Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.

The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.

However, the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.

Under his prime ministerial watch this year, Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more illegal Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?

The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.

New Zealand, along with other Western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.

It is precisely the attitude of Western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.

The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.

John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

The besieged Gaza Strip
The Palestinian enclave — home to about 2.3 million people — has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, reports Al Jazeera.
More than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and thousands have taken shelter in UN schools as Israeli attacks intensify, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.

Buildings, mosques and offices have been targeted as Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” for the deadly attacks that has sent shockwaves across Israel.

Harrowing images from inside Gaza have emerged with 19 members of a family killed when an air strike on Sunday hit their residential building. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes currently in Israel.

Israel has maintained a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, a year after Hamas was democratically elected into power. The voting came nearly two years after Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the enclave.

The blockade gives Israel control of Gaza’s borders, and Egypt has stepped in to enforce the western border.

Israel has stated it has blocked the borders to protect its citizens from Hamas, but the act of collective punishment violates the Geneva Conventions and has long been considered illegal by groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.

The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.

However, the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.

Under his prime ministerial watch this year, Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more illegal Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?

The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.

New Zealand, along with other Western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.

It is precisely the attitude of Western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.

The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.

John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

The besieged Gaza Strip
The Palestinian enclave — home to about 2.3 million people — has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, reports Al Jazeera.
More than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and thousands have taken shelter in UN schools as Israeli attacks intensify, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.

Buildings, mosques and offices have been targeted as Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” for the deadly attacks that has sent shockwaves across Israel.

Harrowing images from inside Gaza have emerged with 19 members of a family killed when an air strike on Sunday hit their residential building. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes currently in Israel.

Israel has maintained a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, a year after Hamas was democratically elected into power. The voting came nearly two years after Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the enclave.

The blockade gives Israel control of Gaza’s borders, and Egypt has stepped in to enforce the western border.

Israel has stated it has blocked the borders to protect its citizens from Hamas, but the act of collective punishment violates the Geneva Conventions and has long been considered illegal by groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Israel’s fatal shooting of leading Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh as she covered clashes in the West Bank city of Jenin is a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council Resolution 2222 on the protection of journalists, says the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

It has called for an independent international investigation into her death as soon as possible.

Witnesses said Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American, was killed by a shot to the head although she was wearing a bulletproof vest with the word “PRESS” that clearly identified her as a journalist.

Ali al-Samudi, a Palestinian journalist working as an Al Jazeera producer who was beside her at the time, was also targeted, sustaining a gunshot wound in the back, RSF reported.

Samudi, who is now in hospital, said in a video: “We were filming. They did not ask us to stop filming or to leave. They fired a shot that hit me and another shot that killed Shireen in cold blood.”

Following Abu Akleh’s death, Israeli security forces raided her East Jerusalem home as her family was making arrangements for her funeral.

Her body was transferred to Nablus for an autopsy prior to be taken to Jerusalem, where her funeral took place yesterday in emotional scenes with massive crowds. She was buried beside her parents in Mount Zion.

Israeli riot police attacked the pallbearers and a hearse carrying her coffin in the peaceful march, and ripped away Palestinian flags. International protests have followed this latest attack.

Popular in Middle East
Abu Akleh was very popular in the Middle East and was respected by fellow journalists for her experience in the field.

Al Jazeera issued a statement accusing the Israeli security forces of “deliberately” targeting Abu Akleh and of killing her “in cold blood.”

The Israel Defence Forces announced an investigation into her death, but IDF spokesman Amnon Shefler said Israeli soldiers “would never deliberately target non-combatants”.

Several witnesses, including an AFP photographer, denied seeing any armed Palestinians at the place where Abu Akleh was killed. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said he held the Israeli authorities “fully responsible” for her death.

“RSF is not satisfied with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s proposal of a joint investigation into this journalist’s death,” said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire.

“An independent international investigation must be launched as soon as possible.”

The shooting of these two Palestinian reporters during an IDF “anti-terrorist operation” in Jenin is the latest of many disturbing cases.

Two journalists fatally shot
In the spring of 2018, two Palestinian journalists were fatally shot by Israeli snipers while covering the weekly “Great March of Return” protests near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip.

Also in 2018, Ain Media founder Yaser Murtaja was killed on the spot on March 30, while Radio Sawt al Shabab reporter Ahmed Abu Hussein died in hospital on April 25 from the gunshot injury he suffered on April 13.

According to RSF’s tallies, more than 140 journalists have been the victims of violations by the Israeli security forces on Friday’s marches since 2018, and at least 30 journalists have been killed since 2000.

Israel is 86th in the RSF 2022 World Press Freedom Index, and Palestine is 170th.

And now they won’t even let one of Palestine’s giants in journalism have a dignified and peaceful funeral — all in plain sight. (There’s a reason Reporters Without Borders ranks Israel 86th in Press Freedom.) https://t.co/y8SLL1qY7P

— Abdallah Fayyad (@abdallah_fayyad) May 13, 2022

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning analyse how it is now clear atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians is widespread, appears systematic, and may be coldly planned by Russian leaders as troops withdraw toward the east. But can justice be achieved?

The crimes committed in Ukraine could be defined by four categories:

• War crimes (which includes the targeting of civilians),
• Crimes against humanity (which crosses a scale because it is systematic and essentially focusses on individuals),
• Genocide (where groups are targeted),
• Crime of aggression (which is the waging of an illegal war).

This week, Professor of Law, Philippe Sands, of the University College London told PBS: “In the present circumstances where Russia has waged a war that is manifestly illegal, it is plain to me that the crime of aggression has been perpetrated. And, the significance of that crime is it is the only one with any degree of certainty that it reaches the top-table, Mr Putin, Mr Lavrov, the Defence Minister, senior military, senior intelligence, senior political leaders.

“With all the other crimes, the challenge that you have got is linking the terrible images that we have just seen with the leadership at the top. And, that can be very difficult.”

Professor Sands has joined around 100 others, including former leaders around the world, calling for a Special Criminal Tribunal, that would sit alongside the ICC in The Hague, and investigate in parallel the crime of aggression. (Ref. 14:31 PBS April 4, 2022, https://youtu.be/TbX8Wl4HEh4 )

Professor of Law, Yvonne McDermott Rees, of the University of Swansea told DW News: “Let’s say, theoretically we have a trial before the International Criminal Court, the ICC seeks to prosecute those who are deemed most responsible.

“And there are a number of modes of liability set out in statute of the International Criminal Court. These include ordering, inducing, soliciting these crimes to be committed. But importantly, in the case of Vladimir Putin, there is superior responsibility.” (Ref. DW, April 5, 2022, https://youtu.be/1xIOw21BUgc )

But as Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss; it is challenging in the extreme to bring a leader of a nuclear power to justice.

QUESTIONS:

• Were the atrocities identified a deliberate, systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian populations and culture?
• Were they crimes committed by troops so as to cover their retreat, by killing and leaving dead Ukrainians behind, so that the Ukrainian armed forces were forced to stop and to attend to them?
• What of enforcement capability, where authoritarian leaders will oppose any attempt to bring anyone but the lowest level “rogue” personnel to justice. Is it satisfactory if recourse and prosecution becomes a mostly Western (mostly European) affair?

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning raise the question: If escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine will occur should NATO or European Union nations intervene to protect Ukraine, who or what can assist in bringing this war to a close?

For many of us around the world, Russia’s war against Ukraine raises a philosophical dilemma. Is defence of the vulnerable the correct pathway toward reestablishing peace?

And specifically, Defence… what should it look like?

Do we, as members of an international community, stand by and allow innocent people to be murdered in the name of a geopolitical doctrine or ambition? Or, do we truly have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable?

In last week’s episode we explored how Russia had advanced ahead of NATO and Europe in matters of deterrence. We also canvassed the Responsibility to Protect principles.

Today, we deep dive into how concerned nations may be able to come to Ukraine’s aid, and under what circumstances could this be possible, and how will such resolutions be defined.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning unpack why the west has been losing a strategic deterrence advantage against Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin, but equally how this may be about to change.

In this episode Buchanan and Manning analyse whether deterrence, in its various forms, is an effective tool against aggressive authoritarian opponents and specifically why NATO and the United States has been at a disadvantage when attempting to use deterrence to gain leverage over Putin and the Russian offensive occurring against Ukraine and its peoples.

Also, we know about the rules and conventions that prevent NATO and the United Nations from defending Ukrainians on Ukraine territory.

But what of the Responsibility to Protect principles, RTPs designed to defend vulnerable and helpless populations? The RTP principle was invoked against Serbia and Kosovo in the late 1990s and led to NATO forces bombing Belgrade. Why has it not been used for humanitarian principles in 2022?

Also, Buchanan and Manning examine the concepts of shatter and peripheral zones when it comes to war, and why Central Europe is the core shatter zone of past and present global conflict.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan.

The most recent Colmar Brunton Public Sector Reputation Index found the New Zealand Defence Force has the second best reputation with the public of any government agency in the country (behind the Fire Service, but ahead of agencies like the Department of Conservation, Customs, and Met Service). Trust in the agency is extremely high and has been improving lately – see: Public sector reputation 2020.

Yet Friday’s report would suggest the Defence Force can’t be trusted. Attorney General David Parker even stated, in releasing the report, that Government Ministers have been unable to exercise political control of the military. That is a serious problem in a democracy.

Severe criticisms of the military over Operation Burnham controversy

A Stuff newspaper editorial on Saturday says New Zealanders “will probably be shocked and saddened” by the report – see: A mix of shock and relief in the SAS report. Although the inquiry had some good news for the military, in that the raids were found to be legal and professionally carried out, the newspaper notes, “in significant ways the report agrees with the journalists” Hager and Stephenson.

The editorial is severely critical of the military, saying “a picture emerges of a defence force that does not consider itself to be answerable to its political masters and the wider public. Civilian control of the military is an important principle of New Zealand’s democracy.”

Today’s Otago Daily Times editorial is equally scathing, saying “there should be no chance of the Defence Force sitting back with satisfaction” after the report was so critical of its handling of the controversy – see: Operation Burnham.

Here’s the newspaper’s most interesting point: “These findings will sting the Defence Force, and rightly so. The New Zealand public needs to have confidence its national forces will not only operate in battle zones with the highest levels of integrity and professionalism but will come clean when things go wrong. It is of deep concern that multiple senior commanders at NZDF let the side down with actions that, to paraphrase Defence Minister Ron Mark, showed serious deficiencies. The inquiry has also shone a mostly favourable light on Hager’s work, and the worth of investigative journalism.”

The Spinoff’s political editor, Justin Giovannetti has summed up the report’s criticisms of the NZ Defence Force, saying it “reveals a military headquarters that is inept and disorganised. Records couldn’t be found. Contradictory reports were ignored. A senior officer in Afghanistan was misleading his superiors in Wellington about civilian casualties. Those superiors didn’t question reports, despite evidence that civilians had been killed in the August raid. As a result, the military misled the public for seven years” – see: SAS did nothing wrong, but senior military officers misled public: report.

Giovannetti reports on the Attorney General’s reaction to the report: “Parker was clear earlier in the morning that one of the country’s bedrock constitutional principles was compromised” by the operations of the military. He quotes Parker: “During those years, as a consequence of the ineptitude and the suppression of documents that should have been coming to ministers, ministers were not able to exercise the democratic control of the ministry. The military do not exist for their own purpose.”

Blogger No Right Turn says the operations of Defence Force bosses “obviously undermines the principle of civilian control of the military, striking at the heart of our democracy. These people need to be held accountable, dishonourably discharged and stripped of their honours, pour encourager les autres. Careers need to end over this, otherwise there is no incentive for NZDF not to do it again in future” – see: Vindicated.

According to Alexander Gillespie, professor of law at Waikato University, the actions of the military – particularly in their relationship with Government – have been a “disaster”, and the institution “has now bombed its own position as the trusted military arm of the state” – see: Operation Burnham: the New Zealand military’s self-inflicted wounds will not heal by themselves.

Gillespie says the military has “proved itself untrustworthy” in crucial ways, humiliating itself. He predicts the conclusion of the report “will almost inevitably mean it is stripped of the relative autonomy it has enjoyed to this point.”

Does the report agree with the military or Hager and Stephenson?

For a good summary of the report, see Thomas Manch’s Operation Burnham inquiry: Child was likely killed, SAS soldiers misled, prisoner was tortured. Here’s the top line version: “A damning report into the Defence Force’s handling of 2010 SAS-led raid in Afghanistan says a child was likely killed during the raid, elite soldiers misled ministers and the public about allegations of civilian deaths, and an insurgent captured by New Zealand troops was beaten while detained.” Most disturbingly, the report finds that New Zealand troops handed over one of their prisoners to the Afghanistan forces, knowing he would be tortured, meaning the “Defence Force was therefore in breach of Geneva convention.”

The official report doesn’t agree with all of the allegations made by Hager and Stephenson. Most importantly, it finds that the raid was legal and professionally carried out, and that there was no strategic cover-up by the military of the civilian killings.

Hager has responded – see: Nicky Hager welcomes the Op Burnham Inquiry report, the most serious findings against the NZSAS and NZDF in their history. He argues that “after nearly ten years of denials, the Inquiry has confirmed the main allegations in the book Hit & Run.” And he concludes “The report contains the most serious findings against the NZSAS and NZDF in their history. This should prompt a lot of soul searching inside the New Zealand Defence Force.”

Gordon Campbell doesn’t accept the report’s findings at all. He has written a scathing response, suggesting it amounts to a whitewash and does not sufficiently deal with the military misadventure and misinformation in question – see: On the virtues (and fluffed opportunities) of the Operation Burnham report.

Campbell doesn’t accept there was no Defence Force cover-up. Furthermore, he does not believe the Defence Force will fix the problems identified: “Can we really expect an organisation with this bunker mentality to reform itself voluntarily, from the inside?”

The response of the NZ Defence Force

Defence Force chief, Air Marshal Kevin Short, has responded by saying that the military must change as a result of the report, becoming more accountable and open, involving structural and cultural change – see RNZ’s Operation Burnham report: NZDF ‘deeply sorry’ for misleading ministers and public. Here’s his key statement: “If we are to maintain the trust and confidence of the people we serve, we must be accountable. We must be better at the way we record, store and retrieve information, and then subsequently present that information to ministers and the public. I will ensure this happens.”

But has the Defence Force really learnt anything from the report and demonstrated genuine willingness to change? Justin Giovannetti questions this, pointing out that on the release of the report, the military’s obfuscation has continued: “There seemed to still be a lingering reluctance today by the NZDF to take responsibility for what happened during the raid. In a prepared statement, Short said that the inquiry confirmed ‘New Zealand forces were not involved’ in the civilian deaths. That’s not correct.” In fact, although it was the US military that killed the civilians, it was in an operation in which New Zealanders were in control and gave the orders.

This is also dealt with by Thomas Manch, who points out that Air Marshal Kevin Short’s “charitable interpretation of the facts is what got the Defence Force into this mess in the first place” – see: Operation Burnham: An apology from the Defence Force, but redemption has just begun.

So, are the military bosses still playing down the severity of what happened? That’s the view of Hit & Run co-author Jon Stephenson, who says he feels vindicated by the report but “is worried its severity is not being fully conveyed” – see Katie Scotcher’s Operation Burnham: Former Minister Wayne Mapp ‘forgot’ about civilian casualties.

Here’s Stephenson’s view: “I’m concerned that they are being downplayed by the Defence Force, not only initially and throughout the inquiry, but even now it seems like the Attorney General is not really prepared to accept the extent to which the inquiry has condemned some of the actions of the Defence Force.” According to this article, Stephenson also says he has “serious doubts” on “whether the Defence Force could change because of their record and their performance throughout the inquiry”.

The role of former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp

Former Defence Minister Wayne Mapp, has been asked to account for his role, and has been contrite. He claims he continued to tell the public that allegations of civilian deaths were unfounded – despite being briefed that they were possible – because he forgot about a briefing informing him of this.

This is dealt well with in Katie Scotcher’s Operation Burnham: Former Minister Wayne Mapp ‘forgot’ about civilian casualties. Mapp is quoted as saying that it was “a major failing on my part” and that he had asked himself “a huge amount of times” how he could forget such a crucial piece of information.

Mapp says New Zealand now must remedy the damage caused by Operation Burnham: “I’ve always been of the view that New Zealand as a nation owes compensation to the victims. I have always felt that we haven’t done enough as a nation to find out. Well now we have the report, we have more information. And I think is now incumbent upon the government now having got the report to do more for the villagers.”

An apology is also being demanded by the Hit & Run campaign group. Spokesperson Sarah Atkinson says: “It is a huge injustice and the New Zealand Defence Force owes apologies and reparations to the Afghan families of the victims” – see RNZ’s Call for NZ Defence Force to apologise to villages where civilians were killed.

Others involved in the campaign for uncovering the truth about Operation Burnham are celebrating the release of the report. Amnesty International’s Meg de Ronde has written about how the report vindicates human rights defenders like Stephenson and Hager who have fought “tooth and nail to hold those in power to account”, and have had to battle not just an inquiry that was stacked in favour of authorities, but also faced ridicule – see: We shouldn’t have to work this hard to get transparency from our government.

Finally, cartoonists have been scathing over the years about the official version of what happened in Afghanistan, so for an updated view, see: Cartoons about Hit & Run, and NZ in Afghanistan.