The National Community: Why Populism in New Zealand is a Right-Wing Thing

By

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November 27, 2016

BRYCE EDWARDS AND JOHN MOORE have taken the country-and-western melodies of populism and over-dubbed them with their own revolutionary lyrics. But, the resulting songs will never be sung by populists. Revolutionaries, too, are unlikely to find the Edwards/Moore mash-up inspirational. In the final analysis, revolution should be about overturning and replacing the existing order. Populism, in almost every instance, is about restoring the old one.

The article in question, “Could Anti-Establishment Politics Hit New Zealand?” (NZ Herald, 11/11/16) takes as its starting point the Dutch political scientist, Cas Muddle’s, definition of populism as “having the three key features of being anti-Establishment, authoritarian and nativist”. Certainly, these characteristics are present in most populist political movements, but they do not define them.

At its heart, populism is a revolt against the idea of political and cultural diversity. The populist seeks to make real the homogeneous nation of his imagination, and whether or not he’s successful depends upon how closely his imagined national community resembles the idealised nation of his fellow citizens. A populist movement only ever gains significant political momentum when large numbers of citizens discover that they share a common vision of what and who their nation is – and isn’t.

And if you’re not included in the populists’ definition of the nation, then your chances of being invited in are slim. Seriously, they’d rather build a wall.

Radical though the populists’ programme may be, populism itself is not automatically anti-establishment. If the democratic process has placed an individual or a party in power which the populists reject as unrepresentative of the nation as they define it, then, certainly, they will oppose the elected government.

Populist opposition to a specific political establishment should not, however, be construed as confirmation of populism’s hostility to all establishments. The populists’ ideal nation may be ruled by elites of whom they heartily approve. Restoring a deposed establishment – the rightful rulers – is no less a populist objective than deposing the establishment set up by its usurpers.

Ideologically-speaking, nearly all of New Zealand’s populist moments have been driven by this deeply conservative restorative impulse. The National Party, in particular, owes its existence to the determination of rural and provincial New Zealanders to overthrow Labour’s socialist usurpers and restore the nation’s rightful rulers – farmers and businessmen.

National’s choice of name was no accident. The new party was (and still is) perceived as standing for the pioneering virtues of the nation’s early settlers: those enterprising men and women, overwhelmingly of British stock, whose Christian capitalist values gave New Zealand its distinctive cultural signature.

The Labour Party, by contrast, was (and still is) seen as the party of the big cities: those sinkholes of moral corruption, physical squalor and political insubordination, whose representatives are incapable of recognising and protecting the cherished values of “heartland” New Zealand. (An imaginary entity with no purchase on this country’s actual geography or history.)

It is no accident that New Zealand’s two most accomplished populist politicians both emerged from the ranks of the National Party. The national community imagined by Rob Muldoon and Winston Peters has, from the very beginning, been defined by its enemies: immigrants, overly assertive Maori, militant trade unionists, left-wing journalists, effete academic intellectuals and (back in the 1970s) rebellious student protesters propelled into the streets by the universities’ alien and subversive ideas.

Muldoon’s great skill as a populist politician lay in convincing his fellow New Zealanders that their race, class and gender offered no barrier to membership of his national community. The National Party’s 1975 election slogan, “New Zealand the way YOU want it.”, captured perfectly Muldoon’s contention that the nation had fallen into the hands of people determined to transform it into something no genuine New Zealander could possibly want. The only viable option for right-thinking Kiwis was to join Muldoon’s national (and National) community of traditional Kiwi values. “Rob’s Mob” elected him on a landslide.

Peters’ populist appeal – inspired by the events that followed his mentor’s crushing defeat in the snap election of 1984 – is similarly restorative. Its unchanging target: the neoliberal establishment installed by Labour’s Roger Douglas between 1984 and 1990, and then further intensified by National’s Ruth Richardson between 1990 and 1993.

This bi-partisan betrayal of Muldoon’s “New Zealand the way YOU want it” populism lies at the heart of Peters’ party – New Zealand First. The nation’s tragic fall from grace is, according to NZ First’s founding narrative, the result of the corruption of its two “great” parties – National and Labour.

In the post-Cold War political environment in which NZ First was formed, Peters was free to cast the past leaders of both major parties as patriots. While holding very different ideas about how to achieve it, the NZ First leader assured his followers, politicians like Keith Holyoake and Norman Kirk wanted only what was good for New Zealand and New Zealanders.

Since the mid-1980s, however, (Peters’ narrative continues) the neoliberal, free-market virus has infected both Labour and National. Neither party any longer cares a fig for the national community. On the contrary, both have committed themselves to neoliberalism, globalism, multiculturalism and, most perversely, biculturalism – the disintegration of the “one people” brought into existence by Governor Hobson at Waitangi on 6 February 1840.

So potent is this latter grievance to those who inhabit the national (and National) community that Don Brash, an avowed neoliberal, came within an ace of defeating Labour in the 2005 General Election. His in/famous “Orewa Speech” and John Ansell’s “Iwi/Kiwi” billboards were almost as electorally compelling as Muldoon’s populist slogan of 30 years before.

In the final week of the 2005 campaign, Brash attempted to consolidate the populist surge unleashed by his attacks on “Maori privilege” by equating the national community – “Middle New Zealand” – with the National Party itself. That the electorate failed to respond in sufficient numbers was, almost certainly, due to Brash’s flinty-faced neoliberalism. In order to clinch such a crucial identification: the national community with the National Party; New Zealand’s distinctive brand of restorative populism required an altogether brighter and happier countenance.

Which brings us, of course, to New Zealand’s present prime minister, John Key. For Edwards and Moore, Key’s National-led Government is the establishment against which the flaming-torch-bearers and pitchfork-shakers of populism are massing menacingly. But in this they are, I believe, entirely mistaken.

Key and his government remain preternaturally popular because they represent, for a substantial plurality of New Zealanders, the most persuasive attempt, so far, at describing what the national community of twenty-first-century New Zealand looks like.

Key’s version of the national community is animated by the same virtues of resilience, hard work and self-sufficiency that characterised its earlier iterations. Wrapped around these core attributes are the traditional benefits of a happy family life, a “good” education, gainful employment and home ownership. Ethnicity, gender and sexuality only matter on “Planet Key” when they become a barrier to accepting the values and aspirations of the “average New Zealander”.

It was John Key’s promise to make the nation once again recognisable to the average New Zealander that propelled him and his party into office in 2008. Like another extremely wealthy businessman-turned-politician we are all learning to live with, Key’s message was one of restoration.

Helen Clark’s politically-correct, nanny-state establishment would be dismantled and replaced by the old order (tricked out for the punters in the glad rags of “a brighter future”). Busy-body public servants and the undeserving poor would be firmly but fairly put back in their proper places, and New Zealand’s “rightful rulers” would return to MAKE NEW ZEALAND [a] GREAT [place to bring up kids] AGAIN.

This is what Edwards and Moore cannot seem to see. That an “anti-establishment”, “authoritarian” and “nativist” government actually took office more than eight years ago. That the national/National community is an accomplished political fact. That Populism has already won.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Tax Cuts Galore! Money Scramble!

By

Frank Macskasy

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November 27, 2016

10

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In troubled times, we are community

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On 14 October, eight hours after two massive 7.8 earthquakes simultaneously rocked the entire country, our Dear Leader John Key made an impassioned (for him, it was impassioned) appeal to the people of Aotearoa on Radio NZ’s ‘Morning Report‘;

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john-key-web-rob2_10 — “The one thing I’d we’d just say to New Zealanders at the moment is stay close to your family and friends. Make sure you listen to the radio and listen to the best information that you’re getting. And if you do have certainly older neighbours or family, if you could go in and check up on them that would be most appreciated. Because there will be people feeling genuinely alone.“

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It was an appeal to a sense of community that is rarely made by right-wing governments or their leaders. It was a tacit acknowledgement that No Man or Woman is an Island that that only by acting collectively can human beings survive and improve their own circumstances and for their children.

Unfortunately, a week later, Key’s sense-of-community-spirit was returned to it’s hermetically-sealed casket and re-buried alongside cryo-capsules containing New Zealand’s Once-Egalitarian-Spirit and International-Independent-Leadership-On-Moral Issues.

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National dangles the “carrot”

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On 21 November, Key announced that tax cuts were once again “on the table” and Little Leader/Finance Minister, Bill English confirmed it.

With a statement that was more convoluted than usual, Key said;

“We’ve identified from our own perspective if there was more money where would be the kinds of areas we want to go, not what is the make up … for instance, of a tax or family package, what is the make up of other expenditure we want?

Tax is one vehicle for doing that, it’s not always the most effective vehicle for doing that for particularly low income families.”

Tax could be effective higher up the income scale, but lower down it was not that effective because base rates were low or it was very expensive.

Over the fullness of time we’ll have to see whether we’ve got much capacity to move.

Making sure they can keep a little more of what they earn or get a little bit more back through a variety of mechanisms is always something we can consider. It could be a mix, yes.

In the end it’s about equity for New Zealanders and about .. having a rise in their standard of living, and there’s a number of ways you could deliver that.”

Key has once again dangled a billion-dollar carrot in front of New Zealanders as the country heads towards next year’s election.

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National’s previous election “carrots”

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During the 2008 General Election, as the Global Financial Crisis was impacting on our own economy, Key was promising tax cuts. In May 2008, he said;

“But in 2005 we promised tax cuts which ranged from about $10 to $92 a week, roughly $45 a week for someone on $50,000 a year.

“I described it as a credible programme of personal tax cuts and I’m committed to a credible programme of personal tax cuts,” he said.

Questioned on whether National’s tax cuts programme of 2005 was credible today given the different economic circumstances, Mr Key said: “Well, I think it is.”

“I believe that an ongoing programme of personal tax cuts that delivers the sort of magnitude that we’ve had in the past is potentially possible.

At the time, then Labour’s Finance Minister, Michael Cullen described National’s tax-cut-bribe as ‘reckless‘.

By October 2008, as NZ Inc’s economic circumstances deteriorated, Treasury issued dire warnings that should have mitigated against any notions of affordable tax-cuts;

John Key has defended his party’s planned program of tax cuts, after Treasury numbers released today showed the economic outlook has deteriorated badly since the May budget. The numbers have seen Treasury reducing its revenue forecasts and increasing its predictions of costs such as benefits. Cash deficits – the bottom line after all infrastructure funding and payments to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund are made – is predicted to blow out from around $3 billion a year to around $6 billion a year.

Key’s government won the 2008 election and proceeded with tax-cuts in 2009 and 2010.

Predictably, government debt – which had been paid down by the Clark-Cullen government – ballooned as the recession hit New Zealand’s economy and tax revenue fell;

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Key himself estimated tax cuts to be worth between $3 or $4 billion.

In 2008, New Zealand’s core government debt stood at nil (net)

Current government debt now stands at $62.272 billion (net).

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Nature intervenes in National’s “cunning plan” for a Fourth Term

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According to Dear Leader Key, estimates for the re-build of earthquake damage in and around Kaikoura; State Highway One, and the rest of the South Island is likely to be at least “a couple of billion dollars“.

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The repair bill from Monday's earthquake near Hanmer Springs is estimated to be billions of dollars. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King — *The repair bill from Monday’s earthquake near Hanmer Springs is estimated to be billions of dollars. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King*

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Finance Minister Bill English has hinted the cost may be much more;

“The combination of significant infrastructure damage in Wellington, obvious damage in Kaikoura – all roading and rail issues – this is going to add up to something fairly significant. We also know that those estimates change over time.”

No wonder Labour leader Andrew Little was less than impressed at tax cuts being mooted. Echoing Michael Cullen from eight years ago, he condemned the irresponsible nature of Key’s proposal;

“Well this is crazy stuff, I mean in addition to a government having $63 billion worth of debt it is yet to start repaying, and you’ve got a billion dollars extra each year just in the cost of superannuation.

Now we have another major civic disaster that is going to cost in terms of repairs. I do not see how John Key can say tax cuts are justified in the present circumstances.”

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National spends-up large on new prison beds

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On top of which, English announced last month that National was planning to spend over $2.5 billion on new prison beds. He questioned whether tax cuts were affordable with such looming expenditure;

Finance Minister Bill English has warned an announcement today of plans for an extra 1,800 prison beds will reduce the room for the Government to consider tax cuts before next year’s election.

English told reporters in Parliament the extra beds would cost NZ$1 billion to build and an extra NZ$1.5 billion to run over the next five or six years.

“It will have an impact because it is a very large spend and, two or three years years ago, we probably thought this could be avoidable,” English said when asked if the extra spending would make it harder for the Government to unveil tax cuts and other spending before the next election.

“It’s all part of this rachetting up of tougher sentences, tighter remand conditions, less bail and taking less risk with people who commit serious offenses,” he added.

Asked if that meant there would be less room for tax cuts, he said: “I wouldn’t want to judge that because it is a bit early, but certainly spending this kind of money on prison capacity is going to reduce other options.”

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The inevitable cost of tax-cuts

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As billions more is wasted on prisons, money spent on health, education, housing, and other social services is being frozen; cut back, or not keeping pace with inflation.

This has resulted in appalling cuts to services such as recently experienced by 96-year-old Horowhenua woman, Trixie Cottingham;

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Other social services have also been wound back – as previously reported by this blogger;

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Cuts to the Health budget have resulted in wholly predictable – and preventable – negative outcomes;

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A critic of National’s under-funding of the health system, Phil Bagshaw, pointed out the covert agenda behind the cuts;

New Zealand’s health budget has been declining for almost a decade and could signal health reforms akin to the sweeping changes of the 1990s, new research claims.

[…]

The accumulated “very conservative” shortfall over the five years to 2014-15 was estimated at $800 million, but could be double that, Canterbury Charity Hospital founder and editorial co-author Phil Bagshaw said.

Bagshaw believed the Government was moving away from publicly-funded healthcare, and beginning to favour a model that meant everyone had to pay for their own.

“It’s very dangerous. If this continues we will slide into an American-style healthcare system.”

As the public healthcare system faces reduction in funding – more and New Zealanders will be forced into taking up health insurance. In effect, National is covertly shifting the cost of healthcare from public to private, funding the public/private ‘switch’ through personal tax-cuts.

Tax dollars have previously been allocated to social services such as Education or Health. By implementing tax cuts, those “Health Dollars” become “Discretionary Dollars”; Public Services for Citizens becomes Private Choice for Consumers.

And we all know how “well” that model has worked out in the United States;

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(Yet another) Broken promise by Key

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But equally important is that, in promising to spend the government surplus on tax-cuts, Dear Leader Key has broken yet another of his promises to the people of New Zealand.

In July 2009, National suspended all contribution to the NZ Superannuation Fund. At the time Bill English explained;

“The Government is committed to maintaining National Superannuation entitlements at 66 per cent of the average wage, to be paid from age 65.

[…]

The suspension of automatic contributions will remain until there are budget surpluses sufficient to fund contributions. Under current projections, the Government is not expected to have sufficient surpluses for the next 11 years.

[…]

Once surpluses sufficient to cover automatic contributions return, the Government intends to contribute the amount required by the Fund formula.”

In 2010, English said;

“We’re managing government spending carefully, the economy is improving a bit faster than we expected, and that means it’s six years instead of 10 years until we start making contributions to the fund. If the economy picks up a bit faster again, we’ll get to that point sooner.”

In 2011, John Key said;

“Once we’re back to running healthy surpluses, we’ll be able to auto-enrol workers who are not members of KiwiSaver, pay down debt and resume contributions to the Super Fund.”

In 2012, English said;

“The Government’s target is to return to surplus by 2014-15 so that we will then have choices about repaying debt, resuming contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, or targeting more investment in priority public services.”

In 2013, English said;

“It remains our intention that contributions will resume once net debt has reduced to 20 percent of GDP, which is forecast for 2020.”

In 2014, English told Patrick Gower;

“… In this Budget we will have a paper-thin surplus , I mean we’ll just have a surplus but that’s the beginning of a series of surpluses and that means we have choices. And there’s a lot of choices. We’ve got the New Zealand Super Fund to resume contributions, an auto-enrolment for KiwiSaver, paying off debt more quickly, something for households to help them along. Those are choices that New Zealand fortunately will have if we have a growing economy and we stick to being pretty careful about our spending.”

In 2015, Key and English issued a joint statement saying;

“Through Budget 2015, the National-led Government will…

[…]

Reduce government debt to less than 20 per cent of GDP by 2020/21 when we can resume contributions to the NZ Super Fund.”

In October this year, English said;

“There has not been any broken commitment regarding the Superannuation Fund. We have said for some time that when the Government returns to a sufficient budget surplus and can contribute genuine savings rather than borrowing, National will resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The straightforward issue is that even when the Government shows surpluses under the operating balance before gains and losses measure, it does not always have cash surpluses until those accounting surpluses get reasonably big.

[…]

I remember that Sunday in 2009 in vivid detail, in fact, and constantly go back to it. The Government has outlined its position many, many times since 2009, and when there are sufficient surpluses and when we have debt down to the levels we think are prudent, which is 20 percent of GDP by 2020, then we will resume contributions, which we would like to do.”

In every year since National ceased contributing to the NZ Super (“Cullen”) Fund, both Key and English have reiterated their committment to resume payments when government books returned to surplus.

By hinting at tax cuts instead, Key and English have broken their promises, made over a seven year period.

Even their “qualifyer” of resuming contributions “when we have debt down to the levels we think are prudent, which is 20 percent of GDP by 2020” becomes untenable with their hints of an election-year tax-cut bribe.

By cutting taxes instead of paying down debt, resuming contributions to the NZ Super Fund is pushed further out into the dim, distant future.

The very suggestion of tax cuts is another potential broken promise. What’s one more to add to his growing list of promises not kept?

After all, there is an election to be fought next year.

Since National has not thought twice at under-funding the Health Budget, it certainly does not seem troubled at using tax-cuts as an election bribe, and undermining this country’s future superannuation savings-fund for selfish political gain.

Muldoon did it in 1973 – and got away with it.

Carrot, anyone?

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References

Radio NZ: Morning Report – John Key urges New Zealanders to look out for their neighbours

Radio NZ: Morning Report – Key not ruling out tax cuts despite billion-dollar Kaikoura bill

Radio NZ: Morning Report – Government not ruling out tax cuts despite $1B Kaikoura bill

Fairfax media: John Key reveals plans for ‘tax and family’ package, but quake might affect plans

NZ Herald: National’s 2005 tax cut plans still credible – Key

Beehive: National ignores inflation warning

NZ Herald: Key – $30b deficit won’t stop Nats tax cuts

NZ Treasury: Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Year Ended 30 June 2010 – Debt

Fairfax media: $4b in tax cuts coming

NZ Treasury: Fiscal Indicator Analysis – Debt as at 30 June 2008

NZ Treasury: Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the Year Ended 30 June 2016

Radio NZ: Earthquake’s billion-dollar bill won’t compare with Chch

Radio NZ: PM ‘irresponsible’ to talk tax cuts after quake – Labour

Interest.co.nz: English says NZ$1 bln capital cost and NZ$1.5 bln of operating costs for extra 1,800 prison beds reduces room for tax cuts

Radio NZ: Checkpoint – DHB threatens to cut off 96-year-old’s home help in Levin

Dominion Post: Women’s Refuge cuts may lead to waiting lists

NZ Herald: Govt funding cuts reduce rape crisis support hours

NZ Doctor: Christchurch’s 198 Youth Health Centre to close its doors as management fails to implement directives from CDHB

TV1 News: ‘Devastating news for vulnerable Kiwis’ – Relationships Aotearoa struggling to stay afloat

Radio NZ: Patients have ‘severe loss of vision’ in long wait for treatment

Fairfax media: Researchers claim NZ health budget declining, publicly-funded surgery on way out

Radio NZ: Patients suffering because of surgery waits – surgeon

Fairfax media: 174,000 Kiwis left off surgery waiting lists, with Cantabrians and Aucklanders faring worst

Fortune: How the U.S. Health Care System Fails Its Sickest Patients

NZ Super Fund: Contributions Suspension

Beehive: New Zealand Super Fund – fact sheet

Fairfax media: English signals earlier return to Super Fund payments

Scoop media: John Key’s Speech to Business New Zealand Amora Hotel Wgtn

Parliament Today: Questions and Answers – November 7

TV3 News: $23 billion in NZ Super Fund

Throng: Patrick Gower interviews Finance Minister Bill English on The Nation

Beehive: Budget 2015

Scoop: Hansards – Questions and Answers – 18 October 2016

Fairfax media: Compulsory super ‘would be worth $278 billion’

Additional

The Standard: The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED)

Other Blogs

The Standard: The eternal tax-cut mirage

Previous related blogposts

“It’s one of those things we’d love to do if we had the cash”

Tax cuts & school children

The Mendacities of Mr Key #3: tax cuts

The consequences of tax-cuts – worker exploitation?

Plunket and the slow strangulation of community organisations

The cupboard is bare, says Dear Leader

An earthquake separates John Key and ‘The Iron Lady’, Margaret Thatcher

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Security Council members leave Gaza to bleed

By

Leslie Bravery

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November 27, 2016

3

As Israeli Gaza ceasefire violations this year top 1,000, the International Criminal Court (ICC) exposes the “scope and degree of control” that the military Occupation exercises over Gaza.

All Gaza ceasefire violations in 2016 to mid-November totals are 1,002 Israeli and 32 Palestinian
On 15 November 2016, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign’s daily newsletter In Occupied Palestine reported that this year’s Israeli Gaza ceasefire violations had exceeded 1,000. Over the same period, there were 32 Palestinian ceasefire violations. These Palestinian ceasefire violations fall into two categories:

Palestinian missile attacks on Israel:
These totalled 9, some of which involved the launching of several missiles, while others saw the firing of a single missile.

and

Armed Palestinian Resistance against the Israeli Army:
These totalled 23. There is no possibility of armed Palestinian Resistance against the Israeli Air Force or Navy.

It must be acknowledged that the In Occupied Palestine (IOP) newsletters are not able to cover every single day and it is certain that some ceasefire violations committed either by Palestinian Resistance activists or by the Israeli Government fail to get reported. However, the frequency and reliability of the available situation reports are sufficient to enable a fairly accurate picture of the asymmetry between Israeli military offensives against the population of the Gaza Strip and the acts of Resistance they largely provoke. Over the period from 1 January to 15 November, there were no situation reports on 45 days. IOP newsletters did cover 85% of the entire period (275 days and 86 of the over 1,000 Israeli ceasefire violations).

Israeli ceasefire violations
Zionist propaganda misleadingly attempts to give the impression that Israel is under constant attack from Palestinian missiles and that all Israeli military offensives are merely responses to them. The truth is vastly the reverse and, because the total number of Israeli attacks is far too large for them all to be presented here, a small selection taken from each month will have to suffice to illustrate the asymmetry. From 1 January to 15 November, there were a total of 48 Israeli air strikes, each variously involving the firing of from 1 to 7 missiles. The Israeli Navy hijacked 33 Palestinian fishing boats in that period and there were scores of attacks on Palestinian farmers and agricultural land, including 74 crop-bulldozing incursions. The numbers that precede each Israeli violation shown below are in chronological order and pertain only to the particular month in which they occur. The numbers that precede each Palestinian violation are simply in consecutive order.

Gaza ceasefire violations 2016: some Israeli and all Palestinian

January 5
4. Israeli Navy attack – fishing boat sunk – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 19:20, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, setting fire to and destroying one fishing boat.

January 8
7. Israeli Army attack – 8 wounded: Gaza – 14:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades, wounding eight residents. In addition, there were eight tear gas casualties.
8. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 14:00, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, injuring two people. There were several tear gas casualties.
9. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Khan Yunis – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades into the al-Farahin area of Abasan al-Kabireh, wounding two people.

January 15
38. Israeli Army attack – 4 wounded: Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at protesters in al-Shija’iya, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, wounding four people. There were three tear gas casualties.
40. Israeli Army attack – 2 dead – 2 wounded in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, killing two residents: Mohammad Adel Abu Zied (18) and Mohammad Majdi Quiteh (26). In addition, two people were wounded and there were several tear gas casualties.

January 16
43. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on people in the al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding two residents. There were several tear gas casualties.

January 22
63. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 13:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at people in al-Shija’iya, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. One person was wounded and there were several tear gas casualties.
64. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 13:30, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on the al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding two people and causing several tear gas casualties.
65. Israeli Navy attack – economic sabotage – damage: Khan Yunis – 07:30, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats, damaging one of them.
66. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Khan Yunis – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire with live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades on people in Abasan al-Kabira, wounding two of them.

January 23
1. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Gaza – 11:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli military vehicle near al-Shuja’iya. Israeli forces returned fire.

January 27
73. Israeli Navy attack – abduction – hijacking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 11:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, hijacked one of them and took prisoner four crewmen: Tariq Ala Zeid Bakr (17), Fahed Ziyad Hussein Bakr, Mohammad Saber Khader Bakr and Na’im Fahed Ziyad Bakr.

January 29
79. Israeli Army attack – 6 wounded: Gaza – 1500, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire, with live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades on residents in al-Shija’iya, wounding six people. In addition, there were several tear gas casualties.

February 5
18. Israeli Army attack – 5 wounded: Gaza – 16:05, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at people in the east of the city, wounding five of them.
19. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, wounding two people – there were several tear gas casualties.

February 11
Death – child: Gaza – Yusef Bahjat Al-Za’lan (11) died of injuries sustained from Israeli air strikes on his home during the Israeli blitz on the Gaza Strip in 2011.

February 12
31. Israeli Army attack – 4 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, wounding four residents. A storm of Israeli Army tear gas grenades caused several gas casualties.

February 19
60. Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at people in al-Shija’iya, wounding three residents.

February 22
67. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 17:00, Israeli forces positioned behind the Green Line opened fire on people near the al-Muntar crossing in east Gaza City, wounding and hospitalising one person.

February 26
88. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters in the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, injuring one person.
92. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Khan Yunis – 14:30, one person was wounded when an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire, with live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades, on people in the al-Farahin area of Abasan al-Kabirah.

February 28
102. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Gaza – 15:10, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers at work on al-Shuja’iya farmland, wounding one person.

February 29
109. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking and abduction – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 09:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, hijacking one of them, abducting a 17-year-old crew member, Khamis Suhiel Fadil Bakr, and taking prisoner seven other crew members: Majid Fadil Hassan Bakr, Imran Majid Fadil Bakr, Mohammad Ziyad Hassan Bakr, Khalil Juhar Bakr, Fadi Suhiel Fadil Bakr, Yusra Nafith Al-Akhsham and Mohammad Nizar Mustafa Bakr.
110. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Northern Gaza – 13:00, one person was wounded when Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on Beit Lahiya farmland.

March 2
2. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Khan Yunis – 12:00, Palestinian Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli Military vehicle in al-Qarara. Israeli forces returned fire.

March 3
12. Israeli Army attack – school damaged – children terrified – agricultural sabotage: Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on al-Shuja’iya agricultural land and the Beit Dajan School, damaging the outside of a classroom occupied by schoolchildren still at their studies.

March 7
3. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Central Gaza – 08:00, a Palestinian Resistance fighter opened fire on an Israeli military vehicle behind the border, east of the al-Maghazi refugee camp. The Israeli Army returned fire, wounding one person.

March 11
46. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 14:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at people near the al-Shija’iya crossing and fired tear gas grenades at protesters in Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. One person was wounded and there were several tear gas casualties.
1. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Northern Gaza – 22:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters launched four missiles towards the Green Line that landed harmlessly on open ground in southern Israel.
50 and 51. Air strikes – child deaths: Northern Gaza – 02:20, Israeli war planes fired four missiles in two consecutive strikes on Beit Lahiya, killing a ten-year-old Palestinian boy and his six-year-old sister, according to medical officials. The boy was identified as Yassin Abu Khoussa. His sister, Issra, died in hospital later. Medics said the pair were hit by fragments from a missile fired by Israeli aircraft. The attack was in response to rockets fired from Gaza that landed harmlessly in open areas in southern Israel, causing no deaths or injuries. The missiles fired from Gaza were in response to over 240 ceasefire violations by Israel since 1 January this year. Israel does its utmost to provoke missile launchings from Gaza. This year alone, from 1 January to 10 March, there were just three Palestinian Gaza ceasefire violations. All were directed at Israeli blockade-enforcing military, taking place on 23 January, and 2 and 7 March. Over the same period, there were more than 240 Israeli ceasefire violations aimed at civilian targets, mostly farmers and fishing boats. As a result of Israeli aggression in Gaza, there have been so far this year, six Palestinian deaths, including three children. Fifty-three Palestinians have been wounded and, in addition, Israel has carried out five hijackings of Palestinian fishing boats. http://www.euronews.com/2016/03/12/two-palestinian-children-in-gaza-killed-by-israeli-airstrike/

March 15
2. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Northern Gaza – 23:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired missiles towards the Green Line.

March 25
106. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 14:15, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at al-Shija’iya residents in east Gaza, and fired tear gas grenades at people in Beit Lahiya, wounding two people and causing several tear gas casualties.

April 1
3. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij refugee camp. One person was wounded and there were three tear gas casualties.
5. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Rafah – 21:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on farmland to the north-east of the city, wounding two people.
6. Israeli Navy attack – fishing boat sunk – economic sabotage: Rafah – 03:00, the Israeli Navy shelled Palestinian fishing boats, destroying and sinking one of them. According to a report by Ma’an News Agency, the head of the fishermen’s union, Nizar Ayyash, reported that Israeli gunboats had fired several shells, setting the boat on fire and causing it to sink. Ayyash said the fate of those on board was not yet known. www.almasdarnews.com

April 8
39. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 14:15, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, fired live ammunition and stun and tear gas grenades at people in al-Shuja’iya and Jabaliya, wounding two persons. There were several tear gas casualties.
44. Israeli Navy attack – 1 wounded – economic sabotage: Rafah – 05:00, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats, wounding a crew member who was taken prisoner. Altogether, four fishermen were taken prisoner: Eyad Amr Al-Bardawil, Ahmad Amr Al-Bardawil, Billal Jihad Mislih and Mohammad Jihad Mislih.

April 11
54. Israeli Army attack – child wounded – agricultural sabotage: Gaza – 17:15, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on agricultural land, wounding a 13-year-old child, Ammar Al-Tarrabin, in east Juhur al-Dik.

April 18
73. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – youngsters wounded and abducted – economic sabotage: Rafah – morning, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Rafah, hijacking one of them as well as wounding and taking prisoner a fisherman, Ali Samir Al-Bardawil. The Israeli Navy also took prisoner three other crew members: Mustafa Mohammad Al-Najjar, Oday Hassan Al-Najjar and Ahmad Abu Muhisein.

April 22
94. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – abduction – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 07:40, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off Beit Lahiya town, hijacking one of them and taking prisoner two fishermen including a minor, Ibrahim Ghalib Al-Salatan. The other crew member taken prisoner was identified as Oranis Sharif Al-Sultan.

April 29
120. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – 16:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on people in the al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding one of them. There were several tear gas casualties.

May 3
4. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Gaza – 15:50, Palestinian Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli military vehicle as it passed the east al-Shuja’iya neighbourhood. Israeli forces returned fire.

May 4
5. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Northern Gaza – 16:15, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired missiles at Israeli forces manning the Beit Hanun crossing point. Israeli forces returned fire.
6. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Gaza – 14:50, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 7 missiles at Israeli forces in the east of Gaza City while Israeli tanks shelled the al-Shuja’iya neighbourhood.
7. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Gaza – 15:20, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired a missile at Israeli forces positioned in al-Shuja’iya as Israeli forces opened intense fire on Resistance fighters.
8. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli shelling that damaged a building: Gaza – 17:50, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 2 missiles at Israeli forces in al-Shuja’iya as Israeli tanks shelled al-Shuja’iya, damaging a building owned by the Electrical Company.
9. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli shelling that damaged a home: Gaza – 18:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 2 missiles at Israeli forces in al-Shuja’iya while Israeli tanks shelled the neighbourhood, damaging a home.
10. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Gaza – 20:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 3 missiles at Israeli forces in al-Shuja’iya.
11. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Khan Yunis – 18:15, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 2 missiles at Israeli forces in al-Fakhari.
12. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 18:15, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 2 missiles at Israeli forces manning the Sufa Crossing as Israeli tanks shelled the east of Rafah city.
13. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 18:40, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired 2 missiles at Israeli forces manning the Sufa Crossing as Israeli tanks shelled the east of Rafah city.

May 5
27. Air strikes – 4 injured (3 children): Gaza City – 04:30, Israeli forces carried out several air strikes, one of which hit a metal workshop in the al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, injuring 65-year-old Hassan Hassanein and three children from the same family, who were all taken to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=771402
14. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 16:50, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired missiles at an Israeli Army position as Israeli tanks shelled the east of Rafah city.
30. Air strike – injury: Rafah – 17:40, an Israeli war-plane fired another missile into east Rafah city. A 21-year-old Palestinian woman, Khazima al-Farra, was injured in an air strike that hit the al-Rayyan area in eastern Rafah.
31. Israeli Army attack – 1 dead: Khan Yunis – 18:50, Shelling by Israeli Army tanks killed a woman, Jana Ayishah Aytah Al-Amour (55), during an exchange of fire with the Palestinian Resistance.
38. Israeli Army attack – injury: Rafah – 17:40, one person was injured when Israeli Army tanks, positioned behind the Green Line, shelled north-east Rafah city.
15. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 19:30, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired three missiles at Israeli forces positioned near east Rafah.
16. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 19:55, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired three more missiles at Israeli forces positioned near Rafah.
17. Armed Palestinian Resistance against Israeli military: Rafah – 06:40, Palestinian Resistance fighters again fired three more missiles at Israeli forces positioned near Rafah.

May 6
3. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Khan Yunis – 00:20, one missile fired towards the Green Line – no injury or damage reported.
4. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Rafah – 11:40, Palestinian Resistance fighters fired a missile at Israeli forces positioned to the east of Rafah city.

May 13
57. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – 18:30, one person was wounded when Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij refugee camp.

May 15
66. Israeli Navy attack – hijack and sinking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 19:00, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, took prisoner two fishermen, detained eight others, including three 17-year-old youths, Mohammad Khamis Bakr, Jameel Ahmad Ada and Mohammad Mahmoud Bakr, hijacked one fishing boat and sank another.

May 16
71. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 06:20, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, hijacking one of them and taking prisoner two fishermen.

May 18
77. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Gaza – 07:30, one person, Issa Jaber Mohammad Al-Ajlah, was wounded when Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on agricultural land in the east of the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood.

May 20
85. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 15:00, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on protesters in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood. One person was wounded.
86. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – 15:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij refugee camp. One person was wounded.

May 31
115. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – wounding – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 08:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on, and hijacked, two Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, wounding one fisherman and detaining five others, including the wounded man. They were identified as Rajab Khaled Khaled Abu Rayalah, Khaled Abu Rayalah, Hassan Mohammad Maqdad, Mohammad Maqdad Mohammad and Bashir Abu Rayalah.

June 9
17. Israeli Navy attack – wounding – hijacking – economic sabotage: Gaza – On Wednesday, 8 June at 12pm, Rajab Khaled Abu Riela, his brother and two cousins left the Port of Gaza. They stayed out fishing until 1:30am, June 9. “When we started our way back to the port one Israeli warship approached, the soldiers started insulting us through the microphone and, immediately after, started shooting against our two small boats with live ammunition. Then their warship crashed against us. In that moment I decided to try to escape, but I was immediately shot in the leg with live ammunition”. They took Rajab and his brother to Ashdod port, where they wouldn’t give him any medicine or treatment for the injury he sustained by the Israeli forces: “I was left bleeding until 9:30am”. Finally, they were sent back to Gaza, where an ambulance took him directly from Erez border to the hospital, where he had to undergo surgery. When he finally reached Shifa Hospital, doctors managed to remove the biggest pieces of the bullet – but many small pieces still remain in his leg. “Our future [for the fishermen] is uncertain; we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Israel assaults us every day, takes our boats, shoots at us… Since 2005 I have pain in my chest due to an attack of the Occupation, and as well my brother was injured while fishing in 2008. I’m responsible for providing for my family, we are 21 members… Now no one is providing for us, as I’m injured and they took our boat and motor. How can I work now without a boat?”
http://palsolidarity.org/2016/06/testimony-of-one-of-the-latest-attacks-against-gazas-fishermen/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly+Digest

July 1
5. Israeli air strike – economic sabotage: Gaza – 03:25, Israeli air strike on steel mill in al-Zaytoun neighbourhood.
6. Israeli air strike – economic sabotage: Gaza – 03:50, a second Israeli air strike completed the destruction of the steel mill in al-Zaytoun.
8. Israeli air strikes – UN refugee camp hit – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – evening, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij refugee camp, wounding an unidentified resident.
5. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Northern Gaza – 23:00, a number of missiles fired towards the Green Line.

July 4
18. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Northern Gaza – 17:00, Palestinian Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli Military vehicle in east Jabaliya.

July 20
32. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Central Gaza – 07:15, the Israeli Army opened fire, from behind the Green Line, and wounded a farmer, Awni Hassan Sleiman Abu Gharraba, at work on his land near Deir al-Balah.

July 28
47. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 22:40, the Israeli Navy attacked fishing boats in al-Waha, north-west of Beit Lahiya, opening fire on them and hijacking one of them. Six fishermen from the hijacked vessel were taken prisoner: Mohammad Mahmoud Hihjazi Al-Loh, Khamis Awad Nimer Zaghra Bakr, Mahmoud Maher Mohammad Zaghra Bakr, Mohammad Rafat Radwan Bakr, Salim Fayiz Salim Abu Al-Sadeq and Mustafa Nael Mustafa Bakr.
48. Israeli Navy attack – damage – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 23:30, Israeli gunboats opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, damaging one of them.

July 29
51. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces wounded two people when they opened live fire, as well as firing rubber-coated steel bullets, at protesters in the east of the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood.

July 31
54. Israeli Army attack – woman wounded – agricultural sabotage: Central Gaza – 18:30, Israeli forces behind the Green Line opened fire on al-Maghazi UN refugee camp agricultural land, wounding a woman, Samah Mohammad Al-Nuami.

August 21
6. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: 14:20, one missile fired into Israel landed in Sderot. No injuries or damage reported. The missile was fired in response to constant Israeli Gaza ceasefire violations. There were well over 700 Israeli ceasefire violations by this time and over 33 during the month. Israeli war-planes fired 21 missiles in the present attacks – that’s 21 Israeli missiles to one Palestinian. In addition, the Israeli Navy carried out two attacks, including a hijacking, on Palestinian fishing boats – and the Israeli Army still found time to target Gaza farms. So far this year, the Israeli Navy has hijacked nine Palestinian fishing boats. See also: https://www.rt.com/news/356652-israel-strike-gaza-rocket/
35. Israeli air strike – 3 missiles – water crime: Northern Gaza – 15:00, Israeli war-planes fired three missiles at the main water storage tank in west Beit Hanoun.
41. Israeli air strike – 1 injured – 1 missile: Northern Gaza – 22:55, an Israeli war-plane fired one missile into east Beit Hanoun, injuring one person.
42. Israeli air strike – 1 missile – 1 injured: Northern Gaza – 23:10, an Israeli military aircraft launched one missile into north Beit Lahiya, injuring one resident.
46. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Northern Gaza – 15:10, one person was wounded as Israeli Army tanks, positioned behind the Green Line, shelled Beit Hanoun farmland.
58. Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Northern Gaza – from 22:05 to 23:00, Israeli Army tanks, positioned behind the Green Line, fired 30 shells into Beit Hanoun. Three people were wounded.

August 24
57. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – agricultural sabotage: Northern Gaza – 18:30, one person, Nour Odeh Abu Jarrad, was wounded when Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on agricultural land north-west of Beit Hanoun.

August 26
62. Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Gaza – 15:40, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters near the al-Shija’iya Crossing, wounding three people.

August 29
67. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – abduction – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 07:00, the Israeli Navy opened fire on fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, hijacking one of them and abducting a 15-year-old crew member, Nafeth Mahdi Mohammad Abu Rayala. The Israelis also took prisoner an adult fisherman, Mahdi Mohammad Abu Rayala (38).

August 31
19. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Northern Gaza – 19:00, a Resistance fighter opened fire on a patrolling Israeli Army Jeep,

September 3
20. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Northern Gaza – 23:45, Palestinian Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli Army Jeep near Beit Lahiya.

September 5
21. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Northern Gaza – 01:15, Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli Army vehicle near Beit Lahiya.
22. Armed Palestinian Resistance: Central Gaza – 01:10, Resistance fighters opened fire on an Israeli Army vehicle near Deir al-Balah.

September 8
26. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Northern Gaza – 10:00, one person, Mahmoud Musa Abu Amsha, was wounded when Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on residents in the Jabaliya district of Abu Safiya.

September 9
33. Israeli Army attack – 1 killed in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 16:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, killing an 18-year-old resident, Abdel-Rahman Ahmad Al-Badagh.

September 10
41. Israeli Army attacks funeral procession in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:15, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, firing live ammunition as well as stun grenades and tear gas canisters, attacked a funeral procession in the al-Bureij UN refugee camp.

September 14
23. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Central Gaza – 23:00, a number of missiles fired towards the Green Line.

September 16
53. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Gaza – 15:30, one person was wounded as Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood of Gaza City.

September 19
57. Israeli Navy attack – 1 wounded – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 19:45, Israeli gunboats again opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off al-Sudaniya, wounding a fisherman, Ahmad Ziya.

September 23
70. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 14:45, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood, wounding two residents, one of them critically.
71. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:00, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, wounding a resident.

September 30
85. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 16:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood, wounding two people.

5 October
8. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Northern Gaza – 10:25, a number of missiles fired towards the Green Line.

October 7
25. Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on and wounded three people in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood. There were several tear gas casualties.
26. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on and wounded two people in the al-Bureij UN refugee camp. In addition, there were several tear gas casualties.

October 21
70. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:45, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters in the al-Bureij UN refugee camp; one unidentified person was wounded and there were several tear gas casualties.

23 October
9. Palestinian cross-border missile attack: Northern Gaza – 06:30, a number of Palestinian missiles, launched towards the Green Line, fell short and struck the east of Beit Hanoun.

October 28
88. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 15:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on and wounded two residents in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood.
90. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded – in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 15:00, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, wounding an unidentified resident.

November 4
8. Israeli Army attack – 2 wounded: Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood, wounding two people.
9. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded in UN refugee camp: Central Gaza – 14:30, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on the al-Bureij UN refugee camp. One person was wounded.

November 11
23. Israeli Army attack – 3 wounded: Gaza – 15:30, Israeli forces, positioned behind the Green Line, opened fire on protesters in the al-Shija’iya neighbourhood, wounding three residents. Tear gas canisters were also fired, causing several tear gas casualties.
24. Israeli Army attack – 1 wounded: Central Gaza – 15:00, an Israeli Army position behind the Green Line opened fire on protesters in the al-Bureij UN refugee camp, wounding one person.

November 15
34. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 08:30, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats off the shores of al-Sudaniya, hijacking one of them and taking prisoner one fisherman. Another crew member was detained for a time.
35. Israeli Navy attack – hijacking – economic sabotage: Northern Gaza – 17:30, Israeli gunboats hijacked a Palestinian fishing boat off al-Sudaniya and detained a crew member, Ammar Assad Al-Sultan.

Responsibility
With their agriculture and fishing under relentless miliary assault, the people of Gaza have no peace. On 14 November 2016, the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) re-affirmed that the Gaza Strip is under Israeli military Occupation. The ICC found that the Zionist state “remains an occupying power as a result of the scope and degree of control that Israel has retained over the territory of Gaza.” A new report from the World Bank deals with one of the results of the “scope and degree of control” that Israel exercises over Gaza. The report reveals that only 10% of Gaza’s residents get safe drinking water. Untreated sewage pollutes aquifers and also pours, untreated, into the sea. Water-related illness is on the increase. Israel is purposely restricting water supply into Gaza to a much lower rate than is supposedly guaranteed under the Oslo agreement.

The New Zealand Government has kept silent at the Security Council and made not the slightest effort to call for Israel to be restrained and brought to account. Indeed, when a vessel offering friendship to Gaza was recently hijacked in international waters by the Israel Navy, our Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, sided with Israel. He described the hijacking as a matter subject to “local immigration laws and regulations” and wrote that the “New Zealand Government cannot intervene in the judicial processes of another country”. While the world is becoming ever more destabilised, international law is being violated and weakened with the complicity of Security Council members.

Next year’s centenary of the Balfour Declaration is approaching and, with discussion around it gaining pace, we must all accept our share of collective responsibility for having placed the Palestinian people at the mercy of a regime founded upon an irrational and racist ideology. The failure to defend and uphold the principles of equality for all peoples, enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, endangers everyone. End the silence, tell our MPs to speak up for Palestine in Parliament, fight for justice and demand accountability!

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

GUEST BLOG: Arthur Taylor – What Corrections aren’t telling the public about Phillip Smith

By

The Daily Blog

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November 26, 2016

4

You will probably recall lifer Phillip Smith escaping to Brazil on 6.11.2014. That escape deeply embarassed Corrections senior management and their minister Sam Lotu – Iga.

Predictably, and in their usual ham-fisted way, they lashed out punishing the many innocent prisoners who were engaged working in the community on work release. This was to the benefit of employers and themselves. By and large all were considered excellent, productive employees by their employers.

All were paying normal tax to I.R.D. and board to Corrections.

Overnight they were ordered back behind prison wire to sit around doing nothing constructive and employers were left scrambling to replace them. Note, that Phillip Smith was not on work release, but on 74 hour temporary release….A completely different animal.

To my knowledge no prisoners on work release have escaped in the last five years, they value it too highly to risk imperilling it.

Fast forward two years and the number on work release are still far below what they were before the Smith debacle. Importantly, no prisoners from Paremoremo are on work release at all. Of course none ever have been from the maximum division where I am, but the West division of Auckland prison that holds about 430 minimum – high security prisoners also has no-one on work release.

Some months ago Phillip Smith sent me a message asking what he could do about this situation as he said felt he has been made a scapegoat for what appears to be Corrections unlawful withdrawal of work release and wanted to help put matters right.

He, rightfully, believes no responsible Government department should act unlawfully out of what looks like spite and sheer bloody mindedness. What happened was collective punishment, much as the Nazi’s would summarily execute people in the nearest village/town when a railway track or something was sabotaged in W.W.2.

The principle is the same, innocent people suffer for the wrongdoings of others.

I’m no apologist for Phillip Smith, I abhor the crimes he committed over twenty years ago, but I do commend his belated efforts to right the wrongs his fellow prisoners are suffering.

He has sent an affadavit of 23.11.2016. and Statement of Claim which he has filed in the High Court about this matter. Corrections have responded by attempting to have his actions struck out. I think there’s a good chance he will be successful.

Arthur Taylor is TDB’s Prisoner Rights Blogger and is currently inside Paremoremo prison.

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The war machine rolls on while children beg for blankets

By

Christine Rose

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November 26, 2016

6

Have you thought about the children of Syria lately? Is it ‘so last season’s war’, a normal state of affairs, background in the news as a change from more current, closer crises? Do the battles of Homs and Mosul, the Kurdish Peshmergers and the ‘Coalition’, sound slightly theoretically and strategically intriguing, like chess, or ‘Risk’, using someone else’s real life army and someone else’s real life country as the playing ground? Are you like me, and feel desperate and helpless in the face of such unjust and overwhelming suffering.

It’s almost winter now in the Middle East and there’s snow on the ground of the refugee camps, ‘home’ to millions of displaced refugees. Unicef warns of floods, disease, cold as low as -5 degrees. And despite tribalist onslaught from the very best weaponry America and Russia have to offer, “local resistance is proving more fierce than expected”. Hundreds of thousands of sorties, bombs, missiles, drone strikes and supported ground force attacks have not stopped ISIS, but must leave the locals wondering who the attackers and who the enemies are.

In some cities, like Aleppo, there are no hospitals left unbombed, there’s no access to food or medicine. Conditions have gone from “terrible, to terrifying, to barely survivable”. Indeed, many civilians and their civilisations do not survive. But still, media images show kids riding their bikes among the dust of passing armoured vehicles, families skirting bombed buildings. Other shots show bloodied and dusty children, stunned with shell shock.

On the one hand, American forces say they’re going to “eliminate” ISIS, whose forces are trapped in Mosul facing a ‘last bloody stand’. But just when you thought no resistance could face the relentless bombardment from Russia and America and their allies, coalition forces say the ongoing battle against ISIS, for territory and for supremacy, won’t be easy. Despite the hyped promises of quick and decisive battles to wipe out IS once and for all, coalition leaders warn defeat of IS in Mosul won’t end the war. There will always be another ISIS enclave, another target, another city, another country, or cell.

Syria in particular looks like the site of just another proxy war, a stand-off between the old arch rivals America and Russia, but in the Middle East, again expediently using other countries’ ground troops and American weaponry ensuring as few coffins as possible, go home draped in the old stars and stripes.

So while the war machine white-washed its prime purpose here in New Zealand last week, by lending some of its significant resources to help in Kaikoura after the earthquakes, we’re right to note, and stand against, the role played by the world’s militaries, in killing innocent civilians, of creating huge unrest, environmental damage, of taking resources away from more worthy causes like education and health. Everyone who stood up for peace in Auckland last week during the arms expo and military celebrations, confronted the hypocrisy of militarised states, the immorality that is nation and international system as war machine.

Unicef is running a campaign with Gareth Morgan as ambassador, to raise funds for Syrian war victims and refugees. The campaign notes that the innocents displaced by the world’s most powerful and militant countries, “have gone through years of fighting, of fighting for survival”, and now they’re “fighting to keep warm” as winter sets in. These are people who have lost everything – their homes, their land, their possessions, their livelihoods, family members and friends. The refugee camps might exist for years. Their urban homelands are often almost completely destroyed.
There are more than 2.5 million vulnerable children, victims of someone else’s war. But for $20 you can buy three thermal blankets for refugees, and Jo and Gareth Morgan will match your donation. Elsewhere on the internet, for those victims of conflict and poverty in other parts of Africa, you can buy a goat, a well, chickens, girls’ schooling, flushing toilets, solar energy and more.

So good citizens will remember Syrian children, Iraqi families, refugees, the besieged. We might even make a donation of $20 here or $50 there for blankets or wells or seeds. Generally we’ll be occupied with our day to day existence, shocked by Kaikoura, thinking about summer. But the war pigs will continue their savagery. They’ll use improvised bombs, weaponry from conventional industrialists who are also arms manufacturers and who were assembled in Auckland last week, chemical weapons, and bombardment as weapon of mass destruction of homes and antiquities.
Across the world, almost $1,700 billion dollars is spent on war every year, but hey brother can you spare $20 to buy some blankets for refugee children, victims of war, facing sub-zero cold in a tent?

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Government decision a welcome step towards equal pay for women – E tu

By

The Daily Blog

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November 26, 2016

0

The union that won the historic equal pay case has welcomed the government’s decision to implement the pay equity principles agreed by employers and unions.

E tū took the case on behalf of Kristine Bartlett against rest home, Terranova Ltd.

The Joint Working Group set up in the wake of the case delivered its principles for implementing pay equity for women to cabinet in June.

E tū’s Assistant National Secretary, John Ryall says it’s taken six months for the government to accept the Group’s recommendations, with the reservation regarding its preference for establishing comparators to guide claims.

But he says, “I think this is a good step forward despite the concern over the comparators.

“There was consensus on the Joint Working Group’s report which opens up the process for women in female-dominated workforces to progress equal pay claims.”

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Vigorous community campaign will fight state house sales in Christchurch

By

John Minto

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November 26, 2016

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The government’s intention to sell up to 2,500 state houses in Christchurch can expect to be met with a vigorous community campaign to stop the sales.

There is a desperate housing shortage in Christchurch so it’s not enough to grimace and accept another savage blow to this community by the National government. We can analyse their policies to death but unless we are prepared to act against them then we are complicit with them.

This policy is designed to continue the biggest privatisation of state assets ever undertaken in New Zealand – our $18 billion of state houses.

It is deceitful for Minister of State Housing Bill English to claim that one in five Housing New Zealand properties in Christchurch are “under-utilised.”

We have families living in sandhills, parks, cars and under bridges across the city.

There is a huge demand for state housing which the government is walking away from.

It is similarly deceitful for Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett to say the sale of state houses in Christchurch will “improve the quality of service to tenants”

I have read the sale/purchase contract between IHC (through its subsidiary Accessible Housing) and the government for the 1124 state house the government wants to sell in Tauranga and nowhere is there any requirement for better services for tenants.

Bennett’s statement is a public relations lie to appease a public deeply concerned about the housing crisis.

In taking on the people of Christchurch the government will find it has taken on more than it can chew. Our community will reject this policy and we will campaign to defeat it.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

TDB November Contributions drive – please donate if you believe we need a counter media

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The Daily Blog

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November 26, 2016

1

Comrades, it’s that time of the month when we put out our begging bowl and ask you our dear readers to contribute cash if you believe the NZ media landscape desperately needs a counter voice. This project of a blog takes up an immense amount of time and it costs us to bring it to you.

Putting together exclusive left wing/progressive live streamed content every month and co-ordinating 40 of the best progressive voices each month don’t come cheap. The Daily Blog is one of the largest left wing blogs in NZ and with the dire state the mainstream media finds itself in, these few platforms left to fight back at the Government, media elites and corporate power are more essential than ever before.

If you are in a position to contribute financially, this week is our last days of the November donations drive – please do so here. If you want to help us but can’t do so financially, please retweet and share all our work on social media.

In solidarity.

TDB Team

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Dr Anna Neistat: Fighting bad guys on the frontline – Amnesty International

By

The Daily Blog

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November 26, 2016

1

She has crossed borders under cover of darkness, been in car chases with militants and interrogated by corrupt armed forces. While some lawyers go to “battle” in the courtroom and the boardroom, Anna goes to battle — literally — the kind with bullets, drones and rockets.

Dr Anna Neistat leads Amnesty International’s research worldwide.

She is visiting New Zealand from 28 November – 2 December.

Anna has conducted over 60 investigations in conflict areas around the world including Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Chechnya and China. She also starred in the award-winning documentary E-Team which follows her and her husband as they dodge airstrikes in war-torn Syria, collecting evidence of human rights abuses to hold those whose who violate international law to account.

Recently Anna gained access to Australia’s offshore detention centre on Nauru, documenting human rights abuses for the Amnesty International report ‘Island of Despair’.

Anna’s New Zealand visit includes a series of sold-out public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, as well as meetings with the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Human Rights Parliamentary Network, and a range of high-level meetings with MPs.
She will discuss human rights issues, including Australia’s offshore detention policies, and New Zealand’s role as a champion of human rights.

Anna will be in Auckland 28 and 29 November, Wellington on 30 November and 1 December and in Christchurch on Friday 2 December.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

System protects corporate thieves, cheats, and killers

By

Mike Treen

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November 25, 2016

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This week has seen a relentless series of stories of corporate malfeasance.

Pumpkin Patch has shut up shop with the loss of hundreds of jobs and is refusing to pay its workers in New Zealand the redundancy pay they owe them by hiding behind a corporate structure that pretends that there were different companies involved when they all have the same ultimate owners.

“It’s really just a technicality that Pumpkin Patch Limited don’t own the stock, and its subsidiary, Pumpkin Patch Originals Ltd do,” First Union organiser Lisa Meto Fox told the November 24 NZ Herald. “They’re a wholly-owned subsidiary, the same directors and the same business,” she said.

This week we also learnt that as at October 13, 42 workers had been killed on the job (excluding maritme, aviation and road deaths). That is only one less that 2015 with two and a half months still to go. The government made a big deal of changing the law after the Pike river disaster with the claim that it would make us safer but it hasn’t. Agriculture was deemed not a high-risk sector and excluded from the requirement to have elected health and safety representatives.

I’m also convinced that the government is assisting the company’s refusal to reopen Pike River mine because they don’t want the truth about the corporate murder of 29 miners that occurred to be revealed.

Earlier this year Dick Smith was driven into receivership with the loss of 3000 jobs across Australia and New Zealand. It seems like a case of corporate fraud on a grand scale. A group of private equity investors buy the company for $20 million, inflate the value of the company artificially through stock manipulation, float it for $575 million, then walk away to watch it collapse with $370 million in debt. In New Zealand, no government agency or court has even bothered to ask any questions as to how and why that occurred. Forager Funds Management analyst Matt Ryan dubbed it “one of the great heists of all time“.

This week we had the embarrassing spectacle of our Prime Minister politely suggesting to the Facebook CEO that it would be good for their corporate PR if they paid some tax. Major companies treat tax as a voluntary activity and can usually design their affairs to avoid paying.

A NZ Herald investigation in March this year found “the 20 multinational companies most aggressive in shifting profits out of New Zealand overall paid virtually no income tax, despite recording nearly $10 billion in annual sales to Kiwi consumers.

“The analysis of financial information of more than 100 multinational corporations and their New Zealand subsidiaries showed that had the New Zealand branches of these 20 firms reported profits at the same healthy rate as their parents, their combined income tax bill would have been nearly $490 million.”

It would be very easy to simply pass a law that applied to these companies and made them pay tax like everyone else!

Rich individual act exactly the same. An IRD investigation in 2013 found that “Two-thirds of New Zealand’s richest people are not paying the top personal tax rate, with increasingly complex overseas schemes and bank accounts being used to evade the taxman. Inland Revenue has found that 107 out of 161 “high-wealth individuals” who own or control more than $50 million worth of assets declared their personal income in the last financial year was less than $70,000 – the starting point for the top tax bracket of 33 cents in the dollar.

The government and IRD seem to get very brave when persecuting some small business person who falls on hard times but run away from a fight with the real big boys who dodge taxes.

The NZ Herald reported October 22 that the government abandoned promised action to close on of the big loopholes used to avoid tax liabilities. Often companies load their business up with debt which may come from related parties in the same business group. Interest costs are deductable as an operation expense so headline profits are minimised and no tax needs to be paid. This is a tool used by private equity companies who may use little cash of their own but through loading the company massively with debt they can use debt to take control.

The greedy banks that finance these operations in the hope of big returns can sometimes get burnt as well. But usually, it is the workers and small shareholders who are left carrying the can. This tax dodge is such a scam that even the corporate friendly OECD group of countries agreed in 2015 to recommend the activity have limitations put in place. But along with action against tax havens promised after the scandals associated with the Panama Papers which have also been quietly shelved.

Actions by the owners of some schools in the so-called education export sector appear to be simply criminal in nature.

Students have been enticed into the country, paying high fees for dubious courses in the hope of being offered work and a road to citizenship eventually. The students were being ripped off by the schools and often by employers when working part-time jobs as well.

One of these schools International Academy of New Zealand (IANZ) was reported by teachers whistleblowers early in 2014 and again last year but were allowed to continue to operate what was essentially a criminal enterprise. One of the owners of the school tried to sell his home last week for over a million dollars and plans to relocate to Australia with his spoils. The husband of another school owner had previously been convicted of abusing and exploiting migrant workers elsewhere in New Zealand but was employed as marketing manager by the school. Schools have to make statutory declarations that the owners and senior staff are fit and proper people. A google search would have revealed the opposite.

When more teachers came forward earlier this year and the school was being investigated more thoroughly they simply wound up, abandoning their students and staff. Some students English language qualifications, attested to by the school, were simply fraudulent and the students face being deported as a consequence.

Business owners have different rules applied to them when they break the rules compared to working people. A solo mum whose boyfriend stays a few too many nights will get hounded out of benefit and prosecuted and jailed as a consequence. A worker who eats a bit of product at a BK will be sacked instantly. Workers are taxed to death because we have to pay our taxes before we even see our pay. And we get gouged for fees by privatised companies and service providers that used to be a right or free service. Even getting a drivers licence has been turned into a profit-driven enterprise with huge failure rates being imposed so our young drivers are forced to sit and resit the test for high fees.

State agencies can routinely and systematically deny people access to ACC, welfare benefits, and child disability allowances and yet, for them, there are no consequences. Major companies like Talleys’ can routinely ignore the law around workers rights to union representation and the penalties imposed are token. Going to work in a Talley’s owned plant seems to be a health and safety risk in itself.

The only way we can turn this reality around is we have a government that takes our side as strongly as the bosses and their parties defend their interests when in government. I am not seeing that yet from Labour and the Greens.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

TDB Top 5 International Stories: Friday 25th November 2016

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The Daily Blog

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November 25, 2016

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5: Who Exactly Are the ‘Elites’ Rich Populist Politicians Are Complaining About?

We hear dozens of bullshit political buzzwords in the media every day. Boots on the ground, wedge, unify, patriot, extremism, grassroots. Politicians and pundits use them so often it’s easy to not even notice just how often we hear them.

“Elites,” is a recent favourite of populist candidates. On the right, Donald Trump used it, Rob Ford used it, Brexit leader Nigel Farage used it, and on the left, Bernie Sanders used it. Now Kellie Leitch, the alleged frontrunner for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, seems to use it more than almost any other word. When two prominent Conservatives withdrew their endorsements of her citing their concerns about her controversial immigration policies, she wrote them off as “party elites.”

It’s been pointed out that Leitch—and most politicians who use the war on the elites as a campaign strategy—isn’t exactly disenfranchised. Leitch was a paediatric surgeon (translation: rich person) at Toronto’s SickKids Hospital before she became a Member of Parliament for Simcoe-Grey in the Muskoka region of Ontario.

She had more explaining to do when a Postmedia report revealed there was a $500-a-plate campaign fundraiser for her set up by downtown lawyers in Toronto. When she was questioned on CTV’s Question Period about having such an expensive event while campaigning against elites, she said working hard and having “an elite education,” doesn’t necessarily make someone part of the “elite” she refers to.

So who exactly is an “elite” these days? VICE spoke with some experts to find out.

Vice News

4: Trump CIA Pick Mike Pompeo Depicted War on Terror as Islamic Battle Against Christianity

MIKE POMPEO, DONALD Trump’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, has at times depicted the fight against terrorism as a war between radical Muslims, on one side, and the Christian faith on the other.

“This threat to America,” Pompeo told a church group in Wichita in 2014, is from a minority of Muslims “who deeply believe that Islam is the way and the light and the only answer.”

“They abhor Christians,” Pompeo said, “and will continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world.”

At an event last year sponsored by the Westminster Institute, a Virginia-based think tank, an audience member asked why President Obama wants Iran “to win,” and whether such sympathies came from “new leftism or socialism or pro-Muslim” ideas.

Pompeo didn’t reject the idea. He said he had “made a commitment to my wife that I would stop trying to get into Barack Obama’s head. You know, to reduce our psychiatric care bill.” Still talking about Obama, Pompeo said that “just as with any leader, their intentions and motivations are very important to understand. Right? It requires you to apply a rational approach to thinking about this and I for the life of me cannot come up with a rational approach for him.”

The Intercept

3: Obama administration rushes to protect public lands before Trump takes office

Barack Obama’s administration is rushing through conservation safeguards for large areas of public land ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House, presenting a conundrum for the new president’s goal of opening up more places for oil and gas drilling.

On Monday, the US Department of the Interior banned gold mining on 30,000 acres of land near the northern entrance of Yellowstone national park. This follows announcements last week that barred drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska and a brokered settlement that cancelled 32,000 acres of mining leases on Montana land considered by the Blackfeet tribe as “like a church, a divine sanctuary”.

The Guardian

2: Arab-Kurd tensions simmer in shadow of Mosul campaign

The Kurdistan Regional Government has changed course, declaring its commitment to Baghdad to retreat from territory that Kurdish forces have taken from ISIL.

On November 16, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, said in a press conference that his soldiers would not retreat from the land “liberated with their blood” from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant group, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

“There will be no negotiations about the territories liberated by Peshmerga before the Mosul offensive,” Barzani declared. “This is a new chapter. ISIS is on the path to defeat. Peshmerga shed their blood to free Kurdistan’s land and end the suffering of our people.”

But the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, later retracted Barazani remarks, saying that his comments, originally made in Kurdish, were taken out of context and “mistranslated”.

Aljazeera

1: Standing Rock Special: Historian Says Dakota Access Co. Attack Came on Anniv. of Whitestone Massacre

While reporting from the standoff at Standing Rock in September, Democracy Now! sat down with Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard to speak about another attack against her tribe—this one on the same day 153 years before. On September 3, 1863, the U.S. Army massacred more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in what became known as the Whitestone massacre. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is not only the tribal historian, she’s also one of the founders of the Sacred Stone Camp, launched on her land April 1, 2016, to resist the Dakota Access pipeline.

Democracy Now

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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday 25th November 2016

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The Daily Blog

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November 25, 2016

3

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

TDB SPECIAL: 1 year out from 2017 election – the Political Parties

By

Martyn Bradbury

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November 24, 2016

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With just 12 months until the 2017 election, where are we at and where will we be going into the 2017 election?

OVERVIEW:

The National Party of NZ still holds an unprecedented lead in the polls. No other political party in modern history has ever enjoyed so much support, but like the 2014 and 2011 election before that, the tipping points are deceptively close and no one can guarantee National a fourth term. The Opposition need to rally their bases, pull in some of the missing million AND win over National voters. It won’t be easy, but this election will be held in the shadow of populist anger sweeping Trump and Brexit to power, so anything is possible.

POLITICAL PARTIES:

National: John Key remains the smiling assassin who has won over NZ with his laid back anti-intellectual casualness that calms Kiwis. He can say black is white and white is black because information overloaded voters don’t feel he’s looking down on them.

Strengths: John Key remains National’s main selling point, without him National are the same self interested bunch of born to rule rich pricks they’ve always been.

Weaknesses: After mass surveillance lies and dirty politics, voters are giving Key the green light to do what he likes to stay in power as long as their inflated property bubble illusion of wealth is allowed to keep growing. The second it pops watch people turn on National with vengeance. National has a real challenge in the provinces from NZ First playing off the lack of investment and from the urban educated voters who will be lured by Gareth Morgan’s promise of solution based policy.

Labour: If Labour want to be the backbone of the next Government they need to be in the early 30s and the only way they are going to do that is play to their strengths in Auckland. A huge 2 tick campaign has to be pushed in Auckland and no Labour Party MP should be saying anything other than ‘Houses for first time buyers, 6 months parental leave and Living Wage’. Labour’s greatest support is from working people, women, Pacific Island and Maori voters and first time affordable homes, a living wage and better parental leave are the issues that those voters can immediately identify with and budget weekly. Those are tangible benefits in their every day life.

Strengths: Matt McCarton running Auckland is going to be Labour’s best chance to turn Auckland into their fortress and there is a huge Pacific Island vote that is looking for real expression.

Weaknesses:Labour’s conceit to try and be a nationwide Party will still see it waste resources in the provinces that won’t vote for them. Labour’s future is urban, younger, browner and far more female, if those groups help win Auckland for Labour, they will want real voice and not more tokenism. Matt Mccarton should be on the phone to Efeso Collins right now.

Greens: The Greens have put together one of the best candidate pools of any Political Party in the country. Chloe Swarbrick, Sam Taylor and Leilani Tamu are all bright new political stars and it shows the Greens have dived deeply into a new wave of millennial activists who are hungry and passionate to be heard so expect a real turn out in younger voters there. Barry Coates and Marama Davidson are beloved by the activist community and deeply trusted. The danger for the Greens this time around is from Gareth Morgan. The Greens have had to go to the centre on environmentalism to not spook the vested interests of Dairy, Morgan doesn’t give a toss about upsetting those interests and he will probably have a far more radical green policy than the Greens. . They will bleed votes to his Party but they will pick up younger blood. They would be happy with 12.5% in 2017.

Strengths: Young, far more tech savvy than Labour and more likely to benefit most from social media.

Weaknesses: The Greens are shit at selling the sizzle, and seeing as their sausage is a vegan patti, they really have to lift their game on comms and strategy because it’s been pretty woeful to date. This will be even more difficult if Morgan is brandishing a more radical climate change platform. Water down the policy wonk and increase the feelings-o-meter.

NZ First: Winston wants to be the King maker and feels he can replicate the attack on National’s home front the way he did with Northland. The anger from the productive sectors of the economy who aren’t seeing the re-investment in local infrastructure has breached boiling point and National MPs are feeling the heat.

Strengths:Winston will use the Superfund to invest directly into the infrastructure so his promises will carry the promise of reality. These are the National voters who will turn against National so NZ First will advance not to Labour’s loss but to National’s.

Weaknesses:The Party internally is riven by political rivalry and jockeying for position post Winston. At some point the forces within the Party that dumped Tracey Martin as Deputy will challenge Winston on his Leadership.

Maori Party: As TDB predicted, the Maori Party and MANA Movement are going to work together in the Maori electorates. This has every opportunity to create a number of interesting MMP ramifications. If the Maori Party win 6 electorate seats but little Party vote they could create an overhang in Parliament and if MANA brings in 1.4% along with Hone’s seat, he brings in a second MP. Losing so many electorates for Labour would also mean that they would bring those MPs in off the Labour Party list.

Strengths:Tukoroirangi Morgan and Marama Fox have proven to be incredible assets to date. Morgan has been a far more savvy and smart political strategist than anyone could have guessed and Fox has brought genuine admiration for her Leadership.

Weaknesses:The problem the Maori Party have is bridges with which to get to NZ First and Labour, this is why they desperately need a candidate like Willie Jackson to stand for them in the Maori Auckland electorate. If he stands it will create a hype that swamps Labour while ensuring the ability to work with Labour and NZ First afterwards.

ACT: I won’t mention him by name because when you do a fairy somewhere has a stroke, but God he’s awful. He’ll win because the Stormtrooper’s of Epsom want it. ACTs Party vote will remain limp and National could lose so many seats his plus one won’t make a difference. Ugh. I’ve thrown up a bit in my mouth just having to think about him. He’s like an unblinking lizard about to feed.

Strengths: Shapeshifting and the ability to drink own bodyweight in blood.

Weaknesses:Lack of all basic human empathy, (although he sees this as an incredible strength).

United: I think that it was despicable that Peter Dunne made Helen Kelly a criminal by denying her medicinal cannabis. That is a disgrace he should never be allowed to live down, alongside his vote to allow mass surveillance (after being a victim of it himself) and stopping the feeding the kids Bill. This bow-tied arsehole is in desperate need of wiping. His electorate has more civil servants than any other electorate, let’s hope they do the right thing by Helen Kelly and vote this miserable old goat out of Office. I want people in his electorate to walk around with signs reading ‘Remember Helen Kelly when you vote’. She deserved better than he gave her and he deserves the political consequences of such petty spite. He could have been empathetic to Helen’s condition, and he wasn’t. Screw him.

Strengths: Nice bowtie.

Weaknesses:Has the same hair as Donald Trump

PARTY WILD CARDS:

The Opportunity Party: Gareth’s solution based policy will actually come across far more radical than Labour or the Greens policy platforms. Morgan has spent a huge time educating and learning about challenges like Universal Basic Income, affordable housing, climate change and pollution. He will appeal to urban males who default vote to National because they feel no welcome from Labour or the Greens. That on its own is enough to peel voters off National, Greens and bring some of the disconnected million voters who don’t vote because of the poor choices on offer by the two major parties to give him 5%. But Morgan could ignite a populist move against the neoliberal welfare State while selling the UBI to those beneficiaries who currently live in terror of WINZ, Housing NZ, MoD, CYFs, Probations, Corrections etc etc etc. Morgan will be our anti-establishment candidate and he has a real chance to do something unique here.

MANA Movement:If Hone can beat Kelvin and with the Maori Party directing their voters to support Hone, MANA could win an electorate and bring in one more MP off their Party list. Annette Sykes could yet be an MP.

The Conservative Party: The interesting thing about the defamation case between Colin Craig and Jordan Williams that the media haven’t picked up on yet is that the Judge has still not accepted and entered the Jury decision and it is within her power to actually over turn the ruling if she thinks the Jury got it wrong. Compare the actual evidence with the version the media ran with and the decision the Jury ultimately came up with and the result bore little resemblance to he evidence. With a decision still pending on that, Colin takes his defamation cases against Stringer and Slater next year. If Craig can win legally he could still stand and the Conservatives could take even more votes off National.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Why we shouldn’t gag Brian Tamaki, Anwar Sahib or the slightly racist guy who looks like Santa

By

Martyn Bradbury

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November 24, 2016

17

Slightly racist guy who looks like Santa

Did it just get chilly in here?

What’s with the sudden yanking on the free speech leash?

Brian Tamaki, Anwar Sahib and the slightly racist guy who looks like Santa shouldn’t be gagged or prosecuted, they should be countered, argued with and contextualised. Society is divisive enough without pouring petrol onto it.

None of these three are even close to what the fuck is happening in America right now with the Alt-Right, they are giving fascist salutes and yelling ‘Heil Trump’.

When we get to that stage we can start screaming racist nazi.

Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with all of these 3 men (well what the Guy who looks like Santa said about white people was pretty true) but when you look at what they’ve actually said, the knee-jerk against them looks more like liberal elitism overkill that only serves to alienate.

The case for Brian: The thing most have missed about Brian’s ridiculous claims that God sent earthquakes to punish us for our homosexual wickedness is that he made this brain fart before the earthquake had even happened. So he wasn’t reacting to the earthquake, he was just entertaining his fanatical and highly taxed congregation. He can’t be taken seriously because what he’s had to say is such a joke. But we live in a free country where if people want to give a large chunk of their pay cheque to a clown like Brian they can and a clown like Brian is allowed to blow whatever bullshit smoke up their arses. He’s a waste of time and building him up as more than the charlatan he actually is only increases the persecution mentality of his Stockholm syndrome followers

The case for Anwar Sahib: What’s so controversial about claiming Jews and Christians are the enemies of Muslims? Turn on the bloody news! Palestine is under a brutal occupation by Israel, Iraq is reeling from the Wests illegal invasion for WMDs that didn’t exist and if we cared would we really stand by and watch Syria rip itself to pieces? How this has been elevated to anti-semitism is bloody farcical. His sexist views on women? Yes, they are sexist, they sound about as sexist as the Exclusive Brethren, but we aren’t threatening to close the Brethren down any time soon are we?

The case for the Guy who looks like Santa: And what about this guy?

The Government has sacked a member of a marine protection forum over an “offensive” newsletter detailing the history of New Zealand’s fishing regulations.

Nelson Cross, a retired engineer from Balclutha, poked fun at a number of groups in the newsletter, but in particular Maori, claiming they exterminated and ate the original inhabitants of New Zealand before discovering “KFC and the TAB and the joys of sedentary living while on a benefit” once Europeans arrived.

…yep, your usual garden variety racism told with chuckles and dumbness, however he redeemed himself with this description of white people…

Early contact with European settlers (who Cross described as “mainly drunkards, womanisers, layabouts, escaped convicts and ratbags of the first order”)

…pretty much on the ball with that description to be fair. He should have added ‘land stealing, treaty dishonouring, culturally genocidal white volk’ for good measure. But all in all your usual South Islander.

Again, I disagree with all three of these people. Brian’s understanding of basic geology is ridiculous and if God wanted to smite NZ for Gay sex wouldn’t he destroy Ponsonby? Sahib’s right about Christians and Jews not liking Muslims much but as backwards as the Exclusive Brethren when it comes to gender equality and the Guy who looks like Santa was your usual garden variety drunk racist Uncle you put up with every Christmas.

Hardly neo-Nazi-esk are they?

The desire to shut down people and demand they be silent is a pretty dangerous way to delegitimise a Democracy. When people feel they have no voice, they vote like they did in Brexit and with Trump.

Let’s out true racists and sexists and bigots, picking on easy targets distracts us from the far bigger issues we are being confronted by in Society.

There is enough hate and fear, let’s not add to it by martyring such flawed vessels as Tamaki, Sahib and Guy who looks like Santa. That allows the true racist, sexist and bigoted systems of power to go unscrutinised.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

EXCLUSIVE: Whaleoil & Wahhabism — a perfect marriage

By

The Daily Blog

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November 24, 2016

27

SUN0555924153 — Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater is interviewed by Jonathan Milne for an Insight feature. 18th February 2014 Herald on Sunday photograph by Doug Sherring WGP 24Jun14 - WAG 24Jun14 - RGP 24Jun14 - BTG 24Jun14 - HBG 24Jun14 - NAG 24Jun14 -

By Cotton socks*

Anwar Sahib is well known to the community. It is well known that the Wahhabi cleric operates in his own little operation in Manukau where has been for many years now.

Sahib is a senior Wahhabi cleric in terms of years studied in Saudi Arabia. The rule of thumb is the longer and stronger the connection to Wahhabist institutions like Madinah University, which effectively teaches that the rest of the Muslims have the wrong belief, the more concerning it is.

Sahib was a longstanding Imam at Hamilton Mosque, where much of the FIANZ Executive has long been based.

He is of Indo-Fijian background. Fiji is hardly known for its Wahhabist element, but due to Saudi dollars, this ideology has reached the far corners of the globe, typically through printed materials, as well as like in Anwar’s case, a scholarship to Saudi Arabia.

Sahib has presented as an educated, committed dedicated servant of the Muslim community. He attracts youth, converts, and elderly alike. He is fluent in Arabic, Urdu and English and thus gives lectures passionately in all three languages.

Apart from its deviant theology and its colonial origins, the Wahhabi style is also quite evangelical, and this means that no one will have to look far to find out what he is saying. That may be of much relief to anyone concerned about the content of what is being preached.

Its another reminder that intelligence agencies are somewhat redundant; the Wahhabist concerns to any community are very obvious to the average Jamal. They don’t need to plunder away at civil liberties to know who needs to be spoken to. A simple alliance with mainstream scholars will largely do the trick of suffocating out Wahhabist threats from communities.

Sahib is well grounded in the community and is of Indo-Fijian background and has strong connections to Fiji and New Zealand. These connections are a protection against his Wahhabism containing the kind of violent extremism that would be of concern to anyone.

He is simply a very strong, very localised mouthpiece for the Wahhabi movement.

However, in this globalised and complex world, the mere propagation of Wahhabist Islam is in itself problematic, because of where such people can end up once attracted to this extreme literalist sect.

It is also well known that the vast majority of clerics in NZ are from Indian background, typically due to Mosque leaders who recruited clerics of similar background (and in cases, the same village) as their own. These Indian clerics remain under the thumb of their indian, secularised, colonially trained masters.

These clerics have, labouring under this enslavement failed to rid this a distinctly Wahhabist element from their midst, which of course was their religious duty. They failed to preserve the mainstream moderate community from this extremist element.

It is also a reminder that religious clerics don’t run the show. The more secular FIANZ executive has failed to ensure that the mainstream body it represents was free of Wahhabist interference in the affairs of Muslims. It is well known that this sect has its own agenda — which it must necessarily have, given its founding belief that the rest of the Muslims are deviant, and their founding murder of countless Muslims in the advent of the modern Saudi Arabia, created of course by yet another British colonial project.

Neither do the Wahhabis honour the centuries of Islamic scholarship nor therefore do they honour the community’s mainstream scholars, let alone their clerics.

That no Muslim raised the alarm bell confirms nothing new: mainstream Muslims don’t watch his videos, and his own community wont question him.

Responsibility for this disaster lies then with the Muslim community’s religious elite, FIANZ’s religious advisory, and the FIANZ executive, albeit that the present personnel may have simply inherited longstanding circumstances which they’ve felt unable to change.

The revelation of Anwar’s lectures could not have come from a more abhorrent section of the community than Whaleoil. Safety of vulnerable minority groups is not an apparently an objective of this Whaleoil (nor it is always, of the Human Rights Commission). On the contrary, anything that may taint those they remain ignorant of (more than most) is.

Whaleoil, like Wahhabism, is another whose motives are hardly subtle. Desperate, short-term, intellectually dubious political motives are a common thread of both. Ironic that the far right extremists of politics has exposed the far right extremists of political Islamists.

But there’s no need to go into their antics and motivations here. Plenty of other blog posts have done a decent job of that.

Just that the Muslim community has this most unlikely of blog to thank for making it easier for FIANZ and the mainstream Muslim community to rid this element of its ranks.

Apparently the footage was passed by them to another blog Shalom.Kiwi. Well, again, not a forum that many will have warm and fuzzy memories of; it is hardly a place for the vulnerable if the vulnerability you happen to be interested in is for example, the ongoing human rights violations of Palestinian people.

The virulent racism and abuse that you will cop if you happen to raise the issue of that ever-expanding illegal state of Israel, is not something that will give you feelings of reassurance of safety from racism or abuse. Like Sahib’s videos, the internet has all the evidence.

Of course, we do not expect the Human Rights Commissioner to have anything to say about the ability to have discourse regarding Palestinans under Israel, West Papuans under Indonesia, or Rohingyans under Myanmar.

If the Human Rights Commission could not say a word when Police intimidated Maori women of faith at a prayer in Mission Bay, then we know what to expect from the Human Rights Commission.

There remains for the man himself — and indeed his own executive in Manukau — to consider the aberrant basis of the movement that betrays his Sunni community, and probably own family members who would never have subscribed to the political version of Islam he returned with when they sent him off as a young man to the holy land.

Perhaps Whaleoil and the Wahhabis could get together for an end of year do. They may even want to invite Brian Tamaki and have a bigot bonanza of sorts.

Speaking of gatherings, next week, executives of FIANZ and Dame Susan get together. Apparently Susan will lecture faith communities on racism…!! Can one expect safe discussion of Palestine, or Police behaviour last, to be part of her lecture to faith communities?

The Human Rights Commission is actually in a good position to assist the Muslim community towards strengthening itself mainstream moderate tradition. Currently the reason why Salafi clerics attract youth is because mosque executives and their enslaved clerics do not offer what Islam promised: positive action. Everyone, including Chrisitians are frustrated with churches who offer only passive faith without positive action to e.g. assist the poor, feed the homeless or help their youth out of drugs and into positive programs.

Until the mosques and executives offer a positive, Islamic Kiwi community to its people, Salafis will continue to steal our youth with their excellent organisation of youth camps, sports and humanitarian activities.

What will happen now at the Wahhabi mosque?

The community will rally around their leader. Just as Brian Tamaki’s has.

Wahhabis and their sympathetic colleagues that are the Salafis (the wider more theological term for the literalist thread that Saudi oil dollars have had politically penetrate virtually every community in the world) have some questions to ask themselves.

Why does such a senior (and well-spoken scholar have something so wrong to say?

Why has he no clue, despite being a Fijian-Indian well-rooted in this country and the Pacific, about what the teachings of his religion? Teachings that have been peacefully taught and manifested in hundreds of years of peace with Christians and Jews alike. Why does he have no ability to teach according to where he is finds himself, even though Islamic scholars have a long legacy of adapting to different cultures resulting in those very cultures embracing Islam — such as in South East Asia?

These are questions for his community to ponder.

Perhaps, if the Muslim community gets its house in order, the Wahhabi sect can be attracted back towards a positive, active Muslim community.

The responsibility for achieving this lies with leadership in the Muslim community as well as those who can support it in government and those who can occasionally cover some of the great positive stuff that DOES go on in the Muslim community.

Sahib’s statements about Jews and women are a reflection of Wahhabism being devoid of actual Islamic scholarship.

The treatment by any faith adherents of women or Jews is often in spite of what the faith has established, in order to advance a political cause, or simply the subordination of faith under personal egoistic causes antithetical to the fundamental understanding of the faith.

Does anyone doubt that the genocide of Rohingyans ( virtually ignored by all governments) is in spite of the Dalai Lama’s teachings.

As the FIANZ press release a few days ago said,, the norm of Islam at peace was to actually foster civilisational growth of others including Jews in Moorish Spain.

The only way such groups like the one Sahib and his followers are trapped have managed to survive is through their political convenience to Saudi cronies of the British and now the US. Those of us who know our colonial and capitalist history and reality respectively, know that all of this comes down to money — and the greed of the powerful for it.

*Cotton socks is a pseudonym to protect the identity of the writer.

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