te awa ki te moana (From the river to the sea), free free Palestine!”

"You don't have to be a Muslim"
“You don’t have to be a Muslim to support Palestine – just be human” . . . says this protester on the eve of Ramadan. Image: David Robie/APR

Video on ‘imperialism’
Dr Jenkins was ushered away for the second time. Subsequently a couple of activists took to speaking and playing a video about how AUKUS represented US imperialism.

When organisers later came in to announce that Dr Jenkins would not be continuing with her lecture, chants of “Free, free Palestine!” filled the room.

“For five months, Aotearoa has been calling for our government to do more to stop the genocide in Gaza. And for years, we have been calling our governments to stand against Israel’s occupation of Palestine,” said Samira Zaiton, a Justice for Palestine organiser.

“We are now at the juncture of tightening relations with settler colonies who will only destroy more lives, more homes and more lands and waters. We want no part in this. We want no part in AUKUS.”

Dr Jenkins’ lecture was organised by Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, to address “security challenges in the 21st century”.

Valerie Morse, an organiser with Peace Action Wellington, said: “Experts on foreign policy and regional diplomacy have done careful research on the disastrous consequences of involving ourselves with AUKUS.

“Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is not a nuclear testing ground and sacrifice zone for US wars.”

"When silence is betrayal"
“When silence is betrayal” . . . motorcycle look at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APR
The Israeli military's "murder machine"
The Israeli military’s “murder machine” . . . “there’s no good reason for bombing children”. Image: David Robie/APR

Caitlin Johnstone: Pretending the US can’t just drive aid into Gaza

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Temporary pier in Gaza?
Temporary pier in Gaza? What about simply making the fully dependent US client state Israel let the aid in, or force them to stop the genocidal onslaught that makes it necessary? Image: Caitlin Johnstone Web

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The Biden administration is supposedly planning to set up a temporary pier in Gaza to allow for the large-scale shipment of sorely needed goods into the enclave, which reportedly will take weeks to build and will still be subjected to an Israeli checkpoint.

This is on top of the widely ridiculed airdrops of pitifully small amounts of aid the US has already been making in this continuing charade where Washington pretends Gaza is surrounded by some kind of unassailable invisible barrier between itself and Israel.

And hell, why not? Why not build a pier. Have they considered digging a giant tunnel to get aid into Gaza as well? Or launching aid into Gaza by building a giant slingshot? Or perhaps they could invent some type of portal gun à la Rick and Morty?

Ooh! Hey! Or what about simply making their fully dependent client state let the aid in, or force them to stop the genocidal onslaught that makes it necessary? As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp rightly notes of the planned pier construction, “The drastic measure is being ordered instead of Biden using the enormous leverage he has over Israel to pressure them to allow in more aid or halt the genocidal campaign.”


The Grayzone has a new report out featuring leaked slides from a private Israel lobby presentation teaching politicians and prominent figures how to talk about Gaza in ways the public will be receptive to, based on focus group-tested information gathered by Republican political operative Frank Luntz.

Journalist Mark Ames tweeted of the report, “This is an incredible scoop, a direct window into how the genocide-propaganda sausage is made.”

My favorite part of the article is where the author Max Blumenthal writes that Republicans and Democrats were found to be receptive to different words used to describe Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza, saying “Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like ‘eradicate’ and ‘obliterate,’ while sanitised terms like ‘neutralise’ appeal more to Democrats.”

That’s pretty much the only difference between Republicans and Democrats right there. That’s it in a nutshell.


You see Western pundits and politicians criticising settlements in the West Bank more forcefully than the genocide in Gaza, despite genocide plainly being worse. This is because Israel’s approval of West Bank settlements exposes the “two state solution” for the lie that it is and makes it clear that the Western power alliance has no meaningful position on Israel’s abusive treatment of Palestinians.

When Western officials bitch at Israel over settlements, they’re essentially saying “Stop it you guys, you’re giving the game away! Now how are we supposed to pretend we care?” They need to be able to credibly bleat the phrase “two-state solution” once in a while in order to create the impression that they’re not just permanently taking the side of genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonialism, theft and apartheid  — even though that is exactly what they are doing.

I’ve noticed that on social media I’m getting more and more comments from dopey right wingers yelling at me for what I have to say about Gaza, and what’s weird is that most of them don’t even post about Israel-Palestine normally. They appear to be doing it solely because they see opposition to the Gaza genocide as a left-wing issue, and so they’ve reflexively taken the opposite position because that’s just what political engagement looks like in this insipid, brainwashed dystopia of ours.

Until recently most of the hostile responses I’ve been getting have been coming from virulent Israel supporters with Israeli flags and “proud Zionist” in their bios who shriek about Hamas 24/7. Now a lot of the pushback I’m getting is just from standard MAGA chuds and other rightists who tweet mostly about partisan politics in their own country. They’re not pushing back against me because they love Israel, they’re pushing back because I’m a leftist and they automatically push back against lefty-looking things because that’s what they’ve been programmed to do.

It just says so much about the state of western civilization that even genocide has been turned into another vapid culture war wedge issue for people to masturbate their tribal identity constructs on. As though “don’t starve children to death or rip them to shreds with military explosives” is some kind of ideological position that only makes sense through a specific political lens, instead of just the normal human default perspective for anyone who isn’t a psychopath.

But that’s the genius of the empire. Propaganda has been used to split the general population into two warring factions of equal strength, and the propagandists get each faction arguing about which imperial military project should be supported and which should be criticized. A lot of the people you see supporting the US-backed butchery in Gaza today have spent two years criticising the US proxy war in Ukraine (and vice versa), because they took those positions based on what the pundits and politicians in their political faction told them to think. It’s got nothing to do with values or morals, it’s just blind tribalistic herd mentality.

And that’s exactly where the empire wants us. Evenly divided against each other too thoroughly to get anything done, arguing back and forth about WHICH imperial agendas should be advanced instead of IF any of them should be advanced. A bunch of bleating human livestock unknowingly bickering about how best to advance the interests of their owners.

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 as part of her Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix series and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

International broadcasters demand Israel and Egypt allow media Gaza access

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Pro-Palestinian protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand condemn media bias
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand condemn "media bias" at a rally in Auckland's Te Komititanga Square last weekend. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific

The New Arab

A group of more than 50 global broadcast journalists has demanded Israel and Egypt allow the media access to the besieged Gaza Strip, as the war there enters its fifth month with more than 30,800 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children.

An open letter, signed by journalists from international news organisations — including Sky News, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS — emphasised the need for protection for Gaza-based journalists and the ability for foreign media to report from the enclave.

Among the 55 journalists who signed the letter were Sky News’ Alex Crawford, the BBC’s Clive Myrie, NBC’s Hala Gorani, Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

The letter, sent to Israeli and Egyptian embassies at the end of last month, said: “Almost five months into the war in Gaza, foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military.

“We urge the governments of Israel and Egypt to allow free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media. We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists access to the Rafah Crossing.

“There is intense global interest in the events in Gaza and for now the only reporting has come from journalists who were already based there.

“It’s vital that local journalists’ safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media.

‘Imperative need’
“The need for comprehensive on-the-ground reporting of the conflict is imperative.

“The risks of conflict reporting are well understood by our organisations who have decades of experience of reporting in war-zones around the world and in previous wars in Gaza.”

The letter pointed out that journalists had been granted rare access to the Palestinian enclave when given permission and supervision by the Israeli armed forces but were required to have all footage recorded from the enclave approved by Israeli army officials before it was broadcast.

CNN and NBC were among the broadcasters that allowed their journalists to embed with the Israeli military, and for their reports to submit to Israeli censorship and supervision.

In November, CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria reported that journalists embedded with the Israeli military had been subjected to specific “terms”.

“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF [Israeli military] escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication,” the CNN host said.

“CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel’s operations in Gaza.”

No military censor
NBC claimed on the other hand that it does not send the final story to the military censor for review.

However, CNN chief correspondent Clarissa Ward was the first foreign journalist to independently report on Israel’s war on Gaza, during her visit to a UAE-operated field hospital in southern Gaza.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also noted various incidents of restrictions on foreign or Palestinian reporting by the Israeli government.

This comes as 88 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli assault in Gaza, including 83 Palestinians two Israelis and three Lebanese, although Palestinian figures are much higher.

The organisation has since warned that the conflict has severely affected media workers and journalists in Gaza since 7 October stating that the casualty toll has shown the “deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992”.

However, Reporters Without Borders reports an even higher death toll – 103 journalists in 150 days — while the Gaza Media Office has reported more than 180 reporters and videographers have been killed, according to Al Jazeera.

Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch.

Archive: France protects abortion in constitution – The bicycle pump that ate Paris

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Abortion by bicycle pump article
Abortion by bicycle pump - one of the pictures in Marie Claire that shocked a nation. Image: DR/Nation Review

Today is International Women’s Day. On Monday, 4 March 2024, four days ago, French lawmakers approved a bill that will enshrine the right to an abortion in the Constitution of France in a joint session of Parliament at the Palace of Versailles. The move makes France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law. How times have changed in a half century. David Robie recalls an article he filed for Australia’s Nation Review from Paris in 1974 while he was living there.

THE BICYCLE PUMP THAT ATE PARIS
By David Robie

There was none of the sterile atmosphere that normally characterises usual surgeries. On the bed, covered with a crochet blanket, lay the patient, naked except for a bra. The doctor was in a checked shirt with rolled sleeves. A pretty nurse sat on the bed holding the girl’s hand.

And nearby were the surgical instruments — a bicycle pump, a plastic tube and a jar.

The scene was a modern apartment in the middle class 12th arrondissement quarter of Paris, one of the many “clinics” throughout France of the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception Movement (MLAC).

Staffed by doctors, medical students and other volunteers, clinics such as this counsel people every day in a country where abortion is still illegal and contraception has been discouraged. Since they first began to open 18 months ago, the clinics have also conducted thousands of do-it-yourself abortions using the Karman suction method involving a bicycle pump and an inverted valve.

This month the staid women’s magazine Marie Claire, a sister publication of Paris Match, revealed the activities of MLAC in an investigative report on abortion which has shocked much of France and led to the magazine being seized in Belgium and banned in Spain.

Maire Claire published a graphic series of photographs of a young woman being helped to give herself an abortion with a bicycle pump at one of the MLAC clinics. French medical authorities angrily protested.

The magazine’s editors argued that at a time when the government was preparing to liberalise abortion laws, the country should know the “full facts”.

Debating is due to start soon in the National Assembly on draft reforms — prepared by the Undersecretary for Women’s Affairs, Françoise Giroud — of the antiquated abortion and contraception laws which have not been altered since 1920.

MLAC staff encourage women to carry out their own abortion, under supervision, because they consider it less traumatic. But the staff generally show the patient a bottle containing the placenta sucked out of the womb to shock her into using contraception.

The method is claimed to be the most modern and safest, and is only painful for two or three seconds. Named after Karman, a Californian psychiatrist who picked up the idea during a visit to China, the method requires a widening of the uterus 10 times less than the conventional curettage. It has been in use in France only since 1972.

“The bicycle pump is not an improvisation, but a rational method,” says one MLAC clinic supervisor. “In England, at King’s College, which possesses one of the best gynecological-obstetrics services in the world, they prefer the bicycle pump to more costly electric ones.

Maire Claire also reported the activities of a typical GP practice carrying out abortions in the northern Paris suburb of Gennevilliers. Consisting of a team of three doctors, aged from 28 to 33, they charge 87 francs (about A$13); the patients are able to claim the money back from Social Security because they are listed on the records of having a smear test.

The magazine said hospitals were in chaos over policy towards abortions. Some hospitals would not carry out abortions at all, others only handled essential cases when the mother’s life was at stake, and in others blood was injected into the vagina to simulate an emergency case.

Only one hospital in France was carrying out abortions openly, the magazine said. This was Emile-Roux at Eaubinne, near Paris; 78 out of the staff of 90 in the general surgery ward decided in favour of abortions last May [1973], and the hospital then began giving them openly.

Abortion reform in France, although a belated result of the May 1968 riots, really gained momentum only in February 1973 when 331 doctors signed a public declaration that they would carry out abortions. None of the doctors were prosecuted. The MLAC was founded soon after.

This article, “The bicycle pump that ate Paris”, was first published by the Nation Review — “The Ferret”, in Melbourne, 25-31 October 1974, page 41.

Israel is pillaging not just Gaza’s cities but also its natural resources – water and gas

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ANALYSIS: By Sultan Barakat

Over the past few months, appalling videos have emerged from the conflict zone in Gaza of Israeli troops looting the properties of Palestinians who have fled their brutal aggression.

Soldiers can be seen smiling to the camera and showing off watches, jewellery, cash, and even carpets and sports jerseys that they had stolen from Palestinian homes.

Historical artefacts stolen from Gaza have even been put on display at the Knesset.

While similar acts of looting by Russian soldiers in Ukraine were well-documented and mocked, international media has hardly paid attention to the Israeli pillaging of Gaza.

Some may find it hard to believe that the well-paid soldiers of a rich country would engage in such crimes, but to the people of Palestine, this is hardly surprising. The scenes in these videos are highly reminiscent of what Palestinians saw happen to their properties as they fled ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces in the 1948 Nakba.


War on Gaza: Israeli soldiers looting.  Video: Al Jazeera

As Israeli historian Adam Raz describes in his recent book, Looting of Arab Property in the War of Independence, Jewish fighters and civilians looted everything from jewellery, books, and embroidered gowns to food and livestock to furniture, kitchenware and even floor tiles.

Once established, the state of Israel continued to steal on a greater scale from the Palestinians, taking their land and property. Palestinian natural resources, particularly water, have also been looted.

Convenient cover
Today, the war in Gaza is serving as a convenient cover for another theft on a grand scale; this time Israel is seeking to plunder the maritime offshore gas reserves that are the property of the state of Palestine.

In late October, the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure announced that it had awarded concessions for natural gas exploration to Israeli and foreign companies in zones that significantly overlap with the maritime borders of Gaza.

Needless to say, Israel as an occupier has no right to award licences in areas that it does not hold sovereignty over under any circumstances.

Palestine is a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has declared its maritime boundaries in accordance with these principles.

Israel has not signed UNCLOS. It also does not recognise the state of Palestine and has recently doubled down on this position with a vote in the Knesset to “oppose a unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state” despite growing calls globally, including from the US, its main sponsor, for a two-state solution.

The combination of these positions has given Israel the excuse for not recognising the maritime borders of Palestine and for expropriating the resources in these areas. These Israeli claims, of course, do not make its actions legal.

One has to wonder why foreign companies, including Italian Eni, British BP and Dana Petroleum, a subsidiary of Korea National Oil Corporation, have decided to continue their participation in this deal, particularly amid the continuing Israeli campaign of what the International Court of Justice has identified as a plausible case of genocide.

Demand for cancellation
On February 8, four human rights organisations in Israel and Palestine — Adalah, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issued a joint news release regarding the awarded gas exploration licences in the occupied waters of Palestine.

They announced that they have sent a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, demanding that the award and the related tender be cancelled.

They also said they have sent legal notices to Eni, Dana Petroleum and Israeli Ratio Petroleum, asking them not to undertake any activities related to the licences. The notices warned:

“You should be aware that the International Criminal Court currently has an active investigation open into international crimes committed in territory of the State of Palestine, and has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any individual(s) it finds responsible for committing war crimes, including pillage.

“Complicity in war crimes like pillage is also a serious criminal offence and corporate actors can be subject to individual criminal liability . . . Complicity in violations of [international humanitarian law] can also expose companies like yours — and your managers and staff — to the risk of civil actions for damages.”

Apart from the illegality of the gas tender under international law, it is important to point out here the involvement of Eni, a European company. Its engagement with the Israeli gas exploration project contradicts the longstanding EU position that “all agreements between the State of Israel and the European Union must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967”.

The Israeli announcement of the awarded licences was made a bit more than a year after the EU signed on June 15, 2022, a memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian and Israeli energy ministers on regional cooperation on gas extraction. This came just a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and amid the EU’s scramble to divest from Russian gas.

Interestingly, the MoU omitted the territoriality clause that the EU is committed to include in order to protect Palestinian territories and waters from being exploited through illegal activity. Members of the European Parliament raised this question to the EU Commission a week after the signing of the MoU.

Non-binding claim
The answer from the EU Commission dismissed the importance of the omission with a rather technical point — claiming that the MoU was of a non-binding nature and therefore “no territorial clause on the applicability is deemed necessary. Nevertheless . . . the implementation of such Memorandum of Understanding will not apply in any form to the occupied Palestinian territory, which entails that Israeli supplies of natural gas as per the implementation of the memorandum of understanding may not originate from resources appropriated from Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.”

In this context, there are two questions worth posing to the EU Commission: Did this omission encourage the violation of Palestinian rights by Israel and what will be the fate of Eni’s involvement in the project?

This development also comes at a critical time when EU countries have taken highly problematic stances on the war in Gaza, supporting the “right to self-defence” of an occupier against the occupied and sending weapons to the occupying forces.

Furthermore, EU states have suspended financial support for UNRWA, practically the only lifeline for people in Gaza who are experiencing famine.

While the recent stance taken by the West against the violent, illegal settlers in the West Bank is a step in the right direction, failure to stem the blatant attempts by Israel to pillage Palestinian resources with the help of European companies will further entrench the growing cynicism in the Global South about the duplicity of the West when it comes to the application of the international law.

The EU could right some of the wrongs it has committed by helping the Palestinians exploit their natural resources. Amid the rumblings on the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza and who should foot the bill, it is important to consider the ample gas resources in Gazan waters as a significant financial resource that can be used to secure a prosperous future for the Palestinian people.

The EU can play a key role in assisting the Palestinians in developing and benefitting from these resources, as is their sovereign right.

Sultan Barakat is professor in conflict and humanitarian studies at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an honorary professor of the University of York. This article was first published by Al Jazeera. Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Why have Albanese and other politicians been referred to the ICC over Israel’s war on Gaza?

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How the referral has been seen in Turkey
How the referral has been seen in Turkey . . . These developments in recent months amount to what experts call “lawfare” - the use of international or domestic courts to seek accountability for alleged state-sanctioned acts of genocide and support or complicity in such acts. Image: Anadolu news agency screenshot APR

ANALYSIS: By Donald Rothwell

In an unprecedented legal development, senior Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation into whether they have aided or supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The referral, made by the Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal on behalf of their clients, is the first time any serving Australian political leaders have been formally referred to the ICC for investigation.

The referral asserts that Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and other members of the government have violated the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that established the ICC to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Specifically, the law firm references:

  • Australia’s freezing of aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the aid agency that operates in Gaza
  • the provision of military aid to Israel that could have been used in the alleged commission of genocide and crimes against humanity
  • permitting Australians to travel to Israel to take part in attacks in Gaza
  • providing “unequivocal political support” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.

A key aspect of the referral is the assertion, under Article 25 of the Rome Statute, that Albanese and the others bear individual criminal responsibility for aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting in the commission (or attempted commission) of alleged crimes by Israel in Gaza.

At a news conference today, Albanese said the letter had “no credibility” and was an example of “misinformation”. He said:

Australia joined a majority in the UN to call for an immediate ceasefire and to advocate for the release of hostages, the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the upholding of international law and the protection of civilians.

How the referral process works
There are a couple of key questions here: can anyone be referred to the ICC, and how often do these referrals lead to an investigation?

Referrals to the ICC prosecutor are most commonly made by individual countries — as has occurred following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — or by the UN Security Council. However, it is also possible for referrals to be made by “intergovernmental or non-governmental organisations, or other reliable sources”, according to Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The ICC prosecutor’s office has received 12,000 such referrals to date. These must go through a preliminary examination before the office decides whether there are “reasonable grounds” to start an investigation.

The court has issued arrest warrants for numerous leaders over the past two decades, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova; former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir; and now-deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Why this referral is unlikely to go anywhere
Putting aside the merit of the allegations themselves, it is unlikely the Australian referrals will go any further for legal and practical reasons.

First, the ICC was established as an international court of last resort. This means it would only be used to prosecute international crimes when courts at a national level are unwilling or unable to do so.

As such, the threat of possible ICC prosecution was intended to act as a deterrent for those considering committing international crimes, as well as an incentive for national authorities and courts to prosecute them.

Australia has such a process in place to investigate potential war crimes and other international crimes through the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI).

The OSI was created in the wake of the 2020 Brereton Report into allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. In March 2023, the office announced its first prosecution.

Because Australia has this legal framework in place, the ICC prosecutor would likely deem it unnecessary to refer Australian politicians to the ICC for prosecution, unless Australia was unwilling to start such a prosecution itself. At present, there is no evidence that is the case.

Another reason this referral is likely to go nowhere: the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, is currently focusing on a range of investigations related to alleged war crimes committed by Russia, Hamas and Israel, in addition to other historical investigations.

Given the significance of these investigations – and the political pressure the ICC faces to act with speed – it is unlikely the court would divert limited resources to investigate Australian politicians.

Increasing prominence of international courts
This referral to the ICC, however, needs to be seen in a wider context. The Israel-Hamas conflict has resulted in an unprecedented flurry of legal proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top court.

Unlike the ICC, the ICJ does not deal with individual criminal responsibility. The ICJ does, however, have jurisdiction over whether countries violate international law, such as the Genocide Convention.

This was the basis for South Africa to launch its case against Israel in the ICJ, claiming its actions against the Palestinian people amounted to genocide. The ICJ issued a provisional ruling against Israel in January which said it’s “plausible” Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent acts of genocide.

In addition, earlier this week, a new case was launched in the ICJ by Nicaragua, alleging Germany has supported acts of genocide by providing military support for Israel and freezing aid for UNRWA.

All of these developments in recent months amount to what experts call “lawfare”. This refers to the use of international or domestic courts to seek accountability for alleged state-sanctioned acts of genocide and support or complicity in such acts. Some of these cases have merit, others are very weak.

As one international law expert described the purpose:

It’s […] a way of raising awareness, getting media attention and showing your own political base you’re doing something.

These cases do succeed in increasing public awareness of these conflicts. And they make clear the desire of many around the world to hold to account those seen as being responsible for gross violations of international law.The Conversation

Dr Donald Rothwell, professor of international law, Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A grim Atlas guides NZ’s right-wing politics

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In New Zealand, the recently-elected rightwing coalition government is aping the new “Atlas president” of Argentina
In New Zealand, the recently-elected rightwing coalition government is aping the new “Atlas president” of Argentina, aiming to privatise national assets, but is increasingly also imitating Atlas strategies recently seen in Australia, inflaming racial tensions and harming the wellbeing of Māori people. Image: Pearls and Irritations

The three-party coalition that took power in New Zealand late in 2023, after a campaign centred on attacking the country’s founding Waitangi Treaty, has been exposed as hosting considerable Atlas Network infiltration.

ANALYSIS: By Lucy Hamilton

One of the key researchers into the global Atlas Network, Lee Fang, has observed that it has “reshaped political power in country after country.”

In America, every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has begun office with a Roadmap provided by the Heritage Foundation, primary Atlas Network partner. The “Mandate” for 2025 puts America on a hard path to fascism should a Republican win in November.

Britain’s economy and standing have been savaged by Atlas partners’ impacts on the Tories.

In New Zealand, the recently-elected rightwing coalition government is aping the new “Atlas president” of Argentina, aiming to privatise national assets, but is increasingly also imitating Atlas strategies recently seen in Australia, inflaming racial tensions and harming the wellbeing of Māori people.

Dr Jeremy Walker called Australia’s attention to the local Atlas partner organisations’ impact on the Voice to Parliament referendum and is now helping draw together the focus on the New Zealand partners’ very similar distortion of their national debate.

There is a deep racism at the heart of this ultra-free market ideology that has licensed the international right to exploit resources and people around the globe untrammelled, largely in American corporate interest, but more broadly for any corporation or allied sector big enough to be a contender. (They do not, by contrast, fight for the renewable energy sector’s interests, as a competitor to their dominant fossil fuel donors; this shapes their climate crisis denial and delay, and colours their loathing of First People’s capacity to interfere with their profits by environment-driven protest. A sense of Western Civilisation as the apex of human existence and deep disdain for non-Western cultures also pervade the network.)

The coalition that took power in NZ late in 2023, after a campaign centred on attacking the country’s founding Waitangi Treaty, has considerable Atlas infiltration. There is concern about Atlas fossil fuel and associated tobacco interests perverting policy in Parliament.

The government has promised to repeal Jacinda Ardern’s ban on offshore gas and fuel exploration, plans to sell water to private interests, not to mention planning to enable the selling off of “sensitive” NZ land and assets to foreign corporations, just as Argentinian Milei is intending.

One of the government coalition members, the Act Party, began its existence as an Atlas partner thinktank and continues that close connection. It was founded by former parliamentarian Denis Quigley with two members of the Mont Pelerin Society, the Atlas Network’s inner sanctum.

One, Roger Douglas, was responsible for Rogernomics in NZ which has been described as a “right wing coup” that worked to “dismantle the welfare state.” The other, Alan Gibbs, who has been characterised as the godfather of the party, and a major funder, argued Act ought to campaign for government to privatise “all the schools, all the hospitals and all the roads.”

This may not be surprising since he made much of his fortune out of the privatisation of NZ’s telecommunications.

The Act Party is currently led by David Seymour who functions as a co-deputy prime minister in the government. He has worked almost his entire adult life within Atlas partner bodies in Canada and boasts a (micro) MBA dispensed by the Network.

In Seymour’s 2021 Waitangi Day speech, he acknowledged his “old friends at the Atlas Network.” In light of that, his recent disdainful and absolute dismissal of the party’s connection to Atlas in an interview was telling — he clearly felt the association was damaging enough to lie outright.

Seymour, himself part-Māori (of Ngāpuhi descent on his mother’s side), is also deeply antagonistic to policies dedicated to repairing the disadvantage suffered by Māori people, disingenuously describing provisions that work cooperatively with Māori people as the “dismantling of democracy.” He appears antagonistic to Māori culture.

Another Atlas partner that has been key to distorting debate in NZ is the Taxpayer Union (TPU) which is emblematic of the production of metastasising bodies central to the Atlas strategy. Its co-founder and executive director is another graduate of the Atlas (micro) MBA programme.

Jordan Williams (currently “capo di tutti capi” of the Atlas global alliance of anti-tax junktanks) laughably depicts Atlas as a benign “club of like-minded think tanks.”

He created, however, a body called the Campaign Company which helped radicalise the established farmer power base in NZ politics, planting sponsored material in the media. Williams claimed to grant the farmers “world-class campaign tools and digital strategies”.

He also co-founded the Free Speech Union (FSU), which is unsurprisingly fighting regulation of the damaging impact of internet disinformation as well as fostering culture war battles.

A further spin-off of the bodies illustrates the increasing ugliness of the populist strategies. A former Act Party MP has founded the New Zealand Centre for Political Research which is fomenting civic division against Māori interests, including placing hate-mongering advertisements in the media.

The Act Party (alongside the populist New Zealand First party) is at the heart of the coalition government’s intention to destroy NZ’s admirable efforts to promote Māori interests for the betterment of the country, including the co-governance innovation. Efforts to undo disadvantage and programmes that have promoted the distinctive NZ democratic experiment are set to be dismantled.

A “massive unravelling” of Māori rights is at stake.

Lord Hannan (one of Boris Johnson’s elevations to the peerage, and a junktank creature) recently spoke in NZ, welcoming “all the coalition partners around this table” to hear his oration. There he celebrated the small percentage of GDP that NZ’s government spends on its people, cheering on the TPU’s power.

He also disdained the “tribalism” that has dictated recognition of First Peoples’ suffering. There is grand (but unsurprising) irony in a graduate of three of Britain’s preeminent educational institutions dictating that humanity’s essential equality is all that can be considered when devising policy, particularly in settler-colonial nations.

Amusingly the weightier debunking of the Atlas connections has come from: Chris Trotter, formerly centre left, now a council member of Williams’ FSU; Eric Crampton, chief economist of the New Zealand Initiative, NZ’s leading Atlas partner and Sean Plunkett whose “anti-woke” vanity media platform, Platform, is plutocrat funded and regularly platforms the NZI talking heads.

While Atlas’s system largely functions to connect and train operatives, as well as acting as an extension of American foreign policy, this modest-seeming program must not be ignored. We have a handful of years to achieve a monumental shift from fossil fuel towards renewable energy: Atlas partners aim to ensure this does not take place.

And Atlas partners will push us at each other’s throats while we procrastinate.

Lucy Hamilton is a Melbourne writer with degrees from the University of Melbourne and Monash University. She is immersed in studying the global democratic recession. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations and is republished by Café Pacific with permission.

Open letter: Dear President Biden, why do you support genocide in Gaza?

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The Palestinians are . . . a very curious people.
The Palestinians are . . . a very curious people. Their most burning question they all have today is, “why”? Why do the Palestinian people have to endure genocide at the hands of your ally, carried out with your weapons and money, while you refuse to call for a ceasefire? Image: David Robie/Café Pacific

OPEN LETTER: By Ghada Ageel

Dear President Biden,

I am writing to you for the second time. I first wrote to you on November 4 after 47 members of my community, including 36 from my own family, were murdered in a single attack by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The massacre occurred in Khan Younis refugee camp, located in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people were supposed to be safe, as claimed by your ally, Israel.

I am uncertain if my first letter reached you or if your media team made you aware of its contents. Either way, you have not changed your position. Your unequivocal support for Israel, including through large weapons transfers, means that many more such massacres have been committed with your help since then.

Since writing that letter, I have lost another 220 members of my own family.

READ MORE

Just a month ago, on January 31, my father’s cousin, Khaled Ammar, 40, who was displaced in Khan Younis, was killed alongside his entire family when the place they were staying in was shelled by an Israeli tank. Khaled’s wife, Majdoleen, 38, their four daughters, Malak, 17, Sarah, 16, Aya, 9, and Rafeef, 7, and their two sons, Osama, 14, and Anas, 2, all perished in the attack.

Among the victims were also Khaled’s disabled brother Mohammed, 42, and their mother Fathiya, 60. Their bodies remained unburied for over a week. Khaled’s surviving brother, Bilal, 35, made repeated calls for assistance to the Palestinian Red Cross Society, but they could not dispatch a rescue team to look for survivors because the IOF did not grant them permission.

Majdoleen and her two young daughters, Rafeef and Aya, came to see me last summer when I visited Gaza. I still remember Rafeef trying to ride the bike of my youngest niece, Rasha. I still remember them racing down the street, eating the candy they had bought from the shop of my cousin, Asaad. Their laughter still echoes in my ears.

But today, Mr President, there is no Aya, no Rafeef, no Asaad, who was also killed by the IOF along with his wife, children, mom, two sisters, sister-in-law and their children. There are no roads, no homes, no shops, no laughter. Only echoes of devastation and the deafening silence of loss.

A collage of Palestinian family photos
A collage of photos of Khaled, his wife Majdoleen, his brother, Mohammed, daughter Sarah, son Anas, mother Fathiya, daughters Aya, Rafeef and Malak, and son Osama . . . all killed by an Israeli attack in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on 3 January 2024. Image: Ghada Ageel/AJ

Reduced to rubble
Today, the residential area of Khan Younis refugee camp I grew up in is reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of refugees, including all surviving members of my extended family, are now displaced to al Mawasi and Rafah. They are living in tents. They are not faring well, Mr President.

I have not heard from them in a while, as Israel has cut off communication. On February 10, my nephew, Aziz, 23, walked three kilometres despite the danger to reach the edge of Rafah to use the internet. He told me that death has passed by them many times but spared them for now. They are hungry, thirsty, and cold.

There is no power, no sanitation, no medication, no communications, or any services available to them, despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel has to ensure the delivery of aid to Gaza.

If people do survive the Israeli bombs, they may not survive wounds sustained in the Israeli bombardment and the explosion of communicable and non-communicable diseases. The health care system has collapsed under the Israeli onslaught.

In February, the IOF laid a siege on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the second-largest in the Gaza Strip. There were 300 medical staff trapped in the hospital alongside 450 patients and about 10,000 internally displaced persons seeking refuge within or in the hospital’s vicinity.

For days, the IOF would not let a rescue team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) evacuate patients and staff or deliver much-needed food, medical supplies and fuel. Throughout this time, the medical staff demonstrated remarkable courage and dedication to their patients, trying to keep them alive in the face of the Israeli attacks. Dr Amira Al Assouli, who rushed under Israeli fire to aid one of the wounded in the hospital courtyard is one bright example.

Countless people who sought shelter in the hospital premises were killed or wounded; some of these murders were recorded on camera.

"Veto the veto"
“Veto the veto” . . . a placard condemning the US for blocking three UN Security Council Gaza ceasefire resolutions at a Palestinian solidarity rally in Auckland on 2 March 2024. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific

Messenger shot dead
On February 13, the IOF sent a young man named Jamal Abu Al Ola, whom Israeli soldiers had detained and tortured, to the hospital to tell the Palestinians sheltering there to leave. Wearing a white PPE garment and with his hands bound, he delivered the message and then — as instructed — headed towards the gate of the hospital, but was shot dead. His execution was documented by a journalist at the hospital and released to the public.

Will you order an investigation, Mr President? Will you demand that those responsible for the killing of Jamal and the many others at Nasser Hospital be punished or will you accept the IOF’s version of events again?

On February 15, the IOF raided the hospital, expelling thousands of people amid heavy bombardment and forcibly disappearing hundreds — at least 70 of them medical workers. This continues a pattern started in Gaza City. When the IOF raided Al Shifa Hospital, it detained some of its staff, among them, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the hospital director, who remains in Israeli jail. The excuse then, as now, is that they were hunting for a Hamas command centre — a false narrative, you, Mr President, readily embraced.

During the raid of Nasser Hospital, the cutting off of electricity and oxygen resulted in the deaths of at least eight patients. When a WHO team was finally allowed to enter the hospital, its staffers described it as “a place of death”. After the evacuation of hundreds of patients, some 25 medical staffers stayed behind to care for the remaining 120 patients in the hospital without a secured supply of food, water or medications.

Among the regular patients of Nasser Hospital was my relative, Inshirah, who suffered from kidney failure and required dialysis every week. She lived in the Al Qararah area, east of Khan Younis.

When the IOF bombed her area, she moved to a camp for displaced people. When the IOF attacked the camp, she moved to Hay al Amal. When the latter was bombed, her children decided to move her to the vicinity of Nasser Hospital.

As the conditions at the hospital deteriorated, the frequency of her dialysis sessions was reduced to once every 2 weeks and then to once every 3 weeks, causing her significant suffering. When the IOF besieged the hospital, Inshirah was forced to leave. Then we lost contact with her and her children. We do not know if she has survived.

Health death sentence
The vast majority of chronically ill people like Inshirah cannot access proper health care after Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s health care system. This is a death sentence for them. Destroying a health care system is a war crime, did you know that, Mr President?

Mr President, 2.3 million people in Gaza are living in a concentration camp. They are starved and killed relentlessly. They are bombed in their homes, on the streets, while collecting water, while sleeping in their tents, while receiving aid, and even while cooking. In Gaza, people tell me that drinking water costs blood, a loaf of bread is dipped in blood, and moving from place to place means bleeding.

Even the act of seeking food to feed your children can kill you — as happened to many parents on February 28. Some 112 Palestinians were murdered by the IOF as they tried to get flour to feed themselves and their families.

Their deaths are painfully real. As were the deaths of small babies like Anas, children like Aya, mothers like Majdoleen, and the elderly like Fathiya. There are among the more than 30,000 that have been recorded in the official death toll; many more thousands have perished but are recorded as “missing”.

Some 13,000 of the murdered are children. Many are now dying of starvation. Israel is killing 6 children an hour. Each of these children had a name, a story, and a dream that is never to be fulfilled. Do the children of Gaza not deserve life, Mr President?

The Palestinians are among the most educated nations in the entire Middle East. They are a very curious people. Their most burning question they all have today is, “why”? Why do the Palestinian people have to endure genocide at the hands of your ally, carried out with your weapons and money, while you refuse to call for a ceasefire?

Can you tell us why, Mr President?

Dr Ghada Ageel is a third-generation Palestinian refugee and is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta situated at amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton), Treaty 6 territory in Canada. The article was first published by Al Jazeera.

NZ’s shameful act over Hamas in defiance of Gaza atrocities reality

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"Luxon fails on Palestine . . . " placard at Saturday's Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland. Image: David Robie/APR

COMMENTARY: By David Robie

New Zealand has taken another shameful act in its tone deaf approach to Israel’s War on Gaza this week by declaring Hamas a “terrorist entity” at a time when millions are marching worldwide for an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace founded on an independent state of Palestine.

It would have been more realistic and just to condemn Israel for its genocidal war and five months of atrocities.

Instead, it has been corralled into the Five Eyes clique with an increasingly isolated United States as it continues to support the war with taxpayer funded armaments and providing the cloak of diplomacy.

It was really unwise of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s coalition government to declare the Hamas political wing as terrorist, after already having declared the military wing terrorist in 2010.

Many argue around the world with increasing insistence that actually Israel is a rogue terrorist state.

Also, it is very unlikely that Benjamin Netanyahu will succeed in his aims of “destroying” the Hamas movement, whatever the final outcome of the war.

As John Minto points out, Palestinian resistance movements have the right under international law to take up arms to fight against their colonial occupiers just as the African National Congress (ANC) had the right to take up arms to fight for freedom in apartheid South Africa.

Hamas represents an ideal, an independent Palestinian state and that can never be defeated.

Factions meet for unity
The various factions of the Palestinian resistance and political movements, including Fatah and Hamas, have been meeting in Moscow this week to settle their differences and stitch together a framework for a “Palestinian government of unity” as a basis for the future political architecture of independence.

The United Nations General Assembly in 1969 — two years after the 1967 Six Day War when Israel seized Gaza from Egypt and Occupied West Bank from Jordan — recognised and reaffirmed “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.

This includes the right to choose their own representatives, including Hamas, an Islamist nationalist independence and resistance movement defending their illegally occupied territory, not a “terrorist” movement that the US and Israel try to have the world believe.

They are still very likely to be in the post-war line-up ending the status quo after five decades of illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands and the rash of illegal Israeli settlements.

American economist and public policy analyst Professor Jeffrey Sachs
American economist and public policy analyst Professor Jeffrey Sachs . . . “Israel is a criminal. Israel is in non-stop war crime status. Image: Judging Freedom

American economist and public policy analyst Professor Jeffrey Sachs summed up the reality over Israel’s colonial settler project in an interview this week by describing the Netanyahu government as a “murderous gang” and “zealots”, warning that “they are not going to stop”.

“Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. Starved. I am not using an exaggeration.

“I’m talking literally starving a population,” said the director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at New York’s Columbia University.

‘Israel is criminal’
“Israel is a criminal. Israel is in non-stop war crime status. Now, I believe, it is in genocidal status, and it is without shame, without remorse, without truth, without insight into what it is doing.

“But what it is doing is endangering Israel’s fundamental security because it is driving the world to believe that the Israeli state is not legitimate.

“This will stop when the United States stops providing the munitions to Israel. It will not be by any self-control in Israel. There is none in this government.

“This is a murderous gang in government right now. These are zealots. They have some messianic vision of controlling all of today’s Palestinian lands. They are not going to stop.

“They believe in ethnic cleansing, or worse, depending on whatever is needed. And it is, again, the United States, which is the sole support. And it our mumbling, bumbling president and the others that are not stopping this slaughter.”

In addition, to the growing massive protests around the world against the Israeli extremism, a growing number of countries and organisations, inspired by two International Court of Justice cases against Israel — one by South Africa alleging genocide by Israel and the other by the UNGA seeking a ruling on the legality of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine — have introduced lawsuits.

A Dutch court last month ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel following concern that the country may be violating international laws such as the Genocide Convention.

Follow-up lawsuit
South Africa is preparing a follow-up lawsuit against the US and the UK for “complicity” in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. South African lawyer lawyer Wikus Van Rensburg said: “The United States must now be held accountable for the crimes it committed.”

Nicaragua is suing Germany at the ICJ for funding Israel – its export of weapons and munitions to the country has risen ten-fold since the Hamas deadly attack on Israel last October 7 — and cutting aid to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), the major humanitarian agency in Gaza.

It has called for emergency measures that would force Germany to cease military aid to Israel, and restart funding to the UNRWA.

Nicaragua lawyers said in their lawsuit that the action was necessary because of Germany’s “participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law” in Gaza.

"Would it be OK for you if they killed me?"
“Would it be OK for you if they killed me?” . . . placard with child in pram at the Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland on Saturday. Image: David Robie/APR

Instead of joining the US-led coalition in the Red Sea operation against the Houthis, who are targeting US, UK and Israeli-linked ships to disrupt maritime trade in support of the Palestinians, New Zealand would have been more constructive by joining the South African case against Israel in The Hague.

Principle before profit if New Zealand is really committed to international rules based diplomacy.

Nicaragua lawyers said in their lawsuit that the action was necessary because of Germany’s “participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law” in Gaza.

A record of US, UK isolation and cynicism
A record of US, UK isolation and cynicism . . . how the UN Security Council members have voted in three Gaza ceasefire resolutions. Image: Al Jazeera/Creative Commons

No time to be ‘neutral’
This is no time to be “neutral” over the War on Gaza, there are fundamental issues of global justice and human rights at stake. As various global aid officials have been saying, every day that passes without a ceasefire and a step towards an independent Palestine as a long-term solution means more children dying of starvation or from the bombing.

The death toll is already a staggering more than 30,000 — mostly women and children. The war is clearly directed at the people of Gaza, collective punishment. At least, 117 Gazans were killed while seeking food aid in Gaza City when Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) troops opened fire in what has been described as the “flour massacre”.

At least 15 children have died from malnutrition so far.

Caretaker Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila told Al Jazeera that “the ceasefire is much more important than having food under fire . . . People are running from one place to another just to save their lives.”

Australian columnist Caitlin Johnstone warns against neutrality, advice that might have been heeded by New Zealand’s foreign affairs advisers.

“At least be real with yourself that by refusing to pick a position you are licking the boot of a nuclear-armed ethnostate that is backed by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”

And that impunity needs to end.