Fiji’s former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad will be sworn back into Cabinet tomorrow, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has confirmed.

Speaking to The Fiji Times in Savusavu, Rabuka said Dr Prasad would return to Cabinet, although his ministerial portfolio had yet to be finalised.

“Tomorrow, he will be sworn in tomorrow,” Rabuka said.

• READ MORE: Biman Prasad walks free as court dismisses two charges

Dr Prasad is now a free man after Magistrate Yogesh Prasad ruled that he had no case to answer on two charges brought against him by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC).

The ruling was delivered in the Suva Magistrates Court yesterday, bringing an end to the criminal proceedings against Dr Prasad.

Dr Prasad had faced two charges under the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act 2013.

Asked whether Dr Prasad would be reinstated as Minister for Finance, Prime Minister Rabuka said he would first need to assess the current Cabinet arrangements.

Best solution
“I do not know yet. I will have to look at what we have in Cabinet and assess what the Minister of Finance has been doing,” he said.

“If that is the best solution, he will be reinstated. Otherwise, he will take back a position in Cabinet.”

Rabuka said several ministers were currently handling additional portfolios, which would need to be considered before a final decision was made.

“You know there are some ministers carrying additional portfolios. For example, [Filimoni] Vosarogo is currently handling two other portfolios,” he said.

However, the Prime Minister indicated that Finance, Trade and Commerce would be the most suitable portfolio for Prof Prasad.

“The most appropriate portfolio for him would be Finance, Trade and Commerce,” Rabuka said.

Nacanieli Tuilevuka is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The New Zealand general election was last Saturday, and the people have spoken.

What they had to say was muffled, incomprehensible and as confused as Donald Trump at a lesbian folk festival.

Comrades, this election has had it all.

• READ MORE: Voters in areas with large Pacific populations clear on who should lead New Zealand
• Other NZ elections reports

Gerrymandering the enrolment process, billionaires plotting to rig it, and gang-selfie hysteria.

It made it all feel less like a democratic process and more like a Netflix true crime series.

But it did show Kiwis have a sense of humour.

Paul Goldsmith, the Justice Minister who criminalised the homeless is now homeless.

Finance minister unemployed
Nicola Willis, the Finance Minister who made 5.7 percent of Kiwis unemployed is now unemployed.

And despite maybe winning, the National Party’s caretaker Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is weaker now than when he won in 2023.

ACT’s David Seymour and New Zealand First’s Winston Peters are the Quick Yellow and Silver Foxes jumping over that Lazy Blue Hog.

The tail wagging this dog is now longer than the dog.

It’s all tail, no dog.

Expect 3 times the crazy, and 5 times the social carnage if National, ACT and NZF become the majority after almost 400,000 specials are counted and the final result is announced on November 27.

What we can say is Te Pati Māori’s strategy was a success and the generational shape of Māori demographics have bypassed Labour for the Greens.

The people have spoken; we need to wait to understand what they have said.

Martyn Bradbury is editor-publisher of The Daily Blog, convenor of The Bradbury Group political panel, and writes a column for urban Māori Radio Waatea News. Republished with permission.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Cathy Peters

To oppressed Palestinians, a change of Israel’s leader will mean very little.

Israel’s relentless dispossession and subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, will continue under a government led by former military general and IDF Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eisenkot. He has been granted 28 days to form a coalition administration.

Eisenkot spent four decades in the military, joining the notorious Golani Brigade in 1978 and moving through the ranks to become head of the IDF. He was invited to join Netanyahu’s war cabinet as a minister without portfolio after October 7, 2023.

• READ MORE: Netanyahu’s legacy: Personality politics reshapes Israeli democracy
• IRGC chief vows to advance missile output; Israel kills 6 in Gaza hospital
• Other Gaza genocide reports

His stance in opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu is political, not philosophical.

Eisenkot’s legacy – the Dahiya Doctrine

Eisenkot has a brutal military legacy. As a general in Israel’s 2006 34-day war with Hezbollah, he developed the Dahiya Doctrine, a strategy which calls for the use of overwhelming disproportionate force and the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

It was named after the brutal attack on the Dahiya area in southern Beirut where Hezbollah was headquartered. Between 1000 and 1200 Lebanese people (mostly civilians) were killed, and roughly one million Lebanese were displaced.

The methodology that allowed 2000-pound bombs and similar weapons to flatten a whole section of Beirut was described by Eisenkot a couple of years later:

“What happened in the Dahieh quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shots will be fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction.

“From our perspective, these are military bases. […] This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a plan that has already been authorised. […] Every one of the Shiite villages is a military site, with headquarters, an intelligence center, and a communications center…” 

These comments were used in the 2009 Goldstone Report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), in which 1400 Palestinians were killed, including 300 children. Goldstone later retracted some of the findings of deliberate targeting of civilians through excessive force, although the report’s other three co-authors stood by the findings.

Eisenkot stated in this video that he would in future use ‘softer words’ due to being exposed in the Goldstone Report:

Here is Netanyahu’s likely successor Gadi Eisenkot bragging about deliberately using terrorism against civilian infrastructure, i.e. Dahiya Doctrine:

Dan Schueftan (advisor to 2 Israeli PMs): “Ground invasions should be carried out, perhaps under the banner of ‘harming enemy forces’ but their real significance is the devastation they leave behind them in the field. I don’t mind that as a pretext, we claim that there is some military objective, because that is required by all these international law people, so we can bring in some lawyers to explain how to do it, but the main thing is that [we understand] very clearly [the real purpose].”

Gadi Eisenkot (smirking): “I will not use the same words Dan allows himself to use, I did it once in a press interview some years ago, and I had to deal with it for many months afterwards, and also had my name appear in the [UN] Goldstone report. So I will use softer words: in case there is a deterioration, we must leave the enemy with severe cumulative damage that will create deterrence for years to come.”

— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) November 8, 2026

This doctrine can be seen to be at the heart of Israel’s attacks on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and now from 2023, as large swathes of Gaza have been completely flattened and 2 million Palestinians have been displaced, now surviving in conditions inflicted on them by Israel which are barbaric.

Lebanon
Southern Lebanon has been the victim of Eisenkot’s Dahiya Doctrine again in recent years, with the extensive destruction of civilian structures and agricultural land between 2024 and 2026.

According to Amnesty International,

“The destruction was carried out by the Israeli military with manually laid explosives and bulldozers both before and after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that took effect on 27 November 2024… The visual evidence shows that Israeli troops deliberately left a trail of destruction as they moved through southern Lebanon.

“Among the structures affected are homes, mosques, cemeteries, roads, parks and football pitches. In one village, satellite imagery showed the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, carved into the ground.”

Since April this year, more than 90,000 homes and scores of border villages in Southern Lebanon and beyond this area have been razed, with millions left as refugees in their own country.

Eisenkot’s Dahiya Doctrine is the modus operandi of the IDF. Israel has shown it does not countenance the principle of proportionality in warfare,

nor the protection of civilians or civilian infrastructure.

West Bank
Israel closed all land crossings throughout the West Bank on October 27, the day of the Israeli election; however, it has severely restricted the movement of the 3.4 million Palestinians living in this area and in East Jerusalem for many decades.

Armed settler attacks have increased exponentially in recent years, and these attacks intensified in the past weeks during the annual olive harvest. European politicians and US Congressman Brad Lander were blocked or arrested last month as the IDF sanctioned and supported the extremist actions of the Israeli thugs throughout the militarily occupied West Bank.

According to Israel’s largest human rights organisation, B’tselem, at least 66 Palestinian rural communities have been forcibly displaced by settlers since 2023.

 

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On October 25, the whole city of Hebron was put under an 11-day siege, with the city and surrounding areas blocked off after two Palestinian gunmen shot and killed two Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint. Subsequently, the army brought in bulldozers to destroy hundreds of homes in the area where the gunmen lived.

According to Medical Aid for Palestine some 3000 Palestinians were displaced with those returning to their homes finding them partially destroyed and ransacked. The Hebron governorate has a population of just under 885,000, all of whom were affected by the extra punitive movement restrictions imposed by the IDF, which imposed an additional 128 gates and 120 checkpoints during this siege, according to Hebron’s Governor, Khaled Dudin.

An aid worker in Hebron described the sudden displacement:

“It happened all of a sudden and was unexpected to see this kind of mass forced displacement. Over 3000 individuals have been displaced, including persons with disabilities, pregnant women, children. They left their homes carrying whatever they could.

“A lot of those who were displaced are elderly people with chronic illnesses”. Many were forced at gunpoint to leave their homes in the Ein Deir Baha and Farsh al-Hawa neighbourhoods in the middle of the night while

the Israel Defence Force (IDF) targeted homes, businesses, industrial sites and infrastructure.

This collective punishment of entire populations and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is not new, but its severity in the West Bank has intensified as the IDF and settlers have been emboldened by the impunity given to Israel during the Gaza genocide.

In early 2025, just after the Gaza “ceasefire” agreement, Israel embarked on “Operation Iron Wall’” in which some 40,000 residents in refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams in the northern West Bank were forced to evacuate. The UN described this as

the longest and largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967.

Between October 2023 and October 2026, Israel has terrorised the population of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and made approximately 26,000 arrests.

Gaza crisis worsens
Just prior to the first intense storm in Gaza, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza called on the international community to “intervene immediately to lift restrictions on the entry of humanitarian relief supplies and all types of goods and commodities”.

This was in light of Israel’s continued restriction of essential humanitarian and commercial supplies into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, the only entry point allowed for goods into Gaza to support 2 million people. Malnutrition and starvation rates in Gaza have reached “catastrophic” levels, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The rain falling on Gaza is not the cause of the humanitarian catastrophe. It is exposing it.

Three years of Israeli destruction have erased homes, drainage systems and essential infrastructure, forcing more than two million Palestinians into an ever-smaller area of land. Now, seasonal rainfall floods the tents in which people have been forced to seek refuge and threatens buildings already damaged by bombardment.

Our spatial analysis traces this transformation, mapping the destruction of buildings alongside the expansion and changing geography of tent camps. It reveals the spatial reorganisation of Gaza through the destruction of permanent shelter and the forced displacement of its population.

What is unfolding is not simply a failure to protect civilians from the elements. It is the destruction of the material conditions necessary for Palestinian life. This is inseparable from the ongoing genocide.

— Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi) November 10, 2026

The severe restriction on all forms of shelter since 2023 has meant that the flimsy tents housing huge numbers of Palestinians are now flooding due to the first winter storms.  26,000 tents and shelters have failed, leaving families freezing with no dry mattresses, bedding or clothes.

According to the International Rescue Committee, as of November 1, families still needed about 121,000 tents, 561,000 tarpaulins, 57,000 emergency shelter kits and 1.7 million mattresses. This committee noted that aid groups had about 2,800 tents in stock inside Gaza and no emergency shelter kits.

Killing protesters
In April-May 2018, when Palestinians in Gaza mounted a massive, peaceful protest at five sites along the Gaza fence perimeter known as the Great March of Return, Eisenkot, then lieutenant-general of the IDF, deployed 100 sharpshooters and gave them permission to fire on unarmed protesters.

The UN Inquiry into Israel’s actions found that 183 Palestinians had been killed by snipers and 6106 injured with live ammunition. Another 3098 were injured by bullet fragmentation, rubber-coated metal bullets or by hits from tear gas canisters.

An Israeli government led by Gadi Eisenkot

will not take action to stop this genocide, ethnic cleansing and ongoing war crimes.

Eisenkot has declared he needs to form a National Emergency Government and has already ruled out any coalition with the Arab (Palestinian) Parties who achieved an historic number of seats in the election.

He has, however, offered to form a government with members of Netanayhu’s Likud party and another ICC-indicted war criminal, Bezalel Smotrich, and his party, the Religious Zionist Party, which partners with two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas.

These politicians are the perpetrators. Change will not come from within Israel. The international community must act decisively to stop Israel’s crimes.

Cathy Peters  is a former ABC RN producer/executive producer and Greens councillor on the former Marrickville Council. She also worked for a state Greens MP and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights. In 2014, she co-founded PSNA / BDS Australia. She has Jewish heritage, has travelled and volunteered in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

I’ll be a tap dancing hippopotamus before I let a handful of billionaires and their political beneficiaries rob us of the satisfaction of celebrating these key victories

Although the prospect of another three years of this government is enough to make anyone on the left contemplate taking up residence beneath a large rock, there is a great deal of encouragement to be found in these results.

Because putting aside the billionaire-funded campaign to exploit our electoral system and conjure up parliamentary seats that the right couldn’t win through the party vote.

• READ MORE: Hipkins accuses National Party of ‘manipulating’ NZ’s electoral system
• NZ elections: What a weakened Luxon does with an empowered ACT and NZF
• A knife-edge result, three possible outcomes – what comes next after NZ’s election?
• Other NZ election reports

And putting aside this government’s blatant voter suppression tactics, resulting in the lowest voter turnout we’ve ever seen.

There is still a lot to celebrate.

Voice of the voiceless
For starters, national treasure and voice of the voiceless, Tānia Waikato, is going to be a Green MP.

A woman who has spent years making herself a nuisance to people in positions of power is now going to have the opportunity to make herself a nuisance to them from inside Parliament.

Then there’s Craig Renney, a generational political talent who has managed to win an electorate seat. And while his victory comes at the expense of Julie Anne Genter, who has been an outstanding representative, the good news is that Julie Anne will return on the Green Party list.

Allowing the left to have its cake and eat it too.

Then there’s Tamatha Paul.

Not content with spending the past three years demonstrating why she is one of the most formidable young politicians in the country, she has gone and won her electorate in a landslide.

All without mentioning the fact that the Greens recorded their strongest election result in history.

Fate of two largest parties
But perhaps the most satisfying result of all is what happened to the two largest political parties.

Because after three years of Christopher Luxon telling New Zealanders that his government was getting the country back on track, more voters gave their party vote to Chris Hipkins and Labour than to Luxon and National.

Meaning that despite the government’s decision to scrap same-day voter enrolment.

Despite billionaire-funded campaigns attempting to engineer an overhang in Parliament.

Despite voter turnout falling to around 74 percent.

Despite every advantage enjoyed by an incumbent government with some of the wealthiest people in the country helping to keep it in power.

Labour are still on track to beat National in the party vote.

Labour back from 2023 electoral wreckage
Chris Hipkins has managed to drag Labour back from the electoral wreckage of 2023.

While Christopher Luxon has managed to take a party that won a commanding victory three years ago and lead it into second place.

And now, in one of the great absurdities of our electoral system, the man whose party received the most votes may find himself sitting in opposition, while the man whose party lost the most support gets another three years in the Prime Minister’s office.

And even then, Luxon may have to spend those three years negotiating with three coalition partners whose political agendas have about as much in common as a vegetarian, a butcher and a hungry wolf.

So forgive me if I don’t regard this election as an unqualified triumph for the right.

The Greens have made history.

Labour has staged an enormous recovery.

Some of the most talented politicians in the country have secured their places in Parliament.

PM’s office and electorate confidence different things
And Christopher Luxon has received a rather emphatic reminder that occupying the Prime Minister’s office and enjoying the confidence of the electorate are two very different things.

So yes, be disappointed. Be angry about the voter suppression. Be furious about the billionaires attempting to purchase themselves a more favourable Parliament.

But don’t mistake the prospect of another right-wing government for an endorsement of everything that government has done.

And don’t allow the disappointment of what we haven’t achieved to extinguish the satisfaction of what we have.

We have gained ground. We have gained representation. And we have gained momentum.

There is still plenty worth fighting for, and there are now more formidable people in Parliament to fight for it.

Do not despair.

• The final result of the NZ general election is due on November 27 after about 399,000     special votes have been counted. Provisional preliminary results here.

Sean Ackland is a New Zealand author, content creator and political commentator based in Auckland. This commentary is republished from a social media post with the author’s permission.

Journalism educators are calling for RNZ’s impending staff cuts to leave its newsrooms alone.

The Journalism Education Association of New Zealand (JEANZ) says New Zealanders already have too few journalists working on their behalf.

“If they’re making sweeping cuts, they should leave their journalists alone,” said JEANZ president Dr Greg Treadwell.

• READ MORE: ‘A colossal mistake’ – Media Minister rules out coming to RNZ’s aid after budget blowout
• Mediawatch: RNZ blowout = big cuts + big hit to reputation
• RNZ plans job cuts after shock $12m loss
• Other RNZ reports

The public broadcaster this week announced a $11.8m fiscal blowout and plans to sack up to 60 staff.

If RNZ needed to make workers redundant, it should seek emergency funding to make sure that did not include its journalists, he said.

“We already have half the number of journalists per capita of Australia, and frankly New Zealanders need more, not fewer,” said Dr Treadwell.

Financial incompetence should bring consequences but not for our democracy, he said.

‘Sack the board’
“Sack the audit committee. Sack the board and chief executive. But don’t punish the listeners.”

If it took emergency funding from the government to keep RNZ newsrooms intact, so be it, he said.

“Better that than further diminishing RNZ’s ability to inform citizens with the news they need every day, not to mention when disasters like Cyclone Gabrielle strike.”

RNZ was the country’s emergency broadcaster and must be able to do its statutory job.

It was time the government stopped using New Zealand’s national broadcaster as a political football and reassured the public it would provide the funding it needs to do its job, Dr Treadwell said.

Big cuts + big hit to reputation
RNZ Mediawatch reports that the state-owned broadcaster’s “top brass kept a tight lid on the alarming details” until the annual financial results and latest annual report were published on Monday.

“It’s sad and ironic that [RNZ’s] own failure of oversight has now prompted it to cut more jobs and capacity at a crucial time.”

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Israeli authorities’ impunity for a massive increase in crimes and has demanded the protection of all journalists.

Over the three years of the war in Gaza since 7 October 2023 — which has spread to Lebanon and the West Bank — nearly 210 journalists have been killed by the Israeli military, at least 71 slain due to their work, and 59 detained, the watchdog reports.

Compared with the previous three-year period (2020–2023), the number of journalists killed by the Israeli army has increased 24-fold, while the number detained has nearly tripled, RSF said in a new report.

• READ MORE: Other Gaza media freedom reports
• Read the full report at RSF

“Comparing the appalling number of journalists killed and imprisoned over the past three years with the statistics from the previous three-year period makes it possible to measure the massive scale of the abuses committed by Israeli armed forces since 7 October 2023 in Palestine,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of the RSF Middle East Desk.

“The impunity surrounding crimes committed against the press under the orders of the Israeli authorities in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon has continued, unpunished, for far too long.

“Israel’s allied governments must put pressure on the next cabinet formed following the Knesset elections [last month], whatever its composition, to investigate these crimes and put an end to the abuses.”

Over the past three years of war, the number of journalists killed by the Israeli military while working or in relation to their work was 24 times higher than in the previous three-year period, the RSF research found.

Also, the number of news professionals arbitrarily detained because of their work has tripled.

Of the nearly 210 journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon between October 2023 and October 2026, at least 71 were targeted or killed by Israeli soldiers in connection with their work, compared with just three between October 2020 and October 2023.

59 arbitrarily detained
Meanwhile, 59 journalists have been arbitrarily detained by Israeli authorities for their work over the past three years, compared with 22 during the preceding period. This makes Israel one of the world’s 10 largest prisons for journalists for the fourth consecutive year.

Of the 71 journalists killed by the Israeli military due to their work over the past three years, 63 were killed in Gaza and eight in southern Lebanon.

Some journalists were targeted by drones, such as Amal Khalil, a reporter for the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar who was killed in southern Lebanon on 14 April 2026, and Mohamed Balousha, a correspondent for the Emirati television channel Al-Mashhad, killed in the Gaza Strip on 14 December 2024.

Others were targeted by snipers, such as Yasser Mamdouh El-Fady, a journalist for the Kan’an News agency, who was killed on 11 February 2024 while reporting near Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza.

Fadi Al-Wahidi, a journalist with the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera, was also seriously wounded by a sniper on 9 October 2024 in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Between 2020 and 2023, one journalist was killed in Lebanon: Lokman Slim, whose murder is attributed to Hezbollah, although the investigation has still not reached an official conclusion. On 7 October 2023, two Israeli journalists, Roee Idan and Ayelet Arnin, were killed while working by armed members of Hamas.

‘Double-tap’ strikes
Palestinian reporters have fallen victim to the Israeli military’s use of “double-tap” strikes, a tactic involving two attacks on the same location within a short period of time. As a result, those who arrive at the scene following the initial strike — generally journalists and rescue workers — are also killed.

On 25 August 2025, the Israeli military killed five Palestinian journalists who had rushed to Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to cover the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike.

Mariam Abu Dagga was one of the five journalists killed. She was among the journalists and first responders who had rushed to the scene after a first strike killed Hossam al-Masri, a photographer working for Reuters. The second strike, which killed Abu Dagga, was captured live by television cameras, with the journalist and her colleagues clearly visible in the footage.

Haitham al-Mousawi, a Lebanese photographer for Al-Akhbar, was also wounded in a double-tap strike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut.

West Bank: 12 journalists detained in the first month of Gaza offensive
Alongside the conflict in Gaza, the Israeli military has been conducting its offensive against the press in the rest of occupied Palestine.

Of the 59 journalists arrested by the Israeli authorities since 7 October 2023, 40 were detained in the occupied West Bank, including 12 within the first 30 days after the start of the offensive in Gaza.

By comparison, a total of 21 journalists were detained during the three years preceding the war launched in retaliation for the 7 October attacks.

To justify these mass arrests, the Israeli judicial system has made extensive use of “administrative detention”. This legal provision allows individuals to be imprisoned indefinitely, without charge or trial.

The Palestinian Authority, which has also participated in the repression of journalists, has likewise stepped up its actions since 7 October 2023. In several cases — not included on the RSF map because the arrests lasted less than 48 hours — its security and intelligence services detained media professionals who were subsequently thrown behind bars by the Israeli armed forces.

No convictions have been handed down in connection with the 71 killings of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who were targeted or killed due to their work by the Israeli military since October 2023, despite the fact that these killings appear to constitute war crimes.

Shireen Abu Akleh shot by sniper
An illustration of how this impunity long predates October 7 is the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist and one of Al Jazeera’s best-known correspondents. She was shot and killed on 11 May 2022 by an Israeli soldier while covering clashes in the Jenin area, in the northern occupied West Bank.

Although authorities have apparently identified the perpetrator, he has never been convicted. Israel’s then-Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, even publicly defended him.

Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli authorities have also maintained impunity for cases of abuse committed against international journalists.

Eleven reporters aboard ships belonging to the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international maritime initiative seeking to break the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, were arrested in international waters in violation of international conventions.

Despite reports submitted to RSF concerning cases of torture and sexual violence suffered by these journalists at the hands of Israeli security forces, no perpetrators have been identified or prosecuted.

RSF is working to combat this impunity. The NGO has filed five complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) concerning war crimes committed by the Israeli military against journalists in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.

Republished from Reporters Without Borders by Pacific Media Watch.

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins says National is only in pole position to form a government in New Zealand because it “manipulated the electoral system”.

“There are a lot of people very angry about the direction that the country has been heading under this government, and you actually see that in the fact that after only one term, National has lost the party vote in this election,” he said.

“They’re only holding on to the prospect of power because they’ve manipulated the electoral system.

• READ MORE: NZ elections: What a weakened Luxon does with an empowered ACT and NZF
• A knife-edge result, three possible outcomes – what comes next after NZ’s election?
• Other NZ election reports

“They’re in a position where if they weren’t manipulating the electoral system, they would be gone at this point.”

He said National manipulated things through the “overhang strategy”.

Asked how that was the case when National had pushed back strongly against vote-splitting, Hipkins said Winston Peters and Chris Bishop weren’t doing that.

“Oh, for goodness sakes! I saw Chris Bishop in the electorate right next to mine, standing next to Winston Peters, asking New Zealand First voters to vote National on their electorate vote,” Hipkins said.

While caretaker Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was encouraging voters to “party vote National”, Hipkins said “that’s not what their candidates on the ground were doing”.

• The 2026 election is done but finals results will not be announced until November 27. You can view full results here, and view results in each electorate here. Follow RNZ’s live blog here.

A South African activist representing more than 200,000 shack dwellers has praised New Zealanders for their international solidarity against settler colonialism and appealed for them to “emulate” their 1981 stand against apartheid over Palestine.

S’bu Zikode, co-founder and current leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, recalled how it had been 15 years since he had been in New Zealand to mark the 20th anniversary of the “great protests against the Springbok rugby tour of 1981”.

Speaking at a public event in Auckland’s Ellen Melville Centre organised by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) last night, he said he wanted to remember that history and thank all those people of this country who “stood with us against apartheid”.

• READ MORE: Four children among five killed in Gaza floods
• ANC faces bruising defeat in South African local elections with 80 percent of ballots counted
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“You refused to allow the apartheid state to present itself as a normal member of the international community,” he said.

“This was an outstanding example of international solidarity, and an example that we should seek to emulate in our solidarity with the people of Palestine.”

Zikode is in New Zealand for a week-long tour primarily to speak at a Federation of Socialist Societies event in Dunedin on November 13/14. He also addressed a Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland yesterday and will speak in Hamilton today.

He will visit Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Kerikeri and Whangarei.

“In our movement we speak of living solidarity. This means solidarity that exists in actions, not just in words,” he said at Ellen Melville, speaking on the theme “South Africa, Palestine and the urgency of solidarity”.

“It means solidarity between people who recognise one another as equals.”

Settler colonialism oppression
Zikode said South Africa and Palestine were both countries that had been oppressed by settler colonialism. This was part of the reason for the long solidarity with Palestine among South Africans.

His words came as global headlines exposed the cruelty of Israel’s breaches of the so-called Gaza genocide “ceasefire” with savage storms and flooding killing five Palestinians living in tents and during local body elections in South Africa where the progressive African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral defeats.

Zikode said there were important differences between the two forms of settler colonialism.

“In South Africa, the colonial system was organised around dispossession of Africans from their land, the theft of their cattle and the exploitation of their labour.

“The economy depended on African workers in the mines, on the farms, in the factories and in the homes of white people. The settlers wanted the land , but they also wanted the labour of the people the dispossessed.

“Huge numbers of people were forced from their homes and land as African people were pushed into ‘reserves’, based on the system used to oppress Native Americans, and later into the ‘Bantustans’, the so-called ‘homelands’.

“The Bantustans were not just used to confine African people to tony areas of land. They were also central to the migrant labour system that ensured cheap labour for white capital and white families in their homes.”

Forced to leave families
African workers were forced by economic necessity to leave their families and communities to find work in the mines and cities. Many were compelled to live in single-sex hostels, separated from their families.

“When we look at Palestine today, we recognise many of these methods of oppression. We see a fundamentally racist settler colonial system in which there is ongoing dispossession of people from their land by the Israeli state and settlers,” Zikode said.

“We see homes being demolished. We see communities separated from one another by walls, checkpoints and military restrictions. We see people who stand up against oppression being called ‘terrorists’ and subject to mass imprisonment, torture and murder.

“The struggles against racism and for land are central to the struggle for freedom, both in South Africa and in Palestine. But there are also differences between apartheid in South Africa and oppression in Palestine.

“While Palestinians have been exploited as workers, the fundamental drive of settler colonialism in Israel is to remove or destroy the Palestinian people rather than to exploit them for their labour.”

The Nakba of 1948 had forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, Zikode said.

Many had become refugees in other countries while they and their descendants remained unable to return. The occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967 had brought further dispossession, settlement expansion and military rule.

Genocide continues Nakba
The genocide in Gaza — with more than 75,000 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children, in three years of war on the besieged enclave – and the ongoing theft of land in the West Bank had continued the process begun with the Nakba.

“We must also recognise that the Palestinian experience has become more terrible in certain respects than the experience of apartheid South Africa,” Zikode said.

“The scale of the destruction of Gaza, mass displacement and the killing of civilians have horrified people across the world.

“But we must be clear that, within South Africa itself, the apartheid state did not carry out mass killing on the scale that we have witnessed with the genocide in Gaza.

“Recognising this difference does not diminish the suffering of South Africans under apartheid.”

He acknowledged that the Palestinian people had not yet won their freedom .

“There must also be a single free and democratic country with equal rights for all and one person, one vote in historic Palestine – ‘from the river to the sea’.”

Warning against betrayal
Zikode warned also against sabotage of the path to freedom.

“In South Africa, we have been betrayed by the ANC who have enriched themselves, repressed popular movements and struggles, and left a devastated country with mass impoverishment, mass hunger, and mass unemployment – including more than 60 percent youth.”

Question time was lively with queries about solidarity organising, the global drift to the far right and fascism, stronger solidarity with Palestine, and why had South Africa requested more time for its genocide lawsuit against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

“We were proud when South African lawyers stood before the [ICC] court in The Hague and presented the case that Israel’s actions in Gaza violated the Genocide Convention.”

Zikode said this was an important act of international solidarity but South Africa was “paying a price” for the lawsuit and subjected to severe diplomatic pressure and threats from the United States. He also criticised the fact that South Africa had continued to “sell coal to Israel” and ANC-aligned trade unions had not blocked ships heading to Israel.

One young woman in the audience asked what worldwide protesters over the Israeli genocide should do when governments were failing to take action: “I am only 24, and already I am tired.”

Zikode replied it was important to not act alone, and to join others in solidarity and keep their spirits up.

Qiulae Wong may have failed to win her electorate seat in New Zealand’s general election on Saturday. Still, the Fiji-born political newcomer has achieved something that three previous leaders of her party could not — and she’s getting into Parliament anyway.

She has taken the Opportunity Party across the five percent threshold needed to enter Parliament.

With 5.96 percent of the preliminary party vote, the party is projected to secure seven seats, including one for Wong through the party list.

• READ MORE: A knife-edge result, three possible outcomes – what comes next after NZ’s election?
• Qiulae Wong says she will pick up the phone if Luxon doesn’t
• NZ’s next government hangs in the balance: 2026 election results at a glance
• Other NZ election reports

But behind the 38-year-old mother of two is a remarkable family story with deep roots in Fiji, particularly Lautoka.

Qiulae is the granddaughter of the late Eddie Yan Kong Wong, a successful businessman, former mayor of Lautoka and Fiji’s first senator of Chinese descent.

Her grandparents, Eddie and Sennung Wong, migrated from China and established a new life in Fiji.

Eddie became one of Lautoka’s prominent businessmen through Eddie Hin Limited, which operated in food distribution, supermarkets and soft-drink manufacturing.

He was also very involved in community affairs and served as Lautoka’s first Chinese mayor in 1967 and 1968.

First Chinese senator
Following Fiji’s independence in 1970, he became the country’s first senator of Chinese descent.

His public service extended to the boards of the Fiji Electricity Authority, Civil Aviation Authority and Tilak High School.

Interestingly, Eddie’s business legacy continues in New Zealand.

His grandchildren, Qiuchee and Qiujing Wong, revived the name Lūkbo for their Auckland-based food distribution company.

Meaning “six treasures”, Lūkbo was originally the name Eddie chose for a range of soft drinks manufactured in Fiji before his company began producing RC Cola and later Pepsi Cola.

The grandchildren say they revived the name to honour their grandfather and continue the family’s business tradition.

Qiulae’s father, Jilyin Wong, moved from Fiji to Auckland for his secondary and university education, where he met Margaret Malcolm, a Pākehā New Zealander.

Moved to Fiji
The couple subsequently moved to Fiji, where Qiulae was born in 1988, before relocating to New Zealand when she was just six months old.

Margaret also has a background in public affairs, served as a senior adviser to former National Party minister Judith Collins and was chief executive of the Auckland District Law Society.

Qiulae grew up in Auckland, the youngest of three children, in a household shaped by both Chinese and New Zealand cultures.

Politics was not her initial career choice.

After studying law and politics, she worked in sustainable fashion in London before returning to New Zealand and joining international consultancy firm KPMG.

Her political journey began almost unexpectedly in 2025 when she responded to an advertisement seeking a new leader for the Opportunity Party.

Despite having no parliamentary political experience, she applied and eventually secured the position.

Economic reform, housing
She subsequently led a campaign focused on economic reform, housing affordability and environmental sustainability.

Her rapid rise has come with personal challenges, including balancing political commitments with raising two young daughters, Malia and Cleo, with her husband, Grant Anthony.

She has also spoken about experiencing racism and personal attacks during the campaign.

But Wong’s sense of family history remains strong.

In 2013, she travelled to China with relatives to visit the villages her grandparents had left decades earlier, describing the experience as a pilgrimage.

Now, her family’s journey has reached another milestone, with Qiulae Wong poised to enter New Zealand’s Parliament as the leader of a party that has finally broken through under her leadership.

The official election results, including special votes, are due on November 27.

For the Wong family, however, the story stretches much further back — from China to Lautoka, and now to New Zealand’s Parliament. It is a story of migration, enterprise, public service and opportunities embraced across generations.

Jale Moala, one of Fiji’s most experienced and talented journalists, has been editor of The Fiji Times, Fiji Daily Post, Islands Business, Pacific Islands Monthly, night editor of The National daily newspaper in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and a senior journalist on several New Zealand news media. This commentary is republished from his Facebook page with permission.

“New Zealand has spoken,” Labour leader Chris Hipkins said to the party faithful on election night, before adding: “It may take us a little bit longer to figure out exactly what it is that you’ve said.”

There hasn’t been an MMP election quite (or even anything) like the one that played out tonight. With the ordinary vote largely counted, the incumbent coalition parties — National, ACT and New Zealand First — hold 67 seats to the left bloc’s 56, with the centrist Opportunity party getting over the parliamentary line for the first time with 7 seats.

The numbers are likely to shift again with the counting of special votes, which tallied nearly 600,000 in the last election.

• READ MORE: NZ’s next government hangs in the balance: 2026 election results at a glance
• Right bloc takes lead in NZ election, but senior National MPs ousted
• Other NZ election reports

But the big story of the night is the size of the overhang: New Zealand’s parliaments generally have 120 MPs, but it looks as if there will be 129 or 130 MPs in the next one. If so, the right bloc will hold a 1 or 2 seat majority.

It promises to be a long three weeks before final results are announced.

There is no way of predicting where the numbers will land, but on the basis of the election night’s provisional results, there are (at least) three possible scenarios.

Scenario 1: the right has a working majority
In this scenario, National returns to office at the head of a second-term coalition government. However, it is not quite the same government that was formed following the 2023 election. The same parties will gather around the cabinet table, but both the personalities and the balance of power will have changed markedly.

Most obviously, the parliamentary overhang created by National’s strong performance in the electorates — it looks to have held onto 41 of the 44 electorate seats it took at the last parliament — means Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s party has been shorn of its most senior and experienced ministers, including Nicola Willis, Paul Goldsmith and (in all probability) Chris Bishop.

As a consequence, when the prime minister sits down at the first cabinet meeting of the returning government, he will be accompanied by fewer and less experienced National Party colleagues.

He will also, of course, see more of the numpties and yahoos he derided not so many months ago.

If cabinet positions are shared proportionally based on election results — and Winston Peters and David Seymour are well placed to ensure that they are — then National’s share of all cabinet positions is going to fall below the proportion it held (67 percent) in the coalition’s first term.

Scenario 2: the coalition needs Opportunity
See above – only more complicated. Under this scenario, the coalition falls just short of a majority and needs the Opportunity Party’s (TOP) support to govern. Whatever their positions before the election, David Seymour and Winston Peters will entertain doing a deal with Opportunity.

The real question is whether or not Luxon will prove equally flexible. In all likelihood he will: even though he spent the entire campaign saying that he would not answer a call from Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong.

If he sticks with that position, and the alternative is a return to the opposition benches, Luxon will likely be replaced as party leader (and therefore prime minister) in short order by someone who is prepared to have the difficult conversation.

But Opportunity’s situation is not straightforward either in this scenario. There are real risks for Wong’s party if it opts to support a National-led government — and any preliminary decision to do so may, of course, be vetoed by the party’s board.

Her party’s supporters would prefer a centre-left administration and, if the party props up a government which takes the country out of the Paris Agreement, erases the Treaty of Waitangi and does away with the minimum wage, the odds that Opportunity will continue to exist as a parliamentary force in three years time will shorten considerably.

On the other hand, the party could position itself as the one that prevents the coalition from indulging its worst instincts. Opportunity will likely support the government on confidence and supply from the cross-benches — but it will have a veto over other legislation, which it could use to prevent the government from drifting too far to the right.

Scenario 3: the left plus Opportunity have the numbers
In this scenario, Chris Hipkins becomes the first prime minister to return to the top job following a spell as opposition leader since Keith Holyoake, who became leader of the National Party and prime minister two months before the 1957 election, and returned to power in 1960.

But quite what configuration of government emerges among the parties on the centre-left depends on other factors. Te Pāti Māori — which on last night’s results has five seats, creating a parliamentary overhang of their own in the process — has a choice to make. It can negotiate seats at the cabinet table, or support a Labour-led government on confidence and supply from the cross-benches.

For a kaupapa Māori party, the former comes with risks. The party may, therefore, opt for an enhanced confidence and supply agreement. This would leave the party room to push harder on Treaty-related matters than they could do from within a formal coalition.

Opportunity has a similar choice to make. The smart money is on the party also opting for an arrangement on confidence and supply, rather than a formal executive coalition. It seems prudent for the party’s new MPs to give themselves time to learn the rules of the parliamentary game before entertaining thoughts of ministerial office.

Are we there yet?
Whichever of these — or some other — scenario comes to pass will depend on special votes. This year, special votes — which typically break left — include an unusually large number of overseas votes.

Although the impact of specials on the party vote is generally the focus, the size of National’s overhang means that this time round, it will be their impact on seats that National held or took narrowly on the night that will count. If Labour or the Greens flip two or three seats, that could make all the difference.

Even then, there may be some final plot twists. Electorate candidates have three working days following the announcement of final results within which to lodge a request with the District Court for a recount (and the judge has a further three working days within which to commence the recount). In short, this could take some time.

Meanwhile, the political clock is ticking. Constitutionally, the next Parliament must meet no later than six weeks following the return of the writs. That means MPs must gather in Wellington by January 14 at the latest.

There is no formal constitutional requirement for a government to have been formed by that date, but the political imperatives to have done so are significant. The politicians are going to need to work fast.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article here.

With more than 90 percent of the vote counted in the New Zealand general election, the final result was still up in the air last night, but the lead governing coalition party National has been left bruised, losing some of its most senior and experienced MPs.

On current results the right bloc — National, ACT and New Zealand First — have the most seats and would be in a position to form a government.

However, National’s leadership would look very different with the loss of senior list-only National MPs such as outgoing Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Speaker Gerry Brownlee.

• READ MORE: RNZ News live election blog
• Other NZ election reports

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has conceded defeat in Hutt South and also misses out on a return to Parliament.

National’s current coalition partners, ACT and New Zealand First both picked up support while the Greens had their strongest parliamentary showing in its history.

It is the third biggest party with 13.3 percent.

A new party, Opportunity, also had a strong showing — and is sitting on six percent.

Locked in tight battle
In terms of the party vote, National and Labour remain locked in a tight battle with only about 300 votes between them.

National was on 29.3 percent and Labour 29.2 percent.

Many of the results will hang on the estimated 700,000 special votes which are still to be counted.

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins arrived at the Upper Hutt Cossie Club in his electorate to chants of “Chippy! Chippy! Chippy!” — his popular moniker.

“Tonight New Zealand has spoken. It may take us a little bit longer to figure out what exactly it is that you’ve said,” he joked.

“Every vote matters and every vote must now be counted.”

He thanked those who had put their trust in the Labour Party and given them their votes this campaign.

“As things stand tonight it’s clear that we’re not going to know the exact shape of our next government for a little while longer yet.

“But there are some things that are clear from tonight results; our next Parliament is going to require all of us to compromise, to work together and to find common ground.”

He said the people had spoken and it was now politicians’ responsibility to make things work.

‘Things on knife edge’
With the coalition looking like retaining a majority thanks to National’s four-seat overhang on current numbers, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was still too early to call.

“Things are on a knife’s edge,” she said.

“I think that anybody who’s watching the results live right now and refreshing their browser will know that that is chopping and changing with every other minutes that passes,” she told reporters at the Greens HQ in Auckland.

“Right now, anybody who is trying to declare the tea leaves is kind of getting a bit too ahead of themselves.”

The vote count after reaching 90 percent:

National – 29.3 percent
Labour – 29.1 percent
Greens – 13.3 percent
ACT – 11 percent
NZ First – 9.8 percent
Opportunity – 5.9 percent
Te Pāti Māori – 0.6 percent

This story was first published on

The Free Palestine Party has criticised the NZ Electoral Commission for failing to take any action against what it says has been an NZME ban on key campaign messages from the party.

NZME reportedly refused to broadcast any of the Free Palestine Party’s advertisements on its ZB radio network.

NZME also refused to carry any campaign material with the wording “From the River to the Sea” in reference to expelled Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland.

• READ MORE:  A knife-edge result, three possible outcomes – what comes next after NZ’s election?
• Other NZ elections reports

In a statement, Free Palestine Party president Paul Hopkinson said the party had been established for the 2026 election, “not to get votes, but instead to have people vote for the political party with the best policies in support of Palestinian rights”.

“We aimed to raise public awareness of the most fundamental rights of Palestinians and how the current government was ignoring these rights and the news media never reported on them,” he said.

“That’s why we called ourselves, ‘The Free Palestine from the River to the Sea Party.”

Hopkinson said UN Resolution 194 had been passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, which demanded Israel to allow the 750,000 Palestinians it had just expelled from their homes in Palestine to return.

Right of Return vital
“That Right of Return applies to all of the Mandate Palestine, from the River to the Sea. But NZME, and by extension the Electoral Commission when we appealed to them, wouldn’t allow us to use that expression,” Hopkinson said.

“We are only allowed to describe Palestinians’ rights within the accepted and highly restricted self-serving framework of the Zionist-Front NZ Jewish Council.”

“We are not permitted to describe a right of return which every government of New Zealand has voted to endorse in the United Nations every year since 1948.”

“And this is just because some sympathisers of genocidal Israel, use a ‘hecklers’ veto’ on NZME and the Electoral Commission, when they claim they are ‘upset’ to hear a geographically correct description of Palestine”.

The American public’s outrage over Gaza just decided this week’s US midterms.

Democrats have now won control of both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, taking them from a belligerently defensive Republican Party that not only did the bidding of Israel and its allies in America’s foreign policy commentariat, but went out of its way to smear and shame those who opposed that deeply unpopular choice.

To take as a sample the nation’s most hotly contested and watched election, what we saw in Michigan was the defeat of a candidate who disregarded that public outrage by a candidate who sympathised with and substantially addressed it.

• READ MORE: ‘This is catastrophic’ – Gaza hit hard by UN food cuts and lack of humanitarian aid
• PSNA ‘outraged’ over NZ suspension of UNRWA aid, calls for immediate restored funding
• Caitlin Johnstone: Israel claims it had nothing to do with Trump’s decision to attack Iran . . . and other notes
• Other Gaza genocide reports

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed beat out Republican Mike Rogers there. And this was a victory that really showed just how committed voters now are to ridding themselves of the influence of apologists for the tragedy of Gaza.

Before the US Senate vote in Michigan, El-Sayed was targeted for defeat with a record-breaking amount of political spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group that has made it its business to play surrogate to the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even as his government’s violent campaigns in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and the West Bank draw mounting international condemnation.

In fact, not only did AIPAC and its affiliates spend nearly $30 million to defeat El-Sayed in the Democratic primary by backing self-proclaimed “Zionist Democrat” Haley Stevens — their largest-ever investment in a single race — but AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC, an organisation in the US allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money for political advertising, continued spending against El-Sayed after the primary, benefitting Rogers.

And finally Stevens, explicitly citing El-Sayed’s campaign messaging against Israel’s military actions and US taxpayer funding for it, baffled her own party by endorsing his Republican rival just days before the election.

Acknowledged by Vance
Vice-President JD Vance himself acknowledged the morning after the elections that the same coalition that voted President Donald Trump and himself into office in 2024 had just decided the results of 2026.

Citing his own best advisers, Vance said voters were motivated by four priorities:

1. ending the war on Iran;
2. the rising cost of living/inflation;
3. putting America First; and
4. changing the US relationship to Israel

“Our voters showed up,” the Vice-President said. “And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.”

And Vance is hardly going out on a limb with that analysis. Donald Trump Jr, the president’s own son, publicly endorsed Vance’s admission of the GOP’s failures. Hours later, President Trump himself called Vance’s analysis “good” although he stood by the disastrous war nonetheless.

That’s because it is impossible to obscure or erase the impression the whole drama of this year’s elections leaves us with. The impression of a hostile faction embedded in our political class whose commitment to Israel-right-or-wrong is directly, undemocratically and contemptuously opposed to the growing consensus of the American people.

It is also impossible to miss, however, that the American people this year showed themselves willing and able to oust that faction. And it is impossible to miss why. To paraphrase the immortal maxim of Democratic political strategist James Carville: “It’s Gaza, stupid.”

The Gaza genocide scandal
As I’ve argued repeatedly over the past few years, the scandal of the Gaza genocide itself has profoundly reshaped Americans’ attitudes towards foreign policy, war and military aid — particularly when it comes to the Netanyahu regime.

Over the past year, Trump and other politicians have compounded that genocide with the disastrous Iran war and Israel’s new military campaigns in Lebanon — all while an increasingly antiwar America watches with growing outrage as its political leaders use our tax dollars for violence.

The coalition that elected Trump in 2024 was built around a rejection of what he called “forever wars” and “stupid wars”. On the campaign trail, he even spoke explicitly about ending the violence in Gaza.

As I wrote at the time, when a voter in Dearborn, Michigan, asked him about the Gaza genocide, Trump replied: “It’s gotta stop. What we want is peace.” So there is no denying that the initiation of the US-Israeli war against Iran this year was a betrayal and a reversal of the will of those who voted this administration into office.

Democrats had already received this warning in 2024. The Jerusalem Post reported in February that Democratic National Committee officials had acknowledged that the Gaza policy of President Joe Biden’s administration was a “net negative” in that election. The party’s defeat should have warned Republicans against treating public outrage over Gaza as politically irrelevant.

It is also no secret that this war would likely not have happened were it not for Israeli operatives (including Netanyahu himself) and neoconservative figures like Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin pressing for it.

Poll after poll has shown growing American disapproval of Israeli military actions. A valuable election night poll also showed a stunning 62 percent of voters explicitly calling the joint US-Israeli initiation of a war with Iran “wrong” while 74 percent identified the war as a crucial or major factor in their votes.

Concerned about ‘affordability’
But more broadly, the polls have shown clearly all this year that the American public is concerned about affordability. What showed less clearly was that, in the public mind, “affordability” concerns were always synonymous with the war and the war synonymous with the influence of Israel and Israel synonymous with the Gaza genocide — that is, with a warlike military policy that is as thoughtless of its cost to the American taxpayer as it is of the sanctity of innocent Palestinian lives.

And all this is to say nothing of the final scandal that, in a way, hits particularly close to home for American Christians: the Israeli terrorist campaign to ethnically cleanse the West Bank — including by attacking the ancient Christian communities who have lived there since the first century.

One can imagine how central that drama will be to the next major American election season. November is not far from December, after all, and asking Americans in 2028 to approach Christmas with few (or no) Christians left to celebrate it in Bethlehem thanks to Israel-backed settler terrorism against our coreligionists in the Holy Land would spell the end of whatever remains of the GOP after Tuesday’s midterms.

The effect of the Gaza genocide and its hideous, snowballing effects on American public life are unmistakable to those with eyes to see, even if invisible to the few pollsters and prognosticators who have somehow managed to remain too out of touch with common sentiments to rightly quantify them.

But that leads to a final consideration that leaders in both parties must now keep in mind: It is the coalition that Trump rallied in record numbers two years ago that won last night.

Not a political party and not a small, elite group in a strategy meeting who now might go on to manage and fine-tune that coalition as if it were their own man-made invention.

GK Chesterton once observed that the American way of life is not based on the clumsy ambitions of a tribe, on ethnic identity or even on some fragile truce between such groupings. Rather, America is united by the creed expressed in our Declaration of Independence – a creed of belief in the dignity of every human person, based on a reverence for immortal nature and “Nature’s God”. In this way, Chesterton wrote, America is “a nation with the soul of a church”.

The outrage over Gaza is a phenomenon as real and as unwieldy as that soul. Democrats should take no comfort in imagining that this outrage belongs to their party. It belongs to Americans who want their leaders to stop financing the slaughter of innocent people.

If the politicians entrusted with power now refuse to listen, they too can be replaced. The demand remains what it was when Trump spoke in Dearborn: End the violence.

Jason Jones is an American human rights activist and author. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says his government is being “hammered every day” by the media and critics, as he defended the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA) and the restoration of media freedom.

Speaking in Parliament last night, Rabuka said the repeal had restored a more enabling environment for media freedom, but acknowledged the government was facing intense scrutiny.

“But they [are] enjoying their freedom. We get hammered every day by people who are enjoying their freedom and attacking us from every angle,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji media freedom reports

His remarks came as he outlined the government’s record of reforms and argued that tangible improvements in people’s lives should be the measure of its performance.

He was speaking in reply to an End of Week statement that was made by opposition leader Inia Seruiratu.

“Tangible improvements in the lives of our people. That is the standard by which this government must be judged,” Rabuka said.

He said successive governments, both in Fiji and elsewhere, were guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provided a shared vision for humanity’s future.

Rabuka also defended the importance of traditional leadership, saying the restoration of the Great Council of Chiefs had reaffirmed the role of traditional institutions in national dialogue, cultural identity and the wellbeing of Fijians.

He said the government’s commitment to reform had extended to laws and institutions shaping Fiji’s democracy.

He also highlighted amendments to the iTaukei Land Trust Act, which he said were intended to improve fairness and accessibility for landowners.

Rabuka maintained that a nation’s strength rested on its ability to respect its history, protect its identity and prepare confidently for the future.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters — a veteran of 18 general elections — has called this long and sometimes fractious campaign “the worst of my career, easily”. But whether you agree with him or not, tomorrow night still promises exciting live entertainment.

Will Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his three-party coalition be removed from office after just one term? Will they be replaced by a left-wing coalition led by Labour’s Chris Hipkins — the same man who lost to Luxon in 2023?

Will the Opportunity Party make it over the 5 percent threshold for seats in Parliament, potentially holding the balance of power?

• READ MORE: Election Policy Tracker: your guide to what the parties are promising during the 2026 election campaign
• Other NZ election reports

More technically, will the various campaigns to have voters split their two available votes (one for their electorate candidate, one for their preferred party) have a bearing on the result?

Normally in New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (MMP) system, the election numbers that really count are the party-vote percentages. This time, however, individual electorates will matter more than usual.

With polls promising a very tight race, here are some numbers and possible scenarios to track on the night.

Overhangs on the left or right
A parliamentary overhang happens when a party wins more local electorate seats than it would have been awarded in proportion with its percentage of the party vote.

The overhang seats are added (above Parliament’s normal 120) to accommodate those extra winners of single-member districts. Overhangs of one to three seats have occurred before.

But this election campaign has seen organised efforts on both the left and right to deliberately use the overhang rule to increase the number of seats their respective sides can win.

Te Pāti Māori is ignoring the party vote entirely and asking supporters to deliver wins in the Māori electorates but give their party vote to Labour or the Greens (which would increase the overall party vote on the left).

Winning three to five Māori electorates would greatly outweigh Te Pāti Māori’s party vote entitlement, which could go below 1 percent. The number of overhang seats produced on the left will be a major talking point on the night.

A counter-strategy on the right (not officially endorsed by the National Party) assumes National can win more electorates than its party vote (possibly below 30 percent) would warrant.

The campaign is asking right-wing voters to keep the left-wing parties out of office by party-voting ACT or New Zealand First, and giving electorate votes to the National candidates. By some calculations, if that works, it significantly increases the odds of a right-coalition victory.

Tactical voting and skewed results
It’s impossible to predict how many voters will heed the calls for tactical vote splitting. In the 2023 election, 35.51 percent of voters split their votes, compared to 27.33 percent in 2020. National voters were the least likely to do so.

Nonetheless, the overall impact of these opposing strategies to maximise the overhang could increase the size of the next Parliament and alter the balance of power.

On the night, watch the numbers of electorate seats won by National and Te Pāti Māori.

In 2023, National won 44 electorates and 38.1 percent of the party vote. Five MPs from the party list then made up its proportional share of seats. If National’s party vote falls to around 30% this time, we’d normally expect its number of electorate seats to fall, too — maybe below 30.

But if ACT and New Zealand First voters do split their votes, National could win more local electorate seats than the party vote would normally deliver overall.

If National wins 29 percent of the party vote, for example, that would normally entitle it to 35 seats. Predictions are hazardous, but National could conservatively win 39 or more electorates.

One peculiar outcome could be that Labour gets a higher party vote than National, but National wins more seats than Labour. That’s the kind of disproportionate outcome that brought the old first-past-the-post system into disrepute after the 1978 and 1981 elections.

Al-Abd Abu Beid set a box of food rations down on a pile of stones he uses as a makeshift table outside his ramshackle tent on the coastline west of Gaza City.

The cardboard box displayed the blue logo of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), along with a stamp showing it had been packed on July 11, 2026.

Abu Beid sifted through the contents: a plastic bottle of sunflower oil, a bag of red split lentils, and eight cans of hummus or white beans.

• READ MORE: PSNA ‘outraged’ over NZ suspension of UNRWA aid, calls for immediate restored funding
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“We have no income at all,” Abu Beid told Drop Site News. “We depend heavily on the brown boxes from the World Food Programme.

“We were actually hoping they would improve the contents of these boxes, because they contain rice, lentils, and the same things over and over again,” he continued. “Instead, we were shocked to hear that they’re going to cut it off.”

Abu Beid spoke to Drop Site on October 20 — one day after the WFP announced it was reducing food aid in Gaza by around one-third, cutting off access to half a million Palestinians from critical food assistance due to funding shortages.

The cuts also reduce food rations by half — with families receiving only one food parcel a month instead of two — and a smaller bag of wheat flour. In addition, WFP cut the number of daily hot meals it provides from 250,000 to 150,000.

Yellow line control
Meanwhile, families living in the most hard-to-reach areas of Gaza, including near the yellow line of Israeli military control, will now receive a hot meal every other day instead of daily. The value of cash assistance provided to 75,000 families would also be reduced, the UN agency said.

“What is a family supposed to do? I have seven people in my family. How am I supposed to feed them? Even if the food was repetitive, just rice and lentils, I have no income, so I relied on it to cook for my children,” Abu Beid said.

“This is a humanitarian crime. People are being killed and slaughtered every day, and now you’re cutting off their food too. This is catastrophic.”

The WFP announcement came a little over a year after the “ceasefire” agreement that was supposed to bring an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza and restore the delivery of food, fuel, medicine, and other life essentials to what experts say are the minimum required levels.

Instead, the Israeli military has continued its attacks, killing more than1500 men, women and children while severely restricting the amount of aid allowed into Gaza in violation of the agreement.

In October alone, Israel killed 143 Palestinians in direct attacks, according to the Health Ministry, including 23 children, and injured more than 670.

The unrelenting Israeli assault prompted a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry to conclude last month that Israel is continuing to “commit genocidal acts even after the so-called ceasefire agreement, with the intent to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part”.

Hunger levels growing
With the genocide now its fourth year, levels of hunger and malnutrition are once again growing. In the same announcement that it was heavily reducing food assistance to Gaza, the WFP said that an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians, or 67 percent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing acute food insecurity at “crisis levels or worse”.

Some 200,000 people remain in “emergency conditions,” where immediate food assistance is needed to prevent deaths from hunger.

“We depend on these parcels for everything: flour, rice, lentils, paste, chickpeas, and beans. Most of what we eat is beans, rice, and lentils. We use the flour to make bread on a metal griddle over a fire,” Linda Abu Warda told Drop Site. She sat stirring a blackened pot filled with a rice stew as her husband, Fares, fed small pieces of wood into the fire beneath it — a thin metal box serving as a makeshift stove.

“Now they’re saying the aid has stopped, or that it’s going to stop. We’re already barely managing to get by with what little we have. Imagine what will happen if they cut it off completely. I have children, as you can see. They’ll die of hunger.”

She added, “We’ve already lived through famine. We’ve experienced it. We were hoping they’d increase the amount of aid we receive, not reduce it.”

In mid-2025, Gaza was plunged into a full-blown famine, with Palestinians collapsing in the streets and men, women, and children dying from hunger and malnutrition on a daily basis. An Israeli starvation campaign that included a full blockade in March 2025 was followed by a privatised “aid distribution” system overseen by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that replaced the UN.

With just four distribution sites across the entirety of the enclave, guarded by American mercenaries and located in areas occupied by Israeli soldiers, the GHF sites became death traps for starving Palestinians seeking food. More than 2600 Palestinians were killed at or near GHF distribution sites or at the few UN convoys allowed inside.

‘Risking lives for food’
“We hope they’ll allow this aid to enter officially and legally, instead of forcing us to go back to Zikim like before, when people had to risk their lives just to bring home a bite of food for their children,” Linda’s husband, Fares, said, referring to one of the aid distribution sites in 2025 where hundreds of Palestinians were killed.

“A man would go out and instead of coming home with a bag of flour, he’d come back in a body bag.”

Food prices have soared as a result of food shortages and arbitrary closures of the crossings into Gaza by Israel. In mid-October, Israel suddenly halted all commercial shipments into Gaza. While commercial goods were eventually allowed back in after several days, the brief closure nevertheless sent prices shooting upward.

“The closure of the crossings is what’s driving prices up,” Linda Abu Warda said. “When we want to cook a meal, we can’t even afford a single onion, it’s expensive. Onions cost 30 or 40 shekels a kilo [about $9.5 to $12.75], so we’ve had to do without them…They used to cost four or five shekels [about $1.25 to $1.60].”

She added, “People don’t have the money to buy anything. They’ve raised the prices of sugar, food, cooking oil, and vegetables.”

Other humanitarian groups have also reduced aid distribution to Gaza. In May, World Central Kitchen (WCK), the biggest provider of hot meals in Gaza announced it was cutting its distribution in half, from around one million meals a day to 500,000.

WCK said the decision was “driven entirely by financial pressure,” citing rising food prices as a result of the US-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gaza famine ‘not ended’
“The famine has not ended in Gaza,” Ahmed Abu Qamar, a writer and economic affairs researcher in Gaza City, told Drop Site. “Perhaps its severity has eased slightly. When we look back at last summer, the famine was extremely severe. Since the ceasefire agreement last October, Israel has been pursuing a policy of engineered starvation.

“In other words, it may allow people the bare minimum to eat each day, or even less than that, but it does not provide them with what they need to achieve food security and sustain their lives.”

Mohammed Zayed, who lives in the same tent encampment on the sandy shoreline west of Gaza City, used rudimentary tools to try and erect a wall of tarp and blankets around his tent. Wind billowed through the pieces of cloth and tarp hanging from thin metal poles and pieces of wood hammered into the ground and connected by lengths of wire and rope.

“Here on the beach, we suffer terribly in both summer and winter. And now, as winter approaches, we’re trying to prepare because living here is extremely difficult,” Zayed told Drop Site on October 14. “These tents can’t withstand that because they’re worn out and falling apart. They’re three years old now. ”

“We’re extremely, extremely afraid of winter,” he continued. “We try to stitch up tarps and secure the metal poles properly. We’re trying to reduce the impact of the wind, because otherwise it’ll blow everything away.

“It’s extremely difficult for me and for everyone here. People’s tents are worn out, falling apart, collapsing around them. Nobody has the means to replace a tent or change the tarps to prepare for winter.

“All of this is just an illusion,” he said, pointing to the tarps. “All of this will be blown away.”

Vast tent encampment
Zayed’s tent is part of a vast tent encampment on the northern Gaza coastline. Nearly the entirety of Gaza’s population has been forced to displace by Israel’s assault, with many families displaced multiple times.

The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now living crammed in tent encampments. Dilapidated tents now occupy every open space, with streets, squares, stadiums, courtyards, and fields filled with tent encampments.

The lack of proper shelter has been disastrous and even fatal, particularly in winter with torrential rains, high winds, flooding, and cold temperatures. Over the past three winters, Palestinians — mostly infants — have died of hypothermia in Gaza as a result of exposure, including 11 children last winter alone.

“The humanitarian situation remains catastrophic with the near totality of the population still surviving in deteriorated tents and makeshift shelters, bracing for a fourth winter without adequate protection from the cold, wind, rain and flooding risks,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted in its latest situation report.

Since the ceasefire, Israel has continued to push inward, expanding the yellow line that demarcates its area of control, driving Palestinians further west onto just 30 percent of the enclave. Israel has also blocked the entry of reconstruction materials, mobile homes, and heavily restricted the number of tents and shelter materials allowed into Gaza in violation of the agreement.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report for Drop Site News republished by Asia Pacific Report.

Should small parties that don’t have a chance of getting over 5 percent, get government funding? That is the question I would have answered on The Platform with Michael Laws (before his repugnant statements about women candidates came to light), had Sean Plunket not banned me.

That’s right, I received a text from The Platform which stated, “Change of plan … Sean Plunkett says you are banned from The Platform”.

Not a great loss you might think from that self-proclaimed champion of free speech, but it is a question I have been asked many times over the last few months.

• READ MORE: Free Palestine party seeks electoral voice in New Zealand
• NZ First’s Laws sorry for remarks, hours after defending them
• Palestine free from the River to the Sea Party
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The broadcasting allowance is from the statutory requirement to provide a fair opportunity for all eligible parties to convey their policies to the public. It can only pay expenses for TV, radio and some internet advertising but the rules aren’t clear for this.

To qualify your party must have more than 500 current financial members. There is just over $4 million to spread across 17 registered parties. Those six parties that are in Parliament having received more votes in the last election get most of the cash.

But the real money comes from donations from the super rich and corporates. So far this election $8,254,331 has been given in donations over $20,000.

As might be expected, National, Act, Labour, NZ First, Greens, and now Opportunity have got significant donations of $20,000 or over.

Extra $8 million to spend
You might think that these parties got an extra $8 million bucks to spend. Well yes, but there is more.

The real money comes in the form of smaller donations of $5000 or under. An unnamed individual can give an unlimited amount of these donations to a party and the amount of these only comes in their annual reports.

Of the $10,383,230.39 National got in the 2023 election, $6,003,941.05 came from donations of $5000 or under.

Of the $4,769,395.26 that Labour got in the 2023 election, $2,889,810.26 came from donations of $5000 or under.

So on top of getting the biggest share of the broadcasting allowance, in the 2023 elections National, Labour, Act, Greens and NZ First got an extra $24,607,405.60. The Free Palestine Party got $82,000 in Broadcasting Allowance this election.

Last election the Opportunity Party couldn’t get halfway to the 5 percent threshold; current polling puts it at 6 percent. Some super rich now approve of them, so they allow enough funding so Kiwis know who they are.

Do you wonder why the ordinary Kiwi has been getting poorer and their share of the wealth Aotearoa produces is getting less over the last 40 years? Or why the richest 150 individuals in NZ increased their wealth by 26 percent or $27 billion dollars in the last 12 months.

While the rest of us suffer a cost of living crisis thanks to the Israeli/US war on Iran. Why do well over 60 percent of Kiwis want Israel sanctioned for 78 years of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide, but no NZ government has ever done anything about it?

Odds stacked in favour of super rich
With the odds so stacked in favour of the super rich, most of whom support the apartheid regime of Israel and Western imperialism, you think that the Zionist lobby in NZ might have just let our $82,000 in broadcasting allowance go.

But when you’ve been raised or believe in an ideology and society that tell you you’re superior, you don’t stand for criticism from people you consider less human than you.

The tactics of the Zionist lobby are the same the world over and most mainstream news organisations don’t have the courage or integrity to challenge them, no matter what crimes against humanity they commit.

To TVNZ’s credit, despite some technical issues, they had the courage to run the few ads we could afford.

NZME has no courage or integrity and were completely gutless in face of the threat of the Zionist lobby. But they went beyond just saying no, they tried to tell us what political messages they would allow us to tell Kiwis.

They wasted our time until it was too late to advertise elsewhere. Perhaps the ZB in Newstalk stands for Zionist Broadcasting?

True to the tactics the Zionist lobby has used overseas they’ve come after me through my employment. They have made complaints to the school I teach at and the Teachers Council to intimidate, silence and make an example out of me to others.

But the members of the Free Palestine Party and the Kiwis of the Palestine solidarity movement in Aotearoa and around the world can’t be intimidated.

We will hold whatever government is formed after November 7 to account. We will continue until Palestine is free from the river to the sea!

Paul Hopkinson is president of the Free Palestine Party Aotearoa.

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon is acting like it’s absurd for American voters to have gotten it into their heads that Israel had something to do with the Iran war that’s costing them so much money.

Asked by i24 News about JD Vance’s observation that American voters want a change in their country’s relationship with the Zionist entity, Danon framed Israel as an innocent passive witness to the Trump administration’s unprovoked attack on Iran.

“I think it’s unfortunate, and we saw it coming from different directions, that many made the linkage between the rising prices, mainly oil prices, to the situation here in Israel,” said Danon, adding, “We know that the decision to attack Iran was the decision of the United States. It wasn’t our decision. We supported the effort of the US. We think it was the right decision.”

• WATCH AND LISTEN: A video reading by Tim Foley

“It’s very easy always to blame Israel for everything, but that is not the case,” Dannon said.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon on JD Vance:

I think it’s unfortunate that many made the link between rising prices, mainly oil prices, and the situation here in Israel.

The decision to attack Iran was the decision of the United States. It wasn’t our decision. We supported the U.S. effort, and we think it was the right decision.

It’s very easy to always blame Israel for everything, but that is not the case.

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 4, 2026

So it sounds like the new narrative from the Israeli government is that they were just sitting there minding their own business when the United States told them “We’re gonna bomb Iran, don’t try to stop us,” and then Israel was all like “WTF bro that’s crazy! I guess we’ll support you because we’re friends, but damn dude that sounds pretty reckless.”

Now that the war in Iran is costing Israel support from American voters, they’re trying to pretend they had nothing to do with that whole mess.

Which is wild considering the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly bragged about persuading the Americans to attack Iran, and the fact that the US State Department has explicitly said of the Iran war that “the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defence of its Israeli ally.”

But whatever.

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Hey remember when Charlie Kirk got killed and Republicans were like YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED, TREMBLE IN FEAR AT WHAT’S COMING and then nothing happened and then they lost everything? That was funny.

❖

People should stop saying the Democrats will do nothing now that they’ve won both chambers of congress; that’s so unfair.

Democrats do a lot of things. Genocide, for example.

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If you’re wondering how things are going in Australia, it looks like they’re about to start fining universities millions of dollars for allowing criticism of Israel.

And on and on it goes.

@JasonClareMP keen to prosecute the Segal agenda.

“Education Minister announced last Friday that under the draft legislation, the maximum fine for universities will increase from the existing cap of $40,000 to $2 million – a 50-fold increase.” https://t.co/QHCe9oLIFW

— Jommy Tee (@jommy_tee) November 4, 2026

From The Jewish Independent:

“Australian universities could be fined up to $2 million if they do not deal effectively with antisemitism under new legislation to be introduced into parliament this month.

“The Education Minister announced last Friday that under the draft legislation, the maximum fine for universities will increase from the existing cap of $40,000 to $2 million — a 50-fold increase.

“The fine regime, which will be administered by the university regulator TEQSA, is the government’s response to the recommendation by the Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal, which proposed withholding funding or terminating grants from universities that fail to effectively combat antisemitic behaviour.”

As we discussed previously, Jillian Segal’s recommendations are completely geared around stomping out criticism of Israel and eliminating pro-Palestine protests, as evidenced by her stated position that pro-Palestine leftists represent “the most pervasive manifestation of antisemitism facing Australia today.” The plan is obviously to lean on universities to shut down anti-Israel speech in order to avoid millions of dollars in penalties.

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Tucker Carlson recently claimed that Trump is preparing to launch a nuclear strike on Iran at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu, and I’m really, truly sorry if this comes across as antisemitic, but in my opinion it would be wrong for Trump to do that.

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The other day I saw an Israeli flag account on Twitter shrieking that her son got uninvited from a Halloween party because some of the kids said they didn’t want to attend a party with a Zionist. Somebody asked her how old her son is, and she said nineteen.

https://t.co/iN1i7giTPu

— Saint Charlie (@PollyVinyl1) November 2, 2026

This is the “antisemitism” we’ve been hearing so much about. It’s grown adults whining that anti-genocide sentiments hurt their feelings. It’s people disliking a genocidal apartheid state and its supporters, and then some members of a religious group claiming those opinions shouldn’t be allowed to exist because it upsets their feelings. When you drill down on the actual complaints, that is almost exclusively what’s going on.

Ultimately the “antisemitism” narrative is mostly just an especially entitled group of white people demanding that governments and institutions use force to protect them from feeling the uncomfortable feelings they experience when someone says their beloved apartheid state is guilty of crimes against humanity.

This is self-evidently ridiculous, and it deserves nothing but a dismissive scoff. You do not have a right to be protected from uncomfortable feelings, no matter what your religion happens to be. You do not have a right to have the government protect you from the feelings of cognitive dissonance brought on by your own genocidal ideology. You do not have a right to silence others because because you find their opposition to mass atrocities emotionally inconvenient. That’s not a thing. Grow the fuck up.

❖

Zionists are like, “No no, it’s not true that antisemitism means criticism of Israel. You’re allowed to criticize Israel, you just need to memorize a very long list of rules you must follow and circumstances under which criticism is acceptable, make sure you’re only criticizing the current sitting government rather than the Zionist state itself, and be careful not to invoke any of the ten thousand obscure Tropes you’ve never heard of, or else you will lose your job and possibly go to prison. So go on ahead, criticize Israel all you want. It’s a free country.”

❖

I saw a BBC report from last month expressing shock and outrage about China forcing companies to stop selling people “AI companions” as a substitute for real human contact, speculating that Beijing is only taking these actions to trick Chinese women into having more babies.

Chatbots are turning Western brains into pureed spinach while China bans AI “companions” and requires AI models to remind users they’re not talking to a real person, and the Western press frame this as China pushing a suspicious agenda.

Everything about our civilisation is making all of us dumber and dumber.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

In colloquial language, “Jesus wept” is a cry of exasperation when we encounter something either appalling or appallingly stupid.

The leaders of the 18 states and territories comprising the Pacific Island Forum — including Australia and New Zealand — have done both by inviting Israel to be a second-tier sectoral partner to their regional organisation.

The origin of “Jesus wept” lies in the Bible and Christ’s despair at the human condition — which I discuss in a separate article, Lazarus has come back from the dead.

• READ MORE: Israel approved as second-tier partner in Pacific Islands Forum — Barbara Dreaver
• Shameful move by Pacific Islands Forum undermines decolonisation and justice — David Robie
• Other Israel in Pacific reports

First and foremost the Forum’s invitation to Israel is a political statement that these countries — at the political level — are in alignment with the values and programmes being advanced by Israel.

As decisions of this body are made by consensus, it means that all 18 member states — including Australia and New Zealand — have given their blessing. At the heart of this move is the theologically-twisted world of Christian Zionism which has a powerful hold on both political elites and many ordinary folk in Pacific communities.

Fables, such as certain Polynesians or Melanesians being among the Lost Tribes of Israel, swirl around the Pacific and are deliberately nourished by cynical actors. The myth of a Pacific connection to Israel was first peddled by Christian missionaries in the early 19th century to rustle up recruits and has held sway with gullible minds ever since.

Shared Judeo-Christian framing
Elise Barandon, a visiting fellow at Australian National University, says Israel’s growing influence in the region can be better understood through the lens of a shared Judeo-Christian framing.

“These engagements — alongside targeted development cooperation, security assistance, and increased political dialogue and visits — signal the activation of existing religious affinities, now translated into more explicit diplomatic positionings, including in multilateral arenas such as the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA),” Barandon wrote earlier this year in an ANU paper All In for the Holy Land: Pacific Islands and Christian Zionism.

Scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007) exposed the depth of collusion and modus operandi of Israeli and US homegrown Zionists — Christian and Jewish — in massively influencing US policy. Israel has applied the same techniques with great success to the smaller fish in the Pacific.

For Israel the support of these small Pacific nations (Palau has a population of just 18,000 but one vote at the UN) is gold. For the price of a few shekels they can help build a narrative of “legitimacy” at the United Nations, despite the world’s states in large measure repudiating the racist Zionist project to extinguish Palestinian identity in Palestine.

Israel runs a sophisticated global influence campaign; state agencies include MASHAV and the “humanitarian” NGO IsraAID. Similar to US agencies like USAID these are operated as extensions of foreign policy, often focusing on “aid for votes”. What goes on under the radar in terms of purchasable politicians is opaque.

IsraAid is tasked with providing water, sanitation, mental health and emergency medical care — all the things they have systematically destroyed for millions of Palestinians. But some Christian communities of the Pacific turn deaf ears and blind eyes to this and accept the largesse.

Many — but not all — the leaders of the heavily Christian Pacific — where churches are still full on Sundays — have chosen to side with a regime that has killed tens of thousands of children and is actively attacking the Christian community of Palestine. A strange element of Christian Zionism is the fact it also ignores this persecution of Christians in the Holy Land.

Erasure of a people
As Australian John Menadue pointed out in a recent article in Pearls & Irritations:

“The ethnic cleansing of both Christians and Muslims from Palestine continues. It is not only erasure of a people but of their culture and history.

“Australian leaders in church and state are complicit in the ethnic erasure of the Palestinian people, Muslim and Christian alike, from their homeland. They appeal for our help. But they are not being heard. They are being ignored.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, like most “Christian” politicians, is probably not a true believer, otherwise he would know full well that by joining 17 other Pacific leaders last month in welcoming the state of Israel as a partner to the Pacific Islands Forum he has indelibly stained both his country’s and his own name.

To be clear: all 18 states have a great number of people who actively oppose the genocide and support the Palestinian people in this hour of need.

As David Robie, one of the veterans of Pacific journalism pointed out, the Forum has decolonisation as one of its founding principles. For good reason: our region has a long dark history of slavery, indentured labour, violent expropriation of land and European political and missionary imposed cultural erasure.

These wounds have not yet healed and now we have the ghastly sight of Israel representatives being embraced by Pacific leaders from New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other states.

‘Global rogue pariah’
Dr Robie, in a recent article in Asia Pacific Report, Shameful Israel move by Pacific Islands Forum undermines decolonisation and justice, says: “The Pacific Islands Forum has betrayed one of its founding principles in admitting Israel — already a global rogue pariah state — as a development partner in the middle of the genocide of an Indigenous people, the Palestinians.”

Their actions effectively express support for widely-held religiously-fuelled sentiments like these:

“We should take the land because God commanded us to take it. It’s our land. The Palestinians can go to any other Arab country, except Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — those are ours too. Or we will kill them,” said American settler Atara Serwatien, who recently moved to Israel from the US.

I spoke over the weekend with Rinad Tamimi, a Palestinian-New Zealand activist. She was understandably distracted by the fact that 35 members of her family had been evicted this week, along with thousands of other Palestinians, by Israeli Occupation Forces from their homes in Hebron, in the West Bank.

The United Nations has made clear the Israelis are an illegal occupation force and should not be in the West Bank at all, let alone imposing a collective punishment pogrom as part of its widening and accelerating genocide. New Zealand’s famously-racist Foreign Minister Winston Peters yawns and looks the other way when Palestinian rights are on the agenda but the rest of us should not.

Rinad Tamimi’s 95-year-old grandfather was among the family members manhandled out of his home by the Israeli stormtroopers.

“We’ve been pleading, rallying, marching for over three years now. We’re not asking for a miracle. All we’re asking for is for our government to sanction Israel, join the ICJ [International Court of Justice] case, and most importantly, speak out for what’s going on in Palestine. But we are seeing quite the opposite and I think it’s sickening,” Tamimi says.

I’ll give the last word to Dante Alighieri. I re-read Dante’s Divine Comedy recently and this line came to mind as I wrote about these Pacific Forum leaders:

“Oh, you proud Christians, wretched and small

“Who, by the dim lights of your twisted minds,

“Believe you prosper even as you fall.”

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 hosts solidarity.co.nz and contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

INVESTIGATION: By Cathy Peters and Wendy Bacon

Civil liberties and Palestinian supporters are calling for the sacking of Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, after her latest “Priorities” report accused them of using “human rights” to hide their “antisemitism”.

Segal’s Priorities “roadmap” appears designed to increase the pressure on all levels of government as well as the forthcoming final report of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in December.

Segal is an active player in an international network coordinated by key pro-Israel Jewish bodies as well as the US State Department. Indeed, if it had not been for pressure from the US government, Segal might not have the job at all.

• READ MORE:  The Israelisation of Australia. Segal’s report is an attack on democracy. Abolish the job.
• ‘Rejecting hate’: Abdul El-Sayed wins Senate seat in US despite racist attacks
• US voters outraged by Gaza are turning against politicians who back Israel’s wars
• Other MWM reports

Global network of antisemitism envoys
Segal is one of 32 Special Envoys in North America, Europe, South America, Israel and Australia.

The position of the US Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism was established in 2004 when New Jersey Republican congressman Chris Smith, who has a history of advocating for Israel and a record of accusing organisations, including UN bodies, of rampant antisemitism, successfully pushed to pass legislation creating the position.

The State Department then lobbied allies to appoint Envoys.

Following the US lead, the European Union appointed an Envoy in 2015, followed by Canada, Greece, the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the UK. Israel’s envoy is part of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2021, Smith, by then a strong Trump supporter, successfully pushed for an amendment which strengthened the position of US Special Envoy to the level of ambassador, who reports directly to the Secretary of State, is appointed by the President and crucially, can access foreign governments.

The ambassador’s mission is to promote US foreign policy by developing and implementing policies and projects to support action against antisemitism. The office uses the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition which directly links Jewish people with Zionism and the State of Israel, and conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Current US Antisemitism Ambassador is far-right winger Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun who has boasted about influencing governments and recently described his office as supporting Trump’s policies by having 250,000 visas cancelled to keep campuses “safe”, interfering in foreign educational curricula and initiating prosecutions of what he describes as “hate crimes”.

This is echoed in Segal’s “Priorities” which include compulsory training for Home Affairs staff responsible for certain visa applications and a task force to review existing visas.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, who serves as the U.S. task force for combating anti-Semitism, boasts about enjoying the ability to make governments comply with his will, using either gentle or forceful persuasion and leveraging the power of the U.S. government to advance Jewish interests.

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) February 6, 2026

Acceding to US demands
Initially reluctant, the Albanese Labor government finally appointed Segal in July 2024.

Her appointment followed a period of intense lobbying from the US State Department which was not covered by Australian media.

FOI releases show that In May 2024, the then US deputy antisemitism envoy, Aaron Keyek travelled to Australia and met with officials in Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Attorney General’s Department to put pressure on the Albanese government to appoint an envoy.

He also met with the co-chair of Labor Friends of Israel Deborah O’Neill.

The crunch came with an ultimatum regarding a meeting of special envoys in Argentina in July 2024 to sign US drafted global guidelines to counter antisemitism. A former senior US official told JNS,

“We were all diplomatic about it, but we told Australia, essentially, ‘it’s going to be glaring.’ We didn’t want to repeat the situation where one of our closest allies didn’t stand up to one of the top foreign-policy priorities when it comes to human rights that the United States is pushing internationally … So we told them that they could

only attend if the delegation was led by a special envoy.”

Australia jumped and DFAT sent a cable on July 4 to the US State Department saying the appointment of an envoy who would report directly to the Prime Minister was imminent.

Jillian Segal was appointed on July 9, just 10 days before the meeting in Buenos Aires which she attended. According to that cable, she had already approved the guidelines and

her tickets were booked before she was even appointed.

Australia’s Ambassador to Argentina was permitted to sign off on the Guidelines which refer to the IHRA definition as a key tool for fighting antisemitism, as a result of Segal’s hasty appointment.

World Jewish Congress
US State Department works with World Jewish Congress (WJC) – Special Envoy and Coordinators Network

In 2019, the New York-based WJC — the central governing organisation of Jewish organisations, which “defends the Jewish state of Israel” — established the Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism (SECCA) Network which coordinates “responses to antisemitism …”

Segal’s work is partially dictated by this body.

Since her appointment, Segal has worked closely with SECCA. In July last year, the US Special Envoy in the State Department Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda thanked her for hosting an online forum.

Full costs of Segal’s overseas travel since she was appointed. https://t.co/DHLVpOyoes

— Jommy Tee (@jommy_tee) October 20, 2026

In her first 15 months, Segal took five trips overseas costing $85,000 and in May this year she travelled to Geneva to sign another SECCA joint declaration.

SECCA’s Dublin meeting
The 15th meeting of SECCA was held last month in Dublin organised by the WJC in partnership with the European Commission.

The conference aimed to look at ways to implement strong measures to “confront online hatred and turn government promises into concrete action”.

It heard reports from delegates from 28 countries including Australia and included visits to the European headquarters of TikTok and Meta which included representatives from the WJC’s Technology and Human Rights institute (TECHRI) which focuses solely on lobbying governments, international bodies, and tech companies on policy, monitoring and control within the digital realm.

Maram Stern, WJC Executive vice-president and SECCA co-chair, spoke at the forum emphasising the need to urgently enforce “practical solutions” to antisemitism. She linked the October 7 Hamas attack to a worldwide surge in antisemitism rather than to the worldwide revulsion with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Segal spoke via video at the Dublin conference urging stronger institutional accountability, education and enforcement against antisemitism. Referring to the Royal Commission (which heard many unchallenged allegations of antisemitism in what some commentators saw as a concerted effort to demonise pro Palestine groups and supporters), she noted that its proceedings had brought into focus, “concerns about antisemitism in universities, cultural institutions, and healthcare”.

These are key areas where there have been false claims of antisemitism and lawfare used against academics, artists and healthcare workers.

Segal wasn’t the only Australian who spoke. Her close partners from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (EJAC), Peter Wertheim, EJAC co-CEO, called for “more proactive regulation of technology companies and effective legal avenues for people harmed by online content” while ECAJ president and WJC vice president, Daniel Aghion emphasised the importance of “active special envoys, sustained government engagement and coordination between Jewish organisations”.

Hotel boycotts SECCA conference
Before the conference started, it emerged that one of Dublin’s prestigious hotels had refused to accommodate the SECCA delegates and alternative accommodation and a conference venue had to be found.

This went unreported until Maurice Cohen, chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, told a pre-conference event that the 4-star Herbert Park Hotel in Dublin which had taken the SECCA booking for 70 rooms in April this year had abruptly cancelled this booking after a meeting with the conference organisers and the hotel’s general manager.

Cohen was asked by the hotel manager whether the event had any ties to the Israeli Defence Force. He told Fox News Digital, “I was completely taken aback by that question. I said,

‘What would the IDF have to do with a conference on antisemitism?’”

It was revealed that the hotel’s general manager subsequently consulted the hotel owners before the cancellation was made.

This was immediately characterised as a major antisemitic event by the organisers. The World Jewish Congress published an opinion by Maurice Cohen on October 14 titled, “Ironically, an Antisemitism Conference Falls Victim to Jew-Hatred”.

Although the Herbert Park Hotel refused to make public comment, it is clear it chose not to be associated with an event that had any ties to the IDF. The links between SECCA and support of Israel and members of the IDF are strong.

SECCA representatives work with pro Israel organisations who have key personnel directly connected with the Israeli state and past and present members of the IDF.

Conflating this refusal with antisemitism, is yet another example of how peak pro-Israel Jewish organisations continue to deceptively link antisemitism to protest actions such as the Herbert Park Hotel boycott.

Combat Antisemitism Movement
One of the major organisations participating in the SECCA conference in Dublin was the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) which is based in the US and has spread internationally. Its advisory board members and its CEO are directly linked to Israel.

CAM works globally to pressure governments to not only endorse the IHRA definition of antisemitism but to enforce it. It reported that it was recognised as a “trusted US State Department partner” at the SECCA conference where it reiterated the coordinated push to get governments to enforce the IHRA antisemitism definition —  a point which was emphasised by the US Special Envoy Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.

As previously reported by Michael West Media, CAM also has strong links with the IDF.

Antizionism equals ‘antisemitism’
The J50 forum is a body founded by Israel’s Foreign Ministry that includes 50 Jewish organisations internationally. It held its third meeting in Jerusalem in September and published its hardline and contentious Declaration on Zionism and Antisemitism which stated unequivocally that “Zionism is part of Jewish identity” and defined anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism when used to “marginalise or deny Jewish self-determination”.

Daniel Aghion spoke and his presentation summarised ECAJ’s work since Bondi. He offered some unguarded and frank insights into the way in which this organisation mobilised around the Royal Commission:

“It has been a massive exercise over the last year. The Jewish community has spent millions of dollars, and many millions more in pro bono legal and non-legal work. This was to make sure that our voice is heard properly, both inside and outside the Commission, and to ensure that the Commission has run as well as it can.”

MWM asked ECAJ about whether any of ECAJ’s large government grants had been used on the Royal Commission work but got no response.

No stone unturned
On November 19, the Israel-based Jerusalem Post Group’s first Asia-Pacific Summit, will be held in Sydney. It will feature many Israeli speakers including Israel’s president Isaac Herzog’s wife Michel Herzog online, the Israeli ambassador to Australia, former senior IDF members as well as President of Zionist Federation of Australia, Jeremy Liebler.

The focus is on countering hostility to Israel and building business links, something which many Australians do not support, not because they are antisemitic but because they are anti-genocide.

Then 10 days later, the 2026 CAM conference for mayors and councillors will be held in Sydney. These events reinforce the global messaging of SECCA, WJC and J50.

They are designed to add extra impetus for calls to impose Segal’s agenda leading up to the first anniversary of the Bondi massacre and prior to the release of the Report of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in December.

Segal’s overreach into all aspects of our civil life

is not just angering human rights activists and those who are unfairly being labelled as antisemitic but large sections of Australian society who increasingly do not support Israel and do not want to be policed at the service of this rogue state.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese buckled to pressure in creating the position of antisemitism envoy and made a striking error in appointing the Israel lobby’s choice, Segal, to that position.

As anger grows about her appointment, it’s time to reassess the legitimacy of the position itself in light of the facts surrounding its creation. We have existing anti-discrimination legislation and strong National Anti-Racism Framework guidelines that are yet to be implemented.

Bending to US, Israel and the local Israel lobby’s demands will only intensify public anger.

Israeli opposition leaders have called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to leave office following the sweeping Democratic victories in the US midterm elections, warning that his continued leadership threatened Israel’s international standing and relations with Washington.

Yair Golan, leader of the left-leaning Democrats party, said the results revealed “just how toxic Netanyahu is among both Democrats and Republicans,” Anadolu news agency reported.

Writing on X, Golan warned that Netanyahu’s continued tenure alongside National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir could lead to “international sanctions, international isolation, and a clash with the US, our friend and most important ally”.

• READ MORE: Iran war live: Tehran lauds US election blowout; urges Trump to end assault
• PSNA ‘outraged’ over NZ suspension of UNRWA aid, calls for immediate restored funding
• Other Gaza genocide reports

He called for a government capable of restoring Israel’s international standing and pursuing long-term political and strategic arrangements.

Golan contrasted Netanyahu’s vision of a “Super Sparta,” which he described as “boycotted, backward, and isolated,” with his own preferred model of Israel.

“Netanyahu lost the elections. He is dangerous to Israel. We have no time to waste. We must form a government of change now,” he said.

Democrats lawmaker Gilad Kariv also rejected a Netanyahu-led unity government, accusing the prime minister of having “destroyed the relations with the Democratic Party and with half of the Republican Party.”

“He must not continue to lead the State of Israel,” Kariv said.

The calls came amid Israel’s own coalition deadlock. Netanyahu’s bloc secured 53 Knesset seats, compared with 48 for Jewish opposition parties and 19 for Arab parties, leaving neither main bloc with the 61 seats needed for a majority.

JD Vance blamed Republicans’ midterm defeat on the Iran war, saying defecting Trump voters demanded changes to Washington’s relationship with Israel.

Key Takeaways

Vance said Republican losses primarily reflected voters switching parties rather than a failure to mobilize supporters.

Citing an unnamed pollster, he identified ending the Iran war and changing US-Israel relations among four leading demands from former Trump voters.

He rejected explanations centered on messaging or immigration policy, insisting that the electoral cost of the war must guide the party’s response.

https://t.co/DyGbD8RdQF

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) November 4, 2026

Israeli newspapers warn of congressional pressure
Israeli media described the Democratic capture of the House and Senate as a “blue tsunami”, warning of consequences for Israel during Trump’s remaining two years in office.

Israeli newspaper Maariv headlined its coverage: “Trump was not the only loser; election results raise deep concerns in Israel.”

The newspaper highlighted victories by progressive Democrats who oppose US military assistance to Israel and criticise its conduct in Gaza.

Among them was Troy Jackson, who defeated Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, an established supporter of Israel. According to Maariv, Jackson campaigned for ending US military assistance.

The newspaper said the results could increase pressure on Democratic leaders to change policy toward Israel ahead of the 2028 presidential election, while noting that the outcome did not guarantee an immediate policy shift.

Yedioth Ahronoth described a “humiliating defeat for Trump,” emphasising Democratic gains in Republican strongholds and the resulting constraints on his legislative agenda.

Israel Hayom focused on the implications for Israel’s relationship with Washington.

“With Republicans beginning to distance themselves from the president, Israel will find itself having to deal with a much more critical Congress,” the newspaper said, according to Anadolu.

It predicted that congressional committees could become platforms for pressure over US policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, while Iran, sanctions and regional agreements could generate further disputes.

Arms transfers face greater scrutiny
Israel Hayom also addressed Trump’s announcement that he had agreed with Netanyahu to end annual US assistance to Israel by the end of this year.

Trump did not explain how the decision would be implemented.

The newspaper stressed that arms sales would remain subject to congressional oversight even if Israel paid for them itself.

“An unfriendly Congress could raise the political cost of Trump’s support for Israel and obstruct initiatives requiring parliamentary cooperation,” it said.

Israel Hayom noted that the incoming House would include at least five members of the Democratic Socialists of America, including Darializa Avila Chevalier, who said that “ending military aid is not enough”.

The newspaper urged Israel to strengthen relationships across both US parties rather than rely exclusively on Trump.

Netanyahu-aligned Channel 14 similarly described the results as a “major blow to Trump and Israel”.

It warned that Democratic control of committees overseeing foreign affairs, defence and appropriations could increase scrutiny of arms deals and shipments, alongside pressure over military policy toward Iran.

The channel also highlighted Democrats’ ability to investigate the administration and block Senate confirmation of judges, ambassadors and senior officials.

Republished from The Palestine Chronicle with permission.

A leading New Zealand advocacy group for Palestine has demanded immediate reinstatement of NZ funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the face of a humanitarian crisis for food, education and healthcare in Gaza.

In a statement today, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said it was “outraged” that Foreign Minister Winston Peters had reportedly suspended New Zealand funding for UNRWA at a time when the Gaza crisis was sharply escalating.

Peters appears in a video for the pro-Israel lobby to make the announcement but has not issued any release for the New Zealand public.

• READ MORE: UN experts sound alarm over continuing devastation in Gaza, West Bank
• ‘This is catastrophic’ – Gaza hit hard
• Other Gaza genocide reports

“Peters has apparently caved in to pressure from New Zealand’s pro-Israel lobby which has for years run an intensive, sustained disinformation campaign about UNRWA,” said PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi.

The United Nations has just held a briefing on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza last week, underscoring the grave situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, warning that “genocide continues in Gaza”, while “crimes against humanity and war crimes” are being committed in the West Bank.

The briefings examined the immediate humanitarian and human rights consequences of the ongoing crisis in Gaza, one year after the ceasefire entered into force, as well as the escalating violence linked to Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Briefers warned that the “destruction of truth” had become part of the “destruction of a people” and that Palestinians were being deprived of hope and dreams for the future.

Peters ‘betrays NZ values’
“So, while Israel continues its genocide in Gaza, Peters betrays New Zealand values in the most sick and cynical way,” Tamimi said.

“Peters wants the minority votes of the pro-Israel lobby and has gone out of his way to pander to these most racist, reactionary parts of our community.”

New Zealand faces a general election on Saturday with New Zealand’s coalition government’s policies on the Palestine genocide under scrutiny.

“Peters hopes this will pass unnoticed by New Zealanders at large but he knows it will spread widely within the pro-Israel lobby before most people cast their votes,” Tamimi said.

UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organisation for Palestinian refugees and has incomparable expertise and resources to help Palestinians in Gaza, the PSNA statement said.

It has frequently been cited by New Zealand Foreign Affairs officials as the most important and crucial aid agency for Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Exploited suffering
“Israel hates it because it holds the key to UN recognition of Palestinian refugees forced out of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba. Israel will play Winston Peters with the most outrageous horror stories about UNRWA, because Peters wants to believe them,” Tamimi said.

“Peters is also happy to use the suffering of Palestinians because he believes it will bolster his electoral chances.

“We want to see the Prime Minister override Peters immediately and reinstate and triple funding to the UNRWA to meet the desperate Palestinian needs,” Tamimi said.

New Zealand had been previously making its annual payment of $1 million to UNRWA as scheduled.

Prominent Suva lawyer Richard Naidu says removing immunity provisions for coup perpetrators from Fiji’s Constitution may not necessarily result in prosecutions or legal action against those responsible for past coups.

Naidu says much of the current debate surrounding constitutional immunity has been dominated by rhetoric rather than a realistic assessment of its legal implications.

“There seems to be lots of earnest talk about constitutional immunity for coup perpetrators and whether it should be a feature of our Constitution, or deleted, etc,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji constitution reports

“And, as usual, there’s a lot of rhetoric but not much realism.”

Naidu explained that immunity clauses protect coup perpetrators from criminal prosecution and civil claims arising from their past actions, but do not protect those who might stage coups in the future.

He said removing such provisions could potentially expose Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama to criminal complaints over their roles in past coups.

However, he stressed that any decision to investigate or prosecute would rest with constitutionally independent institutions, including the Fiji Police Force and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Significant legal hurdles
“The DPP — also an independent decision-maker — would have to decide if it was in the public interest to prosecute them,” he said.

“Or they may decide — for what may be good reasons, including the long passage of time — to do nothing at all.”

Naidu said civil claims would also face significant legal hurdles because the usual limitation period for such actions was six years, or three years in some cases.

“So there is a good chance that if you deleted the immunity clause from the next constitution, nothing very much would happen,” he said.

He also questioned whether removing immunity provisions would deter future military takeovers, pointing out that those planning coups already faced serious criminal consequences, including treason charges.

“If you are planning to overthrow the government with guns, you already risk going to jail for the crime of treason — ask George Speight,” he said.

Naidu argued that successful coup perpetrators could simply replace the Constitution they had breached and introduce new immunity provisions protecting themselves.

Anish Chand is a senior Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

On this United Nations-designated International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA) stands in solidarity with journalists and media workers around the world who face intimidation, harassment, violence, imprisonment and death for doing their jobs.

We maintain that targeting journalists is an attack not only on individual journalists and their families, but also on the public’s inalienable human right to information and freedom of expression, which underpins the foundations of democratic society.

When journalists are silenced through violence and intimidation, the stories they tell, the abuses they expose, and the questions they ask are silenced with them.

• READ MORE: UN puts media giants on notice over Gaza as journalists’ death toll spirals
• Al Jazeera – its vital place in the global media landscape is more important than ever
• Improvements in Pacific media freedom, but a shameful silence on Gaza ‘death trap’
• Other media freedom reports

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 2565 journalists and media workers have been killed since 1992. Of these, 1053 have been deliberately targeted and murdered for their work; 842 of these murders have not received justice.

The scale of such impunity remains deeply concerning, and its further erosions deeply troubling. The global UNESCO impunity rate for journalist killings has risen to a staggering 86 percent. Almost six out of seven killings remain judicially unresolved.

Journalists working in conflict zones continue to be particularly vulnerable, and the use of drones in targeting and killing journalists has added a particularly alarming dimension to conflict reporting.

In 2024-25 UNESCO reported 50 journalists had been killed in drone attacks across six war zones. Journalists in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan speak of horrendous accounts of how drones have stalked and killed their colleagues.

Gaza deadliest conflict
The war on Gaza, now widely acknowledged as the deadliest conflict for journalists in recorded history, continues to exert a heavy toll. The Cost of War report published by Brown University’s Watson Institute in April 2025, stated that Gaza had been turned into a “news graveyard”.

In her July 2026 Truth Under the Rubble report, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese describes the assault on Palestinian journalism as “mediacide” — the systematic destruction of the media’s public function.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Israeli military has been responsible for approximately two-thirds of all journalist and media worker deaths worldwide since October 2023, with killings documented in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.

We acknowledge that impunity is not confined to armed conflict. Journalists investigating corruption, organised crime and abuses of political and corporate power also face threats, physical attacks, legal harassment and assassination.

The UN Secretary-Generals’ August 2025 report cites UNESCO Observatory of Killed Journalists figures stating “44 journalists covering environmental issues were killed over the past 15 years”. The same report notes “UNESCO and the International Federation of Journalists have recorded 353 physical attacks against environmental journalists between 2009 and 2023”.

We further acknowledge that female journalists are disproportionately exposed to gender-based threats, online abuse, sexualised harassment and doxxing. The International Center for Journalists’ 2020 The Chilling shows 73 percent of respondents had experienced online violence in the course of their work, with 25 percent reporting threats of physical violence and 18 percent threats of sexual violence.

The 2026 Tipping Point report found that 45 percent of women journalists and media workers surveyed had self-censored on social media, while 22 percent had self-censored in their professional work because of online violence. These findings demonstrate that the impact of such threats extends beyond the psychosocial harm experienced by individual journalists, compromising their capacity to undertake independent public-interest reporting, which ultimately restricts the public’s access to information.

Importance of education
As an association representing journalism educators and researchers, JERAA also recognises the importance of education in sustaining a culture that respects press freedom and the safety of journalists. We maintain that press freedom begins with robust journalism education that equips future journalists to understand the value of fearless reporting, to uphold professional ethics and protect sources, and to recognise the importance of solidarity and collective action when colleagues are targeted.

We call on Australian universities to invest in journalism education and acknowledge the important role journalism educators play in challenging the normalisation of violence against journalists, defending the principles of independent public-interest journalism, and building resilience in future journalists.

JERAA emphasises that protecting journalists requires more than condemning attacks after they occur. We call on governments, media organisations, civil society and the international community to ensure crimes against journalists are investigated, perpetrators are held accountable and journalists can report freely and safely, without fear of violence or retribution.

We support the International Federation of Journalists’ (IFJ) call for a for a binding International Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists and other Media Professionals, and urge the Australian government to support such a convention in the international theatre.

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri is vice-president (networks) of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia (JERAA). This article was first published by JERAA to mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on 2 November 2026 and is republished with the author’s permission.

The families of three residents shot in Nduga Regency, Highland Papua Province, last month have asked the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH Papua) to oversee the investigation into the incident, which left two people dead and one injured.

Papua Legal Aid Institute lawyer Imanus Komba said the organisation had also called on law enforcement authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the shooting.

“We have received legal authorisation from the victims’ families to provide assistance and oversee this alleged human rights violation case,” Komba said.

• READ MORE: Nduga human rights violations reports
• Other West Papua reports

He made the statement at a press conference attended by the victims’ families, students and humanitarian activists at the LBH Papua office in Kamkey, Abepura District, Jayapura, Papua Province, yesterday.

The shooting occurred in Yosoma Village, Kenyam District, Nduga Regency on October 23. The alleged perpetrators were members of the Rajawali VI Task Force, Den 1, under the Habema Joint Operations Command (Koops Habema).

The two people killed were Masut Serera, 27, an official of Giliga Village, Gearek District, and Kelikia Karebea, 14, a student.

The third victim, Kabera Karebea, 20, is receiving intensive medical treatment at a hospital in Timika, Mimika Regency, Central Papua Province.

Victims’ families account
According to Komba, based on an account provided by the victims’ families to LBH Papua, the shooting occurred about 7 am Papua Time along the Trans Batas Batu–Kenyam Road in Nduga.

Before the shooting, military personnel reportedly flew a drone over the area from about 6 am. Approximately 15 minutes later, several members of the Habema Joint Operations Command arrived in three armoured vehicles and another vehicle.

“Two additional vehicles reportedly entered the residential area,” he said.

Komba said the families maintained that the three victims were civilians from Giliga Village, Gearek District, and not members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM), as alleged by security forces.

He said Masut Serera died from gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen after being hit by four bullets.

Kelikia Karebea also died from gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, while Kabera Karebea sustained a gunshot wound to his right arm.

“According to the families, when three military vehicles arrived at the victims’ home, the three men tried to flee.

Indonesian military attack
“However, TNI and police personnel then launched an attack and opened fire. Inside the house, there was a woman holding her baby. They were later surrounded and taken to a military post, but were released that night,” he said.

Komba said LBH Papua believed that the incident involved alleged human rights violations by state security personnel from the Indonesian Military (TNI) and police.

“Security forces have claimed there was an exchange of fire with an armed group. However, the victims’ families say they were unarmed civilians who were inside their homes,” he said.

Family representative Yunius Serera also said the three victims were civilians with no links to any armed group.

He said the victims had attempted to escape when security personnel arrived but were immediately shot.

“Our family’s hope is that the personnel responsible for the shooting are held accountable, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from their positions,” Yunius said.

He also questioned reports of an exchange of fire and allegations that an armed group was involved in the incident.

Belongings seized
Yunius said the victims’ belongings had also been seized during the incident. The family called for all actions taken by security personnel to be thoroughly investigated.

The families also called on Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to order the withdrawal of non-organic TNI troops from Nduga Regency.

They said the presence of large numbers of security personnel in the region had created fear and trauma among residents, disrupting their daily activities, including their ability to find food.

“Prabowo is a major criminal leading this country, which is why so many human rights violations are happening on this land,” he said.

The government, customary leaders, religious leaders and intellectuals were also urged to pay attention to the situation facing Nduga residents.

“I also ask security personnel to verify people’s identities and status before carrying out operations in the field. They must not simply open fire,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nduga students studying in Jayapura called on President Prabowo and several state institutions to immediately investigate the shooting and ensure those responsible are brought to justice.

Student demands
Student representative Amanus Heluka said they had also submitted similar demands to TNI Commander General Agus Subiyanto, the Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, and the Minister of Human Rights.

“We demand that President Prabowo ensure this case is thoroughly investigated and brought before the courts. The victims’ families must receive genuine justice,” Heluka said.

The students also presented 11 demands, including:

• The withdrawal of both organic and non-organic military personnel from Nduga Regency, particularly non-organic troops deployed in the region;
• A public and thorough investigation by the commander who led the operation during the shooting of civilians;
• The Nduga Regent and the Chair of the Nduga Regional House of Representatives (DPRK) to take responsibility and oversee the resolution of the case;
• The Nduga Regency administration and all 25 members of the Nduga DPRK to facilitate an investigation by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM);
• Komnas HAM to immediately establish an investigation team and follow up on the alleged serious human rights violations;
• Recognition that the area stretching from Wamena District to Kenyam District, the capital of Nduga Regency, is a refuge area, and that TNI and police personnel must not attack civilians there;
• The Minister of Law and Human Rights to handle the case seriously. The students warned that they would halt government activities if Komnas HAM failed to resolve the case promptly; and
• Security personnel stationed at the Yosoma post to retract their statements identifying the victims as TPNPB members and acknowledge that they were civilians.

Against ‘causing fear’
Urijanti Wasiangge, representing Nduga women, said she did not want future generations to inherit fear caused by conflict and violence.

She called on all parties to thoroughly investigate alleged human rights violations in Nduga and other regencies across Papua.

She said the suffering of communities, bloodshed and grief experienced by victims’ families must not go unanswered, and those responsible for violence against civilians must be held accountable.

“I do not want the bloodshed and our tears to end here. I demand accountability and answers for what happened,” Wasiangge said.

She also urged President Prabowo to stop the deployment and reinforcement of military personnel in Papua, particularly in Nduga Regency.

“President Prabowo Subianto, please stop the deployment and reinforcement of military personnel in Papua Province, especially in Nduga Regency,” she said.

Nuevaterra Mambor is a journalist for the West Papuan news platform Jubi. This article was first published by Jubi’s English language edition West Papua Daily, and is republished with permission.

From the moment I first became conscious of my identity as an Arab, Al Jazeera was in the background.

It was as vital to my upbringing as SpaceToon, Captain Majid and Ramadan soap operas, a familiar presence on the TV sets of every family gathering, every diaspora grocery store and barbershop, almost always on silent unless something big was happening.

Being from this part of the world meant something big could happen at any moment, and we grew up mistrusting state media channels as well as Western outlets, but remaining informed felt like a responsibility. It felt like survival.

• READ MORE: Al Jazeera marks 30 years of transforming news in Middle East and beyond
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And there was consistently one channel that felt as close to the truth as we could get. The only one challenging the narrative. Asking difficult questions. Refusing to look away.

When protests erupted in Tahir Square on January 25, 2011, a few minutes away from my grandmother’s house, there was only one network broadcasting the news. The reporters were young Egyptians, like me. Their accents sounded like mine.

The region they spoke about felt like home, not an orientalist fantasy of one. State media meanwhile showed rolling images of the Nile as if history wasn’t taking place metres away.

From that moment on, there was no doubt in my mind what I wanted to do with my career, and where I would one day hope to work.

As I mark my first year as a senior producer with the brilliant Al Jazeera English team here in Doha, the network is celebrating its biggest milestone — 30 years on air!

Its place in the global media landscape is more important than ever, and the trust it’s won with Arab and non-Arab audiences is rare in a world where people feel betrayed by the news. So here’s to another generation shaped by its coverage, and to a region getting to speak for itself and on its own terms.

Happy anniversary Al Jazeera.

Mohamed Hassan is a senior producer and presenter with Al Jazeera’s digital team. He is also an Aotearoa New Zealand author, podcaster and poet from Auckland and Cairo. This commentary was first published as a social media post.

A prominent Palestinian advocate has praised a new book launched last week investigating the history, human consequences and international failures over Israel’s three-year genocide in Gaza and beyond.

“At a time when truth, justice, and accountability matter more than ever, documenting these events and preserving the stories of those affected is essential,” said Maher Nazzal, chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand.

Speaking at the launch of Gaza: Anatomy of a Genocide, Nazzal thanked New Zealand author Peter Macky for his research and work in producing the timely book.

• READ MORE: Iran vows ‘no limitations’ if US-Israel return to war
• UN puts media giants on notice over Gaza as journalists’ death toll spirals
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• Other Gaza genocide reports

“We remember. We bear witness. We demand justice,” Nazzal said.

Macky’s Gaza examines the destruction of Gaza and the political and historical forces behind it.

The book traces the conflict through the history of Palestinian dispossession, occupation and blockade, before examining the genocidal events following 7 October 2023.

It investigates the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the treatment of prisoners, the killing of journalists and humanitarian workers, and the role of political leaders and international institutions.

Historical conditions
Macky argues that Gaza’s devastation could not be understood as an isolated episode. His account examines the historical conditions, military decisions and international responses that shaped the catastrophe.

The book also addresses the legal and political controversy surrounding the term genocide, drawing on international law, human rights reporting and the evidence discussed throughout the work.

Macky, who has published several books, describes this as the work he is most proud of.

His engagement with Palestine and Israel extends over many years and includes his earlier book Six Days in the Holy Land published in 2009.

Gaza: Anatomy of a Genocide is published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa. It carries an endorsement from Michael Neill, emeritus professor of English at the University of Auckland, who also spoke at the launch.

“I admire this book enormously — its energy, its intelligence, its meticulous research, and its careful concern for history. I know of nothing like it,” Neill wrote.

The book invites readers to confront difficult questions about the destruction of civilian society, the meaning of accountability and the responsibilities of governments and individuals when confronted with mass suffering.

Truth ‘under the rubble’
Ironically, the book has been launched in the same week as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese, launched her devastating Truth under the rubble: media in the time of genocide report critiquing mainstream media’s role in “normalising” the genocide.

She adopted the term “mediacide” to describe the sanitising process.

Republic of the Fiji Military Forces Commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai has called for a Truth, Accountability and Reconciliation Commission to replace the immunity clause in the Constitution.

Presenting before the Parliamentary Special Committee reviewing the Constitution Amendment Bill in Suva yesterday, Major-General Kalouniwai reaffirmed the RFMF’s position that it existed to serve the people and never to rule them.

In his submission, the RFMF pledged to remain neutral throughout any referendum, future elections, to respect the will of the people and continue supporting communities in times of need.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji Constitution reports

According to a Parliament statement, the RFMF took no position on the proposed referendum or any political party and encouraged the retention of key constitutional provisions, including civilian oversight of the military and the restoration of the Ombudsman, while recommending stronger protections for voting rights, human rights, the judiciary, anti-corruption institutions, children and people with disabilities.

Major-General Kalouniwai’s submission concluded with a call for reconciliation, equality before the law, and constitutional reforms that strengthen democracy and ensure that all citizens stand equal under one law.

• Fiji has endured four coups since becoming independent in 1970 after being a British colony for 96 years — two in 1987, one in 2000, and again in 2006 — and a reputation for “coup culture”.

Repeka Nasiko is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

The chair of the Pacific Elders’ Voice (PEV) says the argument that religious affinity justifies the Pacific Islands Forum’s (PIF) partnership with Israel does not stack up.

The Forum’s recent decision to make Israel a sectoral partner has drawn widespread criticism by civil society in the region, and is described as being in conflict with the Pacific’s commitments to human rights, self-determination and international law.

The Pacific Elders’ Voice — a group of former Pacific prime ministers, presidents, senior diplomats and academics — has also come out strongly against the move.

• READ MORE: Pacific Elders’ Voice calls for reversal of Forum partnership with Israel
• Open letter: Mr Gavoka, don’t present your personal theology as the ‘voice of the Pacific’
• Shameful move by Pacific Islands Forum undermines decolonisation and justice — David Robie
• Other Gaza genocide reports

According to PEV chair and former Kiribati President Anote Tong, their position has been informed by a recent report from a Middle East fact-finding mission by the global Elders Group, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Pakistani human rights advocate Hina Jelani.

Their report concluded that Israel’s conduct was driving systematic occupation, annexation, and forced displacement of Palestinians amidst a prolonged campaign of violence.

“The mission also cited reports of genocide, killings, and the harassment [of Palestinians],” Tong told RNZ Pacific.

“These are not speculative, these are reports coming from the people who actually went on the ground, people who have absolute credibility. These are leaders, former leaders.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has categorically rejected what he called the one-sided criticism of Israel’s conduct by the Elders.

However, deep division over the Forum’s move has been reflected in the reaction to the Pacific Elders’ stance. While many took to social media to applaud the call, others were critical of it.

For some Pacific Islanders, Israel’s partnership with the Forum makes sense because many of them are influenced by Judeo-Christian, biblical narratives and Christian Zionism, and consider the Middle Eastern country as the Holy Land.

But for the Pacific Elders’ Voice, this does not justify bringing Israel into the Forum.

“To say that we have an affinity with Israel because of religion … there is nothing morally defensible by the actions that are being described, and so that kind of an argument supporting Israel against a very clear report doesn’t really stand in any way.”

Consistency
The Pacific Elders Voice said the Forum’s decision raised questions about the consistency of the region’s positions on colonialism, human rights and self-determination.

Tong said he believed the Pacific Elders represent the views, principles, and moral standards common to Pacific Islands people.

“This is also important because in our advocacy on climate change, we’ve always emphasised the moral and the ethical perspective, which we are asking the world to step forward on climate action.

“I read the arguments that we need the technology that Israel is putting forward, but that does not give them the permit to do what it is that they are doing.

“We’re arguing exactly the same thing that the countries which are benefiting by the fossil fuel industry need to make sacrifices because what they are doing is immorally destructive.”

Tong said the Pacific Islands region should put substance to its new Ocean of Peace initiative.

“I don’t think we should be saying one thing and doing very opposite the next moment. I think it’s counterproductive.

“I guess as a non-political group of elders, we are not constrained by the political or the diplomatic constraints, and I think we can speak our mind, hopefully from from a moral perspective, more freely.”

Timing
A number of Pacific countries have recently forged closer ties with Israel’s Netanyahu regime, but Anote Tong says the Pacific should not be endorsing a government like that.

“I think it’s really the wrong time, given what is happening in that part of the world. It’s really the time to be very cautious to how we get involved with that region, particularly with a country that is very much at the forefront of the conflict.”

Tong said that from his own experience, he knows of the strong lobbying that is levvied against Pacific governments.

“There is no doubt at all in my mind that this has been the case because there is no reason why we all need now to establish relations and put offices in Israel at this time.

“We should be very cautious about getting closer to a country that is now being declared a criminal administration.”

Churches
The Forum’s move has been met with strong criticism from civil society groups in the region, including the Pacific Council of Churches (PCC).

Tong said the PCC’s strong rebuke represented a different position from those arguing the Pacific’s religious connection to Israel justifies stronger ties to the Israel state.

“That kind of argument doesn’t stand in the face of what is happening, in the face of the findings that the Elders have come up with,” he said.

“I cannot imagine any moral human being saying that religious affinity is what needs to guide our decision.”

The Pacific Elders’ Voice said the PIF should review and reverse its partnership with Israel.

Palestinian-Israelis are entitled to vote — sort of.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners apparently considered this an alarming development.

So alarming, in fact, that Netanyahu’s Likud party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party announced plans to deploy approximately 2000 far-right bozos into Palestinian communities to monitor polling stations.

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Not ordinary election officials. Not neutral observers. Far-right activists, with no formal electoral oversight function.

Some were carrying firearms.

לא ניתן שיהיו זיופים במגזר הערבי! כ-2,000 משקיפים יוצבו בקלפיות הערביות.

בשיתוף פעולה עם ראש הממשלה נתניהו והליכוד, אנחנו נערכים למהלך חסר תקדים למניעת זיופים בהצבעה ובספירת הקולות, על רקע זיופים במערכות הבחירות הקודמות.

בנוסף, הקמנו מטה משותף להעלאת אחוזי ההצבעה בימין באמצעות מעבר מדלת לדלת, טלפניה ושיחות עם מצביעים בקלפיות.

יש לנו חשש גדול ממפלגות שלא יעברו את אחוז החסימה ויביאו לעליית שלטון השמאל. אסור שזה יקרה. פשוט אסור.

הפעם לא מהמרים. מצביעים הציונות הדתית!

— בצלאל סמוטריץ’ (@bezalelsm) October 15, 2026

On October 1, Israeli police had issued a directive permitting licensed polling-station personnel and party representatives to bring their personal weapons inside polling stations.

The Palestinian civil rights organisation Adalah and the Joint List challenged this arrangement in Israel’s Supreme Court.

They warned that armed far-right “observers” could intimidate Palestinian voters and provoke violence.

On October 25, the court rejected their petition.

Apparently, a ballot box is no place to be underprepared for armed confrontation.

And that was before polling day.

The election-day obstruction
On October 27, reports emerged from Palestinian communities of voters encountering extraordinary difficulties exercising their democratic rights:

• In Tira, a Le Monde reporter documented long queues and an observer controlling entry to a polling station. A Palestinian lawyer accused a Likud observer of deliberately slowing the voting process.
• At Segev Shalom High School in the Naqab, Israeli police and National Guard personnel reportedly restricted access while approximately 200 people waited outside.
• The Association for Civil Rights in Israel urgently appealed to election authorities over significant and unexplained delays at polling stations in Arab communities.
• Adalah recorded complaints involving missing Arabic ballot papers, police checkpoints, interrupted voting and difficulties faced by elderly, disabled and veiled women voters.

Meanwhile, Haaretz reported that Likud had spent millions of shekels recruiting teams to film Palestinian voters outside polling stations, transmitting information to party headquarters.

A remarkable amount of money, manpower and police attention devoted to the supposedly straightforward business of allowing citizens to vote.

The ‘danger’ of Palestinians voting
Netanyahu was not particularly subtle about the political message.

Reuters reported that vehicles displaying Likud flags drove through Jerusalem broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer and warning that Arabs were voting.

Netanyahu himself circulated warnings about a high Palestinian turnout.

Consider what was being presented as an emergency.

Citizens. Standing in queues. Exercising their right to vote.

Palestinians were voting.

This was not a new tactic.

In 2015, Netanyahu warned that Arab voters were heading to polling stations in droves.

In 2019, Likud deployed concealed cameras at polling stations in Palestinian communities, provoking accusations of voter intimidation.

In 2026, the operation involved thousands of proposed partisan monitors, permission to carry firearms, surveillance teams and reported obstruction of voters.

The common feature is unmistakable: Palestinian political participation repeatedly becomes the object of suspicion, alarm and extraordinary scrutiny.

The democracy test
Palestinian citizens of Israel have the legal right to vote.

That right is not a favour granted by Netanyahu. Nor is its exercise an act of aggression against Jewish citizens.

A democratic franchise means very little if a minority population must exercise it under the scrutiny of hostile partisan activists, with the possibility of firearms at the polling station and police obstructing access.

So much for “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

These sorts of antics would make a banana republic despot salivate.

• The Israeli Central Elections Committee said on Wednesday that it had counted more than five million votes as of 9pm local time (19:00 GMT). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc was on course to win 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot wass expected to secure 48 seats. Projections from Tuesday’s voting also showed that the Arab parties — the Joint List and Ra’am — could hold a record combined 19 seats.

Tracy-Moana Campbell is an employment relations advocate based in Masterton and an activist on Palestinian human rights. She had a commercial orange grove in Lebanon 10km from the Israeli border in 2005-2011. Israel bombed her oranges in 2006. It is a war crime to destroy civilian food sources. This commentary was originally a social media post but has been republished with the author’s permission.