A New Zealand advocacy group for Palestine has condemned the government for refusing to provide humanitarian visas for Palestinians with family in the country while welcoming a growing number of Israeli “visitors”.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) claims the visitors are likely to be “complicit” in Israel’s genocidal war crimes in the 14-month war on Gaza.

According to PSNA, just-released official Statistics Department figures show the number of Israelis who entered Aotearoa this past November (621) is more than twice the number of Israelis who came into the country in November last year (230).

• READ MORE: Amnesty International doubles down on Israeli Gaza ‘genocide, atrocities’ report at NZ rally
• Sixty patients at Gaza hospital at risk of starving, health authorities say
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The protest group said in a statement that “many if not most of these ‘tourists’ are actively serving in the Israeli Defence Force’s genocidal attacks on Gaza and Lebanon”.

“The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and most recently Amnesty International, have variously described the Israeli attack on Gaza as genocide,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

The New Zealand government had no idea how many Israeli “tourists” were doing military service, because they were not required to provide that information as they arrived, he added.

“Genocide duty in the Israeli armed forces is compulsory for nearly all Israelis, so there will be a high proportion of active or reservist soldiers coming to Aotearoa with blood on their hands.”

Urgent to deny entry
Service in the IDF for 32 months is compulsory for nearly all Israeli men when they reach 18 and women are required to serve 24 months.

Members of Israel’s ultra-orthodox community were included in the conscription from June after previously being exempt.

After the initial period, Israelis must be available as reservists until age 40.

PSNA’s John Minto said the New Zealand government must urgently deny entry to any Israelis who were serving or had served in the IDF.

“Combat reservists are now on average serving four months in the IDF. So it’s not just a narrow younger age group.”

According to Minto, the New Zealand government had a list of extremist Israeli settlers who it banned from entering Aotearoa — but he viewed this list as “hopelessly inadequate”.

Obligation to prevent genocide
“The International Court of Justice has obligated countries to prevent Israeli genocide and work to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory,” Minto said.

“When our border immigration officials are not required to even ask if an Israeli is serving in the military, or is an illegal settler, then our government is ignoring both of its obligations.

“The soldiers perpetrating this genocide might pretend to be innocent thrill-seeking tourists when they visit here, but they are directly responsible for operating occupation, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

INVESTIGATION: By Yaakov Aharon

The Israeli war machine is in hyperdrive, and it needs new bodies to throw into the fire. In July, The Department of Home Affairs stated that there were only four Australians who had booked flights to Israel and whom it suspected of intending to join the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

The Australian Border Force intervened with three of the four but clarified that they did not “necessarily prevent them from leaving”.

MWM understands a batch of Australian recruits is due to arrive in Israel in January, and this is not the first batch of recruits to receive assistance as IDF soldiers through this Australian programme.

• READ MORE: Protesters condemn Fiji ‘complicity, silence’ over Israel’s Gaza genocide
• Palestinian musicians, poets and solidarity partners in vibrant NZ cultural celebration
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Many countries encourage certain categories of immigrants and discourage others. However, Israel doesn’t just want Palestinians out and Jews in — they want Jews of fighting age, who will be conscripted shortly after arrival.

The IDF’s “Lone Soldiers” are soldiers who do not have parents living in Israel. Usually, this means 18-year-old immigrants with basic Hebrew who may never have spent longer than a school camp away from home.

There are a range of Israeli government programmes, charities, and community centres that support the Lone Soldiers’ integration into society prior to basic training.

The most robust of these programs is Garin Tzabar, where there are only 90 days between hugging mum and dad goodbye at Sydney Airport and the drill sergeant belting orders in a foreign language.

Garin Tzabar
In 2004, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked Minister for Aliyah [Immigration] and Integration, Tzipi Livni, to significantly increase the number of people in the Garin Tzabar programme.

The IDF website states that Garin Tzabar “is a unique project, a collaborative venture of the Meitav Unit in the IDF, the Scout movement, the security-social wing of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, which began in 1991”. (Translated from Hebrew via Google Translate.)

The Meitav Unit is divided into many different branches, most of which are responsible for overseeing new recruits.

Powerful and unique journalism by @yaakov_aharon on a story that receives shamefully little coverage in Australia; the recruitment of Australians to serve in the Israeli military: https://t.co/OdNVzzMEbx

— Antony Loewenstein (@antloewenstein) December 2, 2024

However, the pride of the Meitav Unit is the branch dedicated to recruiting all the unique population groups that are not subject to the draft (eg. Ultra-Orthodox Jews). This branch is then divided into three further Departments.

In a 2020 interview, the Head of Meitav’s Tzabar Department, Lieutenant Noam Delgo, referred to herself as someone who “recruits olim chadishim (new immigrants).” She stated:

“Our main job in the army is to help Garin Tzabar members to recruit . . .  The best thing about Garin Tzabar is the mashakyot (commanders). Every time you wake up in the morning you have two amazing soldiers — really intelligent — with pretty high skills, just managing your whole life, teaching you Hebrew, helping you with all the bureaucratic systems in Israel, getting profiles, seeing doctors and getting those documents, and finishing the whole process.”

The Garin Tzabar programme specifically advertises for Australian recruits.

The contact point for Australian recruits is Shoval Magal, the executive director of Garin Tzabar Australia. The registered address is a building shared by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Council of NSW, the community’s peak bodies in the state.

A post from April 2020 on the IDF website states:

“Until three months ago, Tali [REDACTED], from Sydney, Australia, and Moises [REDACTED], from Mexico City, were ordinary teenagers. But on December 25, they arrived at their new family here in Israel — the “Garin Tzabar” family, and in a moment, they will become soldiers. In a special project, we accompanied them from the day of admission (to the program) until just before the recruitment.“ (Translated from Hebrew via Google Translate).

Michael Manhaim was the executive director of Garin Tzabar Australia from 2018 to 2023. He wrote an article, “Becoming a Lone Soldier”,’ for the 2021 annual newsletter of Betar Australia, a Zionist youth group for children. In the article, Manhaim writes:

“The programme starts with the unique preparation process in Australia.

. . . It only takes one step; you just need to choose which foot will lead the way. We will be there for the rest.”

A criminal activity
MWM is not alleging that any of the parties mentioned in this article have broken the law. It is not a crime if a person chooses to join a foreign army.

However, S119.7 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 states:

A person commits an offence if the person recruits, in Australia, another person to serve in any capacity in or with an armed force in a foreign country.

It is a further offence to facilitate or promote recruitment for a foreign army and to publish recruitment materials. This includes advertising information relating to how a person may serve in a foreign army.

The maximum penalty for each offence is 10 years.

Rawan Arraf, executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, said:

“Unless there has been a specific declaration stating it is not an offence to recruit for the Israel Defence Force, recruitment to a foreign armed force is a criminal offence under Australian law, and the Australian Federal Police should be investigating anyone allegedly involved in recruitment for a foreign armed force.”

Army needing ‘new flesh’
If the IDF are to keep the war on Gaza going, they need to fill old suits of body armour with new grunts.

Reports indicate the death toll within IDF’s ranks is unprecedented — a suicide epidemic is claiming further lives on the home front, and reservists are refusing in droves to return to active duty.

In October, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Bibi Netanyahu of obscuring the facts of Israel’s casualty rate. Any national security story published in Israel must first be approved by the intelligence unit at the Military Censor.

“11,000 soldiers were injured and 890 others killed,” Lapid said, without warning and live on air. There are limits to how much we accept the alternative facts”.

In November 2023, Shoval Magal shared a photo in which she is posing alongside six young Australians, saying, “The participants are eager to have Aliya (immigrate) to Israel, start the programme and join the army”.

These six recruits are the attendees of just one of several seminars that Magal has organised in Melbourne for the summer 2023 cycle, having also organised separate events across cities in Australia.

Magal’s June 2024 newsletter said she was “in the advanced stages of the preparation phase in Australia for the August 2024 Garin”. Most recently, in October 2024, she was “getting ready for Garin Tzabar’s 2024 December cycle.”

There are five “Aliyah (Immigration) Events” in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The sponsoring organisations are Garin Tzabar, the Israeli Ministry for Aliyah (Immigration) and Integration, and a who’s who of the Jewish-Australian community.

The star speaker at each event is Alon Katz, an Australian who joined Garin Tzabar in 2018 and is today a reserve IDF soldier. The second speaker, Colonel Golan Vach, was the subject of two Electronic Intifada investigations alleging that he had invented the 40 burned babies lie on October 7 to create a motive for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.

If any Australian signed the papers to become an IDF recruit at these events, is someone liable for the offence of recruiting them to a foreign army?

MWM reached out for comment to Garin Tzabar Australia and the Zionist Federation of Australia to clarify whether the IDF is recruiting in Australia but did not receive a reply.

Before the formation of the Israel Defence Forces in 1948, there were three underground Zionist militias — The Haganah, the Irgun and the Lehi.

Their methods and tactics have been unpacked in a new Middle East Eye “The Big Picture” podcast this week by New Zealand journalist Mohamed Hassan.

The IDF, which critics brand as the IOF (“Israel Offensive Forces”), claims to be the “most moral army in the world”, but it has killed almost 43,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — in a year-long war on Gaza and now more than 3000 people in the deadly attacks on Lebanon.

• READ MORE: At least 55 people killed in Gaza as Israel resumes attacks on health workers in Lebanon
• Other Israeli War in Gaza reports

It has also been widely accused of committing atrocities, war crimes, and genocide.

The three Zionist militias differed in tactics and beliefs, and at times fought with each other — but together they terrorised Palestinian villages and executed attacks and bombings against the British to force them to give up control of the land.

They blew up hotels in Jerusalem, embassies in Europe and assassinated a UN mediator in the lead up to what is called the Nakba — the “Catastrophe” — in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their towns, villages and countryside.

After Israel declared its independence as a state — the three militias would combine to create the IDF, called Tzahal in the Hebrew-language acronym. The militia leaders would go on to form Israel’s government, become politicians, ambassadors and prime ministers.

And their dark history would be forgotten.

This week “The Big Picture” unpacks that history.

The untold history of the Israel Defence Forces.  Podcast: Middle East Eye