South African lawyer Adila Hassim told judges at The Hague that “genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocidal acts”.
“Israel deployed 6000 bombs per week . . . No one is spared. Not even newborns.
UN chiefs have described it as a graveyard for children,” she said told the court on the opening session of the two-day preliminary hearing.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court.”
Israel’s ongoing three-month war in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, lawyers told the court.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and an Israeli blockade severely limiting food, fuel and medicine has caused a humanitarian “catastrophe”, according to the UN.
‘Genocidal in character’
South Africa submitted its case against Israel at the ICJ last month and has said Israel’s actions in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group”.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another South African lawyer and legal scholar at the hearing, said Pretoria was not alone in drawing attention to Israel’s genocidal rhetoric.
He said that at least 15 UN special rapporteurs and 21 members of the UN working groups had warned that what was happening in Gaza reflected a genocide in the making.
Video: Middle East Eye
Ngcukaitobi added that genocidal intent was evident in the way Israel’s military was conducting attacks, including the targeting of family homes and civilian infrastructure.
“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”
Ngcukaitobi said the “genocidal rhetoric” had become common within the Israeli Knesset, with several MPs calling for Gaza to be “wiped out, flattened, erased and crushed”.
Israeli defence
On Wednesday, Nissim Vaturi, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, said it was a “privilege” for his country to appear at The Hague as he doubled down on earlier remarks where he said there were “no innocent people” in Gaza.
This is the first time Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against Jews and other persecuted minorities during the Holocaust.
During yesterday’s proceedings, Professor Max du Plessis, another lawyer representing South Africa, said Israel had subjected the Palestinian people to an “oppressive and prolonged violation of their rights to self-determination for more than half a century”.
Dr Du Plessis added that based on materials shown before the court, the acts of Israel were plausibly characterised as genocidal.
“South Africa’s obligation is motivated by the need to protect Palestinians in Gaza and their absolute rights not to be subjected to genocidal acts.”
Genocide cases, which are notoriously hard to prove, can take years to resolve, but South Africa is asking the court to speedily implement “provisional measures” and “order Israel to cease killing and causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinian people in Gaza”.
Three hour hearing
Yesterday’s hearing consisted of three hours of detailed descriptions detailing what South Africa says is a clear example of genocide. Israel will today have three hours to respond on Friday.
The spokesperson of the Israeli Foreign Affairs, Lior Haiat, hit out at the comments made in the hearing, calling it “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy,” and demonstrated “false and baseless claims.”
He also accused South Africa of “functioning as the legal arm of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
As South Africa did in its 84-page legal filing ahead of the case, the country’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola repeated that he “unequivocally condemns Hamas” for the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Republished from Middle East Eye.
The full first day hearing – South Africa’s submissions. Video: Middle East Eye
Armed PNG solders from Murray Barracks protecting Taurama Foodland Shopping Centre from citywide looting and arson in the capital Port Moresby on Wednesday. Image: InsidePNG
By Miriam Zarriga and Gorethy Kenneth in Port Moresby
Fires from the 24-hour spate of looting, rioting and mayhem in Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby — the worst ever social unrest in the city — have all but subsided into skeletal remains of ash and buildings in National Capital District (NCD).
The smoke has cleared with six members of Parliament resigning from the Pangu Pati-led government, 10 people are dead in in Lae and NCD, 46 are wounded and hospitalised, and multiple people are suffering non-threatening injuries.
The government responded by declaring a State of Emergency in NCD and suspending Police Commissioner David Manning and secretaries of the Department of Finance Sam Penias, Treasury Andrew Oeka, Personnel Management Taies Sansan for 14 days.
Looted, burnt and damaged businesses count the cost in Port Moresby after a day of mayhem caused by a police pay dispute strike. Image: PNG Post-Courier
Under fire Prime Minister James Marape . . . 14-day suspension of police chief and other top civil servants. Image: PNGPC
The Post-Courier understands there was disagreement on the suspension and that the SOE was not the way forward.
However, National Executive Council decided on going ahead with the SOE and suspension.
According to details released by Prime Minister James Marape, cabinet deliberated yesterdy afternoon and in a decision invoking Section 226 of the Constitution a a 14-day SOE was declared in Port Moresby only.
“14 days is the limit of the SOE, any longer period would require Parliament approval,” Marape said.
Meanwhile, according to the details released by Marape, Deputy Commissioner of Police-Special Operations Donald Yamasombi is now acting Police Commissioner and Controller of the country.
“Secretaries for Treasury, Finance and Personnel Management who are suspended for 14 days, their respective deputies are now acting.”
Headlines from yesterday’s Asia Pacific Media Network coverage of the Port Moresby rioting. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Prime Minister Marape reiterated his claim that Wednesday’s riots in Port Moresby had been organised, but declined to say they were political, instead saying his government would only be removed on floor of Parliament.
He said that Chief Secretary and others would undertake an investigation of what happened in Port Moresby.
After the rioting . . . confusion as Port Moresby waits to be back in business. Image: PNGPC
Few shops open
Port Moresby was in confusion yesterday following the aftermath of the worst ever civil disorder as reality sets in leaving people with no shops open to buy food and essentials from.
While the PNG Defence Force and members of the police patrolled the city’s streets in an attempt to restore normalcy many genuine city residents were queued at the only three service stations open to refuel their vehicles in anticipation of the weekend.
A-Mart supermarket at Manu Auto Port was the only shop open within the vicinity of Taurama and Boroko suburbs where angry shoppers crowded around the shop begging for entry which was heavily guarded by PNG Defence Force soldiers.
On Wednesday, more than 20 shops were looted and 8 others burnt leaving the streets of Port Moresby covered in papers and plastics from the items that were looted by hundreds of people who took advantage of the city polices strike over their salaries.
A mother of four who wished to be anonymous was worried where she would buy food for her children over the next couple of weeks as all the shops, she knows have been either looted, burnt or are closed for security reasons.
“I went to a shop at Hanuabada and waited for three hours for it to open to buy my children’s food but unfortunately, it was not open so I came back,” she said.
The Post-Courier’s cover stories today after Wedesday’s rampage in Port Moresby. Image: PNGPC
‘How are we going to survive’
“If these issues are not resolved, how are we going to survive.
“These shops are our gardens. They are where we get our food from.”
Meanwhile, many tucker boxes and canteens in the city were open today and their prices have sky rocketed only hours after Wednesday’s wild rampage.
For example, at Konedobu a 1kg packet of rice now costs K10 (NZ $4.50) — double the price prior to the looting.
Following the disorder, many clinics were also closed to the public over safety concerns.
Miriam Zarriga, Gorethy Kenneth and Claudia Tally are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission on the Post-Courier and Asia Pacific Report.
Looting has spread to at least four other towns, including Kavieng, reports the PNG Post-Courier.
Footage and images circulating on social media show crowds of people leaving shops with looted goods — everything from merchandise to soft drinks to freezers — as the National Capital District (NCD) descended into chaos overnight.
Rioting breaks out in Port Moresby as looters take advantage of a protest by the Papua New Guinea’s police and military. Image: Isaac A Itsima/FB/RNZ
The national daily newspaper PNG Post-Courier labelled the events the “Darkest day in our city” and NCD Governor Powes Parkop appealed to the looters to stop.
Port Moresby General Hospital say eight people have been killed, and another two have been confirmed dead by police central command in Lae, the country’s second biggest city.
‘My heart goes out’
“The cost of the ensuing looting and destruction is substantial, and my heart goes out to all the businesses in the city that have been affected,” Parkop said according reports.
People flee with merchandise as crowds leave shops with looted goods in Port Moresby. Image: Andrew Kutan/RNZ
Unverified videos have also emerged of bodies of several men allegedly shot dead who were involved in the unrest on Wednesday and children and women wailing around them in Port Moresby.
RNZ Pacific is trying to verify the footage.
Police and the PNG Defence Force reinforcements have been called from outside the capital to restore order.
Emergency service providers have been working overnight attending to high numbers of people injured in the violence at various locations.
“The ambulance service has received a large number of emergencies calls in the National Capital District relating to shooting incidents and persons injured in an explosion,” St. John Ambulance Service said on their Facebook page.
“The ambulance operations centre are prioritising high-priority emergencies only at this point.”
Stretched to limit
The Papua New Guinea Fire Service has had its resources stretched to its limits as it struggled to contain fires in multiple locations.
The Port Moresby General Hospital had to close overnight while a smaller hospital at the Gerehu suburb, evacuated its patients as a nearby shop was set on fire.
Large businesses suffered big losses in just a few hours.
The City Pharmacy Limited (CPL) group, which owns one of the biggest supermarket and pharmacy chains in Port Moresby, had most its shops raided and burned overnight.
Looters also stole electronic appliances from warehouses and shops owned by the Brian Bell group of companies.
Mobile squad called in
Last night, additional police from the Highlands Mobile Group (HMG) were flown in from from Lae to help restore order.
The government also issued a call out for the military to assist police.
A protest over unexplained pay deductions to salaries of police, military and correctional services staff has triggered looting in Port Moresby. Image: RNZ
The events began on Wednesday morning local time, after about 200 police and the military personnel gathered at the Ungai Oval to protest over pay deductions from their wages.
They wanted answers from authorities about the “tax” in their most recent pay period, but a government minister who addressed them could not convince them why the deductions had been made.
The tax office said the issue caused by a “glitch” in the accounting system.
What triggered the chaos In the last fortnight pay cycle, several service members saw a reduction in their pay, ranging from $100 PNG kina to $350 PNG kina (US$26-US$80).
It was not clear whether it was due to a tax, or a glitch in the system.
Many of them were told later, through a statement from the Internal Revenue Commission (IRC), and the prime minister’s office that there was a glitch in the payrolls system.
That triggered a gathering of about 200 policemen and women, military personnel and correctional services personnel in Port Moresby. They demanded an answer from the government, saying a “glitch” wasn’t a satisfactory answer.
They then moved from Unagi Oval to Parliament house, opened the gates of Parliament, and the Police Minister Peter Siamali Jr tried to address them. The security personnel then withdrew their services, and the city descended into chaos overnight.
Initially it was sporadic looting in various suburbs of Port Moresby. In the Gerehu suburb one shop was burned, and a few kilometres down to Waigani there was a shop that was burnt, and over the next three to four hours it became worse and several more shops were looted because there was no police presence there.
Policemen were there, but nothing could be done to the looters, so it has degenerated to a point where there is widespread looting.
The Finance Department and prime minister have tried to explain the so-called “glitch”, saying it was being fixed, but that has not gone down well with the service members.
The Northern Mobile Group, a mobile squad unit from out of Port Moresby which looks after one part of the region, has been flown into Port Moresby, and is expected to restore order.
The military has been called out to assist police.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.
The late Chief Lukas Enembe's family mourns him after his coffin was delivered to his home in Koya last month. The banned Morning Star flag of independence hangs above his coffin. Image: Yamin Kogoya
The usually festive Christmas season in West Papua was marred by the death of beloved Papua Governor and Chief Lukas Enembe in an Indonesian military hospital on Boxing Day. The author personally witnessed the emotional village scenes of his burial and accuses the Indonesian authorities of driving him to his death through draconian treatment. Today is one year on from when Enembe was “kidnapped” by authorities from his home and most Papuans believe the former governor never received justice.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Yamin Kogoya in Jayapura
Papuans regard December as both the most sacred and toughest month of the year.
December holds great significance in West Papua for two distinct reasons. First, the date December 1 signifies a pivotal national moment for Papuans, symbolising the birth of their nationhood.
Second, on December 25, the majority of Christian Papuans celebrate the birth of Christ.
This date embodies the spirit of Christmas every year, characterised by warmth, family gatherings, and the commemoration of Jesus’ birth, which is profoundly revered among Papuans.
The festive ambiance is heightened by the overlap with the celebration of Papuan independence on December 1, creating a doubly important month for the people.
Papuans raise the Morning Star flag on December 1 every year to commemorate the birth of a new nation statehood, marked originally in 1961. The month of December is a time of celebration and hope — but it is also tragedy and betrayal, making it psychologically and emotionally the most sensitive month for Papuans.
If there were an evil force aiming to target and disrupt the heart of Papuan collective identity, December would be the ideal time for such intentions.
Papua Governor Lukas Enembe speaks to journalists after his inauguration at the State Palace in Jakarta in 2018. Image: HSanuddin/Kompas/JP
Jakarta accomplished this on 26 December 2023 — Boxing Day as it is known in the West.
Instead of offering a Christmas gift of redemption and healing to the long-suffering Papuans, who have endured torment from the Indonesian elites for more than 60 years, Jakarta tragically presented them with yet another loss — the death of their beloved leader, former Papua Governor and Chief Lukas Enembe.
Enembe died at the Indonesian military hospital in Jakarta at 10 am local time.
Chief Lukas Enembe died standing
In the early hours of Tuesday, December 26, Enembe asked visiting family members to help him stand up from his hospital bed. The next thing he asked was for someone close to him to hug and embrace him.
Before taking his last breath, Enembe looked around and kissed a family member on the cheek. He died while standing and being embraced by his family.
A doctor was immediately summoned to attend Chief Enembe. Tragically, it was too late to save him. He was pronounced dead shortly after.
Since October, he had been receiving treatment at the Indonesian military hospital. He fought courageously both legally and clinically for his life after he was “kidnapped” from his home by the Indonesian Corruption Commission (KPK) and Indonesian security forces on 10 January 2023.
During his prolonged trial, he was severely ill and in and out of courtrooms and military hospitals. Some weeks after falling in KPK’s prison bathroom, he was rushed to hospital but brought straight back to his prison cell.
Court hearings were sometimes cancelled due to his severe illness, while at other times, he briefly appeared online. At times, hearings took hours due to insufficient or lack of evidence, or the complexity of the case against him.
Eventually, Chief Judge Rianto Adam Pontoh and other judges read out the verdict on 19 October 2023, in which he was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined Rp500 million (NZ$51,000) for bribery and gratification related to infrastructure projects in Papua.
One month after the ruling became legally binding, the judge also enforced an extra fine of Rp19.69 billion (NZ$2 million).
He continued to maintain his innocence until the day he died.
A floral tribute and condolences to the Enembe family from Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Image: Yamin Kogoya
Throughout the proceedings, Enembe asserted that he had never received any form of illicit payment or favour from either businessman cited in the allegations.
Enembe and his legal team emphasised that none of the testimony of the 17 witnesses called during the trial could provide evidence of their involvement in bribery or gratuities in connection with Lukas Enembe.
“During the trial, it was proven very clearly that no witness could explain that I received bribes or gratuities from Rijatono Lakka and Piton Enumbi,” Enembe said through his lawyer Pattyona during the hearing.
In addition to asking for his release, Enembe also asked the judge to unfreeze the accounts of his wife and son which had been frozen when the legal saga began. He said his wife (Yulce Wenda) and son (Astract Bona Timoramo Enembe) needed access to their funds to cover their daily expenses.
This request remains answered until today.
Enembe asked that no party criminalise him anymore. He insisted that he had never laundered money or owned a private jet, as KPK had claimed. Enembe’s lawyer also requested that his client’s honour be restored to prevent further false accusations from emerging.
As Enembe appealed the verdict for justice, he became seriously ill and was admitted to military hospital on October 23. He could nit secure the justice he sought, nor did he receive the medical care he persistently pleaded for.
Singaporean medical specialist tried to save him
Within a week of being admitted to the military hospital, his health rapidly deteriorated.
Upon an emergency family request, Dr Francisco (a senior consultant nephrologist) and Dr Ang (a senior consultant cardiologist from Singapore Royalcare, heart, stroke and cancer) visited Chief Lukas on October 28.
Under his Singaporean doctors’ supervision, Enembe underwent successful dialysis the next day.
Enembe’s family requested a second visit on November 15 in carry out treatment for further dialysis and other complications..
A third visit was scheduled for next week after the doctors were due to return from their holidays. Doctors were in the process of requesting that the chief be transported to Singapore for a kidney transplant.
The doctors were shocked when they learned of the death of their patient — a unique and strong human being they had come to know over the years — when they returned from holiday.
In her tribute to the former governor, Levinia Michael, centre manager of the Singapore medical team, said:
“Mr Governor left us with a broken heart, but he is at eternal peace now. I think he was totally exhausted fighting this year battle with men on earth.”
Requests for immediate medical treatment rejected
There have been numerous letters of appeal sent from the chief himself, the chief’s family, lawyers, and his medical team in Singapore to the KPK’s office, the Indonesian president, and the Indonesian human rights commission, all requesting that Enembe be treated before going on trial. They were simply ignored.
Before his criminalisation in 2022 and subsequent kidnapping in 2023, the torment of this esteemed Papuan leader had already begun, akin to a slow torture like that of a boiling frog.
He confided to those near him that Jakarta’s treatment was a consequence of his opposition to numerous West Papua policies. His staunch pro-Papuan stance, similar to other leaders before him, ultimately sealed his fate.
The real cause of the death of this Papuan leader and many others who died mysteriously in Jakarta will never be known, as Indonesian authorities are unlikely to allow an independent autopsy or investigative analysis to determine the real cause of death.
This lack of accountability and lack of justice only fuels Papuan grievances and strengthens their unwavering commitment to fight for their rights.
Emotional Papuan responses
On the morning of December 28, the governor’s body arrived in Port Numbay, the capital of West Papua, or Hollandia during the Dutch era. (Indonesia later renamed the city Jayapura, meaning “city of victory”.)
As the coffin of the beloved Papuan leader and governor began to exit the airport corridor, chaos erupted. Mourning and upset Papuans attacked the Papua police chief, and the acting governor of Papua, Ridwan Rumasukun’s face was smashed with rocks.
Burning Indonesian flags during a protest at Chief Lukas Enembe’s home village of Mamit. Image: APR
Papuan tribes of the highland village of Mamit, from where Chief Eneme originates, have asked all Indonesian settlers to pack their belongings and return home. His village’s airstrip was closed and there was a threat to burn an aircraft.
Thousands marched while burning Indonesian flags and rejecting Indonesian occupation.
Jayapura and its surroundings completely changed upon his arrival. All shops, supermarkets, malls, and offices were closed. The red-and-white Indonesian flag was flown half-mast.
Condolence posters, messages, and flowers for the funerals of Lukas Enembe. Image: Yamin Kogoya
The streets, usually heavily congested with traffic emptied. There were almost no Indonesian settlers visible on the streets. Armed soldiers and policemen were visible everywhere, anticipating any possible uprising, creating an eerie atmosphere of dread and uncertainty.
Despite this, thousands of Papuans commenced their solemn journey, carrying the coffin on foot from Sentani to Koya while flying high West Papua’s Morning Star flag.
Papuan mourners said goodbye to their governor with a mixture of sorrow and pride — a deep sense of sorrow for his tragic death, but also a sense of pride for what he stood for.
Papuan mothers, fathers, and youth stood along roadsides waving, holding posters, and bidding farewell. They addressed him as “goodbye son”, “goodbye father”, “good rest chief of Papuan people”, “father of development”, “father of education”, and “most honest and loved leader of Papuan people”.
The setting mirrored Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, greeted with palm leaves and resounding hosannas, only to face an unjust trial and execution on a Roman cross.
Tens of thousands of Papuans carry the coffin of Chief Lukas Enembe from Sentani to Koya on December 28. Image: Screenshot APR
At midnight, thousands of Papuans carried the coffin by foot to the chief’s home, and the funeral continued until the next day. About 20,000 people gathered, and not a single Indonesian settler or high Indonesian or security forces official was visible.
Hundreds of flowers, posters with condolence messages from Indonesian’s highest offices, government departments, NGOs, individual leaders, governors, regencies, ministers, and even President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo himself flooded the chief’s home — which was displayed everywhere from the streets to the walls and fences.
Finally, on the December 29, Governor and Chief Lukas Enembe was buried next to the massive museum he had built dedicated to West Papua and Russia in honour of his favourite 19th century Russian scientist, anthropologist and humanist, Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay, who sought to save Papuans from European racism and savagery in the Papua New Guinea north-eastern city of Madang in the 1870s.
Governor Chief Lukas Enembe built a museum to honour Russian scientist, anthropologist and humanist Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay. Image: Yamin Kogoya
Thousands of TikTok videos, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and other social media outlets have been flooded with many of his courageous speeches, remarks, and other observations made during his leadership.
Papuans carry leaders’ coffins as sign of respect
West Papua has had only four other Papuan leaders besides Chief Enembe who have been carried on foot by thousands of Papuans as a sign of honour and respect since Indonesian occupation began in 1963.
Governor Chief Lukas Enembe was greeted by Papuan mothers and youth with flowers as thousands carried his coffin from Sentani to Koya on December 28. The moment invoked the welcome of Jesus to Jerusalem with hosannas. Image: Screenshot APR
They were Thomas Wainggai in 1996, a prominent West Papua independence advocate; Theys Eluay (2001), killed by Indonesian special forces; Neles Tebay, a Papuan leader who actively sought a peaceful resolution of conflict in West Papua through his Catholic faith and network; and Filep Karma, a prominent West Papuan independence leader and governor.
When Papuans carry their dead leader by foot chanting, singing, dancing with a Morning Star flag, it means these leaders understood the deepest desire and prayers for Papuans people and that desire and prayer is freedom and independence to West Papua.
Chief Lukas Enembe’s uniqueness lies in the fact that he was the only Indonesian colonial governor to receive such honour and respect from Papuans. While the other four honoured were not governors, they were active participants in the independence movement in West Papua.
‘Act of revenge’ by Jakarta against a courageous Papuan leader
Jakarta finally accomplished what it had set out to accomplish for decades when Enembe became a threat to Jakarta’s grip on West Papua — to engineer his death.
A direct assault on Lukas Enembe posed too much risk for Jakarta. Instead, Jakarta systematically criminalised, abducted, subjected him to legal processes, and clinically tortured him until his death on December 26.
Regardless of how vile and malicious a criminal is in Western nations, if they are injured during their illegal acts, are captured alive or half alive, police, paramedics, and ambulances immediately transport them to a hospital to be treated until they are physically and mentally capable of standing a fair trial.
This is protected under the western central legal doctrine — a person must be fit for trial.
Governor and Chief Lukas Enembe was evidently unfit for trial or imprisonment. However, the Indonesian government, using its corruption-fighting institution (KPK), detained an ailing man in prison until he died.
While Indonesians may see his death as a consequence of kidney failure, to Papuans he was tortured to death like a “boiling frog” much as Jakarta is doing to Papuans in West Papua as a whole.
In less than 20-50 years from now, indigenous Papuans will be reduced to a point where they will be unable to reclaim their land. The Papuans themselves must unite and fight for their land.
If the outside world fails to intervene, the fate of the Papuans will be like that of the original indigenous First Nation peoples of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
A door of hope for reclaiming their land is becoming narrower and narrower as Jakarta employs every trick to divide them, control them and eliminate them.
The Indonesian government is using highly sophisticated means to exterminate Papuans without the Papuans even being aware of it. Those who are aware are being eliminated.
Chief Lukas Enembe was one of the few leaders who realised Papuans may face this bleak fate.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
https://t.co/D5BecDKmv0
Enembe’s imprisonment was because he advocated for his people – by opposing the colonial ‘Special Autonomy law’, opposing the divide-and-rule tactic of creating three new provinces in West Papua, and condemning the humanitarian crisis in Dunga and Osibil.
Reporting Israel’s war on Gaza has become the greatest credibility challenge for journalists and media of our times. The latest assassination of an Al Jazeera photojournalist while documenting atrocities has prompted a leading analyst to appeal to global journalists to “take a stand” to protect the profession.
The killing of Hamza Dahdoud, the 27-year-old eldest son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, along with freelancer Mustafa Thuraya, has taken the death toll of Palestinian journalists to 109 (according to Al Jazeera sources while global media freedom watchdogs report slightly lower figures).
Emotional responses and a wave of condemnation has thrown the spotlight on the toll faced by reporters and their families.
Just under 20 months ago, Al Jazeera’s best known correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, was fatally shot by an Israeli sniper while reporting on the Occupied West Bank on 11 May 2022 in what Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned by saying this “systematic Israeli impunity is outrageous.”
Al Jazeera reports 109 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza . . . Israel is accused of “trying to kill messenger and silence the story”. Image: AJ screenshot APR
But few journalists would accept that this is anything other a targeted killing, as most of the deaths of Palestinian journalists in the latest Gaza war have been – a war on Palestinian journalism in an attempt to suppress the truth.
‘Nowhere safe in Gaza’
Certainly, Al Jazeera’s Palestinian-Israeli political affairs analyst and Marwan Bishara, who was born in Nazareth, has no doubts.
Speaking on the 24-hour Qatari world news channel, with at least 22,835 people killed in Gaza – 70 percent of them women and children — he said: “Nowhere is safe in Gaza and no journalists are safe . . . That tells us something.
“Killing the messenger”: Marwan Bishara’s interview with Al Jazeera — more tampering over the message? There is nothing “sensitive” in this clip.
“It is understood they are war journalists. But still the fact that more than 100 journalists were killed within three months is breaking yet another record in terms of killing children, and destruction of hospitals and schools, and the killing of United Nations staff.
“And now with 109 journalists killed this definitely requires a certain stand on the part of our colleagues around the world. Not just in a higher up institution.
“I am talking about journalists around the world – those who came to cover the World Cup in Doha for labour rights, or whatever. Those who are shedding tears in the Ukraine, those who are trying to cover Xinjiang in China [persecution of the Uyghur people], those who are claiming there are genocides happening right, left and centre – from China to Ukraine, to elsewhere.
“The same journalists who see in plain sight what is happening in Gaza should – regardless if we disagree on Israel’s motives, or Israel’s objectives in this war – must agree that the protection of journalists and their families is indispensable for our profession. And for their profession,” Bishara said.
“Journalists, and journalism associations and syndicates around the world – especially in those countries with influence on Israel, as in Europe, or the United States; journalists need to take a stand on what is going on in Gaza.
New investigations on U.S. and UK media bias have exposed chilling double standards by Western media when it comes to reporting on killings of Israelis compared to killings of Palestinians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/uQ0I7cT340
‘Cannot go unanswered’
“This cannot continue and go on unanswered. What about them?
“They’re going to be from various media outlets deploying journalists in war-stricken areas. They will have to call for the defence of journalists and their lives and their protection.
The South African genocide case filed against Israel in the International Court of Justice seeking an interim injunction for a ceasefire and due for a hearing later this week could pose the best chance for an end to the war.
Bishara has partially blamed Western news networks for failing to report the war on Gaza accurately and fairly, a criticism he has made in the past and his articles about Israel are insightful and damning.
Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara . . . “The same journalists who see in plain sight what is happening in Gaza . . . must agree that the protection of journalists and their families is indispensable.” Image: AJ screenshot APR
His call for a stand by journalists has in fact been echoed in some quarters where “media bias” has been challenged, opening divisions among media groups about fairness and balance that have become the most bitter since the climate change and covid pandemic debates when media “deniers” and “bothsideism” threatened to undermine science.
In November, more than 1500 journalists from scores of US media organisations signed an open letter calling for integrity in Western media’s coverage of “Israeli atrocities against Palestinians”.
Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in Gaza have been hit in the past month.
Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale suppression of speech.
In the United Kingdom, eight BBC journalists wrote an open letter in late November to Al Jazeera accusing the British broadcaster of bias in its coverage of Gaza.
A 2300-word letter claimed that the BBC had a “double standard” and was failing to tell the Israel-Palestine conflict accurately, “investing greater effort in humanising Israeli victims compared with Palestinians, and omitting key historical context in coverage”.
In Australia, another open letter by scores of journalists and the national media union MEAA called for “integrity, transparency and rigour” in the coverage of the war and joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), RSF and others condemning the Israeli attacks on journalists and journalism.
Leading Australian newspaper editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and the Nine network hit back by banning staff who had signed the letter. According to the independent Crikey, a senior Nine staff journalist resigned and readers were angrily cancelling their newspaper subscriptions over the ban.
Crikey later exposed many editors and journalists who had made junket trips to Israel and is currently keeping an inventory of these “influenced” media people — at least 77 have been named so far.
Crikey’s running checklist on Australian journalists who have been to Israel.
“If Israel has sunk that much time and resource charming Australian journalists and politicians, the question has to be asked, [has] the pro-Israel lobby sent NZ journalists and politicians on these junkets and if they have, who are they?”
He wrote to the NZ Press Gallery, the “journalist union” and media companies requesting a list of names.
Pacific journalists ought to be also added to the list.
I have just returned from a two-month trip in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Australia. After a steady diet of comprehensive and well backgrounded reporting from global news channels such as TRT World News and Al Jazeera (which contrasted sharply in quality, depth and fairness with stereotypical Western coverage such as from BBC and CNN), I was stunned by the blatant bias of much of the Australian news media, particularly News Corp titles such as The Australian and The Advertiser in Adelaide.
Some examples of the bias and my commentaries can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.
A pithy indictment of much of the Western reporting — including in New Zealand — can be read in the Middle East Eye and other publications.
“I am haunted by one other consideration. It is not just that Western commentators, columnists and chat show hosts often don’t know what they are talking about. It’s not even that they pretend they do.
“It’s the comfort of their lives. They sit in warm, pleasant studios where they earn six-figure sums for their opinions. They take no risks and convey no truths.”
A polar opposite from the Gaza carnage and the risks that courageous Palestinian journalists face daily to bear witness. They are an inspiration to the rest of us.
The author speaking on media freedom and the war on Gaza at a rally in Adelaide, South Australia, on Boxing Day. Image: Penny Karatzovalis
Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific.
The International Court of Justice will today begin hearing oral arguments in the case filed by South Africa, invoking the Genocide Convention in the context of Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza. Today, South Africa will give its arguments in The Hague, followed by Israel tomorrow.
COMMENTARY: By John Minto
Two years ago New Zealand joined 22 other countries in supporting the Ukrainian case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its invasion of Ukraine.
We sent a legal team to The Hague where the ICJ is based and our representatives spoke directly to the court on New Zealand’s behalf. We used international law to argue the Russian invasion was illegal and warranted sanction by the ICJ.
Successive New Zealand governments for as long as I can remember have said we believe in an “international rules-based order” of which the ICJ and the ICC are an important part.
This makes sense because we are a small country without the economic or military clout to take unilateral action to protect our interests. Like other small countries we rely on international rules to provide a measure of protection when bigger countries, like Russia in this case, break the rules.
South Africa said it “is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants”.
It described its case saying “acts and omissions by Israel . . . are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent . . . to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”.
Their court papers go on to claim that, “the conduct of Israel — through its state organs, state agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention”.
A poster promoting a protest against the Gaza genocide planned for outside the South Australian Parliament in Adelaide today. Image: David Robie/APR
This case is important because Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and South Africa are all signatories of the Genocide Convention and are bound to abide by any decision made by the court.
The most important part of South Africa’s case is its application for an interim injunction to stop Israel’s indiscriminate killing immediately. If this interim injunction is successful it could put in place an immediate ceasefire to end the war and Israel’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinians.
It would allow unfettered humanitarian aid to enter Gaza where the need for food, water, fuel, medicine and vaccinations is desperate.
This is the outcome the majority of people in New Zealand, and across the world, want to see. New Zealand should back up the South African case which is most likely to get a first hearing on January 11-12.
So far, Bolivia, Ireland, Jordan, Malaysia, Maldives, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Turkey, Venezuela and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation have supported the South African legal action.
Those who have been paying attention will not be surprised at claims of genocide.
Genocide always begins with words and there is a wealth of reporting on the dehumanising language being used by Israel’s political and military leaders to set the scene for what has followed.
“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.”
Israelis more generally have taken up this talk across social media with calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed”. More tragic is a social media post showing Israeli children singing “we will annihilate everyone” in Gaza.
Israel’s Defence Minister’s statement matches the UN Convention closely to the point where Israeli scholar of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Raz Segal, has described Israel’s rhetoric and actions as “a textbook case of genocide”.
It is clear Israel’s political and military leaders have a case to answer before the International Court of Justice, just as Russia does for its invasion of Ukraine.
South Africa has filed a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. International law expert Francis Boyle, who has argued successfully at the ICJ, says he believes “South Africa will win an order against Israel.” pic.twitter.com/4Ebz02vxVc
As well as backing South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice we should also call for a swift, well-resourced International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes committed in the October 7 attack on Israel and the Israeli response.
This investigation should include examining the crimes of genocide and apartheid.
Palestinians deserve our support as much as the people of Ukraine.
John Minto is the national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific. This article was first published by The Post and is republished with the author’s permission.
Australian investigative journalist John Pilger was a journalistic legend . . . the Daily Mirror’s tribute to his “decades of brilliance”. Image: Daily Mirror
OBITUARY: By Peter Boyle and Pip Hinman of Green Left
Sydney-born investigative journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger died on December 31, 2023.
He should be remembered and honoured not just for his impressive body of work, but for being a brave — and at times near-lone — voice for truth against power.
In early 2002, the “war on terror”, launched by then United States President George W Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attack, was in full swing.
After two decades, more than 4 million would be killed in Iraq, Libya, Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere under this bloody banner, and 10 times more displaced.
The propaganda campaign to justify this ferocious, US-led, global punitive expedition cowed many voices, not least in the settler colonial state of Australia.
But there was one prominent Australian voice that was not silenced — and it was John Pilger’s.
‘Breaking the silence’
On March 10 that year, Sydney Town Hall was packed out with people to hear John speak in a Green Left public meeting titled “Breaking the silence: war, propaganda and the new empire”.
Outside the Town Hall, about 100 more people, who could not squeeze in, stayed to show their solidarity.
John Pilger described the war on terror as “a war on world-wide popular resistance to an economic system that determines who will live well and who will be expendable”.
Australian investigative journalist and documentary maker John Pilger addressing a Green Left-hosted public forum in Sydney in 2014 . . . “For much of the last two decades, the so-called mainstream media were always reluctant to run his pieces because he refused to obediently follow the unspoken war-on-terror line.” Image: Peter Boyle/Green Left
He called for “opposition to a so-called war on terrorism, that is really a war of terrorism”.
The meeting played an important role in helping build resistance in this country to the many US-led imperial wars that followed the US’ bloody retribution exacted on millions of Afghans who had never even heard of the 9/11 attacks, let alone bore any responsibility for them.
That 2002 Sydney Town Hall meeting cemented a strong bond between GL and John.
GL is proud to have been the Australian newspaper and media platform that has published the most articles by John Pilger over the years.
Shared values
For much of the last two decades, the so-called mainstream media were always reluctant to run his pieces because he refused to obediently follow the unspoken war-on-terror line.
He refused to go along with the argument that every military expedition that the US launched (and which Australia and other loyal allies promptly followed) to protect privilege and empire were in defence of “shared democratic values”.
The collaboration between GL and John was based on real shared values, which he summed up succinctly in his introduction to his 1992 book Distant Voices:
“I have tried to rescue from media oblivion uncomfortable facts which may serve as antidotes to the official truth; and in doing so, I hope to have given support to those ‘distant voices’ who understand how vital, yet fragile, is the link between the right of people to know and to be heard, and the exercise of liberty and political democracy …”
GL editors have had many exchanges with John over the years. At times, there were political differences. But each such exchange only built up a mutual respect, based on a shared commitment to truth and justice.
The last two decades of John’s moral leadership against Empire were inadvertently confirmed a few weeks before his passing when US President Joe Biden warned Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat the US’ mistakes after 9/11.
“There’s no reason we did so many of the things we did,” Biden told Netanyahu.
Focus on Palestine struggle
John had long focused on Palestine’s struggle for self-determination from the Israeli colonial settler state. He condemned Israel’s most recent genocidal campaign of Gaza and, on X, praised those marching for “peaceful decency”.
He urged people to (re)watch his 2002 documentary film Palestine is Still The Issue, in which he returned to film in Gaza and the West Bank, after having first done so in 1977.
John was outspoken about Australia’s treatment of its First Peoples; he didn’t agree with Labor’s Voice to Parliament plan, saying it offered “no real democracy, no sovereignty, no treaty between equals”.
He criticised Labor’s embrace of AUKUS, saying it was about a new war with China, a campaign he took up in his documentary The Coming War on China. While recognising China’s abuse of human and democratic rights, he said the US views China’s embrace of capitalist growth as the key threat.
John campaigned hard for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange’s release; he visited him several times in Belmarsh Prison and condemned a gutless Labor Prime Minister for refusing to meet with Stella Assange when she was in Australia.
He spoke out for other whistleblowers, including David McBride who exposed Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
Did not mince words
John did not mince words which is why, especially during the war on terror, most mainstream media refused to publish him — unless a counterposed article was run side-by-side. He never agreed to this pretence of “balance”.
John wrote about his own, early, conscientisation.
“I was very young when I arrived in Saigon and I learned a great deal,” he said on the anniversary of the last day of the longest war of the 20th century — Vietnam.
“I learned to recognise the distinctive drone of the engines of giant B-52s, which dropped their carnage from above the clouds and spared nothing and no one; I learned not to turn away when faced with a charred tree festooned with human parts; I learned to value kindness as never before; I learned that Joseph Heller was right in his masterly Catch-22: that war was not suited to sane people; and I learned about ‘our’ propaganda.”
John Pilger will be remembered by all those who know that facts and history matter, and that only through struggle will people’s movements ever have a chance of winning justice.
Republished with permission from Green Left Magazine and Asia Pacific Report.
New Zealand's 2023 Reporter of the Year Barbara Dreaver now recognised in the New Year Honours list . . . “My job has always been about allowing Pacific voices to have airtime, or to be there and to be represented, because that’s what’s seriously lacking, not just in New Zealand, but also internationally. It’s getting Pacific voices to be heard." Image: Pacific Media Network
By Khalia Strong
Barbara Dreaver is a familiar face on Aotearoa New Zealand television screens, beloved to some, and feared by others who have been exposed by her work across three decades.
Dreaver has been named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Years Honours list, for services to investigative journalism and Pacific issues.
Speaking after pulling a late night finishing news stories, Dreaver says it is hard to find the words.
“Completely overwhelmed, really honoured . . . I’m really pleased because my family are super thrilled.,” she says.
“That’s really what it’s about, is when the people who you love and mean so much to you, when they’re so proud, that means the world.
“It does feel awkward . . . to be talking about myself, and as Pacific people we find that a bit hard as well . . . because they don’t want to stick their head out of the water, they just do what they do, and now I’m getting a good taste of my own medicine.”
Dreaver was born in Kiribati, her mother’s homeland and grew up on the island of Tarawa, she also has close family in Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Solomon Islands. She says receiving the accolade will be momentous for her family, as well as honouring her parents and those who have gone before her.
“My Dad said he’s going to go and buy a new suit, and my Mum said to him, [being from] Kiribati, ‘you could hire one’, and he says, ‘my daughter is getting a medal, I will buy a new suit, and I don’t care how much it costs I’m going to save up and buy one’.
“So to have them beside me in their later years and to be blessed with that, when it’s the time of our lives when we have to appreciate every single day with the people you love, so while I love my family so much, it’s Mum and Dad who mean so much to me.”
A history of telling stories Dreaver’s journalism background includes co-owning a newspaper in the Cook Islands, working at Radio New Zealand, before carving out a space for herself at TVNZ working her way up to being Pacific correspondent, a role she has held for 21 years.
“My job has always been about allowing Pacific voices to have airtime, or to be there and to be represented, because that’s what’s seriously lacking, not just in New Zealand, but also internationally, it’s getting Pacific voices to be heard.
“I just play a role and am one of the many parts of the jigsaw.”
Barbara Dreaver with camera op Paul Morrissey on one of many trips to the Pacific. Image: Pacific Media Network
“Instead of trying to hide an issue and pretend that it’s not really happening, I believe that we have to show the big stuff and show the problems that we have to address it.
“You can’t just hide things under the carpet because it will come out at some point. Let’s do it our way. Let’s get it out there now.
Dreaver says being truthful isn’t hard, but sometimes goes against the grain of how Pacific communities and politicians like to be portrayed.
“Sometimes we like to just say we’re all just amazing, but things don’t change if we don’t’ speak up, if we don’t put those issues to the fore, things never change, and I think that’s wrong.”
In 2008, Dreaver was locked up in Fiji then banned from returning for eight years, after questioning the then-Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.
“That was because I challenged the military commander who was pretending to be a prime minister at the time.
“Democracy and freedom of speech is everything to a journalist, so I was yelling questions to him and challenging him and it was really only a matter of time before a military dictator wants to lock up that journalist.”
Behind the scenes of a live TV cross in Vanuatu, March 2023. Image: Khalia Strong/PMN News
Dreaver designed a journalism training programme in the Pacific, but says there is no blanket approach, remembering a workshop she ran for the Pacific Cooperation Broadcasting Limited (PCBL).
“Melanesia is complicated, you open one layer and then there’s another layer and that’s the way I conduct myself and journalism, I never pretend that I know it, because inevitably, the minute you think you know, something happens.
“I gave some advice about door stopping someone and they said to me, ‘well, what if we get stoned?’ and was like ‘we’re going to have to rethink this’.”
An ongoing conversation, and media mission Dreaver says the reality of TV journalism isn’t glamourous, with constant deadlines and a never-ending news cycle.
“There is no work balance, it’s extremely long hours, in fact last week I had about three hours sleep when travelling with Winston Peters on a 24-hour trip to Fiji.”
Dreaver says the Pacific’s relationship with other countries is becoming more important with global superpowers scrambling for influence in the Pacific, evident at last year’s Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands.
“There were 21 countries, Saudi Arabia, Norway, all there vying for influence, and I’ve been going to the Forum since the 1990s and to see this was really disturbing to me.
“Some of the big leaders were saying ‘it’s really great because it shows interest in the Pacific’, yes, but it also shows they want something from the Pacific, so the Pacific needs to be smart about how they do this and not give in to big powers throwing around money, we’ve got to stay true to ourselves.”
Hopes for the future Despite New Zealand’s new coalition government having no Pacific representation, Dreaver is optimistic about the future of Pacific journalism.
“Pacific journalists in this country are very strong and they’re just going to keep doing their job.
“Winston Peters . . . there’s lots of controversies around him and some of them are well deserved, but he does like the Pacific and he upped the funding for the Pacific when he worked under Jacinda Ardern’s government, so let’s see what happens there.
“But whatever happens in this government, this is why journalism is important, and it’s people like me, like you, and it’s people like our colleagues who will hold them to account.”
Barbara Dreaver was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities. Khalia Strong is a Pacific Media Network journalist and this Public Interest Journalism article is republished with permission.
Gaza ceasefire ends with Israeli bombs raining down on the Strip causing more death and destruction . . . Al Jazeera is one of the better global news services covering the ethnic cleansing as it is really happening. Image: AJ screenshot CP
ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook
Israel is openly carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Yet, just as happened with the first Nakba in 1948, Israel’s lies and deceptions dominate the West’s media and political narrative.
History is repeating itself — and every politician and establishment journalist is pretending they cannot see what is staring them in the face. There is a collective and wilful refusal to join the dots in Gaza, even when they point in one direction only.
There has been a consistent pattern to Israel’s behaviour since its creation 75 years ago — just as there has been a consistent pattern to the “see no evil, hear no evil” response of Western powers.
In 1948, in events the Palestinians call their “Nakba”, or Catastrophe, 80 percent of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands in what became the self-declared Jewish state of Israel.
As Palestinians maintained at the time — and Israeli historians later confirmed from archival documents — Israel’s leaders lied when they said Palestinians had fled of their own volition, on the orders of neighbouring Arab states.
As the historians also discovered, Israeli leaders lied when they claimed that they had pleaded, first, with the 900,000 Palestinians inside the new state’s borders to stay and, later, with the 750,000 forced into exile to return home.
Rather, the archives showed that the new Israeli state’s soldiers had carried out terrible massacres to drive out the Palestinian population. The overall ethnic cleansing operation had a name, Plan Dalet.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: “15,000 Palestinians including over 6,000 children have been killed by the Israeli government. Netanyahu is starving Gaza. I stood in solidarity with elected officials, artists, and advocates on a hunger strike in front of the White House to demand a permanent… pic.twitter.com/iuNgXqXOKu
Palestinian communities wiped from earth Later, Israeli leaders even lied in minimising the number of Palestinian agricultural communities they had destroyed: there were more than 500 wiped from the face of the earth by Israeli bulldozers and army sappers.
Paradoxically, this procedure was popularly known by Israelis as “making the desert bloom”.
Extraordinarily, reputable scholars, journalists and politicians in the West — those who dominate the mainstream conversation — ignored all this evidence of Israeli deceit and mendacity for decades, even after Israeli historians and archival documents supported the Palestinian account of the Nakba.
Various strategies were adopted to keep the truth out of view. Prominent observers continued peddling discredited Israeli talking points.
Others threw up their hands, arguing that the truth could not be definitively determined.
And yet more declared that, even if bad things had happened, there was blame enough to go round on both sides and that, anyway, it was an excellent thing the Jewish people had a sanctuary (even if Palestinians paid the price rather than the antisemites and genocidaires in Europe).
These defences started to crumble with the advent of social media and a digital world in which information could be disseminated more easily. Western elites hurriedly tried to shut down any critical discussion of the circumstances in which the state of Israel was birthed by labelling it as antisemitism.
Establishment excusing of Israel
All of this is the context for understanding the current “mainstream” debate about what is happening in Gaza. We are seeing the same disconnect between actual events and the establishment’s crafting of a narrative to excuse Israel, except this time the deception and gaslighting are occurring while we, the audience, can see for ourselves the horrifying facts unfold in real time.
We don’t need historians to tell us what is going on in Gaza. It is live on television (or at least the more sanitised version is).
Israeli officials have called for the eradication of Gaza as a place where Palestinians can live. Image: Jonathan Cook’s website
Let’s just recount the known facts.
Israeli officials have called for the eradication of Gaza as a place where Palestinians can live, and said all Palestinians are viewed as legitimate targets for Israel’s bombs and bullets.
Palestinians have been ordered out of the northern half of Gaza. Israel has attacked Gaza’s hospitals, the last sanctuaries for Palestinians in the north.
Gaza was already one of the most crowded places on Earth. But Palestinians have been forced into the southern half of the strip, where they are being subjected to a “complete siege” that denies them food, water and power. The UN has warned that Gaza’s civilian population faced the “immediate possibility” of starvation.
Israel has now ordered Palestinians to leave much of the largest city in southern Gaza, Khan Younis. Palestinians are gradually being forced to huddle in the narrow corridor at Rafah, next to the border with Egypt. Some 2.3 million people are being packed into an ever-shrinking space.
No home to return to
The majority have no home to return to, even if Israel lets them head north. The schools, universities, bakeries, mosques and churches are mostly gone. Much of Gaza is a wasteland.
For years Israel has had a plan to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, across the border, into the Egyptian territory of Sinai.
Even more so than in 1948, what Israel is doing is staring us in the face in real time. And yet, just as in 1948, Israel’s lies and deceptions dominate the West’s media and political narrative.
Israel is openly carrying out ethnic cleansing inside Gaza. Most genocide experts conclude it is carrying out genocide too. The goal in both cases is to cause another Great Ethnic Cleansing, driving Palestinians outside their homeland as happened in 1948 and again in 1967 under cover of war.
And yet neither of these terms — ethnic cleansing and genocide — are in the “mainstream” coverage of, and commentary about, Israel’s attack on Gaza.
We’re still told that this is about “eradicating” Hamas — something that very obviously cannot be achieved because you can’t eradicate an oppressed people’s determination to resist their oppressor. The more you oppress them, the more resistance you provoke.
The West is now trying to focus public attention on the “day after”, as though this wasteland can be governed by anyone, let alone the chronically weak, Vichy-style regime known as the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli lies and deceit
It is astonishing to see that what was true in 1948 is equally true in 2023. Israel spreads lies and deceit. Western elites repeat those lies.
And even when Israel commits crimes against humanity in broad daylight, when it warns in advance of what it is doing, Western establishments still refuse to acknowledge those crimes.
The truth, which should have been obvious long before, in 1948, is that Israel is not a peace-loving, liberal democracy. It is a classic settler colonial state, following in a long “Western” tradition that led to the founding of the United States, Canada and Australia, among others.
Settler colonialism’s mission is always the same: to replace the native population.
After its mass ethnic cleansing operations of 1948 and 1967, Israel tried to manage the remaining Palestinian population through the traditional apartheid model of herding the natives into reservations, as its predecessors did with the remnants of the “locals” who survived their efforts at extermination.
Any caution on Israel’s part derived from the different political climate it had to operate in: international law became more central after World War Two, with clear definitions of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The West wilfully mischaracterises Israel’s process of dispossessing and ghettoising these remaining Palestinians as a “conflict” because they refuse to submit quietly to the apartheid, ghettoisation model.
Management approach broken down
Now, Israel’s management approach to the Palestinians has broken down completely — for two main reasons.
First, the Palestinians, aided by new technologies that have made it more difficult to keep them out of view, have attracted ever widening popular support — and most problematically, among Western publics.
The Palestinians have also managed to bring their cause to international forums, even gaining recognition as a state by a majority of members of the United Nations. Potentially, they even have redress in the West’s international legal institutions, like the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
As a result, subduing the Palestinians — or maintaining “calm”, as Western establishments prefer to call it — has become more and more difficult and expensive.
And second, on October 7, Hamas proved that Palestinian resistance cannot be contained even under a siege enforced by drones, and an Iron Dome interception system protecting Israel from retaliatory rockets.
In such circumstances, Palestinians have shown they will seek surprising and creative ways to break out of their confinement and bring their oppression into the spotlight.
In fact, given the West’s dulled sensitivities to Palestinian suffering, militant factions are likely to deduce that headline-grabbing atrocities — mirroring Israel’s own historic approach to the Palestinians — are the only way to gain attention.
Israel understands that the Palestinians are going to continue being a thorn in its side, a reminder that Israel is not a normal state. And the struggle to correct Israel’s decades of dispossessing and brutalising Palestinians will become ever more a defining moral cause among Western publics, as the fight against apartheid South Africa once was.
So Israel is taking advantage of this moment to “finish the job”. The final destination is clearly in view, as, in truth, it has been for more than seven decades.
The crime is unfolding step by step, the pace quickening. And yet senior politicians and journalists in the West — like their predecessors — continue to be blind to it all.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years and he returned to the UK in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict:
Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006)
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008)
Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008)
This article was first published by Declassified UK. Republished with permission.
Piango Pacific activists in Fiji today mark 62 years since the first raising of West Papua's symbol of independence, the Morning Star flag. Image: Piango Pacific
BACKGROUNDER:By Stefan Armbruster
On 1 December each year, in cities across Australia and New Zealand, a small group of West Papuan immigrants and refugees and their supporters raise a flag called the Morning Star in an act that symbolises their struggle for self-determination.
Doing the same thing in their homeland is illegal.
This year is the 62nd anniversary of the flag being raised alongside the Dutch standard in 1961 as The Netherlands prepared their colony for independence.
Formerly the colony of Dutch New Guinea, Indonesia controversially took control of West Papua in 1963 and has now divided the Melanesian region into seven provinces.
In the intervening years, brutal civil conflict is thought to have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives through combat and deprivation, and Indonesia has been criticised internationally for human rights abuses.
Ronny Kareni represents the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) in Australia . . . “It brings tears of joy to me.” Image: SBS News
The Morning Star will fly in Ronny Kareni’s adopted hometown of Canberra and will also be raised across the Pacific region and around the world.
“It brings tears of joy to me because many Papuan lives, those who have gone before me, have shed blood or spent time in prison, or died just because of raising the Morning Star flag,” Kareni, the Australian representative of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) in Australia told SBS News.
‘Our right to self-determination’
“Commemorating the anniversary for me demonstrates hope and also the continued spirit in fighting for our right to self-determination and West Papua to be free from Indonesia’s brutal occupation.”
Indonesia’s diplomats regularly issue statements criticising the act, including when the flag was raised at Sydney’s Leichhardt Town Hall, as “a symbol of separatism” that could be “misinterpreted to represent support from the Australian government”.
Supporters of West Papuan independence hold the Morning Star flag outside the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra in 2021. Image: SBS News
“It’s a symbol of an aspiring independent state which would secede from the unitary Indonesian republic, so the flag itself isn’t particularly welcome within official Indonesian political discourse,” says Professor Vedi Hadiz, an Indonesian citizen and director of the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne.
“The raising of the flag is an expression of the grievances they hold against Indonesia for the way that economic and political governance and development has taken place over the last six decades.
“But it’s really part of the job of Indonesian officials to make a counterpoint that West Papua is a legitimate part of the unitary republic.”
The history of the Morning Star After World War II, a wave of decolonisation swept the globe.
The Netherlands reluctantly relinquished the Dutch East Indies in 1949, which became Indonesia, but held onto Dutch New Guinea, much to the chagrin of President Sukarno, who led the independence struggle.
In 1957, Sukarno began seizing the remaining Dutch assets and expelled 40,000 Dutch citizens, many of whom were evacuated to Australia, in large part over The Netherlands’ reluctance to hand over Dutch New Guinea.
The Dutch created the New Guinea Council of predominantly elected Papuan representatives in 1961 and it declared a 10-year roadmap to independence, adopted the Morning Star flag, the national anthem – “Hai Tanahku Papua” or “Oh My Land Papua” – and a coat-of-arms for a future state to be known as “West Papua”.
Dutch and West Papua flags fly side-by-side in 1961. Image: SBS News
The West Papua flag was inspired by the red, white and blue of the Dutch but the design can hold different meanings for the traditional landowners.
“The five-pointed star has the cultural connection to the creation story, the seven blue lines represent the seven customary land groupings,” says Kareni.
The red is now often cited as a tribute to the blood spilt fighting for independence.
Attending the 1961 inauguration were Britain, France, New Zealand and Australia — represented by the president of the Senate Sir Alister McMullin in full ceremonial attire — but the United States, after initially accepting an invitation, withdrew.
Cold War in full swing
The Cold War was in full swing and the Western powers were battling the Russians for influence over non-aligned Indonesia.
The Morning Star flag was raised for the first time alongside the Dutch one at a military parade in the capital Hollandia, now called Jayapura, on 1 December.
On 19 December, Sukarno began ordering military incursions into what he called “West Irian”, which saw thousands of soldiers parachute or land by sea ahead of battles they overwhelmingly lost.
Then 20-year-old Dutch soldier Vincent Scheenhouwer, who now lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, was one of the thousands deployed to reinforce the nascent Papua Volunteer Corps, largely armed with WW2 surplus, arriving in June 1962.
“The groups who were on patrol found weapons, so modern it was unbelievable, and plenty of ammunition,” he said of Russian arms supplied to Indonesian troops.
Former Dutch soldier Vincent Scheenhouwer served in the then colony in 1962. Image: Stefan Armbruster/SBS News
He did not see combat himself but did have contact with the local people, who variously flew the red and white Indonesian or the Dutch flag, depending on who controlled the ground.
“I think whoever was supplying the people food, they belonged to them,” he said.
He did not see the Morning Star flag.
“At that time, nothing, totally nothing. Only when I came out to Australia (in 1970) did I find out more about it,” he said.
Waning international support
With long supply lines on the other side of the world and waning international support, the Dutch sensed their time was up and signed the territory over to UN control in October 1962 under the “New York Agreement”, which abolished the symbols of a future West Papuan state, including the flag.
The UN handed control to Indonesia in May 1963 on condition it prepared the territory for a referendum on self-determination.
“I’m sort of happy it didn’t come to a serious conflict (at the time), on the other hand you must feel for the people, because later on we did hear they have been very badly mistreated,” says Scheenhouwer.
“I think Holland was trying to do the right thing but it’s gone completely now, destroyed by Indonesia.”
The so-called Act Of Free Choice referendum in 1969 saw the Indonesian military round up 1025 Papuan leaders who then voted unanimously to become part of Indonesia.
The outcome was accepted by the UN General Assembly, which failed to declare if the referendum complied with the “self-determination” requirements of the New York Agreement, and Dutch New Guinea was incorporated into Indonesia.
“Rightly or wrongly, in the Indonesian imagination, unlike East Timor for example, Papua was always regarded as part of the unitary Indonesian republic because the definition of the latter was based on the borders of colonial Dutch East Indies, whereas East Timor was never part of that, it was a Portuguese colony,” says Professor Hadiz.
“The average Indonesian’s reaction to the flag goes against everything they learned from kindergarten all the way to university.
Knee-jerk reaction
“So their reaction is knee-jerk. They are just not aware of the conditions there and relate to West Papua on the basis of government propaganda, and also the mainstream media which upholds the idea of the Indonesian unitary republic.”
West Papuans protest over the New York Agreement in 1962. Image: SBS News
In 1971, the Free Papua Movement (OPM) declared the “republic of West Papua” with the Morning Star as its flag, which has gone on to become a potent binding symbol for the movement.
The basis for Indonesian control of West Papua is rejected by what are today fractured and competing military and political factions of the independence movement, but they do agree on some things.
“The New York Agreement was a treaty signed between the Dutch and Indonesia and didn’t involve the people of West Papua, which led to the so-called referendum in 1969, which was a whitewash,” says Kareni.
“For the people, it was a betrayal and West Papua remains unfinished business of the United Nations.”
Professor Hadiz says the West Papua independence movement is struggling for international recognition. Image: SBS News
Raising the flag also raises the West Papua issue on an international level, especially when it is violently repressed in the two Indonesian provinces where there are reportedly tens of thousands of troops deployed.
“It certainly doesn’t depict Indonesia in very favourable terms,” Professor Vedi says.
“The problem for the West Papua [independence] movement is that there’s not a lot of international support, whereas East Timor at least had a significant measure.
‘Concerns about geopolitical stability’
“Concerns about geopolitical stability and issues such as the Indonesian state, as we know it now, being dismembered to a degree — I think there would be a lot of nervousness in the international community.”
Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie with Pax Christi Aotearoa activist Del Abcede at a Morning Star flag raising in Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Australia provides significant military training and foreign aid to Indonesia and has recently agreed to further strengthen defence ties.
Australia signed the Lombok Treaty with Indonesia in 2006 recognising its territorial sovereignty.
“It’s important that we are doing it here to call on the Australian government to be vocal on the human rights situation, despite the bilateral relationship with Indonesia,” says Kareni.
“Secondly, Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and the leaders have agreed to call for a visit of the UN Human Rights Commissioner to carry out an impartial investigation.”
Events are also planned across West Papua.
“It’s a milestone, 60 years, and we’re still waiting to freely sing the national anthem and freely fly the Morning Star flag so it’s very significant for us,” he says.
“We still continue to fight, to claim our rights and sovereignty of the land and people.”
Stefan Armbruster is Queensland and Pacific correspondent for SBS News. First published by SBS in 2021 and republished by Asia Pacific Report with minor edits and permission.
