CNN’s Dana Bash launched into a fire-and-brimstone sermon on 1 May 2024 comparing anti-genocide university protesters in the US to the brownshirts of Nazi Germany. Image: caitlinjohnstone.com.au
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
In one of the most appalling propaganda segments I have ever seen in my life, CNN’s Dana Bash launched into a fire-and-brimstone sermon on Wednesday comparing anti-genocide university protesters to the brownshirts of Nazi Germany — doing so in defense of a fascistic police crackdown against those very same protesters.
After playing a clip of Zionist activist Eli Tsives theatrically claiming campus protesters at UCLA were blocking him from his classroom, Bash solemnly said, “Again, what you just saw is 2024 in Los Angeles. Hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe, and I do not say that lightly. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now.”
According to journalist Jeremy Lindenfeld — who happens to be Jewish — Tsives wasn’t even being denied access to his classroom, but was only being denied access to the protesters’ encampment which he’d conveniently decided he wanted to walk through in order to get there. Dana Bash makes no mention of this, framing this instead as a terrifying attack on Jews which could soon see them being loaded onto trains headed for extermination camps.
Bash played a clip of New York City Mayor Eric Adams saying “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States.
“They’re calling for a ceasefire,” says Bash. “Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages.”
“This hour, I’ll speak to an American Israeli family whose son is still held captive by Hamas since that horrifying day, that brought us to this moment,” said Bash, adding, “You don’t hear the pro-Palestinian protesters talking about that. We will.”
Ah yes, such brave, up-punching journalistic integrity for you to talk about the Israeli hostages, Dana.
Not like we haven’t been hearing about them every single day from the imperial media for the last seven months while orders of magnitude more Palestinians are butchered by US-supplied war machinery.
“At UCLA, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups were attacking each other, hurling all kinds of objects, a wood pallet, fireworks, parking cones, even a scooter,” Bash says.
Later on in the same segment of Bash’s own show, CNN’s Stephanie Elam contradicts Bash’s both-sides lie by commenting on some of this footage, saying, “And you can see that in the video, it looked like people from this side were breaking down the encampment from the pro-Palestinian side last night, throwing objects in there.
“As well as it looks like some sort of maybe pepper spray or something coming from the other side over here.”
It should here be noted that Dana Bash gets her surname from her first husband Jeremy Bash, who went on to serve as the chief-of-staff for both the CIA and the Pentagon. The woman is pure swamp.
It should also be noted that CNN’s own staff recently leaked to The Guardian that they have been pressured to report on the Gaza onslaught with an extreme pro-Israel bias, attributing the pressure to the network’s new CEO Mark Thompson.
I for one think it’s great that the imperial media are becoming so transparently obvious about their propagandistic nature, and I hope they keep exposing mainstream Westerners to the fact that the primary purpose of these outlets is to promote the information interests of the US and its allies.
Propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you, so hopefully they keep going mask-off like this for everyone to see.
AMY GOODMAN: As the official death toll in Gaza nears 35,000, ceasefire talks are continuing this week with Hamas officials in Cairo, Egypt, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in now in Israel. Meanwhile, Israel’s military’s chief-of-staff has approved the continuation of war, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to call off the expected ground invasion of Rafah.
This comes as the International Criminal Court (ICC) could reportedly issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, over the war on Gaza and for Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid. Israel has also targeted humanitarian workers in deadly attacks.
Hundreds of aid workers have been killed by Israel since October 7, including seven members of the international organisation World Central Kitchen, which is resuming food distribution in Gaza today, nearly four weeks after its convoy came under attack.
Amidst the mounting humanitarian disaster in Gaza, hundreds of activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla were blocked in Turkey on Saturday as they attempted to set sail for the besieged Palestinian territory. Organisers say Guinea-Bissau withdrew its flagged ships under pressure from Israel, but vowed to overcome this latest challenge.
A group of UN experts called for safe passage of the vessels, writing:
“The Flotilla is a material manifestation of international support for the ongoing Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination, and the internationally recognised right to receive humanitarian aid without interference or hindrance.
“Support for the Palestinian people’s human rights is acute under the current conditions of genocide, domicide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”
For more, we’re joined in Istanbul by Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian American human rights attorney, organizer with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. She was also part of the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which Israel attacked, killing 10 activists on the Mavi Marmara.
Welcome to Democracy Now! again, Huwaida. If you can talk about what this Freedom Flotilla is and the obstacles it has faced leaving Turkey?
HUWAIDA ARRAF: Thank you. It’s good to be with you, Amy.
The Freedom Flotilla is a continuation of the effort of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to confront and challenge and, indeed, break Israel’s unlawful siege on Gaza. It has been in place since 2007.
It is a form of collective punishment, which is not only unlawful, it is a war crime, and yet our governments have not been doing anything about it. And, in fact, the very fact that for decades our governments have been allowing Israel impunity is what has brought us to this point where Israel for seven months can commit live-streamed genocide and the world doesn’t — the “world” meaning our governments; of course — people are mobilising, but we’re not stopping it, because Israel is so used to this impunity.
We have come together, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, and announced that we are going to sail an emergency flotilla in light of the dire situation in Gaza, which includes mass starvation and now famine that has set in — again, war crimes, but our governments aren’t doing anything about it.
What do they do? Pay lip service to Palestinian human rights, airdrop food or talk about a maritime corridor which leaves Israel in control of what, if any, aid at all gets to a people trying to survive a genocide.
It’s absolutely obnoxious. And one of the things that the UN special rapporteurs, that you mentioned, in their statement said, that our Freedom Flotilla is legitimately challenging Israel’s control over the entry of aid, which no government is doing. And that’s what needs to be done.
How can we be in the state where a country that has been found to be plausibly committing a genocide by the World Court is allowed to control what, if any, aid gets to a people trying to survive a genocide? It is unconscionable.
And so we have come together. We are now, and have been, in Istanbul, Turkey, Türkiye. We have ships ready to go. We have one cargo ship loaded with over 5000 tonnes of humanitarian aid, largely food, clean water, medicines, baby formula, nutrition for children, diapers. That was all ready to go.
Hundreds of activists from 40 countries were here, knowing that Israel has killed activists before in such a mission, and yet still willing to risk it to do what no government has done. And yet, instead of our governments supporting our efforts, they have conspired to actually block us.
And so, what happened on Friday is we received a surprise communiqué from the Guinea-Bissau International Ship Registry saying that they have withdrawn their flag from two of our ships — the cargo ship and the main passenger vessel. Now, we cannot sail without a flag.
It was clear to us that the withdrawal of this flag was under pressure, likely from the United States and Israel, because the way that they communicated to us was highly unusual, if not unprecedented.
In their communication to us, they specifically referenced our trip to Gaza, and they had demanded from us a number of things, which were impossible to meet in the two-hour timeframe that they gave us, which some of those things included a complete manifesto of our cargo, all of the ports we were going to sail in, a letter from the receiving port where we were going to arrive saying that our arrival and carry of humanitarian aid is welcome. They gave us a two-hour window.
This is never done. It’s like when you go to register your car at the DMV, they don’t ask you everywhere you’re going and who is going to be in your car. I don’t know of a situation where this has been done before. And yet, because we did not meet these and were not able to submit all of this information within a two-hour window, they informed us that our flag has been withdrawn. This is not the end.
AMY GOODMAN: What made you believe that Israel put . . .
HUWAIDA ARRAF: We are pursuing this legally and politically . . .
AMY GOODMAN: What made you believe that Israel had put pressure on Guinea-Bissau to remove its flags?
HUWAIDA ARRAF: Again, because the demands that they made of us specifically referencing our planned trip to confront Israel’s siege and our intent to arrive in Gaza, and giving us a two-hour window to submit all of this documentation about our journey, and knowing that Israel has done this before. It has tried all kinds of methods in order to sabotage our missions. It has sabotaged our boats before. It has attempted to get various — and succeeded, in getting various countries to block us from leaving port.
And it was being reported that the United States specifically was putting pressure on Türkiye, the government here, to block us from leaving. But we were sure we were going to be able to leave from Türkiye, because the support here is so great.
So, Israel has tried all of these efforts. It actually boasts about these efforts. But if Israel thinks that this is the end of our effort to break the unlawful siege of Gaza, they are sadly mistaken.
A lot of the activists who were here are fired up. They are determined. They are going back home at this point, until we can reflag our ships, which will hopefully be in the coming weeks, and coming back with even more people and more determination.
So this is a minor setback, but it’s certainly not the end. And we will not . . .
AMY GOODMAN: Huwaida Arraf . . .
HUWAIDA ARRAF: We will not stop in our efforts . . .
AMY GOODMAN: Huwaida . . .
HUWAIDA ARRAF: . . . to break the siege . . .
AMY GOODMAN: If you can tell us . . .
HUWAIDA ARRAF: . . . and get to the people of Gaza.
AMY GOODMAN: . . . who the activists are, the doctors, the nurses, the lawyers, who are on board this ship?
HUWAIDA ARRAF: I would love to. They are amazing people from all over the world, who have left their families, who have left their jobs, who have left the comforts of their own home to undertake a mission where we could not guarantee their safety. So, we had doctors coming from as far as New Zealand.
We’ve had activists from South Africa. We had truck drivers from Ireland. We have mental health and social workers from the United States, students, professors, retired US military, retired US active combat, former FBI agents. We had parliamentarians, the former mayor of Barcelona, European parliamentarians, Algerian and Jordanian parliamentarians . . . really, a cross-section of humanity that is sick and tired of our governments allowing the ongoing persecution, and now genocide of the Palestinian people.
And we are determined to stop this by direct action, which is . . . of course, goes along with all of the other efforts that have been taking place all around the world. And we also want to send our respect, admiration and solidarity with the student movement across the United States and now spreading across the world.
This is what’s needed. We are going to bring about the change our governments have sadly failed. They only pay lip service to democracy, freedom and human rights.
AMY GOODMAN: Among the high-profile activists . . .
HUWAIDA ARRAF: The people are going to force this to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: . . . that are part of the Freedom Flotilla is Nkosi “Mandla” Mandela, South African member of Parliament and the grandson of Nelson Mandela. He spoke to Al Jazeera last week.
NKOSI ZWELIVELILE ”MANDLA” MANDELA: I am a living example of the efforts of the International Solidarity Movement. I am free. South Africa is free. We were able to defeat apartheid South Africa because of the support that we had from the international community. And therefore we want to thank them for taking this stand and for ensuring that they will not be complicit, they will no longer be silent, they will be the voice for the Palestinians.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, in the summer of 2010, the Israeli military attacked a Gaza Freedom Flotilla, killing 10 people, including an American citizen. It was the Mavi Marmara that they attacked, the ship. Then Vice-President Joe Biden defended the raid in an interview on PBS shortly afterward.
VICE-PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not and the rest, but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know. They’re at war with Hamas, has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in.
And up to now, Charlie, what’s happened? They’ve said, “Here we go. You’re in the Mediterranean. This ship, if you divert — divert slightly north, you can unload it, and we’ll get the stuff into Gaza.”
So, what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?
AMY GOODMAN: [Vice] President Joe Biden in 2010. Huwaida Arraf, this shows the stakes. Ten people were killed. Yet you’re willing to go on this ship to try to challenge the Gaza blockade. As we wrap up, you have 30 seconds. Talk about that risk.
HUWAIDA ARRAF: Yeah. First of all, I need to say that Joe Biden is absolutely mistaken. Israel has no right — had no right to intercept and attack our ships, because it has no right to place the Palestinian people under collective punishment. Again, it is a war crime, and a UN panel, an independent investigation, found the very same thing.
Amy, it’s a sad thing that people — it has to be a life-or-death situation to deliver food to people who are being deliberately starved. But that is what we have here, because our governments have continued to allow Israel to do this. I left my two kids at home, and I promised them that I would come back.
I know they need their mother. And I hoped to be able to fulfill my promise to come back, but I didn’t know. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I can’t leave to them a world where this can happen, where people can be slaughtered for months on end, oppressed for years, and the world does nothing.
So, my action here, and a lot of the activists that have joined us, and the many, many more who want to join us now, do it with the same conviction that we have to act to change the world that we went to live in and that we want to pass on to generations to come, and we are willing to risk our lives to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian-American human rights attorney, one of the organisers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, speaking to us from Istanbul, Turkey.
The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence and was originally published here on 29 April 2024
French policies over Kanaky under fire . . . Pacific alliance says Paris has shown no interest in respecting the Noumea Accords or in granting the Kanak people their "right to be free". Image: @KanakySuport
A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination.
The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in a statement that it reaffirmed its solidarity with the Kanaks in a bid to to expose ongoing efforts by the French government to “derail a decolonisation process painstakingly pursued in this Pacific Island territory for the last 30 years”.
It said that France — especially under the Macron government — as the colonial power administering this UN-sanctioned process of decolonisation had repeatedly shown that it
could not remain a “neutral party” to the Noumea Accords.
French policies over Kanaky under fire . . . Pacific alliance says Paris has shown no interest in respecting the Noumea Accords or in granting the Kanak people their “right to be free”. Image: @KanakySuport
The 1998 pact was designed specifically to hand sovereignty back to the people of Kanaky New Caledonia and end French colonial rule, said PRNGOs.
“In recent months, the Macron government [has] forced through proposed constitutional
amendments aimed at changing voting eligibility rules for local elections in the French
territory,” said the statement.
“These eligibility provisions have been preserved and protected under the [Noumea] Accords as a safeguard for indigenous peoples against demographic changes that could make them a minority in their own land and block the path to freedom.”
The electoral amendments were passed by the French Senate in early April and
will be voted on in Parliament this month.
Elections deferred
“The Macron government has, in a parallel move, also managed to defer local elections,
initially scheduled for mid-May, to mid-December at the latest, to allow voting under new
provisions that would favour pro-French parties,” the statement said.
In 2021, President Macron unilaterally called for the third independence referendum to be
held in December that year amid the covid-19 pandemic that “heavily affected the
ability of indigenous communities to organise and participate”.
Although it was a “no” vote, only 43.87 percent of the 184,364 registered voters exercised their right to vote.
“Express reservations and requests by Kanak leaders and representatives for a later date were ignored, casting serious doubt on genuine representation and participation,” said PRNGOs.
A Pacific Islands Forum Mission sent to observe proceedings concluded in its report that “the self-determination referendum that took place 12 December 2021 did so with the non-participation of the overwhelming majority of the indigenous people of New Caledonia.
“The result of the referendum is an inaccurate representation of the will of registered voters . . . ”
The alliance said that in all of these actions, the French government had shown no interest at all in respecting the Noumea Accords or in granting the Kanak people their most fundamental rights — “particularly the right to be free”.
‘Democracy’ link claimed
Macron’s allies and pro-French advocates have claimed that these initiatives by the
French government are more consistent with democratic principles and the rule of law.
The aspirations of the Kanak people for self-determination had been
“mischaracterised as being ethno-nationalistic, akin to the ‘far-right’, and racist,” PRNGOs said.
The alliance said that if the vote on May 13 succeeded in removing the electoral roll restrictions succeed, it would be seen as a direct attack on the principle of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter and its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
“That the evil of colonialism can continue unchecked in this manner, and in this 21st century, is not only an insult to the Pacific region but to the international system,” the statement said.
“The Pacific is not distracted by French false narratives. The Kanak, as people, are the rightful inhabitants of what is present day New Caledonia still under enduring French colonial rule.”
The alliance called on President Macron to withdraw the constitutional changes on electoral roll provisions protecting the rights of the indigenous people of Kanaky, and it appealed to France to send a neutral high-level mission to resume dialogue between pro-independence parties and local anti-independence groups over a new political agreement.
It also called for another independence referendum that “genuinely reflects their will”.
The Koi Tū 2024 media report . . . sweeping changes needed in Aotearoa New Zealand to deal with the wide impacts of digital transformation and alarmingly low levels of trust in news. Image: Koi Tū
Koi Tū
New Zealand cannot sit back and see the collapse of its Fourth Estate, the director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Sir Peter Gluckman, says in the foreword of a paper published today.
The paper, “If not journalists, then who?” paints a picture of an industry facing existential threats and held back by institutional underpinnings that are beyond the point where they are merely outdated.
It suggests sweeping changes to deal with the wide impacts of digital transformation and alarmingly low levels of trust in news.
He is a former newspaper editor and media studies lecturer, and also a member of Asia Pacific Media Network. The paper was developed following consultation with media leaders.
“We hope this paper helps open and expand the conversation from a narrow focus on the viability of particular players,” Sir Peter said, “to the needs of a small liberal democracy which must face many challenges in which citizens must have access to trustworthy information so they can form views and contribute appropriately to societal decision making.
“Koi Tū’s core argument, along with that of many scholars of democracy, is that democracy relies on honest information being available to all citizens. It needs to be provided by trustworthy sources and any interests associated with it must be transparently declared.
Decline in trust
“The media itself has contributed much to the decline in trust. This does not mean that there is not a critical role for opinion and advocacy — indeed democracy needs that too. It is essential that ideas are debated.
“But when reliable information is conflated with entertainment and extreme opinion, then citizens suffer and manipulated polarised outcomes are more likely.”
Dr Ellis said both news media and government were held to account in the paper for the state in which journalism in New Zealand now found itself. The mixing of fact and opinion in news stories was identified as a cause of the public’s low level of trust, and online analytics were found to have aberrated news judgement previously driven by journalistic values.
For their part, successive governments have failed to keep pace with changing needs across a very broad spectrum that has been brought about by digital transformation.
Changes suggested in the paper include voluntary merger of the two news regulators (the statutory Broadcasting Standards Authority and the industry-supported Media Council) into an independent body along lines recommended a decade ago by the Law Commission.
The new body would sit within a completely reorganised — and renamed — Broadcasting Commission, which would also be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Classifications Office, NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho.
An administrative umbrella
The reconstituted commission would become the administrative umbrella for the following autonomous units:
Media accountability (standards and complaints procedures)
Funding allocation (direct and contestable, including creative production)
Promotion and funding of Māori culture and language.
Content classification (ratings and classification of film, books, video gaming)
Review of media-related legislation and regulation, and monitoring of common law development, and
Research and advocacy (related civic, cultural, creative issues).
The paper also favours dropping the Digital News Fair Bargaining Bill (under which media organisations would negotiate with transnational platforms) and, instead, amending the Digital Services Tax Bill, now before the House, under which the proposed levy on digital platforms would be increased to provide a ring-fenced fund to compensate media for direct and indirect use of their content.
It also suggests changes to tax structures to help sustain marginally profitable and non-profit media outlets committed to public interest journalism.
Seventeen separate Acts of Parliament affecting media are identified in the paper as outdated — “and the list is nor exhaustive”. The paper recommends a comprehensive and closely coordinated review.
The Broadcasting Act is currently under review, but the paper suggests it should not be re-evaluated in isolation from other necessary legislative reforms.
The paper advises individual media organisations to review their editorial practices in light of current trust surveys and rising news avoidance. It says these reviews should include news values, story selection and presentation.
They should also improve their journalistic transparency and relevance to audiences.
Collectively, media should adopt a common code of ethics and practice and develop campaigns to explain the role and significance of democratic/social professional journalism to the public.
Statement of principles
A statement of journalistic principles is included in the paper:
“Support for democracy sits within the DNA of New Zealand media, which have shared goals of reporting news, current affairs, and information across the broad spectrum of interests in which the people of this country collectively have a stake.
“Trained news media professionals, working within recognised standards and ethics, are the only group capable of carrying out the functions and responsibilities that have been carved out for them by a heritage stretching back 300 years.
“They must be capable of holding the powerful to account, articulating many different voices in the community, providing meeting grounds for debate, and reflecting New Zealanders to themselves in ways that contribute to social cohesion.
“They have a duty to freedom of expression, independence from influence, fairness and balance, and the pursuit of truth.”
Republished from Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures.
Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti . . . “Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation." Image: The New Arab
SPECIAL REPORT: By Eugene Doyle
He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him.
That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that we are spoon-fed every day.
Marwan Barghouti — known to many as “the Palestinian Mandela” — has spent more time in captivity than Nelson Mandela did.
Barghouti, the “terrorist”, rotting in jail. Barghouti, the indomitable leader who has not given up on peace. Barghouti, loved by ordinary people as “a man of the street”. Barghouti, supporter of the Oslo Accords.
Barghouti, the 15-year-old youth leader standing beside Yasser Arafat. Barghouti, once a member of Parliament and Fatah secretary-general. Barghouti, leader of Tanzim, a PLO military wing, choosing militancy after the betrayal of the Oslo promise by the Americans and Israelis became fully clear.
Barghouti, a leader of the intifada that restored hope to a broken people. Barghouti, the scholar and thinker. Barghouti, the political strategist and unifier.
Marwan Barghouti is also that most powerful thing: a living symbol of an oppressed people. Why do so few in the West even know his name? He declared:
“Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation.
“Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn’t get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty.”
Prison a defining part of Palestinian national consciousness
Researcher-writer Emad Moussa says imprisonment has become a defining part of the Palestinian national consciousness. In a 2021 article for The New Arab, he says that Marwan Barghouti proves you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.
It’s not hard to understand why imprisonment is a central part of Palestinian consciousness.
Norman Finkelstein describes October 7 as more like a slave revolt than a terrorist attack.
Fellow Jewish scholar Masha Gessen likens Gaza to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto.
In fact, all 7.5 million Palestinians are prisoners of the Zionist state. They are all prisoners of the history imposed on them by the powerful white nations of the West. Between 1967 and 2015 over 850,000 Palestinians had been detained by the Israelis.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem more than 8000 Palestinians are held by the Israelis. Many are held in secret Israeli Defence Force (IDF) facilities and there have been verified cases of torture, sexual abuse and limb amputations due to prolonged shackling.
Barghouti, returned to jail in 2002, and was convicted by an Israeli court on five counts of murder in 2004. He denies the charges and does not recognise the court.
Like many who see all non-violent avenues to peace shut off, Barghouti watched the Israelis relentlessly steal more and more Palestinian land and Palestinian homes, build hundreds of illegal settlements in defiance of international law and strangle his people with draconian controls — all while America and the powerful Western countries turned a blind eye.
“How would you feel if on every hill in territory that belongs to you a new settlement would spring up? I reached a simple conclusion. You, Israel, don’t want to end the occupation and you don’t want to stop the settlements — so the only way to convince you is by force.”
Lawyer and activist Fadwa Barghouti, Marwan’s wife, says: “Marwan’s goal has always been ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
“Marwan Barghouti believes in politics. He’s a political and national leader loved by his people.
“He fought for peace with bravery and spent time on the Palestinian street advocating for peace. But he also believes in international law, which gives the occupied people the right to fight for their independence and freedom.”
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy at Haaretz agrees: “Marwan was not born to kill . . . because he is not a violent person, but Israel pushed him and the entire Palestinian people.”
‘The ultimate leader’
Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, proposed freeing Barghouti because he is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”
He is not alone in this view. Jerome Karabel, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, details Netanyahu’s support for Hamas (for example, facilitating money via Qatar to Hamas) as a way to neutralise the threat posed by pro-peace, pro-two-state figures like Barghouti to the Zionists’ own single Jewish supremacist state solution.
“In this context, the popular and charismatic Barghouti has posed a unique threat to Israel and its persistent claim that it had no plausible interlocutor with whom to negotiate,” Karabel says.
Was Barghouti involved in terror attacks? Quite possibly.
He rejects such a label: “My crime is not “terrorism” — a term apparently only used to describe the deaths of Israeli civilians but never the deaths of Palestinians. My crime is that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people.
“And if indeed that is a crime, I proudly plead guilty.”
The standard he is held to — five life sentences — bears no comparison with the impunity that Israelis enjoy — settlers who kill Palestinians are often rewarded with stolen land, through to political leaders greenlighting mass killings, even genocide, with the support of the US and the white Western countries.
Abandon the myth
“Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time; that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master.
“The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before.”
Beaten and abused in captivity, now being shunted from prison to prison and held in solitary confinement, Barghouti’s name only grows in stature as the US-Israeli violence against his people becomes clearer and clearer to a hitherto uncaring world.
According to a March 2024 poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, “In presidential elections against current president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh, Barghouti wins the majority of those participating in the elections.”
It is the strange fate of the Palestinian people that most of their leaders — those that haven’t already been murdered — are either in Israeli jails, hiding from Israeli death squads or living in exile.
One of the most incredible — and for Westerners virtually unknown — political moments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict was the creation of The Prisoners’ Document in 2006 – a break-through in negotiations, led by Barghouti, between the fractious factions that divide the Palestinian polity.
In 18 points, the document calls for the unification of Palestinian factions and a revival of the PLO as the representative organisation of Palestine. It calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the 1967 borders, the right of return, and the release of prisoners.
Freedom fighter and the options
“The Palestinian Mandela” is a useful shorthand and there is some merit to the comparison. Nelson Mandela visited Gaza in 1999 and raised his voice to condemn racist, apartheid Israel.
The freedom fighter who was jailed for terrorism in his own country made clear what options lay before the Palestinian people. He told his audience, which included Yasser Arafat:
“Choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.”
“I was called a terrorist yesterday,” Mandela once said, “but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.”
Barghouti said: “Once Israel and the rest of the world understand this fundamental truth, the way forward becomes clear: End the occupation, allow the Palestinians to live in freedom and let the independent and equal neighbours of Israel and Palestine negotiate a peaceful future with close economic and cultural ties.”
The Mandela comparison has its limits. Ahmed Abu Artema, one of the organisers of the Great Marches of Return in 2018 and 2019 in which thousands of peaceful Palestinian protesters were shot and hundreds killed by Israeli snipers, replied when asked, ‘Where is the Palestinian Mandela?’: “The simple answer to that is that the Israelis have killed many Mandelas.”
Marwa Fatafta, a policy director at Access Now also dismisses the need for a Palestinian Mandela: “I don’t subscribe to the mythology. I don’t think Palestinians need a ‘saviour’ or one man to run the show. This Mandela idea dismisses the fact that Israel has one goal and one goal only: to establish an ethno-nationalist Jewish state — and that stands in complete contradiction with the idea of co-existence, peace and justice.
Building from ground up
“What we need on the Palestinian side is to build a movement from the ground up,” Fatafta said in 2022.
That said, Barghouti has an immense standing in the Palestinian community and, in a slightly kinder, saner world, could play a significant role.
In the racist narrative of Israel and the West, the only hostages are those held by Hamas. It’s time to free the Palestinian hostages, starting with Marwan Barghouti — the longest-suffering of thousands of hostages. All of the hostages should be freed — including the remaining 100 held by Hamas.
To riff on The Specials 1984 song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’:
“27 years in captivity
“His body abused but his mind is still free
“Are you so blind that you cannot see?
“Free Marwan Barghouti, I’m begging you”
Republished from Eugene Doyle’s website Solidarity with permission.
Protesters pose as Palestinian media casualties in Gaza surrounded by blue press protective jackets. The death toll of Gaza journalists since October 7 is 142. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR
US President Joe Biden has spoken at the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner in Washington in spite of protests over alleged “complicity” of media about Israel’s war on Gaza, offering a toast to “press freedom and democracy” but ignoring the death toll of Palestinian journalists.
Demonstrators targeted the Washington Hilton hotel which hosted the dinner, denouncing the Biden administration’s handling of the war and urging guests — especially media — to boycott the event.
Media freedom watchdogs have cited varying death toll figures for Palestinian journalists killed since October 7 although Al Jazeera network news today reported 142 dead — more than double the number of journalists killed in each of the Second World War and the Vietnam War.
White House correspondents’ dinner with President Biden . . . allegations of US “media complicity” with genocide by protesters. “CNN” sign is translated as “Criminal News Network”. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR
“It’s astonishing. We’ve never seen a White House correspondents’ dinner like this,” reported Al Jazeera’s Washington correspondent Shihab Rattansi.
“The President is here to speak while being warmly applauded by the national US press core.
“But these VIPs are all dressed up in the evening finery, and they have to run the gauntlet of hundreds of protesters out here who are shouting, ‘Shame on you’.
“‘Shame on you’ for breaking bread when there are [142] journalists dead as a result of, as far as they say, Biden’s complicity in their murder.”
Code Pink flag protest
Members of the feminist organisation Code Pink dropped a huge Palestinian flag from a top floor window of the Washington Hilton hotel.
The group said members involved in the action managed “to get out quickly and without arrest”.
The protesters were gathered outside the hotel to express solidarity with the dozens of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.
NOW: Protestors have dropped a Palestinian flag out of the window of the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is being held tonight. pic.twitter.com/v8womcm8QP
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR
More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend.
“You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” said the letter from the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
“It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”
‘It hurts our souls’
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary was one of the signatories of the letter calling for the boycott.
“This isn’t something that has been ending. It has been continuous every single day for more than 200 days.
“We have been killed, displaced and homeless, and we’re not only reporting on this, but we’re also living it with every single detail.
Gaza journalist Hind Khoudary . . . Palestinian press plea to boycott the White House dinner. Image: @Hind_Gaza
“We’re living this war in all aspects of life. We have not seen our families as journalists. We have not been able to eat well. We have been dehydrated.
“We have been reporting in one of the harshest conditions any reporter can go through despite losing a lot of colleagues, and it hurts our souls and our hearts every single day.
“We have been constantly targeted by the Israeli air strikes and shelling.
“All of these daily things we have been living as journalists are overwhelming [and] exhausting, but we still continue because there have been at least 100 Palestinian journalists whom I personally know that have been killed since October 7.
“If they were here today with us, they would be reporting, and they would be raising the voice of the voiceless Palestinians.”
A score of Palestine solidarity protesters draped themselves in white shrouds with mock blood in a sombre “die-in” demonstration at Te Komitanga Square — the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city — today as speakers urged people to take a stronger boycott against Israeli products.
The rally by hundreds of protesters marked Israel’s killing of more than 34,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — and wounding more than 77,000 in its genocidal war on Gaza.
The war has lasted 205 days so far with no let-up in the deadly assault on the besieged enclave and protesters staged 35 events around New Zealand this week as global demonstrations continue to grow.
One of the about 20 mock bodies in the Gaza “die-in” at Te Komititanga Square today – symbolising more than 34,000 people killed by Israel in the six month war on Gaza. Image: David Robie/APR
Opposition MPs took part in the rally, including Labour’s Shanan Halbert and Green Party’s Steve Abel and Ricardo Menéndez March.
Activist and educator Maryam Perreira called on Palestine supporters to step up their boycott and divestments pressure — “it’s working, sanctions brought down apartheid South Africa and this will bring down the Israeli genocidal regime”.
“Food not bombs for Gaza”. Video: Café Pacific
She said the courage and commitment of the Palestinian resistance had become an inspiration to the world.
Send Israeli ambassador home
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott called for sanctions action by the New Zealand government.
He urged Palestine supporters to call on the government to:
• Send the Israeli ambassador home, and
• End the working holiday visa for 200 Israelis who come to New Zealand to rest and relax “after committing genocide in Gaza”.
Scott called on New Zealanders to email Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Immigration Minister Erica Stanford to take action.
“Try just one email and see how it goes. Then another on another topic. Then another. That’s how I started a while ago,” Scott said.
“We need a tide of emails to get them to understand that Kiwis don’t want the Israeli ambassador here.
“Neither do we want the young Israelis committing genocide today and to walk among us tomorrow.”
More than 13,000 people have signed a petition calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy in Welington.
“They can’t demonise an entire nation.” Video: Café Pacific
He spoke about the NZ government’s Superfund which has investments all over the world.
“A few years ago, they invested in Israeli banks which were investing in the building of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territories. They were involved in investing and enabling crimes against humanity,” Scott said.
He called on people with KiwiSaver fund accounts to check them out for investments in “Israeli companies who are in any way involved in the occupation”.
“We’re now calling for everyone to boycott Israeli products — or those companies which are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity or the illegal occupation, land theft, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and now genocide.”
Scott cited the boycott target list of the global BDS movement — Ahava (“Dead Sea mineral skin care products”), BP and Caltex, Hewlett-Packard, McDonalds, Obela Hummus and SodaStream.
“The key is for all of us to take action today. Remember — boycott, divest, sanction.”
Palestinian flags in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today. Image: David Robie/APR
Meanwhile, 1News reports that three New Zealand doctors planning to sail with an independent flotilla carrying aid to Gaza have had their mission “scuppered at the last minute”. They blame Israel for the delay.
The doctors — Dr Ali Al-Kenani, Dr Wasfi Shahin and Dr Faiez Idais — left for Istanbul 10 days ago where they joined other international volunteers in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, said 1News.
Genocide Joe Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai. Image: www.craigmurray.org.uk
COMMENTARY: By Craig Murray
Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances. There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.
The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.
In the UK, several different government ministries had to coordinate. Even within only a single ministry, the FCDO, views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.
That process would include seeking the views of British ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.
It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.
Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.
All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination — weeks in advance — between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.
No evidence pf UNRWA complicity
And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.
I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the Zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood.
The refusal by Starmer and Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.
The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour, following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, and drove from the media headlines the adverse ruling against Israel.
This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from the genocide by international law or institutions.
The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.
Genocide goal of the West
This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.
I have never believed the spin that Biden is trying to restrain Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using US forces to fight alongside him.
Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.
My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed 10 unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza. Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law.
Joe Biden as Vice-President defended Israel staunchly then. It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe.
Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the US public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as “legitimate” and argued that the flotilla organisers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza.
“So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3000 rockets on my people.’”
Actively abetting Netanyahu
Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai.
He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the US and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East — Greater Israel, and US hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.
If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israel atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.
I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza.
What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.
The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and US security services and surveillance for protection from their own people. The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.
Anti-Iranian card a trick
The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven — and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.
The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza. We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the UK old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.
This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to Zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.
Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel.
“At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now!
“The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.”
One of several speakers at the rally was award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein. She said: “Too many of our people are worshipping a false idol. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it.
“And that false idol is called Zionism.”
Naomi Klein speaking at the Passover protest. Video: Democracy Now!
Transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: Among those who addressed the crowd during the Seder was award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein. This is some of what she had to say.
NAOMI KLEIN: My friends, I’ve been thinking about Moses and his rage when he came down from the Mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. The ecofeminist in me has always been uneasy about this story. What kind of god is jealous of animals? What kind of god wants to hoard all the sacredness of the Earth for himself?
But there is, of course, a less literal way of understanding this story. It is a lesson about false idols, about the human tendency to worship the profane and shining, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.
What I want to say to you this evening at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.
It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery, the story of Passover itself, and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the Promised Land, a metaphor for human liberation that has travelled across faiths to every corner of this globe, and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militarist ethnostate.
Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba. From the start, it has been at war with collective dreams of liberation.
At a seder, it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism has long equated Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and unfreedom and client state. From the start, it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings, but as demographic threats, much as the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites and thus ordered the death of their sons.
And as we know, Moses was saved from that by being put in a basket and adopted by an Egyptian woman.
Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm, and it is time that we say clearly it has always been leading us here. It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments — “Thou shall not kill,” “Thou shall not steal,” “Thou shall not covet” — the commandments brought down from the Mount. It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.
Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value that we place on questioning a practice embedded in the seder itself with its four questions asked by the youngest child. It also betrays the love that we have as a people for text and for education.
Today this false idol dares to justify the bombing of every single university in Gaza, the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses, the killing of hundreds of academics, scholars, journalists, poets, essayists. This is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the infrastructure and the means of education.
Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students asking them . . .
CROWD: Shame!
US author and activist Naomi Klein . . . “too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again.” Image: Democracy Now! screenshot CP
NAOMI KLEIN: . . . students embodying the spirit of the seder, asking the most basic question, asking questions like “How can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?”
The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long. So tonight we say it ends here. Our Judaism cannot be contained by an ethnostate, for our Judaism is internationalist by its very nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military of that ethnostate, for all that military does is sow sorrow and reap hatred, including hatred against us as Jews.
Our Judaism is not threatened by people raising their voices in solidarity with Palestine across lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations. Our Judaism is one of those voices and knows that in this chorus lies both our safety and our collective liberation.
Our Judaism is the Judaism of the Passover Seder, the gathering in ceremony to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike. This ritual, light enough to carry on our backs, in need of nothing but one another, even with — we don’t need walls. We need no temple, no rabbi.
And there is a role for everyone, including especially the smallest child. The seder is portable, a diaspora technology if ever there was one. It is made to hold our collective grieving, our contemplation, our questioning, our remembering, and our reviving and rekindling of the revolutionary spirit.
So, tonight — so, look around. This here is our Judaism. As waters rise and forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray at the altar of solidarity and mutual aid, no matter the cost. We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name.
We want freedom from the ideology that has no plan for peace, except for deals with the murderous, theocratic petrostates next door, while selling the technologies of robo-assassinations to the world.
We seek to liberate Judaism from an ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid, that wants our children afraid, that wants us to believe that the world is against us so that we go running to its fortress, or at least keep sending the weapons and the donations.
That is a false idol. And it’s not just Netanyahu. It’s the world he made and the world that made him. It’s Zionism. What are we? We, in these streets for months and months, we are the exodus, the exodus from Zionism.
So, to the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say, “Let our people go.” We say, “We have already gone, and your kids, they are with us now.”
AMY GOODMAN: Award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein, speaking at what was called the “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on Tuesday at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, a block from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home.
Special thanks to Hana Elias, Eric Halvarson and Ishmael Daro of Democracy Now!
Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side gate entrance for media workers for about an hour.
The protest climaxed a week of critical responses from commentators and critics of TVNZ’s Q&A senior reporter/presenter Jack Tame’s 45-minute interview with Israel ambassador Ran Yaakoby last Sunday which Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) secretary Neil Scott described as “a platform for propaganda to excuse the genocide happening in Gaza over the last six months”.
Waving Palestine flags and placards declaring “Bias”, “silence is complicity — free Palestine,” and “Balanced journalism — my ass,” the protesters chanted “Jack Tame, you cannot hide – you’re complicit with genocide.”
Protester Joseph with a Palestine flag outside the entrance to TVNZ’s headquarters today. Image: APR
Chalked on the pavement and on the walls were slogans such as “Jack ‘Shame’ helped kill MSM”, “TVNZ stop platforming genocide and Zionism”, “TVNZ genocide apologists” and “137 journalists killed” in reference to the mainly Palestinian journalists targeted by Israeli military forces.
Across the street, a wall slogan said: “TVNZ (Q&A) broadcast Israeli lies about Gaza”. Other slogans condemned the lack of Palestinian voices in TVNZ coverage – there are about 288 Palestinian people in New Zealand, according to the 2018 Census.
Palestinian advocate Billy Hania of the Palestinians in Aotearoa Coordinating Committee (PACC) said: “We demand TVNZ refrain from parroting the Israeli propaganda narrative and return to practise its duty of professional journalism.”
Ironically, TVNZ tonight screened a rare Palestinian story — a heart-rending report about the tragic death in Gaza of a baby girl, Sabreen Joudeh, “Patience” in Arabic, who had been saved from her dying mother’s womb after an Israeli air strike on their family home.
The TVNZ report interviewed the related Gouda family in Auckland hours before Abdallah Gouda, a doctor, flew out to Turkiye to join a humanitarian aid flotilla leaving for Gaza.
PSNA’s Neil Scott criticises TVNZ coverage of Gaza. Video: Café Pacific
Criticism of ‘complicity’?
“Jack Tame, you’re a professional,” yelled PSNA secretary Scott through a loud hailer addressing TVNZ. “You know what would be set up, you have to know.
“But you allowed it to happen!”
“I don’t get you Jack, stupid or complicit? Complicit or stupid? One of the two.”
Critics are understood to be filing complaints about the alleged “one-sidedness” of the programme citing many specific criticisms.
“We’re here today because of Jack Tame’s Q&A report for TVNZ,” said Scott.
A Palestine protester calls out TVNZ journalist Jack Tame for alleged bias over Gaza. Video: Café Pacific
With the war having passed 200 days this week with more than 34,000 Palestinians having been killed — mostly children and women — and 392 bodies having been recovered from three separate mass graves discovered at two hospitals after they were destroyed by the Israeli military, some of his complaints were that presenter Tame:
Interviewed Ambassador Yaakoby at the Israeli Embassy in Wellington instead of at a TVNZ studio with the New Zealand flag being showed alongside the Israeli flag. “Tying the two countries together – a professional would have had the New Zealand flag removed”;
Did not provide context around the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel at the start of the interview – “more than 75 years of repression since 750,000 Palestinians were expelled as refugees from their homeland in the 1948 Nakba”;
Asking a series of questions that the Israeli ambassador “avoided, changed, or outright lied” in his response;
Did not follow up with the questions as needed; and
Avoided the questions that “would have placed the issue of the Israeli attack on Gaza” in context.
TVNZ’s Q&A presenter Jack Tame (right) talks to Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakabi on last Sunday’s controversial programme. Image: Q&A screenshot APR
Platform for propaganda
“Essentially, Tame gave Israel a platform for propaganda to excuse the genocide happening in Gaza over the last six months,” said Scott.
Among the contextual questions that Scott claimed Tame should have questioned Ambassador Yaakoby on were the envoy’s unchallenged claim that “1400 people had been butchered” by Hamas fighters.
“The ambassador didn’t mention that more than 350 Israeli soldiers were among those killed — at their military posts,” Scott said.
“Many of the others were aged between 18 and 40 and in the military reserves.”
Also, no mention was made of the controversial Hannibal Directive which reportedly led to the Israeli military killing many of its own countrymen and women captives as the resistance fighters retreated back to Gaza.
The controversial Q&A interview with Israeli Ambassador Ran Yaakoby. Video: TVNZ
Among other responses to TVNZ’s Q&A this week, Palestine solidarity advocate and PSNA chair John Minto declared in an open letter to TVNZ published by The Daily Blog that the programme “breached all the standards of decent journalism. In other words it was offensive, discriminatory, inaccurate and grossly unfair.”
A protester holding up a “Bias” placard outside TVNZ in Auckland today. Image: APR
‘Unchallenged lies’
“It wasn’t journalism – it was 45-minutes of uninterrupted and unchallenged Israeli lies, misinformation and previously-debunked propaganda. It was outrageous. It was despicable,” Minto wrote.
“The country which for six months has conducted genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza was given free rein to pour streams of the most vile fabrications and misinformation against Palestinians directly into the homes of New Zealanders. And without a murmur of protest from Jack Tame.
“Even the most egregious lies such as the ‘beheaded babies’ myth were allowed to be broadcast without challenge despite this Israeli propaganda having been discredited months ago.
“The interview showed utter contempt for Palestine and Palestinians as well as New Zealanders who were assailed with this stream of racist deceits and falsehoods with Q&A as the conduit.”
Among a stream of social media comments, one person remarked “On John Tame’s YouTube channel it gained a lot of comments fairly quickly . . .
“These comments were encouraging as at least 95 percent were denouncing the interview . . . with a lot of them debunking the endless stream of blatant lies and atrocity propaganda that poured out of the Israeli ambassador’s mouth.
“Most of the posters were obviously from our country and it was a great example of how Israel’s actions have shattered its reputation with their propaganda fooling hardly anyone anymore.
“It’s a bit like a little child with chocolate all over their face denying they ate the chocolate . . . except in Israel’s case it’s civilian blood all over their face . . .
“Anyway, when I revisited the thread the comments had been purged and deleted.”
On the Q&A YouTube channel, @ZaraLomas commented: “The fact that Q&A are deleting critical comments speaks volumes about their integrity (or lack thereof), and their faith in this shocking piece of ‘journalism’.”
PACC call for ‘truth and accuracy’
In a statement calling for “truth and accuracy in the face of state propaganda”, the Palestinians in Aotearoa Coordinating Committee (PACC) said that Palestinian New Zealanders were in a community that needed “accurate journalism, as we witness the deadliest period of modern history unfold for our people”.
A “hasty two-minute Palestinian response” in a news bulletin to follow the ambassador’s 45-minute interview as arranged by TVNZ was inadequate and rejected.
“Our stake in this is irrefutable. Palestinian perspectives need to be heard on their own terms, not just in brief response to Israeli propaganda,” said the PACC.
The committee called for a comprehensive 45-minute Q&A session with a Palestinian advocate to “ensure a balanced perspective”.
Television New Zealand . . . under fire over its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza. Image: APR
