The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to resolve a tenancy controversy over the Israeli embassy — by expelling the ambassador and staff.

Noting the world pariah status of the country after the International Criminal Court (ICC)  has reportedly sought arrest warrants for war crimes against up to five more Israeli officials, the PSNA said today the shift of the Israeli embassy into the Fisher Funds building in Wellington had concerned other tenants in the office high rise.

Citing The Post front-page article on Monday, it said only some occupants of the 13-storey site had been told that Israel was moving in.

PSNA spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said in a statement “the building’s owner was obviously trying to keep the arrival of the embassy a secret” to avoid objections.

“It’s pretty obvious why. The Fisher Funds building is owned by Prime Property Group, which is controlled by rich-lister and former Israeli Defence Force major, Eyal Aharoni,” she said.

“He’s looking after his own.”

According to Al Jazeera and news agencies, Israeli far-right Finance Minister ⁠Bezalel Smotrich said he had been informed that the ICC ⁠in ⁠The Hague ⁠had ⁠requested a warrant for his arrest.

Smotrich did not specify who had informed him about the warrant and said it was a “declaration of war”. The process of seeking warrants ⁠is confidential.

Displacement orders
The ICC accusations reportedly centre on Smotrich’s forced displacement orders for Palestinians, his support for moving Israeli settlers into occupied territory, and his claim it may be “justified and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza.

Another report, by the independent Haaretz newspaper, named five officials — including Smotrich — as the subject of arrest warrants, but the ICC described this as “inaccurate”.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Tamimi said the solution to the embassy location concern was the New Zealand government could expel the ambassador and his staff.

“We broke off diplomatic relations when it was discovered Israel’s Mossad spy agency had been getting fake New Zealand passports. So, there is a precedent,” she said.

“It all comes down to the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s the world’s worst atrocity of this century and shamefully its ongoing perpetrators are flying their flag over our capital city.

‘Kidnapping citizens’
“At this very moment, Israel is firing on the Sumud Flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza and kidnapping and assaulting New Zealand citizens on that convoy.

“Our ministers are shaking hands with the people who represent this illegal violence in international waters.”

Tamimi said that although Fisher Funds did not own the building it operated out of, “it must have powers as the holder of naming rights”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When the Paris-based global watchdog Reporters Without Borders released their annual World Press Freedom Index dossier online three days before World Press Freedom Day, journalists in the Asia-Pacific region were quick to check out their ranking.

Overall the prognosis wasn’t very flattering. No country in the region was ranked in the top 20 of the 180 countries surveyed, and even New Zealand, which has traditionally done well in the past – including even being in the top 10 a few years ago — had continued its downhill slide.

“New Zealand (22nd) remains the region’s model for press freedom, despite slipping six places,” said the World Press Freedom Index report. “Other Asia-Pacific democracies, such as Taiwan (28th), Timor-Leste (30th) and Australia (33rd), face real challenges to upholding the right to reliable information, yet continue to offer broadly protective environments.

“They stand as exceptions in a region where press freedom is being steadily eroded.”

Fiji scored a remarkable 16-place climb to 24th, just two places behind New Zealand, after the scrapping of the draconian Media Industry Development Act in 2023, but this was certainly no grounds to be complacent.

Responding to the rankings and after a woman journalist in Tonga was threatened at gunpoint at Kele’a Voice FM radio station by a jailed-for-life drug gangster’s hooded henchman in Tonga, Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) president Kalafi Moala (himself Tongan and a doyen of Pacific media) declared:

Tongan armed threat against journalist troubles Pacific media freedom

“Threats against press freedom are unfortunately ongoing in the Pacific. The incident in Tonga demonstrates that the enemies of press freedom can come from anywhere — not always the government or those in power, but anyone averse to truth and transparency.

“Whether it is in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, French Polynesia or anywhere else in the Pacific, media freedom must be protected, advocated for and exercised to the fullest.”

Smear. Kill. Repeat: The constant horror for journalists in Gaza     Video: Al Jazeera

Deafening silence on Gaza
But for all the lively debate and responses across the Asia-Pacific to this year’s Press Freedom Index results, there was a deafening silence and lack of collegial concern from New Zealand to Taiwan about the elephant in the global media freedom room: the unprecedented and chilling wholesale assassinations of Palestinian (and now Lebanese) journalists by the Israeli military forces.

Many of them were targeted and murdered for doing their jobs.

And those still surviving have been risking their lives (and those of their families) day and night while truth-telling to the world with extraordinary courage.

“Under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977), journalists on ‘dangerous professional missions in armed conflict’ must be treated as civilians. It is one of the clearest protections in international law,” write Majdolin Hasan and Wadih Sabbagh of the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).

“Yet in Gaza, their cameras and press vests have become targets.”

Statistics on this Israeli bloodlust are varied, depending on the source and methodology and criteria in compiling the information. According to the latest figures on the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Gaza database, 264 journalists have been killed, 174 wounded and 107 imprisoned. These figures include war-related killings of journalists and media workers in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran and Israel.

“By silencing the press, Israel is silencing those who document and bear witness to what human rights groups and UN experts agree is a genocide. CPJ calls on the international community to hold Israel to account for its unlawful attacks on journalists; ensure international media is given immediate, independent access to Gaza; and open humanitarian corridors for journalists.”

Death toll even higher
Some media counts put the death toll even higher. A United Nations human rights web page, for example, cites UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk saying in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day that the situation for journalists in Gaza is a “death trap”.

“Israel’s war in Gaza has become a death trap for the media. My office has verified the killing of nearly 300 journalists since October 2023, with many more injured,” Türk said.

He urged States to investigate all violations against media workers and expressed alarm at the lack of accountability for killings of journalists.

“This year alone, at least 14 journalists have been killed. Over the past 20 years, only around one in 10 killings has led to full accountability,” Türk said.

In January 2024, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia that was already an “early warning” indicator of the growing death toll among Palestinian journalists. My earlier media freedom articles had frequently dealt with the Philippines, which used to be among the worst countries for the killing of journalists.

In the article, “Silencing the messenger”, I also warned against the growing censorship in what was already emerging as the greatest moral issue of our times: “Western journalists taking a stand against their media outlets’ biased coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza are being targeted with career threats and even dismissal. But their colleagues in Palestine are suffering a worse fate.”

I called on journalists to make a stand for truth-telling and in solidarity with their colleagues in Gaza.

Shameful NZ silence
Yet while the silence in the Pacific is perhaps not surprising given the conflicted collaboration of several governments, such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea, on the wrong side of history, in New Zealand it is shameful. At least in Australia, there has been a strong pushback by journalists against the bias in the mainstream, and one independent publication, Crikey, has been publishing a “register” of journalists who have been on paid junkets to Israel and are regarded as potentially compromised.

Media editor Daanyal Saeed wrote: “It’s become clear that a number of Australian politicians and journalists have been on organised tours to the Middle East — many of them sponsored by pro-Israel lobby groups and interest organisations.”

A similar grooming of New Zealand journalists has also been carried out by pro-Israel lobby groups’ “sponsorship” in recent years, but no media has published a comprehensive list.

Is this “captive journalists” phenomena one of the factors for the perceived bias of much of the New Zealand media? John Minto, national campaigns coordinator of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), the largest and most visible advocacy and protest group in the country, agrees: “The large number of journalists here, who should know better, who have taken all expenses paid trips to Israel are part of Israel’s building of a propaganda base.

“Another important factor is the long history of false smears of antisemitism against anyone criticising Israel. Editors think twice about reporting anything showing Israel in a bad light.

“Just last week an RNZ journalist talked on radio about an interview she had done with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, and that the interview would be heard on the Nine to Noon show early the following week. The interview was then advertised to be broadcast on the Monday morning but then never appeared on the programme.

“Pressure from the anti-Palestinian racists in the pro-Israel lobby is the only sensible explanation. Most likely it will simply be buried — along with what’s left of RNZ’s journalistic integrity.”

Limited independent reportage
It needs to be realised too that New Zealand media has a limited independent “international” reportage tradition in contrast to Australia and many other countries. What international coverage with a New Zealand perspective that did exist, largely disappeared after the closure of the country’s only independent news agency, the 131-year-old NZ Press Association cooperative. This shut down in 2011.

Minto blames the narrow range of international news as another factor in why New Zealand media seems so slanted.

“The media industry here takes its overseas content solely from Western news sources such as AP [Associated Press, American], Reuters and the BBC [both British-based] alongside UK and US newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post and Daily Telegraph. It is packaged by Israeli sympathisers embedded in senior positions across these outlets and the inevitable result is a stream of pro-Israeli propaganda rather than balanced and accurate journalism.

“The recent analysis by The Intercept underscores this built-in bias in favour of Israel and against Palestinians.”

The Pacific Journalism Review also ran a special edition in July 2024 focused on systemic bias in the New Zealand and some international media. The provocative title theme was “Gaza, genocide and media: Will journalism survive?” and it was aimed at alerting journalists that declining credibility was at stake over this critical moral issue of our times.

Maher Nazzal, a Palestinian New Zealander who is a community advocate and chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, echoes this view.

“Much of the New Zealand media coverage on Palestine has been shaped through Western political narratives and reliance on international wire services that often frame events primarily through an Israeli lens,” he says. “This has contributed to the dehumanisation or invisibility of Palestinian voices, including journalists working under unimaginable conditions in Gaza.”

Courage and professionalism
A good point. The courage and professionalism of Gaza journalists has been widely acknowledged around the globe, including their collectively winning the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2024, yet NZ journalists seem to be reluctant to recognise this, let alone give statements of solidarity. Why?|

“What Gaza journalists have shown over the past 19 months is extraordinary courage and professionalism,” says Nazzal. “Many continued reporting while displaced, grieving family members, facing starvation, or living under bombardment.

“Some paid with their lives simply for documenting the truth. Their work has become one of the few direct windows into what is happening on the ground.

“Unfortunately, solidarity from many mainstream media institutions in New Zealand has been limited. There appears to be hesitation, fear of controversy, or political sensitivity around speaking openly on Palestine compared with other global conflicts.

“This silence itself becomes part of the problem.”

An independent New Zealand journalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for two periods during the Israeli war on Gaza — in 2024 for two months and again last year – is also unimpressed with the local reportage.

Video and photojournalist Cole Martin from Ōtautahi Christchurch believes there is a serious lack of understanding in New Zealand media of the context of the structural and institutional violence towards the Palestinians.

“It is a media scene in Aotearoa that repeats very harmful and inaccurate narratives,” Martin says.

“Also, there is this idea to be unbiased and neutral in a conflict, both perspectives must have equal legitimacy.”

Israel regularly condemned
Reporters Without Borders has regularly condemned Israel for refusing to allow journalists from international media into Gaza, except on rare occasions embedded with Israeli military — they saw merely what Tel Aviv wanted them to see.

RSF has joined unsuccessful legal proceedings led by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) at Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge the ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza. It has also file multiple complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for investigations into war crimes against journalists.

Minto believes New Zealand journalism is generally embedded with the “built-in bias of Western media” and with very few exceptions local journalists “are as complicit as journalists overseas”.

“I’m the first to admit it’s not easy for journalists to speak up and confront the bias — it’s easier to look the other way.

“Having said that I can’t understand why they would not report on Gaza journalists receiving awards for heroic reporting in circumstances when they know they are on an Israeli hit list. Journalistic solidarity based on fearless reporting which speaks truth to power is sorely missing.”

In general, says Minto, New Zealand journalists wait until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump make a statement before they report anything on Gaza or Palestine.

“And it’s not just reporting on the genocide in Gaza. Again and again I hear stories from our journalists — particularly in our state broadcaster TVNZ and RNZ — being directed towards reporting stories alleging antisemitism here rather than Islamophobia which is a far greater threat to our social fabric.

“It’s as though we never had a terrorist attack in 2019 which killed 51 Muslim worshippers.”

Media releases ignored
Mainstream news media routinely ignore media releases by Palestinian and solidarity groups.

“They are read by news editors and chief reporters but are otherwise disregarded,” admits Minto. “In fact, pretty much the only time our mainstream media report on PSNA is when we are attacked by the pro-Israel lobby as they did when we opposed Israeli soldiers coming here for rest and recreation from the genocide in Gaza or when we were attacked for ‘selective morality’ by an Iranian supporter of the old despotic Shah of Iran.

“On the other hand, our media releases are avidly read by our supporters and get good pickup on social media.”

While there was a fierce pushback by pro-Israel groups over PSNA’s controversial “Genocide Hotline” in New Zealand media, there was a more sympathetic response by many international media.

In fact, many campaigns in other countries, partly due to the inspiration of the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), are going further and actively seeking prosecutions of dual-citizen Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on rest and recreation to their countries.

The Brussels-based foundation is dedicated to “breaking the cycle Israeli impunity and achieving justice for all the victims of the Gaza genocide” — more than 72,000 people so far, mostly women and children. It was established to honour the memory of five-year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered along with her family on January 29, 2024, in a brutal act of genocidal violence by the IDF.

Hind survived the initial attack, but was left trapped in a car alongside the bodies of her family. Her cries for help were broadcast to the world before being killed by an Israeli tank crew. An investigation found that the car was hit by 335 bullets. The inhumanity of this act has been captured in the 2025 docudrama film The Voice of Hind Rajab.

Hasbara propaganda
The PSNA and other groups have regularly complained to TVNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) about the “appalling reporting” and “systemic bias”, but with little success. At a national hui in Rotorua earlier this month, the PSNA discussed plans to step up its campaign to push back against Israeli disinformation in response to the Knesset’s approval last month of a fivefold budget boost to $730 million for Hasbara — Israeli “public policy”, or propaganda.

In spite of the many obstacles, Maher Nazzal says public awareness about the Palestine struggle has grown significantly in Aotearoa as well as globally: “Community movements, independent journalists, academics, and grassroots organisations have helped challenge dominant narratives and push for more balanced coverage and accountability.”

To improve media coverage, Nazzal would like to see a greater inclusion of Palestinian perspectives, stronger journalistic independence, and willingness to apply universal human rights standards consistently, regardless of who the victims are.

Dr David Robie is convenor of the Asia Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Media Watch project, a former media professor and who previously worked as a journalist and editor with several global news agencies, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Gemini News Service.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.

PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.

“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.

“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.

“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.

“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”

Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.

But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.

“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”

Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.

“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.

PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.

“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.

“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.

“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.

“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.

“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”

Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.

But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.

“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.

“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”

Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.

“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Forough Amin in her opinion piece “The consequences of selective morality” (The Press, 28 April 2026) argues that the Palestine solidarity movement’s call for sanctions against Israel is “selective morality”. She says we should be calling out all human rights abuses everywhere — which in her case means Iran.

We agree with Amin’s basic premise that calls for action against countries abusing human rights should be consistent and comprehensive.

Our focus, given our organisations’ title, is however on Palestine. Israel’s genocide in Gaza is objectively the worst atrocity this century and one which all Western governments, such as ours, support. That genocide is in our name.

It is precisely because our government refuses to sanction Israel for the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and the pogroms conducted by Israeli settlers, with the support of the Israeli military, throughout the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) that we must all speak up and demand accountability for Israel and from our government.

The complete avoidance of accountability by Israel is the single most important reason that it continues its brutal occupation in the OPT, its daily theft of Palestinian land and its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to land from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israeli militias in 1948.

Our government operates a simple, easy to understand, double standard — it calls out and acts on human rights abuses in countries that the US sees as enemies, but refuses to call out or act on human rights abuses in countries the US sees as friends.

That is why the government has enacted comprehensive sanctions against Iran and Russia, but miserly measures against a small handful of racist Israeli settlers for the most egregious of war crimes.

Tight business restrictions
Regarding Iran, for example, our government has imposed tight business restrictions, targeted travel bans, asset freezes, import/export bans and suspension of bilateral engagements.

in October last year the government even re-imposed UN sanctions following Iran’s non-compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on nuclear technology, ignoring the fact that the US pulled out of the JCPOA eight years ago.

New Zealand expects Iran, yet not the US, to keep following the trashed agreement.

So comprehensive and pervasive are the sanctions against Iran that the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) advises that “given the wide scope of the Regulations, and the penalties for non-compliance, it is recommended that anyone contemplating doing business with Iran obtain independent legal advice before engaging in business with people in Iran, or with entities that are incorporated in Iran or subject to its jurisdiction”.

The sanctions regime against Russia is similar in scope and designed to hold Russia to account for its invasion of Ukraine.

So, what did we do when the US and Israel twice launched massive air attacks against Iran, both times while the US was in negotiations with the Iranian leadership? Nothing.

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, not condemning the US and Israel, but condemning Iran for retaliating against US bases in the Gulf states. It would make great satire in a TV comedy but unfortunately its real.

No coup condemnation
Amin does not condemn the US-orchestrated overthrow of the first democratically-elected government in Iran in 1953 when Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was deposed in a coup to make way for the US-installed Shah of Iran — a lineage Amin wants to reinstate, albeit temporarily.

Needless to say, calls for democracy under the Shah were met with hideous brutality and widespread oppression of Iranian human rights activists.

It’s important to consider the feelings of New Zealanders who have community connections to overseas conflicts. It’s also important not to blame any community here for war crimes committed on the other side of the world.

Palestinian New Zealanders in particular deserve our support and empathy as they watch tens of thousands of their kinfolk, mostly women and children, being killed in Gaza — actions driven by the most hideous, genocidal rhetoric from Israeli political and military leaders.

The situation with Israel is similar to apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

Western governments, especially New Zealand, stood with apartheid South Africa and resisted black South African calls for sanctions, until international civil society groups (including HART and CARE here) mobilised public opinion to demand action against that apartheid state.

All major human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, along with human rights groups in Israel, describe the regime there as an apartheid state. It has a whole host of laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel as well as Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

Two to one back sanctions
The government’s selective morality is in our sights. Already public surveys show that of New Zealanders who give an opinion, they are two to one supporting sanctions against Israel.

Let’s hope Auckland City Council votes to end procurement of goods and services from companies identified by the UN Human Rights Council as supporting Illegal Israeli settlements in the OPT. These settlements constitute a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

And if Amin can find any comparable human-rights-abusing companies the Auckland City Council is working with, then she should take that up with the council and would be guaranteed backing from our supporters.

John Minto was national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Press and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An official of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) praised this month’s High Court judicial ruling over New Zealand Superfund “unreasonable and unlawful” investment policies towards Israeli companies — but warned that the fund management would need to shape up.

Speaking at the PSNA rally at Te Komititanga Square today in week 133 of protests over Israeli genocide in Gaza, national secretary Neil Scott also gave a verbal bouquet to all the activists and lawyers who had achieved the victory after a 20-year struggle.

He named Phil McNeale as one of the activists who began pushing for the Superfund to divest from Israeli companies funding illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank about two decades ago.

PSNA earlier issued a statement declaring that this was an “important and timely win for Palestine” and expressed confidence that the Superfund would “quickly divest from the four companies [where] it holds investments” which were on the UN Human Rights Council list involved in building and maintaining illegal Israeli settlements.

Scott recalled that during 2020 and 2021, PSNA had called on the Superfund chief executive Matt Whineray to divest from Israeli banks.

“We know Israel cannot build the illegal colonies in the West bank without bank funding,” he said.

“Essentially, our NZ Superfund was investing in funding war crimes. On our behalf.”

‘Shameful policy’
On each communication about the “shameful” policy, Whineray had rejected the PSNA protest.

“In 2021, PSNA got a King’s Counsel (KC) lawyer to review the investments in Israeli banks and then sent a letter to then Minister of Finance Grant Robertson setting out the legal opinion,” Scott said.

“Robertson refused to respond to us. But soon after, the Superfund divested from four Israeli banks. Yes, we won then.”

However, Scott said that in 2021, just after the divestment decision, the Israeli Institute was “all over the Superfund with a flood of OIA requests — six of them”.

“A bunch of private individual OIA requests also went in,” Scott said.

“Usually, the Superfund received about 3 or 4 OIA requests a year. In 2021, it received 11.

“So, it seems as if massive pressure was put on the NZ Superfund to change its policies on ethical investments — to benefit Zionist Israel.

‘Gutting ethical investment’
“In 2022, it did just that. Gutting the ethical investment policies so that even investments in Israeli banks wouldn’t have been excluded.”

Scott said the Superfund dropped any reference to the “UN Global Compact” and the “Principles for Responsible Investment” — two of the main ethical investment policies in the world.

“It did this, sliding the changes through in the shadows without letting anyone know. Just slid it through in the shadows.”

PSNA kept on calling the Superfund to divest from the UN Divestment list. However, the Superfund responded by claiming that the companies cited “did not meet their, now secret, threshold”.

Late in 2024, PSNA decided to call for a judicial review of the Superfund’s investment in four companies.

“We briefed two KCs on the call. They agreed that it would have a good chance of winning,” Scott said.

“During the process of discovery, the KCs found that the Superfund had secretly changed its ethical investment policies during 2022.”

Who is responsible?
Scott said the PSNA was now determined to find out who were responsible for changing the ethical investment policies for the “benefit of a foreign country”.

He named a minister, chair of the board and the chief executive at the time of the change, saying that as a result of the High Court ruling, the Superfund “has a duty to reformulate the policy documents consistently with the [NZ Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001]”.

Scott praised the team responsible for winning the case: PSNA co-chair John Minto; co-chair Maher Nazzal, a Palestinian; Palestinian Rawaa Elhanafy; Rodney Harrison KC (who wrote the original letter to then minister Robertson in 2021); Francis Joychild KC; and B A Mugisho.

He also gave a final message to the cheering protest crowd: “A word of advice to everyone in the management of the Superfund — Aotearoa is our country. Not racist, ethnic cleansing, land thieving genocidal Zionist Israel.

“You work for Aotearoa. Do your job.”

May Day ‘Stop war’ rally
Among other speakers at the protest, Stop Wars Aotearoa organiser Joe Carolan appealed for support at next Friday’s May Day “Stop the fuel crisis and stop the war” rally at 6pm at Karanga-a-Hape Station.

“High fuel prices are driving workers reliant on cars off the roads. Our rightwing coalition government rules for the rich and doesn’t feel the pain of the cost of living crisis. We need solutions, not excuses,” Carolan said.

“The Solution: Free, frequent public transport for all, funded by taxes on the oil companies and the super rich.”

The Stop Wars Aotearoa coalition is demanding:

• Immediate free transport as a climate and cost-of-living solution;
• Permanent, 24 hr, frequent and fare-free transit for all, paid for by taxing corporations and billionaires; and
• Prioritised fuel for essential services, not luxury, while transitioning to renewables. New green jobs in a massive expansion of public transport and rail.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

MEDIA FREEDOM: By David Robie

In a week’s time next Sunday, it is World Press Freedom Day on May 3. And already our whānau of journalists who are facing horrendous danger at the hands of the Israeli killing machine have had a shocking few days.

During our 133 weeks of protest we have become painfully accustomed to how one journalist after another has been brutally assassinated, some even alongside their family members.

Far more than 260 journalists — the actual number varies with different media freedom monitoring agencies and different methodologies — have been slaughtered in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023.

And some of you may have seen the chilling photograph circulating on some social media channels. It shows 8 Lebanese journalists – four men and four women – smiling and giving peace signs.

Eight Lebanese journalists killed in a month by Israel https://t.co/Fqeji5D3M8

— Pen MacRae (@penmacrae) April 23, 2026

They have all been murdered in the last month, including the tragic killing of Amal Khalil, who died last Wednesday under building rubble in the town of al-Tayri, southern Lebanon, after a double tap attack and then the Israelis fired a stun grenade on the ambulance rescue workers preventing them trying to save her.

But before I talk more about her tragedy and what it means– she was just buried yesterday with thousands at her funeral — I want to show you another photo.

This is Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist working for the Arabic channel Al Jazeera who was a highly popular household name right across the Middle East if not the world.

She was known as the “daughter of Palestine” and she was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces on 11 May 2022 — just eight days after Media Freedom Day that year.

I have this photo hanging on the wall of my office, thanks to Palestine Youth of Aotearoa, to remind me daily of the brutality and global impunity of the Israelis.

With my experience as a media freedom defender for Pacific Media Watch and Reporters Without Borders since 1996, I have come to a chilling and shameful conclusion:

The fact that there was no accountability for her murder and the US authorities and Biden administration orchestrated a cover-up – even though she was American — signalled to the Netanyahu government that they could target journalists and those bearing witness with absolute impunity.

So this is where we are at now, the Israeli killing machine launched into a bloody massacre of more than 72,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the past two plus years, especially targeting journalists, doctors and medical workers, teachers, and aid workers.

And the hypocritical Western countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, have barely offered a timid bleat.

The Israeli bloodlust has now spread to Lebanon and other countries. The IDF claims that its military is the “most moral in the world”. That claim is an obscenity.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect journalists (CPJ), Israel is by far the world’s biggest killer of media workers.

On its monitoring website it lists the following:

• 260 journalists and media workers killed by Israel, of which:
• 207 were Palestinians killed in Gaza
• 2 Palestinian killed in Gaza during the Iran war
• 2 Palestinians killed in Israeli detention centers
• 31 Yemenis – out of a total of 32 – killed in Yemen
• 6 Lebanese in Lebanon during the war on Gaza
• 9 Lebanese in Lebanon during the Iran war
• 3 Iranians in Iran during the 12-day war

To return to the targeted murder of Amal Khalil, who worked for Al-Akhbar, she was with another journalist, Zeinab Faraj, who was rescued and survived.

The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a statement by its Middle East desk chief Jonathan Dagher:

“The Israeli army has very likely committed two more war crimes on 22 April, by targeting journalists who were identified as such, obstructing rescue operations and continuing strikes that killed one journalist and injured another.

“Responsibility for these crimes also lies with Israel’s allies, who continue to allow the Netanyahu government to commit them with impunity.”

RSF published a compelling and disturbing timeline of how the IDF blocked her would-be rescuers for seven hours.

CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa regional director Sara Qudah said:

“We knew [Amal] was alive beneath the rubble – a real, breathing presence. Not in the abstract, not as rumour or hope.

“The 40-year-old female journalist, Amal Khalil, whose voice had just reached her family and colleagues, her survival depended on whether the machinery of rescue would be allowed to operate as it is supposed to under international law, and the law of humanity.

“That is what made what followed so difficult to process — not only emotionally, but structurally.

“Because this was not a case of disappearance in the fog of war.

“It was a case of proximity to survival that collapsed into confirmed death while rescue was still theoretically possible.”

Qudah added that her death could not be understood only as an individual tragedy, “although it was that to everyone who knew her, every journalist in the region”.

“It must also be understood as a stress test of the systems that are supposed to prevent this outcome — early warning, protection, humanitarian access and accountability. On each of these dimensions, the case raises unresolved questions.”

Israel is not only killing journalists, it is systematically torturing them — along with hundreds of other Palestinian hostages. CPJ’s recent report, “We returned from hell”, where the watchdog published the in-depth testimonies of 59 media prisoners released from jail since October 2023 is shocking reading.

I would like to finish with a quote by Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein, who visited New Zealand in 2023 to launch his  book The Palestine Laboratory about how the Israeli killing machine exports in brutal technologies — a book that has been translated into many languages and had a profound influence in the world.

“With some notable exceptions, too many in the international media, journalists, editors and owners, have refused to take appropriate action against Israel. No official sanction.

“[They are] still interviewing Israeli spokespeople and politicians as normal. Not treating this as a monumental crime and outrage. Instead, often deferring to unproven Israeli claims that every journalist murdered was a ‘terrorist’.”

This complicity by many journalists — even in our own region — must be widely condemned.

Dr David Robie is convenor of Pacific Media Watch and a media defender with global groups including RSF. He gave this short address at the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) rally in Auckland on Anzac Day.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has appealed to ACT MP Nicole McKee to condemn Israel’s deliberate bulldozing of New Zealand war graves in the besieged Palestinian Gaza enclave.

PSNA co-chair John Minto has asked for the MP to take this action after McKee had posted on Facebook yesterday a message of strong support for looking after NZ soldiers’ graves wherever they are.

Minto said in a statement on Anzac Day: “Israel’s destruction of New Zealand war graves was not an accident of war. It was the deliberate bulldozing of the graves by the Israeli military”

“They have bulldozed dozens of Palestinian cemeteries as standard practice to erase Palestine from Gaza,” he said.

“They didn’t think twice about bulldozing our war graves, knowing there would be no reaction from our government and they were right.”

In her Facebook post McKee wrote:

“We talk a lot about honouring our fallen — but real respect is shown in what we do, not just what we say.

“Across New Zealand, volunteers from the NZ Remembrance Army have quietly restored hundreds of thousands of service graves, preserving the stories and dignity of those who served. They do it efficiently, carefully, and with genuine respect.

“What’s been holding them back is layers of inconsistent rules and bureaucracy.

“ACT is committing to cut through that, back these volunteers with funding, and make sure this work can continue at scale.

“Because if someone was prepared to give everything for this country, the least we can do is ensure they are remembered properly.”

Call for ‘real respect’
Minto responded in the PSNA statement today by saying: “We agree with McKee when she says ‘real respect is shown in what we do, not just what we say’.

“Let’s see some respect for our soldiers who died in Gaza [in 1919] with a rousing government condemnation of the deliberate destruction of these war graves.

“We won’t hold our breath. The government can’t even condemn Israel for the mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza — a campaign of physical and cultural destruction which continues today.”

PSNA has long called on the government to condemn Israel’s deliberate destruction of war graves in Gaza. In a statement on February 9, it said: “PSNA is calling on the government to condemn Israel’s desecration of New Zealand war graves in Gaza.

“Israeli bulldozing of the graves was confirmed last week but the New Zealand government has not responded with any comment.”

Palestinian Essam Jaradah, who had tended the New Zealand graves for 45 years, confirmed their destruction in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“Common decency demands we condemn Israel for this abuse of our war dead,” Minto said in he February statement. “If it happened anywhere else in the world the government would register shock and be appalled.

Australian responded, not NZ
“Australia has spoken out but nothing from New Zealand. No protest expressed, no demand Israel apologise, no request for access to inspect the damage. Nothing.”

“Neither has there been any response from the New Zealand Returned Services Association.”

Minto said Israel relied on what he called “huge and sympathetic media attention” for more than two years, demanding the return of the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza.

“It seems the only human remains which matter are Israeli ones. Over a period, Israel has systematically destroyed Palestinian cemeteries and now the war graves of our soldiers.”

There were 23 graves of New Zealand First World War soldiers in the Commonwealth War Cemetery, plus another two from the 280-strong Rarotongan Company from the Cook Islands, which also fought for Britain to capture Palestine from the Turkish Ottomans.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The managers of the New Zealand’s $86 billion Super Fund failed to properly address human rights issues when considering whether to exclude companies from its investments, the High Court has found

Justice Simon Mount granted an application by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) for judicial review of Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation’s policies relating to ethical investment.

In a decision released today, Justice Mount declared parts of the fund’s policy documents, standards and procedures, and its sustainable investment framework were “unreasonable and unlawful”.

The court also ordered the crown entity to pay PSNA’s legal costs.

PSNA co-chair John Minto said the decision was a victory for Palestinian rights, while Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation said it was considering its next move.

The sovereign wealth fund was created in 2001 to help provide for New Zealander’s superannuation costs.

By law, Guardians are required to invest the funds on a prudent commercial basis, manage and administer the fund with best-practice portfolio management, and avoid prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as “a responsible member of the world community”.

Backbone of case
That last duty formed the backbone of the case taken by PSNA, who have long lobbied the Guardians to divest from companies it claims to be complicit in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Guardians excluded development, construction and technology companies involved in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2012.

In 2021, following years of lobbying by PSNA, the Guardians also excluded five Israeli banks from its portfolio on the grounds there was an unacceptable risk the banks were materially contributing to breaches of human rights standards and that engaging with the banks themselves was unlikely to be effective.

PSNA continued to request the exclusion of other investments due to alleged human rights breaches and focused on four companies that featured on a United Nations Human Rights Council database of companies trading with illegal Israeli settlements — Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and Motorola.

Justice Mount said the chief executive of the Guardians replied to the group in mid-2024 noting none of the companies “currently meets the exclusion threshold under our Sustainable Investment Framework”.

In later correspondence, the Guardians’ head of sustainable investment reiterated that stance, which led PSNA to indicate it would seek the judicial review.

In his findings, Justice Mount noted the Guardian’s 2020 policy documents identified several standards and benchmarks that were later removed — including the Principles for Responsible Investment, principles of the UN Global Compact, and a broad reference to “other good practice standards”.

Earlier policy removed
The earlier policy referred to several sets of standards described as “universally recognised by the world community — with signatories including investment managers, investee companies and the peers of Guardians — and unlikely to be superseded”.

The 2020 policy stated its applicable principles were based on the UN Global Compact, in particular the requirements to support and respect human rights and “no complicity in abuses”.

It also set a threshold for excluding government bonds where there was “widespread condemnation or sanctions by the international community and New Zealand has imposed meaningful diplomatic, economic or military sanctions”.

Justice Mount noted the almost 3000 pages of evidence filed for the judicial review allowed him to gain a picture of how the Guardians had used their policy documents in practice.

The judge noted the Guardians’ approach to excluding investments was not entirely coherent and the policies failed to meet the basic requirements of the law when alleged breaches of human rights standards were concerned.

The Guardians had a duty to reformulate its policy documents to be consistent with the Act, he said.

Minto celebrated the court’s ruling.

Fund raking in money
The group was confident the Super Fund would divest from Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and Motorola once it had rewritten its policies to comply with the law, he said.

The High Court judgment showed the Super Fund had invested $67 million in the four companies.

Minto said the fund was raking in money from appalling breaches of international law by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The country’s leading sovereign wealth fund should be setting the benchmark for all New Zealand investment funds, not deriving money from war crimes and massive human rights abuses, he said.

The lack of a clear grounds to exclude companies from investment because of human rights abuses were particularly problematic, Minto said.

“This is beyond outrageous. Our largest sovereign wealth fund, owned by the government on behalf of the people of New Zealand, has no specific references to human rights standards in its investment exclusions policy.”

The case had revealed the exclusions policy was weakened and direct references to human rights standards were removed the year after the fund divested from five Israeli banks, Minto said.

Replaced with vague policy
“The Super Fund replaced a principled policy with an entirely vague and subjective assessment of companies which meant they could resist pressure from human rights groups such as PSNA.

“The fund was entirely making up legal sounding excuses as it went. It meant they could now keep on their books other companies which abuse the human rights of Palestinians,” he said.

“The Super Fund owes us all an apology and in particular an apology to Palestinians here and in Palestine, whose suffering is helping pay the price of the fund’s increasing wealth.”

Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation chief executive Jo Townsend said the crown entity was still considering its response to the decision.

“We recognise that we are investing on behalf of all New Zealanders, and that gives people a legitimate interest in how we manage the fund,” she said.

“We will thoroughly evaluate today’s decision and determine how best to respond to it,” she said.

The UN Human Rights Council database featuring the four companies is from a list of 97 companies involved with illegal Israeli settlements.

The database came about following a 2016 UN Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by New Zealand, that led to diplomatic rupture between the two countries and Israel recalling its ambassador.

Israeli media reported at the time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully proceeding with the resolution wold be considered a “declaration of war”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has appealed to Foreign Minister Winston Peters to stress to the Palestine genocide “open wound” in his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington this week.

Co-chair Maher Nazzal of PSNA said in a statement the international crisis in West Asia “must be reined in” and New Zealand pressure should be part of this.

He blamed the US-Israel war on Iran on resistance to the genocide in Gaza in which almost 73,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed.

Nazzal also warned in the letter to Peters against New Zealand being “recruited” for the US war effort.

“The US will want to recruit New Zealand into the US and Israel war on Iran, and try to get Peters to offer something crazy, like dispatching the New Zealand frigates Te Kaha and Te Mana to help force the Straits of Hormuz,” he said.

‘But the open wound of Palestine remains the single greatest threat to peace and stability across the entire world.”

Nazzal said PSNA was urging Peters to press the US to demand equal rights for everyone living “between the river and the sea”.

“This means confronting the apartheid state of Israel head-on. The world can no longer tolerate a genocidal and racist state in West Asia, which is armed to the teeth by the US and hell-bent on attacking its neighbours to capture territory.

Stoking ‘the flames of hatred’
“Israel continues to stoke the flames of hatred and eternal war by last week passing legislation to execute Palestinians convicted of what Israel calls ‘terrorism’.”

Nazzal said the racist apartheid law did not apply to Jewish Israeli settlers who were killing Palestinians daily.

It exclusively applied in the military courts, which were only used to try Palestinians.

“They have a conviction rate of over 96 percent,” Nazzal said.

“Racist Israeli ministers and Knesset members celebrated the inflammatory racist law with champagne. There was barely a peep from Peters.

“New Zealand has played an important role in helping resolve international conflicts in the past — we can be part of the solution now,” Nazzal added.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Asia Pacific Report

New Zealand protesters have again spotlighted the country’s stake in US space militarisation today and speakers branded Rocket Lab as an alleged key link in the “IDF kill chain” as part of the Gaza genocide.

“Rocket Lab is a celebrated New Zealand success story, with a stated mission to open access to space and improve life on Earth,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa  (PSNA) advocate Brendan Corbett.

“Yet many of its key contracts are with the US military and their suppliers.

“It is driven by share price increases and creating value for shareholders.”

Corbett said the global space militarisation market size was valued at US$61 billion (about NZ$100 billion) in 2025 and was projected to grow from US$66 billion this year to US$116 billion by 2034.

North America dominated space militarisation last year with a market share of more than 40 percent.

‘World war threat’
“The overwhelming majority of our human family are totally appalled at this march to militarisation of space and the threat of world war,” Corbett told the crowd in Te Komititanga Square as they marked the 123rd week of protest over the Gaza genocide.

“But not the war mongering investor class. They make more money.

“Guess what people? Increasing geopolitical rivalry and security threats propels market growth.”

A so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in Gaza on October 10, but since then Israeli violations almost daily have killed 591 Palestinians and wounded 1578 – and children dying at a rate of about two a day — with the besieged enclave facing a severe humanitarian crisis.

Overall, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has topped 72,049 with 171,691 wounded – mostly women and children — since the start of the war, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The government has raised the total number of launches allowed for Rocket Lab at its Mahia launch pad tenfold to 1000, as the cap set at 100 in 2017 is close to being breached.

However, a physics professor at Auckland University, Dr Richard Easther, told RNZ News this week that he did not trust the New Zealand Space Agency to make good decisions while the agency said it had assessed all space activities against clear legislative criteria.

Geopolitical tension
Corbett stressed the increasing geopolitical tension, rivalries and escalating security threats across the globe.

This situation was expected to encourage countries to strengthen space-based defence capabilities.

Military forces of various nations required satellites and space systems to maintain secure communications, surveillance, and navigation under hostile conditions.

“This is the Rocket Lab, Black Sky, Palantir, IDF kill chain,” said Corbett, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces, although critics prefer to characterise IDF as the IOF – “Israeli Offence Forces” in view of Tel Aviv having attacked five countries in the region last year.

“This demand drives procurement of hardened, redundant, and cyber-secure space infrastructure — ”these are the factors contributing to space militarisation market growth”.

Corbett quoted Palantir chief executive officer Alex Karp telling investors in a call last month: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the best in the world, and when it’s necessary to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.”

“Military tech companies no longer pretend they are ethical and humane,” Corbett said.

Space technologies
He explained how space militarisation included deployment and use of space technologies for military applications such as reconnaissance, communications, navigation and so on.

It involved satellites, ground systems and related technologies for defence.

“This is the market niche that fuels Rocket Lab’s business plan,” he said.

Some countries used space and counter-space capabilities and integrated them into regular military exercises.

With space militarisation, countries integrated space assets such as satellites, ground stations, and launch systems into defence operations.

“These factors are driving the overall market growth,” Corbett said. “These are the activities that are driving us to war.”

RIMPAC 2026 exercises
He cited some of the major companies involved, including Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Technologies — both investors in Rocket Lab — Northrop Gumman Corporation, Airbus Defence and Space, and others.

Other speakers included Kia Ora Gaza activist Patrick O’Dea – who reminded the crowd of nuclear-free protest success in blocking visits by US warships in the 1980s – PSNA’s Neil Scott, and Maire Leadbeater of West Papua Action Tāmaki.

O’Dea challenged the crowd top campaign against New Zealand taking part in the RIMPAC 2026 military exercises in Hawai’i during June to August and “collaborating with the IDF”.

Protesters marched with banners declaring “Break the Rocket Lab kill chain” and “Rocket Lab – death for money” to Queens Wharf where a visiting Norwegian cruise ship Viking Orion (1000 passengers) was moored.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Speakers contrasted and condemned settler colonialism strategies in Aotearoa New Zealand and Israel’s illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine at a feisty solidarity rally in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today — a day after Waitangi Day, the national holiday marking the 1840 signing of Te Tititi o Waitangi between 46 chiefs and the British crown.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto was one of the speakers after attending an earlier rally at Kerikeri and then driving 240 km with four fellow activists to join the Auckland protest.

“Colonisation in the present resonates with every Māori family. So here we are in that process of decolonisation, a slow process — it’s happening within Māoridom, and it’s happening in the Pākehā world,” Minto told the crowd.

“I was so delighted that when the Treaty Principles Bill came in we had that huge hikoī in Wellington,” he said.

“For those of you who know Wellington, we were in Manners Street towards the end of the march.

“And we got word that the rally had started in Parliament. We still had a kilometre to go. The streets were jammed with people, Pākehā, Māori, migrant people — Indigenous people from all over the world, all saying ‘no’.

“New Zealand is not a European country. We have an Indigenous people here and we want to work in partnership through the Treaty of Waitangi.

‘Weak prime minister’
“And what we have now, again, we’ve got a government that is — we have a weak prime minister, and we have got leaders of strong rightwing parties, that’s Winston Peters from New Zealand First, and that other guy from ACT . . .

“You know, whatever his name is . . .” Minto said jokingly. The crowd reeled of David Seymour’s name with a mocking tone and cries of “one term government” with a general election due on November 7.

Among other speakers was Janfrie Wakim, a longtime advocate for Palestine and one of the founders of the Auckland-based Palestine Human Rights Campaign founded in the 1970s, which later evolved into the PSNA in 2013.

She gave a “high fives” message of praise for protesters supporting the cause of Palestine justice and self-determination in this 122th week of demonstrations since October 2023.

Wakim also lauded the “kaimahi” — the workers who turned up each week to set up and pack up.

She said the colonisation of Aotearoa and Palestine had similarities — “but also some differences and decolonising is our task here in Aotearoa and in Palestine.”

Wakim paid tribute to Annette Sykes — “a wahine toa and heroic lawyer” advocate for Māori iwi — who wrote recently “decolonising is not erasing history but rewriting who controls the narrative”.

‘Enriching empires’
“Classic colonialists set out to exploit resources and enrich their empires,” Wakim said.

“European imperial powers dominated the past 500 years and they exited when their empires collapsed,” she said, naming Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Spain.

However, she added, “settler colonialism is different — it remains and is ongoing. All settler-colonial states seek more territory and fewer Indigenous people by ‘ethnic-cleansing’.”

“Settler colonialists sought to recreate Europe in the lands they invaded and they needed to eliminate the local native populations living there — think Australia.

“That is the story of Palestine.

“Settler colonialism is a structure not an event. And Zionists built their structure on that platform.”

Wakim said early Zionists knew well that Palestine was populated. They knew that the land had to be “emptied” to allow European Jews to establish their settler-colonial project.

Nakba refugees
She referred to the 1948 Nakba — “the catastrophe” — when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled by Israeli militias. They became refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria but with a UN-backed right to return.

More than 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed and their land stolen by the Israelis.

Wakim also told of the Zionists’ racist narrative dehumanising the Palestinians and their relationship to the land”.

“But nothing compares with what Israel is doing today — the brutal, ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing we have been witnessing and continue to witness.”

Wakim said the Zionist structure was built on a weak foundation that was crumbling — “not fast enough but the cracks are widening as is Israel’s reliance on one superpower which itself is in decline”.

She said Palestine and Palestinians remained steadfast and resisting the injustices.

“As here in Aotearoa, they are actively working across the world in solidarity with others to expose the lies and change the narrative and unite people of all nations, ethnicities and religions.

BDS movement growing
“BDS — [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] is growing slowly but surely.”

She said Israel was imploding and she called on New Zealand to renew its “lead on social justice issues”.

“We may be small, but we can be powerful,” she added.

Another speaker, kaiāwhina Kerry Sorensen-Tyrer, spoke of her encounter that day at Te Komititanga Square with three IDF soldiers from Israel “holidaying” in New Zealand. After a brief exchange, she photographed them and reminded the crowd to be vigilant and to report information to the PSNA’s IDF hotline.

“We do not want you in Aotearoa,” she said of the soldiers and their role in a genocidal war on Gaza to loud cheers from the crowd.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has asked for an urgent meeting with Police Commissioner Richard Chambers and is calling for “cohesive action” over escalating attacks by Israel supporters against Palestinians and human rights activists.

The network said in a statement a rock had been hurled through the window of New Plymouth activists Kate and Grant Cole last week.

Co-chair Maher Nazzal said attacks from Zionist supporters had become “more frequent and dangerous” over the past year.

“In the case of the Coles, the rock through their window was just the latest in a series of targeted attacks on them and their property,” he said in the statement.

“They have twice endured spray-painted Israeli flags on their fence. Their car tyres were slashed on four different occasions. They had vile lies about them delivered in letterboxes around their neighbourhood.

“This time, it was a rock flung through their window with the message ‘Snap Action — REQ’ attached.”

Nazzal said local police had failed to take these attacks seriously. They had suggested to the Coles that they should “spend a lot of money on security systems”.

He said attacks on activists were increasing even before US President Donald Trump’s “failed ceasefire agreement” for Gaza was signed last October 10.

Pro-Israel lobby ‘has failed’
“The pro-Israel lobby is upset their side has failed to keep the genocide in Gaza completely out of public view,” Nazzal said.

“They have lost the debate. Poll responses show New Zealanders register two to one that New Zealand should sanction Israel for genocide and recognise a Palestinian state.

“Israelis and Israel’s supporters are taking their shock and frustration out on Palestine solidarity activists.

“In the past couple of weeks alone, two women activists were stalked after a protest in Auckland.

“There was spray painting and vandalism of PSNA co-chair John Minto’s home, an assault on a supporter by an ex-IDF soldier in Auckland and attacks on our supporters in Napier.”

Nazzal said that while the police had been vigorous in investigating and prosecuting anyone they believed to have been acting for Palestinian rights — such as the broken window at Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ home and an assault on an Israeli soldier holidaying here — they were slow to follow up on attacks on Palestine supporters.

He said the police were keen to “pull out all stops” for the Israeli Embassy to defend Israeli soldiers “fresh from a genocide in Gaza — but can’t find the time to take attacks on Palestinians and Palestinian supporters seriously.”

The police have yet to comment on PSNA’s claims.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A pro-Palestian campaigner today accused the Israeli military forces of “once again trying to sanitise its” image in Aotearoa New Zealand, condemning a “shameful” visa programme enabling soldiers to holiday in this country.

Leeann Wahanui-Peters branded the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) “more accurately as the Israeli Offence Force (IOF) because it is the illegal occupier of Palestine” at an Auckland rally condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza in spite of the “ceasefire” declared last October.

“For the next two months, members of this military force, including reservists, will be in Aotearoa under a visa programme that shamefully grants 200 working holiday visas to Israeli soldiers annually,” the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) activist told the crowd at Te Komititanga Square.

“These are not tourists. They are individuals complicit in a military apparatus that enforces a brutal apartheid and perpetrates genocide against the Palestinian people.

“They are war criminal suspects seeking to rest and relax after their crimes, welcomed with open arms by a New Zealand government that has chosen to be complicit.”

Israeli forces have killed more than 71,000 Palestinians — 84 percent of them civilians, mostly women and children — since the onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023.

The country is under investigation by the world’s top judicial body, the International Court of Justice, for “plausible genocide” — while United Nations agencies and global human rights watchdogs have already accused Tel Aviv of genocide.

War crimes warrant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant on war crimes and crimes against humanity over the policies of starvation against the besieged enclave.

The influx of Israeli soldiers into New Zealand was not a simple cultural exchange, Wahanui-Peters said.

“It is a calculated public relations exercise by a desperate and isolated rogue state.

“Israel, condemned globally for its war crimes and crimes against humanity, is desperate to maintain a facade of normalcy and international acceptance.”

Wahanui-Peters said that by embedding its soldiers within New Zealand communities as “tourists,” “workers,” or even as “athletes” in sports teams and competitions, Israel sought to “whitewash its crimes” and forge political connections with what it viewed as “fellow colonial-settler states”.

It was an attempt to use Aotearoa New Zealand as a stage — whether a beach, a tennis court, or a volleyball court — to “pretend it remained a legitimate member of the international community”.

Wahanui-Peters recalled that Israel was being investigated for genocide by the ICJ and its leaders under the ICC.

‘Tool of genocide PR’
“We must see this entire [holiday] effort for what it is — a tool of genocide PR, and we must reject it utterly.”

She said the demand for accountability was non-negotiable.

“Accountability is the cornerstone of justice. When states fail to act — as our own government has by welcoming these suspects — the people must.

“The principle of universal jurisdiction means that crimes against humanity concern all of humanity,” Wahanui-Peters said.

“These soldiers and reservists are part of a chain of command carrying out a documented genocide; their presence here, in any capacity, is an affront to every victim, every survivor and every advocate for human rights — and especially Palestinian rights.

“We will not allow Aotearoa to be a holiday resort, a sporting venue, or a training ground for war criminal suspects. We will not allow our country to be used to launder the reputation of a murderous military.”

She referred to how four coalition government leaders — Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins had been referred along with the CEOs of Rocket Lab and Rakon by PSNA to the ICC for alleged complicity in July last year.

Hind Rajab Foundation example
Wahanui-Peters praised the Hind Rajab Foundation for its an “excellent example” of direct legal action “holding these deranged sick individuals accountable”.

This week, for example, the foundation had filed a criminal complaint in Austria against an Israeli soldier accused of war crimes.

Yonatan Akriv of the 8717th “Alon” Battalion was accused on January 13 of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts contributing to genocide during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“The Israeli military’s PR campaign takes many forms. Watch for them not only as tourists but also as purported ‘athletes’,” Wahanui-Peters said.

She appealed for information to be referred to the PSNA hotline at: 027 4 APARTHEID or email: israeligenocide@psna.nz 

Other speakers also condemned the “genocide sportswashing”.

Another PSNA activist, Achmat Esau, originally from South Africa, reminded the crowd of New Zealand’s “proud opposition” to the 1981 Springbok tour to help break apartheid.

“No normal sport in an abnormal society” was the powerful slogan of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS) at the time, he said.

It highlighting that sport in apartheid South Africa could not be separated from racial segregation, leading to international boycotts against the country until apartheid ended in 1994.

Normal sports could not exist under such discrimination and he said the same applied to Israel, where many of the football teams came from illegal settlements in occupied West Bank.

“No normal sport in an abnormal society,” he said, adding that it should apply to Israel.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

What happened at New Zealand human rights campaigner John Minto’s home? Let me tell you.

Let me tell you that he wrote about it and Facebook took it down. Yep. Wrong after wrong.

Minto, national co-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) advocacy and protest group, has been arrested at least 23 times for standing against racism.

A couple of nights ago two Palestinian flags were stolen from the Christchurch Ōtautahi home of John and his partner, Bronwen. “Nazi scum” was spray-painted in large letters on his footpath.

The sign “make poverty history” ripped off the fence and the Te Tiriti sign spray-painted.

But John, who has been a leader in New Zealand protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza which has killed at least 71,000 people since October 2023, has been unable to report this because Facebook removed his original post about this crime.

Why? Because white supremacists and their allies want to win this round, their complaints are supported by oppressive social media mechanisms.

Human rights are under threat. A genocide in Gaza is supported by our New Zealand government. Propaganda is rife. And the Treaty that represents partnership, that should uphold the rights of the tangata whenua is being pushed to the gutter.

And speaking of gutter. Here you see it.

People who feel entitled to storm private property and tear down signs that stand against extermination and exile.

Facebook is blocking shares about the details about the vandalism. Censorship! To thwart the censorship, share this commentary if you wish to share the truth and disempower those who want supreme power.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. Republished from a social media post with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz