When Iraqi troops attacked the Saudi border town of Khafji during the first Gulf War, Saudi soldiers fled in panic. Two French photographers and I watched frantic soldiers commandeering fire trucks and racing south. US Marines pushed the Iraqis back.

But in Riyadh, the press was told of our gallant Saudi allies defending their homeland. Once fighting ended, the press bus stopped a few miles down the road from Khafji. The pool reporters clambered out, escorted by military minders. They did stand-ups with the distant sound of artillery and smoke as a backdrop and repeated the lies the Pentagon wanted to tell.

Meanwhile, the two photographers and I were detained and beaten by enraged Saudi military police, furious that we had documented the panicked flight of Saudi forces, as we tried to leave Khafji.

My refusal to abide by press restrictions in the first Gulf War saw the other New York Times reporters in Saudi Arabia write a letter to the foreign editor saying I was ruining the paper’s relationship with the military. If not for the intervention of R.W. “Johnny” Apple, who had covered Vietnam, I would have been sent back to New York.

I do not fault anyone for not wanting to go into a war zone. This is a sign of normality. It is rational. It is understandable. Those of us who volunteer to go into combat — my colleague Clyde Haberman at The New York Times once quipped “Hedges will parachute into a war with or without a parachute” — have obvious personality defects.

Pretend war correspondents
But I fault those who pretend to be war correspondents. They do tremendous damage. They peddle false narratives. They mask reality. They serve as witting — or unwitting — propagandists. They discredit the voices of the victims and exonerate the killers.

When I covered the war in El Salvador, before I worked for The New York Times, the paper’s correspondent dutifully regurgitated whatever the embassy fed her. This had the effect of making my editors — as well as editors of the other correspondents who did report the war– question our veracity and “impartiality.”

It made it harder for readers to understand what was happening. The false narrative neutered and often overpowered the real one.

The slander used to discredit my Palestinian colleagues — claiming they are members of Hamas — is sadly familiar. Many Palestinian reporters I know in Gaza are, in fact, quite critical of Hamas. But even if they have ties with Hamas, so what?

Israel’s attempt to justify targeting journalists from the Hamas-run al-Aqsa media network is also a violation of Article 79 of the Geneva Convention.

I worked with reporters and photographers who had a wide variety of beliefs, including Marxist-Leninists in Central America. This did not prevent them from being honest. I was in Bosnia and Kosovo with a Spanish cameraman, Miguel Gil Moreno, who was later killed with my friend Kurt Schork.

Miguel was a member of the right-wing Catholic group Opus Dei. He was also a journalist of tremendous courage, great compassion and moral probity, despite his opinions about Spain’s fascist ruler Francisco Franco. He did not lie.

Seeking to crush
In every war I covered, I was attacked as supporting or belonging to whatever group the government, including the US government, was seeking to crush. I was accused of being a tool of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, Hamas, the Muslim-led government in Bosnia and the Kosovo Liberation Army.

John Simpson of the BBC, like many Western reporters, argues that the “world needs honest, unbiased eyewitness reporting to help people make up their minds about the major issues of our time. This has so far been impossible in Gaza.”

The assumption that if Western reporters were in Gaza the coverage would improve is risible. Trust me. It would not.

Israel bans the foreign press because there is a bias in Europe and the United States in favour of reporting by Western reporters. Israel is aware that the scale of the genocide is too vast for Western outlets to hide or obscure, despite all the ink and airtime they give to Israeli and US apologists.

Israel also cannot continue its systematic campaign of annihilation of journalists in Gaza if it has to contend with foreign media in its midst.

Israeli lies amplified by Western media outlets, including my former employer The New York Times, are worthy of Pravda. Beheaded babies. Babies cooked in ovens. Mass rape by Hamas. Errant Palestinian rockets that cause explosions at hospitals and massacre civilians. Secret command tunnels and command centers in schools and hospitals. Journalists who direct Hamas rocket units. Protesters of the genocide on college campuses who are antisemites and supporters of Hamas.

Israel ‘lies like it breathes’
I covered the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, much of that time in Gaza, for seven years. If there is one indisputable fact, it is that Israel lies like it breathes. The decision by Western reporters to give credibility to these lies, to give them the same weight as documented Israeli atrocities, is a cynical game.

The reporters know these lies are lies. But they, and the news outlets that employ them, prize access — in this case access to Israeli and US officials — above truth. The reporters, as well as their editors and publishers, fear becoming targets of Israel and the powerful Israel lobby.

There is no cost for betraying the Palestinians. They are powerless.

Call those lies out and you will swiftly find your requests for briefings and interviews with officials rebuffed. You won’t be invited by press officers to participate in staged visits to Israeli military units. You and your news organisation will be viciously attacked.

You will be left out in the cold. Your editors will terminate your assignment or your employment. This is not good for careers. And so, the lies are dutifully repeated, no matter how absurd.

It is pathetic watching these reporters and their news outlets, as Fisk writes, fight “like tigers to join these ‘pools’ in which they would be censored, restrained and deprived of all freedom of movement on the battlefield”.

When Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, along with Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, and freelancers Moaz Abu Taha, and Mariam Dagga — who had worked with several media outlets, including the Associated Press — were killed in a “double tap” strike — designed to kill first responders arriving to treat casualties from initial strikes — at Nasser Medical Complex, how did Western news agencies respond?

‘Hamas camera’
“Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted what it says was a Hamas camera,” the Associated Press reported.

“IDF claims hospital strike was aimed at Hamas camera,” announced CNN.

“Israel army says six ‘terrorists’ killed in Monday strikes on Gaza hospital,” the AFP headline read.

“Initial inquiry says Hamas camera was target of Israeli strike that killed journalists,” Reuters said.

“Israel claims troops saw Hamas camera before deadly hospital attack,” Sky News explained.

Just for the record, the camera belonged to Reuters, which said Israel was “fully aware” the news agency was filming from the hospital.

When Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and three other journalists were killed on August 10 in their media tent near al-Shifa Hospital, how was it reported in the Western press?

Pulitzer prize-winner
“Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist It Says Was Hamas Leader,” Reuters titled its story, despite the fact al-Sharif was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize.

The German newspaper Bild, published a front page story headlined: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.”

The barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press violates a fundamental tenet of journalism, the duty to transmit the truth to the viewer or reader.

It legitimizes mass slaughter. It refuses to hold Israel to account. It betrays Palestinian journalists, those reporting and being killed in Gaza. And it exposes the bankruptcy of Western journalists, whose primary attributes are careerism and cowardice.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report”. This article is republished from his X account.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The world’s most important hostage — must be released. The powerful Western countries have signalled that in the face of the genocide they may recognise the state of Palestine.

States need leaders. That’s why Marwan Barghouti – often dubbed the Palestinian Mandela — must be freed.

A former head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Ephraim Halevy, agrees with calls by leaders from across the Middle East for Barghouti’s release: “Barghouti is popular with his people, he has a clear position, he speaks Hebrew well and can negotiate; all of which qualifies him to lead a new path.

“We have to be creative in dealing with the future in the West Bank as well and the rest of the territories, as there are millions of Palestinians, and transferring two million Palestinians from Gaza is unrealistic,” Halevy told Middle East Monitor.

States need leaders
The UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a baker’s dozen of Western-aligned states have signalled they may finally join humanity and recognise the right of Palestine to exist as a state.

They are doing so at a moment when the physical existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine is in peril due to the US-Israeli genocide.

If this is not simply another hollow, performative gesture, real things must happen: first and foremost the lifting of the siege and the ending of the man-made famine.

Simultaneously, Palestine needs a credible leadership to negotiate its future. Why call for recognition of a state when hundreds of the top leadership of that future state are held in cruel captivity?

These hostages seldom receive any attention — in contrast to the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and other groups.

Who decides who represents Palestine?
In typical Western fashion the announcement of potentially recognising the Palestinian state comes with a swag of conditions — foremost that Hamas, the most popular movement in Palestine, the winner of the last free and fair elections in both the West Bank and Gaza, must not be part of any government.

OK, so, if the Palestinians bow to that condition, who will be the leaders of this state? Who has the standing with all the factions of the Palestinian polity?

Marwan Barghouti could be such a man. The geriatric and thoroughly discredited Mahmoud Abbas, unelected leader of the Palestinian Authority, is largely seen as a tool of the US and Israel.

More than 90 percent of Palestinians want him gone. In contrast, Barghouti is a revered figure, respected by all Palestinian organisations. He consistently polls as the most popular leader.

The Israelis have murdered many of the Palestinian leaders (along with targeted assassinations of hundreds of writers, professors, lawyers, doctors and other people crucial to state-building). They even killed the lead negotiator in the hostage release process.

It is vital that the West ensures Barghouti is protected from further mistreatment. It is also worth dismissing the lie that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with; Barghouti has the will and the attributes.

The blockage is actually Western complicity in ethnic cleansing, land stealing and the overall Greater Israel Project.

Barghouti: the most important political prisoner
During the past 23 years in Israeli prisons Barghouti has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken, as documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian — a symbol of his people’s “legendary steadfastness” and determination to win freedom from occupation.

As I wrote in 2024:

“Barghouti, the terrorist, rotting in jail. Barghouti, the indomitable leader who has not given up on peace. Barghouti, loved by ordinary people as ‘a man of the street’. Barghouti, supporter of the Oslo Accords. Barghouti, the 15 year-old youth leader standing beside Yasser Arafat.

“Barghouti, once a member of parliament and Fatah secretary-general. Barghouti, leader of Tanzim, a PLO military wing, choosing militancy after the betrayal of the Oslo promise by the Americans and Israelis became fully clear.

“Barghouti, a leader of the intifada that restored hope to a broken people. Barghouti, the scholar and thinker. Barghouti, the political strategist and unifier.”

Marwan is the most famous Palestinian prisoner but it should never be forgotten that the entire Palestinian people have been held in bondage for generations.

The West should force the Israelis to release Barghouti — and thousands of other hostages held by Israel. To do so publicly and successfully would be a powerful statement of future intentions.

The release of one man cannot, however, change the world: it will take a genuine course correction by the West to use their collective power to force the Israelis to abandon the endless killings, starvation, land thieving and other lawlessness in the Palestinian lands.

The West must stop posturing and start acting
If the Western states fail to quickly move to change facts on the ground, it will suggest that the whole exercise was only intended to achieve political cover for the pro-genocidal forces of the US and the other enablers like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Netanyahu is driving both the Palestinians and Israel to destruction.

Ironically, the Palestinian Marwan Barghouti could save Israel from moral death and, simultaneously, the Palestinians from further physical destruction. He is a leader that the West and the Israelis, if they chose, could negotiate with.

As Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, said a couple of years ago: Barghouti is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”

One final point: negotiating with ‘terrorists’
The West has made it clear they believe Hamas are too monstrous, too terroristic to be involved in a peace process.

But the West is entirely comfortable with the racist, fascist, genocidal leaders of Israel remaining at the helm of their country. There is a reason for this and one the West needs to front up to: racism and contempt for the Palestinians as a people.

Barghouti and hundrds of other leaders have endured torture and worse without our side raising even an eyebrow. The recent skite videos posted by IDF soldiers committing rape-murder inside Sde Temein prison says it all — they rightly assumed their depraved criminality would be sanctioned by the state and silently tolerated by the West.

War crimes are fine and no barrier to leadership if these crimes are committed by regimes that we are deeply committed to. After all, as our leaders repeatedly tell us: we share values with the Israelis.

I’ll give the last word to Marwan Barghouti.

“Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn’t get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty.”

It is time to change that and to stand with humanity. Free Marwan Barghouti!

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Big Picture Podcast host, New Zealand-Egyptian journalist and author Mohamed Hassan, interviews Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst about the rapidly unfolding war between Israel and Iran, why the West supports it, and what it threatens to unleash on the global order.

What does Israel really want to achieve, what options does Iran have to deescalate, and will the United States stop the war, or join it as is being hinted?

Hearst says the war is “more dangerous than we imagine” and notes that while most Western leadership still backs Israel, there has been a strong shift in world public opinion against Tel Aviv.

He says Israel has lost most of the world’s support, most of the Global South, most African states, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia.

Hearst says the world is witnessing the “cynical tailend of the colonial era” among Western states.

The era of peace is over.             Video: Middle East Eye

Iran ‘unlikely to surrender’
Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says Iran is unlikely to “surrender to American terms” and that there is a risk the war on Iran could “bring the entire region down”.

Vaez told Al Jazeera in an interview that US President Donald Trump “provided the green light for Israel to attack Iran” just two days before the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was due to meet with the Iranians in the Oman capital of Muscat.

Imagine viewing, from the Iranian perspective, Trump giving the go-ahead for the attack while at the same time saying that diplomacy with Tehran was still ongoing, Vaez said.

Now Trump “is asking for Iranian surrender” on his Truth Social platform, he said.

“I think the only thing that is more dangerous than suffering from Israeli and American bombs is actually surrendering to American terms,” Vaez said.

“Because if Iran surrenders on the nuclear issue and on the demands of President Trump, there is no end to the slippery slope, which would eventually result in regime collapse and capitulation anyway.”

pic.twitter.com/QcySkOWWGN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2025

Most Americans oppose US involvement
Meanwhile, a new survey has reported that most Americans oppose US military involvement in the conflict.

The survey by YouGov showed that some 60 percent of Americans surveyed thought the US military should not get involved in the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran.

Only 16 percent favoured US involvement, while 24 percent said they were not sure.

Among the Democrats, those who opposed US intervention were at 65 percent, and among the Republicans, it was 53 percent. Some 61 percent of independents opposed the move.

The survey also showed that half of Americans viewed Iran as an enemy of the US, while 25 percent said it was “unfriendly”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Israel assassinated a photojournalist in Gaza in an airstrike targeting her family’s home on Wednesday, the day after it was announced that a documentary she appears in would premier in Cannes next month.

Her name was Fatima Hassouna. Nine members of her family were also reportedly killed in the bombing. She was going to get married in a few days.

The documentary is titled Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, and it’s about Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

In an Instagram post from August of last year, Hassouna wrote the following:

‘If I die, I want a loud death. I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group; I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.’

Palestinian photographer Fatima Hassouna was killed, along with nine members of her family, in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their home in Gaza on Wednesday.

Hassouna, who had gained international recognition for her photojournalism documenting the impact of Israel’s… pic.twitter.com/y0FEJ60emH

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 17, 2025

Hassouna said she viewed her camera as a weapon to change the world and defend her family, making the following statements in a video shared by Middle East Eye:

‘As Fatima, I believe that the image and the camera are weapons. So I consider my camera to be my rifle. So many times, in so many situations, I tell my friends, Come and see, it’s not bullets that we load into a rifle.

‘Okay, I’m going to put a memory card into the camera. This is the camera’s bullet, the memory card. It changes the world and defends me. It shows the world what is happening to me and what’s happening to others.

‘So I used to consider this my weapon, that I defend myself with it. And so that my family won’t be forgotten. And so I can document people’s stories, so that my family’s stories too don’t just vanish into thin air.”

‘I want a death that the world will hear’      Video/Audio: Caitlin Johnstone

Israel saw Hassouna’s camera as a weapon too, apparently.

As Ryan Grim observed on Twitter:

‘For this to have been a deliberate act — which it plainly was — consider what that means. A person within the IDF saw the news that Fatma’s film was accepted into Cannes. He/she/they then proposed assassinating her. Other people reviewed the suggestion and approved it. Then other people carried it out.’

Israel has been murdering a record-shattering number of journalists in Gaza while simultaneously blocking any foreign press from accessing the enclave because Israel views journalists as its enemy.

And Israel views journalists as its enemy because Israel is the enemy of truth.

Israel and its Western backers understand that truth and support for Israel are mutually exclusive. Those who support Israel are not interested in the truth, and those who are interested in the truth don’t support Israel.

That’s why the light of journalism is being aggressively snuffed out in Gaza while Israel massively increases its propaganda budget to sway public opinion.

It’s why journalists like Fatima Hassouna are being assassinated while the Western propaganda services known as the mainstream press commit journalistic malpractice to hide the truth of Israel’s crimes.

It’s why Western journalists are banned from Gaza while Western institutions are silencing, deporting, firing and marginalising those who speak out about Israel’s criminality.

Israel and truth cannot coexist. Israel’s enemies know this, and Israel knows this. That’s why Israel’s primary weapons are bombs, bullets, propaganda, censorship, and obstruction, while the main weapon of Israel’s enemies is the camera.

Fatima Hassouna’s death has indeed been heard. All these loud noises are snapping more and more eyes open from their slumber.

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

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

At least 400 people have been killed after a surprise Israeli attack on Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday.

The Israeli government vows to continue escalating these military attacks, claiming it is in response to Hamas’ refusal to extend the ceasefire, which has been in place since January 19.

But is this the real reason for pre-dawn attack? Or is there a much more cynical explanation — one tied to the political fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

This week, New Zealand journalist Mohamed Hassan, host of the Middle East Eye’s weekly Big Picture podcast, speaks to Daniel Levy, the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator.

Ceasefire broken: Netanyahu is exposed.   Video: Middle East Eye

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz