It’s been another dreadful week for Gaza with Israel continuing its bombing and slaughtering of Palestinians – mainly women and children – as it pushes ahead for the complete destruction of Gaza.
New Zealand of course is silent, except when it comes to making this worse for Palestinians as it did when the PM announced a halt on New Zealand funding for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency)
All this despite the International Court of Justice finding a prima facie case of Israeli genocide in Gaza and issuing interim orders which require the apartheid state to return within a month to explain how it is preventing genocide in Gaza and following the Genocide Convention.
It’s a decision which puts Israel on probation but it has been so poorly reported by New Zealand media that there is widespread confusion – very helpful to the apartheid state but deadly for Palestinians.
New Zealanders were told by our media such things as the court “did not order a ceasefire”, “did not find Israel guilty of genocide” “was disappointing for Palestinians in Gaza” “was a win for Israel”. Only one of those four statements has any relevance to the actual decision and what could have been expected from it.
Even the Prime Minister had no clue what the whole issue was about and that’s hardly surprising. In this case the media bears heavy responsibility for promoting “Israeli talking points” about the ICJ decision rather than reporting the outcome accurately.
Nowhere has the mainstream media talked about New Zealand’s responsibility to PREVENT genocide as a signatory to the Genocide convention and how the government plans to do this. There has been no speaking truth to power by the media here – just lamely taking Eurocentric anti-Palestinian reports from UK and US newspapers and media outlets.
There was a time in the past when New Zealand media would have done much better. Not today.
It’s easy to see how the Holocaust happened in Nazi Germany when most western media ignored the warning signs of virulent European anti-semitism and genocidal rhetoric against Jews. The same is happening today when western media are misreporting Israeli actions based on anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia.
The same media failure applies to reporting of the NZDF deployment to bomb Yemen – a decision made by a government which can’t even call for a ceasefire or an end to the slaughter in Gaza – not that our media had any expectation whatever that we would or should call for a ceasefire before bombing Yemen.
Even if the media has gone AWOL on Gaza the people of New Zealand haven’t. Details of the protest events across the country are on our Facebook event page here (with the basic details below)
North Island
Opononi – Gathering for Palestine
Sunday 4 February
5:00 pm
Outside the Four Square, Opononi
Kerikeri
Saturday 3 February
TBA – Check PSNA Facebook events page for details
Whangarei – Rally
Saturday 3 February
10:00 am
Whangārei Town Basin in front of Hundertwasser Building
Auckland – An audience with the Palestinian Ambassador to Australia, Aotearoa & the Pacific Islands
Friday 2 February
7:00 pm
Western Springs Garden Community Hall – 956 Great North Road, Western Springs,
Auckland – Rally – No March
Sunday 4 February
3:00 pm
Te Komititanga Square – Britomart
Tauranga – Vigil for Gaza
Wednesday 31 January
7:00 pm
Corner of Coronation Park, Mount Maunganui
Tauranga
Sunday 4 February
11:00 am
Corner of Coronation Park, Mount Maunganui
Hamilton – Rally
Saturday 3 February
1:00 pm
End of Wairere Drive and Naylor Street, Hillcrest
Rotorua
Saturday 3 February
TBA – Check PSNA Facebook events page for details
Napier
Saturday 3 February
11:30 am
Marine Parade Soundshell Roundabout
Hastings – Rally
Sunday 4 February
2:00 pm
Hastings Town Clock – Hastings CBD
Palmerston North
Saturday 3 February
2:00 pm
The Square, Palmerston North
New Plymouth – Flags on the Bridge
Friday 2 February (Every Friday)
4:30 pm
Paynters Ave Bridge, New Plymouth
New Plymouth – Rally
Saturday 3 February
1:00 pm
The Landing, 1 Ariki Street, New Plymouth
Whanganui – Rally
Saturday 3 February
11:00 am
Riverside Market
Wellington – Rally
Saturday 3 February
Check out the PSNA Facebook events page on Friday for time and place
South Island
Nelson – Rally
Saturday 3 February
10:30 am
1903 Square, Upper Trafalgar Street, Nelson
Blenheim
Saturday 3 February
11:00 am
Blenheim Railway Station
Christchurch – Rally
Saturday 3 February
1:00 pm
Bridge of Remembrance, Cashel Street, Christchurch
Queenstown
Saturday 3 February
No Rally this weekend
Dunedin
Saturday 3 February
2:00 pm
Otago Museum Reserve to the Octagon, Dunedin
Invercargill
Friday 2 February
5:30 pm
Wachner place Invercargill
‘Even the Prime Minister had no clue what the whole issue was about and that’s hardly surprising’.
It should say: BUT that’s hardly surprising; he has no clue at all.
Blaming the media for Cluxon’s cluelessness makes no sense. As a PM he should understand the words of the ICJ.
The media is guilty of the inadequate reporting but they’re not responsible for Cluxon’s laziness, manipulations and stupidity.
The previous government allocated $1.3 million to the International Criminal Court, ICC, and $700 thousand to the International Court of Justice, ICJ, specifically to prosecute Russia for invading Ukraine.
Contrast this with the silence of our media and the lack of action by this government over the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza,
https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/OIA/OIA-2023/PR-Ukraine-Holding-Russia-to-Account-NZ-Int-Legal-Strategy.pdf
New Zealand has long been concerned about the mounting credible evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine…..
No current government concern about the mounting evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza
The war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas are in no way comparable, whatsoever
Comparing War in Gaza with War in Ukraine.
Within the first ten months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 707 Ukrainian healthcare facilities were attacked by Russia.
https://phr.org/our-work/resources/russias-assault-on-ukraines-health-care-system/#
in a quarter of that time almost 600 Palestinian healthcare facilities were attacked by Israel
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1145317
Within 18 months Russia killed 545 Ukrainian children
https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en/documents/18-months-of-war-for-ukraines-children
More than 3,600 Palestinian children were killed by Israel in the first 25 days
Russia didn’t kill 545 children. Only the zionist Zelensky regime deliberately targets children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-coT5t70Tg
An investigation into Russia’s systemic killings of Ukrainian children
From the ‘Kyiv Independent’, which is so ‘independent’ that it’s entirely funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government propaganda and subversion operation whose founder Allen Weinstein admits “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.
Below is the team of lawyers that New Zealand hired and to go to the World Court in the Hague to intervene in the case of Ukraine vs Russia
$700 thousand of taxpayers coin gets you this many lawyers.
From the PDF on the website of the International Court of Justice. There are two URLs because the list goes across two pages.
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/182/182-20240202-jud-01-00-en.pdf
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/182/182-20240202-jud-01-00-en.pdf
New Zealand,
represented by Ms Victoria Hallum, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand,
as Agent;
Mr Andrew Williams, Chief International Legal Adviser (acting), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand,
HE Ms Susannah Gordon, Ambassador of New Zealand to the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
as Co-Agents;
Ms Elana Geddis, Barrister, Kate Sheppard Chambers, Wellington,
Mr Toby Fisher, Barrister, Matrix Chambers, London,
Ms Jane Collins, Senior Legal Adviser, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand,
Ms Hannah Frost, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of New Zealand in the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
Mr Bastiaan Grashof, Policy Adviser, Embassy of New Zealand in the Kingdom of the Netherlands,
New Zealand was one of the 32 intervening states that gave an oral submission to the World Court in the Hague on the merits of the case Ukraine vs Russia
The lawyers for the Russian Federation objected that these 32 states were only there because the US hegemon yanked their chain.
New Zealand spent zero $ and sent zero lawyers to intervene in the case South Africa vs Russia.
So much for our stated concern for international law.
Look, war is hell, civilians die, even more than necessary when Hamas hides in civilian infrastructure and encourages their martyrdom with the support of the UN.
The death rate minus militants is well below other similar conflicts but the fact its the Jews involved attracts a whole lot of attention.
Netanyahu –“Nobody will stop us — not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.”
“If I was standing on the right side of history, I don’t think the side I was standing with would be saying that not even The Hague can stop them from killing everyone they want to kill.
❖
Turns out “Israel has a right to defend itself” actually meant “Israel has a right to commit genocide, and no other countries have a right to stop it.”
“The majority of westerners are still ignorant of the extent to which Israel had been abusing and killing Palestinians prior to October 7. …. Literally everyone acknowledges the occurrence of the October 7 attack, while a vast percentage of the population is either uninformed or actively lying about the occurrence of all Israeli crimes from the Nakba on.”
” ….. “Israel demanding that everyone condemn the Hamas attack is like a bunch of thugs punching a man in the face over and over and then demanding that everyone condemn him for hurting their hands. The Hamas attack was the natural result of Israel’s abuses upon the Palestinian people.”
“Israel isn’t relentlessly murderous and abusive because it’s run by Jews, it’s relentlessly murderous and abusive because that’s the only way to maintain an ethnostate that was abruptly dropped on top of an already existing civilization. This would be true if it’d been a Mormon state or a Romani state.
Take any already existing country with its own ethnic and religious makeup and its own relationships with surrounding countries and drop a brand new artificial ethnostate on top of it with a deluge of immigrants who are designated special and above the people in that region, and you’re going to get a ton of violence.”
Hamas are ” a natural emergence from the material circumstances that have been forced upon Palestinians. If you’ve got a group of people being sufficiently oppressed and violently persecuted by the ruling power, you’re going to start seeing violent opposition to that ruling power as sure as you’ll see blood arise from a wound.”
*****************************
“It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism.”
“the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that’s still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.”
“We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise. Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.”
The National party in particular will suck as much thug dick as it takes to ‘get in that club’
The only reason Winston stepped in to stop cutting our Aid funding to Gaza,,, is he’s smart enough to know that in 2 months time images of starving Palestine children are not going to be censored hidden and ignored like the 70,000 Yemen kids deliberately starved to death were….
… and that sort of support for Israel would make many voters sick ,,,, hard core Zionists like Gaby, Nathan, and co excluded…. a sick minority.
The death rate, you don’t know what you are talking about – more Palestinians have died than Ukrainians and compare the time this has taken, with of course the help of that great democracy the US
Gaby, Nathan, Theasus. I’m calling the deliberate deaths of 26000 Palestinians a crime. Genocide. You can call me anti semitic, anti Zionist or whatever label you wish to hide behind, but unlike psychopaths do I will not justify cold blooded murder as revenge or deterrence.
In short your support of murder is disgusting.
If they were deliberate you would be right. They are and you are not.
With you Nick. Perhaps Nathan, Gaby and Co would give us their justification for the activities of organisations such as the Stern Gang and the continuing theft of the West Bank lands.
Kiwi joker, my father was in Gaza in 1945 with the RN, being shot at by the Stern Gang. He had just spent 4 years being shot at by Germans. I’m sure he was unimpressed by Israelis.
The ICJ hearing was a preliminary hearing to decide whether, or not Israel should be put on trial for committing genocide.
The court ruled that Israel should be put on trial for committing genocide in Gaza.
Unlike the case of Ukraine vs. Russia where the ICJ did vote on Ukraine’s preliminary application for a ceasefire, and passed it. In a clear case of discrimination, the ICJ did not vote on South Africa’s application for a preliminary order for a ceasefire.
If the ICJ had voted on South Africa’s application for a ceasefire, they would also have had to pass it. The evidence of harm to a ‘group’ or ‘people’ as defined by the genocide convention is overwhelming.
The orders that the court did vote on and pass were somewhat vague and weak. Except possibly for two >Israel has been ordered to allow humanitarian aid to Gaza. >Israel has been ordered to give a report back within one month on how they are abiding by these orders.
In a clear breach of the order to facilitate the distribution of aid to Gaza. Israel launched an attack on UNRWA the organisaton responsible for distributing aid in Gaza.
Why is Israel targeting key UN agency UNRWA in Gaza?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8kur583Vl0
Will Israel refuse to supply the ICJ with a report on how it is complying with the orders of the Court?
If in one month Israel fail to comply with the order to give a report to the ICJ, the court can make further orders against Israel to seek their compliance.
You’ve heard of ‘Long Covid’ Now there is ‘Long Corbyn’ a frightening new affliction visiting Right Wing warmongers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-JaVudQDPU
Its no coincidence that the malevolent idiocy chanted by our young people at these rallies coincides with a shocking deterioration in education, history and geography standards as well as critical thinking. They have no idea other than fashionable protest apparel and trendy slogans.
Ever stood up and been counted on any issue of human rights Jack. Time to start I think, it doesn’t have to begin with palestine, organise a protest on one of the many other human rights issues going on in the world right now.
yes plenty
Comments are closed.