NewzIntel.com

Category: Self Determination

  • MIL-Evening Report: New Zealand’s foreign policy stance on Palestine lacks transparency

    COMMENTARY: By John Hobbs

    It is difficult to understand what sits behind the New Zealand government’s unwillingness to sanction, or threaten to sanction, the Israeli government for its genocide against the Palestinian people.

    The United Nations, human rights groups, legal experts and now genocide experts have all agreed it really is “genocide” which is being committed by the state of Israel against the civilian population of Gaza.

    It is hard to argue with the conclusion genocide is happening, given the tragic images being portrayed across social and increasingly mainstream media.

    Prime Minister Netanyahu has presented Israel’s assault on Gaza war as pitting “the sons of light” against “the sons of darkness”. And promised the victory of Judeo-Christian civilisation against barbarism.

    A real encouragement to his military there should be no-holds barred in exercising indiscriminate destruction over the people of Gaza.

    Given this background, one wonders what the nature of the advice being provided by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the minister entails?

    Does the ministry fail to see the destruction and brutal killing of a huge proportion of the civilian people of Gaza? And if they see it, are they saying as much to the minister?

    Cloak of ‘diplomatic language’
    Or is the advice so nuanced in the cloak of “diplomatic language” it effectively says nothing and is crafted in a way which gives the minister ultimate freedom to make his own political choices.

    The advice of the officials becomes a reflection of what the minister is looking for — namely, a foreign policy approach that gives him enough freedom to support the Israeli government and at the same time be in step with its closest ally, the United States.

    The problem is there is no transparency around the decision-making process, so it is impossible to tell how decisions are being made.

    I placed an Official Information Act request with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2024 seeking advice received by the minister on New Zealand’s obligations under the Genocide Convention.

    The request was refused because while the advice did exist, it fell outside the timeline indicated by my request.

    It was emphasised if I were to put in a further request for the advice, it was unlikely to be released.

    They then advised releasing the information would be likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand and the international relations of the government of New Zealand, and withholding it was necessary to maintain legal professional privilege.

    Public interest vital
    It is hard to imagine how the release of such information might prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or that the legal issues could override the public interest.

    It could not be more important for New Zealanders to understand the basis for New Zealand’s foreign policy choices.

    New Zealand is a contracting party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Under the convention, “genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they [the contracting parties] undertake to prevent and punish”.

    Furthermore: The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide. (Article 5).

    Accordingly, New Zealand must play an active part in its prevention and put in place effective penalties. Chlöe Swarbrick’s private member’s Bill to impose sanctions is one mechanism to do this.

    In response to its two-month blockade of food, water and medical supplies to Gaza, and international pressure, Israel has agreed to allow a trickle of food to enter Gaza.

    However, this is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to avert famine. Understandably, Israel’s response has been criticised by most of the international community, including New Zealand.

    Carefully worded statement
    In a carefully worded statement, signed by a collective of European countries, together with New Zealand and Australia, it is requested that Israel allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza, an immediate return to ceasefire and a return of the hostages.

    Radio New Zealand interviewed the Foreign Minister Winston Peters to better understand the New Zealand position.

    Peters reiterated his previous statements, expressing Israel’s actions of withholding food as “intolerable” but when asked about putting in place concrete sanctions he stated any such action was a “long, long way off”, without explaining why.

    New Zealand must be clear about its foreign policy position, not hide behind diplomatic and insincere rhetoric and exercise courage by sanctioning Israel as it has done with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

    As a minimum, it must honour its responsibilities under the Convention on Genocide and, not least, to offer hope and support for the utterly powerless and vulnerable Palestinian people before it is too late.

    John Hobbs is a doctoral candidate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with the author’s permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Ponsonby community up in arms over impending post office closure

    Asia Pacific Report

    The community is up in arms over another local post office in Aotearoa New Zealand about to be closed down, this time in the iconic and historic Auckland inner city suburb of Ponsonby.

    A local author and founder of Greenstone Pictures, John Harris, has led a pushback against plans to close the Ponsonby post office branch in Three Lamps next month with an undated open letter to the chief executive David Walsh.

    Saying he was “surprised and dismayed” to see the “closing soon but staying put” sign in the Ponsonby NZ Post shop, Harris pointed out that the small office gave “great service to dozens of businesses” in the area, and hundreds of residents.

    “It is misleading on your poster to claim that people will be able to obtain the same services at nearby post shops like that in Jervois Road,” Harris said.

    “Will they be able to pay their bills and car registration there? Collect mail and parcels? Buy courier bags and send mail and parcels?

    “And do you expect them to walk there?  It is not helpful to say this closure ‘might mean a few minutes extra drive’.

    This assumed that all clients were using a car, not elderly or young who were on foot.

    Parking in busy streets
    “And people are expected to try and find parking on other busy streets — Jervois Road, Karangahape Road, Wellesley Street.”

    Harris said: “The Ponsonby post shop is a vital part of the network that binds the community together.

    “To close it is like removing part of the community’s nervous system:  an ill-considered stab at the heart of a community which has always been vibrant, socially aware and productive.”

    The NZ Post website proclaims that “we provide customers with the solutions and products to help them communicate and do business.”

    However, said Harris, this planned closure for July 4 did not match those promises.

    Harris also pointed out that NZ Post made a $16 million operating profit for the last six months of 2024.

    The Ponsonby protest letter from a local community advocate to the NZ Post. Image: APR

    “Congratulations. I’m pleased you are keeping NZ Post viable. But it shows there is a bit of ‘wriggle room’ to keep the Ponsonby store open.”

    Digital services use
    In response to the call to reconsider the decision, a customer services officer replied on June 6 on behalf of chief executive Walsh, saying that the NZ Post Office needed to “ensure our physical locations are in the right places and operating efficiently” in an age where more people used digital services.

    “In some areas, including Ponsonby, we’ve had more than one store serving the same neighbourhood. That’s not a sustainable way for us to operate, so we’ve had to make some changes.”

    However, critics of the decision to close the Ponsonby store say the reasoning  was “not credible”, stressing that all claimed alternative postal stores are several kilometres away.

    A year after chief executive Walsh was appointed in 2017, it was announced that NZ Post would close almost 80 local post offices across the country and replace some of them with franchises.

    Harris, a children’s author with a strong association with the local community stretching back to the 1970s and a former editor of West End News in Freemans Bay, acknowledged that the Ponsonby  PO boxes lobby was being kept open, “but what about the ordinary rank-and-file residents and small business owners who value the other everyday services offered at the store?”

    He said he had written to local MP, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick and the Ponsonby Business Association seeking their support.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Marshall Islands nuclear legacy: report highlights lack of health research

    By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal, and RNZ Pacific correspondent

    A new report on the United States nuclear weapons testing legacy in the Marshall Islands highlights the lack of studies into important health concerns voiced by Marshallese for decades that make it impossible to have a clear understanding of the impacts of the 67 nuclear weapons tests.

    The Legacy of US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands, a report by Dr Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, was released late last month.

    The report was funded by Greenpeace Germany and is an outgrowth of the organisation’s flagship vessel, Rainbow Warrior III, visiting the Marshall Islands from March to April to recognise the 40th anniversary of the resettlement of the nuclear test-affected population of Rongelap Atoll.

    Dr Mahkijani said that among the “many troubling aspects” of the legacy is that the United States had concluded, in 1948, after three tests, that the Marshall Islands was not “a suitable site for atomic experiments” because it did not meet the required meteorological criteria.

    “Yet testing went on,” he said.

    “Also notable has been the lack of systematic scientific attention to the accounts by many Marshallese of severe malformations and other adverse pregnancy outcomes like stillbirths. This was despite the documented fallout throughout the country and the fact that the potential for fallout to cause major birth defects has been known since the 1950s.”

    Dr Makhijani highlights the point that, despite early documentation in the immediate aftermath of the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test and numerous anecdotal reports from Marshallese women about miscarriages and still births, US government medical officials in charge of managing the nuclear test-related medical programme in the Marshall Islands never systematically studied birth anomalies.

    Committed billions of dollars
    The US Deputy Secretary of State in the Biden-Harris administration, Kurt Cambell, said that Washington, over decades, had committed billions of dollars to the damages and the rebuilding of the Marshall Islands.

    “I think we understand that that history carries a heavy burden, and we are doing what we can to support the people in the [Compact of Free Association] states, including the Marshall Islands,” he told reporters at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nuku’alofa last year.

    “This is not a legacy that we seek to avoid. We have attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

    Among points outlined in the new report:

    • Gamma radiation levels at Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, officially considered a “very low exposure” atoll, were tens of times, and up to 300 times, more than background in the immediate aftermaths of the thermonuclear tests in the Castle series at Bikini Atoll in 1954.
    • Thyroid doses in the so-called “low exposure atolls” averaged 270 milligray (mGy), 60 percent more than the 50,000 people of Pripyat near Chernobyl who were evacuated (170 mGy) after the 1986 accident there, and roughly double the average thyroid exposures in the most exposed counties in the United States due to testing at the Nevada Test Site.
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: RNZ Pacific/Giff Johnson

    Despite this, “only a small fraction of the population has been officially recognised as exposed enough for screening and medical attention; even that came with its own downsides, including people being treated as experimental subjects,” the report said.

    Women reported adverse outcomes
    “In interviews and one 1980s country-wide survey, women have reported many adverse pregnancy outcomes,” said the report.

    “They include stillbirths, a baby with part of the skull missing and ‘the brain and the spinal cord fully exposed,’ and a two-headed baby. Many of the babies with major birth defects died shortly after birth.

    “Some who lived suffered very difficult lives, as did their families. Despite extensive personal testimony, no systematic country-wide scientific study of a possible relationship of adverse pregnancy outcomes to nuclear testing has been done.

    “It is to be noted that awareness among US scientists of the potential for major birth defects due to radioactive fallout goes back to the 1950s. Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivor data has also provided evidence for this problem.

    “The occurrence of stillbirths and major birth defects due to nuclear testing fallout in the Marshall Islands is scientifically plausible but no definitive statement is possible at the present time,” the report concluded.

    “The nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands created a vast amount of fission products, including radioactive isotopes that cross the placenta, such as iodine-131 and tritium.

    “Radiation exposure in the first trimester can cause early failed pregnancies, severe neurological damage, and other major birth defects.

    No definitive statement possible
    “This makes it plausible that radiation exposure may have caused the kinds of adverse pregnancy outcomes that were experienced and reported.

    “However, no definitive statement is possible in the absence of a detailed scientific assessment.”

    Scientists who traveled with the Rainbow Warrior III on its two-month visit to the Marshall Islands earlier this year collected samples from Enewetak, Bikini, Rongelap and other atolls for scientific study and evaluation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Punishment for Te Pāti Māori over Treaty haka stands – but MPs ‘will not be silenced’

    RNZ News

    Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament has confirmed the unprecedented punishments proposed for opposition indigenous Te Pāti Māori MPs who performed a haka in protest against the Treaty Principles Bill.

    Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi will be suspended for 21 days, and MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke suspended for seven days, taking effect immediately.

    Opposition parties tried to reject the recommendation, but did not have the numbers to vote it down.

    Te Pati Maori MPs speak after being suspended.  Video: RNZ/Mark Papalii

    The heated debate to consider the proposed punishment came to an end just before Parliament was due to rise.

    Waititi moved to close the debate and no party disagreed, ending the possibility of it carrying on in the next sitting week.

    Leader of the House Chris Bishop — the only National MP who spoke — kicked off the debate earlier in the afternoon saying it was “regrettable” some MPs did not vote on the Budget two weeks ago.

    Bishop had called a vote ahead of Budget Day to suspend the privileges report debate to ensure the Te Pāti Māori MPs could take part in the Budget, but not all of them turned up.

    Robust, rowdy debate
    The debate was robust and rowdy with both the deputy speaker Barbara Kuriger and temporary speaker Tangi Utikare repeatedly having to ask MPs to quieten down.

    Flashback: Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipa-Clarke led a haka in Parliament and tore up a copy of the Treaty Principles Bill at the first reading on 14 November 2024 . . . . a haka is traditionally used as an indigenous show of challenge, support or sorrow. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone/APR screenshot

    Tākuta Ferris spoke first for Te Pāti Māori, saying the haka was a “signal of humanity” and a “raw human connection”.

    He said Māori had faced acts of violence for too long and would not be silenced by “ignorance or bigotry”.

    “Is this really us in 2025, Aotearoa New Zealand?” he asked the House.

    “Everyone can see the racism.”

    He said the Privileges Committee’s recommendations were not without precedent, noting the fact Labour MP Peeni Henare, who also participated in the haka, did not face suspension.

    MP Tākuta Ferris spoke for Te Pāti Māori. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

    Henare attended the committee and apologised, which contributed to his lesser sanction.

    ‘Finger gun’ gesture
    MP Parmjeet Parmar — a member of the Committee — was first to speak on behalf of ACT, and referenced the hand gesture — or “finger gun” — that Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made in the direction of ACT MPs during the haka.

    Parmar told the House debate could be used to disagree on ideas and issues, and there was not a place for intimidating physical gestures.

    Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said New Zealand’s Parliament could lead the world in terms of involving the indigenous people.

    She said the Green Party strongly rejected the committee’s recommendations and proposed their amendment of removing suspensions, and asked the Te Pāti Māori MPs be censured instead.

    Davidson said the House had evolved in the past — such as the inclusion of sign language and breast-feeding in the House.

    She said the Greens were challenging the rules, and did not need an apology from Te Pāti Māori.

    Foreign Minister and NZ First party leader Winston Peters called Te Pāti Māori “a bunch of extremists”. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

    NZ First leader Winston Peters said Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party speeches so far showed “no sincerity, saying countless haka had taken place in Parliament but only after first consulting the Speaker.

    “They told the media they were going to do it, but they didn’t tell the Speaker did they?

    ‘Bunch of extremists’
    “The Māori party are a bunch of extremists,” Peters said, “New Zealand has had enough of them”.

    Peters was made to apologise after taking aim at Waititi, calling him “the one in the cowboy hat” with “scribbles on his face” [in reference to his traditional indigenous moko — tatoo]. He continued afterward, describing Waititi as possessing “anti-Western values”.

    Labour’s Willie Jackson congratulated Te Pāti Māori for the “greatest exhibition of our culture in the House in my lifetime”.

    Jackson said the Treaty bill was a great threat, and was met by a great haka performance. He was glad the ACT Party was intimidated, saying that was the whole point of doing the haka.

    He also called for a bit of compromise from Te Pāti Māori — encouraging them to say sorry — but reiterated Labour’s view the sanctions were out of proportion with past indiscretions in the House.

    Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the prime minister was personally responsible if the proposed sanctions went ahead. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

    Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the debate “would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious”.

    “Get an absolute grip,” she said to the House, arguing the prime minister “is personally responsible” if the House proceeds with the committee’s proposed sanctions.

    Eye of the beholder
    She accused National’s James Meager of “pointing a finger gun” at her — the same gesture coalition MPs had criticised Ngarewa-Packer for during her haka. The Speaker accepted he had not intended to; Swarbrick said it was an example where the interpretation could be in the eye of the beholder.

    She said if the government could “pick a punishment out of thin air” that was “not a democracy”, putting New Zealand in very dangerous territory.

    An emotional Maipi-Clarke said she had been silent on the issue for a long time, the party’s voices in haka having sent shockwaves around the world. She questioned whether that was why the MPs were being punished.

    “Since when did being proud of your culture make you racist?”

    “We will never be silenced, and we will never be lost,” she said, calling the Treaty Principles bill a “dishonourable vote”.

    She had apologised to the Speaker and accepted the consequence laid down on the day, but refused to apologise. She listed other incidents in Parliament that resulted in no punishment.

    NZ Parliament TV: Te Pāti Māori Privileges committee debate.  Video: RNZ

    Maipi-Clarke called for the Treaty of Waitangi to be recognised in the Constitution Act, and for MPs to be required to honour it by law.

    ‘Clear pathway forward’
    “The pathway forward has never been so clear,” she said.

    ACT’s Nicole McKee said there were excuses being made for “bad behaviour”, that the House was for making laws and having discussions, and “this is not about the haka, this is about process”.

    She told the House she had heard no good ideas from the Te Pāti Māori, who she said resorted to intimidation when they did not get their way, but the MPs needed to “grow up” and learn to debate issues. She hoped 21 days would give them plenty of time to think about their behaviour.

    Labour MP and former Speaker Adrian Rurawhe started by saying there were “no winners in this debate”, and it was clear to him it was the government, not the Parliament, handing out the punishments.

    He said the proposed sanctions set a precedent for future penalties, and governments might use it as a way to punish opposition, imploring National to think twice.

    He also said an apology from Te Pāti Māori would “go a long way”, saying they had a “huge opportunity” to have a legacy in the House, but it was their choice — and while many would agree with the party there were rules and “you can’t have it both ways”.

    Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi speaking to the media after the Privileges Committee debate. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii

    Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said there had been many instances of misinterpretations of the haka in the House and said it was unclear why they were being punished, “is it about the haka . . . is about the gun gestures?”

    “Not one committee member has explained to us where 21 days came from,” he said.

    Hat and ‘scribbles’ response
    Waititi took aim at Peters over his comments targeting his hat and “scribbles” on his face.

    He said the haka was an elevation of indigenous voice and the proposed punishment was a “warning shot from the colonial state that cannot stomach” defiance.

    Waititi said that throughout history when Māori did not play ball, the “coloniser government” reached for extreme sanctions, ending with a plea to voters: “Make this a one-term government, enrol, vote”.

    He brought out a noose to represent Māori wrongfully put to death in the past, saying “interpretation is a feeling, it is not a fact . . .  you’ve traded a noose for legislation”.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Human Rights Watch warns renewed fighting threatens West Papua civilians

    Asia Pacific Report

    An escalation in fighting between Indonesian security forces and Papuan pro-independence fighters in West Papua has seriously threatened the security of the largely indigenous population, says Human Rights Watch in a new report.

    The human rights watchdog warned that all parties to the conflict are obligated to abide by international humanitarian law, also called the laws of war.

    The security forces’ military operations in the densely forested Central Highlands areas are accused of killing and wounding dozens of civilians with drone strikes and the indiscriminate use of explosive munitions, and displaced thousands of indigenous Papuans, said the report.

    The National Liberation Army of West Papua, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, has claimed responsibility in the killing of 17 alleged miners between April 6 and April 9.

    “The Indonesian military has a long history of abuses in West Papua that poses a particular risk to the Indigenous communities,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

    “Concerned governments need to press the Prabowo [Subianto] administration and Papuan separatist armed groups to abide by the laws of war.”

    The fighting escalated after the attack on the alleged miners, which the armed group accused of being targeted soldiers or military informers.

    Operation Habema
    The Indonesian military escalated its ongoing operations, called Operation Habema, in West Papua’s six provinces, especially in the Central Highlands, where Papuan militant groups have been active for more than four decades.

    On May 14, the military said that it had killed 18 resistance fighters in Intan Jaya regency, and that it had recovered weapons including rifles, bows and arrows, communications equipment, and Morning Star flags — the symbol of Papuan resistance.

    Further military operations have allegedly resulted in burning down villages and attacks on churches. Papuan activists and pastors told Human Rights Watch that government forces treated all Papuan forest dwellers who owned and routinely used bows and arrows for hunting as “combatants”.

    Information about abuses has been difficult to corroborate because the hostilities are occurring in remote areas in Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Nduga, and Pegunungan Bintang regencies.

    Pastors, church workers, and local journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that Indonesian forces had been using drones and helicopter gunships to drop bombs.

    “Civilians from the Korowai tribe community, known for their tall treehouse dwellings, have been harmed in these attacks, and have desperately fled the fighting,” said the Human Rights Watch report.

    “Displaced villagers, mostly from Intan Jaya, have sought shelter and refuge in churches in Sugapa, the capital of the regency.”

    Resistance allegations
    The armed resistance group has made allegations, which Human Rights Watch could not corroborate, that the Indonesian military attacks harmed civilians.

    It reported that a mortar or rocket attack outside a church in Ilaga, Puncak regency, hit two young men on May 6, killing one of them, Deris Kogoya, an 18-year-old student.

    The group said that the Indonesian military attack on May 14, in which the military claimed all 18 people killed were pro-independence combatants, mostly killed civilians.

    Ronald Rischardt Tapilatu, pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church of the Land of Papua, said that at least 3 civilians were among the 18 bodies. Human Rights Watch has a list of the 18 killed, which includes 1 known child.

    The daughter of Hetina Mirip said her mother was found dead on May 17 near her house in Sugapa, while Indonesian soldiers surrounded their village. She wrote that the soldiers tried to cremate and bury her mother’s body.

    A military spokesman denied the shooting.

    One evident impact of the renewed fighting is that thousands of indigenous Papuans have been forced to flee their ancestral lands.

    Seven villages attacked
    The Vanuatu-based United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) reported that the military had attacked seven villages in Ilaga with drones and airstrikes, forcing many women and children to flee their homes. Media reports said that it was in Gome, Puncak regency.

    International humanitarian law obligates all warring parties to distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Civilians may never be the target of attack.

    Warring parties are required to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians and civilian objects, such as homes, shops, and schools. Attacks may target only combatants and military objectives.

    Attacks that target civilians or fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that would cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population compared to the anticipated military gain, are prohibited.

    Parties must treat everyone in their custody humanely, not take hostages, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.

    The Free Papua Movement has long sought self-determination and independence in West Papua, on the grounds that the Indonesian government-controlled “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 was illegitimate and did not involve indigenous Papuans.

    It advocates holding a new, fair, and transparent referendum, and backs armed resistance.

    Vast conflict area
    Human Rights Watch reports that the conflict areas, including Intan Jaya, are on the northern side of Mt Grasberg, spanning a vast area from Sugapa to Oksibil in the Pegunungan Bintang regency, approximately 425 km long.

    Sugapa is also known as the site of Wabu Block, which holds approximately 2.3 million kilos of gold, making it one of Indonesia’s five largest known gold reserves.

    Wabu Block is currently under the licensing process of the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

    “Papuans have endured decades of systemic racism, heightening concerns of further atrocities,” HRW’s Asia director Ganguly said.

    “Both the Indonesian military and Papuan armed groups need to comply with international standards that protect civilians.”

    Republished from Human Rights Watch.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Eugene Doyle: Writing in the time of the Gaza genocide

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    I want to share a writer’s journey — of living and writing through the Genocide.  Where I live and how I live could not be further from the horror playing out in Gaza and, increasingly, on the West Bank.

    Yet, because my country provides military, intelligence and diplomatic support to Israel and the US, I feel compelled to answer the call to support Palestine by doing the one thing I know best: writing.

    I live in a paradise that supports genocide
     I am one of the blessed of the earth. I’m surrounded by similarly fortunate people. I live in a heart-stoppingly beautiful bay.

    Even in winter I swim in the marine reserve across the road from our house.  Seals, Orca, all sorts of fish, octopus, penguins and countless other marine life so often draw me from my desk towards the rocky shore.  My home is on the Wild South Coast of Wellington. Every few days our local Whatsapp group fires a message, for example:  “Big pod of dolphins heading into the bay!”

    I live in Aotearoa New Zealand, a country that, in the main, is yawning its way through a genocide and this causes me daily frustration and pain.  It drives me back to the keyboard.

    I am surrounded by good friends and suffer no fears for my security. I am materially comfortable and well-fed. I love being a writer. Who could ask for more?

    I write, on average, a 1200-word article per week. It’s a seven days a week task and most of my writing time is spent reading, scouring news sites from around the world, note-taking, fact-checking, fretting, talking to people and thinking about the story that will emerge, always so different from my starting concept.

    I’m in regular contact with historians, ex-diplomats, geopolitical analysts, writers and activists from around the world and count myself fortunate to know these exceptional people.

    This article is different, simpler; it is personal — one person’s experience of writing from the far periphery of the conflict.

    I don’t want to live in a country that turns a blind or a sleep-laden eye to one of the great crimes against humanity. I have come to the hurtful realisation that I have a very different worldview from most people I know and from most people I thought I knew.

    Fortunately, I have old friends who share in this struggle and I have made many new friends here in New Zealand and across the world who follow their own burning hearts and work every day to challenge the role our governments play in supporting Israel to destroy the lives of millions of innocent people. To me, these people — and above all the Palestinian people in their steadfast resistance — are the heroes who fuel my life.

    Writing is fighting
     Most of us have multiple demands on our time; three of my good writer friends are grappling with cancer, another lost his job for challenging the official line and now must work long hours in a menial day job to keep the family afloat. Despite these challenges they all head to the keyboard to continue the struggle.  Writing is fighting.

    There’s so little we can all do but, as Māori people say: “ahakoa he iti, he pounamu” – it may only be a little but every bit counts, every bit is as precious as jade.

    That sentiment is how movements for change have been built – anti-Vietnam war, anti-nuclear, anti-Apartheid — all of them pro-humanity, all of them about standing with the victims not with the oppressors, nor on the sideline muttering platitudes and excuses.  As another writer said: “Washing one’s hands of the struggle between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” (Paolo Friere)  Back to the keyboard.

    My life until October 7th was more focussed on environmental issues, community organisation and water politics.  I had ceased being “a writer” years ago.

    One day in October 2023 I was in the kitchen, ranting about what was being done to the Palestinians and what was obviously about to be done to the Palestinians: genocide.  My emotions were high because I had had a deeply unpleasant exchange with a good friend of mine on the golf course (yes, I play golf). He told me that the people of Gaza deserved to be collectively punished for the Hamas attack of October 7th.

    I had angrily shot back at him, correctly but not diplomatically, that this put him shoulder-to-shoulder with the Nazis and all those who imposed collective punishment on civilian populations.  My wife, to her credit, had heard enough: “Get upstairs and write an article!  You have to start writing!”

    It changed my life. She was right, of course.  Impotent rage and parlour-room speeches achieve nothing. Writing is fighting.

    ’40 beheaded babies survived the Hamas attack’
     My first article “40 Beheaded Babies Survived the Hamas Attack” was a warning drawn from history about narratives and what the Americans and Israelis were really softening the ground for. Since then I have had about 70 articles published, all in Australia and New Zealand, some in China, the USA, throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and on all sorts of email databases, including those sent out by the exemplary Ambassador Chas Freeman in the US and another by my good friend and human rights lawyer J V Whitbeck in Paris.

    All my articles are on my own site solidarity.co.nz.

    As with historians, part of a writer’s job is to spot patterns and recurrent themes in stories, to detect lies and expose deeper agendas in the official narratives.  The mainstream media is surprisingly bad at this.  Or chooses to be.

    Just like the Incubator Babies story in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in Vietnam, reaching right back to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898, propaganda is often used as a prelude to atrocities.  The blizzard of lies after October 7th were designed to be-monster the Palestinians and prepare the ground for what would obviously follow.

    The narrative of beheaded babies promoted by world leaders, including President Biden, was powerfully amplified by our mainstream media; journalists at the highest level of the trade spread the lies.

    I have to tell you, it was frightening in October 2023 to challenge these narratives.  Every day I pored through the Israeli news site Ha’aretz for updates. Eventually the narrative fell apart — but by then the damage was done. Thousands of real babies had been murdered by the Israelis.

    Never before have so many of my fellow writers been killedFollowing events in Palestine closely, it still comes as a shock when a journalist I have read, seen, heard is suddenly killed by the Israelis. This has happened several times. When it does I take a coffee and walk up the ridiculously steep track behind my house and sit high above the bay on a bench seat I built (badly).

    That bench is my “top office” where I like to chew thoughts in my mind as I see the cold waves break on the brown rocks below.  High up there I feel detached and better able to ask and answer the questions I need to process in my writing.

    Why does our media pay little attention to the killing of so many fellow writers?  Why don’t they call out the Israelis for having killed more journalists than any military machine in history? Why the silence around Israel’s  “Where’s Daddy?” killing programme that has silenced so many Palestinian journalists and doctors by tracking their mobile phones and striking with a missile just when they arrive back home to their families?  Why does “the world’s most moral army” commit such ugly crimes? Where’s the solidarity with our fellow journalists?

    Is it because their skin is mainly dark?  Is that why, according to Radio New Zealand’s own report on its Gaza coverage, New Zealanders have more in common with Israelis than we do with Palestinians? RNZ refers to this as our “proximity” to Israelis. They’re right, of course: by failing to shoulder our positive duty to act decisively against Israel and the US we show that we share values with people committing genocide.

    Is this why stories about our own region — Kanaky New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands and so on, get so little coverage? I have heard many times the immense frustration of journalists I know who work on Pacific issues. The answer is simple: we have greater “proximity” to Benjamin Netanyahu than we do to the Polynesians or Melanesians in our own backyard. Really?

    Such questions need answers. Back to the keyboard.

    Solidarity
     I try not to permit myself despair. It’s a privilege we shouldn’t allow ourselves while our government supports the genocide.  Sometimes that’s hard.

    There’s a photo I’ve seen of a Palestinian mother holding her daughter that haunts me.  In traditional thobe, her head covered by her simple robe, she could easily be Mary, mother of Jesus. She stares straight at the camera. Her expression is hard to read. Shock? Disbelief? Wounded humanity?  Blood flows from below her eyes and stains her cheek and chin. Her forehead is blackened, probably from an explosive blast. She holds her child, a girl of perhaps 10, also damaged and blackened from the Israeli attack.  The child is asleep or unconscious; I can’t tell which.  The mother holds her as lovingly, as poignantly, as Mary did to Jesus when he came down from the cross.  La Pietà in Gaza.

    Why do some of us care less about this pair? Where is our humanity that we can let this happen day after day until the last syllable of our sickening rhetoric that somehow we in the West are morally superior has been vomited out.

    I’ll give the last word to another writer:

    “Verily I say unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: How Israel manufactured a looting crisis to cover up its Gaza famine

    By Muhammad Shehada

    Since the onset of its genocide, Israel has persistently pushed a narrative that the famine devastating Gaza is not of its own making, but the result of “Hamas looting aid”.

    This claim, repeated across mainstream media and parroted by officials, has been used to deflect responsibility for what many human rights experts have called a deliberate starvation campaign.

    Even after Israel fully banned the entry of food, water, fuel, and medicine on March 2, Tel Aviv continued to maintain that Hamas looting, not Israeli policy, was to blame for the humanitarian catastrophe.

    But that narrative has now been discredited by Israel’s internal reporting. Last week, the Israeli military admitted internally that out of 110 looting incidents they documented, none were carried out by Hamas.

    Instead, the looting was done by “armed gangs, organised clans” and, to a lesser extent, starved civilians.

    Those very gangs and clans are backed by Israel; they enjoy full Israeli army protection and operate in areas Israel deems “extermination zones”, where any Palestinian trying to enter would be killed or kidnapped on the spot.

    The gangs had vanished during the two-month ceasefire but conveniently re-emerged as soon as Israel was pressured into allowing a limited trickle of aid to enter. The timing is no coincidence; Israeli policy has deliberately weaponised anarchy to preserve the conditions for starvation.

    This pushed even the UAE to strongly condemn Israel after the army forced an Emirati aid convoy to drive through a “red zone” where Israel-backed gangs looted 23 out of 24 trucks.

    So why does Israel continue to cling to a demonstrably false narrative while openly engineering a looting crisis through its proxies? Because the myth of “Hamas looting” serves a critical strategic purpose: to whitewash and legitimise a new plan that institutionalises starvation for blackmail, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and mass internment through a shell Israeli organisation.

    This is coupled with another alarming tactic of recruiting warlords, drug dealers, and criminals to create a puppet “anti-terror” force.

    Israel’s looting myth
     The “looting” talking point is devoid of any logic, as Hamas would be able to do very little with thousands of tons of looted aid.

    Israel and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee both claim Hamas uses the looted aid to buy new weaponry. But where would they buy such weapons from when Gaza is fully sealed off by Israel, and Rafah — the city of smuggling tunnels — is under full Israeli control?

    Israel claims Hamas sells looted aid on the black market. But, again, what would they do with the money? Virtually nothing is allowed into Gaza except a trickle of food.

    Israel also claims Hamas uses looted aid to recruit new militants, but Hamas doesn’t operate this way. The group depends on utmost secrecy and discipline in its operations.

    Each new member passes through a long process of vetting, training, and tests to minimise the risk of infiltration. It would compromise Hamas to recruit people openly, whose only attachment to the group is bread rather than ideological commitment.

    Perhaps most damning is that Israel has never captured a single instance of Hamas looting aid, despite subjecting Gaza to the most meticulous surveillance on earth. Israeli predator drones cover every inch of the enclave every minute of the day, yet there is nothing to show for Israel’s claims.

    Hamas is also aware that hijacking and looting aid trucks could lead to Israel bombing the vehicles and diverting them from their predetermined route.

    The Israeli army has done this on countless occasions when it fired at or bombed humanitarian convoys under the pretext that Hamas policemen came near the trucks. Ironically, those law enforcement officials were actually trying to prevent looting when they were targeted.

    Israel’s allies reject the narrative
     Israel’s strongest supporters have refuted the “Hamas looting” claim. President Joe Biden’s humanitarian envoy, David Satterfield, admitted in February of last year that “no Israeli official has . . . come to the administration with specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance delivered by the UN”.

    Satterfield reiterated last Tuesday that Israel has never privately alleged or offered evidence of Hamas stealing aid from the UN and INGO channels. Israel’s ambassador to the EU, Haim Regev, said in mid-October 2023 that “there’s no evidence EU aid went to Hamas”.

    Cindy McCain, World Food Programme’s chief and widow of one of the most pro-Israeli GOP senators, forcefully rejected Israel’s narrative on Sunday, saying that looting “doesn’t have anything to do with Hamas . . .  it has simply to do with the fact these people are starving to death”.

    The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported last week that “Israel has never presented evidence publicly or privately to humanitarian organisations or Western government officials to back up claims that Hamas had systematically stolen aid brought into Gaza”.

    An internal memo jointly drafted by UN agencies and 20 INGOs in April, and viewed by The New Arab, stated that “there is no evidence of large-scale aid diversion”.

    Gangs and scarcity are responsible for looting
     While Israel failed to show any evidence of Hamas stealing aid, the only documented organised systematic looting happening in Gaza right now is by Israeli-backed criminal gangs who enjoy full protection from the Israeli army, according to the Washington Post, Financial Times, Ha’aretz, and the UN.

    A UN memo said these gangs established a “military complex” in the heart of Rafah after Israel fully depopulated the city. Humanitarian officials say the looting often happens right in front of Israeli troops and tanks, less than 100m away, who take no action until the local police arrive, with Israeli troops then opening fire at them.

    Israel not only provides protection and backing to these criminal gangs but has created the perfect conditions for looting to thrive through scarcity and a collapsing state of law and order.

    Currently, a single bag of wheat flour sells for about 1,500 NIS ($425), which makes it profitable for gangs to loot and sell on the market. These astronomical prices are driven by scarcity after Israel banned all food from entering Gaza for nearly 80 days, then allowed less than 20 percent of what Gaza needs on a normal day for basic survival after intense international pressure.

    During the ceasefire, however, when Israel was allowing 600 trucks to enter per day, prices went back to normal and looting disappeared because it was no longer profitable due to the abundance of food, and because the police were able to resume their work.

    Manufactured crisis to advance genocide
     The engineered looting crisis has long served as a convenient excuse to cover up the deliberate weaponisation of starvation against Gaza’s entire population, allowing Israel to distract from its restrictions on the entry of aid and the spread of famine by saying Hamas is to blame for stealing aid.

    But now, this manufactured crisis is serving a second objective: to justify a dystopian ‘aid plan’ Israel is implementing in Gaza that has been condemned and boycotted by every UN agency and humanitarian organisation working in the enclave, as well as donor countries.

    A joint UN-INGO memo warned that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would facilitate the use of aid for forcible expulsion, by telling Gazans the only way they can receive food is by moving south to Rafah on Egypt’s border.

    GHF, which Israeli opposition leaders said was an Israeli shell funded by Mossad, began its operations last Tuesday after being rocked by two scandals in one day.

    GHF’s CEO had resigned on Sunday in protest of the organisation violating the principles of humanitarianism, while the organisation shut down its registered headquarters in Switzerland as soon as Swiss authorities launched an investigation.

    Images coming out of the GHF’s militarised aid distribution site were immediately likened to concentration camps, where hundreds of emaciated Gazans were crowded into metal cages like cattle under the boiling sun, surrounded by armed US mercenaries, Israeli troops, and sand dunes.

    Alarmingly, people who received aid noted the presence of Arabic speakers in addition to American mercenaries. Last week, the Israel-backed Islamic State-linked gang leader Yasser Abu Shabab emerged in Rafah again after a long disappearance.

    Abu Shabab, a drug dealer and wanted criminal previously arrested multiple times by the local police, was the primary suspect in the systematic looting of aid under Israeli protection. This time, however, he emerged in a brand new uniform and military gear and started a Facebook page promoting himself in English and Arabic to mark a new “anti-terror” force operating in Israel-controlled Rafah.

    Additional pictures viewed by The New Arab showed multiple armed men dressed in the same uniform as Abu Shabab armed with M-16s standing in front of a humanitarian convoy.

    The unravelling of Israel’s “Hamas looting” narrative lays bare a chilling truth: starvation in Gaza is not collateral damage — it is a calculated weapon in a broader campaign of collective punishment and displacement.

    By cultivating chaos, empowering criminal gangs, and then manipulating the humanitarian crisis they manufactured, Israel seeks to maintain extreme restrictions on aid, while externalising blame and avoiding accountability.

    It is the machinery of genocide disguised in bureaucratic language and carried out under the watchful eyes of the world.

    Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer and analyst from Gaza and the European Union affairs manager at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The article was first published by The New Arab. On X at: @muhammadshehad2

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Phil Goff: Israel doesn’t care how many innocent people, children it’s killing

    COMMENTARY: By Phil Goff

    “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy — knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.”

    This statement was made not by a foreign or liberal critic of Israel but by the former Prime Minister and former senior member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s own Likud party, Ehud Olmet.

    Nightly, we witness live-streamed evidence of the truth of his statement — lethargic and gaunt children dying of malnutrition, a bereaved doctor and mother of 10 children, nine of them killed by an Israeli strike (and her husband, another doctor, died later), 15 emergency ambulance workers gunned down by the IDF as they tried to help others injured by bombs, despite their identity being clear.

    Statistics reflect the scale of the horror imposed on Palestinians who are overwhelmingly civilians — 54,000 killed, 121,000 maimed and injured. Over 17,000 of these are children.

    This can no longer be excused as regrettable collateral damage from targeted attacks on Hamas.

    Israel simply doesn’t care about the impact of its military attacks on civilians and how many innocent people and children it is killing.

    Its willingness to block all humanitarian aid- food, water, medical supplies, from Gaza demonstrates further its willingness to make mass punishment and starvation a means to achieve its ends. Both are war crimes.

    Influenced by the right wing extremists in the Coalition cabinet, like Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s goal is no longer self defence or justifiable retaliation against Hamas terrorists.

    Israel attacks Palestinians at US-backed aid hubs in Gaza, killing 36. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    Making life unbearable
    The Israeli government policy is focused on making life unbearable for Palestinians and seeking to remove them from their homeland. In this, they are openly encouraged by President Trump who has publicly and repeatedly endorsed deporting the Palestinian population so that the Gaza could be made into a “Middle East Riviera”.

    This is not the once progressive pioneer Israel, led by people who had faced the Nazi Holocaust and were fighting for the right to a place where they could determine their own future and be safe.

    Sadly, a country of people who were themselves long victims of oppression is now guilty of oppressing and committing genocide against others.

    New Zealand recently joined 23 other countries calling out Israel and demanding a full supply of foreign aid be allowed into Gaza.

    Foreign Minister Winston Peters called Israel’s actions “ intolerable”. He said that we had “had enough and were running out of patience and hearing excuses”.

    While speaking out might make us feel better, words are not enough. Israel’s attacks on the civilian population in Gaza are being increased, aid distribution which has restarted is grossly insufficient to stop hunger and human suffering and Palestinians are being herded into confined areas described as humanitarian zones but which are still subject to bombardment.

    People living in tents in schools and hospitals are being slaughtered.

    World must force Israel to stop
    Like Putin, Israel will not end its killing and oppression unless the world forces it to. The US has the power but will not do this.

    The sanctions Trump has imposed are not on Israel’s leaders but on judges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) who dared to find Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu guilty of war crimes.

    New Zealand’s foreign policy has traditionally involved working with like-minded countries, often small nations like us. Two of these, Ireland and Sweden, are seeking to impose sanctions on Israel.

    Both are members of the European Union which makes up a third of Israel’s global trade. If the EU decides to act, sanctions imposed by it would have a big impact on Israel.

    These sanctions should be both on trade and against individuals.

    New Zealand has imposed sanctions on a small number of extremist Jewish settlers on the West Bank where there is evidence of them using violence against Palestinian villagers.

    These sanctions should be extended to Israel’s political leadership and New Zealand could take a lead in doing this. We should not be influenced by concern that by taking a stand we might offend US president Donald Trump.

    Show our preparedness to uphold values
    In the way that we have been proud of in the past, we should as a small but fiercely independent country show our preparedness to uphold our own values and act against gross abuse of human rights and flagrant disregard for international law.

    We should be working with others through the United Nations General Assembly to maximise political pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing killing of innocent civilians.

    Moral outrage at what Israel is doing has to be backed by taking action with others to force the Israeli government to end the killing, destruction, mass punishment and deliberate starvation of Palestinians including their children.

    An American doctor working at a Gaza hospital reported that in the last five weeks he had worked on dozens of badly injured children but not a single combatant.

    He noted that as well as being maimed and disfigured by bombing, many of the children were also suffering from malnutrition. Children were dying from wounds that they could recover from but there were not the supplies needed to treat them.

    Protest is not enough. We need to act.

    Phil Goff is Aotearoa New Zealand’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs. This article was first published by the Stuff website and is republished with the permission of the author.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: French politicians in New Caledonia to stir the political melting pot

    By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    French national politicians have been in New Caledonia as the territory’s future remains undecided.

    Leaders from both right-wing Les Républicains (LR) and Rassemblement National (RN), — vice-president François-Xavier Bellamy and Marine Le Pen respectively — have been in the French Pacific territory this week.

    They expressed their views about New Caledonia’s political, economic and social status one year after riots broke out in May 2024.

    Since then, latest attempts to hold political talks between all stakeholders and France have been met with fluctuating responses, but the latest round of discussions earlier this month ended in a stalemate.

    This was because hardline pro-France parties regarded the project of “sovereignty with France” offered by French Overseas Minister Manuel Valls was not acceptable. They consider that three self-determination referendums held in 2018, 2020 and 2021 rejected independence.

    However, the last referendum, in December 2021, was largely boycotted by the pro-independence movement and its followers due to indigenous Kanak cultural concerns around the covid-19 pandemic.

    The pro-France camp is accusing Valls of siding with the pro-independence FLNKS bloc and other more moderate parties such as PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie), who want independence from France.

    Transferring key powers
    Valls is considering transferring key French powers to New Caledonia, introducing a double French/New Caledonian citizenship, and an international standing.

    The pro-France camp is adamant that this ignores the three no referendum votes.

    Speaking to a crowd of several hundred supporters in Nouméa on Tuesday evening, Bellamy said he now favoured going ahead with modifying conditions of eligibility for voters at local provincial elections.

    The same attempts to change the locked local electoral roll — which is restricted to people residing in New Caledonia from before November 1998 — was widely perceived as the main cause for the May 2024 riots, which left 14 dead.

    Bellamy said giving in to violence that erupted last year was out of the question because it was “an attempt to topple a democratic process”.

    Les Républicains, to which the Rassemblement-LR local party is affiliated, is one of the major parties in the French Parliament.

    Its newly-elected president Bruno Retailleau is the Minister for Home Affairs in French President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition government.

    Nouméa Accord ‘now over’
    Bellamy told a crowd of supporters in Nouméa that in his view the decolonisation process prescribed by the 1998 Nouméa Accord “is now over”.

    “New Caledonians have democratically decided, three times, that they belong to France. And this should be respected,” he told a crowd during a political rally.

    In Nouméa, Bellamy said if the three referendum results were ignored as part of a future political agreement, then LR could go as far as pulling out of the French government.

    Marine Le Pen, this week also expressed her views on New Caledonia’s situation, saying instead of focusing on the territory’s institutional future, the priority should be placed on its economy, which is still reeling from the devastation caused during the 2024 riots.

    The efforts included diversifying the economy.

    A Paris court convicted Le Pen and two dozen (RN) party members of embezzling European Union funds last month, and imposed a sentence that will prevent her from standing in France’s 2027 presidential election unless she can get the ruling overturned within 18 months.

    The high-profile visits to New Caledonia from mainland French leaders come within two years of France’s scheduled presidential elections.

    And it looks like New Caledonia could become a significant issue in the pre-poll debates and campaign.

    LFI (La France Insoumise), a major party in the French Parliament, and its caucus leader Mathilde Panot also visited New Caledonia from May 9-17, this time mainly focusing on supporting the pro-independence camp’s views.

    Macron invites all parties for fresh talks in Paris
     On Tuesday, May 27, the French President’s office issued a brief statement indicating that it had decided to convene “all stakeholders” for fresh talks in Paris in mid-June.

    The talks would aim at “clarifying” New Caledonia’s economic, political and institutional situation with a view to reaching “a shared agreement”.

    Depending on New Caledonia’s often opposing political camps, Macron’s announcement is perceived either as a dismissal of Valls’ approach or a mere continuation of the overseas minister’s efforts, but at a higher level.

    New Caledonia’s pro-France parties are adamant that Macron’s proposal is entirely new and that it signifies Valls’ approach has been disavowed at the highest level.

    Valls himself wrote to New Caledonia’s political stakeholders last weekend, insisting on the need to pursue talks through a so-called “follow-up committee”.

    It is not clear whether the “follow-up committee” format is what Macron has in mind.

    But at the weekend, Valls made statements on several French national media outlets, stressing that he was still the one in charge of New Caledonia’s case.

    “The one who is taking care of New Caledonia’s case, at the request of French Prime Minister François Bayrou, that’s me and no one else,” Valls told French national news channel LCI on May 25.

    “I’m not being disavowed by anyone.”

    Local parties still willing to talk
     Most parties have since reacted swiftly to Macron’s call, saying they were ready to take part in further discussions.

    Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach said this was “necessary to clarify the French state’s position”.

    She said the clarification was needed, since Valls, during his last visit, “offered an independence solution that goes way beyond what the pro-independence camp was even asking”.

    Local pro-France figure and New Caledonia’s elected MP at the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, met Macron in Paris last Friday.

    He said at the time that an “initiative” from the French president was to be expected.

    Pro-independence bloc FLNKS said Valls’ proposal was now “the foundation stone”.

    Spokesman Dominique Fochi said the invitation was scheduled to be discussed at a special FLNKS convention this weekend.

    Valls’ ‘independence-association’ solution worries other French territories
     Because of the signals it sends, New Caledonia’s proposed political future plans are also causing concern in other French overseas territories, including their elected MPs in Paris.

    In the French Senate on Wednesday, French Polynesia’s MP Lana Tetuanui, who is pro-France, asked during question time for French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to explain what France was doing in the Pacific region in the face of growing influence from major powers such as China.

    She told the minister she still had doubts, “unless of course France is considering sinking its own aircraft carrier ships named New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna”.

    French president Emmanuel Macron has been on a southeast Asian tour this week to Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, where he will be the keynote speaker of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue.

    He delivers his speech today to mark the opening of the 22nd edition of the Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit.

    The event brings together defence ministers, military leaders and senior defence officials, as well as business leaders and security experts, from across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond to discuss critical security and geopolitical challenges.

    More specifically on the Pacific region, Macron also said one of France’s future challenges included speeding up efforts to “build a new strategy in New Caledonia and French Polynesia”.

    As part of Macron’s Indo-Pacific doctrine, developed since 2017, France earlier this year deployed significant forces in the region, including its naval and air strike group and its only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.

    The multinational exercise, called Clémenceau 25, involved joint exercises with allied forces from Australia, Japan and the United States.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Radical legal step towards ending impunity for Israel over killing Gaza journalists

    Pacific Media Watch

    Journalists have been targeted, detained and tortured by the Israeli military in Gaza — and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has now taken a new approach towards bringing justice these crimes.

    The Paris-based global media freedom NGO has submitted multiple formal requests to the International Criminal Court (ICC) asking that Palestinian journalists who are victims of Israeli war crimes in Gaza be allowed to participate as such in international judicial proceedings.

    If granted this status, these journalists would be able to present the ICC with the direct and personal harm they have suffered at the hands of Israeli forces, reports RSF.

    RSF has filed four complaints with the ICC concerning war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza and recently joined director Sepideh Farsi at the Cannes Film Festival to pay tribute to Fatma Hassoun, a photojournalist killed by the Israeli army after it was revealed she was featured in the documentary film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.

    After filing the four complaints with the ICC concerning war crimes committed against journalists in Gaza since October 2023, RSF is resolutely continuing its efforts to bring the issue before international justice.

    The NGO has submitted several victim participation forms to the ICC so that Gazan journalists can participate in the legal process as recognised victims, not just as witnesses.

    Being officially recognised as victims is a first step toward justice, truth, and reparations — and it is an essential step toward protecting press freedom and journalistic integrity in conflict zones.

    Nearly 200 journalists killed
    Since October 2023, Israeli armed forces have killed nearly 200 journalists in Gaza — the Gaza Media Office says more than 215 journalists have been killed — at least 44 of whom were targeted because of their work, according to RSF data.

    Not only are foreign journalists barred from entering the blockaded Palestinian territory, but local reporters have watched their homes and newsrooms be destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and have been constantly displaced amid a devastating humanitarian crisis.

    “The right of victims to participate in the ICC investigation is a crucial mechanism that will finally allow for the recognition of the immense harm suffered by Palestinian journalists working in Gaza, who are the target of an unprecedented and systematic crackdown,” said Clémence Witt, a lawyer at the Paris and Barcelona Bars, and Jeanne Sulzer, a lawyer at the Paris Bar and member of the ICC’s list of counsel.

    Jonathan Dagher, head of the RSF Middle East desk, said: “It is time for justice for Gaza’s journalists to be served. The Israeli army’s ongoing crimes against them must end.

    “RSF will tirelessly continue demanding justice and reparations. This new process in the ICC investigation is an integral part of this combat, and allowing journalists to participate as victims is essential to moving forward.

    “They should be able to testify to the extreme violence targeting Gaza’s press. This is a new step toward holding the Israeli military and its leaders accountable for the crimes committed with impunity on Palestinian territory.”

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Samoan PM Fiamē advises dissolution of parliament, calls for snap elections

    RNZ Pacific

    Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa has advised Samoa’s head of state that it is necessary to dissolve Parliament so the country can move to an election.

    This follows the bill for the budget not getting enough support for a first reading on yesterday, and Fiame announcing she would therefore seek an early election.

    Tuimaleali’ifano Va’aleto’a Sualauvi II has accepted Fiame’s advice and a formal notice will be duly gazetted to confirm the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly.

    Parliament will go into caretaker mode, and the Cabinet will have the general direction and control of the existing government until the first session of the Legislative Assembly following dissolution.

    Fiame, who has led a minority government since being ousted from her former FAST party in January, finally conceded defeat on the floor of Parliament yesterday morning after her government’s 2025 Budget was voted down.

    MPs from both the opposition Human Rights Protection Party and Fiame’s former FAST party joined forces to defeat the budget with the final vote coming in 34 against, 16 in support and two abstentions.

    Defeated motions
    Tuesday was the Samoan Parliament’s first sitting since back-to-back no-confidence motions were moved — unsuccessfully — against prime minister Fiame.

    In January, Fiame removed her FAST Party chairman La’auli Leuatea Schmidt and several FAST ministers from her Cabinet.

    In turn, La’auli ejected her from the FAST Party, leaving her leading a minority government.

    Her former party had been pushing for an early election, including via legal action.

    The election is set to be held within three months.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Activists call for Pacific nuclear justice, global unity and victim support

    By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News

    Eighty years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the Second World War, the threat of nuclear fallout remains.

    Last Monday, the UN Human Rights Council issued a formal communication to the Japanese government regarding serious concerns raised by Pacific communities about the dumping of 1.3 million metric tonnes of treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater into the ocean over 30 years.

    The council warned that the release could pose major environmental and human rights risks.

    A protest against the release of Fukushima treated radioactive water in Tokyo, Japan, in mid-May 2023. Image: TAM News/Getty.

    Te Ao Māori News spoke with Mari Inoue, a NYC-based lawyer originally from Japan and co-founder of the volunteer-led group The Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World.

    Recently, at the UN, they called for global awareness, not only about atomic bomb victims but also of the Fukushima wastewater release, and nuclear energy’s links to environmental destruction and human rights abuses.

    Formed a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the group takes its name from the original Manhattan Project — the secret Second World War  US military programme that raced to develop the first atomic bomb before Nazi Germany.

    A pivotal moment in that project was the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico — the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb. One month later, nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people.

    Seeking recognition and justice
    Although 80 years have passed, victims of these events continue to seek recognition and justice. The disarmament group hopes for stronger global unity around the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and more support for victims of nuclear exposure.

    Mari Inoue attended the UN as a representative of the Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World as an interpreter for an atomic bomb survivor. Image: TAM News/UN WebTV.

    The anti-nuclear activists supported the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Their advocacy took place during the third and final preparatory committee for the 2026 NPT review conference, where a consensus report with recommendations from past sessions will be presented.

    Inoue’s group called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to declare Japan’s dumping policy unsafe, and believes Japan and its G7 and EU allies should be condemned for supporting it.

    Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project . . . The contaminated site once belonged to several Native American tribes. Image: TAM News/Jeff T. Green/Getty

    Nuclear energy for the green transition?
     Amid calls to move away from fossil fuels, some argue that nuclear power could supply the zero-emission energy needed to combat climate change.

    Inoue rejects this, saying that despite not emitting greenhouse gases like fossil fuels, nuclear energy still harms the environment.

    She said there was environmental harm at all processes in the nuclear supply chain.

    Beginning with uranium mining, predominantly contaminating indigenous lands and water sources, with studies showing those communities face increased cancer rates, sickness, and infant mortality. And other studies have shown increased health issues for residents near nuclear reactors.

    Protests at TEPCO, Tokyo Electric Power Company, in Tokyo in August 2023. Image: bDavid Mareuil/Anadolu Agency

    “Nuclear energy is not peaceful and it‘s not a solution to the climate crisis,” Inoue stressed. “Nuclear energy cannot function without exploiting peoples, their lands, and their resources.”

    She also pointed out thermal pollution, where water heated during the nuclear plant cooling process is discharged into waterways, contributing to rising ocean temperatures.

    Inoue added, “During the regular operation, [nuclear power plants] release radioactive isotopes into the environment — for example tritium.”

    She referenced nuclear expert Dr Arjun Makhijani, who has studied the dangers of tritium in how it crosses the placenta, impacting embryos and foetuses with risks of birth defects, miscarriages, and other problems.

    Increased tensions and world forum uniting global voices
     When asked about the AUKUS security pact, Inoue expressed concern that it would worsen tensions in the Pacific. She criticised the use of a loophole that allowed nuclear-powered submarines in a nuclear-weapon-free zone, even though the nuclear fuel could still be repurposed for weapons.

    In October, Inoue will co-organise the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima, with 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nihon Hidankyo as one of the promoting organisations.

    The forum will feature people from Indigenous communities impacted by nuclear testing in the US and the Marshall Islands, uranium mining in Africa, and fisheries affected by nuclear pollution.

    Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘Starving’ masked Palestine protesters condemn Luxon’s Gaza ‘appeasement’

    Asia Pacific Report

    Protesting New Zealanders donned symbolic masks modelled on a Palestinian artist’s handiwork in Auckland’s Takutai Square today to condemn Israel’s starvation as war weapon against Gaza and the NZ prime minister’s weak response.

    Coming a day after the tabling of Budget 2025 in Parliament, peaceful demonstrators wore hand-painted masks inspired by Gaza-based Palestinian artist Reem Arkan, who is fighting for her life alongside hundreds of thousands of the displaced Gazans.

    The “bodies” represented more than 53,000 Palestinians killed by Israel’s brutal 19-month war on Gaza.

    The protest coincided with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon addressing the Trans-Tasman Business Circle in Auckland.

    The demonstrators said they chose this moment and location to “highlight the alarmingly tepid response” by the New Zealand government to what global human rights organisations — such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — have branded as war crimes and acts of collective punishment amounting to genocide.

    “This week, we heard yet another call for Israel to abide by international law. This is not leadership. It’s appeasement,” said a spokesperson, Olivia Coote.

    “The time for statements has long passed. What we are witnessing in Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe, and New Zealand must impose meaningful sanctions.

    “Israel’s actions, including the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, forced displacement, and obstruction of humanitarian aid, constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of which we are signatories.”

    A self-portrait by Palestinian artist Reem Arkan who depicts the suffering of Gaza – and the beauty – in spite of the savagery of the Israel attacks. Image: Insta/@artist_reemarkan

    Green Party Co-Leader Chlöe Swarbrick challenged Prime Minister Luxon in Parliament over his government’s response earlier this week, saying: “We’ve had lots of words. We need action.”

    Luxon claimed that sanctions were in place — but the only measure taken has been a travel ban on 12 extremist Israeli settlers from the West Bank.

    “This is an action that does nothing to protect the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza who face daily bombardment, siege, and starvation,” Coote said.

    The protesters are calling on the New Zealand government to act immediately by:

    • Imposing sanctions on Israel; and
    • Suspending all diplomatic and trade relations with Israel until there is an end to hostilities and full compliance with international humanitarian law.

    “This government must not be complicit in atrocities through silence and inaction,” Coote said. “The people of Aotearoa New Zealand demand leadership as the world watches a genocide unfold in real time.”

    A street theatre protester demonstrates today against starvation as a weapon of war as deployed by Israel in its brutal war on Gaza. Image: APR

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Gordon Campbell: NZ’s silence over Gaza genocide, ethnic cleansing

    COMMENTARY: By Gordon Campbell

    Since last Thursday, intensified Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed more than 500 Palestinians, and a prolonged Israeli aid blockade has led to widespread starvation among the territory’s two million residents.

    Belatedly, Israel is letting in a token amount of food aid that UN Under-Secretary Tom Fletcher has called a “a drop in the ocean”.

    Meanwhile, the IDF is intensifying its air and ground attacks on the civilian population and on the few remaining health services. Al Jazeera is also reporting that the IDF has issued “a forward displacement order” for the entirety of Khan Younis, the second largest city in Gaza.

    The escalation of the Israeli onslaught has been condemned by UN human rights chief Volker Türk, who has likened the IDF campaign as an exercise in ethnic cleansing:

    “This latest barrage of bombs … and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” he said.

    If the West so wished, it could be putting more economic pressure on Israel to cease committing its litany of atrocities. Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war has been sparking mass demonstrations across Europe.

    In the Netherlands at the weekend, a massive demonstration culminated in calls for the Netherlands government to formally ask the EU to suspend its free trade agreement with Israel.

    Until now, the world’s relative indifference to the genocide in Gaza has been mirrored by Palestine’s Arab neighbours. As Gaza burned yet again, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates were lavishly entertaining US President Donald Trump — Israel’s chief enabler — and showering him with gifts.

    In the wake of these meetings, Trump and his hosts have signed arms deals and AI technology transfers that reportedly contain no guard rails to prevent these AI advances being passed on to China.

    In addition, Qatar has bought $96 billion worth of Boeing aircraft. Reportedly, this purchase has huge potential implications for the airline industry in our part of the world.

    In all, economic joint ventures worth hundreds of billions of dollars were signed and sealed last week between the US and the Middle East region, despite the misery being inflicted right next door.

    Footnote: Directly and indirectly, Big Tech firms such as Microsoft and Intel continue to enable and enhance the IDF war machine’s actions in Gaza. This is an extension of the long time support given to Israel by Silicon Valley firms via the supply of digital infrastructure, advanced chips, software and cloud computing facilities.

    Yesterday, several Microsoft staff had the courage to interrupt a speech by their CEO to protest about how the company’s Azure cloud computing platform was being used to enable Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

    The extinction of hope
    As the Ha’aretz newspaper reported this week, “The three pillars of hope for the Palestinians have collapsed: armed struggle has lost legitimacy, state negotiations have stalled, and faith in the international community has faded. Now, they face one question: ‘Where do we go from here?’

    As Ha’aretz concluded, the Palestinians seem to have vanished into a diplomatic Bermuda Triangle. What would it take, one wonders, for the New Zealand government — and Foreign Minister Winston Peters — to wake up from their moral slumber?

    Whenever the Luxon government does talk about this conflict, it still calls for a “two state solution” even though, as a leading Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says, this ceased to be a viable option more than 25 years ago.

    “We crossed the point of no return a long time ago. We crossed the point at which there was any room for a Palestinian state, with 700,000 settlers who will not be evacuated, because nobody will have the political power to do so. The West Bank is practically annexed for many, many years . . . Nobody can take this discourse seriously anymore. But, you know, those who want to believe in it, believe in it.”

    Conveniently, the two state waffle does provide Peters and Luxon with cover for their reluctance to — for example — call in, or expel the Israeli ambassador. Or impose a symbolic trade boycott. Or impose targeted sanctions on the extremists within the Netanyahu Cabinet who are driving Israeli policy.

    Instead of those options, the “negotiated two state” fantasy has been encouraged to take on a life of its own. Yet do we really think that Israel would entertain for a moment the expulsion of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers illegally occupying the land on the West Bank required for a viable Palestinian state?

    The Netanyahu government has long had plans to double that number, with the settler influx growing at a reported rate of about 12,000 a year.

    The backlash
     Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon is finally creating a backlash, in Europe at least. The public outrage being expressed in demonstrations in the UK, France and Germany finally seems to be making some governments feel a need to be seen to be doing more.

    Not before time. At the drop of a hat, Western nations — New Zealand included — will bang on endlessly about the importance of upholding the norms of international law. So you have to ask . . . why have we/they chosen to remain all but mute about the repeated violations of human rights law and the Geneva Conventions being carried out by the IDF in Gaza on a daily basis?

    “In [Khan Younis’] Nasser Hospital, Safaa Al-Najjar, her face stained with blood, wept as the shroud-wrapped bodies of two of her children were brought to her: [18 month old] Motaz Al-Bayyok and [six weeks old] Moaz Al-Bayyok.

    “The family was caught in the overnight airstrikes. All five of Al-Najjar’s other children, ranging in ages from 3 to 12, were injured, while her husband was in intensive care. One of her sons, 11-year-old Yusuf, his head heavily bandaged, screamed in grief as the shroud of his younger sibling was parted to show his face.

    Ultimately, Israel’s moral decline will be for its own citizens to reckon with, in future. For now, New Zealand is standing around watching in silence, while a blood-soaked campaign of ethnic cleansing unmatched in recent history is being carried out.

    Republished with permission from Gordon Campbell’s column in partnership with Scoop.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ ‘running out of patience’ – Peters lashes Israel over Gaza aid blockade

    RNZ News

    New Zealand has joined 23 other countries calling out Israel and demanding a full supply of foreign aid be allowed into the territory.

    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report today it was “intolerable” that Israel had blocked any aid reaching residents for many weeks.

    The UN is warning that 14,000 babies are estimated to be suffering severe acute malnutrition in Gaza and ideally they need to get supplies within 48 hours.

    The UK, France and Canada have expressed their frustration, with the UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy telling Parliament the war in Gaza had entered a “dark new phase” and the UK was cancelling trade talks with Israel.

    Although the situation had come about because of acts of terrorism by Hamas, for residents in Gaza it had become “intolerable”, Peters told Morning Report.

    “We’ve had enough of this and we want the matter resolved and now.”

    A full resumption of aid should have happened a long time ago and it was essential that the United Nations be involved in delivering it.

    ‘Had enough of it’
    “… we’ve just simply had enough of it, utterly so [from Israel].”

    The statement by the countries reaffirmed what had been said for a long time that Israel must make aid available.

    New Zealand also opposed Israel’s latest expansion of military operations in Gaza, Peters said.

    The Palestinian Authority and countries such as Egypt and Indonesia understood New Zealand’s position.

    “We just want to sort this out and the long-term thing [Palestinians’ future alongside Israel] has got to be resolved as well.

    “Israel needs to get the message very clear — we are running out of patience and hearing excuses.”

    Asked if the Israeli ambassador should be called in so the message could be conveyed more clearly, he said it would be a symbolic gesture that would not help starving babies.

    Israel already knew what this country’s stance was, he said.

    It was an appalling situation that had started with “unforgivable terrorism” but Israel had gone “far too far” in its response, Peters said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Starvation of Gaza – a distressing continuation of a decades-old plan

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Jeremy Rose

    Reading an NBC News report a couple of days ago about a Trump administration plan to relocate 1 million Gazans to Libya reminded me of a conversation between the legendary Warsaw Ghetto leader Marek Edelman and fellow fighter and survivor Simcha Rotem that took place more than quarter of a century ago.

    In the conversation, first reported in Haaretz in 2023, Rotem said the Jews who walked into the gas chambers without a fight did so only because they were hungry.

    Edelman disagreed, but Rotem insisted. “Listen, man. Marek, I’m surprised by your attitude. They only went because they were hungry. Even if they’d known what awaited them they would have walked into the gas chambers. You and I would have done the same.”

    Edelman cut him off. “You would never have gone” [to the gas chamber.] Rotem replied, “I’m not so sure. I was never that hungry.”

    Edelman agreed, saying: “I also wasn’t that hungry,” to which Rotem said, “That’s why you didn’t go.”

    The NBC report claims that Israeli officials are aware of the plan and talks have been held with the Libyan leadership about taking in 1 million ethnically cleansed Palestinians.. The carrot being offered is the unfreezing of billions of dollars of Libya’s own money seized by the US more than a decade ago.

    The Arabic word Sumud — or steadfastness — is synonymous with the Palestinian people. The idea that 1 million Gazans would agree to walk off the 1.4 percent of historic Palestine that is Gaza is inconceivable.

    Equally incomprehensible
    But then the idea that my great grandmother and other relatives walked into the gas chambers is equally incomprehensible. But we’ve never been that hungry.

    The people of Gaza are. No food has entered Gaza for 76 days. Half a million Gazans are facing starvation and the rest of the population (more than 1.5 million people) are suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the UN.

    Last year, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was widely condemned when he suggested starving Gaza might be “justified and moral”.

    The lack of outrage and urgency being expressed by world leaders — particularly Western leaders — after nearly 11 weeks of Israel actually starving the inhabitants of what retired IDF general Giora Eiland has called a giant concentration camp — is an outrage.

    As far as I’m aware there’s been no talk of cutting off diplomatic relations, trade embargos or even cultural boycotts.

    Israel — which last time I looked wasn’t in Europe — just placed second in Eurovision. “I’m happy,” an Israeli friend messaged me, “that my old genocidal homeland (Austria) won and not my current genocidal nation.”

    A third generation Israeli, she’s one of a tiny minority protesting the war crimes being committed less than 100km from her apartment.

    Honourable exceptions
    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Irish President Michael Higgins are honourable exceptions to the muted criticism being expressed by Western leaders, although this criticism has finally been stepped up with the threatened “concrete actions” by the UK, France and Canada, and the condemnation of Israel by 22 other countries — including New Zealand.

    Sanchez had declared Israel a genocidal state and said Spain won’t do business with such a nation.

    And peaking at a national famine commemoration held over the weekend Higgens said the UN Security Council had failed again and again by not dealing with famines and the current “forced starvation of the people of Gaza”.

    He cited UN Secretary-General António Guterres saying “as aid dries up, the floodgates of horror have re-opened. Gaza is a killing field — and civilians are in an endless death loop.”

    Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen argued in his 1981 book Poverty and Famines that famines are man-made and not natural disasters.

    Unlike Gaza, the famines he wrote about were caused by either callous disregard by the ruling elites for the populations left to starve or the disastrous results of following the whims of an all-powerful leader like Chairman Mao.

    He argued that a famine had never occurred in a functioning democracy.

    A horrifying fact
    It’s a horrifying fact that a self-described democracy, funded and abetted by the world’s most powerful democracy, has been allowed by the international community to starve two million people with no let-up in its bombing of barely functioning hospitals and killing of more than 2000 Gazans since the ban on food entering the strip was put in place. (Many more will have died due to a lack of medicine, food, and access to clean water.)

    After more than two months of denying any food or medicine to enter Gaza Israel is now saying it will allow limited amounts of food in to avoid a full-scale famine.

    “Due to the need to expand the fighting, we will introduce a basic amount of food to the residents of Gaza to ensure no famine occurs,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained.

    “A famine might jeopardise the continuation of Operation Gideon’s Chariots aimed at eliminating Hamas.”

    If 19-months of indiscriminate bombardment, the razing to the ground of whole cities, the displacement of virtually the entire population, and more than 50,000 recorded deaths (the Lancet estimated the true figure is likely to be four times that) hasn’t destroyed Hamas to Israel’s satisfaction it’s hard to conceive of what will.

    But accepting that that is the real aim of the ongoing genocide would be naïve.

    Shamefully indifferent Western world
    In the first cabinet meeting following the Six Day War, long before Hamas came into existence, ridding Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants was top of the agenda.

    “If we can evict 300,000 refugees from Gaza to other places . . .  we can annex Gaza without a problem,” Defence Minister Moshe Dayan said.

    The population of Gaza was 400,000 at the time.

    “We should take them to the East Bank [Jordan] by the scruff of their necks and throw them there,” Minister Yosef Sapir said.

    Fifty-eight years later the possible destinations may have changed but the aim remains the same. And a shamefully indifferent Western world combined with a malnourished and desperate population may be paving the way to a mass expulsion.

    If the US, Europe and their allies demanded that Israel stop, the killing would end tomorrow.

    Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Israel slammed over ‘cynical’ sidestep of global rulings on Gazan humanitarian aid

    Asia Pacific Report

    Israel has been accused of “manipulation” and “cynical” circumvention of global decisions calling for unrestricted humanitarian aid access to the besieged Gaza enclave.

    “In a clear act of defiance against international humanitarian obligations, the occupying state has permitted only nine aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip — covering both the devastated north and south,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair Maher Nazzal.

    “This paltry number of trucks represents a deliberate and cynical attempt to circumvent global decisions calling for unrestricted humanitarian access,” he said in a statement as Britain, France and Canada threatened Israel with sanctions and 22 other countries — including New Zealand — jointly condemned Israel over its siege.

    “Under the guise of permitting aid, this token gesture is being used to claim compliance while continuing to suffocate more than two million Palestinians trapped under siege.

    “It is a tactic designed to deflect international criticism and ease diplomatic pressure without meaningfully alleviating the catastrophic conditions faced by civilians.

    “This is not aid — it is manipulation.”

    Nazzal said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza demanded immediate, full, and unhindered access to food, water, medical supplies, and shelter for all areas of the Strip.

    “The international community must see through these performative measures and act decisively,” he said.

    “We call on governments, humanitarian agencies, and civil society around the world to intensify public and political pressure on the occupying state.

    “It is imperative that world leaders hold it accountable for its ongoing violations and demand an end to the blockade, the siege, and these deceptive, life-threatening tactics.”

    Every minute of delay cost lives, Nazzal said.

    “Nine trucks are not enough. Gaza needs justice, not crumbs.”


    UK, France and Canada threaten Israel with sanctions.   Video: Al Jazeera

    Time to expel ambassador
    Letters to the editor in New Zealand newspapers have become increasingly critical of Israel’s war conduct and “atrocities”.

    In one letter headed Time to Act in The New Zealand Herald today, Liz Eastmond said it was time for the government to apply sanctions and expel the Israeli ambassador.

    “The daily average number of those Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza is 90 plus, and the United Nations states that 70 percent are women and children,” she wrote.

    “After 16 months of brutal onslaught, now including starvation, inside a walled enclave, isn’t it about time our government spoke up regarding this great atrocity of our time? At the very least, by demanding a ceasefire, applying sanctions and expelling the Israeli ambassador?

    “That is the obvious route for a last-ditch attempt to be on ‘the right side of history’.”

    In another letter, headed Standing by Helpless, Allan Bell or Torbay wrote:

    “Countries stand by helpless as the Israelis bomb and shell Palestinians at will in Gaza.

    “Rather than negotiate the peaceful return of the hostages, Israel has cynically used them to justify this slaughter.

    “The use of starvation and destruction amounts to eradication and annihilation.

    “We have protested through the United Nations (an organisation long ignored by the Israelis) to no effect. It’s time to send their ambassador home and close their embassy. A token gesture maybe, but at least we can say we did something.”

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ joins call for Israel to allow full resumption of aid to Gaza

    New Zealand has joined 22 other countries and the European Union in calling for Israel to allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza immediately.

    The partners also said Israel must enable the United Nations and humanitarian organisations to work independently and impartially “to save lives, reduce suffering, and maintain dignity.”

    Israel imposed a blockade on humanitarian aid on March 2.

    The joint statement said food, medicines and essential supplies were exhausted and the population faced starvation.

    Israel recently proposed private companies take over handing out aid in Gaza’s south, a solution backed by the United States but criticised by the United Nations. Israel claimed aid was being stolen by Hamas, which Hamas denied.

    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said yesterday New Zealand wanted the conflict finished “a long, long time ago”, and the situation was getting worse.

    “We believe the excuse that Israel’s got has long since evaporated away, given the suffering that’s going on. Many countries share our view — that’s why overnight we put out the statement,” he said.

    Call for ‘desperately needed’ aid
    The joint statement said Gaza’s people must receive the aid they desperately needed.

    “As humanitarian donors, we have two straightforward messages for the government of Israel — allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza immediately, and enable the UN and humanitarian organisations to work independently and impartially to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity.”

    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters . . . “We believe the excuse that Israel’s got has long since evaporated.” Image: RNZ/ Reece Baker

    The statement acknowledged a “limited restart” of aid, but said the UN and humanitarian partners did not support Israel’s proposed new model for delivering aid into Gaza.

    “The UN has raised concerns that the proposed model cannot deliver aid effectively, at the speed and scale required. It places beneficiaries and aid workers at risk, undermines the role and independence of the UN and our trusted partners, and links humanitarian aid to political and military objectives.”

    The statement also called for an immediate return to a ceasefire, and work towards the implementation of a two-state solution.

    The partners reiterated a call for Hamas to immediately release all remaining hostages and allow humanitarian assistance to be distributed “without interference”.

    The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

    It was also signed by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management and the EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Open letter from John Cusack: ‘The children of Gaza need your outrage – end the siege’

    Pacific Media Watch

    American film star celebrity John Cusack, who describes himself on his x-page bio as an “apocalyptic shit-disturber”, has posted an open letter to the world denouncing the Israeli “mass murder” in Gaza and calling for “your outrage”.

    While warning the public to “don’t stop talking about Palestine/Gaza”, he says that the “hollow ‘both sides’ rhetoric is complicity with power”.

    “This is not a debate with two sides that can be normalised — and all the hired bullshit in print and on tv will never change the narrative,” he said.

    Palestinian freelance photojournalist Fatma Hassouna . . . murdered in an Israeli air strike on after it was announced about her film on Gaza being screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Image: Fatma Hassouna

    His statement comes as hundreds of directors, writers, actors have denounced Israeli genocide in Gaza and the film industry’s “silence,” “indifference” and “passivity” coinciding with the Cannes Film Festival.

    More than 350 prominent directors, writers and actors signed an open letter condemning the genocide and the “official inaction” of the film industry in regard to the mass suffering.

    The industry open letter was published on the first day of the Cannes festival. It began by calling attention to the fate of 25-year-old Fatma Hassouna, a Palestinian freelance photojournalist, who was murdered in an Israeli air strike on April 16.

    She was assassinated after it was announced that Iranian director Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she Hassouna was the star, had been selected in the ACID parallel, independent film section of the festival.

    She was about to get married.

    Cusack’s own open letter, offered as a template at X@JohnCusack last week, said:

    “To Whom it May Still Concern

    “There is a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. Not a metaphor, not a tragedy in the abstract — a genocide. Carried out in real time, in front of satellites, smartphones, and sanitized press conferences. And what has the so-called “land of the free” done? Applauded. Armed. Rationalised. Looked away.


    London protest: ‘No to another Nakba”    Video: Al Jazeera

    “The blood in Gaza does not just stain the hands of those launching the missiles. It stains every hand that signs off on the bombs, every hand that wrings itself in liberal anguish but does nothing, and every hand that beats its chest in right-wing bloodlust cheering it all on.

    “The American far right sees in this mass killing a projection of its own fantasies — walls, camps, and the unrelenting dehumanisation of the “other.” No surprise there. And where are the liberals? Their silence is violence. Their hollow “both sides” rhetoric is complicity with power. And mass murder. And the machine of empire—greased with our taxes, shielded by our media, and excused by our moral debauchery .
    How’s everybody at the Met gala doing tonight ?

    American actor John Cusack . . . “If you claim to care about justice – if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause – then your voice should be raised now.” Image: Wikipedia

    “If you claim to care about justice — if you ever marched, ever lit a candle for any cause — then your voice should be raised now. Or it means nothing. The children of Gaza do not need your sorrow. They need your outrage. Your pressure. Your courage.

    “End the siege. End the weapons shipments. End the lies. Call this what it is: a genocide.

    “And if your politics cannot confront that—then your politics are worthless.

    “In furious solidarity

    “John Cusack”

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –