And from that caricature flows a conclusion that should horrify any person of conscience — that it is therefore perfectly justifiable for America, Israel, or any other country to bomb Iran, kill its people, and destroy its infrastructure.

This is not analysis. It is the recycling of propaganda as a substitute for thought. And it has real consequences — because populations that are kept ignorant of history can be mobilised to support atrocities committed in their name.

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Iran is not a cartoon. It is one of the world’s oldest and most sophisticated civilisations.

And its anger at America is not irrational. It is the entirely rational response of a people to whom history has been profoundly, systematically unjust.

Let me show you why.

The original theft
To understand Iran today, you must begin not in 1979, but in 1908.

In that year, on the sun-baked plains of Khuzestan, workers drilling for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company struck black gold at Masjid-i-Suleiman — the first great oil discovery in the Middle East.

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which would later become the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and ultimately British Petroleum — the BP that today trades on the London Stock Exchange as a pillar of corporate respectability — had found the resource that would not merely enrich its shareholders, but change the course of world history.

The discovery was not merely commercially significant. It was strategically transformative.

Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had made the fateful decision to convert the Royal Navy’s warships from coal to oil before the First World War — giving Britain’s fleet superior speed and range, but making it utterly dependent on a secure oil supply.

Iranian oil did not merely enrich British shareholders. It powered the British Empire’s ability to wage and win the greatest war in human history. The Iranian people received almost nothing in return.

For decades, Britain extracted Iran’s oil under terms of stunning inequality. Iranian workers toiled in dangerous conditions for poverty wages. Iranian communities near the oilfields lived without electricity, running water, or basic sanitation — while British staff enjoyed swimming pools, clubs, and comfortable salaries.

The Iranian government received a pittance in royalties, and was denied even the right to audit the company’s accounts. Iran’s greatest natural treasure was being systematically looted, and the Iranian people knew it.

A man arose who decided to say: enough.

Mosaddegh and the ‘crime of democracy’
Mohammed Mosaddegh was everything the West claims to want in a Middle Eastern leader. He was democratically elected. He was secular. He was a constitutional lawyer steeped in European liberal tradition, who had studied in Paris and Neuchâtel.

He wore suits, not robes. He believed in parliamentary democracy, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.

In 1951, as Prime Minister, he did something unforgivable. He nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, returning Iran’s oil to its rightful owners — the Iranian people. The Iranian Parliament voted for it unanimously. The Iranian street erupted in celebration.

For the first time in their modern history, Iranians dared to believe that the wealth beneath their feet might actually benefit them.

Britain was apoplectic. The Americans were alarmed. And so, in August 1953, the CIA and MI6 launched Operation Ajax — one of the most consequential covert operations in modern history.

They bribed Iranian generals, hired thugs to create street chaos, spread disinformation, and toppled the democratically elected government of a sovereign nation.

Mosaddegh was arrested, tried, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He died in 1967, never having been broken, never having recanted — a man of extraordinary dignity whose only crime was wanting his country’s wealth to belong to his country’s people.

In his place, the West reinstalled Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi — and handed him SAVAK, one of the most feared secret police forces in the world, to keep his people in line.

This is the original sin. This is where the story truly begins.

The Shah’s gilded cage
The Shah that America restored and sustained was not a moderniser, whatever his propaganda claimed. He was a man of spectacular vanity and profound disconnect from his own people.

Consider this extraordinary fact: Mohammed Reza Shah held his coronation not once, but effectively twice. He had been on the throne since 1941, but waited until 1967 — 26 years — to hold his formal coronation, because he felt the circumstances had never been grand enough for a ceremony befitting his self-image.

When he finally crowned himself, in a ceremony of breathtaking opulence, ordinary Iranians watched from a distance that was not merely physical.

But the coronation was merely a rehearsal for the true performance of imperial delusion — the celebrations at Persepolis in October 1971.

To mark the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, the Shah staged a spectacle that remains one of the most extraordinary acts of self-aggrandisement in modern political history. Heads of state and royalty from across the world were flown in. A tent city of 50 lavish pavilions was constructed in the desert near the ruins of Persepolis, the ancient Achaemenid capital.

The tents themselves — along with virtually everything else — were imported from France.

Maxim’s of Paris catered the meals. Guests dined on quail eggs stuffed with caviar, crayfish mousse, and roast lamb, washed down with vintage Bordeaux. Iranian culture was largely absent from a celebration ostensibly honouring Iranian civilisation.

The Iranian people were spectators at a party thrown in their name, to which they were not invited.

The estimated cost was anywhere between US$100 million and $300 million — at a time when millions of Iranians lived in poverty, lacking clean water, adequate healthcare, or basic education.

The Iranian people drew their conclusions.

Khomeini’s rational revolution
When Ayatollah Khomeini offered the Iranian people his theory of velayat-e-faqih — the guardianship of the Islamic jurist — and proposed an Islamic Republic as the vessel for a new Iranian order, he was not offering them theology alone. He was offering them dignity.

He was offering them the promise that Iran’s sovereignty, Iran’s resources, and Iran’s future would belong to Iranians — not to the Shah’s court, not to Western oil companies, not to American strategic planners in Washington.

The Iranian revolution of 1979 was a mass movement of extraordinary breadth. Secular nationalists, leftists, intellectuals, bazaar merchants, students, and the religious poor all marched together.

They had different visions of what would come after — but they were united in what they were marching against. A corrupt, repressive monarchy sustained by American power and serving American interests, which had delivered neither freedom nor prosperity to its own people.

When the American Embassy was seized and diplomats taken hostage, the West erupted in outrage. But behind that act was a simple, searing Iranian fear — that America would do in 1979 what it had done in 1953. That Washington would organise another coup, reinstall the Shah, and extinguish the revolution.

The hostage crisis was many things — chaotic, counterproductive, damaging to Iran’s own interests — but it was not irrational. It was the desperate act of a people who had already been betrayed once by American power and were determined not to be betrayed again.

When America armed the man who gassed Iranian children
If the 1953 coup was the original sin, the Iran-Iraq war was the confirmation — the moment that removed any remaining doubt in Iranian minds about what American power truly meant for their people.

In September 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran. It was an act of naked aggression against a revolutionary government that was still finding its footing, launched with the tacit encouragement of Washington, which viewed the chaos of revolutionary Iran as an opportunity to be exploited.

The war that followed lasted eight years. It consumed perhaps one million lives. It was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century’s second half — and it has been almost entirely erased from Western historical memory.

What has been even more comprehensively erased is America’s role in sustaining it.

As the war ground on and Iranian forces began pushing back Iraqi advances, Washington made a decision of breathtaking cynicism. It could not allow Iran to win.

And so America began providing Saddam Hussein with satellite intelligence on Iranian troop positions, military equipment, and — most damningly of all — with the precursor chemicals for the weapons that Saddam would use to commit one of the most documented war crimes of the modern era.

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian forces on a massive scale — mustard gas, tabun, sarin. Thousands of Iranian soldiers died in agonising chemical attacks. And Washington knew.

American officials knew that Iraq was using chemical weapons. The intelligence community reported it. And the Reagan administration made a deliberate policy decision to continue supporting Saddam regardless — because an Iranian victory was deemed strategically unacceptable.

The most haunting chapter came not on a battlefield but in a Kurdish village. In March 1988, Iraqi forces attacked Halabja with chemical weapons, killing thousands of Kurdish civilians — men, women, and children — in a single day.

It was the largest chemical weapons attack against a civilian population in history. And even then, Washington’s response was muted, carefully calibrated to avoid jeopardising its strategic relationship with Baghdad.

Iranian mothers who lost sons to American-supplied chemical weapons are still alive today. Iranian veterans who survived those attacks carry the physical scars — destroyed lungs, ravaged skin, broken bodies — into old age. Iran has never forgotten. Iran will never forget.

And yet Western commentators express bewilderment at the “Death to America” chant.
Consider for a moment what that chant actually represents, stripped of its theatrical staging.

It represents the voice of a mother whose son was gassed with chemicals whose precursors passed through American hands. It represents the voice of a nation that had its democracy stolen in 1953, its resources plundered for decades before that, its revolution encircled and sanctioned, and its sons killed in a war that America prolonged deliberately to prevent Iranian victory.

If any Western nation had suffered a fraction of what Iran has suffered at the hands of a foreign power, that chant would be taught in schools as an anthem of righteous resistance. It would be celebrated in films and memorialised in monuments. Instead, because it is directed at American power, it is presented as evidence of Iranian “irrationality”. The arrogance required to sustain that position is staggering.

47 years of punishment
Since 1979, the United States has imposed on Iran some of the most comprehensive and punishing sanctions ever inflicted on any nation in modern history. Sanctions on oil. Sanctions on banking. Sanctions on technology. Sanctions on medicine. Sanctions that have impoverished ordinary Iranians, denied patients access to life-saving drugs, and strangled an economy of 93 million people.

And surrounding Iran on all sides — in the Gulf, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Arabian Peninsula — America has built a vast archipelago of military bases, projecting power and telegraphing threat. Iran has been encircled, economically strangled, and subjected to covert warfare including the assassination of its nuclear scientists on its own streets.

Throughout all of this, Iran has survived. It has adapted. It has built regional influence through patient statecraft, cultivating allies across Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. It has advanced its nuclear programme not out of theological ambition but out of the entirely rational calculation that the only nations America does not attack are those that possess nuclear deterrence.

Justice delayed
When analysts speak of America’s strategic defeat in its confrontation with Iran, they reach for the language of geopolitics and military balance. But there is another language that must be spoken — the language of history.

For 47 years, a people of ancient civilisation, extraordinary intellectual depth, and justified grievance have been punished for the crime of reclaiming their own sovereignty. They were punished for Mosaddegh’s ghost. They were punished for daring to say no to a superpower that had grown accustomed to treating the Middle East as its private strategic estate.

The “Death to America” chant that so offends Western sensibilities did not emerge from the Quran. It emerged from Operation Ajax. It emerged from SAVAK’s torture chambers. It emerged from Persepolis while children went hungry. It emerged from sanctions that killed patients who could not obtain medicine.

It emerged from chemical weapons whose precursors passed through American hands. It emerged from a history that the West has studiously refused to confront — because confronting it would require acknowledging that the rage it provokes is not irrational.

It is the entirely rational response of a people to whom history has been profoundly, systematically unjust.

Understanding this does not require endorsing every act of the Islamic Republic. It requires only honesty — the willingness to read history as it actually happened, rather than as Western convenience has chosen to remember it.

Iran is not a cartoon. It is a civilisation. And civilisations have long memories.

Much of the historical foundation of this piece draws on two remarkable books that I commend to every serious reader: Michael Axworthy’s Revolutionary Iran — Axworthy served as Head of the Iran Section at the British Foreign Office before becoming one of the foremost academic authorities on modern Iran — and Scott Anderson’s Shah of Shahs. They changed how I understand this civilisation. They may change how you understand it too.

Lim Tean is a Singaporean lawyer, politician and commentator. He is the founder of the political party People’s Voice and a co-founder of the political alliance People’s Alliance for Reform.

Good on the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) for its submission to the Royal Commission.

The New Zealand Jewish Council is so very different to the Jewish Council in Australia. The latter has far larger numbers and more clout, over there at least.

The NZ Jewish Council has clout and applies it. It is heavily involved in New Zealand media, some members are journalists, and it has long been running a hasbara propaganda campaign.

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‘The JCA submission says two important drivers of antisemitism are the “growth of far-right, neo-Nazi and conspiracist movements, which represent a significant and often overlooked threat to Jewish communities, and the aggressive actions of the state of Israel and conflation of Jewish identity with Israel”.’

— The Guardian

Freebies to Israel if you play the toxic game — dehumanise Palestinians, deem them all terrorists, and declare Israel the promised land for one people, not the other.

The New Zealand Jewish Council spreads lies. I know this for a fact. One of its key members who is lauded in New Zealand film and television defamed John Minto, a humanitarian, called him antisemitic, I challenged that and asked him to provide evidence.

Of course there was none. This man who is Jewish and influential in entertainment and journalism defamed Damien O’Connor and said he was antisemitic. Again I challenged him and asked for evidence. There was none.

Zionism inflates antisemitism
I have news for Zionists and their allies in the media who are doing this. Conflating anti-Zionism and antisemitism inflates antisemitism. They know it.

It is not fair, is not sensible, rational or compassionate. It is baiting and inciting.

The NZ Jewish Council applies one law for Jews and one for Muslims, different standards completely. One can be the victim, the other is never the victim, in its view.

I previously supported the NZ Jewish Council when I witnessed media bias in a programme featuring a former Waffen SS officer who praised Hitler and claimed he did not know about what happened to the Jews. It was impossible not to know about the systemic murder of masses of Jews, then and now.

When the evidence points to the contrary, the journalist should call it, everytime. Evidence.

This Gaza genocide. More than 75,000 killed — children, little children, babies, women, aid workers, journalists. A target on their backs for being Palestinian.

I have been appalled at the NZ Jewish Council’s double standards, its staunch sense of entitlement, its clear political view that the only good Jews are Zionists, its supremacism.

Stalwart Zionists
The NZ Jewish Council is run by and supported by stalwart Zionists. It does not represent humanitarian Jews because it is Zionist, because it fails to call out a genocide which has murdered tens of thousands of infants, aid workers, and more journalists than World War One and Two combined and the total number of recent wars.

Genocide is not a conflict, it is not a war. The massacres have been carried out since the Nakba. It was always the plan.

Jews have fought against Zionism, literally. The Bund. Jews against Zionism.

Not all Jews are Zionists and the NZ Jewish Council fails to recognise it and support those who support all people equally.

I know about antisemitism. When I worked in a shop I was asked if I was Jewish, when I asked why the question was asked, I was told by the customer that they would never buy from a Jew. My grandfather’s people hid their Jewishness due to anti-semitism.

My aunt was yelled at in the street: ‘You black Jews are all the same’. I know the difference between antisemitism and pro-colonisation Zionism, one supports equality and the other robs other people of their rights.

I stand firmly with the most oppressed people in the world, Palestinians, and for the dismantling of the state of supremacism, apartheid and genocide, a state which always had a policy of steal the land, assimilate those who won’t resist, and exile and exterminate the rest.

And this is why I say it is antisemitic to support the Zionist state. When we free Palestinians we free ourselves from the chains of one kind of victimhood. The victimhood that leads people to become persecutors and create more victims. Zionism.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

AMY GOODMAN: In Britain, Keir Starmer has announced his resignation as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party following growing pressure from within the Labour Party to step down.

Starmer spoke earlier on Monday:

PRIME MINISTER KEIR STARMER: The chance to change the lives of millions of people for the better, that’s what I came into politics for.

Six years ago, I inherited a Labour Party that was politically, financially and morally bankrupt. I was told time and time again that my party was finished, that we were consigned to history, that a majority at the general election, let alone a landslide majority, was impossible.

But we proved those people wrong, because we changed our party, ripping out the poison of antisemitism, restoring trust on the economy, defenCe and national security, and becoming a party that once again stood proudly with, not against, our national flag.

AMY GOODMAN: Starmer’s election as prime minister in 2024 ended more than a decade of Conservative rule in the UK. But during his time in office, he has faced mounting opposition over his embrace of austerity measures and a cost-of-living crisis in Britain, as well as his crackdown on Palestinian solidarity protesters.

Starmer’s announcement paves the way for Britain to have its seventh leader in 10 years. Former Manchester mayor, newly elected Labour MP Andy Burnham, is widely expected to become the next prime minister.

However, some leaders of the British left have warned Burnham may do little to shift from Starmer’s policies. British MP Jeremy Corbyn, who led the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020, said Burnham’s, quote, “basic economic strategy and views seem to me to be accepting too much of the austerity we’ve had imposed on us,” and added in an interview with Sky News that Burnham, “doesn’t appear to be doing anything different internationally,” referring to Britain’s supply of weapons to Israel for its war on Gaza and beyond.

We’re joined now in Paris, France, by Geoffrey Robertson, renowned human rights lawyer, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, Europe’s largest human rights law practice. He has been widely described as a mentor to Starmer, who worked at the law firm for nearly two decades. Geoffrey Robertson is also a former UN judge who ran the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone. His most recent book is titled World of War Crimes: Eyeless in Gaza … and Beyond.

Geoffrey Robertson, before we ask you about Britain’s crackdown on Palestine solidarity activists, the so-called “Elbit 4”, we want to get your response to the announcement by the prime minister that he is stepping down.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Well, there is a connection, you know. I advised him over the weekend that if he had the numbers — or, if he didn’t have the numbers, he should do a deal with Burnham, who is the obvious favorite to succeed him, because he’s a bit more charismatic than Keir, who’s a bit dull for the public taste.

But if he didn’t have the numbers, he shouldn’t resign, but rather do a deal with Burnham that he became his foreign minister, because Keir Starmer, in my view, has been absolutely brilliant as prime minister dealing with foreign affairs, most importantly, of course, dealing with Donald Trump. And he has not conceded to Trump.

He has not joined in the illegality of the invasion of Iran, as Trump was insisting. He’s kept the distance and kept Britain out of the war crimes that Trump has tried to pull it into. So, for that reason, I hope he stays on in that capacity, but we don’t know.

If he had the numbers, I advised him to make a speech accepting that he made several mistakes, which he has. He has, for example, in relation to the left. And the leftwing of the Labour Party is, if you like, the beating heart of the party. They don’t know or don’t accept the need ever for economic austerity, but they have got the heart and soul of what is traditionally the Labour Party.

And they were upset by his support for Israel. In particular, they were upset by his prohibition on any protest from Palestine Action, a group that protests about Israeli attacks on Palestine. And he had them banned and had — over 3000 people are now awaiting trial for holding up banners saying that they support Palestine Action.

So, that kind of thing lost him popularity in the Labour Party. It was his attack on the left, his fraying out of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, who led it for several years, and Keir was one of the ministers. That just wasn’t seen as just.

So, if he moved a little more to the left, and — he may well have kept the party onside, but I think he really lost support in the party because he was perceived as too rightwing for it and because he was too boring. He lacked charisma.

Everyone went around saying this, from a party whose most uncharismatic leader was Clement Attlee, just after war, had no charisma whatsoever, but did the great thing that Britain now boasts of, like the National Health Service, and so forth.

So, it’s sad that charisma is now a quality for leading the Labour Party, but there it is.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been fierce in criticising governments like the US and Britain, as well, for its approach to Israel and Palestine, and you specifically talk about what’s happened to Palestine Action.

Last week, four Palestine Action activists in Britain were sentenced as “terrorists” over their involvement in a 2024 protest and raid on a factory operated by one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, Elbit Systems. In May, the four activists, known as the Elbit 4, were found guilty of criminal damage for destroying property at the Elbit facility.

But unbeknown to lawyers or the jury, the judge in the case added a terrorism component to the case months earlier. It’s the first time a judge has issued terrorism sentencing enhancements on people who were not actually charged with or convicted of terrorism.

Their prison sentences range from four to over seven years. They must also legally register to a law enforcement terrorist surveillance system for 15 years following their release from prison.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told Novara Media in response: “This is the first case, and therefore the test case, for trying to convict activists as terrorists, using a manipulated court process.”

So, Geoffrey Robertson, you just wrote a piece for the new magazine The Key, headlined “Punishing Protest as Terrorism.” Can you explain the significance of what happened in this case, and put it in the context of your new book, World of War Crimes: Eyeless in Gaza … and Beyond?

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Well, it goes like this. For several centuries, Britain’s democracy has been affected, influenced, improved by protest, protests for the vote. The vote for women came about because of quite violent protests, and the vote generally. I mean, we could go back and look at the way protest movements of one sort or another, particularly in America, were actually led by people who were devoted democrats.

And now we have a situation where, thanks to a law passed by the Conservative government, not by Labour, recently, a few years ago, that sentencing cases where you have quite ordinary crimes that protesters often commit, like criminal damage, usually dealt with by a fine or an 18-month sentence, if the damage was bad, is now — can be coupled by the judge — not the jury, but the judge can, if he decides in his own mind that they’re terrorists, he can make them go to prison for a lot longer, be labelled as terrorists, be discriminated against in prison.

All sorts of bad things can happen to these young, usually, and sincere, but maybe headstrong, protesters, because although they’re — all they want to do is to change the attitude of the British government, which was very slow in complaining about the massive killings in Gaza. That’s all they want to do, and yet that is a ground this judge the other day, dealing with four protesters who smashed up a little bit of Elbit, the drone manufacturers — this judge secretly decided that they were terrorists, and so could do all those harsh things to them.

And that, I think, is one matter which needs to be sorted, because we have Mr. Vance coming over and telling us how we get things wrong, and this would be a good example of because it’s quite contrary to our idea of justice that anyone should be sent to prison for long periods and have all this discrimination against them, when they haven’t been convicted by a jury.

AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to end by naming the Elbit 4, as they are known, and who they are: Leona Kamio, 30 years old, a nursery school teacher; Samuel Corner, 23, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, students; and Charlotte Head, 30, a domestic abuse case worker.

The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

The Free Press, an American news organisation founded by the Zionist editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss, and now owned by David Ellison, reported recently that the Trump administration had launched an investigation into Trita Parsi, one of America’s most prominent critics of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The aim is to revoke his legal permanent residency, which he has held for some 15 years — and deport him.

In the wake of the article, the US State Department took the unusual step of denying that any such investigation exists; the article came after pro-Israel activist Laura Loomer has repeatedly pressured the Trump administration to deport Parsi, suggesting that the lobby is trying to produce an investigation where none exists.

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That The Free Press would participate in this campaign is as shameful as it is expected. Anyone who supports an actual free press must speak out now.

The attack on Trita Parsi, co-founder of the think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a well-respected and widely known advocate for a more restrained American foreign policy, is intended to stifle dissent.

If this debacle in Iran taught us anything, it should be that launching a new war without public debate portends catastrophe. Trita Parsi’s critics are calling him an enemy of the United States, but if the country had listened to him, we would be much better off today.

Best of being American
Trita truly represents the best of what it means to be an American with his courage to speak the truth no matter whether that truth is popular in the moment.

But it doesn’t even matter if he was right. In America, we believe freedom of speech is sacrosanct.

At Drop Site News, the American Conservative, and Breaking Points, we don’t agree on everything, but we do agree that without freedom of expression, without the freedom to criticize our government, all the other freedoms will fall by the wayside.

Trita Parsi on the deportation threat.                     Video: Democracy Now!

We stand with Trita Parsi and we hope you will too. Even if you don’t agree with what he says, we must defend his right to say it.

Petitions are already circulating with tens of thousands of signatures demanding that Parsi be deported.

No sentiment could be less American. But freedom can’t rest on the paper it is written on.

We as a people, right, left, and center, must insist it remain in force.

Republished from Drop Site News.

• The petition against deporting Trita Parsi

COMMENTARY: By Andrew Brown

Israel’s ambassador to Australia has looked at Australian citizens who say they were beaten, tortured and raped, and called them frauds.

Sit with that. A foreign envoy, on Australian soil, telling Australian women that their rape and torture is a performance.

Ambassador Hillel Newman and his embassy say there is no credible evidence, brand the 11 Australians professional provocateurs, and say the allegations are already proven false. To the survivors’ families, the embassy said its forces treated detainees with great sensitivity.

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On ABC radio, Newman called the AFP investigation a mistake and warned that if he decided it was a witch hunt, he was not sure how Israel would respond.

How dare he? How dare a foreign ambassador stand in this country and tell Australian women that what was done to them never happened? How dare he reduce Juliet Lamont to a propagandist before one piece of evidence has been tested? A woman who says she was beaten, cable-tied and raped, who has the medical record of a fractured coccyx.

That is not diplomacy. It is

the demonisation of rape victims by the representative of the state they are accusing.

Understand who else he is calling a liar. Penny Wong, the Foreign Minister of Australia, sat with these survivors and told the country she believes them, calling their treatment horrific and unacceptable.

Anne Aly, a minister of the Crown, was also there. So was a senior DFAT official, and a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

By Lamont’s account, every woman in that room believed her, thanked her, and told her she was brave.

So when Newman says the survivors are lying,

he is saying the Foreign Minister of Australia is lying.

He is saying a minister of the Crown is a fool and the federal police are running a witch hunt against the truth. A foreign ambassador has called the senior leadership of the Australian government dupes for daring to believe Australian women.

No contest of the facts
Newman has not contested one allegation with one fact. No ship log. No operational order. No footage. No medical record.

He confirms no request for further footage has even been answered, and says Israel alone will decide whether the AFP is worthy of seeing it. The accused wants to vet his own investigators while branding the victims liars.

That is not a government with nothing to hide.

It is one that has decided contempt is cheaper than cooperation.

Now watch who sprinted to stand beside him. The Australian Jewish Association, the word “Australian” sitting right there in its name and never meaning less.

Confronted with Australians who say they were raped in Israeli custody, the AJA did not call for Israel to be investigated, did not demand it hand over the evidence, and did not stand behind a single Australian woman.

Instead, its chief executive, Robert Gregory, wrote to the AFP Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, demanding the flotilla participants, the Australian citizens, be investigated.

Read that twice, because it is grotesque.

An outfit waving the Australian flag asked Australian police to hunt Australian rape complainants on behalf of the foreign government accused of raping them, and called it “patriotism”.

So drop the pretence and ask where its loyalty lies. Not with the women. Not with the law. Not with the country whose name it wears like a costume. It lies with Israel, and only Israel.

Given a clean choice between abused Australians and the power that abused them, it chose the power and reached for the nearest Australian institution to use as a weapon against Australians.

Juliet Lamont was raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers. this is her story, told by Andrew Brown. #gaza #flotilla #auspol #IDFhttps://t.co/cDagAsu0gK

— Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) June 11, 2026

Murdoch’s complicity
Then there is Sky News. Handed a story about Australian women alleging rape and torture, the Murdoch network did not interview the survivors, did not put Penny Wong on air, and did not call the AFP.

It handed the microphone to the AJA and let Gregory’s demand to investigate the victims run as the story.

Faced with tortured Australians on one side and the lobby smearing them on the other, Sky knew exactly whose talking points to broadcast. That is not journalism. It is a foreign state’s propaganda, laundered through an Australian network and sold to Australians as though the victims were the villains.

Three voices, one message. A foreign ambassador, a lobby cosplaying as Australian, and a network that has forgotten which country it broadcasts in, all telling this nation that its tortured citizens are liars and that the people who really need investigating are the Australians who came home with broken bones.

There is a word for siding with a foreign power against your own abused citizens. It is not patriotism. It is the opposite. How un-Australian can you be?

This is the same Israeli government whose minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sanctioned by Australia, filmed the detained Australians and captioned it “welcome to Israel”.

France and Italy have opened war crimes proceedings. Canada has demanded an independent investigation. The survivors have lodged sworn affidavits with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The answers from Newman, the AJA, and Sky News are identical.

Deny everything. Smear the witnesses. Investigate the victims. Protect the state.

So hand it over. Every report, every order, every communication, every witness, every second of footage. If Israel has nothing to hide, it has nothing to fear.

Its ambassador says the survivors are lying. The survivors, and the Foreign Minister who believes them, say otherwise. The evidence will decide.

The world is watching. So are Australians. The time for denials is ending. The time for evidence has arrived.

Something significant and revelatory just happened in the New Zealand Parliament. I was present at today’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting when things kicked off between the Foreign Minister and humanitarian aid activist Hāhona Ormsby, one of the New Zealanders who survived kidnapping and beatings by Israeli forces in May.

Despite the presence of many well-known pro-Palestinian activists, there was no security in the room when things turned spicy. By the time security raced into the room the minister had lost all composure and repeatedly shouted at Ormsby, “You’re a liar!”

Ormsby may have breached parliamentary rules when he rose to challenge Winston Peters but he felt it was a price worth paying.

• READ MORE: ‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters
• A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
• The Global Sumud Aotearoa dossier answering Israeli claims
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare

“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First? Ormsby shot at the minister, leader of the New Zealand First Party. Turning to see the speaker, Peters appeared to recognise the tattooed face (mata ora) of Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto).

The chair tried to shut things down but Ormsby continued, “Are you going to sanction Israel? Are we going to investigate Israel for the people on the fleet that were brutally beaten and tortured?”

When Ormsby identified himself as one of the activists who had been held captive and severely beaten by the Israelis, Peters shouted, “Get out of here! You’re a liar!”

Another activist shot back: “You’re a war criminal.”

A priceless moment
This was a priceless moment because it revealed something enormously important: Peters believes what Itamar Ben-Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli ambassador are saying and denies the evidence of 430 activists who were kidnapped and taken to Israel in May.

Some were hospitalised immediately on arriving in Türkiye. Winston takes the word of indicted war criminals in preference to medical examiners and lawyers who attended the activists on arrival in Türkiye.

Denying his own lying eyes, he waves away the black eyes, broken noses, deep wounds and other clearly visible injuries. Peters said there was “no evidence of brutality”.

Above all, he is calling fine New Zealanders, several of whom I know and respect, liars. He is calling Samuel Leason, Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Rana Hamida, Julien Blondel, Sean Janssen and Hāhona Ormsby liars on the word of a state that invented a new form of lying — hasbara — a billion-dollar propaganda campaign to frame their genocidal violence as self-defence.

By impugning the good name of some of our finest citizens Winston Peters betrays his duty to defend New Zealand and puts at risk Kiwis who continue their non-violent campaign to open a humanitarian corridor to the suffering people of Palestine.

Meanwhile, even Australia has, on instruction from Winston’s counterpart Penny Wong, launched an investigation into testimonies of rape and torture by Australian members of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

France, Italy, Poland, Türkiye and others have launched investigations over crimes including unlawful interception and piracy, rape and other sexual violence, torture, systematic abuse and illegal detention.

Countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have issued stinging rebukes. Malaysia is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.

Surprise for Global Sumud Delegation
Just the day before, to the surprise of the Global Sumud Delegation, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs (after having done absolutely nothing since Israeli forces attacked the flotilla in international waters) sent them an email offering to pass on any information about mistreatment to the Israelis.

It triggered suspicion as to motives. Today’s exchange reveals that MFAT and its minister had already made up their minds.

Rana Hamida of Global Sumud Aotearoa said: “Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists. The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.”

I tell Hāhona Ormsby’s story in detail in “He’s Māori!” Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the gruesome Israeli prison system”.

‘Is it NZ First, or Israel First?’ Ormsby challenges NZ foreign minister Peters #asiapacificreport #globalsumudflotilla @gbsumudflotilla #KiaOraGaza @1ElegantFriends #Israeliabuse #israelitorture #HumanRightsMatter https://t.co/ox6qZMhwLh pic.twitter.com/OVVWfYIPeC

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 18, 2026

Ormsby’s action today in a parliamentary select committee clearly breached rules. It was, however, acting in the long tradition of those who have the courage to oppose complicity with tyranny and oppression.

As such, he stands in the company of the great Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, my friend and former CIA veteran Ray McGovern, Greta Thunberg and so many others who have raised their citizen voices in the halls of power and calmly accepted the indignity of being frog-marched out of buildings for doing so.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. 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 he hosts solidarity.co.nz

A member of the Aotearoa delegation on the Global Sumud flotilla humanitarian aid mission seeking to break the illegal Gaza enclave blockade imposed by Israel since 2007 clashed with New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters in a parliamentary hearing yesterday.

Peters was attempting to defend his heavily criticised government response to Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — while speaking to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee yesterday.

Peters was answering a line of questions from MPs on whether New Zealand had spoken strongly enough against Israel, when Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) — a flotilla activist who was brutally abused by Israeli military after being kidnapped in the Mediterranean sea near Cyprus last month and detained — stood up and interrupted him.

• READ MORE: A world first: Australia will now investigate Israel over Gaza flotilla brutality
• France opens ‘war crimes’ probe into Israel’s treatment of Gaza activists
• Other allegations of Israeli brutality against Gaza flotilla activists
• The Global Sumud Aotearoa dossier answering Israeli claims

“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First?” Ormsby asked.

He then asked whether New Zealand would sanction Israel, or “investigate Israel for the people that were on the flotilla who were brutally beaten and tortured?”

Ormsby and his fellow activists were then ordered by committee chair Tim van de Molen to leave the room. The video livestream feed was also cut during the protest.

Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation activists came to Wellington this week to challenge Peters over what they condemned as “government inaction following the abduction and mistreatment of New Zealand citizens” by the Israeli military forces in both May and last year.

Australia, France, other countries investigating
Unlike Australia, France, Spain, Malaysia, Türkiye and several other countries, New Zealand and Peters have failed to launch a government investigation into the mistreatment of New Zealand citizens.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP), under instruction from Foreign Minister Penny Wong have now launched an investigation into rape and torture by Israeli forces on Australian citizens who were detained in international waters.

“Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists,” a spokesperson for Global Sumud Aotearoa, Rana Hamida, said.

‘Israel both criminal and judge’
“The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.

“Malaysia, for example, is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.”

Hāhona Ormsby, who endured multiple beatings by the Israelis after being seized in international waters and taken to Israel, said: “Calling in the Israeli ambassador and slapping him with a wet bus ticket over tea and scones does not count as meaningful action.”

The government has treated people like Ormsby as a “threat” while doing nothing to hold Israel to account, Global Sumud Aotearoa said in a statement.

“I had two detectives come and interview me this week to assess if I was a ‘threat’. Imagine that? I joined the Sumud flotilla armed with nothing other than aroha and I — a New Zealand citizen — get treated as the problem,” Ormsby said.

“But some Israeli soldier fresh from killing women, children, and babies in Gaza and Lebanon knows they can holiday in New Zealand with no questions asked.”

Global Sumud Aotearoa is demanding that the NZ government launch its own “non-Israeli-led investigation”. New Zealand should coordinate with other governments who had already launched inquiries into the attack on their citizens, the group said in its statement.

‘Interview the activists’
“A first step would be for the government to formally interview our returning activists. Second, the government should liaise with the Turkish authorities who sent planes to Israel to bring over 400 detained Sumud activists to safety in Istanbul.

“It should be noted New Zealand provided absolutely no support whatsoever to their citizens,” the statement said.

All the Sumud people who were flown out of Israel, including the New Zealand citizens, were given medical examinations and forensic interviews in Türkiye.

Some, including Hāhona Ormsby and fellow Kiwi Mousa Taher, received hospital treatment for their injuries.

“MFAT requesting medical records from Türkiye would be a useful place to start,” the Sumud statement said.

Global Sumud Aotearoa has widely distributed a detailed response to “Israeli propaganda that ludicrously suggested that the black eyes, broken noses and ribs inflicted on citizens from over 40 countries was an elaborate hoax”.

“The photo of the damaged face of New Zealand citizen Julien Blondel, beaten by Israelis in an attack in international waters on April 29, should have triggered immediate action by the NZ government,” the statement said.

“The Israelis, realising that New Zealand and other Western governments stood with them, not their own citizens, increased the level of violence in their June attack on over 50 vessels.”

Police have paid $10,000 to veteran activist John Minto after he was unlawfully arrested and pepper-sprayed at a pro-Palestinian protest in Christchurch in 2024.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) last year found Minto’s arrest was unlawful and an officer used excessive and unjustified force.

The payout follows negotiations between police and Minto following the authority’s findings.

• READ MORE: Other pro-Palestine protest reports

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) national organiser Minto, then 70, was charged with obstructing and resisting police during a protest in Lyttelton on Waitangi Day 2024. Charges were later dropped.

Minto said he would donate the money to the group.

He said he was concerned police still disputed the authority’s findings.

A police investigation concluded the officer’s actions were lawful, but he had failed in his duty to provide aftercare after pepper-spraying Minto.

“I’m pleased this issue is now resolved but disturbed that even after the IPCA report, the police have not accepted responsibility for what in this instance was thuggish behaviour,” Minto said.

Writing to minister
He would write to Police Minister Mark Mitchell calling for law changes to make IPCA findings legally binding on police.

IPCA chair Judge Kenneth Johnston KC wrote to Minto last year and said the authority had found inconsistencies between the arresting officer’s account and video footage, which led the authority to “doubt the genuineness” of the officer’s version.

The authority did not accept the police explanation that Minto had moved from where he was standing or that the officer could have perceived Minto as a real threat.

Johnston said the authority considered the possibility of police charging the officer with assault, but could not rule out self-defence. Instead, the authority asked police to consider an employment process for the officer involved. Police declined to do so.

Minto was pepper-sprayed as police arrested another protester. Half an hour later he was himself arrested ostensibly for obstructing the earlier arrest.

The IPCA found there was no case for the obstruction charge and no grounds to suspect Minto had hindered the arrest of the other protester, “or indeed showed any intention of doing so”.

‘Standing lawfully’
“Our view is that you were standing lawfully on the footpath both prior and during the other protester’s arrest. The evidence does not show you advancing past where you were originally standing after being pushed by the officer who pepper sprayed you, and that you were not paying any attention to the arrest.”

Canterbury District Commander Superintendent Tony Hill said, at the time of the authority’s findings, that police were satisfied there were no employment or criminal matters to address.

“It is important to note that the officer involved was one of a group of other officers dealing with policing a large group of people, in a heightened and dynamic environment,” he said.

Police have been approached for comment on the payment to Minto.

Anti-War Aotearoa and Greenpeace are calling on Kiwis to join the March for Peace on June 20 in Auckland. I will be marching.

I will be marching for many of the same reasons that compelled me to march against the Vietnam war in 1973 as a 12-year old — opposition to New Zealand participation in wars of aggression, solidarity with humanity and a belief that peace trumps war.

Soon after that first march, I attended my first rallies outside the South African Consulate in Wellington to protest the Apartheid regime.

• READ MORE: Trump says US-Iran peace deal to be signed today, Tehran disputes
• The March for Peace — why Greenpeace Aotearoa is teaming up with Anti-War Aotearoa  for peaceful protest to demand an end to NZ’s complicity in Trump’s warmongering
• Other peace reports

When history calls, you should answer the call
Two years later, as a 16-year-old, I marched on the final leg of the Te Hīkoi o te Motu, the Māori Land March led by the great Whina Cooper.

I vividly remember heading out into Wellington harbour in 1983 on a small yacht, part of a peace flotilla made up of kayakers, yachties and wind surfers, that tried to stop the USS Texas from berthing.

It won that battle that day but we won the war for a nuclear-free New Zealand.

Peace and Justice were the beating heart of all those causes.  It was about ordinary New Zealanders standing up and saying: Not in Our Name.

We didn’t want our soldiers killing Vietnamese people in Vietnam. We didn’t want our government or our sports people to support the racist South African regime.

We wanted to live in a New Zealand that honoured the Treaty of Waitangi and where both Māori and Pākehā stood shoulder-to-shoulder to build a better country for all New Zealanders.

The election of Norman Kirk’s government was made possible by the protest movement convincing enough New Zealanders that real change was needed.  One of the Kirk government’s first acts was to end our shameful participation in the Vietnam war.

We mobilised. We marched
After the sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior by the French government in Auckland Harbour in 1985, the peace movement went into overdrive. We mobilised. We marched. We took part in campaigns that drove real societal change.

Many of these changes reach down to the present day through legislation like the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, the 1985 revision to The Treaty of Waitangi Act, the Conservation Act 1987, the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 (that means the Crown must act in a manner consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi), and the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986.

Several of these gains are now under threat.

Marching for peace is a great way to show solidarity and to bring together great everyday New Zealanders.

As a side note: the greatest march I ever went on was the Wellington section of Te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti in 2024. Toitū Te Tiriti! It was as big a march as I ever attended in Aotearoa and it was for a cause that should matter deeply to us all.

No one should doubt that getting out and marching is also part of a process — sometimes long and hard — that can lead to powerful changes in national sentiment and put real pressure on political parties to return the country’s policy settings towards justice and a better, kinder, safer Aotearoa.

The organisers of the March for Peace are Greenpeace and Anti-War Aotearoa. They are united around respect for the United Nations Charter and rejection of any support whatsoever for US wars of aggression. I am proud to be counted in their numbers.

Gaza genocide ongoing
The genocide in Gaza and the West Bank has not stopped. The destruction of the communities of Lebanon is ongoing. The sovereign state of Iran is the subject of ongoing US-Israeli aggression in contravention of international law. Cuba is in danger.

We live under a government that has doubled spending on a war machine that — given our alliance with a rogue and hostile USA — will not make us safer. Global research shows the US is seen as the greatest risk to humanity today.

We live under a government that wants our military to be “interoperable” with the Americans. They are  negotiating with the US to give their war machine access to our critical minerals and allow foreign corporations to undertake seabed mining and other environmentally damaging activities.

We live under a government that has money for missiles but ignores the daily horror that 30,000 homeless New Zealand children must endure. Scrapping national subsidies for youth transport and getting rid of thousands of public service jobs whilst finding more and more money for a war on China is madness.

That needs to change. I feel exactly the same passion as I did as a 12-year-old whose political awakening was the US (and New Zealand) war of aggression against Vietnam — even if, at the time, I wasn’t exactly sure what the word “mobilisation” meant!

If you haven’t marched for a long time or if you have never marched but support this cause, here’s my invitation: head down to Aotea Square on June 20 and step forward to March for Peace.

Because marching matters.

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz . This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa.

Eight months on from the so-called “ceasefire” in Gaza, the headlines may have moved on — but Israel’s assault has not.

The siege remains. The starvation continues. The displacement continues. The destruction continues.

“The Palestinian people, with their heroism and sacrifice, are fighting a struggle for all of us against a new wave of brutal colonialism.”

• READ MORE: Israeli attacks kill three in Gaza as post-‘ceasefire’ deaths hit 983
• Protesters at Auckland’s Defying Definitions of Woman and Man Bill prior to the Stop Wars Aotearoa rally
• Other Palestine reports

This week on The Tea, we speak to Dr Mads Gilbert, the award-winning Norwegian doctor and long-standing advocate for Palestinian liberation.

Having worked in Gaza for decades, Dr Gilbert offers a devastating account of what he describes as a deliberate campaign of deprivation — one designed to destroy the very foundations of life.

Water and food supplies have been strangled. Hospitals have been besieged and bombed. Doctors have been detained and killed. Every university in Gaza has been attacked.

Schools, ambulances, and civilian infrastructure have all come under fire. This is not collateral damage. It’s a deliberate process of deprivation — one that has systematically targeted the very foundations of life.

Also in the show:

• A remarkable story of survival: the world record in resuscitation from hypothermia;
• The Oslo Accords: corruption allegations and links to Jeffrey Epstein;
• The mystery of the missing Oslo documents;
• The so-called ceasefire? It’s a re-occupation line;
• UNRWA and the blockade preventing aid from reaching Gaza;
• Israel’s impunity and the failure of Western governments to act;
• The systematic targeting of hospitals, doctors and medical infrastructure;
• Horror and abuse inside Israeli prisons;
• Israel and the “weaponisation” of solidarity; and
• Palestinian resistance and the right to resist occupation

“The Palestinian people, with their heroism and sacrifice, are fighting a struggle for all of us against a new wave of brutal colonialism,” says Dr Gilbert.

He argues that: “if we are to take our responsibility seriously, we have to stand with them.”

Inside Israel’s war on Gaza                    Video: The Tea

What is happening right now is [the] erasure of humans, trees and stones, and anything that is Palestinian, by settlers under the support of the military.

— Muntasir al-Maliki, a resident of Kufr Malik

Palestinian Bedouins lived for generations in the occupied West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta (Zanuta), sustaining themselves through herding, farming and dairy production.

The village was designated as part of Area C under the 1995 Oslo II Accords, placing it under full Israeli military and administrative control.

Today, Zanuta is being eaten away by Israeli outposts and settlements and destroyed by  state-sponsored violence and terror.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank
• Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the West Bank Bedouin amd herding communities
• Other Gaza genocide, West Bank reports

Just 1km from Zanuta, Israeli settlers established an illegal outpost known as Meitarim Farm in 2021.

The settlers soon began a sustained campaign of violent attacks and threats against Zanuta’s residents.

They set fire to the villagers’ tents and classrooms, broke into their homes, beat them with rifles, threw stones at them, smashed their solar panels and windows, emptied their water tanks and pumped sewage onto their farmland.

The story of Zanuta reflects the fate of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities already displaced or at imminent risk of displacement in Area C.

This report lays bare the scale and severity of the ethnic cleansing campaign targeting these communities, carried out in a context of apartheid and unlawful occupation and against the backdrop of an ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.

The report also demonstrates — contrary to what too many in the international community suggest — that the campaign is not the product of “rogue” settlers, settlers’ organisations or “extremist” government ministers.

In other words, settler violence is not an aberration but an integral part of an organised state policy.

The escalating violence in Zanuta followed decades of systematic discrimination by the Israeli authorities, including constant threats of home demolitions to force them to leave, a common practice adopted by Israel to enforce its system of apartheid.

Zanuta’s residents repeatedly reported settler attacks to the Israeli police, seeking protection, but no action was ever taken.

When the settlers from Meitarim Farm again raided the village on 21 October 2023, this time accompanied by Israeli forces, and threatened to harm residents if they did not leave, the community knew they had no choice but to flee.

In a rare move, in July 2024 and February 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the police and military to facilitate the community’s return and protect residents from attacks.

The Israeli police and military ignored both rulings. Every attempt by residents to return was met with continued settler violence and the acquiescence of Israeli forces.

Digital evidence, interviews and satellite imagery from 30 March 2025 confirm the outcome: Zanuta no longer exists — it has been forcibly depopulated and extensively destroyed.

Meanwhile, the settlers received state backing to intensify their violent campaign. In April 2025, two Israeli ministers — Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock — held an event at Meitarim Farm where they distributed 19 state-funded all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), cameras and night-vision equipment to settlers living in outposts in the Hebron area.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained why:

“The heroic and pioneering settlers who live here are doing Zionism, and they need security… We are here to build with them and to settle the land…”

… while praising settler land seizures and emphasising the role of ATVs in taking over Palestinian grazing land.

The report demonstrates that the ethnic cleansing campaign in Area C is state-sanctioned, state-driven and state-implemented; it seeks to accelerate the Israeli government’s annexation agenda and settlement expansion through war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As such, the report’s conclusions demand that the international community fully confront and name the Israeli state-driven project, and act decisively to prevent the destruction of Palestinian communities and the annexation of the West Bank.

Amnesty International’s legal analysis
Zanuta is one of 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank that have faced either full or partial displacement due to settler attacks and related access restrictions between January 2023 and April 2026, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In total, approximately 5910 people were forced to leave their homes, leaving behind them vast, depopulated areas. Most of the affected communities lie in Area C, which comprises over 60 percent of the West Bank, and has been central to Israel’s territorial and demographic quest for domination for decades because of its natural resources, vital grazing and agricultural land and small Palestinian population.

In late December 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party formed Israel’s 37th government in coalition with two ultra nationalist and religious political parties.

While state-supported settler violence has been a growing concern over the past three decades for Palestinian communities in the West Bank, there has been an unprecedented surge in the scale and intensity of attacks since then.

Tactics became particularly aggressive after 7 October 2023 when Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, killing approximately 1200 people, mostly civilians, and forcibly taking 251 others to the Gaza Strip where they were held as hostages and subjected to abuses.

Amnesty International found that these acts constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In response, Israel launched a military offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip of unparalleled magnitude, scale and duration and inflicted catastrophic levels of destruction, displacement and starvation on Gaza’s civilian population, committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

While most global attention focused on Gaza, Israel intensified its abusive policies and practices against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with government officials openly encouraging and supporting settler attacks.

Displacement and dispossession: war crimes and crimes against humanity
Ideologically motivated Israeli settlers have terrorised Palestinian communities through repeated raids on their homes and villages, beatings, death threats demanding they leave, persistent harassment, the destruction of property and village infrastructure, cutting off access to water and electricity, and theft of their livestock and belongings.

These practices deliberately intensified an already coercive environment aimed at forcibly displacing and dispossessing Palestinians, manifested in state policies of access restrictions, home demolitions and settlement expansion. Palestinians who have attempted to return have found their villages fenced off or destroyed, or have faced renewed settler attacks, harassment and intimidation, forcing them to flee again.

These settler attacks are the direct result of a state policy that integrated and enabled the settler movement’s vision of “Greater Israel”, an ideology that treats the area extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), as an integral part of Israel.

Senior Israeli officials in the 37th government have fully embraced this vision and explicitly encouraged, facilitated and condoned settler violence against Bedouin and herding communities as a deliberate tool of displacement with greater openness and force than their predecessors, as they pursued their goal of formally annexing the West Bank under Israeli law.

Since 1967, Israel has been enforcing its occupation through military orders and regulations.

The situation in the OPT, including in Area C of the West Bank, is therefore primarily governed by international humanitarian law (including the rules of the law of occupation); and international human rights law. The same international norms apply to occupied East Jerusalem, illegally annexed by Israel since 1967, despite Israel’s attempts to separate it from the rest of the West Bank through a regime of fragmentation and legal segregation.

In this report, Amnesty International presents conclusive evidence that these violations, perpetrated between January 2023 and December 2025, amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer and the crime against humanity of forcible transfer or deportation, committed as part of a policy to ethnically cleanse Area C of the occupied West Bank by forcibly displacing Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities and expanding illegal settlements at their expense.

Amnesty International uses the term ethnic cleansing in this report to describe a deliberate pattern of conduct aimed at permanently removing Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities from specific areas of the occupied West Bank, in particular Area C.

While ethnic cleansing is not recognised as an independent crime under international law, Amnesty International uses the term in line with the UN Commission of Experts on Former Yugoslavia’s definition, which describes it as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas”.

While this report covers the period between December 2022 and December 2025, these egregious crimes are ongoing and are part and parcel of Israel’s system of apartheid, as shown by Amnesty International’s continuous documentation and reporting of the situation on the ground.

• Read the full Amnesty International report

A New Zealand policy research and advocacy group released a detailed blueprint today for a fresh “independent” Te Tiriti and Pacific-based approach to foreign policy, and called for greater transparency in election year.

The current coalition government has “radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions” — including by moving the country away from a principled defence of its independent values to “unquestioning support” for the actions of the Trump administration, said Te Kuaka spokesperson Dr Marco de Jong.

“New Zealand’s slide under this government towards a tightly aligned, militaristic foreign policy is not inevitable,” he added.

• READ MORE: Other Aotearoa New Zealand foreign policy reports
• Other Te Kuaka reports

Te Kuaka — a group made up of academics such as Dr de Jong and Dr Arama Rata, and lawyers with expertise in international and constitutional law like Fuimaono Dylan Asafo and Gabriella Brayne — released a policy brief, “A Foreign Policy Alternative for the 2026 New Zealand Election”.

The group refers to the need to revitalise “an independent, Te Tiriti-based, Pacific-centred, internationalist foreign policy”.

Last year has witnessed “tumultuous developments in world affairs” such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, US aggression in Venezuela, and US and Israel waging war on Iran.

Independent values
Te Kuaka’s policy brief says the current government “has radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions”, including by moving NZ away from a principled defence of its independent values and interests towards total, unquestioning support for the actions of the Trump administration.

The brief calls for:

• greater transparency around trade agreements;
• a War Powers Act to ensure parliamentary authorisation for going to war,;
• shifts in New Zealand’s approach to the Pacific towards non-militarisation;
• NZ intervention in support of South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel; and
• other changes.

“How New Zealand acts in the world has always mattered,” said Dr de Jong. “And we need our political parties speaking more openly about their plans on how to maintain and strengthen our independent foreign policy.”

The policy brief also calls for New Zealand to take more strident steps in relation to Indigenous self-determination in Kanaky New Caledonia and to support a human rights visit to West Papua.

The coalition government did not have a mandate for this “dramatic repositioning” in support of the Trump administration, Dr de Jong said.

Call for ‘greater clarity’
“Before the coming election we are calling for greater clarity from political parties about what the public can expect to see from them in relation to New Zealand’s position in the world.”

The policy brief notes that Te Tiriti o Waitangi has not been sufficiently honoured in foreign policy, and also proposes formalising requirements for Māori representation alongside official New Zealand delegations to international forums.

“We are in a rupturing world,” said Dr de Jong. “We need to ensure we’re not unthinkingly caught in the riptide of major powers’ priorities, and that instead we chart our own course, appropriate to our histories and our location in the Pacific.”

• Te Kuaka has previously published reports on conflict prevention and peace mediation, New Zealand’s positioning on AUKUS, and civilian casualties and the NZ Defence Force.

Today the US and/or Israel have been attacking Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and Venezuela.

The US is also strangling Cuba with an illegal economic blockade, threatening Greenland and preparing for war against China.

History shows that US invasions kill, injure and destroy ordinary people’s lives, homes, essential infrastructure — and they usually leave repressive regimes to rule.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 4 in Lebanon strikes after Trump warned Netanyahu to stop
• Te Kuaka advocacy group calls for NZ transparent, independent ‘Pacific foreign policy’
• Stop Wars Aotearoa coalition
• Other US-Israel war on Iran reports

The ordinary people of the US pay the price of these wars with their lives, taxes, poverty and are dependent on jobs that manufacture weapons.

US and Israel knew their attack on Iran would trigger an international oil crisis.

The result has been massively increasing oil and food prices and profiteering here in Aotearoa New Zealand, causing the greatest suffering for working class people especially the poorest in the country and world wide.

Why have the US and israel attacked Iran?

• To enforce US and Israeli domination and control of the Middle East region and the world’s oil resources; and
• To control world central trade routes and oil supplies to the main US economic rival — China.

Waiting on oil companies
Shamefully, the current NZ government refuses to oppose the illegal US and Israeli attacks on Iran, and fails to oppose the genocide still happening in Gaza. They just wait for oil companies to determine NZ’s supply, and help mega corporations to profit.

This government has no plan for making Aotearoa New Zealand more food and energy secure. But it is increasingly integrating the NZ military with the Australian and US war machines and preparing for the US-promoted “War with China”.

We are already in a cost-of living crisis, and rising fuel prices are adding to the price of food and other essentials. Kiwi families are struggling. Many people in town and country are facing huge price increases.

Some families have been getting the government’s limited support package. But 92 percent of households don’t get anything.

Don’t let this government drag us into war. Demand an independent foreign policy for Aotearoa/NZ.

• Stop Wars Aotearoa coalition rally and march to US embassy: 2pm, Saturday 13 June 2026, Aotea Square, CBD, Auckland

A South Auckland-based cultural studio founded by Fijian artist-curator Vasemaca (FKA Ema) Tavola has hit back at a spate of pro-Israeli propaganda in her homeland with a bold new banner design championing “Fijians for Palestine”.

Tavola’s practice is aligned with the “politics of decolonisation and indigenous feminisms, motherhood, and histories of BIPOC art and activism in the Global South”.

Her Vunilagi Vou studio has posted this message in response to public reactions over Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania in Fiji last week in the face of protests in three cities — Suva, Auckland and Wellington:

• READ MORE: Palestine supporters stage pickets in 3 cities in Fiji, NZ protesting against new Israeli embassy
• Rabuka rules out military involvement with Israel in Mideast conflicts
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

“The inspiration struck and this new mini banner emerged. Born from the hideous task of monitoring the Facebook comment section from people boldly declaring mis-/disinformation, Zionist propaganda and outright hate speech in my own Fijian community, I wanted to perform a creative act that could neutralise the sadness of this moment.

“The French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) famously said, ‘the act of sewing is a process of emotional repair’ and the sentiment has been the lifeblood of this ongoing series of mini banners. They are affirmations and dreaming, spells sewn with stitches, commitment captured in layers, trims, fringe and ric-rac — love letters to the future.

“Inspired and dedicated to Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre protests that have been happening in Suva to boldly and publicly declare that people in Fiji stand with Palestine, and the acts of some and the sycophancy of our government does not represent all of Fiji and all Fijians, as hard as that is to process for some Facebook users.

“The words on this mini banner are a truth that cannot be denied in a post truth era; Fijians are not a monolith and while many are spouting mind-boggling disinformation and vitriol against Palestinians and our fellow non-Indigenous Fiji people, there are many, many Fijians who stand for and with Palestine and reject the re-authoring of factual history and the monetisation of rage on platforms like Facebook.

“The social practice of this space has become a complete perversion of humanity.

The banner: Kaiviti Solidarity (2026) Cotton dobby, cotton towelling, rayon, bullion fringe trim, ric-rac and cowrie shells on 10oz canvas, 600x450mm

Fijian and Palestine flags — challenging hypocrisy
Vunilagi Vou also “reimagined” a publicity photo circulated of a photo of the Fijian and Israeli flags side by side with another image showing off the Palestinian flag.

“If the current Fiji government can make such a divisive and disturbing symbolic image using AI to announce the opening of an Israeli embassy in Suva, I’ll keep the prompts flowing and re-imagine this image.

“Fiji is a gloriously diverse, complex and resilient nation of people who are the living embodiment of a globally connected mix of cultures, histories and influences. We are not a monolith, and the current Fiji government’s relationship to Israel, engaged in the ongoing, intentional and systematic destruction of Palestinian people, is an embarrassment.

“We represent a range of views as Fiji people; many use the Christian Bible and its ideologies as a moral and ethical compass, and others who can see the hypocrisy of largely Indigenous people siding with the perpetrators of a genocide against Indigenous people.

“Trying to understand the geopolitical, historical, social, spiritual nature of South West Asia and North Africa, and our relationship with imperialism and the tools of colonisation, oil and capitalism, globalisation and climate collapse all feels like unravelling the world we know.

“So, Palestine, and our courage to learn and unlearn, critique why we know what we know, feels like a profound symbol and beacon for imagining a future that survives this current hellscape.

“A free Palestine is inextricable from a free West Papua. Systemic violence, colonial extraction, Indigenous erasure and murderous genocide, should never ever be normalised.”

COMMENTARY: By Maher Nazzal

Walking into Palestine is not just a journey across geography, it is a confrontation with memory, identity, and everything you were told, and everything you discover for yourself.

The first thing that stays with you is the wall. It does not feel like a distant structure you read about in reports; it rises suddenly into your view, stretching across the landscape like a scar that refuses to fade. Concrete slabs stacked high, covered in layers of paint, messages, names, grief, humour, and resistance. It divides not only land, but daily life.

On one side, movement feels controlled, measured, observed. On the other, life continues stubbornly, beautifully, and painfully.

The borders are not just lines on a map. They are checkpoints, gates, pauses in time. You wait. You are asked. You move forward or you don’t. People pass through them with a kind of practised patience that comes only from living a life where waiting is normal. And yet, even there, you see dignity in the eyes, in the silence, in the quiet determination to continue.

But Palestine is not defined by its restrictions.

It is defined by its people.

People who greet you as if you have always belonged there. People who carry history in their voices without needing to announce it. People who laugh in ways that refuse to be diminished. There is warmth that does not depend on comfort — it exists even in hardship.

You hear stories in taxis, in shops, at doorways, in fields. Stories of loss, yes, but also of endurance, education, love, and return.

And then there are the trees.

Olive trees are older than nations. Their trunks twisted like they have been holding secrets for centuries. Some stand alone on rocky hillsides, others form quiet groves that feel almost sacred. They do not move quickly. They do not need to. They belong in a way that cannot be negotiated. Each tree feels like a witness.

The rocks are everywhere grey, pale, sharp, ancient. They shape the hills, the terraces, the pathways. They feel like the bones of the land itself, exposed and unhidden. And between them, the soil dry in some places, fertile in others holds both struggle and promise.

And the sand… especially when the wind carries it. It softens everything. It moves across roads, settles on stone, touches skin without asking permission. It reminds you that land is never still. It remembers everything that passes over it.

To visit Palestine is to realise that it is not a place that can be reduced to headlines or borders or walls. It is a living presence, layered, wounded, resilient, and deeply human. It stays with you long after you leave, not as a memory you can place neatly in the past, but as something that continues to speak inside you.

Maher Nazzal is an activist, advocate and digital creator for a Free Palestine. He is a spokesperson for Palestine Forum of New Zealand and former co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published on Nazzal’s Facebook page and is republished with permission.

Indonesia has kidnapped and threatened Mama Yasinta Moiwend (Mama Sinta), one of the Marind tribe women featured in the controversial documentary Pesta Babi (Pig Feast), into denying the film and its message, claims a West Papuan advocacy group.

Pesta Babi, which focuses on the Merauke sugarcane megaproject and was premiered in New Zealand in March, exposes how Indonesia is destroying West Papua’s ancestral forest for profit.

“It is a moderate film, which does not show the real truth — that all West Papuans want freedom and independence instead of colonial ‘development’,” said the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda.

• READ MORE: ‘Threat to democracy’ – Indonesian filmmaker slams military crackdown on Papua documentary
• West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military — film review
• Other Pesta Babi reports

“Despite this, Indonesia has done everything they can to destroy it.”

Since the screenings of the film in New Zealand and Australia, the documentary has been widely shown in Indonesia and stirred a military crackdown with attempts to block it.

Partners in the production of the film include the Papuan media group Jubi, Greenpeace  and Pusaka, a group committed to “fostering and advancing a just and equitable life” for Indigenous peoples and marginalised communities.

In a series of social media videos, Mama Sinta has publicly distanced herself from Pesta Babi, stating that she was “exploited by the filmmakers”.

She was later presented to a police station in Jakarta, where she filed charges against LBH Papua Merauke, an organisation involved in producing the film. Her family have stated they have not been able to contact her for the past week.

‘Why change her views suddenly?’
“Mama Sinta has clearly been kidnapped by the colonial TNI. Why else would she be in Jakarta, away from the community she has spent her life fighting to protect? Why else would she change her views so suddenly?” asked Wenda.

Against her will, the Indonesian state had forced Mama Sinta to issue a statement retracting her involvement in the film, he said.

“For West Papuans, this is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has always used any means they can to divide our spirit: bribery, threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture.

“Those who they cannot silence they simply kill.

“Mama Sinta is just like the elders who were forced at gunpoint to vote against West Papuan independence during the Act of ‘No Choice’ [in 1969]. Merdeka remained in their hearts, even if they raised their hands against it.”

Wenda said Mama Sinta would have been afraid of “what would happen to her” if she did not agree to the TNI’s demands.

At a time when violence had ramped up across West Papua, with nearly 40 civilians “massacred in the past two months”, Papuans were aware of the dangers of speaking out.

“This is why she recanted.”

‘Terrified’ of public
“The Indonesian state response to Pesta Babi — from kidnapping its star to violently shutting down screenings of the film — clearly demonstrates their overwhelming fear of being found out.

“Indonesia is terrified that their own people, their youth and students, will discover what their government is doing to West Papua.

“The filmmakers deserve thanks for exposing Indonesia’s ecocide in Merauke. I call on them, and all Indonesian solidarity groups to stay strong: deepen your support for West Papua, oppose your country’s ongoing occupation, genocide and crimes against humanity.”

In an interview with RNZ Pacific last week, the film’s director, Dandhy Laksono, criticised the military crackdown over the documentary.

He said that Pesta Babi had been showing at about 1700 cinemas around Indonesia.

“We have recorded more than 30 incidents of the state apparatus stopping the screening — mostly by military, and then they are also using the civil servants — in the name of public order,” he said.

No public disorder
Laksono said there had been no public disorder from the film in parts where it had shown.

“It’s ridiculous, and thanks to the audience they defend the film quite hard, and they defend their rights to to watch and to absorb the information, about what has actually happened in West Papua.”

Wenda said the crackdown on the documentary was just one small example of Indonesia’s policy of repression in West Papua.

“They are only able to get away with their crimes because they have transformed West Papua into the Pacific North Korea: journalists are banned from entering, along with NGOs like Amnesty and the Red Cross.”

Six years had passed since Indonesia vowed to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua — “and still they refuse access”.

Pro-Palestine protesters in Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand staged pickets in three cities today in protest against Israel opening its first embassy in Oceania.

Before visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar formally opened the embassy in the Fji capital, about 30 protesters gathered at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) — just across the street from the diplomatic mission — and 20 demonstrators picketed the Fiji consulate in the Auckland suburb of Mt Roskill calling for sanctions against Israel over its genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.

Other protesters picketed Fiji’s High Commission in the New Zealand capital of Wellington.

• READ MORE: Fiji police question protesters over picket against opening of Israel embassy
• Pro-Palestinian activists plan protest against ‘Israeli pond’ diplomacy push in Pacific
• Pro-Palestine groups plan coordinated protests in Fiji and NZ over Israel’s first Pacific embassy
• Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

Fiji police “intervened” during the Suva protest organised by the NGO Coalition of Human Rights and the Fijians for Palestine groups, reports The Fiji Times.

The protestors were asked to stop chanting slogans, such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and were criticised over their placards — such as “There is no doubt. It is a genocide in Gaza” and Palestinian flags.

The demonstration continued as a silent protest against the establishment of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Fiji, with protesters gathering to express their opposition to Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

Several reporters were at the picket scene in Suva as police spoke to FWCC coordinator Shamima Ali, who is chair NGO Coalition of Human Right, in what witnesses described as “harassment”.

Critical of Public Order Act
Fijivillage News reports Ali has criticised the use of Fiji’s Public Order Act against pro-Palestine protesters, claiming the legislation was again being used to restrict people’s rights to peaceful protest.

Ali said the government had acknowledged concerns surrounding the Public Order Act and its broad powers, but reforms had yet to be implemented.

She questioned the decision by police to intervene in what she described as a “peaceful demonstration”, saying protesters were exercising their democratic right to express opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Professor Vijay Naidu commented in a social media post: “Fiji police had 7 twin cabs, two large paddy wagons to intimidate and suppress peaceful protesters gathered on a private property [the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre].

“Strange that police often claim, ‘no transport’ for not attending to calls regarding crimes.”

Israel is on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa and supported by dozens of countries, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted on arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

in New Zealand, the picket outside the Fiji consulate in Auckland was also peaceful and quiet apart from a short speech and many toots of support by passing motorists.

Several banners and many Palestinian flags dominated both sides of Stoddard Road outside the consulate in the Tulja Centre.

Banners declared “PM Rabuka stop voting for genocide”– in reference to the lead role that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s Fiji has played a leading role in Pacific votes in support of an isolated Israel in the United Nations — and “Stop the genocide in Gaza: Sanction Israel now — boycott Israeli goods.”

An organiser, Barry Lee of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), “Israel is regarded around the world as a war criminal, and there is ample evidence of their war crimes every day.

“Israel and the United States are the most warmongering states in the region. They have attacked all of their neighbours at least once, and they are currently killing people in Gaza, they have just stopped attacking Iran, and now they are attacking Lebanon as the United States is underwriting its supply of weapons to do so.”

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said that while the rest of the world was distancing itself from Israel for its genocide in Gaza, illegal settlements on the West Bank and invasion of Lebanon, Fiji was deepening its ties with the Benjamin Netanyahu regime.

“It’s partly personal.  Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is grateful for Israeli support for his coup in 1987, when the rest of the world were distancing themselves from the Rabuka led military junta,” Tamimi said in a statement.

“But it’s mostly the result of intense diplomatic activity by Israel throughout the Pacific, its determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.”

“Israel is working with US Christian Zionists to make the Pacific an Israeli pond, to deliver votes in the United Nations and embassies in Jerusalem.”

In the September 2024 landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution to order Israel out of the Palestinian Occupied Territory within 12 months, no fewer than seven Pacific countries, including Fiji, voted against, out of a world total of 14 votes against.

Since US President Donald Trump had defied the United Nations and opened a US embassy in Jerusalem in 2018 during his his first term in the White House, only a handful of countries had followed.

“Since then, only Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala have joined the US.  That is, except for the Pacific — Papua New Guinea and Fiji are now in Jerusalem and they are soon to be joined by Samoa,” Tamimi said.

“It’ll be Samoa’s only country post outside the Pacific. Is Israel paying for it?”

At a joint media conference in Suva with Rabuka before the formal opening of the Israeli mission in Suva, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared Fiji was a “true friend of Israel”, reports FBC News.

Sa’ar said the embassy would serve as a platform to turn diplomatic ties into practical partnerships, with a focus on sectors that directly supported Fiji’s development priorities.

He added that Israel was ready to share its expertise in water management, renewable energy, agriculture and technology — areas that he said were increasingly important for Pacific island nations facing climate and resource pressures.

Twelve Pasifika people in New Zealand received awards in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours.

The New Zealand Royal Honours acknowledges people who have served their communities and recognises their achievements.

The honors system includes three Orders: The Order of New Zealand; The New Zealand Order of Merit; and The King’s Service Order.

• READ MORE: Māori academics, artists, educators awarded King’s Birthday Honours
• King’s Birthday Honours 2026: Who took the top gongs
• Other New Zealand awards reports

Various other medals are also awarded: including the King’s Service Medal, the New Zealand Antarctic Medal, and New Zealand Distinguished Service Decoration.

A total of 178 recipients were congratulated across New Zealand on Monday — six percent were Pacific Islanders.

Olympian Beatrice Roini Liua Faumuinā was named a Companion of the Order of New Zealand for her services to sport and governance.

“It’s a real good reflection of all the work that’s happened in the last 20 years, transitioning from being an athlete into the governance world, and wanting to be able to contribute in spaces where you can make real impacts and transition for many people,” the former New Zealand Trade Commissioner and Consul-General in New York said.

Total surprise
For some of the newly inducted Members of the Order, the awards have come as a total surprise.

Tofa Robertina O’Halloran, who was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), was at a loss for words.

“I’m just flabbergasted, and I had never expected anything like this. It was just a surprise,” she said.

“My son called me and said, ‘Mum, look at your email’, and I said, ‘I’ll read it later’. He said, ‘Look at it now’. I don’t know, I’m just short of words to say to him.”

O’Halloran was acknowledged for services to education and the Niuean community.

As one of the first Niuean primary teachers in New Zealand and a volunteer Vagahau Niue (Niuean language) educator, she attributed her award to those that inspired her to follow this path.

“I can thank the old folks who encouraged us to maintain the language, that’s who I acknowledge first, because they’re the ones who kept us going.”

Testament to success
For the founder of Samoan fashion brand Mena Designs, the recognition feels like a testament to their success.

Talaleomalie Filomena Loheni (MNZM) taught herself to sew dresses for her family, she never expected to one day be the first Pacific business invited to showcase at the New Zealand Fashion Week.

“I did not expect anything, you know. I was so surprised when I got the email, oh my goodness … We knew the business was very successful, because we sell worldwide… I feel honoured, and I feel humbled, I feel proud to be recognised.”

Loheni has seen her brand become a household name in Oceania fashion, and has showcased globally in Fiji, Japan, Canada, and the United States of America.

Okesene Seanoa Faraimo was named MNZM for services to the community, Tokelau language and culture.

The long-time social worker has played a key role in the development of multiple Tokelau focused strategies, reports and programs, and has been a strong advocate for the revitalisation of Te Gagana Tokelau (the Tokelau language).

Faraimo said it is an honour to be acknowledged for his work.

‘Very humbled’
“When I was told that I am nominated for this award I thought of the many others doing great work supporting whanau and the community, so I am very humbled to receive this award.”

For Lemalu Freddie Ah Kuoi (MNZM), being honoured for services to rugby league and the community has made him reflect on his long career.

“What it does show to me is that God’s hand is on my life, he’s given us to act on and to use wisely while we’re here, and so it gives me great confidence, and knowing that yes, I’m on the right track. Thank you, Lord.”

At 18 years old, Ah Kuoi made his debut in the international rugby scene in 1975, before becoming the youngest Pasifika player to captain the New Zealand Kiwis at the age of 23.

Now he runs the ‘WAI – Who Am I’ course, helping mentor young offenders through physical training and life coaching.

He says his many achievements are thanks to the many hands that have helped along the way.

“The medal represents most of the fact of all the things in my life that I’ve done, and the people that were involved with it, because you know, you can’t do it on your own, you know, it’s something that’s usually required teamwork.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon congratulated the Honours recipients for their “outstanding efforts”.

“The achievements and service of every New Zealander honoured on this list have helped make our country a stronger, better place, and I would like to thank them for their contributions,” he said.

“Congratulations to all the King’s Birthday 2026 Honours recipients. New Zealand is incredibly proud of you and stands alongside each of you in celebration.”

The full list of Pasifika inductees/awardees

To be Companions of the said Order (CNZM)
Beatrice Roini Liua Faumuinā (ONZM) — for services to sport and governance

To be Members of the said Order (MNZM)
Freddie (Lemalu Freddie) Ah Kuoi for services to rugby league and the community

Okesene Seanoa Faraimo for services to the community, Tokelau language and culture

Fane Fusipongi Ketu’u, JP for services to Tongan language education

Inspector Neru Grant Leifi for services to the New Zealand Police and the community

Filomena Loheni – for services to Pacific fashion

Tofa Robertina O’Halloran for services to education and the Niuean community

Esitone (Leota Pauga Esitone) Pauga for services to Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Kathleen Tuai for services to the Pacific community

Vania Nive Hannah Wolfgramm for services to rugby

The King’s Service Medal (KSM)

Reverend Tapita Taia Ching for services to the Pacific community and education

Vaitoelau Kumitau for services to the Niuean community

This story was first published on

Pro-Palestine activist groups plan to simultaneously protest against the opening of the first Pacific embassy by Israel with pickets in the Fiji capital Suva and the New Zealand cities of Auckland and Wellington next week.

Fijians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) are planning these coordinated protests in opposition to Tel Aviv opening the embassy in Fiji on Tuesday.

Ironically, the Fiji picket will be just across the road at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre in downtown Suva with Palestinian flags “flying in the face of Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar”, according to organisers.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• ‘He’s Māori!’ Hāhona Ormsby – a New Zealander in the Israeli prison system nightmare
• Other Fiji, Pacific ties with Israel reports

The opening is scheduled for 5pm on Tuesday and pickets will be happening at the same time at the Fiji Embassy in Wellington and also at the Fiji consulate in the Auckland suburb of Mt Roskill.

“The genocidal state of Israel is opening an embassy in Fiji’s capital, Suva,” said Fijians For Palestine in a social media post at the weekend. “Fiji cannot build its state on the graves of children. Fiji cannot develop on the blood of innocents. Free Palestine.”

The embassy launch in Suva follows Fiji controversially opening an embassy in Jerusalem last year in defiance of United Nations resolutions that have declared occupied East Jerusalem as part of the state of Palestine,

Fiji is regarded as a staunch supporter of Israel at the UN in the face the face of overwhelming resolutions against Israel.

Fiji move condemned
The Fiji role was condemned at a pro-Palestinian rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today.

“PSNA is responding to a call from Fijians for Palestine, to protest against the opening in Fiji of the Pacific’s first Israeli embassy,” organiser Anna Lee told protesters.

“Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar is scheduled to cut the ribbon in Suva to open Genocide Israel’s brand-new embassy at 5pm next Tuesday.

“The embassy opening represents a major advance for Israel’s determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.”

The embassy move represents a major diplomatic advance for Israel’s determined attempts to reverse the trend around the world to isolate Israel and its institutions.

In the September 2024 landmark UN General Assembly vote to order Israel out of the illegally occupied Palestinian Territory within 12 months, no fewer than seven Pacific countries — including Fiji — voted against out of a world total of 14. In favour were 124 countries out of 193 member states.

In the UNGA vote the following September on recognition of Palestine, Fiji abstained. However, five other Pacific countries comprised half of the 10 votes against — again alongside the United States and Israel. In favour were an overwhelming 157 countries (81 percent).

Bid to ‘cajole votes’
“There is a clear, and thus far successful, attempt by Israel to use the US brand of Christian fundamentalism, to cajole votes and embassies out of the Pacific,” said PSNA’s Lee.

“The Pacific is our backyard. Our protests will show Zionist Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka that Palestine has many supporters.”

According to The Fiji Times, the new Israeli embassy will mark a “significant milestone in the growing relationship between the two countries and strengthening Israel’s diplomatic presence in the Pacific region”.

“The embassy will provide Israel with a permanent diplomatic presence in the Blue Pacific, a region that has attracted increasing attention from global powers seeking influence through development assistance, climate initiatives, security partnerships and economic engagement,” the newspaper reported.

“The development follows Fiji’s opening of its embassy in Jerusalem last year, making it one of a small number of countries with an embassy in Israel’s capital.”

Israel later announced plans to establish a reciprocal diplomatic mission in Fiji in 2026, citing Fiji’s “consistent support for Israel in international forums, including the United Nations”.

The opening of the embassy is also being viewed as part of Israel’s broader effort to increase its engagement with Pacific Island nations amid growing geopolitical competition in the region.

Diplomatic, legal implications
Fiji’s decision to establish an embassy in Jerusalem last year drew criticism from Palestinian officials and local activist groups, who argued that the move carried diplomatic and legal implications because of the disputed status of the city.

Today’s Auckland rally also featured Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists detained and tortured by the Israeli military last week, including Hāhona Ormsby and Mousa Taher, and speakers criticising New Zealand involvement alongside Israel in the  RIMPAC 2026 military exercises due in Hawai’i next month.

ANALYSIS: By Wendy Bacon

Sheina Gutnick, whose father Reuben Morrison was killed in the Bondi Massacre, was the first witness at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. She shared her “lived experience” of antisemitism, including fears for her children’s future.

Gutnick is the public affairs officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) in Australia, a role she took on in April.

In her statement in evidence at the Royal Commission, she describes CAM as undertaking “civic education, grassroots activism and policy advocacy to combat antisemitism”. She told the commission that her job includes monitoring hundreds of antisemitic comments, including on CAM’s websites.

• READ MORE: Other Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion reports

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Zelie Heger SC, assured Gutnick that her recommendations and those of CAM would be taken seriously.

At the time she gave evidence, Gutnick and her CAM team had been campaigning with The Daily Telegraph (DT) for weeks to pressure City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to cancel a council venue booking by Stop the War on Palestine (SWOP) for a discussion about a proposed ban on the slogan “Globalise the Intifada”.

CAM demanded Lord Mayor Moore cancel the group’s council booking. They falsely accused the group of being Hamas supporters who wanted to kill Jews, and linked them to the Bondi massacre.

Despite the pressure, Moore initially held firm in favour of the right to peaceful assembly and protest.

However, on the eve of her appearance at the Royal Commission, Gutnick and other victims of the Bondi terrorist attack published an open letter in the DT,

which increased the pressure on Moore.

They called the SWOP event a “hate-fest” that would encourage violence and “undermine the core Australian values of fairness, community and mateship”.

Early the following evening, Lord Mayor Moore caved and instructed council to cancel the booking. She explained her position in a media release that positioned antisemitism alongside Islamophobia and racism and stressed her support for protest and inclusivity.

She linked her backdown to her concern that holding the event in the early stages of the Royal Commission could contribute to “hostility and fear”. Moore blamed the media for its “discourse of division that has heightened tensions more than any small community event could”.

SWOP moved their meeting to an inner-city park.

CAM grassroots activists were also busy organising a rally with far-right activists in Inner Sydney to be held on May 5.

Combat Antisemitism Movement
CAM is a global movement based in the United States that claims to have 3.5 million supporters. It has close links with the Israeli state. Its CEO, Sascha Roytmann is based in Tel Aviv and was previously head of the New Media Desk at the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit of the IDF.

CAM’s Advisory Board chair is former Deputy PM of Israel, Natan Sharansky, who considers branding Israel as an apartheid state to be a “modern form of antisemitism rhetoric”.

The International Court of Justice and major international and Israeli human rights organisations have found that

Israel is an apartheid state.

Australia is just one of 60 countries where CAM uses tactics including social media, lobbying politicians and convening conferences to relentlessly pursue its goal of entrenching the IHRA definition of antisemitism into policy at all levels of government, including outlawing BDS campaigns.

CAM’s outreach officer is Trump supporter EJ Kemball, who is a far-right Christian and has substantial experience lobbying for Israel. He sees his mission as building CAM’s support among Christian Zionists. A security and intelligence expert, he was previously the director of US operations for the Israel Allies Foundation.

CAM Australia reflects this US pattern by forming a pro-Israel rightwing coalition with the Christian group Never Again is Now (NAIN). It aims to

discredit and dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement and promote a culture based on ‘Judeo-Christian’ values.

CAM and NAIN have worked together since 2024. Last year, NAIN partnered with CAM in its first national conference for Australian mayors in a luxury hotel on the Gold Coast.

Another conference is planned in Sydney for November. Their latest joint activity was a rally held the day after Gutnick gave her evidence. The context for the rally was Premier Chris Minns’ plan to ban the slogan “Globalise the Intifada”.

‘Judeo-Christian’ Sydney rally
Following Clover Moore’s backdown, CAM and Never Again were jubilant about their “win” but still had Moore in their sights. They moved their rally to City of Sydney land at Sydney Park. MWM was present at the gathering, attended by about 50 people and about 20 police. Regular early evening runners were surprised to find illuminated screens and a small crowd draped in Israeli and Australian flags in a shadowy corner of Sydney Park.

The key message was a nationalistic call to defend so-called “Judeo-Christian” values. Pro-Palestinian protesters, including Moore herself, were labelled as terrorism supporters. Speakers included militant pro-Israel activists and One Nation, anti-immigration and Islamophobic crusaders.

The MC was “Colesy”, a Pauline Hanson fan who is vehemently anti-immigration.

“Intifada comes for all of our families, our sons, and our daughters. Police, media, politicians, you can stop it tonight. Call it what it is. We’ve seen it in Bondi. We don’t need to see any more. It’s time to cancel it. Remove it. Get rid of the cancer, and let us live in peace,” he demanded.

“Trombone Tone”, an evangelical Christian and One Nation campaigner, set the tone with “Waltzing Matilda”. He blamed the Bondi massacre on importing a “bunch of Islamists … and now we’ve got this,” he said, pointing to a photoshopped image of protesters at the Opera House.

CAM was represented by Ofir Birenbaum, who first came to MWM’s notice as an organiser for astroturfing groups Better Council and Better Australia. He recently settled a case against the Cairo Takeaway cafe in Enmore, Sydney.

Birenbaum recounted his own youth in Israel, blaming violence and restrictions on Palestinian movements on the Intifada.

According to Birenbaum, the cancellation of the SWOP meeting was a win but only a start: “That’s what happened when we stopped asking for permission and started demanding accountability. And this is what happens when you finally stand up to bullies, because that’s what they are, nothing less.”

He then attacked Clover Moore, absurdly suggesting she had “taken the side” of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by joining the 2025 March on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Ali B and Michael Gensher
Never Again Is Now promoted Ali Beikzadeh (Ali B), an anti-Islam Royalist Iranian who continued the attack on Moore for “standing right next to a bloody portrait of Khamenei on the Harbour Bridge and having the audacity to suggest I’m proud of myself for attending the Harbour Bridge march.”

This was another lie, as Moore did not stand next to a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In fact, a photo was taken of a single placard of the Iranian Supreme Leader positioned behind Moore and other community leaders.

Ali B also threatened activists: “You know who you are …. if you continue with your ways, we will continue exposing you all one by one, and let me be absolutely clear about this. None of you deserves to be living in Australia, on Australian soil if you continue to entertain this nonsense …  Let’s cut the shit. Now, anybody who entertains this notion

they are directly to blame for what happened in Bondi.”

Another speaker was Michael Gensher, who is a director of the Australian branch of Stand with Us, which builds connections with Israel and fights antisemitism. Last year, he organised visits to Australian universities by Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservists who served during the war in Gaza, featuring “immersive experiences” to build “social cohesion”.

CAM and NAIN and their right-wing collaborators @aus4civilisation attracted thousands of likes across their social media platforms.

CAM CEO Sacha Roytman, who was monitoring the event in Tel Aviv, reported that the billboards were moved overnight to the Park where SWOP held its rally. His post falsely suggested that SWOP was calling for “murdering Jews in Australia.”

CAM has called on the City of Sydney to adopt the IHRA definition and review its hiring policies to prohibit any similar meetings in the future.

Meanwhile, it announced that, after conducting roundtables with politicians and community leaders, it has prepared a comprehensive submission to the Royal Commission supporting tough measures to quash activity perceived as antisemitic.

Its submission commits CAM to continuing to work with “interfaith partners and community leaders across Australia to advance genuine social cohesion”.

If the CAM rally at Sydney Park is anything to go by, social cohesion is not where it’s heading.

A West Papuan independence activist says AI-generated fake footage of her and her words has been used to spread disinformation on social media.

Koteka Wenda, daughter of the leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, said the Instagram video reel by an Indonesian nationalist account cast her speaking out against a new film about land grabs and human rights abuses in Papua.

Indonesian authorities have stopped some screenings of the Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”), documentary, citing concerns for “public order”.

• READ MORE: Threat to democracy’ – Indonesian filmmaker slams military crackdown on Papua documentary
• Other West Papua reports

Wenda, who is based in The Netherlands, described it as a violation in that her words, body language and movements had been misused in a propaganda video, through AI-manipulation of previous footage that she had posted herself online speaking about West Papuan independence.

“This video is really concerning, because to the untrained eye it looks as if it’s me speaking against human rights, or at least the sharing of important documentaries like Pesta Babi.”

Targeted voices
Wenda said Al was being used to spread political disinformation targeting West Papuan voices and Indigenous activists.

“There could be people out there, you know, other West Papuans themselves seeing my face for a prominent West Papuan activist, suddenly switching sides. It’s really problematic, because this is it can build public distrust.”

She appears to be the first of the younger wave of West Papuan activists to be targeted at this new level of sophistication and reach, with hundreds of thousands of views.

“This is digital colonisation. This is a new form, a new colonial tactic to oppress us West Papuans,” she said.

“I mean, not only does Indonesia seek to steal our land and steal our futures, but they’re also stealing our bodies and our voices, and I feel very much violated by this recent AI video.”

Tech accountability
Wenda said people had been reporting the fake Instagram reel and blocking it.

“Some people have even been claiming that it’s digital blackface, but it hasn’t been taken down. And this is really concerning,” she said.

“But the comment section, since I spoke up about it, the comment section had been flooded with messages and comments from a lot of our Free West Papua friends stating that this is AI, this is not real, this is fake. So, there is discourse, there is like conversation happening.”

But this video has muddied the waters somewhat, and Wenda advised social media users to always be ready to adopt a critical lens and check the source of posts and reels.

But the social media platforms had a responsibility too, she said.

“It’s important that social media platforms take this seriously and push for transparency, push for accountability.”

RNZ Pacific has asked the Indonesian government for comment.

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

One of the three New Zealanders on the Global Sumud Flotilla who were among the hundreds kidnapped by the Israeli military illegally on international waters this month and abducted to Israel has described his brutal torture after returning home.

Speaking in a TV3 news report last night, Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), 56, said he was beaten for hours, rammed into a wall until he was unconscious and kicked in the genitals.

He is one of many activists among the 430 Gaza humanitarian flotilla aid crew from more than 40 countries alleging they were abused.

• READ MORE: Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• ‘I could die here’: Kiwi activist alleges violent abuse by Israeli forces
• Flotilla activists recount Israeli violence as they arrive in Turkiye
• Gaza freedom flotilla – reluctance of the West to protest Israel’s thuggery enabled the abuse
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

The other New Zealanders are Mousa Taher, 39, and Julien Blondel, 47.

They were trying to break the 16-year illegal Israeli military blockade of the Palestinian enclave.

Ormsby told reporter Molly Swift “it feels surreal” to be back in Auckland trying to come to terms with “actually being home and being safe” because just last week he was detained
in Israel where he said he was violently beaten at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

It was his first flotilla and as an educator he was hoping to bring school supplies to Palestinian children, the TV3 report said.

“They boarded the boat. We were stripped of all our clothes. We were wearing clothes for the interception to keep warm. We were stripped of shoes,” Ormsby said.

“I left the boat just wearing a pair of shorts and t-shirt. I actually had a gun pointed at me,” he said demonstrating at the back of his head.

“Like I could feel the gun on the back of my head.”

The detainees were taken on a “prison” ship to the Israeli port Ashdod for processing.

“Even there, I was quite overwhelmed at the treatment. Just randomly in the early hours of the morning we had flashbangs thrown into the containers.”

Disturbing account of Gaza flotilla treatment by Israel.      Video: TV3/Stuff

TV3 reports that Israel claims the allegations are “false and entirely without factual basis”. However, documented reports with photographic evidence has been widely published around the world and several governments have announced that that have initiated prosecution investigations against the Israelis.

Cruel treatment against prisoners is explicitly classified as a serious war crime under international humanitarian law.

Eleven Australians were also on the flotilla and have made similar allegations against the Israelis. The New York Times this month published a major report of allegations against Israeli prisons while the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem’s report “Living Hell” has documented systematic torture of Palestinians.

Professor Stuart Rees, a professor emeritus of the University of Sydney, has blamed Western governments for the “thuggery” of the Israeli government, saying, “If bullies notice that no one intervenes to stop their behaviour, they may interpret such non-intervention as permission to continue bullying.”

An Indonesian filmmaker says the crackdown by authorities on his West Papua documentary in some parts of the country is a threat to democracy.

The Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) documentary looks at the social and environmental impacts of land seizures for big agri-business ventures in Papua — and the Indonesian military’s role in it.

Since March, the film has had screenings in New Zealand and Australia, and is now showing in Indonesia, where it has sparked public interest — not just through its treatment of the subject, but because authorities are trying to ban it.

• READ MORE: Pesta Babi doco stirs West Papuan development debates and ‘crackdown’
• Other Pesta Babi documentary reports

‘Public order’
The film’s director, Dandhy Laksono, said that Pesta Babi was showing at about 1700 cinemas around Indonesia.

“We have recorded more than 30 incidents of the state apparatus stopping the screening — mostly by military, and then they are also using the civil servants — in the name of public order,” he explained.

Laksono said there had been no public disorder from the film in parts where it had shown.

“It’s ridiculous, and thanks to the audience they defend the film quite hard, and they defend their rights to to watch and to absorb the information, about what actually happened in West Papua.

“I think compared to the subset of the public screening, the intervention or the intimidation is nothing in terms of numbers, but in terms of substance of democracy, that’s a real threat.”

Interests disrupted
Laksono’s previous documentary film, The End Game, about efforts to undermine anti-corruption activities in Indonesia, also faced shutdowns, but only a handful. Pesta Babi has touched even more of a nerve.

“Because this film also talked directly about the military interest in West Papua, as well as the multinational corporation investment, so yeah, we assume that many interests is disrupted by this film.

The director said the reception of many Indonesians showed the film had also opened eyes.

“The most common thing is they [the audience] realise that the social media algorithm is never friendly for the Papuans, for the West Papuan issue, so they never have a chance to get the real situation in West Papua.

“And even the mainstream media, Jakarta-based mainstream media, has never enough cover for West Papua, and of course, the international journalists cannot access the West Papua, so basically many people are blind from the current situation in West Papua.”

Relatable across republic
The film has resonated with Indonesian audiences, Laksono added, because what was happening in West Papua was relatable across the republic.

“They comment about the proximity with their own problem in their own land, because the military now have more control under [Indonesian President] Prabowo’s administration and also the agrarian conflict with the land grabbing and environmental destruction for the investment.

“So basically what happens in West Papua now is basically a common phenomenon in other places in Indonesia, but of course in West Papua we have more in terms of scale and in terms of level of the damage — but the essence is same, so they feel the proximity.”

Laksono said the government had tended to use nationalism as a way to mischaracterise coverage of genuine West Papuan stories as a threat to the unitary Indonesian republic.

But he said more people were now seeing through this kind of propaganda and the bid to hide the human rights, environmental and social issues in Papua.

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

Kudos to the returning Australian pro-Palestinian flotilla activists for not simply focusing on their mistreatment at the hands of the Israeli Defence Force but for acknowledging the suffering of Palestinian prisoners.

“What got me through is thinking about coming home, and now I’m home I can’t stop thinking about my brothers and sisters that we left behind, still in the clutches of the Israeli military, police and prison guards, who take so much pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering,” said climate activist Violet Coco as she stepped off the plane at Melbourne Airport.

“There are still almost 10,000 Palestinian prisoners held hostage in Israel’s prison system, hundreds of whom are children, some as young as two.

• READ MORE: Israel’s arrogance is becoming the evidence in the case against it
• Gaza freedom flotilla – reluctance of the West to protest Israel’s thuggery enabled the abuse
• Uncertainty persists as Trump says Iran deal not ‘fully negotiated’
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

“Israel wants to shame us but we are not ashamed, the shame is Israel’s, that they would tarnish their souls with such calculated cruelty.”

Fellow activist Gemma O’Toole also said the mistreatment of the protestors should not distract from the suffering of Palestinian prisoners.

“I gather there’s a lot of attention being paid to the Ben-Gvir video, which is just so insane to me,” she said, referring to a video posted by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir showing the detained activists with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground.

‘Heart broken for Palestinians’
“What you saw in that video is this [infinitesimal] amount of what we actually went through. And then to think that’s what they do to predominantly white people when they’re being held relatively to account, there’s so much attention being paid to that,” O’Toole said.

“My heart is just broken for the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, the global pro-Israel community is apoplectic about The New York Times for Nicholas Kristof’s expose of the shocking brutality being endured by imprisoned Palestinians (Israel is even suing the newspaper).

But, as the returning activists are pointing out, if this is how Israel treats privileged white people protesting you can imagine what they are doing to the brown people languishing in their prisons.

Hard to cry innocent when their national security minister is boasting about Israeli brutality and posting it on his website.

Mark Naglazas is a West Australian journalist specialising in Perth culture and the arts.

• New Zealand flotilla activists’ homecoming

ANALYSIS: By Professor Stuart Rees

If bullies notice that no one intervenes to stop their behaviour, they may interpret such non-intervention as permission to continue bullying.

For years, the same process has operated in relation to the thuggery of Israel’s Netanyahu government, and in that respect, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s abuse of detainees from the Gaza international aid flotilla was no surprise.

Suddenly, even the Australian government — and New Zealand — condemned the abuse meted out to hundreds of humanitarian activists, but that condemnation was too little too late.

• READ MORE: Uncertainty persists as Trump says Iran deal not ‘fully negotiated’
• Other Gaza flotilla human rights reports

The first measure concerns politicians’ and journalists’ reluctance to question Israeli spokespersons’ claims that they and their army operate according to the highest moral standards.

The second concerns the failure to hold Israel accountable to the rules of international law.

This culture of non-accountability, coupled with acceptance of Israel’s false claims, reappeared when 430 sailors from 40 different countries were taken into Israel’s detention, forced to kneel with their hands zip-tied behind their backs while the Israeli national anthem played and Ben-Gvir taunted them.

On ABC television’s 7:30 Report, the Israeli Ambassador to Australia repeated that Israeli forces had boarded the flotilla with “great sensitivity”. He assured listeners there would be no ill-treatment of the detainees.

Litany of Israeli lies
His claims followed a litany of lies.

In the Gaza slaughter, Israeli military spokespersons insisted they would not harm civilians, Palestinians were allegedly not short of food, and the bombing of hospitals, schools and so-called safe houses was justified by claims that these were all sites of Hamas operations.

The adjective ‘Hamas’ is used to stigmatise anyone who opposes Israeli actions.

Ben-Gvir and others labelled participants in the humanitarian aid flotilla “Hamas terrorist supporters”. This all-purpose label apparently explains terrorism, but even regarding a slaughter of innocents in Gaza, on the West Bank and in Lebanon, few politicians have asked, “whose terrorism are you referring to?”

Government-sanctioned brutality
Israeli officials claimed that no flotilla detainees were harmed, but a video showed detainees being abused in Israeli captivity, and returning Australian detainees reported experiences of violence and sexual abuse.

The Israeli legal rights centre Adalah reported “systemic violations of due process and widespread physical and psychological abuse by Israeli authorities”.

The same organisation said, “at least three people [from the flotilla] required hospitalisation due to injuries such as rib fractures and breathing difficulties”, each incident raising questions about the Israeli Australian Ambassador’s assertion that Israeli forces showed “great sensitivity”.

It is predictable that governments would be reluctant to ask whether Israel’s attacks on the international aid flotilla could be justified in international law.

In relation to other Israeli killing sprees, governments have treated international law as of no consequence.

The 1948 Genocide Convention identified genocide as a crime and obliged signatory governments to prevent such actions and to punish perpetrators. These obligations have been ignored. Neither has action been taken to obey the International Court of Justice’s January 2024 ruling that Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is illegal and should end immediately.

Israel insists that theirs is a lawful blockade of Gaza, but Western governments, having never used their navies to escort small boat flotillas to the shores of Gaza, have colluded with this claim.

Under what circumstances can a country that illegally occupies another’s waters be entitled to enforce a blockade?

The United Nations has described the Israeli blockade of Gaza as a “direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law”. Don Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University (ANU), concludes “there has been no legal basis for Israel to enforce a blockade off the coast of Cyprus (within 200 miles of Gaza), yet under international law an exception to a blockade exists for the provision of humanitarian aid to a civilian population”.

Western facilitators
Ben-Gvir’s bullying had been practised for years, but who cared if it was exercised at the expense of Palestinians?

Now, however, international human rights activists have been abused. In response, previously silent commentators have rediscovered their principles and expressed outrage.

The chances of that outrage leading to a revival of respect for international law appear to depend on governments admitting that

the Ben-Gvir abuse was a feature of overall Israeli state violence towards Palestinians,

a policy facilitated by Western democracies.

Ben-Gvir’s treatment of the flotilla detainees was the tip of an iceberg. The UN’s February 2026 Report concluded that the Israeli prison system had degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem published its 2026 paper, “Welcome to Hell: the Israeli prison system as a network of torture camps.”

Abuse of Palestinians, mostly in secret, had been reported but elicited nothing like the outrage expressed about the treatment of the flotilla crews.

The UN reported that as minister responsible for Israeli prisons, Ben-Gvir had institutionalised torture, collective punishment and dehumanising conditions. Abuse of detainees included rape with bottles, metal rods, and knives, starvation, breaking of bones and teeth, burning, being spat upon, being attacked and urinated upon by dogs.

Courage betrayed
In total contrast to that bestiality, 430 courageous individuals sailed to Gaza, motivated by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and by feeling betrayed by governments that had not intervened in the genocide in Palestine and stayed silent when Israeli forces boarded the flotilla.

Parents of those detainees have condemned governments for a failure to intervene.

But a failure to stop ethnic cleansing, stealing of lands and eventually a genocide had been underway for years, long before October 2023. Throughout those decades, the victims were a stigmatised “other”, so international humanitarian law could be ignored, and Israel and the US were given assurance that murder and mayhem in Palestine and Lebanon should continue.

Ben-Gvir noticed governments’ collusion with slaughter in Gaza and would have taken silence about the boarding of the flotilla as similar to Western collusion with death and destruction in Gaza, and with silence about the extent of cruelty in Israeli prisons.

Abuse of the gutsy flotilla crews has prompted outrage, but that protest has been far too little and far too late.

Securing essential healthcare services for US military veterans from three North Pacific nations remains a persistent challenge.

Despite the US Congress specifically authorising in-country services by the US Veterans Administration for veterans of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and Palau, the Trump administration over a year ago suspended ongoing talks to implement services.

All three island nations have been lobbying for years to get action for their hundreds of military veterans who, unlike American veterans, do not have easy, or any, access to Veterans Administration services — unless they move to the United States.

• READ MORE: Other US Pacific military veterans’ health care reports

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Kalani Kaneko, himself a US Army veteran, has been at the forefront of pushing US authorities to begin implementing healthcare for island veterans.

“Most importantly, the Compact legislation approved by the United States Congress specifically mandates the provision of VA services to the Freely Associated States,” he said in an interview this week.

“This was not intended to be a symbolic commitment, but a practical obligation reflecting the unique relationship between our nations,” Kaneko said.

Islanders from the three Freely Associated States (FAS) are allowed by the treaties with the US to enlist in the US Armed Forces and do so at per capita rates generally higher than those of Americans.

‘Served honourably’
“Marshallese citizens have served honourably in the United States Armed Forces for generations, often at one of the highest per-capita rates of military service in the world,” Kaneko said.

“The United States military continues to recruit in the Marshall Islands, and with that recruitment comes a shared responsibility to ensure veterans can access the care and benefits they earned through their service.”

Kaneko said the discussions that the Veterans Administration halted over a year ago have not yet started.

“Formal discussions have not fully resumed, and we have not yet received a definitive timeline from the US government regarding next steps,” he said. But, he added, the government was continuing to advocate for its veterans “to ensure this issue remains a priority.”

In comments issued last month to the US Government Accountability Office, FSM’s ambassador to the US, Jackson Soram, said based on the US Congress-approved Compact legislation, the “Freely Associated States had been in dialogue with the Veterans Administration on increased access to healthcare for FAS veterans”.

“In April 2025, after negotiations were underway, the Department of Veterans Affairs unexpectedly suspended the discussions that had been authorised by the US Congress.”

Soram said all three FAS governments want to resume discussions on this. “This is a fundamentally important goal of the FAS,” Soram added.

Kaneko confirms this sentiment.

‘Serious concerns’
“The RMI continues to engage the United States government regarding the implementation of VA services under the 2023 Amended Compact,” Kaneko said.

“Late March this year, Senator Wilbur Heine and I led an RMI delegation to Washington, DC to meet directly with officials from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and other relevant US agencies to address this issue and several other Compact implementation concerns affecting our people.

“During those discussions, we expressed our serious concerns regarding the continued delay in delivering VA services to veterans residing in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

“The VHA proposed that eligible veterans in the RMI utilize the VA Foreign Medical Program, which allows veterans living abroad to access reimbursement for certain covered medical care received in foreign countries.

“However, we made clear that this approach does not adequately address the realities on the ground in the Marshall Islands.”

Kaneko emphasised the point that the RMI’s healthcare system “lacks many of the specialised services, medical expertise, and support systems required to meet the unique needs of veterans, particularly those with service-related conditions.

“If these services already existed locally, our veterans would not be forced to travel abroad or continue facing significant barriers to care.”

‘Remains firm’
Kaneko said the Marshall Islands “remains firm in its position that veterans residing in the RMI deserve meaningful and accessible VA services consistent with both the letter and spirit of the Compact.

Kaneko was a recruiter for the US Army for much of his time in the military and expresses a feeling of personal responsibility about the provision of healthcare services.

“As a retired US Army soldier who personally recruited many Marshallese men and women into military service, this issue is deeply personal to me,” he said.

“Our government will not sit idle while our veterans continue to face barriers to the benefits they were promised and earned through sacrifice and service.

“This is not simply a policy matter; it is a matter of trust, fairness, and honouring the enduring partnership between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States.”

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

An emotional and inspiring welcome greeted two of Aotearoa New Zealand’s three Gaza Sumud Flotilla humanitarian activists who arrived home today after their ordeal at the hands of the brutal Israeli military and prison forces last week.

About 60 whānau, supporters and well-wishers greeted Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), 56, and Mousa Taher, 39, with a waiata and haka.

A large banner among the Palestinian flags at Auckland International Airport declared “Nau mai ki te kainga e Hāhona korua ko Mousa — Free Palestine” (“Welcome home, Hāhona, you and Mousa”).

• READ MORE: Andy Worthington: The startling severity of Gaza flotilla activists’ rape allegations
• Wong’s muted response to Ben-Gvir’s video raises serious questions
• Peters condemns Israeli minister over flotilla video as 3 Kiwis detained
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Another banner said, “We stand together from Aotearoa to Gaza — Global Sumud Flotilla — Free Palestine”.

The returning activists were among about 430 humanitarians from 43 countries trying to break the illegal blockade who were kidnapped, abused and abducted to Israel on “torture ships”.

Most were tortured and beaten, stirring global outrage, and Ormsby was seen to be walking today with a limp at Auckland International Airport.

The third New Zealand activist, Julien Blondel, 47, was not on this flight. His battered face was featured in several reports about an Israeli military raid on the flotilla last month.

Government ministers for several countries have accused Israel of “inhumane treatment” and “unacceptable” brutal behaviour over the abducted activists.

A video posted on social media by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir last week showed him taunting the activists as they were zip-tied and forced to kneel under threat after being detained by the Israeli forces in international waters.

This video was widely condemned, including by New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters who said in a statement:

‘Travel ban on Ben-Gvir’
“Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.”

However, a Palestinian researcher has criticised the “weak responses” of Australia and New Zealand over the “detention and humiliation”.

Writing in the Sydney-based Green Left magazine, Shamikh Badra said the abuse and torture by Israel not only revealed Tel Aviv’s approach to the Gaza enclave, it raised questions about Australia’s “response to an ally which is responsible for genocide”.

The Ben-Gvir video footage showed that hundreds of detained activists from various countries — including 11 Australians and three New Zealanders — were forced to kneel with their hands restrained behind their backs while Ben-Gvir walked past mocking them.

Among the peace activists were doctors, students, academics and filmmakers.

“The flotilla had again been attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and challenge the illegal blockade,” wrote Badra, who is originally from Gaza and is a convener of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine.

He is also a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.

“They were again intercepted illegally in international waters, but the outcry at their treatment has only come after Ben-Gvir’s public humiliation.

‘Public display of Israeli state power’
“Ben-Gvir’s video was not just about controlling the detainees; it was a public display of the Israeli state’s power,” wrote Badra.

“The forced kneeling, restraints and ridicule were part of a political performance designed to send a wider message: Israel will stop all attempts to challenge the blockade of Gaza.

“Some detainees were restrained with plastic ties; others were forced to kneel while the Israeli national anthem played through loudspeakers. This was a deliberate display of domination.

“They report that they were sexually abused, punched, tasered and kept in inhumane conditions.”

Basic humanitarian law meant that even in situations involving detention or maritime interception, civilians must be protected, wrote Badra.

“This is why European officials, the first to speak out, described the scenes as degrading and unacceptable.”

‘Shocking’ but restrained response
As with New Zealand’s Minister Peters, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong followed suit, saying the footage was “shocking and unacceptable”.

“However there is another broader issue — Wong’s restrained response,” wrote Badra.

“The Benjamin Netanyahu government, of which Ben-Gvir is a senior minister, is one of the [Australian] Labor government’s closest strategic partners.

“Australia’s foreign policy is supposed to be framed around protecting human rights, opposition to arbitrary detention and the defence of its citizens overseas.

“If Israel knows that international reactions are likely to be limited to statements of concern, rather than military sanctions and political isolation, the cost to it of mistreating flotilla activists is marginal.

“But perhaps Ben-Gvir has done us a favour by revealing how Israel treats supporters of Palestine. The flotilla activists’ accounts of their abuse, and the abuse they saw meted out to Palestinian prisoners, don’t leave much to the imagination.”

Shame on the Basque police @ertzaintzaEJGV for brutalising Flotilla members returning home after being abducted, unlawfully detained and ill-treated by Israel. May those responsible be held accountable.

We must resist the Israelisation of our societies. https://t.co/HzaOANaMLf

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 24, 2026

It’s a sign of Israel’s swaggering sense of impunity, and of the grotesque depravity at the heart of their notions of supremacy, that their soldiers and those in charge of them thought that they could get away with inflicting severe physical abuse on the 430 members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, from 45 countries, who were illegally intercepted at sea, in international waters, and then, over two days, were abused on Israeli ships located nearby.

They were then illegally brought to Israel to face further abuse under the watch of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the terrorist thug serving as the Minister of National Security, who caused global outrage when he posted a video of himself and his soldiers bullying and humiliating detained activists in his custody.

As Reuters reported in an article entitled, “Freed Gaza flotilla activists allege Israeli abuse including rape”, the flotilla’s organisers said that activists released from Israeli custody after being detained “were subjected to abuse, with several hospitalised with injuries, and at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape.”

• READ MORE: ‘More horrific than Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo’: The unsalvageable depravity of Israel’s prisons for Palestinians
• Flotilla activists tasered, sedated, sexually assaulted – Israeli prison service claims brutal abuse ‘justified’
• ‘It’s worse for Palestinians,’ says Australian flotilla activist about Israeli torture
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service stated, “The allegations raised are false and entirely without factual basis”, and Reuters noted that it “was not able to verify them independently”, but why would anyone believe the Israelis, when so many of those released were photographed with visible signs of abuse, including severe bruising, and what appear to be burn marks?

Because the Israelis lied about the evident signs of physical abuse, why is it plausible to suggest that claims of sexual assault, and even of rape, are somehow implausible?

Both have been reported widely in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians, and have even been celebrated in the case of five soldiers caught on video raping a Palestinian prisoner in the notorious Sde Teiman prison, who later had to be treated for the most severe internal injuries.

Why, we have to ask, did those directing the soldiers think that they would get away with their actions, when it was obvious that, on their release, the detained activists would be able to publicly show the signs of the abuse to which they were subjected, and, very possibly, would be able to undergo medical examinations to verify the claims by some that they were subjected to sexual assault and rape?

As Reuters described it, “A German Foreign Ministry ⁠spokesperson said consular officials who met German activists on their arrival in Istanbul reported that a number had injuries and were undergoing medical checks”, and stated, “We naturally expect a full explanation, as some of the allegations that have been made are serious.”

Prosecutors investigate kidnapping, torture crimes
In Italy, meanwhile, prosecutors in Rome “are investigating ​the possible crimes of kidnapping, torture and sexual assault and will hear testimony from activists who have returned to Italy over the coming days”, according to an Italian ​legal source.

As Reuters explained, the organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla “had documented at least 15 cases of sexual abuse, with the worst occurring on one Israeli landing ​craft which had been converted into a makeshift prison with barbed wire and shipping containers”.

There, according to the organisers, they “were thrown into the containers and beaten over the head and ribs.” They also reportedly “suffered multiple cases of sexual abuse, including ‘humiliating strip searches, sexual taunting, groping and pulling of genitals’”, and there were “multiple accounts of rape.”

“At least 12 sexual assaults have been documented on that vessel alone, including anal rape and forcible penetration by a handgun”, the group added.

Sabrina Charik, who helped organise the return of 37 French citizens from the flotilla, told Reuters that “five French participants had been hospitalised in Turkey, some with broken ribs or fractured vertebrae”, and that some of them “had made detailed accusations of sexual violence, ⁠including of rape.”

Reuters explained how Mi Hoa Lee, an activist from Spain, “​said she was forced into the darkened container on the ship, according to a video interview included with the flotilla’s statement.” She said, “Four men started beating me in the face against the wall, and I fell down and then stood up again, again ‌to the floor, ⁠stood up again, and they started tasering me for more than one minute.

In the video, she “point[ed] to her ribcage, hips and back where she said they applied the taser.”

“Then”, she added, “they kept beating me until I almost lost consciousness.”

Two ‘prison ships’
Ilaria Mancosu, an Italian activist, told Reuters that “the flotilla members were removed from their boats to two so-called prison ships”, and that “those put on one of the ships suffered more violence than the other.”

As she described it, “They were locked in a container and beaten by five soldiers, suffering fractures to the ribs and arms. Some had serious injuries to their eyes and ears caused by tasers.”

She added that “they spent two days on the prison ships with no ​running water and used cardboard and plastic to keep warm ​at night, since they had no blankets and ⁠were stripped of most of their clothes.

Once on land they were made to kneel for several hours and kicked and shoved if they moved or spoke. They were then taken to a prison where they were moved from room to room periodically to keep them from sleeping.”

According to Reuters, the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that he had been in touch with all his EU counterparts “so that there may be a quick ​decision to impose sanctions” on Itamar Ben-Gvir

But the problem with this is that, while Ben-Gvir was swaggeringly and demonstrably the face of this abuse, he is not a rogue element or a “bad apple” but an Israeli government minister who is openly showing the world not only how Israel treats Palestinians, but how, given a chance, it treats anyone, anywhere who opposes its genocidal supremacism in any way.

Andy Worthington is an UK investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. He is an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror”. This commentary was first published on his Facebook page.

Pesta Babi (Pig feast), the controversial Papuan documentary film critical of a major development project impacting on the environment in the southeastern Melanesian region, is stirring public debate and a “crackdown” across Indonesia.

The film caused a stir when it had its premiere in New Zealand in March and was described in a review by Asia Pacific Report as “exposing oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under the noses of the military”.

Screenings followed in Australia but there have been reports of a backlash in some parts of Indonesia and some public shows being shut down.

• READ MORE: West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military
• Army chief denies direct central command over Pesta Babi film crackdown
• Other Pesta Babi reports

However, the Indonesian military denied they were responsible for the crackdown, blaming some local authorities.

An Al Jazeera television report said Indonesian authorities had shut down several screenings of the documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures.

It noted that human rights groups and international media still faced restricted access to the Papuan region, which is mainly referred to as “West Papua” in Pacific countries.

Pesta Babi is focused on the largest forest conversion project in modern history in a remote are near Merauke — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

Footage of village resistance
Dramatic footage of scenes show Indigenous village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest in one of the three largest “lungs of the world”, shipping of barge-loads of heavy machinery, vast swathes of forest scoured out for rice and palm oil plantations, and of a traditional “pig feast” — the first in a decade.

Papuan environmental film ‘blocked’                       Video: Al Jazeera

In an editorial last week, The Jakarta Post said: “A series of crackdowns on public screenings and discussions of the documentary film Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) serves as a grim reminder that the nation’s democratic progress is not only stalling but effectively backsliding.”

Indnesian Army Chief-of-Staff General Maruli Simanjuntak said there had been “no direct instructions from the central military command to shut down public screenings of the documentary film Pesta Babi: Kolonialisme di Zaman Kita (Pig Party: Colonialism in Our Era).

“The shutdowns came from local administrations to maintain regional safety,” he said at the House of Representatives in Jakarta, according to antaranews.com.

“It is the responsibility of the regional coordinator … who deemed there was a risk of rioting. There was no direct instruction.”

Coordinating Minister for Legal and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra described the title of the film as “provocative” but denied there was a formal ban on screening it.

‘Important educational film’
Jubi News reports from Manokwari, West Papua, that a member of Indonesia’s Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) for West Papua, Filep Wamafma, welcomed the documentary as an “important educational medium” to open public discussion about development issues facing Papuans.

Wamafma said this after attending a public screening of the documentary at the School of Law (STIH) campus in Wosi, Manokwari Regency, last Monday.

The screening was organised by the academic community from Manokwari School of Law in collaboration with academics from Universitas Papua. Participants included students, lecturers, activists, and members of the public.

Wamafma said social conflicts arising from competition over natural resources and economic interests occured not only in Papua but also in many parts of the world.

However, he stressed that Papua’s problems had “unique characteristics” needing serious attention.

“This is a real global phenomenon, but each region has different problems. This film provides a concrete picture of the issues currently faced by Papuan society,” Wamafma said.

He encouraged students, especially law students, to approach the issues raised in the documentary through academic and constitutional perspectives.

Students, he said, should develop systematic analytical thinking by examining facts, legal norms, conducting analysis, and drawing conclusions.

The documentary has been made by award-winning investigative filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono and producer Victor Mambor, founder of Jubi Media, who first visited New Zealand 12 years ago.

• Pesta Babi film review

Activists freed from Israeli detention following the interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla have reported that they were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, say flotilla organisers — with at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape.

“At least 15 cases of sexual assaults, including rape. Shot with rubber bullets at close range. Tens of people’s bones broken,” organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla posted on Telegram.

“While the world’s eye is trained on the suffering of our participants, we cannot emphasize enough that this is a mere glimpse of the brutality Israel imposes daily on Palestinian hostages,” the statement added.

• READ MORE: ‘It’s worse for Palestinians,’ says Australian flotilla activist about Israeli torture
• Gaza flotilla activists allege abuse, sexual assault in Israeli detention
• Shameen Suleman: Outrage over the flotilla activists but where were they for Palestinians?
• Israel’s $700m Hasbara fiasco – how Ben-Gvir’s flotilla abuse video stirred backlash
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

The reports come after the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) on Wednesday doubled down on its abusive treatment of activists forcibly detained, despite scores of testimonies detailing beatings, interrogation and humiliation as well as rape and sexual abuse.

The IPS responded to a barrage of global criticism after a video showed far-right Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting the flotilla detainees as they were being handcuffed, pushed, dragged and assaulted.

A group of Australian citizens were kidnapped on international waters and beaten senseless on camera by their captors – Israel

The most prominent Israel advocate in Australia – Jillian Segal – has so far said nothing about the welfare of her fellow Australian citizens nor… pic.twitter.com/deibOB3nhC

— RonniSalt-WhoWroteGunnawahYeahThatOne (@RonniSalt) May 23, 2026

“Upon receiving the detainees, the prison guards were required to act to maintain order and security at the site. All actions were carried out in accordance with procedures and professional considerations,” the IPS claimed.

The IPS also claimed that some of the detainees being shown in widely circulating videos were “not under the responsibility” of the IPS when they were being filmed.

Rights groups say abuse ‘systematic’
However, rights groups have accused Israel of making humiliation, sexual abuse and torture of detainees and prisoners systematic.

Dr Mimi Syed, a US-based physician who volunteered in Gaza amid Israel’s war on the besieged enclave, told The New Arab that Israel’s treatment of those aboard the flotilla is illegal.

“You cannot treat activists and humanitarian workers this way. It’s absolutely outrageous how there’s witnesses saying that people were raped and obvious signs of force being used — I saw some of the photos of the activists which show signs of bruising and fractures, things like that which are absolutely unnecessary,” she said.

“There is video recording of officials deliberately assaulting some of these activists which is just unheard of.

“I’m not surprised as this is something the Israeli government has been doing to civilians in Gaza, so doing to activists in other countries is still right on par with what they have demonstrated to the world in the last two and a half years,” she said.

Several photos and videos shared this week on social media showed flotilla activists being forced to kneel down with their heads on the ground, while Israeli prison officers are surrounding them.

The footage, some of which was shared by minister Ben-Gvir, was condemned by several states, while Poland, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK summoned Israeli ambassadors to “clarify” why their citizens were mistreated.

‘Complete impunity’
The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked the country’s foreign ministry if the treatment of the flotilla activists was acceptable, but there was no response.

“When a country has complete impunity to do what they want, nothing really is out of bounds for them,” Dr Syed said.

“They will do what they need to achieve their goal which is a land grab, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the displacement of millions of people. It’s not just in Gaza, it’s in the West Bank and Lebanon.”

Activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, who were taken to Istanbul before returning to their countries, also revealed on Friday that the abuse they faced included rubber bullets being fired at close range, tasers to the face, stun grenades thrown into groups of people, stress positions for hours under bright lights, the forced removal of hijabs and sexual taunting.

They said the sexual violence included strip searches, groping, the pulling of genitals, and rape.

According to organisers, based on testimonies from those released from detention, some of the most horrifying accounts come from those aboard a single vessel, dubbed “torture boat”.

“I can say that all were in many ways abused, not one single person walking with nothing,” Veronica Otero, told reporters.

“Among them there were 36 fractures, many broken ribs, torso, shoulders, and back. People were in agony. People were not breathing [due to the broken ribs].”

Testimonies of abuse, rape
More than 50 boats took part in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), with 430 people on board from more than 40 countries, and since armed Israeli naval commandos began intercepting the fleet in international waters, many have detailed the abuse they faced.

One Australian activist, Zack Schofield, who had since been deported to Istanbul and has now returned to Australia, said all the members of the flotilla were treated brutally.

“Her hands [and] feet were zip-tied together, and then she was dragged around the rest of the processing centre, before she was taken into a prison bus,” he told reporters, referring to an abused Irish woman who was part of the flotilla group.

“There’s no consistency to the violence. It was really at the whim of whichever guard was in front of you,” he continued, adding that he saw many people receive similar or worse treatment.

Juliet Lamont, a filmmaker from Australia, said Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and beat her, noting she witnessed others — at least 40 — being left with broken bones, while others were sedated and tasered.

The activists said prison guards restricted access to food and water, and were left to sleep on cold, wet floors for days with no mattress or blankets, in cramped conditions.

We do not need any more examples to know that we are dealing with a terrorist state! There is a long, documented history of systemic violence perpetrated by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people with absolute impunity. pic.twitter.com/JIPvZf2Rqp

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 23, 2026

Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila told The New Arab he was beaten unconscious and Israeli forces threatened to kill him.

Meanwhile, Luca Poggi, an Italian economist who was aboard the flotilla, confirmed the reports of sexual abuse: “We were stripped, thrown to the ground, kicked.

“Many of us were tasered, some were sexually assaulted, and some were denied access to a lawyer,” he told reporters after he was deported to Rome.

Nadda Osman is a British-Egyptian journalist and editor based in London. She holds a degree in English and journalism and reports on the Middle East and North Africa. Republished from The New Arab.

• Australian members of the Gaza flotilla arrived back home today and told news media of their abuse. Two of the three New Zealand members of the flotilla are due to arrive back in Auckland early tomorrow afternoon.

A video posted by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he is seen taunting abducted flotilla activists who sought to break the siege on Gaza, has triggered a backlash and dealt a huge blow to Israel’s multimillion-dollar public relations campaign, known as “Hasbara”.

The footage, posted on the social media platform X, showed Ben-Gvir gloating as activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla — including three New Zealanders — knelt on the floor, blindfolded, with their hands bound at the Port of Ashdod.

Israeli naval forces had intercepted the flotilla’s vessels in international waters off the coast of Cyprus, illegally abducting 430 participants.

• READ MORE: Israel deports hundreds of Gaza aid flotilla activists amid global outcry
• Spanish MEP accuses EU of failure to act over Israeli ‘kidnapping, hijacking’ of Gaza flotilla activists
• Peters condemns Israeli minister over flotilla video as 3 Kiwis detained
• Peace Action demands NZ summon Israeli ambassador over brutal action against activists
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Among them, at least 87 launched a hunger strike in solidarity with the more than 9500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The images of activists being dragged across the floor prompted several countries — including Italy, France, the Netherlands, Canada, and Spain — to summon Israeli ambassadors, condemning the “unacceptable” treatment and violation of human dignity.

The collapse of the ‘Hasbara’ illusion
Experts argue that the frantic damage control by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered the rapid deportation of the activists, stems not from moral outrage over the abuses, but from the catastrophic damage done to Israel’s global image.

“Netanyahu was dismayed not by Ben Gvir’s actions, but the fact he filmed and broadcasted them to appeal to his electorate ahead of the upcoming elections.

Netanyahu himself, like Ben Gvir, called the members of the Gaza flotilla terrorist supporters. The term terrorist has now… pic.twitter.com/ITdcIRZD2E

— State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) May 21, 2026

For decades, Israel has relied on “Hasbara” — a Hebrew term translating to “explanation” — a propaganda campaign to justify its policies and military actions against Palestinians to the international community.

Fathi Nimer, a Palestine policy fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, told Al Jazeera that Hasbara is essentially state propaganda designed to “beautify the image of the occupation” by tailoring specific narratives to different global audiences.

“The fundamental assumption of Hasbara is that Israel is always right, but the world simply doesn’t understand,” Nimer said. He noted that due to Israel’s deepening isolation following its war on Gaza, the state’s Hasbara budget is projected to leap from roughly $15 million in 2023 to an unprecedented $700 million by 2026.

Yet, Ben-Gvir’s brazen video dismantled this heavily funded narrative in an instant.

Global outrage over Israeli minister’s treatment of abuse       Video: Al Jazeera

“The Israeli leadership is treating this as a public relations crisis, not a moral one,” Nimer explained. “For Netanyahu, the sin was not the torture or humiliation of the activists; the sin was broadcasting it to the world.

“Ben-Gvir, however, does not care about Israel’s external image; he performs these abuses for his domestic right-wing base, confident that Israel will face no material consequences.”

Mtanes Shehadeh, an academic and expert on Israeli affairs, echoed this assessment. “The core problem for Israel is that this video transmitted its true reality to the entire world,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It provided the globe with live, irrefutable evidence that structural violence and a disregard for human rights are foundational to the current Israeli establishment.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir is not an anomaly in Israeli society. Hell, he’s not even an anomaly in the Israeli cabinet.

Here’s Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev, also bragging about torturing the activists who tried to bring aid to Gaza.

The entire barrel is rotten to the core. https://t.co/JYahRlhQ0x pic.twitter.com/naNAnvGhzt

— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) May 21, 2026

US double standards and ‘pro-terror’ sanctions
The diplomatic fallout also laid bare the glaring contradictions in United States policy.

Following the video’s release, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee criticised Ben-Gvir, stating the minister had “betrayed the dignity of his nation”. However, critics were quick to point out that Huckabee’s condemnation rang hollow, as it focused entirely on the indignity of the broadcast rather than the human rights violations committed.

Furthermore, Huckabee’s remarks came just a day after the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on four organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla, labelling the humanitarian mission a “pro-terror flotilla” in support of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

The US sanctions targeted activists from the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad and the Palestinian prisoners’ solidarity network, Samidoun.

Analysts highlight this as a stark double standard. While the US administration quickly moved to sanction humanitarian flotilla organisers, Palestinian civil society groups and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors, it has consistently shielded far-right Israeli ministers like Ben-Gvir from accountability, even lifting prior sanctions on violent Israeli settlers.

A microcosm of Palestinian suffering
For Palestinians, the humiliation endured by the European and international activists is merely a glimpse into a much darker, systemic reality.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the bound and blindfolded activists represented a “microcosm” of what Palestinian prisoners endured daily.

“This scene expresses the fascism of the entire Israeli government, not just Ben-Gvir,” Barghouti said. “If the government genuinely opposed these practices, they would have fired him immediately.

“Instead, their audacity has reached the point of pirating ships in international waters.”

Human rights groups estimate that nearly 100 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023, amid widespread reports of starvation, severe beatings and medical neglect.

Luisa Morgantini, former vice president of the European Parliament, said the standard diplomatic response of summoning ambassadors is woefully inadequate.

“It is a shame how our governments have behaved. They are complicit,” Morgantini said, calling on European nations to suspend their association agreements with Israel, halt arms sales, and actively back the ICC’s arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.

The ‘hammer’ and the flotillas
Despite the military interceptions and the US sanctions, activists and analysts agree that the flotilla campaigns, which began in 2009 in response to Israeli land, sea and air blockades, have succeeded in exposing the limits of Israeli force.

Nimer cited the American psychologist Abraham Maslow: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

“This is the only way the Israeli military knows how to act — through brute force and piracy,” Nimer said.

“The role of Hasbara was to rationalise this brutality for global consumption. But as the flotillas continue to challenge the blockade, they accumulate small victories and deeply accelerate Israel’s popular global isolation, proving that the multimillion-dollar propaganda machine can no longer hide the reality on the ground.”

Mohammad Mansour is a special correspondent of the Doha-based Al Jazeera global television network.

New Zealand has joined international condemnation of Israel’s far-right national security minister, even summoning the Israeli ambassador to convey that message.

A video posted by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, showing him taunting detained flotilla activists, drew international condemnation on Thursday.

The video showed kneeling activists, with their hands zip-tied, while Ben-Gvir shouted “they came as big heroes, see how they look now… not heroes, nothing, terror supporters”.

The video released by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir

• READ MORE: Peace Action demands NZ summon Israeli ambassador over brutal action against activists
• Several nations summon Israeli envoys as Ben-Gvir taunts flotilla activists
• 87+ Gaza aid flotilla activists abducted by Israel now on hunger strike
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Ben-Gvir also said he had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “give them to me for more much time, give them to us for the terrorist prisons, this is how it should look”.

He posted the video with the caption “welcome to Israel”.

In a statement on X, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand condemned Ben-Gvir’s behaviour.

“Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

Further vindication
His latest conduct with respect to the Gaza flotilla, which has been seriously criticised by his own Prime Minister, is further vindication of that position.

Peters said ministry officials had been instructed to call in the Israeli Ambassador on Thursday to directly pass the government’s grave concerns.

New Zealand condemns the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

His latest conduct with…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 20, 2026

“We expect Israel to adhere to its international legal obligations, including in its treatment of New Zealanders participating in the flotilla.”

The US, the UK, France, Italy and Canada were among the countries which expressed alarm at the video, which Ben-Gvir shared on social media.

A global pro-Palestinian humanitarian aid movement said three New Zealanders were detained by Israel after their boats were intercepted while taking part in a flotilla to Gaza.

The Global Sumud Flotilla had repeatedly tried to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Palestinian territory.

In a statement, the group said New Zealanders Mousa Taher, Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel were now in Israeli custody.

It said Mousa and Julien had returned to the flotilla after an earlier interception.

MFAT comment
RNZ approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) for comment.

In a previous statement provided to RNZ earlier this month, MFAT said it understood up to six New Zealanders had been caught up in the interception and it was aware of allegations made about the treatment of New Zealanders in custody.

Consular officials in New Zealand and Europe had been working to get information and support the New Zealanders involved, it said.

“The New Zealand government made it clear to Israel that the safety of New Zealanders involved was paramount and that international law must be upheld,” the previous statement said.

New Zealand had a long-standing “do not travel” advisory in place for Gaza, explicitly warning against any attempt to enter by sea, MFAT said.

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

• Pacific Media Watch reports that 428 Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists from 40 countries were abducted from more than 50 boats in the Israeli operation this week, according to organisers. The boats were carrying humanitarian aid in a bid to break the illegal blockade of Gaza.

New Zealand needs to summon Israeli ambassador to protest over the illegal and brutal treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid activists — including three New Zealanders — kidnapped in international waters this week.

Peace activists are demanding this in the response to Israel ambassadors being summoned by several host governments over the “degrading” treatment.

Media footage broadcast by Al Jazeera and other media show Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting activists in Israeli custody, including the three New Zealanders — Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel and Hāhona Jason Ormsby.

• READ MORE: Several nations summon Israeli envoys as Ben-Gvir taunts flotilla activists
• 87+ Gaza aid flotilla activists abducted by Israel now on hunger strike
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

Update: New Zealand has now also condemned the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir with Foreign Minister Winston Peters issuing a statement saying, “we have instructed MFAT to call in the Israeli Ambassador today to directly pass on our grave concerns”.

The latest protest came from the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, who condemned a video showing Ben-Gvir abusing activists as they were forced to kneel on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs.

Kallas described the treatment of the abducted activists as “degrading and wrong” and said rightwing minister Ben-Gvir’s conduct was “unbecoming of anyone holding office in a democracy”.

Peters noted that New Zealand had last year placed a travel ban on Ben-Gvir for “severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution”.

Several countries — including Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Canada — have summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their capitals to express “indignation” over Israel’s treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists.

Other countries condemning the incident include South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Turkiye, Austria, Belgium, Colombia and the United Kingdom.

Ben-Gvir’s actions ‘unacceptable’
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot denounced Ben-Gvir’s actions as “unacceptable”, calling for the release of French citizens “as soon as possible”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand called the incident “deeply troubling”, adding that Ottawa would summon the Israeli ambassador over the incident.

“The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice and the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission,” a flotilla organiser, Brazilian Thiago Ávila, posted on X.

“But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day.”

All 428 activists from 40 countries were part of the peaceful flotilla of more than 50 boats taking humanitarian aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel’s illegal blockade.

“We call on the Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, to summon the Israeli Ambassador,” said Valerie Morse, member of Peace Action Wellington, in a statement.

“He needs to stand up for these New Zealanders who are being detained illegally and tortured by the Israeli military.

“The video footage shows the activists held in stress positions while Ben-Gvir parades around shouting at them.

New Zealand condemns the behaviour of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.

His latest conduct with…

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 20, 2026

‘Peters ignored responsibilities’
“Thus far, he has completely ignored his responsibilities as Foreign Minister. We have not heard a word of condemnation for Israel’s blatant kidnapping of ordinary people peacefully sailing in the Mediterranean Sea,” Morse said.

“Peters is greenlighting more Israeli impunity by failing to take action for New Zealanders in extremely vulnerable positions.

“He must demand the immediate release of these New Zealanders without delay and without harm.”

The world is finally moving after seeing the cowardice & the violence of the Zionist regime against our non-violent solidarity humanitarian mission. But the key problem is that this level of unacceptable violence is still nothing compared to what they do to Palestinians every day pic.twitter.com/8Z7mgJa5uc

— Thiago Ávila (@thiagoavilabr) May 20, 2026

At least 87 people kidnapped by Israeli forces from a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza have begun a hunger strike, say organisers, after Israeli forces intercepted the last remaining vessel in international waters.

The group is striking “in protest of their illegal abduction and in solidarity with the over 9500 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli dungeons”, the Global Sumud Flotilla wrote on X, reports Al Jazeera.

Late on Tuesday evening, Israeli forces “kidnapped” six people on board the Lina al-Nabulsi boat, organisers said.

• READ MORE: Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Foreign ministers of 10 countries say Israel’s storming of the aid flotilla is blatant violation of international law
• Greenpeace calls on global govts to ensure safety of Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli military
• ‘They threatened to kill us at gunpoint,’ says NZ Gaza flotilla activist
• After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• Other Gaza flotilla reports

The boat was the last in a group of more than 50 vessels that left Turkiye’s port city of Marmaris last week to sail towards Gaza, with the goal of breaking Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed late on Tuesday that its forces were taking hundreds of flotilla participants to Israel.

“Another PR flotilla has come to an end. All 430 activists have been transferred to Israeli vessels and are making their way to Israel, where they will be able to meet with their consular representatives,” a ministry spokesman said, calling the effort “nothing more than a PR stunt.”

Israeli forces began overtaking the vessels in international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Monday, organisers said, where they raided boats, allegedly fired rubber bullets and abducted participants.

Nine Indonesians, 3 New Zealanders
The detainees included nine Indonesian citizens, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Indonesia called for the immediate release of all vessels and said that “every diplomatic channel and consular measure will continue to be fully utilised”.

Some 15 Irish citizens, including Dr Margaret Connolly, the sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, were among those being held.

Countries including Turkiye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives denounced the Israeli interceptions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

Three New Zealanders were also abducted on the flotllla but their government has not spoken out. They are Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

The United States, however, imposed sanctions on four activists for their involvement in flotillas that have tried to reach Gaza, claiming without evidence that the organisers were acting “in support of Hamas”.

Some previous flotilla participants have refused food upon being detained by Israel.

Pro-Palestine activists jailed in the UK also participated in a high-profile, months-long hunger strike that began last year and led to severe health effects.

• More information at the Global Sumud Flotilla New Zealand delegation Instagram page

NZ EMBASSY (responsible for the illegally occupied Palestinian terroritories) in Ankara, Turkey
+90(312)4463333
Email: NZEmbassyAnkara@mfat.govt.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to resolve a tenancy controversy over the Israeli embassy — by expelling the ambassador and staff.

Noting the world pariah status of the country after the International Criminal Court (ICC)  has reportedly sought arrest warrants for war crimes against up to five more Israeli officials, the PSNA said today the shift of the Israeli embassy into the Fisher Funds building in Wellington had concerned other tenants in the office high rise.

Citing The Post front-page article on Monday, it said only some occupants of the 13-storey site had been told that Israel was moving in.

• READ MORE: Israeli far-right minister Smotrich says ICC seeks his arrest
• Israeli Embassy on the move ‒ but not all new neighbours happy, despite heightened security promise
• Family pleas for kidnapped 3 Kiwis as Gaza flotilla demands global activists’ freedom from Israel
• Other Gaza genocide reports

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in a statement “the building’s owner was obviously trying to keep the arrival of the embassy a secret” to avoid objections.

“It’s pretty obvious why. The Fisher Funds building is owned by Prime Property Group, which is controlled by rich-lister and former Israeli Defence Force major, Eyal Aharoni,” she said.

“He’s looking after his own.”

According to Al Jazeera and news agencies, Israeli far-right Finance Minister ⁠Bezalel Smotrich said he had been informed that the ICC ⁠in ⁠The Hague ⁠had ⁠requested a warrant for his arrest.

Smotrich did not specify who had informed him about the warrant and said it was a “declaration of war”. The process of seeking warrants ⁠is confidential.

Displacement orders
The ICC accusations reportedly centre on Smotrich’s forced displacement orders for Palestinians, his support for moving Israeli settlers into occupied territory, and his claim it may be “justified and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza.

Another report, by the independent Haaretz newspaper, named five officials — including Smotrich — as the subject of arrest warrants, but the ICC described this as “inaccurate”.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Tamimi said the solution to the embassy location concern was the New Zealand government could expel the ambassador and his staff.

“We broke off diplomatic relations when it was discovered Israel’s Mossad spy agency had been getting fake New Zealand passports. So, there is a precedent,” she said.

“It all comes down to the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s the world’s worst atrocity of this century and shamefully its ongoing perpetrators are flying their flag over our capital city.

‘Kidnapping citizens’
“At this very moment, Israel is firing on the Sumud Flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza and kidnapping and assaulting New Zealand citizens on that convoy.

“Our ministers are shaking hands with the people who represent this illegal violence in international waters.”

Tamimi said that although Fisher Funds did not own the building it operated out of, “it must have powers as the holder of naming rights”.

Israel is now perceived more negatively than any other country in the world, according to new global polling published by Nira Data as part of its 2026 democracy and country perception research.

The five most positively perceived countries were Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Sweden and Italy.

The findings place Israel at the bottom of the Global Country Perceptions 2026 ranking, a survey of 46,667 respondents assessing how 129 countries and three international organisations are viewed around the world.

• READ MORE: As Israel becomes a global pariah, leaked Meta data reveals soaring costs for its brands
• Israel to spend $730m on propaganda as global image collapses over Gaza genocide
• Improvements in Pacific media freedom, but a shameful silence on Gaza ‘death trap’
• Other Gaza and war on Iran reports

The ranking was published alongside Nira Data’s 2026 Democracy Perception Index, which surveyed 94,146 respondents across 98 countries on how citizens experience democracy in their own countries.

The result marks another sign of Israel’s deepening international isolation amid its genocide in Gaza, mass displacement of Palestinians, starvation policies and escalating violence in the occupied West Bank, and attacks on Lebanon in breach of a so-called “ceasefire”.

Israel’s global image has collapsed as human rights organisations, UN experts and international courts have warned of grave violations of international law by the occupation state.

The United States has also suffered a dramatic collapse in global standing. The US is now ranked among the five most negatively perceived countries in the world, below both Russia and China in international favourability. Its net perception score fell from +22 per cent in 2024 to -16 per cent in 2026, a 38-point drop in just two years.

Growing anger over Trump
US decline came amid growing anger over President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, including strained relations with NATO allies, aggressive tariffs, threats relating to Greenland, cuts to Ukraine aid and Washington’s role in the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. The survey found that the US is now viewed as a major global threat, behind Russia and Israel.

The wider 2026 Democracy Perception Index describes itself as the world’s largest annual democracy survey.

Unlike expert-based democracy rankings, it asks citizens directly how they experience democracy through questions on elections, freedom of speech, political pluralism, civic education, separation of powers, rule of law, government transparency and peaceful transitions.

The collapse in Israel’s standing comes as global public opinion has shifted sharply against the occupation state over its assault on Gaza.

Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, destroyed most of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, displaced nearly the entire population and imposed conditions that UN experts and genocide scholars have described as genocidal.

For the US, the findings point to the steep cost of Washington’s continued military, diplomatic and political support for Israel.

While successive US administrations have shielded Israel from accountability at the UN and continued arms transfers despite mounting evidence of war crimes, the survey suggests that global publics increasingly associate American power with impunity, double standards and destabilising wars.

Republished from Middle East Monitor.

Most of the Western media refuse to join the dots and explain Israel’s decades-long obsession with defanging Tehran.

The war in Iran is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has planned for four decades. He has always wanted Israel to extend from Egypt to the Euphrates and in the process have the United States overthrow seven neighbouring countries, the last and latest being Iran.

That was also America’s plot, hatched by the neo-conservative authors at the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 2000. The list of targeted countries, confirmed by US General Wesley Clark in 2007, was based on a proposal published in Israel in 1982.

• READ MORE: Lifting secrecy plans to censor jornalists
• Other war on Palestine, war on Iran reports

Ambitious as they were, these long-held intentions have now culminated in the US-Israel war on Iran, which seems sudden but was carefully planned, a former British Ambassador claims.

US President Donald Trump was not “bounced into it” by Israel: it had been in gestation for months, says Craig Murray, Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004.

Well in advance, Trump had weapons ordered for fast delivery from Lockheed Martin, naval ships and troops were moved to the Gulf, and CIA and Mossad agitators reportedly stirred up Iranians in several cities, already exasperated by their theocratic rulers and by US sanctions.

If Murray is right, Trump and Netanyahu must have been planning this in their frequent meetings before and since the “12-day war” against Iran last year. Or for longer: Trump has reminded the world that as far back as 1987 he wanted the US to take over some of Iran’s oil, and to go to war for it.

Everything is a ‘deal’
But Trump’s shambolic war shows that he regards everything as a “deal’” and while aggrandising himself, he fails to understand that Iranians don’t accept transactionalism about their country, whoever its leader is.

He appears not to remember that under the Shah, Iran was on good terms with Israel and the US, until the uprising against the Pahlavis in 1979. He doesn’t mention the CIA’s overthrow in 1953 of Prime Minister Mossadegh, who merely wanted to nationalise Iran’s oil.

Instead of understanding Iran and its people, Trump claims to trust his “gut instinct” about the war, and he regularly gets it wrong.

The state of the president’s mental, cognitive and physical health has been raised again lately by his niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist. She observes symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in Trump, and recalls that his father and her grandfather, Fred Trump sr., died with dementia.

Other specialists detect signs of “malignant narcissism”, and note that the President’s repeated threats, exaggerations, and reversals are more likely to be the results of incapacity than of intent.

Still, Trump’s erratic statements keep attention focussed on him, keeping the world guessing and confused, and his narcissistic self on centre stage. For Trump, as for Netanyahu, the personal is paramount. Both of them face coming elections (Trump has to face the mid-terms in November while Netanyahu has a general election before the end of the year); both want to stay alive and out of jail; and the continuing war further enriches them, their families and friends.

Plans for war
Netanyahu’s project derives from the 1982 Yinon Plan, named after its author, an Israeli diplomat, journalist, and former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Published in the Hebrew journal Kivunim (“Directions”) as “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, it reappeared in a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, prepared for Netanyahu by American neoconservative strategists. They also produced their “Project for the New American Century”, advocating a “catastrophic and catalysing event” that would convince Americans of the need for war.

The “Clean Break” document argued that Israel should abandon land-for-peace diplomacy and instead pursue a strategy that would weaken or remove hostile regimes in the region, particularly Iraq and Syria. The goal was not mere military victory but a geopolitical restructuring of the Middle East in Israel’s favour.

In 1997, some of the same people involved with that report established the Project for the New American Century think tank, which produced several major reports, especially “Rebuilding America’s Defences” in the year 2000. It argued for preserving US military preeminence in the Middle East and two other theatres with a “revolution in military affairs” that might be accelerated by a “catastrophic and catalysing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”.

Just a year later on 9/11, such an event occurred, leading Congress quickly to pass the Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, and the anti-terrorism PATRIOT Act.

Track the planning process forward to 2001, and a former CIA operator confirms what many conspiracy analysts have suspected for years: that Israel, together with Saudi Arabia, was potentially informed about conspirators in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11 before they occurred. John Kiriakou, a former CIA bureau chief for Pakistan, points to the involvement of the Saudi royal family in Al-Qaeda’s plan.

As well, Kiriakou says that Mossad was thick on the ground on the US east coast in 2001 and Israel knew what was to happen, but did nothing to stop it.

Furious response over Saudis
Kiriakou points to the furious response to Riyadh by US agencies on learning of the Saudis’ dominant involvement in 9/11. It produced three sudden deaths in a week in July 2022: Princes Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz (in hospital after an operation), Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki (in a car accident), and Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir (of thirst in the desert).

The latter two were both in their mid-twenties, while Ahmed was 43. Seven months later Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, died in a plane crash in clear weather over the unruly Northwest Frontier province, along with his wife and closest confidants.

9/11 researchers have found out a lot more about what two US “allies”, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, knew in advance of 9/11 and did in support of al-Qaeda. US lawyer Gerald Posner’s account is based on al-Qaeda operative Ali Zubaydah’s claims about his capture and interrogation, and his admissions about his work with Saudi and Pakistani officials.

From Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held without charge for more than two decades, he told Posner that both Prince Ahmed and Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan’s Air Marshal, “knew that an attack was scheduled for American soil on that day”. Like Israelis, they did nothing to stop it.

The Report of the 9/11 Commission, which some said was “set up to fail”, read more as a call to arms against al-Qaeda than a forensic criminal report. The GW Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations prevented the US Congress accessing 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after 9/11.

Eventually released by Biden in June 2016, the pages identified Saudi Arabian diplomats, officials, and members of the ruling family as contributors to preparations for the attacks, but not Israelis.

Yet when US President Bush declared a “war on terror” in response to 9/11, he realised Netanyahu’s aim for the US to attack Israel’s neighbours. And war, says Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, “is always the first option, not the last one in Israel“.

Heavy insider trading was recorded in New York in advance of September 11, including put options on United Airlines, American Airlines, and other related stocks. A majority of those polled by The New York Times in the five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers and Washington thought the government was lying or was hiding something.  Even some staff, investigators, and members of the 9/11 Commission knew that senior military officials and CIA director George Tenet had lied to them, while others’ evidence was suppressed. But their knowledge was excluded from the final report.

Terrorists, neo-colonialists, tyrants and war criminals
This history reveals the need to be sceptical of Washington’s claims about terrorism from 9/11 to today’s war against Iran. “Terror” is repeatedly used as propaganda to manufacture consent for war and to demonise enemies of the West, while what the US and Israel do is “not terrorism”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a war crime, said NATO and its friends: yet the US coalition’s long wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria were not. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its former territory, was an outrageous land grab: Israel’s annexations of Syria’s Golan and the Palestinians’ West Bank territory were not. Hamas’ breakout from Gaza on 7 October 2023 was terrorism; Israel’s recurrent attacks on Palestinians since 1948 and its ethnic cleansing of Gaza since 2023 were not.

Hamas and Hezbollah’s retaliation and the Houthis’ attacks are terrorism: Israel’s bombing and occupation of Gaza and southern Lebanon are not. Iran’s leaders are murderous tyrants: Israel’s indicted war criminals Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (both wanted by the International Criminal Court on arrest warrants for crimes against humanity).are not. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC are designated terrorist organisations: the IDF, CIA, and Mossad are not. The US assaults on Venezuela and Iran, to be followed by Cuba, are claimed to be against terrorism or drugs: in fact they are about who controls oil and makes and unmakes governments.

It does not occur to most Americans and Israelis that their own activities are state terror. Instead, they claim a right to defend US hegemony and all Jews’ right to Eretz Israel and greatness as “God’s chosen people”. Palestinians who resist have no such rights and are called subhuman terrorists, and under a new law, Arab Israelis will be executed for terrorism, while Jewish Israelis are not.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis made similar claims about the superiority of their civilisation to justify the Holocaust. No wonder some now detect a resurgence of fascism in the US, Israel, and elsewhere. Others observe the sudden rise of anti-Semitism since October 2003.

A growing number expect the US war to fail, leaving Israel to do its worst in Iran and Lebanon.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have been added to Al-Qaeda on the list of designated terrorists. The wars that followed culminate in Iran, labelled by Trump a “terrorist regime”.

Candidate Trump took Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s advice to “move fast and break things”. He has done it as president. What ends up broken is now the whole world’s concern.

Dr Alison Broinowski AM is an Australian former diplomat, academic and author. Her books and articles concern Australia’s interactions with the world. She is president of Australians for War Powers Reform. Republished with permission from Declassified Australia.

The Palestine Forum of New Zealand has criticised plans for the country taking part in next month’s military exercises with Israel and the United States, saying Wellington must not be seen aligning militarily with a state “facing serious allegations of war crimes and genocide before international legal institutions”.

In a statement today, the Palestine Forum expressed “deep concern” over the reports that the NZ Defence Force (NZDF) would participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises with Israel and the US in Hawai’i between July 21 and 31.

“New Zealand has long claimed to uphold international law, human rights, and an independent foreign policy,” the statement said.

• READ MORE: NZDF plans upcoming RIMPAC training with Israel and the US
• Other RIMPAC reports

“Participating in joint military exercises alongside Israel fundamentally contradicts those values and risks damaging New Zealand’s international reputation.”

Such exercises should not happen at a time when the world was witnessing the ongoing devastation in Gaza and growing international condemnation of Israel’s actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Palestine Forum said.

“There should be no military cooperation with states engaged in ongoing conflicts and facing credible allegations of violations of international humanitarian law.”

The Palestine Forum called on Christopher Luxon’s coalition government to “immediately review” New Zealand participation in these exercises and “ensure the country does not become complicit directly or indirectly in legitimising violence, occupation, or collective punishment”.

Stand on side of justice, peace
New Zealanders expected their country to stand on the side of justice, peace, and international accountability, not military cooperation with governments accused of grave human rights abuses.

Valerie Morse, a member of Peace Action Wellington, yesterday released a statement about RIMPAC 2026 from the NZDF obtained in response to an Official Information Act (OIA) request last month.

“The NZDF is sending the largest contingent of troops and materiel in a decade to the this year’s RIMPAC including three ships and 328 service personnel,” Morse said.

“This is while Israel continues its genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the US and Israel wage an illegal war on Iran.”

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

For decades, two irreconciliable narratives about Israel and its motivations have existed in parallel.

On the one side, an official Western narrative portrays a plucky, besieged “Jewish” state of Israel, desperate to make peace with its hostile Arab neighbours. Even to this day, that story dominates the political, media and academic landscape.

Time and again, or so we are told, Israel has held out an olive branch to “the Arabs”, seeking acceptance, but is always rebuffed.

• READ MORE: Shoot Palestinians, not settlers: Israeli general exposes double standard
• Jonathan Cook’s website
• Other reports on the war on Gaza, Lebanon Iran

A largely unspoken subtext suggests that supposedly irrational, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating regimes across the region would have completed the Nazis’ exterminationist agenda but for the West’s humane protection of a vulnerable minority.

A Palestinian counter-narrative, accepted across much of the rest of the world, is choked into silence in the West as an antisemitic “blood libel”.

It presents Israel as an ethnic supremacist, highly militaristic state — armed by the United States and Europe – bent on expansion, mass expulsions and land theft.

On this view, the West implanted Israel as a colonial military outpost, there to subdue the native Palestinian population, and terrorise neighbouring states into submission through relentless and overwhelming displays of force.

No middle ground possible
Palestinians cannot make peace, or reach any kind of accommodation, because Israel pursues only conquest, domination and erasure. No middle ground is possible.

The proof, note Palestinians, is Israel’s long-standing refusal to define its borders. As its military power has grown decade after decade, ever more extreme political agendas have surfaced, demanding not just Israel’s takeover of the last remnants of the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies but expansion into neighbouring states like Lebanon and Syria.

Here are two conflicting narratives in which each side presents itself as the victim of the other.

Two and a half years into a series of Israeli wars against the peoples of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, how are these two perspectives holding up?

Does Israel look like the frustrated peacemaker facing off with barbaric opponents, or a rogue state whose decades-long aggression has provoked the very retaliatory violence exploited to excuse its constant war-making?

Is Israel a small, reluctant fortress state defending itself, or a Western military client so drunk on its own power that it can no more limit its territorial ambitions than a great white shark can stop swimming?

The truth is that the past 30 months have graphically exposed not only what Israel always was but, by extension, what our own Western states aspired to achieve through their most favoured Middle East client.

Ambassador let slip
In a moment of imprudence last month, Christian Turner, Peter Mandelson’s replacement as British ambassador to the US, let slip the reality. Washington, the West’s imperial hub, he said, had no deep loyalty to its allies — apart from one.

Unaware his words were being recorded, he told a group of visiting students: “I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel.”

That special relationship requires that the political and media class in Washington’s other client states, such as Britain, shield the West’s Sparta in the Middle East from critical scrutiny.

So glaring have Israel’s atrocities become that the British government announced last month that it was shuttering its Foreign Office unit tracking war crimes — citing the need for cuts — rather than face further exposure of its collusion in those crimes.

If the British government refuses to monitor Israel’s war crimes, don’t expect more from the establishment media.

For months, Israel has been blowing up village after village in south Lebanon, driving millions of inhabitants from lands lived on for millennia by their ancestors, and it barely registers with our politicians and media.

Israel is destroying Gaza’s water supplies, as it earlier did the tiny enclave’s hospitals and health system, ensuring the further spread of disease, and our politicians and media have barely a word to say about it.

Israel kills, jourmalists, first responders
Israel kills journalists and emergency crews in Gaza and Lebanon week after week, month after month, and it raises barely an eyebrow from the political and media class.

Israel declares “yellow lines“ in Gaza and Lebanon, demarcating expanded borders that formalise its theft of other peoples’ lands, and this instantly becomes the new normal.

Israel continuously violates ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, spreading misery and inflaming yet more anger and bitterness, and once again, our politicians and media turn a blind eye.

Which Western media outlets are pointing out a starkly revealing fact: that Israel now occupies more of Lebanon than Russia does of Ukraine?

An analysis by the Newscord media monitoring group last month confirmed earlier research: that the British media studiously avoid naming ethnic cleansing and genocide when it is Israel — rather than Russia — carrying them out.

Comparing the coverage of the most “serious” establishment British news outlets — the BBC, The Guardian and Sky — with that of Al Jazeera, the study found that UK media consistently choose to obscure Israel’s responsibility for its crimes.

Israel was identified as conducting attacks in Gaza in only around half of British news reports, in contrast to nearly 90 per cent of Al Jazeera’s. As Newscord noted: “Half the time, BBC readers aren’t told who killed the person in the story.”

Hind Rajab headline
That was graphically illustrated in a notorious BBC headline: “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.”

In fact, an Israeli tank had sprayed a stationary car with gunfire even though the Israeli military had known for hours that it contained a Palestinian girl — the sole survivor of an earlier attack — who emergency crews were desperately trying to reach. Israel killed the rescue team, too.

In another revealing finding, Newscord notes that four out of every five BBC reports on casualties caused by Israel’s attacks used the convoluted passive — rather than active — voice, clearly with the intent to downplay Israel’s culpability and savagery.

The British media also actively undermined the enormity of the Palestinian death toll in Gaza by regularly attributing the figures to a “Hamas-affiliated” Health Ministry — even though the numbers, currently at well over 70,000 Palestinians, are almost certainly a massive undercount, given Israel’s early destruction of the enclave’s government and its capacity to count the dead.

The fact that the United Nations has found the Gaza figures to be credible was mentioned in only 0.6 percent of reports.

Similarly, the BBC and The Guardian made the decision to humanise Israeli captives of Hamas twice as often as they did Palestinian captives of the Israeli state.

The inappropriateness of that double standard is underscored by continuing insinuations from politicians and the media that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out systematic rapes on 7 October 2023 — more than two years after those claims were utterly discredited.

Sickening practice
Contrast that with the media’s effective burial of Euro Med Monitor’s report last month on the sickening practice by the Israeli military of raping Palestinian prisoners with dogs trained for that very purpose.

There has been a flood of accounts from Palestinians held captive by Israel of their systematic rape and sexual abuse, confirmed by human rights groups and by the testimonies of whistleblowing Israeli soldiers and medics. Little of this is making headway in the Western media.

Newscord points to a further, veiled problem that skews Western coverage: the omission of established but inconvenient facts that would present Israel in a depraved — that is, an accurate — light.

For example, observes Newscord, the BBC has entirely failed to report all but one of the hundreds of clearly genocidal statements made by Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu down.

It is easy to understand why. Legal authorities usually struggle to make a conclusive determination of genocide because, crucially, it depends on divining intent, which is typically hidden by those committing atrocities.

Starkly, in Israel’s case, not only do its actions in Gaza look like genocide, but its leaders have been crystal clear that those actions are intended to be genocidal. That is behaviour only seen in those intoxicated by a sense of their own impunity.

Once again, the British media have obligingly taken it upon themselves to shield Israel from any legal jeopardy — all in the interests of objective reporting, you understand.

Same story since 1948
This is nothing new. It has been the same story since before Israel’s violent creation on the Palestinians’ homeland in 1948, when 80 percent of the native population were ethnically cleansed by Israel from the new, self-declared “Jewish” state. Or when, in the continuing language of deceit employed by Western political, media and academic elites, some 750,000 Palestinians “fled”.

The aim has been to manufacture and maintain a bubble of illusion for Western publics, one where our own crimes — and those of our allies — remain invisible to us.

Note in this regard the UK government’s determined exclusion of Israel from a recent “independent” inquiry, under former Whitehall bureaucrat Philip Rycroft, into malign foreign financial influence on British politics. It was, of course, Russia that was put chiefly under the spotlight.

Predictably, Keir Starmer’s government rejected in April a petition signed by more than 114,000 people calling for a similar public inquiry into the influence of the powerful Israel lobby.

That came as no surprise, given that any such investigation would have risked foregrounding the many hundreds of thousands of pounds known to have been received by Starmer and his ministers from pro-Israel lobbyists.

The same British political and media class so averse to investigating the malign influence of the pro-Israel lobby is also ignoring Israel’s current, systematic destruction of villages and infrastructure across south Lebanon — in flagrant violation of a supposed ceasefire.

Israeli soldiers have told local media that their job is to target all structures indiscriminately, whether civilian or “terrorist”, with the goal of preventing the Lebanese inhabitants from returning to their villages.

Colonising occupied lands
That fits with Israel’s announcement that it does not intend to withdraw after the fighting ends, and widespread plans to colonise the occupied lands in Lebanon with Jewish settlers.

Were it not for videos of Israel blowing up Lebanese communities breaking through on social media, despite algorithmic suppression, we might not know about Israel’s wholesale efforts to ethnically cleanse south Lebanon.

Responding to these videos with a rare “mainstream” report on the campaign of destruction, The Guardian sugar-coated the horror faced by Lebanese families discovering their homes gone, along with priceless memories and heirlooms. This experience was described — absurdly — by the paper as “bittersweet”.

Critics note a consistent pattern. Israel is not only levelling south Lebanon; over the past 30 months, it has levelled almost every building in Gaza, too.

But the template for both is of much earlier origin, as every Palestinian learns from a tender age.

Having expelled most Palestinians from their homes in 1948, Israel spent years blowing up some 500 villages one after another — even as Israeli leaders publicly claimed to be begging the refugees to return and Western leaders were extolling Israel as the “only democracy” in the Middle East.

Expulsions that the West still pretends did not take place eight decades ago are now being live-streamed. This time, they are impossible to deny, as well as the colonial, supremacist agenda behind them.

Villify the messenger
If the message inhering in Israel’s atrocities can no longer be disappeared, laundered or normalised — as it was in an age before 24-hour rolling news and social media — then a different strategy is required: villify the messenger.

This is the political task of our times.

The anti-racist left are demonised as Jew-hating bigots for trying to burst the West’s long-established bubble of illusion by noisily flagging both the atrocities committed by Israel, supposedly in the name of Jews, and the complicity of their own governments in those atrocities.

Last month, Starmer’s government forced through the Commons a law allowing the police to outlaw protests causing “cumulative disruption” — that is, repeat protests like those against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The media barely blinked.

Last week’s attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, allegedly by a mentally ill man with a long history of violence, is being quickly exploited by the main parties to prepare for even tighter restrictions on the right to protest.

Britons who try to stop Israeli war crimes, whether by targeting Israel’s factories of death located in the UK or by holding placards in support of this kind of direct action, continue to be treated as “terrorists”, even after a court ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action is unlawful.

With juries often proving reluctant to convict, the British state has set about openly rigging the trials. Juries are blocked from learning about the reasons for the targeting of Israeli weapons factories — the accused’s main defence. Judges instruct juries to convict.

Long-established right
Members of the public who silently hold signs outside court are arrested for reminding juries of a long-established right in law to defy such instructions, follow their consciences and acquit — a police abuse contravening hundreds of years of legal precedent, and one the courts appear increasingly ready to condone.

There are gags, being dutifully obeyed by the media, on other secret malpractices designed to help the British government secure the verdicts it needs to stop activism against the genocide. We only know because Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has used parliamentary privilege to draw attention to them.

It was telling last week that, in the current repeat trial of six Palestine Action defendants, five of them dispensed with their barristers for the closing speeches. They noted, darkly, that their legal representatives could not properly represent them due to “decisions made by the court”.

Meanwhile, the Starmer government is pressing ahead with plans to finally rid itself of troublesome juries and let more reliable judges decide these political show trials alone.

Welcome to the rapid unravelling of Britain’s most cherished constitutional rights — needed chiefly, it seems, to protect a far-off country that, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), commits the crime of apartheid against Palestinians and may plausibly be committing genocide in Gaza.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published on the author’s website and republished with permission.

“Whoever uses a citizen ill, indirectly offends the state, which is bound to protect this citizen; and the sovereign should avenge his wrongs, punish the aggressor, and, if possible, oblige him to make full reparation; since otherwise the citizen would not obtain the great end of the civil association, which is, safety.”

Swiss jurist Emmerich Vattel expounded this principle in his landmark The Law of Nations, 1758. It is universally accepted today that every State has an obligation to protect its nationals when they are overseas.

As Vattel explained back in the day: this is a duty arising from the bond of nationality. A leader who betrays this principle of citizenship is unworthy of high office. Such a man is New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Late in the night of April 29, a large Israeli force made up of several warships, a prison ship, aircraft, and drones attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla, a fleet of over 60 humanitarian vessels drawn from dozens of nations across the globe.

• READ MORE: Why the Global Sumud Flotilla hasn’t given up in spite of the Israeli attacks
• Gaza Freedom Flotilla Tracker
• Eyes Of Fire Rainbow Warrior educational resource

The Sumud flotilla, in international waters near the Greek island of Crete, was Gaza-bound. The plan was to open a humanitarian aid corridor to the enclave that is suffering genocide at the hands of Israel and its Western allies.

Over 20 vessels were boarded, many dozens of activists beaten, some later requiring hospitalisation. Once the crews were transferred to the prison ship, the vessels were sabotaged and abandoned in international waters.

For the next three days the Israelis beat dozens of the Sumud crew, tortured some, terrorised others with threats of murder, guns in their faces, and performed other unlawful acts including denying essential medication, forcing hostages into stress positions, forcing others to hug the Israeli flag, flooding decks to make sleep impossible, and many other sadistic acts. Several Kiwis were among those who were savagely kicked and punched in the head, back and ribs.

Like many Western governments, New Zealand leaders did absolutely nothing to condemn the attack, nor initiate action against Israel. They did not even offer material support to their citizen-victims once they had been dumped onto Crete without money, adequate clothing or phones.

Rainbow Warrior attack
Let’s be clear: according to international law, sovereignty does not end at the borders of a country. New Zealand suffered the most serious state terrorist attack on its own citizens since the French government bombed and sank Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985. This time the state was Israel. Both events bear uncanny resemblances and disturbing differences that are immensely consequential.

The similarity: a state terrorist attack on vessels on peaceful humanitarian missions.

The difference: the response to the two events by both the New Zealand governments and media of the day.

In 1985, when news that terrorists had infiltrated New Zealand and attached limpet mines to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior, blasting a hole below the waterline, killing photographer Fernando Pereira, the government, the media and the population of New Zealand went into a frenzy.

I will never forget those momentous times. Within days the culprits had been identified: they were agents of the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), the French equivalent of the CIA. Two of the large squad of French agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, were caught. It eventually emerged that this terror plot — which the French impudently codenamed “Opération Satanique” — reached all the way to President François Mitterrand.

The story riveted and animated New Zealand for months. The government relentlessly pursued the villains, eventually forcing the resignation of high officials including defence minister Charles Hernu and the head of the DGSE, Pierre Lacoste. As part of the settlement the French had to pay for a replacement vessel for Greenpeace and the two spies were sentenced to 10 years prison, part of which were spent in New Zealand jails before they were transferred to internment on Hao Atoll. Within two years the French welched on the terms and let their agents return to France for awards and promotions.

Eugene Doyle comments on the flotilla outrage on Neutrality Studies.

The consequences for New Zealand were enormous. New Zealanders were shocked when they learnt Australia helped some of the attackers to escape, and the country’s other closest allies, the UK and USA, uttered not a single word of condemnation to the French. This betrayal and the terror attack itself fundamentally altered New Zealand’s relationship with its Western allies and set it on a path towards an independent foreign policy, the high-points of which was the Nuclear Free Zone Act 1987 and New Zealand’s expulsion from the ANZUS security pact with the US and Australia, both within two years of the attack. It was a time when many felt proud to be New Zealanders.

Shame of reporters
Fast forward 41 years and we have the most serious state terror attack on New Zealand since the Rainbow Warrior bombing. The media, to the shame of reporters I have spoken to off the record, treated it as a minor story and quickly moved on. The government told the victims of this terrorist attack they had to fend for themselves and offered not a breath of condemnation.

No mainstream reporter grilled the government over this inaction.

Prime Minister Luxon’s conduct is reprehensible on so many fronts. Prioritising “strategic alignment” with Israel and the US over the physical safety of New Zealanders is a betrayal of his most fundamental duty.

Even a neo-con like US President Ronald Reagan got the memo: “A government’s first duty is to protect the people,” he said in 1981. Luxon’s failure to defend his citizens — however contemptible it may be — probably does not reach the threshold of “treason” under the Crimes Act 1961 definition (lawyers may disagree) but it does confirm that the man has no place as the leader of a sovereign and democratic nation.

The Prime Minister constantly refers to himself as a “chief executive” or CEO, so I appreciate politics isn’t his strong card. Political philosophy is clearly a weakness too. So permit me, Christopher, a few observations.

Among my first lessons as a tender-faced youth attending political science classes at Victoria University was Thomes Hobbes’s principle that the only reason individuals surrender their liberty to a sovereign is for protection. If certain categories of citizens come to realise the state is willing to see them beaten and abused to please a foreign state, it breaks all sorts of bonds that should not be broken.

In other words, the litmus test for a sovereign democracy is not how the state treats docile citizens and its buddies but how it protects even vociferous dissenters when they are in the hands of a foreign power. The Sumud flotilla crew are anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-genocide; in other words, the opposite side to the Prime Minister and the New Zealand government. They deserve protection and medals not boots in the head and abandonment.

Breaches torture convention
The mistreatment of the Sumud prisoners also breaches the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and meets the threshold for cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The Kiwis are free now and I know from speaking to some of them that they are shell-shocked and traumatised but also mindful that their ordeal was short and less than the medieval mistreatment of thousands of Palestinian hostages in Israeli concentration camps today.

As a minimum the New Zealand government should confront the Israelis and demand two things: Non-repetition and Reparations.

Non-repetition is a commitment that such wrongful acts won’t happen again. The government should issue a “Note Verbale” — a formal warning to Israel of real consequences if citizens are in any way abused. They — and all governments — should have done so before the Sumud flotilla sailed.

Secondly, the government should demand Full Reparations — payment for medical bills, evacuation costs, trauma, and damage to property, including the millions of dollars in damage to all the vessels sabotaged, and return of stolen property (including Sean Janssen’s pounamu pendant, a Māori taonga (treasure) that was ripped from his neck by an Israeli stormtrooper).

I was proud to be a New Zealander when our government stood with Greenpeace following the French state terrorist attack in 1985.

Today, I am proud of the men and women of the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation, including Hāhona Ormsby, Julien Blondel, Jay O’Connor, Samuel Leason, Mousa Taher, Sean Janssen and Rana Hamida. They keep alive the flame of hope that one day New Zealand will again stand for humanity, international law, peace and an independent foreign policy.

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

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was abducted by Israel returned home this week and gave a searing speech in Auckland today condemning the abuses he and others suffered.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted,” said Sean Janssen.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.”

• READ MORE:  Israel deports two abducted Gaza aid flotilla activists
• Israeli weapon fires tiny metal cubes into people in Lebanon, like Gaza
• ‘We’re under attack!’ – the night the Israelis struck the Global Sumud Flotilla
• The two decade illegal Israeli siege of Gaza
• Global Sumud Flotilla

Janssen was one of more than 170 people who were illegally abducted by Israeli military forces on board Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters for 48 hours and given restricted access to food and water.

He said flotilla participants were beaten and 34 people needed immediate medical attention when they were dumped ashore in Greece.

Three other abducted New Zealanders — Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher and Julien Blondel — were taken ashore as well while at least two others are continuing on with the flotilla that has now reached Turkïye.

Two high-profile flotilla leaders who were kidnapped and taken illegally to Israel were set to be released after more than a week of torture allegations and diplomatic efforts to seek their freedom.

Abukeshek, Ávila being freed
Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish-Palestinian, and Brazilian Thiago Ávila were being freed, according to a statement from the rights group Adalah, which was representing the two men.

“I believe in a Free Palestine and that this isn’t a radical belief,” Sean Janssen told the cheering crowd. “Yet for almost 80 years, this belief and having the conviction to say it publicly has been met with harassment, suppression and violence.

“Leaders who preach of freedom, justice and equality have done nothing or actively contributed to the destruction of those things for Palestinians.

“For almost 80 years the world has watched as Israel has strengthened its capacity to inflict suffering and death against the people of Palestine, yet done nothing because it was only inflicted on Palestinians.”

Janssen said that for 20 years Israel had restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, blocked by a military siege.

“They impose this blockade on Gaza because starvation is one of their tools of extermination,” he said.

“In the last 3 years, Israel has attacked more than 200 schools in Gaza. They have murdered more than 300 journalists.”

36 hospitals destroyed
Since October 2023, the occupation forces had destroyed 36 hospitals.

“They have bombed the sick and slaughtered new born babies in their incubators.”

Janssen said that there was no course too extreme and no action too radical that Israel would not take to ensure the genocide was completed.

“When Palestinians did what all people have a right to do — defend themselves — they were condemned,” he said.

“Palestinians have been condemned for demanding the most basic of rights and for following the most fundamental of human instincts — to survive.

“They were condemned for refusing to accept violence and barbarism forced upon them.

“They refused to do nothing as their culture, their history and their people were erased.”

Brutal Israeli treatment
Moving on to the brutal treatment by Israeli forces against the Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists on April 30, Janssen said:

“The Israeli occupation forces abducted myself, 4 other citizens of New Zealand, and in total almost 200 people from nations around the world.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.

“As people slept outside in freezing temperatures they had cold water poured onto them.

“We were denied access to life saving medicine. For refusing to stand when ordered I was held by the neck face down on concrete and bashed across the head.

“My treatment was far from the worst. My friend and fellow New Zealander, Julien Blondel, the man who taught me to tie a bowline knot  — with incredible patience — and is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, was beaten bloody and shot with crowd suppressing rounds at point blank range.

“This still is far from all of the violence and cruelty done to us by these [Israeli state] terrorists.”

Appeal for protest letters
Janssen stressed community empowerment, appealing to the protesters to call and write to their MPs and ministers — “remember that for 2 of our comrades that violence and cruelty is not over.”

He was referring to Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, who have since his speech been freed by the Israeli authorities under global pressure and “deported”.

Saif Abukeshek was a man who had dedicated his life to supporting his people to freedom, Janssen said.

“He spoke of his love for his family every single time I heard him speak.”

“Thiago Ávila, who after being beaten by the Israelis, stood for hours by the entrance to the prison yard and greeted all of us, to make sure that a smile was the first thing all of his comrades saw, so we knew we were still in this together.

“Thiago Ávila, whose mother died with her son in Israeli custody.”

Janssen said these men were “as I speak held hostage by Israel, subject to torture and indefinite detention, and for Saif being Palestinian, potentially execution as well“.

‘Not radical’ to be humanitarian
“The President of the United States called us terrorists. The Israeli press labeled us as
radicals and extremists for what we aimed to do.

“But is it radical for starving people to be able to eat? Is it radical that people who are sick be able to access healthcare?

“These things are what the flotilla aims deliver to Gaza. Are these things radical or are they what is needed for people to live?

“What is radical, what is extreme, are the lengths that Zionism and its allies will go to refuse these things to Palestinians.”

The violence of Israel was not just happening to Palestinians anymore, Janssen said.

“The violence of Zionism is growing bolder and it is spreading across the world with the backing of the United States.

“It is a disgrace that our [New Zealand] leaders did nothing for Palestinians, but for anyone who believed they would keep you safe when violence came to our shores, I have seen first hand that they will not.

NZ ‘silent, no sanctions’
“They have imposed no sanctions. They have not expelled the Israeli ambassador. They have not even publicly denounced this blatant act of terrorism.

“Their value for your lives and your safety only exists so long as it works for their benefit.”

Janssen said that until New Zealand had leaders who would take action to uphold international law, “we are all of us — like I was — all five million of us hostages of Israel.”

He added that even if Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour and Foreign Minister Winston Peters were “scared of Israel, I am not afraid”.

“Even if they are backed by the United States, I am not afraid of these terrorists.”

Devonport naval base protest
The protest crowd warmly applauded Janssen for his courage and conviction throughout the speech. Then they marched across Te Komititanga Square and caught the ferry to Devonport.

The protesters marched peacefully to the Devonport Naval Base, chanting “No money for bombs and occupation, money for books and education” and other calls in support for Palestinian freedom and against war on Iran and Lebanon.

Stop Wars Aotearoa organiser Joe Carolan addressed the crowd beside the naval base, saying “Christopher Luxon wants to send these sailors, and our soldiers, to die for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. No!”

“The people of New Zealand are quite clearly against this war. Seventy percent of them are against this war. And the people of United States are against this war, and the people of Britain are against this war.

“But all of this is happening because of Netanyahu’s desire for a Greater Israel.”

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.

I was reluctant to enter into journalism because I valued the research and skills attached to the profession, particularly given it’s responsibility to hold the powerful to account.

I was lucky enough to have the legendary Colin McRae as my producer.

He said there are basically three rules. You must be fair, balanced and accurate.

• READ MORE:  Does abolishing the BSA mean the end of NZ’s enforceable media standards in general? — Peter Thompson
• Back to the old Wild West with no media standards? — The Daily Blog
• Open letter sent to Prime Minister and leaders of political parties one week before the decision to abolish the Broadcasting Standards Authority — Gavin Ellis
• World’s most powerful are suing media outlets before stories are even published, says editor — Michael Savage
• Broadcasting Standards Authority to be scrapped
• Other NZ media regulation and self-regulation reports

We did have some wonderful exchanges where I queried how you can be all those things in a blatantly unfair, unbalanced and inaccurate world (you know, one where the dominant lens is rarely Indigenous?).

Sometimes we made slight adjustments to ensure that voices with lived experience or expertise come through. But always — fair, balanced and accurate was the goal. On the odd occasion when I got it wrong, I would be mortified.

I watch aghast at all the people across social media speaking into their microphones and talking absolute rubbish, no restraints or repercussions whatsoever — to get views. Often journalists have to clean up that mess by countering it with facts on their own platforms where we are held to account.

The wholesale ditching of the Broadcast Standards Authority (BSA) probably doesn’t mean anything to anybody struggling to pay their rent. But it is a sign.

Instead of adjusting it to a changing environment, the New Zealand government decided to get rid of the whole thing and let the sector and media companies “self-regulate”. Why not do the same when it comes to health and safety, or dealing with waste?

It is a big deal. So is what’s happening elsewhere to journalism. Actively targeted by hostile military groups and by those who have plenty of money, constantly derided and undermined by those in power.

This is not about me or we journos. It’s about ALL of us.

Anyway, off for a hikoi and a coffee.

Moana Maniapoto MNZM (Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Tūhourangi/Ngāti Pikiao) is an Aotearoa New Zealand singer, songwriter, storyteller, documentary maker, and presenter of Te Ao With Moana. This article was first published on her personal FB page and is republished with permission.

New Zealander Jay O’Connor had finished a long but satisfying day as a crew member aboard Eros 1, one of dozens of vessels that formed the Global Sumud Flotilla that was heading to besieged Gaza to open a humanitarian aid corridor.

What Jay wanted was a well-deserved rest, not a kick in the head from a jack-booted Israeli soldier. But that’s what he got.

Late in the night of April 29, just as he was lying down for some rest, the Israelis struck.

• READ MORE: After Israel’s brutal attack on Kiwis the NZ government does nothing
• UN demands Israel immediately releases flotilla activists
• Other Global Sumud Flotilla reports

One of the crew ripped open the hatch, “We’re under attack!” Everyone was taken by surprise because the flotilla was nearly 1000 km out from Israel, near Greek territorial waters.

“We saw a couple of military RHIBS (rigid-hulled inflatables) sitting behind us. They had laser sights from rifles pointed in our eyes. They identified themselves as the Israeli Navy.”

The Israelis seized control of the boat, ferried the Sumud crew onto a nearby prison ship — an amphibious assault vessel converted to hold four shipping containers for the hostages.

As they did this, the Israelis sabotaged the Eros 1 and other intercepted vessels, cutting fuel lines, interfering with the engines, slashing sails, destroying navigation and comms equipment, and so on. All this happened in international waters, blatantly illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

‘Sticking guns in our faces’
Inside the shipping containers, the 180 captives realised things were going to get worse.

“They were holding us in stress positions for ages, yelling at us, making us touch the Israeli flag, firing flash bangs, sticking guns in our faces, all that kind of bullshit,” Jay O’Connor said.

The raiders stripped Jay of his wet weather overalls and left him with no shoes, a t-shirt and the skirt he slept in. The nights were very cold and there was no bedding or mattresses inside the shipping containers.

“Occasionally they’d toss a bit of water or some really stale bread for us to eat. They were constantly pointing guns at us. They were constantly yelling at us and then they would fuck with us for no reason — get us to line up and be counted, make us sit in stress positions and occasionally grab someone, drag him out and beat them up.”

This went on for three days.

“About a quarter of us had to sleep outside on the deck. And just for shits and giggles, they would flood the deck with sea water just to make sleeping impossible.”

An activist talks to Dawn News about the illegal, brutal Israeli attack from on board the flotilla.

Diabetic crew member prevented taking insulin
Moussa Taher, another New Zealander, sailing on the Saf Saf, said the Israelis even refused to let a diabetic crew member take his insulin. Taher said one of his comrades turned 75 years old inside that shipping container prison.

On the morning of the third day the captives were told they were being transferred to another ship.

“At this point, we stopped complying,” Jay said, “Because they had six of us in solitary. We hadn’t any confirmation that they were even alive. So we basically sat down.

“They came in and grabbed us one by one, dragged us into the fourth container.” This is where dozens were severely beaten.

“I got a few punches to the head, a kick to the head, and a couple of really nasty kicks to my ribs and right kidney. After that, they were twisting our arms and dragging us out. Then all of a sudden, we’re on a Greek Coast Guard vessel!”

Transferred by the Greeks to Crete, the most seriously injured Sumud crew were taken to a local hospital. Later that day Jay and others were released and unceremoniously dropped off in a town square to fend for themselves. No phones, no money, no support.

NZ officials’ contact ‘limited, unhelpful’
Contact with New Zealand officials was limited and unhelpful. Citizens of other Western nations were treated in the same way by their pro-Israeli governments. These heroic activists were on their own.

“We couldn’t pay for a hotel. We couldn’t pay for a coffee, we couldn’t do anything. And then we see this line of local anarchists marching towards us, chanting! It was such a wonderful moment.”

While NZ Foreign Affairs were drafting press releases making hollow declarations such as “The safety of New Zealanders involved is paramount”, the Kiwis had to rely on the kindness of strangers who took care of them, fed them, clothed them and organised places for them to sleep.

The New Zealand government refuses to condemn the attack on Kiwi citizens.

Hāhona Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto) was on one of the boats that escaped the raiders. In all, the Israelis attacked 22 of the more than 60 boats in the flotilla.

“This is a humanitarian flotilla,” he told Radio New Zealand. “The only thing we are armed with is aroha (love) in our hearts. The intention is to definitely keep going.

“As tangata whenua, Māori have lived through colonisation, land being taken, and cultural suppression, so that creates a natural solidarity with the Palestinians.”

Undaunted in spite of trauma
Mousa Taher says he is undaunted despite the traumatic experience. He is now in Turkïye, linking up with others preparing to restart the journey to Gaza.

“So please keep us in your prayers, and please keep the Palestinians in your thoughts and your prayers. Our silence is helping the occupation forces to systematically destroy them and dismantle them.”

A month earlier, back in Wellington Jay O’Connor said this:

“I will be traveling from Te Whanganui a Tara [Wellington] to join the Global Sumud Flotilla. I’m doing this because I can’t just stay at this side of the world watching this genocide unfold.

“I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes and tell them that I did something to try and alleviate the suffering of children just like them who are being victimised every day by Israel. So, Free Palestine!”

Now, after the horror of what he has been subjected to by the Israelis, how does Jay feel?

“Personally, any uncertainty about whether I wanted to continue or not has been burned out of me by my experience at the hands of the Israelis. I am so incredibly angry. I’ve never been this angry in my life. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Kiwi heroes of our time
Jay O’Connor, Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, Sean Janssen and all the Kiwis onboard the Sumud Flotilla and within the Global Sumud Aotearoa Delegation represent the very best of the New Zealand spirit. They are the Kiwi heroes of our time.

Our government, sadly, stands with the villains and their names should live in infamy for not supporting their own people.

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

The signals are now coming from both sides of the negotiating table. American sources confirm it. Pakistani mediators confirm it.

The end of the US-Iran war is near, and the terms of that ending will echo across the international order for decades.

Let us be precise about what has happened here.

• READ MORE: Trump says Iran agreement ‘very possible’; Israeli forces bomb Beirut
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry says US proposal to end the war still ‘under review’
• In rare push, US lawmakers demand transparency on Israel nuclear capability
• Other US-Israel war/ceasefire reports

Iran, a nation under sanctions for more than four decades, subjected to assassinations, sabotage, proxy warfare — and finally direct military assault by the most expensively armed forces in human history, backed by a nuclear-armed Israel — has not been defeated.

It has not collapsed. It has not surrendered its sovereignty, its nuclear programme, or its dignity. It stood, absorbed the blows, struck back with precision, and forced Washington to the negotiating table.

That is not a stalemate. That is a victory.

Trump’s 10-day ceasefire declaration in April initially appeared like a pause. However, as days went by, it became clearer it was an exit strategy in search of a face-saving wrapper.

Silence terminal, not tactical
The Americans have not fired a significant shot since. The silence was not tactical. It was terminal.

Consider what Iran has demonstrated to the watching world. It faced two nuclear powers simultaneously, America and Israel, with all the military technology, intelligence infrastructure, and political backing that entails.

Strangely, Iran depleted American missile stockpiles to the point of a three-to-five-year restocking timeline. It struck American bases across seven countries.

It collected tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. It watched its adversary’s approval ratings collapse domestically while its own national resolve hardened.

Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker, cannot exit fast enough.

The man who launched this war with the language of dominance is now scrambling for the language of diplomacy, mediated by Pakistan, concluded on terms nobody in Washington would have accepted 12 weeks ago.

History will record this clearly. A civilisation several thousand years old, armed with ingenuity, patience, and righteous resistance, outlasted the last empire’s appetite for a fight it should never have started.

The war is ending. Iran is standing. The world has been watching, and the world has learned something.

Prince Taofeek Ajibade is an educator and digital creator from Ibadan, Nigeria.