Asia Pacific Report

A new documentary film on the devastating “ecocide” happening in West Papua will be screened as a world premiere at a weekend solidarity forum in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau this weekend.

The 90min feature film, Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) — Colonialism In Our Time, produced by award-winning Papuan journalist Victor Mambor and directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono, tells a story about the impact of the Indonesian government and military on the lives of thousands of Papuans trying to protect their rainforests from destruction.

It also relates the plight of thousands of internal refugees in the Melanesian region.

The peaceful resistance of local communities is revealed in the documentary as they face up to 54,000 Indonesian troops and large corporate entities make big profits at the expense of an ancient culture.

Dorthea Wabiser of the environmental and human rights group Pusaka, will speak on the deforestation and displacement of communities in the south-eastern district of Merauke  where Indonesia is destroying 2.5 million ha of rainforest for palm oil, sugar cane, biodiesel, rice and other crops.

Military force is deployed to silence any dissent from communities.

Pesta Babi (Pig Feast).                              Trailer: Jubi Media

Solidarity group hosts
The solidarity group West Papua Action Aotearoa with West Papua Action Tāmaki are hosting the two-day public forum on March 7 and 8 with the speakers from West Papua including environmental champions and filmmakers who operate in militarised zones at considerable risk to their personal safety.

Also, a media talanoa featuring Jubi Media founder Victor Mambor and others will be hosted by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub on March 9.

“The forum is an important event with a number of speakers and filmmakers from West Papua telling the hidden stories of the Indonesian occupation of their country,” said organiser Catherine Delahunty.

The climate impact of their destruction was incredibly serious as was the use of the military to enforce an end to traditional life, food sources, and forests, she said in a statement.

“These people are our Pacific neighbours with a devastating story to tell that our government and others across the world have chosen to ignore,” she said.

“They have a right to come here and to be heard despite the media bans in Indonesia and the desire of successive New Zealand governments to ignore structural genocide in our region.

NZ citizen kidnapped
“Only when a NZ citizen was kidnapped by Papuan soldiers did the government show any interest in West Papua, and this quickly faded once he was safely released thanks especially to West Papuan efforts.”

Other speakers at the forum include veteran activist and writer Maire Leadbeater, Green MP Teanau Tuiono, Hawai’an academic Dr Emalani Case, journalist and author Dr David Robie, Dr Arama Rata of Te Kuaka, and PNG academic Dr Nathan Rew.

• Forum Day One (public sessons), Saturday, March 7:  Old Choral Hall, University of Auckland, 7 Symonds St,  9am–4pm.
• World Premiere of “Pesta Babi” (The Pig Feast) documentary with Q&A – The Academy Cinema, Lorne St, CBD (below the Auckland Public Library), March 7, 6-8.30pm.
• Forum Day Two (solidarity development), Sunday, March 8: The Taro Patch, 9 Dunnotar Rd, Papatoetoe.
• Media Talanoa, Monday, March 9: “Kōrero with Victor Mambor: West Papua: Journalism as Resistance” – Whānau Community Centre and Hub, 165 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill (Next to Harvey Norman), 6-8pm.
• Further information: Catherine Delahunty, West Papua Action Tāmaki and West Papua Action Aotearoa. Tel: 021 2421967

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has dismissed recent accusations of anti-Semitism against her as “shameful and defamatory” in an interview on France 24. She has also warned that “the plan to fully destroy Gaza continues” and denounced Israeli measures in the West Bank, where “soldiers and settlers are spreading terror”. This is a flashback to her influential mid-2025 speech to the Hague Group in Bogotá declaring a global “revolutionary shift is underway”.

ADDRESS: By Francesca Albanese

I express my appreciation to the governments of Colombia and South Africa for convening this group, and to all members of the Hague Group, its founding members for their principled stance, and the others who are joining. May you keep going and so the strength and effectiveness of your concrete actions.

Thank you also to the Secretariat for its tireless work, and last but not least, the Palestinian experts — individuals and organisations who travelled to Bogotá from occupied Palestine, historical Palestine/Israel and other places of the diaspora/exile, to accompany this process, after providing HG with outstanding, evidence-based briefings.

And of course all of you who are here today.

It is important to be here today, in a moment that may prove historical indeed. There is hope that these two days will move all present to work together to take concrete measures to end the genocide in Gaza and, hopefully, end the erasure of what remains of Palestine — because this is the testing ground for a system where freedom, rights, and justice are made real for all.

This hope, that people like me hold tight, is a discipline. A discipline we all should have.

The occupied Palestinian territory today is a hellscape. In Gaza, Israel has dismantled even the last UN function — humanitarian aid — in order to deliberately starve, displace time and again, or kill a population they have marked for elimination.

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing advances through unlawful siege, mass displacement, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, widespread torture.

Across all areas under Israeli rule, Palestinians live under the terror of annihilation, broadcast in real time to a watching world. The very few Israeli people who stand against genocide, occupation, and apartheid — while the majority openly cheers and calls for more — remind us that Israeli liberation, too, is inseparable from Palestinian freedom.

The atrocities of the past 21 months are not a sudden aberration; they are the culmination of decades of policies to displace and replace the Palestinian people.

Against this backdrop, it is inconceivable that political forums, from Brussels to NY, are still debating recognition of the State of Palestine — not because it’s unimportant, but because for 35 years states have stalled, refused recognition, pretending to “invest in the PA” while abandoning the Palestinian people to Israel’s relentless, rapacious territorial ambitions and unspeakable crimes.

Francesca Albanese condemns “witch hunt” over doctored video about Israel   Video: Al Jazeera

Meanwhile, political discourse has reduced Palestine to a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity rather than a political issue demanding principled and firm resolution: end permanent occupation, apartheid and today genocide. And it is not the law that has failed or faltered — it is political will that has abdicated.

But today, we are also witnessing a rupture. Palestine’s immense suffering has cracked open the possibility of transformation. Even if this is not fully reflected into political agendas (yet), a revolutionary shift is underway — one that, if sustained, will be remembered as a moment when history changed course.

And this is why I came to this meeting with a sense of being at a historical turning point — discursively and politically.

First, the narrative is shifting: away from Israel’s endlessly invoked “right to self-defence” and toward the long-denied Palestinian right to self-determination — systematically invisibilised, suppressed and delegitimised for decades.

The weaponisation of antisemitism applied to Palestinian words, and narratives, and the dehumanising use of the terrorism framework for Palestinian action (from armed resistance to the work of NGOs pursuing justice in international arena), has led to a global political paralysis that has been intentional.

It must be redressed. The time is now.

Second, and consequentially, we are seeing the rise of a new multilateralism: principled, courageous, increasingly led by the Global Majority it pains me that I have yet to see this include European countries. As a European, I fear what the region and its institutions have come to symbolise to many: a sodality of states preaching international law yet guided more by colonial mindset than principle, acting as vassals to the US empire, even as it drags us from war to war, misery to misery and when it comes to Palestine — from silence to complicity.

But the presence of European countries at this meeting shows that a different path is possible. To them I say: the Hague Group has the potential to signal not just a coalition, but a new moral center in world politics. Please, stand with them.

Millions are watching — hoping — for leadership that can birth a new global order rooted in justice, humanity, and collective liberation. This is not just about Palestine. This is about all of us.

Principled states must rise to this moment. It does not need to have a political allegiance, colour, political party flags or ideologies: it needs to be upheld by basic human values. Those which Israel has been mercilessly crushing for 21 months now.

Meanwhile I applaud the calling of this emergency conference in Bogotá to address the unrelenting devastation in Gaza. So it is on this, that focus must be directed.

The measures adopted in January by the Hague Group were symbolically powerful. It was the signal of the discursive and political shift needed. But they are the absolute bare minimum. I implore you to expand your commitment. And to turn that commitment into concrete actions, legislatively, judicially in each of your jurisdictions.

And to consider first and foremost, what must we do to stop the genocidal onslaught. For Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, this question is existential. But it really is applicable to the humanity of all of us.

In this context my responsibility here is to recommend to you, uncompromisingly and dispassionately, the cure for the root cause. We are long past dealing with symptoms, the comfort zone of too many these days. And my words will show that what the Hague Group has committed to do and is considering expanding upon, is a small commitment towards what’s just and due based on your obligations under international law.

Obligations, not sympathy, not charity.

Each state immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel. Their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic, relations — both imports and exports — and to make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities and other goods, and services providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT.

These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency. I will have the opportunity to elaborate on the technicalities and implications in our further sessions but lets be clear, I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the OPT is not an option.

This is in line with the duty of all states stemming from the July 2024 Advisory Opinion which confirmed the illegality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, which it declared tantamount to racial segregation and apartheid . The General Assembly adopted that opinion.

These findings are more than sufficient for action. Further, it is the state of Israel who is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, so it is the state that must be responsible for its wrongdoings.

As I argued in my last report to the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation, and has now turned genocidal. It is impossible to disentangle Israel’s state policies and economy from its longstanding policies and economy of occupation. It has been inseparable for decades.

The longer states and others stay engaged, the more this illegality at its heart is legitimised. This is the complicity. Now that economy has turned genocidal. There is no good Israel, bad Israel.

I ask you to consider this moment as if we were sitting here in the 1990s, discussing the case of apartheid South Africa. Would you have proposed selective sanctions on SA for its conduct in individual Bantustans? Or would you have recognised the state’s criminal system as a whole?

And here, what Israel is doing is worse. This comparison — is a legal and factual assessment supported by international legal proceedings many in this room are part of.

This is what concrete measures mean. Negotiating with Israel on how to manage what remains of Gaza and West Bank, in Brussels or elsewhere, is an utter dishonor international law.

And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter — not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967, made these remarks at the Hague Group Emergency Conference of States in Bogotá, Colombia, on 16 July 2025.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Stuart Rees

The violence surrounding protests against the visit of Israel’s president was not an accident of crowd control. It reflects a deeper political failure – where authority suppresses dissent rather than confronting uncomfortable truths about Gaza, protest rights and democratic responsibility.

In official explanations of violence outside Sydney Town Hall on Monday evening, February  9, it sounds as though police were only trying to maintain public safety through various professional measures taken against the thousands outraged that President Isaac Herzog of Israel, charged with incitement to commit genocide, should be in the country.

Those explanations are false. Behind the extensive police powers to control and suppress protest lies a cancerous-like cowardice, facilitated by a cornered Prime Minister and by an Israeli sympathising, authoritarian NSW Premier.

Cowardice can be nurtured by pleasure in dominating, by fear of losing control, by being frightened to face truths, by deceits in pretending that all is well when it manifestly is not.

Restricting protests in order to stifle concern about slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank, or the PM asking the Australian public to “turn the temperature down” so that justifiable outrage about the Bondi massacres will deflect attention from an ongoing genocide in Palestine, is a cowardly technique.

And the PM is not the worst offender, even though government cowardice began when wedged by the Zionist Federation into supporting their invitation to the Israeli President.

Who runs the show you might ask?

Manhandling people
Suppression-oriented Premier Chris Minns delegates responsibility for his anti-protest laws to the chief of NSW police who is happy to oblige. In and out of uniform, cowards appear as strong men, usually men, who like to manhandle or beat up people.

There is no manliness in the police thuggery witnessed in Sydney streets on Monday.

Facile Premier Minns – or is he just naive – with no recognition of his own hypocrisy, says on Tuesday’s news “NSW police are not punching bags”. His holier than thou stance is shown alongside a man held down by police who are punching him repeatedly in the kidneys.

We then switch to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, in Federal Parliament describing police action in general, “what the police were trying to do was sensible”.

As if thuggery on one man is insufficient, other police punch Greens MP Abigail Boyd in the head and shoulder, knock her over and are completely indifferent to her explanations of who she was and the civil and legal reasons for her presence at a legitimate, peaceful protest.

Cameras switch to police apparently unaware that their presence increases conflict, comprehending little, annoyed, then angry at the sight Moslem citizens in prayer on public pavements.

Then we witness no rationality, no civility, only the raw emotions of cowards not getting their way. The men kneeling in prayer are seen being picked up, removed and thrown aside. We’ll never know if deep-seated prejudice affected police conduct, but the question should be raised.

Opposition unity
On Tuesday, the mood of thuggery on the streets moved to the House of Representatives when a Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown inquired of the Prime Minister whether the invitation to the President of Israel had undermined the unity of the country, whether the PM would condemn police violence and send Herzog home.

In response, before the Prime Minister could answer, the opposition benches found a unity which had eluded them for months.

United in their apparent support for Israeli slaughter in Gaza, wanting to be seen to be brave in their dislike of protest about Herzog, and apparently unable or unwilling to know much about genocide continuing during a ceasefire, one of the esteemed members of the newly reformed Coalition, was heard to advise colleagues as to how to deal with the Greens MP.

“Rip her apart,” he was reported as saying. It sounds as though this was exactly what he said. Asked by the Speaker to withdraw his comment, the offending MP did so.

But further support for cowardice camouflaged by thuggery was not far away. Keen to revive his image as macho man at large, former Prime Minister Tony Abbot recommended that police accused of punching protesters should receive a commendation and in future be armed with tear gas and be able fire rubber bullets.

Abbot would never regard himself as a coward but when denial of the existence of a genocide, a failure to face truths, is being multiplied by cowardice evident in acceptance of authoritarianism as the way to conduct politics, policing and even techniques for debate, there should be cross party and widespread public concern.

To meet the Prime Minister’s requests to lower the temperature, the country needs to replace the cowardice with sufficient courage to admit the truths about a genocide, the truths about the values of freedom of speech and the right to protest.

Cowardice may be disguised by violence but is demeaning.

Courage is a way to speak truths. Courageous action can be mentally and physically life enhancing, encourages justice, depicts what Bertolt Brecht called “the bread of the people” and in current Australian culture could infect almost everyone and lower the temperature. Try it.

Dr Stuart Rees AM is professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize. This article was first published in Pearls and Irritations: John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal and is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at the arrests of two American journalists for covering a protest at the Cities Church [in the Minnesota Twin City of] St Paul, where a top ICE official serves as pastor.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort from the Twin Cities were released last Friday after initial court hearings.

A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon and Fort for violating two laws, an 1871 law originally designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan and the FACE Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which was written to protect abortion clinics.

The indictment names a total of nine people, including the two journalists. US Attorney General Pam Bondi took personal credit for the arrests of Fort and Lemon and two others on Friday, posting on X that the arrests occurred at her direction.

Don Lemon, who was arrested late Thursday night by the FBI in Los Angeles, had been reporting on the church protest in St Paul in January as an independent journalist.

His attorney, Abbe Lowell, described the arrest as an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration.”

On Friday afternoon, Don Lemon vowed to continue reporting after appearing court in Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: Don Lemon attended the Grammys on Sunday night.

Also arrested Friday was Georgia Fort, an independent journalist from the Twin Cities. She posted a video to Facebook just as federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration were about to arrest her and take her to the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined now from Minneapolis by that longtime independent journalist Georgia Fort, whose reporting has been recognised with three Midwest Emmys.

‘Journalism Is Not A Crime’                Video: Democracy Now!

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

I don’t know what to say today. We are ruled by abusive monsters.

The US is preparing for war with Iran.

They’re going in for the kill shot on Cuba.

The latest batch of Epstein emails looks horrifying.

The US is full of protests because ICE keeps killing people.

Israel is still massacring civilians in Gaza as Australia prepares to host its president for an extended visit.

Reuters has confirmed that Biden officials actively obstructed the circulation of internal USAID reports that Gaza was being turned into a nightmarish hellscape in early 2024.

There’s so much cruelty. So much abuse.

Our rulers are psychopaths                               Video: Caitlin Johnstone

You’d think all this evidence that we are ruled by deranged psychopaths would unite us against them, but it doesn’t. The population is more angrily, bitterly divided against itself than ever.

Political discourse has gotten as intensely vitriolic as I’ve ever seen it as Donald Trump supporters take their stand behind the current abuser-in-chief and defend the status quo warmongering and tyranny with all their might.

Discussing politics on social media feels like stepping into an emotional blast furnace these days.

They’ve done such a good job dividing us and conquering us. It’s really incredible how good at it they are. It would be awe-inspiring if it wasn’t so evil and destructive.

I haven’t felt like I’m in the zeitgeist recently. Usually I feel like I’m surfing the crest of dissident political consciousness and can provide insight and information into what’s coming up for us as a collective, but everything’s been so chaotic and frenzied lately it’s like trying to ride a bucking bull. I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone but me, but that’s what it feels like.

I don’t really have anything to add to that right now. I try to write something every day, but today all I’ve got is a feeble “There’s so much cruelty, and it hurts.”

It fucking hurts, man.

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.

By Agnese Boffano in London

As Meta, TikTok, Instagram and X continue to dominate online social spaces, a new platform called UpScrolled has entered the scene.

It is not built around dances or memes, but instead positions itself as a space promising fewer shadowbans and greater freedom of political expression, particularly for pro-Palestinian voices.

So, what is it exactly, and why are users switching?

UpScrolled was launched in July 2025 by Palestinian-Australian app developer Issam Hijazi.

At first glance, the platform feels familiar. It features an up and down scrolling video feed reminiscent of TikTok, alongside profile pages, comments and direct messaging features similar to Instagram.

The similarities, however, appear to end there. Unlike major platforms where opaque algorithms determine which content is amplified and which is buried, UpScrolled claims to operate differently.

The platform describes itself as a space where “every voice gets equal power”, promising to operate without “shadowbans, algorithmic games, or pay-to-play favouritism”, according to its website.

In an interview with Rest of World, Hijazi said the motivation behind the launch was the overwhelmingly pro-Israel content he saw being promoted on more established platforms following 7 October 2023.

Working for what he described as big tech companies at the time, Hijazi expressed deep frustration.

“I could not take it anymore. I lost family members in Gaza, and I did not want to be complicit. So I was like, I am done with this, I want to feel useful,” he said.

The Tech for Palestine incubator, an advocacy project that funds technology initiatives supporting the Palestinian cause, has publicly backed the platform.

Moderation without the black box
Hijazi said UpScrolled’s content moderation process differs from other social media platforms in that it does not selectively censor particular groups or viewpoints.

Content deemed illegal, such as the sale of narcotics or prostitution, is removed, but when it comes to free speech, the approach is rooted in transparency, ethics and equal treatment.

According to 7amleh, the Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media, major tech platforms such as Meta have consistently engaged in a “systemic and disproportionate censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian content”. This includes the removal of posts, restrictions on account visibility and, in some cases, permanent bans.

Throughout the war on Gaza, numerous Palestinian organisations, activists, journalists, media outlets and content creators were targeted over their pro-Palestine views.

Bisan Owda, an award-winning Gaza-based journalist with more than 1.4 million followers on TikTok, is among the most prominent recent examples, whose account was reportedly permanently banned earlier this week — but has now been reinstated after a global outcry.

Critics argue that censorship concerns extend beyond the Palestinian issue, affecting other sensitive topics, including criticism of US government policies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

High profile commentators critical of the Trump administration have reported what they describe as a systematic effort to remove or suppress their videos and content.

It’s Bisan from Gaza . . . why the truth is so dangerous.     Video: AJ+

Users flock to UpScrolled
Users frustrated with big tech’s control over online narratives have increasingly turned to the new platform.

UpScrolled has reached number one in the social networking category of Apple’s App Store in both the US and the UK.

As of Tuesday, the app had been downloaded around 400,000 times in the US and 700,000 times globally since its launch. An estimated 85 percent of those downloads occurred after January 21 alone, according to data from marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

The Palestinian-founded app has also seen a surge in downloads following the recent acquisition of TikTok by American billionaire Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle.

Ellison is a prominent supporter of Israel and maintains close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also financially backed the Israeli military, including a $16.6 million donation made during a 2017 gala organised by the Friends of the Israeli Forces.

The timing of UpScrolled’s rise has therefore not gone unnoticed. The platform appears to have capitalised on widespread frustration and anger over biased content moderation, offering an alternative built around transparency and user control.

The app remains a work in progress, with users having reported crashes and server overloads amid its rapid growth over the past week.

Still, UpScrolled poses a challenge to dominant platforms and highlights a growing appetite for social media spaces that give users greater control over what they see and share.

Republished from the Middle East News Agency (MENA) and The New Arab.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

BookHero Review

Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, by David Robie, isn’t only a gripping tale of adventure and tragedy but also a testament to the enduring spirit of environmental activism. It serves as an important reminder of the power of collective action and the indomitable human spirit in the face of adversity.’

This book is a compelling narrative that delves into a poignant moment in history and its lasting repercussions. Set against the backdrop of Pacific activism, the book meticulously chronicles the ill-fated journey of the Greenpeace vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, in a vividly detailed account that captures the tension and ideals of environmental advocacy.

The story unfolds as the Rainbow Warrior embarks on a critical mission to protest nuclear testing in the Pacific. The ship’s crew, a resolute group of environmental activists, intends to disrupt nuclear tests that threaten to devastate the delicate ecology of the region. Traversing the vast and often perilous waters of the Pacific, the campaigners demonstrate unwavering commitment to their cause.

Traversing the vast and often perilous waters of the Pacific, the campaigners demonstrate unwavering commitment to their cause.

However, their journey turns tragic on the night of 10 July 1985, when French secret agents carry out a covert sabotage operation in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, bombing the ship in a stunning act of violence that reverberates globally.

David Robie, a veteran journalist and witness to the events, offers an insightful account filled with his personal experiences and observations. Through his lens, readers gain a comprehensive understanding of the geopolitical dynamics at play and the fierce dedication of those aboard the vessel.

40 years on: The Rainbow Warrior, the bombing and French colonial culture in Pacific – David Robie talks to the Fabian Society

Dr Robie incorporates a deeply human perspective, portraying the hope, courage, and grief that accompany such a devastating loss.

The tragedy claimed the life of Fernando Pereira, a courageous Portuguese-born photographer who tragically perished in the attack, igniting international outrage and drawing widespread attention to both the cause of environmental protection and the political tensions underlying the act of sabotage.

Dr Robie’s narrative goes beyond the immediate incident, reflecting on the far-reaching consequences for Greenpeace and the environmental movement at large.

Following the attack, the remnants of the Rainbow Warrior were repurposed into a living reef in a New Zealand bay in 1987, a symbol of resilience and renewal. Subsequently, Rainbow Warrior II was commissioned, and later still, Rainbow Warrior III, carrying on the legacy of their predecessor in the fight for environmental justice.

The prologue in the 2025th edition is by former Prime Minister Helen Clark and the foreword by former Greenpeace International co-executive director Bunny McDiarmid. This edition has major new sections on climate crisis and updates.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

I can’t get over the fact that people were casting bets on whether the US would bomb Iran the other day. It just says such dark things about the type of civilization we are living in.

In this dystopia, Americans are never given the option to vote for a president who won’t bomb foreign countries in wars of aggression. But they do have the option to gamble on when those bombs will be dropped.

They’re not allowed to vote against war, militarism and imperialism, but they can go to an app on their smartphone and place bets on how the war, militarism and imperialism will unfold.

Preventing your government from raining military explosives onto foreign countries full of civilians who are just trying to live their lives? No. Thumbs down. You don’t get to do that.

Pouring money into “prediction market” scams like Kalshi and Polymarket with bets on when those military explosives will end the lives of those foreign civilians? Yes. Thumbs up. You are encouraged to do that.

You’re allowed to get rich making an app which lets Westerners gamble on military atrocities of immense humanitarian consequence.

In this dystopia . . .                                              Video: Caitlin Johnstone

You’re allowed to get rich starting a company that manufactures missiles, sells those missiles to the US government, and then pays think tanks and lobbyists to convince US decision makers to use those missiles in gratuitous acts of mass military violence.

You’re allowed to get rich buying stocks in the arms industry and then funding the political campaigns of politicians who pledge to help start wars.

As long as it’s profitable and sits within the extremely broad parameters of acceptable liberal norms, it’s perfectly legal.

But when it comes to doing anything that might eat into those profits by making the world a less violent place, there’s not even a viable option at the ballot box.

Our world looks the way it looks because our entire civilisation is driven by the mindless pursuit of profit.

It’s profitable to start wars, so the wars never end.

It’s profitable for corporations to destroy the ecosystem and offload the costs of industry onto the environment, so it keeps happening.

It’s profitable for capitalists to keep wages down and worker’s rights at a minimum, so wealth inequality gets worse and worse.

It’s profitable for plutocrats to manipulate legislation and government policy using campaign funding and corporate lobbying, so the government gets more and more corrupt and oligarchic while society gets more and more unjust and oppressive.

As long as we have systems in place which cause mass-scale human behaviour to be driven by the pursuit of profit, things are going to keep getting more and more violent, abusive, poisoned, polluted, unjust, unhappy, and dystopian.

This will continue until we as a collective decide we’ve had enough and force new systems into place. Until then the object in motion shall remain in motion.

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.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Is there anything more undignified than “leftists” and “anarchists” who cheer on the fall of empire-targeted governments even as the empire moves war machinery into place?

Ooh look at me, I’m sticking it to the man by supporting the same agendas as the US State Department. I’m being punk rock by regurgitating the same war propaganda talking points as John Bolton.

I’m fighting the power by backing the foreign policy objectives of the most powerful empire that has ever existed.

Embarrassing, man.

Anarchists, again, fail to understand that overthrowing the existing state infrastructure would create a power vacuum. And currently, there does not exist a revolutionary vanguard that can occupy that space with the mass line.

Which means that such a situation is prime for… https://t.co/a1OJqGzAQZ

— mischa ☭ (@redmischa) January 14, 2026

If you want to have a serious political outlook it is necessary to have a more layered understanding of the world than “tyranny bad”, because as Westerners we ourselves are ruled by the most tyrannical power structure on earth.

That power structure ceaselessly targets the few remaining states that have successfully resisted being absorbed into its globe-spanning power umbrella like Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and Cuba.

Those states have successfully resisted being absorbed into the imperial blob exactly because they have strong governments that don’t hesitate to exert control to stomp out all the imperial operations and infiltrations which would otherwise have overthrown them.

This doesn’t mean these governments are wonderful and flawless, it just means they possess the qualities that enable a state to resist the empire’s coups, proxy conflicts, color revolutions and foreign influence operations.

If your only analysis of state power dynamics is “tyranny bad”, then you will naturally find yourself in opposition to the unabsorbed states and (whether you admit it or not) on the side of the most tyrannical regime on earth  —  namely the US-centralised Western empire.

No other power structure has spent the 21st century slaughtering people by the millions in wars of aggression around the world, attacking civilian populations with deadly starvation sanctions, staging coups, instigating proxy conflicts, and circling the planet with hundreds of military bases.

Only the US empire is doing that. Dominating the entire planet with murderous brute force is as tyrannical as it gets. If this isn’t true, then nothing is.

If you want to have a serious political worldview, you need to get real about this. The premise that the fall of an authoritarian government is always inherently positive has no place in the understanding of a grown adult, especially if that grown adult happens to live in the core of the Western empire, and especially if that empire is presently working to orchestrate the overthrow of the government in question.

The “I oppose all governments equally” flag. pic.twitter.com/MJGdXerObo

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 31, 2021

The more power structures are absorbed into the empire, the larger and more powerful the empire becomes. Desiring their absorption is desiring more power for the US empire.

And you can lie to yourself and say that you don’t want Iran to be absorbed into the control of the US empire, you just want its people to live in a free and democratic country. But we both know that’s not going to happen.

Once the strength of the Iranian government has been collapsed there will be a power vacuum that is filled by whatever faction is able to secure control, and the strongest faction will be whichever one is backed by the US and its allies. There is no organic faction within Iran that is strong enough to stand against the installation of a US puppet regime at this time, besides the one that presently exists.

That’s the reality of the situation. It’s not ideal, but it is reality. You can choose to be real about reality, or you can choose to psychologically compartmentalise away from it and tell yourself a bunch of fairly tales about a global people’s revolution which just coincidentally happens to be starting in all the countries the US empire hates most. I personally find the latter undignified, self-debasing, and power-serving.

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.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

If you were wondering why the US establishment was so much more chill about Trump becoming president this term than they were the first time around, you’re watching the reason now.

The powers that be were assured that he’d carry out longstanding imperial agendas like kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, bombing Iran and overseeing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and they trusted him to carry out those plans.

The MAGA narrative that the establishment hates Trump because he’s fighting the Deep State has never been true; there were certain factions within the US imperial power structure which disliked Trump, but that was only because he was not a proven commodity like Hillary Clinton and they didn’t trust him to be a reliable steward of the empire.

Trump proved that he could be trusted with his advancement of longtime swamp monster agendas throughout his first term, and he plainly did enough during his time out of office to assure his fellow empire managers that he would do even more if re-elected.

The empire needs its skillful orators and apologists like Obama, but it also needs its iron-fisted overt tyrants like Trump.

It needs good cop presidents to manufacture global consensus and expand US soft power, and it also needs bad cop presidents to inflict the hard power abuses the good cops can’t get away with. Both are essential components to the operation of the imperial machine.

Marco Rubio:

If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned — at least a little bit. pic.twitter.com/6ZBmwykfH1

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 3, 2026

Cuba for example has been a socialist island nation off the coast of the United States for generations, because the US hasn’t been able topple its government by its usual means. All the standard CIA assassination ops, proxy warfare and economic blockades were unsuccessful, and there’s been no national or international support for sending US boots on the ground to regime change a small country that poses no military threat.

But a last-term bad cop president like Trump has options at his disposal that would be off the table for good cop presidents.

US empire managers are discussing this openly.

“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Maduro’s capture.

“Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump told the press on Sunday next to a delighted Lindsey Graham. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall.”

This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened. pic.twitter.com/SXvI868d4Z

— Department of State (@StateDept) January 5, 2026

“You just wait for Cuba,” Graham added. “Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns, they preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re gonna wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.

“Donald Trump will have done something that’s eluded America since the fifties: deal with the Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I can’t wait till that day comes. To our Cuban friends in Florida and throughout America, the liberation of your homeland is close.”

The Beltway swamp was saying this well before Trump’s Venezuela assault. In October, Senator Rick Scott told 60 Minutes that if Maduro was removed “it’ll be the end of Cuba,” saying “America is gonna take care of the Southern Hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy.”

Trump’s blatant smash-and-grab violation of international law in Venezuela wouldn’t have worked for a president who’s trying to put a nice guy face on the US empire, but for a wealthy reality TV star who’s comfortable playing the WWE heel, it’s opened up potential power grabs that have been eluding the imperialists for decades.

JUST IN – Lindsey Graham and Trump pose together with a “Make Iran Great Again” hat, signed by Trump. pic.twitter.com/656ctZp52M

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 5, 2026

When the news broke that Trump had attacked Caracas I was working on an article about his warmongering with Iran which I had to abandon to focus on the new development. The president had announced on Truth Social that if any of the people protesting in Iran are killed, “the United States of America will come to their rescue,” adding, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Prior to that Trump had confirmed to the press that the US would attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its missile program, saying in a joint news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

To be clear, the president is not talking about attacking Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear facilities or construct a nuclear weapon. He’s talking about Iran’s conventional ballistic missile programme. The United States is saying that Iran simply is not allowed to defend itself in any way, shape or form, and that if it tries to rebuild its ability to do so it will be attacked again.

So they’re clearly just making up excuses to bomb Iran and waiting for something to stick.

Senator Graham recently tweeted a photo of himself grinning with the president, who was holding a hat which said “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”. You can pretty much determine how warlike the US empire is from day to day by looking at the expression on Lindsey Graham’s face, and lately he’s been looking positively ecstatic.

Trump used to slam warmongers like Graham, building a huge part of his presidential 2016 campaign around contrasting himself with their disastrous foreign policy platforms.

Now that he doesn’t have a re-election to posture for they’re best friends, with Graham proclaiming that “Trump is my favourite president” because “we’re killing all the right people and lowering your taxes”.

January 2029 is still a long way off, and we’re seeing every indication that Trump is going to be making Lindsey Graham smile for years to come.

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.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

There was another IDF massacre in Gaza on Saturday, reportedly killing dozens of Palestinians.

Israel as usual claimed it was responding to a ceasefire violation by Hamas, but of course there’s absolutely no evidence for this to be found. AP reports that according to the IDF the strikes were launched after a Hamas fighter “shot at troops in southern Gaza,” but that “no soldiers were hurt” in this alleged attack.

Not so much as a scratch. So I guess we’re just expected to take Israel’s word for it.

Now check out these Western media headlines about the massacre and notice the disgusting spin they are placing on the narrative to normalise the continued slaughter of Palestinians:

Do you see what they’re doing here?

The Western press see the killing of Palestinians as such a baseline norm that Israel can massacre dozens of people in Gaza and they’ll go, “Gosh I sure hope this doesn’t lead to any violations of the ceasefire!”

When Israel violates Trump’s ceasefire, the mainstream media calls it “testing” the ceasefire.

There is no circumstance in this or in any other universe in which Hamas could kill 24 Israelis and the media would reduce it to Hamas “testing” the ceasefire. https://t.co/QfaJh2N8bR

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) November 22, 2025

It’s never a ceasefire violation to commit mass murder against Palestinians. It’s only ever a “test” of the ceasefire, or something that happens “amid a fragile ceasefire”.

If Hamas suddenly attacked and killed dozens of Israelis, these empire propagandists wouldn’t be saying “Hmm I sure hope the fragile ceasefire holds up amid this challenging test.” They’d just call it what it is. And it would be the main news story in the world.

You don’t hate the mass media enough     Audio/video: Caitlin Johnstone

The imperial media have been framing Israel’s ceasefire violations like this the entire time. Just the other day NBC News ran a report about a different IDF massacre in Gaza titled “Israeli airstrikes kill 25 Palestinians in Gaza, rattling fragile ceasefire”. Last month CNN ran a headline claiming “US-brokered ceasefire appears to survive first major test” after Israel killed at least 44 people, when Israel had been violating the ceasefire every single day up to that point.

The mass media have been running egregiously misleading headlines throughout this entire genocide, which has an overwhelmingly distorting effect on public perception in an information environment where skim-reading has become the norm and most social media users share news stories after just reading the headline.

Killing Palestinians is so normalized and accepted as a baseline expectation in the western press that CNN calls this the “first major test” of the ceasefire after Israel killed people in Gaza every single day since the ceasefire agreement was signed. https://t.co/wTSEKzsDCN

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 19, 2025

It almost feels silly to point out that the mass media are wildly biased in favor of Israel two years into a genocide which they’ve actively run propaganda cover for in brazen acts of journalistic malpractice from the very beginning.

But we can’t let it slip from our attention how evil these imperial spinmeisters are. How racist they are. How mendacious and manipulative they are. However much you hate them, you don’t hate them enough.

These are the people who are informing Western perspectives about what’s going on in our world. They aren’t just deceiving the public with dishonest headlines and precipitously slanted reporting which gets loudly amplified by Silicon Valley algorithms, they are writing the stories which get used and cited by AI chatbots and online platforms like Wikipedia which people are increasingly turning to for information about world events.

They are polluting the entire information ecosystem with a deluge of propaganda they are churning out day after day, year after year.

These freaks are attacking our minds. They are attacking humanity’s ability to understand its waking reality. They are continuously indoctrinating the public into an ignorant, Western supremacist worldview which only values human life when it lives in the correct part of the world, speaks the correct language, practises the correct religion, has the correct skin color, and aligns with the correct geopolitical agendas.

They make everything worse. It’s impossible to have enough disdain for these mass media propagandists.

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.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Secretary of War™ Pete Hegseth said during a speech on Friday that the US is at “a 1939 moment” of “mounting urgency” in which “enemies gather, threats grow,” adding, “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing.”

Everything’s getting darker and creepier in the shadow of the empire.

Nate Bear has a report out on his newsletter titled “The AI Drones Used In Gaza Now Surveilling American Cities” about a new company called Skydio which “in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US”.

Bear reports that Skydio now has contracts with police departments in almost every large US city to use these Gaza-tested drones for surveillance of American civilians.

Hegseth: “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing. Building for victory should our adversaries FAFO.” pic.twitter.com/eoxhgZh7sZ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 7, 2025

Haaretz reports that Israel’s efforts to manipulate American minds back into supporting the Zionist entity include pouring millions into influence operations targeting Christian churchgoers and efforts to change responses to Palestine-related queries on popular AI services like ChatGPT.

It’s crazy how you can literally just be minding your own business in your own church on a Sunday morning and then suddenly find yourself getting throat fucked by propaganda paid for by the state of Israel.

The Intercept reports that YouTube, which is owned by Google, quietly deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in a purge of pro-Palestine human rights groups from the platform.

Mass Silicon Valley deletions like this combined with the sudden influx of fake AI-generated video content polluting the information ecosystem could serve to erase and obfuscate the evidence of the Gaza holocaust for future generations.

The US empire keeps getting creepier      Video: Caitlin Johnstone

A new report from Reuters says that last year the US had intelligence showing Israel’s own lawyers warning that the IDF’s mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip could result in war crimes charges. This is yet more evidence that the Biden administration knew it was backing a genocide the entire time, including during election season when left-leaning Americans were being told they needed to vote for then-Vice President Kamala Harris if they wanted to save Gaza.

In Italy, a journalist was fired from the news agency Nova for asking an EU official if she thought Israel should be responsible for the reconstruction of Gaza in the same way she has said Russia should have to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine.

A Nova spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the journalist was indeed fired for asking the inconvenient question on the basis that “Russia had invaded a sovereign country unprovoked, whereas Israel was responding to an attack.”

Reuters reports that the US is preparing to establish a military base in Damascus. For years the empire waged a complex regime change operation in Syria to oust Assad, first by backing proxy forces to destroy the country and then via sanctions and US military occupation to prevent reconstruction.

And it worked. The empire’s dirty war in Syria will be cited by warmongering swamp monsters for years to come as evidence that regime change interventionism can succeed if you just stick at it and do whatever evil things need to be done.

These are just a few of the disturbing stories from the last few days that I hadn’t had a chance to write about yet. This is the kind of world we are being offered by the US empire. There is nothing on the menu for us but more war, more genocide, more surveillance, more censorship, more tyranny, and more abuse.

Things are going to keep getting more and more dystopian for everyone who lives under the thumb of the imperial power structure until enough of us decide that the empire needs to end.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell “release the hostages!” at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free.

I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing.

On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children.

The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line — the so-called “Yellow Line” — into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last “ceasefire” as well.

In my polemic last year I argued that the slaughter we were seeing in Gaza plainly had nothing to do with pushing for the release of Israeli hostages, and that even if it did it would still be barbaric to massacre children until your enemies caved in to your demands.

But two years of genocide have made it clear that the Israeli military was never killing Palestinian civilians in order to push for the release of hostages or force Hamas to cave in to their demands.

What Israel Supporters Really Mean When They Say “Release The Hostages”

What they are saying is that they believe Israel should murder children, decapitate them, rip their guts out, dismember them, mutilate them, burn them alive, every single day, until its military demands are… pic.twitter.com/3VnffoYStb

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 26, 2024

The Israeli military kills Palestinian civilians in order to kill Palestinian civilians. The killing is the goal, and it always has been.

We see this illustrated over and over again, in all sorts of ways. Israel apologists always argued that the only reason the IDF had destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system with nonstop hospital attacks was because Hamas was using those hospitals as secret military bases.

But then multiple independent reports from Western doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli forces had been entering the hospitals after attacking them and systematically destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one in order to make them unusable. Hamas wasn’t the target in those hospital attacks, the hospitals themselves were the target.

They said the massacres would stop.          Video: Caitlin Johnstone

And now we are seeing the “Israel is killing people because Hamas has Israeli hostages” narrative debunked in exactly the same way the “Israel keeps bombing hospitals because there are Hamas bases in all of them” narrative was.

The hostages are free, but the massacres continue.

None of which will surprise anyone who was paying attention these last two years. Israel’s genocidal intent has been on full display every minute of every day, and it continues to be even during this joke of a “ceasefire” where the genocide was theoretically supposed to be on pause for a little while.

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.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that Canberra will be expelling the Iranian ambassador and legislating to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist group”.

Albanese says the move is because an assessment by the intelligence agency ASIO has concluded that Iran used a “complex web of proxies” to orchestrate two antisemitic arson attacks in Australia in order to “undermine social cohesion and sow discord”.

As you might expect, not one shred of evidence has been provided for this assertion, much less the giant mountain of rock-solid proof required for intelligence agency credibility in a post-Iraq invasion world.

This hasn’t stopped the Murdoch press from going ballistic and framing the assertion as a “bombshell revelation” of an established fact.

It also hasn’t stopped Australia’s state broadcaster the ABC from publishing an article by Laura Tingle with the flagrantly propagandistic title “Revelations Iran was behind antisemitic attacks show IRGC tentacles have reached Australia”.

Evidence-free assertions made by the government are not “revelations”, and to frame them as such is journalistic malpractice.

The Israeli government has publicly claimed credit for pressuring Albanese to take these actions, after Netanyahu personally inserted himself into Australian affairs by repeatedly publicly expressing outrage about alleged antisemitic incidents in Australia.

21 questions about Australia’s Iran claim.           Video: Caitlin Johnstone

Anyway, here are 21 questions we should all be asking about these new claims:

1. Where is the evidence?

2. May we please see the evidence?

3. Why can’t we see the evidence?

4. In what way would it benefit Iran to orchestrate antisemitic attacks in Australia?

5. In what way would it benefit Iran to “undermine social cohesion and sow discord” in Australia?

6. Please explain how orchestrating antisemitic attacks in Australia would advance Iranian interests more than the interests of some other state, like, say, just for example, Israel?

7. What foreign intelligence agencies were involved in helping ASIO gather the information it used to make its assessment about the Iranian involvement in these incidents?

8. What were the names of all the people in the “complex web of proxies” allegedly used to conduct these attacks which ASIO claims ultimately traced back to Tehran?

9. Does Anthony Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with Benjamin Netanyahu’s stern letter to Albanese a week earlier demanding that the prime minister take action on alleged antisemitic incidents in Australia by the deadline of September 23?

10. Does Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with the fact that Israel is reportedly very close to initiating another war with Iran?

11. Does Albanese’s announcement that Iran is staging antisemitic attacks in Australia have anything to do with the way Australians have been filling the streets in massive numbers to protest the Gaza holocaust?

12. Why kick out the Iranian ambassador and designate the IRGC as a terrorist group while keeping the Israeli ambassador in Australia and doing absolutely nothing to stop the IDF during an active genocide?

13. Which state benefits more from the Australian government’s efforts to stomp out free speech in the name of curbing antisemitic incidents: Iran or Israel?

14. Which state would benefit more from fomenting hostilities between Canberra and Tehran: Iran or Israel?

15. Are we being asked to forget the way Australian intelligence services facilitated the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, or simply to ignore this?

16. Are we being asked to forget the fact that we’ve been lied to and manipulated about all things involving Israel for the last two years, or simply to ignore this?

17. Are we being asked to forget that the claims about “antisemitic attacks” in Australia have been exposed as bogus or riddled with glaring plot holes over and over again since 2023, or simply to ignore this?

18. Are we being asked to forget that supporters of Israel have an extensive history of staging false antisemitic incidents in order to advance the interests of the Zionist state, or simply to ignore this?

19. Does the Australian government believe Australians are all complete slobbering idiots?

2o. Does the Australian government believe Australians are all high on ayahuasca?

21. What specific mental illness, intellectual disability, or chemically-induced altered state of consciousness does the Australian government believe Australians are all suffering from which would cause us to accept these unfounded assertions as true?

Of course none of these questions will ever be answered by anyone with real power. The reason it’s ASIO telling us this happened instead of police or investigative journalists is because police and journalists are expected to lay out the evidence for their assertions, while intelligence agencies are not.

Whenever the powerful present us with evidence-free incendiary claims of significant consequence, I like to remind my readers of Hitchens’ razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

It sure was selfless of the Iranians to orchestrate these attacks against their own interests, solely to benefit the interests of Israel, just as hundreds of thousands of Australians are filling the streets in protest against Israel’s genocidal atrocities, and just as Israel prepares for war with Iran.

That sure was kind and charitable of them.

Bunch of top blokes, those Iranians. It’s too bad they’re terrorists now.

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.

Dollars to donuts this was orchestrated by mossad https://t.co/2xhJxZrsGQ

— Maxine Gay (@GayMaxine) August 26, 2025

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

It’s so revealing how Israelis keep begging Trump to end the killing in Gaza, because they understand that the US President has the power to force Israel to stop. It seems like Israelis understand this far better than Americans do.

Six former Israeli hostages and the widow of a slain hostage have released a video pleading with President Trump in English to support a comprehensive deal to make peace in Gaza so that the remaining hostages can be freed.

“You have the power to make history, to be the president of peace, the one who ended the war, ended the suffering, and brought every hostage home, including my little brother,” implores one of the hostages.

“President Trump, please act now before it’s too late for them, too,” pleads the widow.

This is not the first time Israelis have begged Trump to force an end to the slaughter.

Earlier this month more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They did this because they understand something that many Americans do not: that the US President has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust.

It’s crazy how many times I’ve encountered Americans telling me that this is “Israel’s war” and there’s nothing the president can do to end it.

It was mostly Democrats doing this back when Biden was president and I was slamming Genocide Joe for continuing this mass atrocity, and now that Trump is in office it’s his supporters who show up in my comments section white knighting for the president.

“It’s not our war and we should stay out of it,” they sometimes claim, mistakenly thinking that critics of the US-backed genocide are asking for some kind of US intervention.

But the call isn’t for the US to intervene, it’s for the US to stop intervening. To end the US interventionism that has been underway for two years. The Gaza holocaust can be ended by the US simply ceasing to add wood to the fire.

Israeli military insiders have been saying again and again that the onslaught in Gaza would not be possible without US support.

A senior Israeli air force official told Ha’aretz last year that “without the Americans’ supply of weapons to the Israel Defence Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months.”

In November 2023, retired Israeli Major-General Yitzhak Brick told Jewish News Syndicate that, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US.

“The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability . . .  Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote the following last year:

“The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel’s air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel.

“We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own.

“In recent months, hundreds of American transport planes have landed at IAF bases carrying thousands of tons of advanced, vital military equipment and munitions.”

The Israelis clearly understand that they’ve been entirely dependent on the US for the IDF’s acts of butchery in Gaza this entire time, and they clearly understand that the US President has the ability to turn off the tap whenever he wants.

And now they are begging the president to do so with increasing urgency, because it’s been made clear to them that their own government isn’t going to stop until it is forced to stop. They can’t stop the gunman, so they’re turning to the man who’s feeding him the ammo.

It would be good if Americans understood this as well.

Trump is committing genocide in Gaza, just as surely as Netanyahu is, and he could end it at any time. The fact that he still has not chosen to do so makes him one of the most evil people on earth.

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.