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In Gaza, the West is enabling the most transparent genocide in human history

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The South African initiative is important
The South African initiative is important as a welcome effort to enlist international law and procedures for its assessment and authority in a context of severe alleged criminality. Image: TRT World/X

ANALYSIS: By Richard Falk

Recall Samuel Huntington’s controversial, yet influential, 1993 Foreign Affairs article, “The Clash of Civilizations,” which ends with the provocative phrase, “The West against the rest.” Although the article seemed far-fetched 30 years ago, it now seems prophetic in its discernment of a post-Cold War pattern of inter-civilisational rivalry.

It is rather pronounced in relation to the heightened Israel/Palestine conflict initiated by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli territory with the killing and abusing of Israeli civilians and Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers, as well as the seizure of some 200 hostages.

Clearly this attack has been accompanied by some suspicious circumstances such as Israel’s foreknowledge, slow reaction time to the penetration of its borders, and, perhaps most problematic, the quickness with which Israeli adopted a genocidal approach with a clear ethnic cleansing message.

At the very least the Hamas attack, itself including serious war crimes, served almost too conveniently as the needed pretext for the 100 days of disproportionate and indiscriminate violence, sadistic atrocities, and the enactment of a scenario that looked toward making Gaza unlivable and its Palestinian residents dispossessed and unwanted.

Despite the transparency of the Israeli tactics, partly attributable to ongoing TV coverage of the devastating and heartbreaking Palestinian ordeal, what was notable was the way external state actors aligned with the antagonists. The Global West (white settler colonial states and former European colonial powers) lined up with Israel, while the most active pro-Palestinian governments and movements were initially exclusively Muslim, with support coming more broadly from the Global South. This racialisation of alignments seems to take precedence over efforts to regulate violence of this intensity by the norms and procedures of international law, often mediated through the United Nations.

Liberal democracies failed not only by their refusal to make active efforts to prevent genocide, which is a central obligation of the Genocide Convention, but more brazenly by openly facilitating continuation of the genocidal onslaught.

This pattern is quite extraordinary because the states supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and legal ground for themselves and have long lectured the states of the Global South about the importance of the rule of law, human rights, and respect for international law. This is instead of urging compliance with international law and morality by both sides in the face of the most transparent genocide in all of human history.

In the numerous pre-Gaza genocides, the existential horrors that occurred were largely known after the fact and through statistics and abstractions, occasionally vivified by the tales told by survivors. The events, although historically reconstructed, were not as immediately real as these events in Gaza with the daily reports from journalists on the scene for more than three months.

Liberal democracies failed not only by their refusal to make active efforts to prevent genocide, which is a central obligation of the Genocide Convention, but more brazenly by openly facilitating continuation of the genocidal onslaught. Israel’s frontline supporters have contributed weapons and munitions, as well as providing intelligence and assurance of active engagement by ground forces if requested, as well as providing diplomatic support at the U.N. and elsewhere throughout this crisis.

These performative elements that describe Israel’s recourse to genocide are undeniable, while the complicity crimes enabling Israel to continue with genocide remain indistinct, being situated in the shadowland of genocide. For instance, the complicity crimes are noted but remain on the periphery of South Africa’s laudable application to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that includes a request for Provisional Measures crafted to stop the genocide pending a decision on the substance of the charges of genocide. The evidence of genocide is overwhelmingly documented in the 84-page South African submission, but the failure to address the organic link to the crimes of complicity is a weakness that could be reflected in what the court decides.

Even if the ICJ does impose these Provisional Measures, including ordering Israel to desist from further violence in Gaza, it may not achieve the desired result, at least not before the substantive decision is reached some three to five years from now. It seems unlikely that Israel will obey Provisional Measures. It has a record of consistently defying international law. It is likely that a favorable decision on these preliminary matters will give rise to a crisis of implementation.

The law is persuasively present, but the political will to enforce is lacking or even resistant, as here in certain parts of the Global West.

The degree to which the US has supplied weaponry with US taxpayer money would be an important supplement to rethinking the US relationship to Israel that is so important and which is underway among the American people — even in the Washington think tanks that the foreign policy elites fund and rely upon. Proposing an arms embargo would be accepted as a timely and appropriate initiative in many sectors of US public opinion.

I hope that such proposals may be brought before the UN General Assembly and perhaps the Security Council. Even if not formally endorsed, such initiatives would have considerable symbolic and possibly even substantive impacts on further delegitimizing Israel’s behaviour.

A third specific initiative worth carefully considering would be timely establishment of a People’s Tribunal on the Question of Genocide initiated by global persons of conscience. Such tribunals were established in relation to many issues that the formal governance structures failed to address in satisfactory ways. Important examples are the Russell Tribunal convened in 1965-66 to assess legal responsibilities of the US in the Vietnam War and the Iraq War Tribunal of 2005 in response to the US and UK attack and occupation of Iraq commencing in 2003.

Such a tribunal on Gaza could clarify and document what happened on and subsequently to October 7. By taking testimony of witnesses, it could provide an opportunity for the people of the world to speak and to feel represented in ways that governments and international procedures are unable to given their entanglement with geopolitical hegemony in relation to international criminal law and structures of global governance.

The South African World Court case, pariah state, and popular mobilisation
The South African initiative is important as a welcome effort to enlist international law and procedures for its assessment and authority in a context of severe alleged criminality. If the ICJ, the highest tribunal on a supranational level, responds favorably to South Africa’s highly reasonable and morally imperative request for Provisional Measures to stop the ongoing Gaza onslaught, it will increase pressure on Israel and its supporters to comply.

And if Israel refuses to do so, it will escalate pro-Palestinian solidarity efforts throughout the world and cast Israel into the darkest regions of pariah statehood.

In such an atmosphere, nonviolent activism and pressure for the imposition of an arms embargo and trade boycotts as well as sports, culture, and touristic boycotts will become more viable policy options. This approach by way of civil society activism proved very effective in the Euro-American peace efforts during the Vietnam War and in the struggle against apartheid South Africa, and elsewhere.

Israel is becoming a pariah state due to its behaviour and defiance exhibited toward legal and moral norms. It has made itself notorious by its outrageously forthright acknowledgement of genocidal intent with respect to Palestinian civilians whom they are under a special obligation to protect as the occupying power.

We know what we should be doing.to make amends, yet well-entrenched special interests preclude such rational adjustments, and the military malfunctions and accompanying geopolitical alignments persist, ignoring costly failures along the way.

Being a pariah country or rogue state makes Israel politically and economically vulnerable as never before. At this moment, a mobilised civil society can contribute to producing a new balance of forces in the world that has the potential to neutralise Western post-colonial imperial geopolitics.

It is also relevant to take note of the startling fact that the anti-colonial wars of the last century were in the end won by the weaker side militarily. This is an important lesson, as is the realization that anti-colonial struggle does not end with the attainment of political independence. It needs to continue to achieve control of national security and economic resources as the recent anti-French coups in former French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa illustrate.

In the 21st century weapons alone rarely control political outcomes. The US should have learned this decades ago in Vietnam, having controlled the battlefield and dominated the military dimensions of the war, and yet having failed to achieve control over its political outcome.

The US is disabled from learning lessons from such defeats. Such learning would weaken the leverage of the military-industrial-government complex, including the private sector arms industry. This would subvert the domestic balance in the US and substantially discredit the global geopolitical role being played by the US throughout the entire world.

So, it is a dilemma. We know what we should be doing to make amends, yet well-entrenched special interests preclude such rational adjustments, and the military malfunctions and accompanying geopolitical alignments persist, ignoring costly failures along the way.

We know what should be done, but do not have the political clout to get it done. But global public opinion is shifting, and demonstrations globally are building opposition to continuing the war.

Propaganda aimed at Iran
There is a huge US/Israel propaganda effort to tie Iran to everything that is regarded as anti-West or anti-Israeli. It has intensified during this crisis, starting with the October 7 attack by Iran’s supposed proxy Hamas. You notice even the most influential mainstream print media as The New York Times routinely refers to what Hezbollah or the Houthis do as “Iran-backed.” Such actors are reduced misleadingly to being proxies of Iran.

This way of denying agency to pro-Palestinian actors and attributing behavior to Iran is a matter of state propaganda trying to promote belligerent attitudes toward Iran to the effect that Iran is our major enemy in the region, while Israel is our loyal friend. At the same time, it suppresses the reality that If Iran is backing countries and political movements, it obscures what the US is doing more overtly and multiple times over.

It is largely unknown what Iran has been doing in the region to protect its interests. Without doubt, Iran has strong sympathies with the Palestinian struggle. Those sympathies coincide with its own political self interest in not being attacked and minimising the US role in the region. Additionally, Iran has lots of problems arising from opposition forces within its own society.

But I think dangerous state propaganda is building up this hostility toward Iran. It is highly misleading to regard Iran as the real enemy standing behind all anti-Israeli actions in the region. It is important to understand as accurately as possible the complexity and unknown elements present in this crisis situation that contains dangers of wider war in the region and beyond. As far as is publicly known, Iran has had an extremely limited degree of involvement in the direct shaping of the war and Israel’s all-out attack on the civilian population of Gaza.

Hamas and a second Nakba
While I was special rapporteur for the UN on Israeli violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, I had the opportunity to meet and talk in detail with several of the Hamas leaders who are living either in Doha or Cairo and also in Gaza. In the period between 2010 and 2014, Hamas was publicly and by back channels pushing for a 50-year cease-fire with Israel. It was conditioned on Israel carrying out the unanimous 1967 Security Council mandate in SC Res 242 to withdraw its forces to the pre-war boundaries of “the green line.” Hamas had also sought a long-range cease-fire with Israel after its 2006 electoral victory for up to 50 years.

Neither Israel nor the US would respond to those diplomatic initiatives. Hamas, Machel particularly who was perhaps the most intellectual of the Hamas leaders, told me that he warned Washington of the tragic consequences for both peoples if the conflict was allowed to go on without a cease-fire, which was confirmed by independent sources.

Where can Palestinians go as the population suffers from famine and continued bombing? What is Israel’s goal?

All indications are that Israel used the October 7 attack as a pretext for the preexisting master plan to get rid of the Palestinians whose presence blocks the establishment of Greater Israel with sovereign control over the West Bank and at least portions of Gaza.

I see the so-called commitment to thinning the Palestinian presence in Gaza and to a functional second Nakba. This is a criminal policy. I don’t know that it has to have a formal name. It is not a policy designed to achieve anything but the decapitation of the Palestinian population. Israel seeks to move Gazans to the Egyptian Sinai, and the Egyptians have already indicated that they don’t welcome this.

This is not a policy. This is some kind of a threat of elimination. The Israeli campaign after October 7 was not directed toward Hamas’ terrorism nearly as much as it was directed toward the forced evacuation of the Palestinians from Gaza and for the related dispossession of Palestine in the West Bank.

If Israel really wanted to deal with its security in an effective way, much more efficient and effective methods would have been relied upon. There was no reason to treat the entire civilian population of Gaza as if it were implicated in the Hamas attack, and there was certainly no justification for the genocidal response. The Israeli motivations seem more related to completing the Zionist Project than to restoring territorial security.

All indications are that Israel used the October 7 attack as a pretext for the preexisting master plan to get rid of the Palestinians whose presence blocks the establishment of Greater Israel with sovereign control over the West Bank and at least portions of Gaza.

For a proper perspective we should remember that before October 7, the Netanyahu coalition government that took power at the start of 2023 was known as the most extreme government ever to govern the country since its establishment in 1948. The new Netanyahu government in Israel immediately gave a green light to settler violence in the Occupied West Bank and appointed overtly racist religious leaders to administer the parts of Palestine still occupied.

This was part of the end game of the whole Zionist project of claiming territorial sovereignty over the whole of the so-called promised land, enabling Greater Israel to come into existence.

The need for a different context
We need to establish a different context than the one that exists now. That means a different outlook on the part of the Western supporters of Israel. And a different internal Israeli sense of their own interests, their own future. And it’s only when substantive pressure is brought to bear on an elite that has gone to these lengths that it can shake commitments to this orientation.

The lengths that the Israeli government has gone to are characteristic of settler colonial states. All of them, including the US and Canada, have acted violently to neutralise or exterminate the resident Indigenous people. That is what this genocidal interlude is all about.

It is an effort to realise the goals of maximal versions of Zionism, which can only succeed by eliminating the Palestinians as rightful claimants. It should not be forgotten that in the weeks before the Hamas attack, including at the UN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was waving a map of “the new Middle East” that had erased the existence of Palestine.

Undoubtedly, one of Hamas’ motivations was to negate the view that Palestine had given up its right to self-determination, and that Palestine could be erased. Recall the old delusional pre-Balfour Zionist slogan:

“A people without land for a land without people.”

Such utterances of this early Zionist utopian phase literally erased the Palestinians who for generations lived in Palestine as an entitled Indigenous population. With the Balfour Declaration of 1917, this settler colonial vision became a political project with the blessings of the leading European colonial power.

Given post-colonial realities, the Israeli project is historically discordant and extreme. It exposes the reality of Israel’s policies and the inevitable resistance response to Israel as a supremacist state. Israeli state propaganda and management of the public discourse has obscured the maximalist agenda of Zionism over the years, and we are yet to know whether this was a deliberate tactic or just reflected the phases of Israel’s development.

This may turn out to be a moment of clarity with respect not only to Gaza, but to the overall prospects for sustainable peace and justice between these two embattled peoples.

Dr Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestine and is currently co-convener of SHAPE (Save Humanity and Planet Earth). Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Cancelling the journalist: Furore over ABC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza

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Leaked messages from a WhatsApp group called
Leaked messages from a WhatsApp group called "Lawyers for Israel" indicate that Australia's public broadcaster - ABC - may have been lobbied into firing journalist Antoinette Lattouf. Image: AJ screenshot APR

By Binoy Kampmark

The Age has revealed the dismissal of ABC broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against chair Ita Buttrose and managing director David Anderson.

The official reason for Lattouf’s dismissal was ordinary: she shared a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”.

It also noted the express intention of Israeli officials to pursue this strategy. Actions were also documented: the deliberate blocking of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid”.

Sacked ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf
Sacked ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf . . . bringing wrongful dismissal case. Image: GL

Lattouf shared it after management directed staff not to post on “matters of controversy”.

Prior to The Age revelations, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter — which was intended for five shows.

The Australian, owned by News Corp, had issues with Lattouf’s statements on various online platforms. It found it strange in December that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance”.

She was accused of denying that some protesters had called for Jews to be gassed outside the Sydney Opera House on October 7. She also dared to accuse the Israeli Defence Forces of committing rape.

‘Lot of people really upset’
It was considered odd that she discussed food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths”. That “left a lot of people really upset’,” The Australian said.

ABC managing director David Anderson
ABC managing director David Anderson . . . denied “any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity’. Image: Green Left

If war is hell, Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it — at least concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.

What has also come to light is that the ABC’s managers were not targeting Lattouf on their own. Pressure had been exercised from outside the media organisation.

According to The Age, WhatsApp messages by a group called “Lawyers for Israel” had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign.

Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein told members of that group to contact the federal Minister for Communications asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show” the day Lattouf was sacked.

They said employing Lattouff breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on “impartiality”.

Stein went on to insist that: “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.”

No ‘generic’ response
She goes on to say that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel”.

Did such threats have any basis? Even Stein admits: “There is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one — just investigating one. I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.”

It was designed to attract attention from ABC chairperson Ita Buttrose, and it did.

ABC political reporter Nour Haydar
ABC political reporter Nour Haydar . . . resigned last week citing concern about the ABC coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: Green Left

Robert Goot, deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and part of the same group, boasted of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her “anti-Israeli” stance.

There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late.

Nour Haydar, a political reporter in the ABC’s Parliament House bureau and another journalist of Lebanese descent, resigned on January 12 citing concern about the ABC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC news director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve coverage.

Must not ‘take sides’
“Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens told staff. “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”

This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the line, however credible they might be.

What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes and brings about conditions approximating genocide.

Little wonder then that coverage of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on the ABC.

Palestinians and Palestinian militias, however, can always be described as savages, rapists and baby slayers. Throw in fanaticism and Islam and you have the complete package ready for transmission.

Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the mainstream media of most Western countries, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out, repeatedly asserts these divisions.

After her resignation, Haydar told the Sydney Morning Herald: “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep.  Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.”

Sharing divisive topics
Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war, and any other divisive topic, is shared with the public.

The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth.

Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois.

“We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”

Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at Lattouf’s treatment, suggesting the ABC had erred.

ABC’s senior management, via a statement from Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial. He rejected “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity”.

Pacific Media Watch: In response to the ABC management statement since this article was published, ABC Alumni said in a statement on January 20: “Given the precipitate nature of the decision-making in this instance, and the apparent disproportion between the severity of the ‘offence’ and the ABC’s response, [we think] that [the management] statement leaves many questions unanswered.”

Staff who “live in constant fear of retribution”, rather than have confidence in procedurally fair processes of accountability, could quickly become self-censoring, warned the Alumni statement.

Dr Binoy Kampmark is a senior lecturer in global studies at RMIT University, Melbourne. This article was first published by Green Left Magazine and is republished here with permission.

Golriz Ghahraman’s exit from politics shows the toll of online bullying on female MPs

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Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman
Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman . . . a leading New Zealand advocate for human rights and justice for Palestine. Image: VNP/Daniela Maoate-Cox/RNZ

ANALYSIS: By Cassandra Mudgway

The high-stress nature of working in politics is increasingly taking a toll on staff and politicians. But an additional threat to the personal wellbeing and safety of politicians resides outside Parliament, and the threat is ubiquitous: online violence against women MPs.

Since her election in 2017, Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has been subject to persistent online violence.

Ghahraman’s resignation following allegations of shoplifting exposes the toll sustained online violence can have on a person’s mental health.

In an interview with Vice in 2018, Ghahraman expressed how the online abuse was overwhelming and questioned how long she would continue in Parliament.

Resigning in 2024, Ghahraman said in a statement:

it is clear to me that my mental health is being badly affected by the stresses relating to my work

the best thing for my mental health is to resign as a Member of Parliament.

Headlines on the "continuous threats" - both violent and sexual - faced by former Green MP Golriz Ghahraman
Headlines on the “continuous threats” – both violent and sexual – faced by former Green MP Golriz Ghahraman. Image: RNZ screenshot APR

Ghahraman is not alone in receiving torrents of online abuse. Many other New Zealand women MPs have also been targeted, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, National MP Nicola Willis and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Words can not only hurt, but they can seriously endanger a person’s wellbeing.

Online violence against women MPs, particularly against women of colour, is a concerning global trend. In an Australian study, women MPs were found to be disproportionately targeted by public threats, particularly facing higher rates of online threats involving sexual violence and racist remarks.

Similar online threats face women MPs in the United Kingdom. Studies show that women of colour receive more intense abuse.

Male politicians are also subject to online violence. But when directed at women the violence frequently exhibits a misogynistic character, encompassing derogatory gender-specific language and menacing sexualised threats, constituting gender-based violence.

Our legal framework is not enough
New Zealand’s current legal framework is not well equipped to respond to the kind of online violence experienced by women MPs like Ghahraman.

The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 is designed to address online harassment by a single known perpetrator. But the most distressing kind of abuse comes from the sheer number of violent commentators, most of whom are unknown to the victim or intentionally anonymous.

This includes “mob style” attacks, where large numbers of perpetrators coordinate efforts to harass, threaten, or intimidate their target.

Without legal recourse, women MPs have two options — tolerate the torrent of abuse, or resign. Both of these options endanger representative democracy.

Putting up with abuse may mean serious impacts on mental health and personal safety. It may also have a chilling effect on what topics women MPs choose to speak about publicly. Resigning means losing important representation of diverse perspectives, especially from minorities.

Having to tolerate the abuse is a breach of the right to be free from gender-based violence. Being forced to resign because of it also breaches women’s rights to participate in politics. Therefore, the government has duties under international human rights law to prevent, respond and redress online violence against women.

Steps the government can take
United Nations human rights bodies provide some guidance for measures the government could implement to fulfil their obligations and safeguard women’s human rights online.

As one of the drivers of online violence against women MPs is prevailing patriarchal attitudes, the government’s first step should be to correctly label the behaviour: gender-based violence.

Calling online harassment “trolling” or “cyberbullying” downplays the harm and risks normalising the behaviour. “Gender-based violence” reflects the systemic nature of the abuse.

Secondly, the government should urgently review the Harmful Digital Communication Act. The legislation is now nine years old and should be updated to reflect the harmful online behaviour of the 2020s, such as targeted mob-style attacks.

New Zealand is also now out of step with other countries. Australia, the UK and the European Union have all recently strengthened their laws to tackle harmful online content.

These new laws focus on holding big tech companies accountable and encourage cooperation between the government, online platforms and civil society. Greater collaboration, alongside enforcement mechanisms, is essential to address systemic issues like gender-based violence.

Thirdly, given the increasing scale of online violence, the government should ensure adequate resourcing for police to investigate serious incidents. Resources should also be made available for social media moderation among all MPs and training in online safety.

More than ever, words have the power to break people and democracies. It is now the urgent task of the government to fulfil its legal obligations toward women MPs.The Conversation

Dr Cassandra Mudgway is senior lecturer in law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

When Yemen does it it’s ‘terrorism’, when the US does it it’s ‘the rules-based order’

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Ansarallah , also known as the Houthis, are  the dominant force in Yemen
Ansarallah , also known as the Houthis, are  the dominant force in Yemen . . . punished for proactively backing a Gaza ceasefire. Image: @aldanmarki

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

The Biden administration has officially re-designated Ansarallah  —  the dominant force in Yemen also known as the Houthis  — as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.

The White House claims the designation is an appropriate response to the group’s attacks on US military vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying those attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism”.

Ansarallah claims its actions “adhere to the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” since it is only enforcing a blockade geared toward ceasing the ongoing Israeli destruction of Gaza.

One of the most heinous acts committed by the Trump administration was its designation of Ansarallah as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), both of which imposed sanctions that critics warned would plunge Yemen’s aid-dependent population into even greater levels of starvation than they were already experiencing by restricting the aid that would be allowed in.

One of the Biden administration’s only decent foreign policy decisions has been the reversal of that sadistic move, and now that reversal is being partially rolled back, though thankfully only with the SDGT listing and not the more deadly and consequential FTO designation.

In a new article for Antiwar about this latest development, Dave Decamp explains that as much as the Biden White House goes to great lengths insisting that it’s going to issue exemptions to ensure that its sanctions don’t harm the already struggling Yemeni people,

“history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.”

DeCamp also notes that US and British airstrikes on Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services to the country.

Still trying to recover
So the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that is still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.

That’s right: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the Middle East, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.

It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism.

The managers of the globe-spanning empire loosely centralised around Washington literally believe the world is theirs to rule as they will, and that anyone who opposes its rulings is an outlaw.

Based on power
“What this shows us is that the “rules-based international order” the US and its allies claim to uphold is not based on rules at all; it’s based on power, which is the ability to control and impose your will on other people.

The “rules” apply only to the enemies of the empire because they are not rules at all: they are narratives used to justify efforts to bend the global population to its will.

We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise.

Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.

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 is republished with permission.

Fiji’s defence and security review – a pivotal step towards stability

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Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua
Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua during an interview by the media at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva . . . a bold and pivotal step in shaping a clear path for the country’s stability. Image: Eliki Nukutabu/Fiji Times

ANALYSIS: By Shailendra Singh

Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua’s national defence and security review initiative announced last month marks a bold and pivotal step in shaping a clear path for the country’s stability.

Especially when the nation has faced and continues to face internal security risks.

Under this prevailing situation, any initiative to mitigate the challenges in a planned and inclusive manner is to be welcomed, given that it is crucial for Fiji’s future wellbeing as a country.

The review begins with public consultations next month, and is expected to end around six months later, in August.

The announcement of this review barely one year into the new government’s term underscores the high priority that Tikoduadua, a former military officer, has placed on this undertaking.

Within the government, Tikoduadua oversees a crucial portfolio, with national security a fundamental responsibility, in that it is an essential requirement for sustainable development.

Without national security, there can be no sustainable development, let alone progress or prosperity, as Fiji’s fractured history starkly demonstrates.

Colonel (Rtd) Jim Sanday
Colonel (Rtd) Jim Sanday in earlier years . . . Rabuka’s endorsement is a curious twist of fate, considering that the 1987 coup he executed led to Sanday’s removal from his chief-of-staff position. Image: FBC News

The minister’s choice for the chair of the review committee is Jim Sanday, an eminently qualified candidate, who served as the former Republic of Fiji Military Forces chief of staff and is a retired public servant with the Australian Department of Defence.

Tikoduadua describes Sanday as a “distinguished figure” in the defence and security sector, who brings a “wealth of expertise” and “uncompromising integrity to this pivotal role”.

The review has the full blessing of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who played a key role in Sanday’s appointment. Rabuka’s endorsement is a curious twist of fate, considering that the 1987 coup he executed led to then Colonel Sanday’s removal from his chief of staff position.

Because this is a national defence and security review, the role of the military and the defining of its future directions are integral to the process.

The military’s role is to defend and safeguard the national interest. The military serves as the last line of defence between societal order and anarchy in any country. Especially a country like Fiji.

Therefore, the Fiji Military Forces Commander, Ro Jone Kalouniwai’s support for the review is a welcome sign.

Kalouniwai was present at the press briefing with Tikodudua. This show of solidarity and common purpose is important for public confidence given persistent reports of the military’s differences with the elected government over the future directions of the country.

Kalouniwai told media that the review will provide a framework to help the military define its responsibilities and how it wants to modernise. He said the military has a strategic plan in place but it is not guided by a national security strategy. In this regard, the review addresses a major gap by enabling the military to review its strategic plan and align it to the national security framework.

In an ABC Pacific interview shortly after his appointment was made public, Sanday clarified that the review will not “interfere with the military’s command responsibilities”, which are already legislated.

Fiji’s ‘Achille’s heel’
While the specific details of the review are being finalised, Tikoduadua’s announcement provides some indications about its broader aims and objectives:

“To craft a national security strategy that not only outlines Fiji’s national interests and goals, but also integrates core values and principles, ensuring that the roles of government agencies resonate with the national ethos”.

This raises the question of what the ‘national ethos’ of Fiji is.

Another goal is to “identify and implement” legislative and regulatory reforms in defense and security, aligned to national values that reflect the heart and soul of Fiji.” Again, this may require revisiting and reexamining the values that constitute the ‘heart and soul’ of Fiji.

The review culminates with the ministry designing a “Security Sector Reform and Governance Programme to align security agencies with government policies to ensure that these agencies operate in a manner that upholds and promotes cherished national values”.

These briefings indicate that a core priority of the review is addressing the lack of social cohesion in Fiji, which I have previously described as the country’s “Achilles heel”.

Mitigating social cohesion is Fiji’s biggest challenge in that more than 50 years after independence, we are still struggling with it. It is Fiji’s most damaging and complex problem with no overnight solution. Its resolution requires commitment from every sector in our nation.

In this context, the review can be seen as a systemic attempt to understand and collectively address what might be termed as Fiji’s vicious cycle — ethnic conflict and political instability resulting in military interventions. These factors, in turn, are interconnected with serious economic setbacks and decline that prevent Fiji from achieving its full potential.

Sanday alluded to this challenge in his ABC Pacific interview when he stated that he understood the relevance of Fiji’s socio-economic/cultural issues in relation to the review.

These issues lie at the heart of the country’s long-term ethno-political tensions, resulting in four socially and economically damaging coups between 1987-2006. While Fiji has escaped wide-scale societal violence so far, this cannot be taken for granted.

In this regard, the review is a much needed, long-overdue preemptive step to safeguard the nation.

Colonialism’s lingering effect
Depending on how far back we need to go, a root cause of Fiji’s conflict can be traced to colonialism, whereby the British rulers brought labourers from India to develop the sugar industry under the exploitative indenture system.

This system was largely designed for the economic benefit of the colonialists, with scant regard for the feelings of the native population, or the welfare of the immigrant labourers. Indigenous Fijians were not fully consulted about the scheme, while many migrant workers were tricked into it.

After toiling in slave-like conditions for five-plus years, the migrant workers were given the right to remain in the country, with the vast majority taking up the offer. This would eventually result in generational conflicts over ethnicity, demography, political power, and economic resources.

Generally, the two major communities feel equally aggrieved and threatened: indigenous Fijians harbour concerns about their culture and land rights, and complain about economic marginalisation in a modernising world, while Indo-Fijians feel unwanted, scapegoated, vilified and politically excluded.

Dismissing or shouting down each community’s concerns and fears as irrational, or irrelevant, as in the past, has not been helpful. In this regard, the review’s consultative approach to take in the views and experiences of the people at large is both crucial and appropriate.

Furthermore, while differences between Fiji’s two major communities soak up most of the attention, it is not just about them. The review conceivably encompasses the concerns of Fiji’s other ethnic minorities, who have deep, historical roots in Fiji, and who contribute to the country. These minorities are caught in the maelstrom, and while their welfare is equally affected, they find their concerns drowned out due to their smaller numbers. It is then fitting that Sanday has urged everyone to come forward to share ideas on how to make Fiji a happier and more prosperous place for everybody.

So, in essence, the review is a nation talking to itself and trying to come to terms with its conflicted history, to build a better future. It involves revisiting the past and learning from it, to avoid the same mistakes, and to escape the vicious cycle of political instability, military coups, and underdevelopment.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka (left) with RFMF Commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai during the PM’s visit to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva last month. Image: Eliki Nukutabu/Fiji Times

A country in decline
Fiji, mired in ethnic tensions and political differences culminating in four coups, fits the description of “fragile” or “vulnerable” society.

News media ingeniously describe Fiji’s coups as “bloodless”, “short-lived”, “clean-up-campaign” or “coup-to-end all coups.”

The terminology is regrettable because it grossly underestimates the lingering, sustained and long-term damage of our coup culture.

Part of my PhD thesis, “Rethinking journalism for supporting social cohesion and democracy: Case study of media performance in Fiji” (2014), looked at the economic impact of conflict.

The coups, whether carried out in the name of indigenous rights, upholding multiracialism, or supporting a secular state, can be linked to a pervasive trend of serious and sustained decline that permeates virtually all levels of society, irrespective of ethnicity, with the poor bearing the brunt of it.

This included investment falling from 25 per cent of the GDP in the 1970s to around 12 per cent in the post-coup periods, and for a time, meagre annual average growth of 1.6 per cent since 1996.

Research by professors Biman Prasad and Paresh Narayan published in 2008 showed a 20-year infrastructure deficit of some $3.4 billion, partly due to persistent instability.

Likewise, in his article published in 2013, Professor Wadan Narsey estimated that by 2011, Fiji had lost $1,700 million because of the 2006 coup. This included $400 million in government revenue, which could have gone towards education, health, infrastructure, public debt repayments and so forth.

Cumulatively, these indicators reveal how Fiji’s precarious position has progressively worsened in recent decades, as reflected in unemployment figures, increased social problems and declining services and infrastructure.

So, the coups may be ‘bloodless’ in terms of minimal body count, but they caused an economic bloodbath. The expression “death by a thousand cuts” comes to mind. We do not feel the pain immediately because after the initial shock, there are smaller hits that we absorb over the course of years and decades.

In time, these repeated blows add up to inflict deeper wounds that are more difficult to heal, but we adjust to the pain and learn to live with it. In Fiji these wounds are manifest in the lack of services, dilapidated infrastructure, low life expectancy, lack of opportunities, economic stagnation, low employment, high crime, brain drain, lifestyle diseases and so forth.

Fiji’s situation gives true meaning to best-selling author Paul Collier’s words in his book, Guns, Wars and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. Collier states that “wars and coups are not tea parties; they are development in reverse”.

A consultative process
Given Fiji’s fragility, it is fitting that both Sanday and Tikoduadua are canvassing a wide spectrum of views in an attempt to address the situation. Tikoduadua stated that the review is a “civilian led process, not just a uniform process, that will look at Fiji in totality”, including the role of the military.

On his part, Sanday has stated that the review entails a consultation with the people of Fiji about the way forward. He described it as a “confidence-building” measure to create an acceptable framework for Fiji’s future stability. This is quite appropriate in that “confidence” and “stability” go together — you simply cannot have one without the other.

The immediate and urgent need for confidence-building measures in Fiji is reflected in the mass outmigration of citizens, with reports of up to 50,000 Fijians leaving our shores in the 19 months to November, to work and live abroad. This in a population of less than one million.

While there is a pull factor due to better working conditions in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the accelerated rate of migration requires re-examination of any push factors and whether their impacts have increased or not. In this regard, the review could perhaps shed some light on the situation, and its pros and cons, in relation to economic security.

‘Giving up’ not an option
Because of the diverse and complex fractures in Fijian society, achieving political stability has proven as elusive, as it is necessary for the health of the nation.

At this juncture, decisive steps are needed to assess the situation, identify any risks and fault lines, and respond accordingly.

As an independent country since 1970, Fiji cannot go on blaming colonialism forever. As a nation, it is time to take responsibility for our own problems, and in this regard, the defence and security review is a step in the right direction.

As Tikoduadua has stated, the review “heralds a new chapter in Fiji’s journey towards a more secure and a vibrant future”.

Finding the right solutions won’t be easy, but giving up is not an option, considering what is at stake for the country and its people, including brighter prospects for future generations if we can get things right.

As Deputy Prime Minister and professor in economics Biman Prasad highlighted at the Australasian AID Conference in Canberra recently, “Development is the surest path to stability”, and “stability is the pathway to our prosperity”.

Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is an associate professor and head of the journalism programme at The University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. He has written widely on Pacific media, politics and development. This article was first published in The Fiji Times and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

New Zealand can learn from South Africa, The Gambia and others when it comes to international accountability

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South Africa's Justice Minister Ronald Lamola
South Africa's Justice Minister Ronald Lamola outlining the country's genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice . . . this case and others offer smaller countries, such as New Zealand, an opportunity to have a significant role in strengthening the international legal order and ensuring a pathway towards peace. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot APR

ANALYSIS: By Karen Scott

In 2023, the world witnessed a sustained attack on the very foundations of the international legal order.

Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, continued its illegal invasion in Ukraine. Israel’s response to the deadly October 2023 attack by Hamas exceeded its legitimate right to self-defence. And Venezuela threatened force against Guyana over an oil-rich area of disputed territory.

But is it all bad news for the international legal order?

There are six ongoing international court cases initiated by states or organisations seeking to clarify the law and hold other states to account on behalf of the international community.

These cases offer smaller countries, such as New Zealand, an opportunity to have a significant role in strengthening the international legal order and ensuring a pathway towards peace.

A departure from the legal norm?
Normally, cases are brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) when a state’s direct interests are impacted by the actions of another state.

However, six recent court cases reflect a significant departure from this tradition and mark an important development for international justice.

These cases argue the international community has a collective interest in certain issues. The focus of the cases range from Israel’s actions in Gaza (brought by South Africa) through to the responsibility of states to ensure the protection of the climate system (brought by the United Nations General Assembly).

Holding states accountable for genocide
Three of the six cases seek to hold states accountable for genocide using Article IX of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Put simply, Article IX says disputes between countries can be referred to the ICJ.

In late December, South Africa asked the court to introduce provisional measures — a form of international injunction — against Israel for genocidal acts in Gaza.

These proceedings build on the precedent set by a 2019 case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for its treatment of the Rohingya people.

In 2022, the ICJ concluded it had jurisdiction to hear The Gambia’s case on the basis that all parties to the Genocide Convention have an interest in ensuring the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide.

According to the ICJ, The Gambia did not need to demonstrate any special interest or injury to bring the proceedings and, in effect, was entitled to hold Myanmar to account for its treatment of the Rohingya people on behalf of the international community as a whole.

South Africa has made the same argument against Israel.

In the third case, Ukraine was successful in obtaining provisional measures calling on Russia to suspend military operations in Ukraine (a call which has been reiterated in several United Nations General Assembly resolutions).

While Ukraine is directly impacted by Russia’s actions, 32 states, including New Zealand, have also intervened. These countries have argued there is an international interest in the resolution of the conflict.

In November 2023, following the example of intervention in Ukraine v Russia, seven countries — Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (jointly) and the Maldives — filed declarations of intervention in The Gambia v Myanmar, in support of The Gambia and the international community.

States can apply for permission to intervene in proceedings where they have an interest of a legal nature that may be affected by the decision in the case (in the case of the ICJ, under Article 62 of the ICJ Statute). That said, intervening in judicial proceedings in support of the legal order or international community more generally was relatively rare until 2023.

Climate change obligations under international law
But it is not just acts of genocide that have attracted wider international legal involvement.

In 2023, three proceedings seeking advisory opinions on the legal obligations of states in respect of climate change under international law have been introduced before the ICJ, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

These cases can be similarly characterised as having been brought on behalf of the international community for the international community. New Zealand has intervened in the Law of the Sea case.

Collectively, these six cases comprise actions taken on behalf of the international community with the overarching purpose of strengthening the international legal order.

They demonstrate faith in and support for that legal order in the face of internal and external challenges, and constitute an important counter-narrative to the prevailing view that the international legal order is no longer robust.

Instituting proceedings does not guarantee a positive outcome. But it is worth noting that less than three years after the ICJ issued an advisory opinion condemning the United Kingdom’s continued occupation of the Chagos Archipelago, the UK is quietly negotiating with Mauritius for the return of the islands.

New Zealand’s support for the global legal order in 2024
The international legal order underpins New Zealand’s security and prosperity. New Zealand has a strong and internationally recognised track record of positive intervention in judicial proceedings in support of that order.

In 2012 New Zealand intervened in the case brought by Australia against Japan for whaling in the Antarctic. Following our contributions to cases before the ICJ and ITLOS in 2023, we are well placed to continue that intervention in future judicial proceedings.

Calls have already been made for New Zealand to intervene in South Africa v Israel. Contributing to this case and to The Gambia v Myanmar proceeding provides an important opportunity for New Zealand to make a proactive and substantive contribution to strengthening the international legal order.The Conversation

Dr Karen Scott is professor in Law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

RSF condemns Israel over ‘silencing of media’ – 31 Palestinian journalists in jail, 80 plus killed

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Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders - "This unprecedented wave of arrests and detentions, while the war continues in the Gaza Strip, has clearly been carried out with the deliberate aim of silencing the Palestinian media." Image: RSF

Pacific Media Watch

Israel has arrested a total of 38 Palestinian journalists since the start of its war with Hamas on October 7 and is currently holding 31 — most of them without charge, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog has condemning the use of detention to silence the Palestinian media and called for the protection of all journalists and the release of those detained.

Reporter Diaa al-Kahlout’s release on January 9 after more than a month in detention will not eclipse the scale of Israeli’s arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian journalists, said RSF in a statement.

At least 31 of those arrested since October 7 – 29 in the West Bank, one in Gaza and one in East Jerusalem — are still held in Israeli jails, in most cases without being notified of any charge.

“This unprecedented wave of arrests and detentions, while the war continues in the Gaza Strip, has clearly been carried out with the deliberate aim of silencing the Palestinian media,” RSF said.

All of the detained journalists work for Palestinian media outlets such as J-Media, Maan News Agency, Sanad and Radio al-Karama or are freelancers.

Massive crackdown in West Bank
Most of the arrests have been in the West Bank.

According to RSF’s tally, a total of 34 journalists have been arrested there since October 7, of whom only five have so far been released.

When the war began, two were being held. The detained journalists cannot receive visits and most are held in locations in Israel that have not been revealed.

Some of those who have been released, such as freelancer Somaya Jawbara, who was granted bail on November 22, 17 days after her arrest, are required to remain at home, are banned from using the internet or talking to the media, and have been placed under surveillance for an unspecified period.

Since the start of the war, Israel has been using the procedure known as “administrative detention” to detain journalists.

Under this procedure, a person is detained without notification of any charge on the grounds that they intended to break the law. They can be jailed for periods of up to six months that can be renewed on nothing more than an Israeli judge’s order.

At least 19 journalists are currently subject to “administrative detention.” The other 10 journalists are being held pending trial on “trumped-up charges of inciting violence”, said RSF.

“At least 31 Palestinian reporters are currently held in Israeli prisons in connection with their journalism,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk.

“This intimidation, this terror, these endless attempts to silence Palestinian journalism, whether by chains, bullets or bombs, must stop. We call for the immediate release of all detained journalists and for their urgent protection.”

Inhuman treatment of detained journalists
Some of the detained journalists are being subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This was seen in the case of Diaa al-Kahlout, the newly released reporter for the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site.

His family identified him in a video posted by an Israeli soldier in the north of the Gaza Strip on December 7.

Al-Kahlout was seen kneeling in the street in the middle of a group of half-naked detainees.

An Israeli patrol had arrested him a few hours earlier at his home in Beit Lahia. His house was burned down.

His two brothers, who had been arrested with him, were released. The reporter was briefly held in Eshel prison in Israel and was subjected to torture, according to several RSF sources.

The Israeli authorities said nothing about his fate for more than a month, until his release on January 9. In almost all cases of detained journalists, the families are given no information about their arrest and their situation.

Terrible ordeal for detained journalists in Gaza
In Gaza, where two journalists are currently detained, many reporters have been subjected to arrests of less than 48 hours in duration that have been no less traumatic.

They include Said Kilani, a photojournalist who freelances for Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and other international media, who was one of the few reporters to remain in Beit Lahia.

On December 13, Kilani was covering the fighting as Israeli forces advanced on Kamal Adwan Hospital when he found himself being arrested along with a medical team.

“As I knew that journalists were being targeted by the Israeli army, I was afraid and I initially hid my helmet and my press vest,” he said.

Kilani was held for 14 hours at a military base in the north of the Gaza Strip.

“We were forced to take our clothes off, we were insulted and humiliated,” he said, although he insists that he immediately identified himself as a journalist to those holding him.

After being released, he found his wife and children, who had also been arrested and then released. While they had been held, their house had been set on fire, and the journalistic equipment that Kilani had hidden in the hospital had also been burned.

“The Israeli soldiers took everything from us,” he told RSF. “We are homeless, in the cold, with nowhere to go.”

Five days after his arrest, Kilani was with his 16-year-old son when the boy was killed by an Israeli sniper before his very eyes.

Huge tragedy for journalism
At least 80 journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 (Al Jazeera reports 113 killed), including 18 in the course of their work, according to information verified by RSF.

More than 50 media offices in the Gaza Strip have also been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli strikes since the start of the war.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

Former Green MP Golriz Ghahraman faced ‘continuous death threats’, says Shaw

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Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman
Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman . . . a leading New Zealand advocate for human rights and justice for Palestine. Image: VNP/Daniela Maoate-Cox/RNZ

RNZ News

Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman — a leading voice in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament for human rights, an independent foreign policy, and justice for Palestine — was subject to “pretty much continuous” death threats and threats of violence, says party co-leader James Shaw.

She has resigned as a Green Party MP after facing shoplifting allegations.

Ghahraman said in a statement today stress relating to her work had led her to “act in ways that are completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them”.

“The mental health professional I see says my recent behaviour is consistent with recent events giving rise to extreme stress response, and relating to previously unrecognised trauma,” she said.

She said she had fallen short of the high standards expected of elected representatives, and apologised.

In a joint media conference with Green co-leader Marama Davidson, Shaw said Green MPs were expected to maintain high standards of public behaviour.

“It is clear to us that Ms Ghahraman is in a state of extreme distress. She has taken responsibility and she has apologised. We support the decision that she has made to resign.”

Party ‘deeply sorry’
The party was “deeply sorry” to see her leave under such circumstances, he said.

Shaw said that Parliament was a stressful place for anybody.

“However, Golriz herself has been subject to pretty much continuous threats of sexual violence, physical violence, death threats since the day she was elected to Parliament and so that has added a higher level of stress than is experienced by most Members of Parliament.

“And that has meant, for example there have been police investigations into those threats almost the entire time that she has been a Member of Parliament, and so obviously if you’re living with that level of threat in what is already quite a stressful situation then there are going to be consequences for that,” Shaw said.

“And so I have a lot of empathy for you know the fact that she has identified that she is in the state of extreme mental distress.

“Ultimately Golriz is taking accountability for her actions, she’s seeking medical help and she is in a state of extreme distress, that’s where we are at and we support her decision.”

Asked whether the Greens should review how they should support and select MPs, Green co-leader Marama Davidson said the party had a high quality and very robust selection process.

MPs ‘are still human’
“It is also understandable that all MPs across all political parties are still human when they come into politics.

“We will continue to support Golriz through a really distressing time that she is having at the moment and that is a Green Party responsibility also.”

Ghahraman was clearly distressed, Davidson said.

“We know that this is a decision for her to apologise and to resign from Parliament, for her well-being, for her to be able to focus and our responsibility is to make sure she has the support she has needed and to continue to give her aroha and compassion.”

Asked why the Greens did not front up to the situation earlier, Davidson said the Green Party co-leaders needed to seek clarity about the situation before making statements and Ghahraman was still overseas.

“I think people can understand how important it is to have face-to-face and in person conversations with such allegations.

“Also to allow her to have the support that she needs to be able to discuss those allegations.”

Once the co-leaders had received advice and worked out a course of action, Ghahraman returned “at the earliest possible convenience”, Davidson said.

Treatment of women of colour
Davidson said there had been conversations in recent times about the particular treatment of women and women of colour who had public profiles.

“It is incumbent on all political parties and the parliamentary system to be able to support everyone under the pressure of political profiles and the Greens certainly have always taken that seriously to make sure there are avenues for MPs feeling that stress to be able to communicate and seek help.”

Asked whether the co-leaders were aware that Ghahraman was experiencing mental distress before the allegations came to light, Shaw said it would not be appropriate to comment on the mental health condition of one of their colleagues.

“Professional support is available to all of our MPs and we do know that people do access them and we encourage people to access that professional support,” Shaw said.

Davidson said it was a sad day and she was losing a friend and colleague who she had worked with for six years.

“We are here to give aroha and hold her leadership in the portfolio work, kaupapa work that she has often been a lone voice in,” she said.

“We just have aroha and sadness for the value of her kaupapa and for her as a person and she was a part of our team.”

Green caucus support
Shaw said Ghahraman was getting a lot of support for her colleagues in the Green caucus, other Green Party members, as well as from other communities that she is well-connected to.

“And of course most importantly, she’s got professional support as well.”

Davidson said that they would continue to support Ghahraman by ensuring she continued to know “that our aroha and compassion that we are holding that as colleagues, as friends, as women in politics, and that’s really important to us”.

Shaw said Parliament had improved in terms of making support available to MPs over the last few years.

“We strongly encourage our MPs and our staff to access professional support if they feel that they need it and we will continue to do so.”

Shaw said Ghahraman was not looking for an excuse by disclosing her mental health issues and she said she wanted to take full accountability for her actions.

“She’s not looking for an excuse here, she’s trying to sort of seek a reason to explain her behaviour, not to justify it and I think that’s really really important,” Shaw said.

Shaw said pressures on MPs were discussed as a caucus including at monthly staff meetings of senior MPs and staff, at a quarterly weekend meeting, as well as working closely with parliamentary security, police and IT.

Davidson said losing Ghahraman was a big loss but the party would continue to uphold her portfolio areas, legacy and mahi.

Ghahraman was elected on the Green Party list, ranked 7th. She held 10 spokesperson portfolios, including Justice, Defence, and Foreign Affairs.

Her resignation allows the next person on the list to enter Parliament — former Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and Asia Pacific Report.

John Pilger: Silencing the lambs – how propaganda works

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Leni Riefenstahl pictured filming with two assistants in 1936
Leni Riefenstahl pictured filming with two assistants in 1936 . . . epic films glorifying the Nazis. Image: Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

John Pilger tirelessly and fearlessly exposed Western crimes against the Global South. A master of his craft whose integrity was unmatched, he died on 30 December 2023. Consortium News published a series of tributes to him on 1 January 2024 and republished this insightful article by him about propaganda first published in 2022.

ANALYSIS: By John Pilger

“Leni Riefenstahl said her epic films glorifying the Nazis depended on a ‘submissive void’ in the German public. This is how propaganda is done.”

In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer.

She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.

Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked.  “Yes, especially them,” she said.

I think of this as I look around at the propaganda now consuming Western societies.

Of course, we are very different from Germany in the 1930s. We live in information societies. We are globalists. We have never been more aware, more in touch, better connected.

Or do we in the West live in a Media Society where brainwashing is insidious and relentless, and perception is filtered according to the needs and lies of state and corporate power?

The United States dominates the Western world’s media. All but one of the top 10 media companies are based in North America. The internet and social media — Google, Twitter, Facebook — are mostly American owned and controlled.

In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, mostly democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has attempted to murder the leaders of 50 countries.  It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries.

The extent and scale of this carnage is largely unreported, unrecognised, and those responsible continue to dominate Anglo-American political life.

Harold Pinter broke the silence
In the years before he died in 2008, the playwright Harold Pinter made two extraordinary speeches, which broke a silence.

“US foreign policy,” he said, is

“best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.”

In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pinter said this:

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Pinter was a friend of mine and possibly the last great political sage — that is, before dissenting politics were gentrified. I asked him if the “hypnosis” he referred to was the “submissive void” described by Leni Riefenstahl.

“It’s the same,” he replied. “It means the brainwashing is so thorough we are programmed to swallow a pack of lies. If we don’t recognise propaganda, we may accept it as normal and believe it. That’s the submissive void.”

Leni Riefenstahl and a camera crew
Leni Riefenstahl and a camera crew stand in front of Hitler’s car during 1934 rally in Nuremberg, Germany. Image: Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

In our systems of corporate democracy, war is an economic necessity, the perfect marriage of public subsidy and private profit: socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. The day after 9/11 the stock prices of the war industry soared.

More bloodshed was coming, which is great for business.

Today, the most profitable wars have their own brand. They are called “forever wars” — Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and now Ukraine. All are based on a pack of lies.

Iraq is the most infamous, with its weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. NATO’s destruction of Libya in 2011 was justified by a massacre in Benghazi that didn’t happen. Afghanistan was a convenient revenge war for 9/11, which had nothing to do with the people of Afghanistan.

Today, the news from Afghanistan is how evil the Taliban are — not that US President Joe Biden’s theft of $7 billion of the country’s bank reserves is causing widespread suffering. Recently, National Public Radio in Washington devoted two hours to Afghanistan — and 30 seconds to its starving people.

At its summit in Madrid in June, NATO, which is controlled by the United States, adopted a strategy document that militarises the European continent, and escalates the prospect of war with Russia and China. It proposes “multi domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitor.”

In other words, nuclear war.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (left) and Spain’s Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez on 28 June 2022 in Madrid. Image: NATO

It says: “NATO’s enlargement has been an historic success.”

I read that in disbelief.

The news from the war in Ukraine is mostly not news, but a one-sided litany of jingoism, distortion, omission.  I have reported a number of wars and have never known such blanket propaganda.

In February, Russia invaded Ukraine as a response to almost eight years of killing and criminal destruction in the Russian-speaking region of Donbass on their border.

In 2014, the United States had sponsored a coup in Kiev that got rid of Ukraine’s democratically elected, Russian-friendly president and installed a successor whom the Americans made clear was their man.

Then US Vice-President Joe Biden
Then US Vice-President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev on 7 December 2015. Image: US Embassy Kyiv, Flickr

In recent years, American “defender” missiles have been installed in eastern Europe, Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, almost certainly aimed at Russia, accompanied by false assurances all the way back to James Baker’s “promise” to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 that NATO would never expand beyond Germany.

NATO on Hitler’s borderline
Ukraine is the frontline. NATO has effectively reached the very borderland through which Hitler’s army stormed in 1941, leaving more than 23 million dead in the Soviet Union.

Last December, Russia proposed a far-reaching security plan for Europe. This was dismissed, derided or suppressed in the Western media. Who read its step-by-step proposals?

On 24 February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky threatened to develop nuclear weapons unless America armed and protected Ukraine.

On the same day, Russia invaded — an unprovoked act of congenital infamy, according to the Western media. The history, the lies, the peace proposals, the solemn agreements on Donbass at Minsk counted for nothing.

On April 25, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin flew into Kiev and confirmed that America’s aim was to destroy the Russian Federation — the word he used was “weaken.” America had got the war it wanted, waged by an American bankrolled and armed proxy and expendable pawn.

Almost none of this was explained to Western audiences.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wanton and inexcusable. It is a crime to invade a sovereign country. There are no “buts” — except one.

When did the present war in Ukraine begin and who started it? According to the United Nations, between 2014 and this year, some 14,000 people have been killed in the Kiev regime’s civil war on the Donbass. Many of the attacks were carried out by neo-Nazis.

Watch an ITV news report from May 2014, by the veteran reporter James Mates, who is shelled, along with civilians in the city of Mariupol, by Ukraine’s Azov (neo-Nazi) battalion.

In the same month, dozens of Russian-speaking people were burned alive or suffocated in a trade union building in Odessa besieged by fascist thugs, the followers of the Nazi collaborator and anti-Semitic fanatic Stepan Bandera.

The New York Times called the thugs “nationalists.”

“The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment,” said Andreiy Biletsky, founder of the Azov Battaltion, “is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival, a crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

Since February, a campaign of self-appointed “news monitors” (mostly funded by the Americans and British with links to governments) have sought to maintain the absurdity that Ukraine’s neo-Nazis don’t exist.

Airbrushing, once associated with Stalin’s purges, has become a tool of mainstream journalism.

“I have reported a number of wars and have never known such blanket propaganda.”

In less than a decade, a “good” China has been airbrushed and a “bad” China has replaced it: from the world’s workshop to a budding new Satan.

Much of this propaganda originates in the US, and is transmitted through proxies and “think-tanks,” such as the notorious Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the voice of the arms industry, and by journalists such as Peter Hartcher of The Sydney Morning Herald, who has labelled those spreading Chinese influence as “rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows” and suggested these “pests” be “eradicated.”

Andriy Beletsky,
Andriy Beletsky, commanding officer of the special Ukrainian neo-Nazi police regiment Azov, with volunteers in 2014. Image: My News24, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

News about China in the West is almost entirely about the threat from Beijing. Airbrushed are the 400 American military bases that surround most of China, an armed necklace that reaches from Australia to the Pacific and south east Asia, Japan and Korea.

The Japanese island of Okinawa and the Korean island of Jeju are like loaded guns aimed point blank at the industrial heart of China. A Pentagon official described this as a “noose.”

“Palestine has been misreported for as long as I can remember.”

Palestine has been misreported for as long as I can remember. To the BBC, there is the “conflict” of “two narratives”. The longest, most brutal, lawless military occupation in modern times is unmentionable.

The stricken people of Yemen barely exist. They are media unpeople.  While the Saudis rain down their American cluster bombs with British advisers working alongside the Saudi targeting officers, more than half a million children face starvation.

This brainwashing by omission is not new. The slaughter of the First World War was suppressed by reporters who were given knighthoods for their compliance.

In 1917, the editor of The Manchester Guardian, C.P. Scott, confided to Prime Minister Lloyd George: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow, but they don’t know and can’t know.”

The refusal to see people and events as those in other countries see them is a media virus in the West, as debilitating as covid.  It is as if we see the world through a one-way mirror, in which “we” are moral and benign and “they” are not. It is a profoundly imperial view.

The history that is a living presence in China and Russia is rarely explained and rarely understood. Vladimir Putin is Adolf Hitler. Xi Jinping is Fu Man Chu. Epic achievements, such as the eradication of abject poverty in China, are barely known. How perverse and squalid this is.

“The news from the war in Ukraine is mostly not news, but a one-sided litany of jingoism, distortion, omission.”

When will we allow ourselves to understand? Training journalists factory style is not the answer. Neither is the wondrous digital tool, which is a means, not an end, like the one-finger typewriter and the linotype machine.

In recent years, some of the best journalists have been eased out of the mainstream. “Defenestrated” is the word used. The spaces once open to mavericks, to journalists who went against the grain, truth-tellers, have closed.

Julian Assange
Julian Assange in 2014 . . . celebrated then made a public enemy. Image: David G Silvers, Wikimedia Commons

The case of Julian Assange is the most shocking.  When Julian and WikiLeaks could win readers and prizes for The Guardian, The New York Times and other self-important “papers of record,” he was celebrated.

When the dark state objected and demanded the destruction of hard drives and the assassination of Julian’s character, he was made a public enemy. Vice President Joe Biden compared him to a “hi-tech terrorist.” Hillary Clinton asked, “Can’t we just drone this guy?”

The ensuing campaign of abuse and vilification against Julian Assange — the U.N. rapporteur on torture called it “mobbing” — brought the liberal press to its lowest ebb. We know who they are. I think of them as collaborators: as Vichy journalists.

When will real journalists stand up? An inspirational samizdat  already exists on the internet: Consortium News, founded by the great reporter Robert Parry, Max Blumenthal’s  The Grayzone, Mint Press News, Media Lens, DeclassifiedUK, Alborada, Electronic Intifada, WSWS, ZNet, ICH, CounterPunch, Independent Australia, the work of Chris Hedges, Patrick Lawrence, Jonathan Cook, Diana Johnstone, Caitlin Johnstone and others who will forgive me for not mentioning them here.

And when will writers stand up, as they did against the rise of fascism in the 1930s? When will film-makers stand up, as they did against the Cold War in the 1940s? When will satirists stand up, as they did a generation ago?

Having soaked for 82 years in a deep bath of righteousness that is the official version of the last world war, isn’t it time those who are meant to keep the record straight declared their independence and decoded the propaganda? The urgency is greater than ever.

This article is based on an address the author delivered at the Trondheim World Festival, Norway, and first published by Consortium News on 7 September 2022. The late John Pilger twice won Britain’s highest award for journalism and was International Reporter of the Year, News Reporter of the Year and Descriptive Writer of the Year. He made 61 documentary films and won an Emmy, a BAFTA and the Royal Television Society prize. His Cambodia Year Zero was named as one of the 10 most important films of the 20th century.

Fiji human rights activists pay tribute to slain Gaza journalists, but shunned by local media

By
Cafe Pacific Publisher
-
0

Pacific Media Watch

Fiji human rights activists have paid tribute in a Suva vigil this week to the more than 100 journalists — most of them Palestinian — killed in Israel’s War on Gaza.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) staged a #ThursdaysInBlack vigil to remember the dead journalists, but only one local Fiji reporter turned up (from The Fiji Times).

The coalition had invited local journalists to attend and share their views. However, according to coalition chair Shamima Ali (of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre), Fiji media is reluctant to engage with the global crisis over the war.

“Within the media outlets, we have Zionists themselves, so there is reluctance to report (on the Gaza conflict),” she said, reports Jake Wise of The Fiji Times.

In Australia and New Zealand, there is an ongoing controversy over some journalists and editors having been on junkets to Israel and then attempting to “silence” fair and balanced reporting on the war enabling a Palestinian voice.

South Africa has taken Israel before the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, alleging breaches of the Genocide Convention

One media outlet, Crikey, has been publishing a public list “outing” the names of journalists “influenced” by Israeli media or government management — more than 77 names so far.  No similar list so far exists in New Zealand although there have been calls for one.

Part of the Fiji vigil featured Australian journalist Alex McKinnon, who shared insights into his life as a reporter covering the conflict and the censorship involved in silencing the Palestinian voice.

Heavy death toll
The coalition said more than 100 journalists, videographers and media workers had been killed in Gaza since the current war broke out last October 7, adding more journalists had been killed in three months of Israel’s War on Gaza than in all of World War Two (69) or the Vietnam War (63).

The high death toll in Gaza comes despite journalists being protected under international law — making attacks on them a war crime.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that an unprecedented number of reporters were killed in the first 10 weeks of the genocide. It currently lists 82 confirmed killed, but it is verifying additional numbers.

Gaza’s media office has documented the killing of at least at least 110 media workers since the genocide started. Al Jazeera today reported 117 journalists killed.


“Why are so many journalists being killed in Gaza?” Firsthand reporting on the onslaught there has been left to Palestinians already locked into the occupied territory — documenting their own genocide. Video: Al Jazeera’s Listening Post

Last May, the CPJ published “Deadly Pattern,” a report that found members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had killed at least 20 journalists over the previous 22 years with impunity. Nobody had ever been charged or held accountable for their deaths.

The Israeli government has prevented independent entry to foreign journalists seeking to cover the genocide from within the Gaza Strip.

On December 22, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders watchdog filed a second complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging probable war crimes by Israel soldiers in the deaths of seven Palestinian reporters during the eight weeks ending December 15.

It has since been advised that the ICC would include the killings of journalists in its investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel.

Participants at the Fiji vigil in tribute to the Palestinian journalists
Participants at the Fiji vigil in tribute to the Palestinian journalists killed in Israel’s War on Gaza. Image: FWCC screenshot APR
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