On 14 December 2025, a father and son, reportedly linked to the ISIS clerical fascist organisation, committed a murderous attack on innocent participants at a Jewish celebration on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. Fifteen were killed and around 40 seriously injured.

There is no way this horrific event can be minimised. It was murderous, it was antisemitic, the victims and their loved ones were completely innocent.

It also can’t be remotely justified by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and increasing repression on the West Bank.

Nor did it in anyway serve the interests of Palestinians and their fight for peace and self-determination — if anything it gave “pro-genociders” a deceitful propaganda weapon.

Extraordinary heroism also powerful message of interfaith kindness
There is no “notwithstanding high point” in this murderous tragedy. But there was much heroism.

Understandably the overwhelming impact of the sheer horror of the slaughter meant that this was not reported as much as it deserved.

But prominent was the extraordinary courage of Ahmed al-Ahmed who wrestled the gun from one of the attackers and was severely wounded — being shot five times — as a result.

His extraordinary courage was covered by The Guardian (29 December 29): Saving lives at Bondi Beach.

Ahmed al-Ahmed is an Australian of Syrian origin. He is also Muslim. His bravery saved many Jewish lives.

Sickening contrast
This makes the sickening response of the Israeli government even more deplorable. It attempted to blame the terrorist attack on the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide, and to opponents of this warmongering.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu even went so far as to dishonestly claim Australia’s recognition of Palestine as a state was to blame.

Two newspaper opinion pieces from New Zealanders who deny the reality of ethnic cleansing and genocide by Israel repeat this disgraceful “blame Palestinians” response.

The first was by Deborah Hart, chair of the Holocaust Foundation New Zealand. Her paywalled piece was published by The New Zealand Herald (December 15): Never again.

The second was by Juliet Moses, a spokesperson for the New Zealand Jewish Council. Her piece was published by Stuff (December 17): New Zealand should pay attention.

While both justifiably describe the horrific nature of the slaughter, they also reiterated the above-mentioned theme of the Israeli government thereby whitewashing its ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The fact that they both write in a softer, non-brazen and more subtle style does not diminish this observation.

The heroic Ahmed al-Ahmed is similarly whitewashed presumably because the heroism of a Muslim is considered inconsistent with Israel’s unconscionable narrative.

The implied narrative of Hart and Moses is that the life of an Israeli trumps the life of a Palestinian — including a child — and the right of Israelis to self-determination overrides the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

Further, Palestinian refusal to accept this narrative is consequentially responsible in some way for the Bondi Beach slaughter.

It is bad enough to hold this position; it is even worse to tar the Bondi victims with this same brush.

An aside: Jewish exceptionalism
As an aside, this narrative is reinforced by a Zionist claim of Jewish exceptionalism that is used to justify an untenable position that granting equal rights to others in Israel would be “tantamount to suicide.”

This exceptionalism argument is effectively rebutted by a paywalled article by Peter Beinart in the October 2025 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique: Jewish exceptionalism not so exceptional.

Beinart points out that the past experiences of South Africa, Northern Ireland and the American South where “. . . time and again dominant groups have loudly claimed that granting equal rights would be tantamount to suicide . . .” were always wrong.

Getting it right
On December 17, the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) released a public condemnation of the Bondi Beach atrocity.

It was appalled by the antisemitic terror attack, sided with the Jewish community, and acknowledged that for more than two years it had marched with Jews and Jewish groups against the genocide in Gaza.

Further, it criticised the use of the Bondi Beach slaughter by Benjamin Netanyahu and others to condemn and blame Palestinians and others for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

For completion, the statement from national co-chair John Minto is published below:

“PSNA was appalled and shocked at Sunday’s antisemitic terror attack targeting the Jewish community in Australia on the first day of the celebration of Hanukkah.

“The best antidote to race hatred is community solidarity and we stand with the Jewish community in the face of such horror.

“For many decades, and the past two years in particular, we have protested and marched side by side with Jews and Jewish groups to condemn the genocide in Gaza and stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation.

“We have always made clear our campaign targets Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. Jews are not responsible for these policies, despite Netanyahu claiming he is acting and speaking as ‘Prime Minister’ of all Jews.

“Palestine supporters were also appalled when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and leaders of the pro-Israeli lobby in Australia and New Zealand, tried to exploit the horror in Bondi by blaming it on condemnation of Israel’s genocide and the Australian government’s (largely non-existent) support for Palestinian rights.

“This blaming almost invariably comes from people who support Israel’s actions in Gaza. Their strategy is to exploit the killing in Bondi to help the Israel government carry on its genocide and ethnic cleansing without criticism.”

“We are concerned that the strategy will cross the Tasman to panic the New Zealand government into introducing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-semitism into New Zealand legislation.

“This definition is used to target people supporting Palestine. The Israeli government has managed to get it into government legislation, university rules and local government policy in many parts of the Western world.”

“It’s all part of Netanyahu’s ‘Eighth Front’ to silence Israel’s critics.

“It has no place here.”

Apart from agreeing with it, there is nothing I could say that could add to its persuasive and powerful message. It speaks for itself.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

On 14 December 2025, a father and son, reportedly linked to the ISIS clerical fascist organisation, committed a murderous attack on innocent participants at a Jewish celebration on Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. Fifteen were killed and around 40 seriously injured.

There is no way this horrific event can be minimised. It was murderous, it was antisemitic, the victims and their loved ones were completely innocent.

It also can’t be remotely justified by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and increasing repression on the West Bank.

Nor did it in anyway serve the interests of Palestinians and their fight for peace and self-determination — if anything it gave “pro-genociders” a deceitful propaganda weapon.

Extraordinary heroism also powerful message of interfaith kindness
There is no “notwithstanding high point” in this murderous tragedy. But there was much heroism.

Understandably the overwhelming impact of the sheer horror of the slaughter meant that this was not reported as much as it deserved.

But prominent was the extraordinary courage of Ahmed al-Ahmed who wrestled the gun from one of the attackers and was severely wounded — being shot five times — as a result.

His extraordinary courage was covered by The Guardian (29 December 29): Saving lives at Bondi Beach.

Ahmed al-Ahmed is an Australian of Syrian origin. He is also Muslim. His bravery saved many Jewish lives.

Sickening contrast
This makes the sickening response of the Israeli government even more deplorable. It attempted to blame the terrorist attack on the Palestinian resistance to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide, and to opponents of this warmongering.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu even went so far as to dishonestly claim Australia’s recognition of Palestine as a state was to blame.

Two newspaper opinion pieces from New Zealanders who deny the reality of ethnic cleansing and genocide by Israel repeat this disgraceful “blame Palestinians” response.

The first was by Deborah Hart, chair of the Holocaust Foundation New Zealand. Her paywalled piece was published by The New Zealand Herald (December 15): Never again.

The second was by Juliet Moses, a spokesperson for the New Zealand Jewish Council. Her piece was published by Stuff (December 17): New Zealand should pay attention.

While both justifiably describe the horrific nature of the slaughter, they also reiterated the above-mentioned theme of the Israeli government thereby whitewashing its ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The fact that they both write in a softer, non-brazen and more subtle style does not diminish this observation.

The heroic Ahmed al-Ahmed is similarly whitewashed presumably because the heroism of a Muslim is considered inconsistent with Israel’s unconscionable narrative.

The implied narrative of Hart and Moses is that the life of an Israeli trumps the life of a Palestinian — including a child — and the right of Israelis to self-determination overrides the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

Further, Palestinian refusal to accept this narrative is consequentially responsible in some way for the Bondi Beach slaughter.

It is bad enough to hold this position; it is even worse to tar the Bondi victims with this same brush.

An aside: Jewish exceptionalism
As an aside, this narrative is reinforced by a Zionist claim of Jewish exceptionalism that is used to justify an untenable position that granting equal rights to others in Israel would be “tantamount to suicide.”

This exceptionalism argument is effectively rebutted by a paywalled article by Peter Beinart in the October 2025 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique: Jewish exceptionalism not so exceptional.

Beinart points out that the past experiences of South Africa, Northern Ireland and the American South where “. . . time and again dominant groups have loudly claimed that granting equal rights would be tantamount to suicide . . .” were always wrong.

Getting it right
On December 17, the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) released a public condemnation of the Bondi Beach atrocity.

It was appalled by the antisemitic terror attack, sided with the Jewish community, and acknowledged that for more than two years it had marched with Jews and Jewish groups against the genocide in Gaza.

Further, it criticised the use of the Bondi Beach slaughter by Benjamin Netanyahu and others to condemn and blame Palestinians and others for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

For completion, the statement from national co-chair John Minto is published below:

“PSNA was appalled and shocked at Sunday’s antisemitic terror attack targeting the Jewish community in Australia on the first day of the celebration of Hanukkah.

“The best antidote to race hatred is community solidarity and we stand with the Jewish community in the face of such horror.

“For many decades, and the past two years in particular, we have protested and marched side by side with Jews and Jewish groups to condemn the genocide in Gaza and stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation.

“We have always made clear our campaign targets Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. Jews are not responsible for these policies, despite Netanyahu claiming he is acting and speaking as ‘Prime Minister’ of all Jews.

“Palestine supporters were also appalled when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and leaders of the pro-Israeli lobby in Australia and New Zealand, tried to exploit the horror in Bondi by blaming it on condemnation of Israel’s genocide and the Australian government’s (largely non-existent) support for Palestinian rights.

“This blaming almost invariably comes from people who support Israel’s actions in Gaza. Their strategy is to exploit the killing in Bondi to help the Israel government carry on its genocide and ethnic cleansing without criticism.”

“We are concerned that the strategy will cross the Tasman to panic the New Zealand government into introducing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-semitism into New Zealand legislation.

“This definition is used to target people supporting Palestine. The Israeli government has managed to get it into government legislation, university rules and local government policy in many parts of the Western world.”

“It’s all part of Netanyahu’s ‘Eighth Front’ to silence Israel’s critics.

“It has no place here.”

Apart from agreeing with it, there is nothing I could say that could add to its persuasive and powerful message. It speaks for itself.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally bowed to pressure from the Murdoch News Corp’s relentless media campaign and advocacy by political critics and victim’s families to announce a royal commission of inquiry into “antisemitism and social cohesion”.

The commission advocates were seeking his political downfall over last month’s Bondi Beach massacre that killed 15 people at a Jewish religious holiday of Hanukkah with complaints that he had “not done enough” against antisemitism.

One of the two allegedly ISIS-aligned terrorist gunmen was also killed at the scene of the tragedy and the other was wounded and arrested. He has been charged with 59 counts, including 15 charges of murder and committing a terrorist act.

Albanese held a press conference in Canberra yesterday and confirmed that former High Court justice Virginia Bell would lead the national inquiry.

While the royal commission has been mostly welcomed by survivors, victims’ families and Jewish community groups that have been lobbying for a national inquiry, some advocacy organisations have criticised the time it has taken before being called.

However, even more serious criticisms have emerged over the terms of reference and a widespread belief that the real objective is to mute criticism of Israel and its brutal policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Award-winning journalist and Lamestream co-host Osman Faruqi, for example, argues “this royal commission won’t give us answers to Bondi — it’s set up to protect Israel.”

“The terms of reference for the Royal Commission should put aside any doubt: this is an inquiry designed to castigate critics of Israel.”

In the media release yesterday that Albanese, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland confirmed the four main areas to be covered, they stated:

• Tackling antisemitism by investigating the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in institutions and society, and its key drivers in Australia, including ideologically and religiously motivated extremism and radicalisation.
• Making recommendations that will assist law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to tackle antisemitism, including through improvements to guidance and training within law enforcement, border control, immigration, and security agencies to respond to antisemitic conduct.
• Examining the circumstances surrounding the antisemitic Bondi terrorist attack on December 14, 2025.
• Making any other recommendations arising out of the inquiry for strengthening social cohesion in Australia and countering the spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia.

Missing from the terms of reference is anything related to the rise of Islamophobia in Australia. The brief is far too narrowly framed compared with what many had hoped for.

The Australian Government has announced the establishment of a Royal Commission following the antisemitic Bondi terror attack. This devastating event deeply affected the victims, their families, the Jewish community, first responders and the broader Australian public.

The Royal… pic.twitter.com/kFQbrJh5IZ

— Australian Human Rights Commission (@AusHumanRights) January 9, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had cynically jumped in within hours of the Bondi shootings to lambast Albanese and connect the massacre to the massive protests against the Gaza genocide — including 300,000 on the Sydney Harbour Bridge — even though there was no evidence of this.

He blamed the deadly Bondi attack on Albanese, accusing the Australian prime minister of pouring “fuel on the antisemitism fire” by recognising a Palestinian state. (The State of Palestine is recognised as a sovereign nation by 157 UN member states, representing 81 percent of membership).

“You took no action. You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” said Netanyahu, who is wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICJ) warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israeli authorities have a pattern of blaming criticism of the Israeli government and military’s over its genocidal actions in Gaza for fuelling antisemitism.

Globally popular phrases such as ‘Globalise the intifada’, ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free’, and ‘Death to the IDF’ have frequently been targeted by Israeli officials and lobbyists seeking to shield their government’s atrocities.

Jewish-Australian author and journalist Antony Loewenstein, who wrote the 2023 bestselling book The Palestine Laboratory with powerful insights into Israel’s cruel military machine of repression against Palestinians, has been scathing in his television and newspaper commentaries, accusing Tel Aviv of “outrageous lies” that endangered Jews worldwide.

“Within hours of the horrific, antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney [last] month, the Israeli government and its proxies started pushing false narratives, outright lies and racism to a grieving nation,” he wrote in Middle East Eye.

“Netanyahu and senior Israeli ministers blamed an Australian government that ‘normalised boycotts against Jews’, recognised the state of Palestine this year, and refused to shut down pro-Palestine marches.

“Former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy posted on X (formerly Twitter): ‘Jews around the world live in fear because we are being hunted. October 7 inspired millions around the world and launched a global war against Jews.’

“There was no logic or sense to this verbal onslaught at a time when the dead bodies were still warm on Bondi Beach. At that point, and still now, there’s no clear picture of the motives of the father and son accused in the slaughter of mostly Jews who had gathered to mark the first night of Hanukkah, although a link to Islamic State has been explored.

“It was an outrageous intervention from a disgraced Israeli government accused of committing genocide in Gaza — and yet too many in the Australian and global media treated Netanyahu and his cronies as credible commentators, deferring to their supposed wisdom.”

“Israel’s propaganda machine endangers every Jew on the planet – including me”

✍️ Opinion by Anthony Loewenstein https://t.co/eQP0rdHB5I

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 23, 2025

Indeed, what has been shocking for this New Zealand journalist holidaying in Australia for the past month — in Adelaide, South Australia — is the blatant way Israel has been  allowed to “shape” the public discourse and in the media. Remember, Netanyahu himself, has resisted a full Israeli inquiry into the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, including his own alleged security failings, for more than two years.

One of the most recent cudgels being used to beat the Albanese Labor government was an open letter signed by 100+ “business leaders” supporting the royal commission call.

But what they wanted was a probe into the alleged “antisemitism” in Australia. What about the other forms of racism and harassment such an Islamophobia?

Signatories included billionaire businessman James Packer, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller, and a whole bunch of banking and industry executives.

Mainstream media selective outrage.@Mondoweiss pic.twitter.com/9lgpNcpE1y

— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) December 24, 2025

Editorials and cartoons in The Australian and other Murdoch media, such as The Advertiser in Adelaide, parroted each other in calling on Albanese to “serve the nation, not yourself.”

For almost four weeks none of the countless pages of articles canvassed other perspectives; to gain some balance it was necessary to turn to credible independent sources on social media. The job of the media is to serve the public interest, not themselves.

Take “serial inventor and entrepreneur” Jaqueline Outram posting on X for a counter view.

“More than 100 ‘business leaders’ signed a letter?

“Whoop-de-frickin-doo.

“Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched and will continue to march against genocide.

“Some capitalist opportunists signed a letter.

“Pfft …”

She added in a separate post, “Stop treating business leaders like they’re some kind of moral authority . . . Nobody cares what they think.”

More than 100 “business leaders” signed a letter?

Really? More than 100? Signed a letter?

Whoop-de-frickin-doo.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched, and will continue to march, against genocide.

Some capitalist opportunists signed a letter.

Pfft…#FreePalestine

— Jaqueline Outram 🇵🇸 (@JaquelineOutram) January 2, 2026

Commenting on the royal commission decision, prominent Brisbane journalist and media educator Kasun Ubayasiri questioned the “privileged” status of one section of the multicultural Australian society.

“So the government announces a royal commission on antisemitism when we have never had a Racism Royal Commission. Why the privileged status for one type of racism over others?”

The Jewish community in Australia numbers about 117,000 in a total population of 28  million – the ninth largest globally, and the biggest in the Indo-Pacific region. The Muslim community is about 815,000.

“More worryingly, the royal commission terms of reference seem problematic,” added Ubayasiri. “It makes no real attempt to untangle the morally repugnant antisemitism from anti-Zionism.

“The latter is easily defendable especially in its current format. The terms of reference particularly note the acceptance of the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism as a working definition, suggesting this distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is unlikely to be made by the royal commission.

“IHRA is already widely seen as chilling legitimate criticism of Israel. Arguably allowing the royal commission to draft its own definitional framing would have made more sense.”

Associate Professor Joseph Fernandez, a media law scholar and journalist, added: “Be very afraid of this exercise being hijacked to produce outcomes that will serve narrow and dubious interests — at the expense of the public interest generally, in a sound democracy.”

Apart from the royal commission issue, controversy has also blown up over an invitation by Albanese to the Israeli President, Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, the first head of state born in Israel since its founding in 1948, to make an official visit. Mounting calls are being made to drop the invite over Herzog’s implication in incitement to genocide.

The move was welcomed by Jewish community groups and February was touted for a likely date. However, his visit would be certain to attract protests from pro-Palestinian groups condemning Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed at least 71,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Such a trip would require a heavy security commitment and the Labor Friends of Palestine, a party group supporting the creation of a Palestinian state, has appealed to Albanese to call off the invitation.

Other pro-Palestinian groups have called for an investigation into allegations of incitement to genocide.

Also, at least 50 writers and poets are reported to be withdrawing from the Adelaide Writers Festival — Australia’s largest free literary festival — on February 28-March 5 in protest over a cancellation of an invitation to a Palestinian author, lawyer and advocate because she has been critical of Israel.

Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko declared they would boycott the event in protest over featured Randa Abdel-Fattah being cancelled.

Others, including journalism professor and former foreign correspondent Peter Greste who was jailed by the Egyptian government for the “crime of being a journalist”, have also pulled out.

“We do not help social cohesion by silencing voices,” Greste posted on X.

My statement in response to the racist decision to cancel me from Adelaide Writers’ Week. https://t.co/HktwrcWveT pic.twitter.com/EDqTOteA1S

— Randa Abdel-Fattah (@RandaAFattah) January 8, 2026

Dr Abdel-Fattah accused the Adelaide festival board of “blatant and shameless” anti-Palestinian racism and censorship, adding that the attempt to associate her with the Bondi massacre was “despicable”.

“The Adelaide Writers Festival Board has stripped me of my humanity and agency, reducing me to an object onto which others can project their racist fears and smears.”

She had been expected to discuss her novel Discipline, which raises ethical issues about whose voices are allowed to be heard.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

US President Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming.

Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote an article that said his real aim was to send a message to Maduro and that among the options he was entertaining was a SEAL-type operation to capture or kill Maduro.

How did I come to this conclusion? I have no assets in the US intelligence community. I was completely running on instinct, and my instincts told me that the egomaniac Trump wanted to eclipse Obama’s feat in sending in the SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011, just as he wanted badly to get the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got.

But it was the holidays and, out of consideration for the folks that run my stories, who deserved a New Year’s break to be with their families, I sat on it after I finished it on December 27 and only sent it to Foreign Policy in Focus on January 2, eight hours before the Caracas operation that kidnapped Maduro, in violation of all the norms of civilised conduct among states.

But though out-scooped by Trump, I still think that there are elements in the unfiled article that could be useful in helping us anticipate what could unfold in the days and weeks ahead. So here’s the scoop that wasn’t.

Trump strikes Nigeria but real target is Venezuela
The Trump regime’s air strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day may have had symbolic significance but no strategic value. There will likely be no impact on the efforts of the militant group called Lakurawa, allied to ISIS, to establish a base in Sokoto state.

Many have been puzzled by the attacks that involved the use of Tomahawk missiles, especially given the relatively minuscule space given to Africa in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025. That brief section focuses on transforming the US relationship with Africa from one based on aid to trade, though it does say, “we must remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa while avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments.”

It is likely that the attacks were carried out for reasons unrelated to Africa. One is to appease Trump’s Christian evangelical base. As Joshua Keating, an expert in crisis areas, has noted, “Trump’s sudden interest in Africa’s most populous country was likely motivated less by any particular event there — these are all longstanding issues — than by developments in Washington. Though it doesn’t get a ton of mainstream media attention, the plight of Christians in Nigeria has been a galvanising issue for evangelical Christians in the US in recent years.”

On his internet platform Truth Social, Trump has cited figures from the international Christian rights NGO Open Doors, claiming that of the 4476 Christians killed for their faith globally in 2024, 3100 were in Nigeria.

In her recent book on the key groups that make up the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Furious Minds, Laura Field says that non-establishment Christian groups have an outsized influence in the Trump administration.

With the Republicans struggling in the lead-up to the mid-term elections in 2026, these groups’ muscle on the ground can determine whether the Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives.

The main target: Venezuela
However, the main goal of the strikes, in my view, had to do mainly with developments thousands of kilometres away. It was to signal to the government of Nicolás Maduro that it will face not just attacks on Venezuelan boats at sea but also air attacks on ground targets. This interpretation would be consistent with NSS 2025.

NSS 2025 is an iconoclastic document. It literally dumps the 80-year-old strategy of liberal containment that guided the United States from the post-Second World War years through the Cold War years to the post-Cold War years, which was to meet challenges to global capital wherever and whenever the US state saw its interests threatened or challenged.

Next to its overthrowing the 80-year-old American “Grand Strategy,” the most significant departure in NSS 2025 is its break with the key assumption of US security policy since the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2008), including the first Trump administration (2017-2021): that Washington must focus its resources on containing China, which was defined as the principal US strategic competitor.

Replacing China and the Asia Pacific as the main US concern in the Western Hemisphere, the document comes out with a reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine, but one fortified with what it calls the “Trump corollary.”

It states that Washington “will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” There is no more stark expression of the rude replacement of the liberal containment doctrine by a “spheres of influence” approach.

Meantime, the debate goes on in Trump administration on whether a ground invasion of Venezuela is the best way to implement the Western-Hemisphere-first strategy. Air strikes are one thing, boots on the ground are another, and one opposed by much of the MAGA base that is tired of the “forever wars”.

The “Molotov Cocktail” throwers in that base have made known their opposition or disquiet regarding a Venezuelan adventure.

Laura Loomer, an influential firebrand, has challenged Trump’s rationale for the attacks on Venezuelan boats, which is to prevent the opioid fentanyl and other drugs from being shipped to the United States.

“Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela,” she said, urging that the Pentagon target the Mexican drug cartels responsible for most shipments instead. She has also criticised María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025 and the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, for “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change”.

Steve Bannon, a key official in the first Trump administration, said “neoconservative neoliberals” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing for a Venezuelan intervention that would derail the administration from its domestic priorities. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the volatile Georgia congresswoman, has posted on X that “People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.”

My fearless forecast
Trump will limit attacks on his perceived adversaries globally to air strikes or naval bombardments to keep them off balance and not risk triggering another forever war with a ground invasion.

Of course, Trump’s people are probably weighing a SEAL-type special op — like then-President Obama’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011 — to murder or capture Maduro, but Maduro is likely to be already very well prepared for such a contingency. He’s not stupid.

Frankly, if you ask me, Washington has dug itself into a hole with its focus on Venezuela, one from which there is no easy exit.

If one gives a broad interpretation to Che Guevara’s dictum that the best way to defeat the United States was to create “two, three many Vietnams,” then Venezuela has the potential for becoming the third phase of the death rattle of the empire, Vietnam being the first and bin Laden’s dragging Washington to eventual defeat in the Middle East the second.

Dr Walden Bello is co-chair of the board of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and senior research fellow at the sociology department of the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is also author of Global Battlefields: My close encounters with dictatorship, capital, empire, and love (2025). This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The road from Beijing to Taiwan no longer seems impossible.

Nothing appears to prevent Moscow — should it decide — from abducting the Ukrainian president from the heart of Kyiv.

There is no longer any real immunity protecting political leadership anywhere, including Iranian leaders. The reason is not international chaos.

The reason is Gaza.

Gaza: The moment of great exposure
Gaza is not a passing war, nor a limited regional conflict.

Gaza is the moment when the international system collapsed entirely.

In Gaza, the following fell:

• International law;
• The concept of sovereignty;
• The neutrality of international institutions; and
• The claim of Western values

A people were annihilated before the eyes of the world. Hospitals, schools, and United Nations facilities were destroyed. Children were killed. Starvation was used as a weapon.

And yet — no one was held accountable.

When the killer walks free in Gaza
Israel’s impunity in Gaza was not a detail; it was a dangerous precedent. A clear message reached every capital:

Do whatever you want, as long as you are protected by the United States. From that moment, red lines collapsed:

• Sovereignty was no longer protected;
• Leaders lost immunity;
• Agreements lost meaning; and
• International courts lost relevance

If the annihilation of a besieged city is possible, what prevents the kidnapping of a president, the assassination of a leader, or the toppling of an entire state?

America: From guardian of order to sponsor of crime
The United States is no longer a mediator or even a biased partner.

It has become the political guarantor of crime. It has:

• Provided cover;
• Supplied weapons;
• Used the veto;
• Obstructed accountability; and
• And legitimised extermination

Then it has continued speaking of “international order” and “human rights” as if Gaza had never happened.

The end of the illusion of immunity
After Gaza, one truth has become clear to every world leader:

• The United Nations does not protect;
• Conventions do not save;
• International law does not shield;
• The only immunity that remains today is power; and
• Those who do not possess it are potential targets.

This is why China is recalculating, Russia deals with law pragmatically, Iran understands that Western guarantees are an illusion, and many states are stepping out from under the American cloak.

Gaza was not the exception. It was the official declaration of the collapse of the global order.

In the age of American–Israeli thuggery:

• Sovereignty has fallen;
• Law has died;
• Power has become the only source of legitimacy; and
• Those without power are denied the right to live.

Sameer Barghouthi is an emeritus professor at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine. This article was first published by Qatar Tribune.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

REVIEW: By Amit Sarwal of The Australia Today

Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.

Robie’s newly updated book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, is both a historical record and a contemporary warning.

It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.

“The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.

“The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”

In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.

Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.

Humanitarian voyage
“The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . .  helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.

“It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”

The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.

“I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.

“That image has never left me.”

Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.

On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Bombing shockwaves
The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.

“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.

“It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”

Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.

“New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”

Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.

Geopolitical threats
Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”

Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.

“She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”

When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.

Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.

“This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.

“It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”

For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.

“I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.

“The future is in your hands.”

The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

United States immigration and deportation enforcement continues to ramp up, impacting on Marshallese and Micronesians in new and unprecedented ways.

The Trump administration’s directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and deport massive numbers of potentially illegal aliens, including those with convictions from decades past, is seeing Marshallese and Micronesians swept up by ICE.

The latest unprecedented development is Marshallese and Micronesians being removed from the United States to the offshore detention facility at the US Navy base in Guantánamo Bay — a facility set up to jail terrorists suspected of involvement in the 9/11 airplane attacks in the US in 2001.

Marshall Islands Ambassador to the US Charles Paul this week confirmed a media report that one Marshallese was currently incarcerated at Guantánamo, which is also known as “GTMO”.

The same report from nationnews.com said 72 detainees from 26 countries had been sent to GTMO last week, including from the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

A statement issued by the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE operations, concerning detention of foreigners with criminal records at GTMO said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was using “every tool available to get criminal illegal aliens off our streets and out of our country.”

But the action was criticised by a Marshallese advocate for citizens from the Compact countries in the US.

‘Legal, ethical concerns’
“As a Compact of Free Association (COFA) advocate and ordinary indigenous citizen of the Marshallese Islands, I strongly condemn the detention of COFA migrants — including citizens from the Republic of the Marshall Islands — at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay,” Benson Gideon said in a social media post this week.

“This action raises urgent legal, constitutional, and ethical concerns that must be addressed without delay.”

Since seeing the news about detention of a Marshallese in this US facility used to hold suspected terrorists, Ambassador Paul said he had “been in touch with ICE to repatriate one Marshallese being detained.”

Paul said he was “awaiting all the documents pertaining to the criminal charges, but we were informed that the individual has several felony and misdemeanor convictions. We are working closely with ICE to expedite this process.”

Gideon said bluntly the detention of the Marshallese was a breach of Compact treaty obligations.

“The COFA agreement guarantees fair treatment. Military detention undermines this commitment,” he said.

Gideon listed the strong Marshallese links with the US — service in high numbers in the US military, hosting of the Kwajalein missile range, US military control of Marshall Islands ocean and air space — as examples of Marshallese contributions to the US.

‘Treated as criminals’
“Despite these sacrifices, our people are being treated as criminals and confined in a facility historically associated with terrorism suspects,” he said.

“I call on the US Embassy in Majuro to publicly address this injustice and work with federal agencies to ensure COFA Marshallese residents are treated with dignity and fairness.

“If we are good enough to host your missile ranges, fight in your military, and support your defence strategy, then we are good enough to be protected — not punished. Let justice, transparency, and respect prevail.”

There were 72 immigration detainees at Guantánamo Bay, 58 of them classified as high-risk and 14 in the low-risk category, reported nationnews.com.

The report added that the criminal records of the detainees include convictions for homicide; sexual offences, including against children; child pornography; assault with a weapon; kidnapping; drug smuggling; and robbery.

Civil rights advocates have called the detention of immigration detainees at Guantanamo Bay punitive and unlawful, arguing in an active lawsuit that federal law does not allow the government to hold those awaiting deportation outside of US territory.

In other US immigration and deportation developments:

• The delivery last month by US military aircraft of 18 Marshallese deported from the US and escorted by armed ICE agents is another example of the ramped-up deportation focus of the Trump administration. Since the early 2000s more than 300 Marshall Islanders have been deported from the US. Prior to the Trump administration, past deportations were managed by US Marshals escorting deportees individually on commercial flights.
• According to Marshall Islands authorities, there have not been any deportations since the June 10 military flight to Majuro, suggesting that group deportations may be the way the Trump administration handles further deportations.
• Individual travellers flying into Honolulu whose passports note place of birth as Kiribati are reportedly now being refused entry. This reportedly happened to a Marshallese passport holder late last month who had previously travel
• led in and out of the US without issue.

Most Marshallese passport holders enjoy visa-free travel to the US, though there are different levels of access to the US based on if citizenship was gained through naturalisation or a passport sales programme in the 1980s and 1990s.

US Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Laura Stone said, however, that “the visa-free travel rules have not changed.”

She said she could not speak to any individual traveller’s situation without adequate information to evaluate the situation.

She pointed out that citizenship “acquired through naturalisation, marriage, investment, adoption” have different rules. Stone urged all travellers to examine the rules carefully and determine their eligibility for visa-free travel.

“If they have a question, we would be happy to answer their enquiry at ConsMajuro@state.gov,” she added.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Forty years ago today, French secret agents bombed the Greenpeace campaign flagship  Rainbow Warrior in an attempt to stop the environmental organisation’s protest against nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in Mā’ohi Nui.

People gathered on board Rainbow Warrior III to remember photographer Fernando Pereira, who was killed in the attack, and to honour the legacy of those who stood up to nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before the bombing was Operation Exodus, a humanitarian mission to the Marshall Islands. There, Greenpeace helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing.

The dawn ceremony was hosted by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and attended by more than 150 people. Speeches were followed by the laying of a wreath and a moment of silence.

Tui Warmenhoven (Ngāti Porou), the chair of the Greenpeace Aotearoa board, said it was a day to remember for the harm caused by the French state against the people of Mā’ohi Nui.

Warmenhoven worked for 20 years in iwi research and is a grassroots, Ruatoria-based community leader who works to integrate mātauranga Māori with science to address climate change in Te Tai Rāwhiti.

She encouraged Māori to stand united with Greenpeace.

“Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, a Greenpeace Aotearoa, ko te whawhai i ngā mahi tūkino a rātou, te kāwanatanga, ngā rangatōpū, me ngā tāngata whai rawa, e patu ana i a mātou, te iwi Māori, ngā iwi o te ao, me ō mātou mātua, a Ranginui rāua ko Papatūānuku,” e ai ki a Warmenhoven.

A defining moment in Aotearoa’s nuclear-free stand
“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was a defining moment for Greenpeace in its willingness to fight for a nuclear-free world,” said Dr Russel Norman, the executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa.

He noted it was also a defining moment for Aotearoa in the country’s stand against the United States and France, who conducted nuclear tests in the region.

In 1987, the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act officially declared the country a nuclear-free zone.

This move angered the United States, especially due to the ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships entering New Zealand ports.

Because the US followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons, it saw the ban as breaching the ANZUS Treaty and suspended its security commitments to New Zealand.

The Rainbow Warrior’s final voyage before it was bombed was Operation Exodus, during which the crew helped relocate more than 320 residents of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, who had been exposed to radiation from US nuclear testing between 1946 and 1958.

The legacy of Operation Exodus
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.

For decades, it denied the long-term health impacts, even as cancer rates rose and children were born with severe deformities.

Despite repeated pleas from the people of Rongelap to be evacuated, the US government failed to act until Greenpeace stepped in to help.

“The United States government effectively used them as guinea pigs for nuclear testing and radiation to see what would happen to people, which is obviously outrageous and disgusting,” Dr Norman said.

He said it was important not to see Pacific peoples as victims, as they were powerful campaigners who played a leading role in ending nuclear testing in the region.

Between March and April this year, Rainbow Warrior III returned to the Marshall Islands to conduct independent research into the radiation levels across the islands to see whether it’s safe for the people of Rongelap to return.

What advice do you give to this generation about nuclear issues?
“Kia kotahi ai koutou ki te whai i ngā mahi uaua i mua i a mātou ki te whawhai i a rātou mā, e mahi tūkino ana ki tō mātou ao, ki tō mātou kōkā a Papatūānuku, ki tō mātou taiao,” hei tā Tui Warmenhoven.

A reminder to stay united in the difficult world ahead in the fight against threats to the environment.

Warmenhoven also encouraged Māori to support Greenpeace Aotearoa.

Dr Norman believed the younger generations should be inspired to activism by the bravery of those from the Pacific and Greenpeace who campaigned for a nuclear-free world 40 years ago.

“They were willing to take very significant risks, they sailed their boats into the nuclear test zone to stop those nuclear tests, they were arrested by the French, beaten up by French commandos,” he said.

Republished from Te Ao Māori News with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea has five months remaining to fix its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) systems or face the severe repercussions of being placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) “grey list”.

The FATF has imposed an October 2025 deadline, and the government is scrambling to prove its commitment to global partners.

Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister James Marape said Treasury Minister, Ian Ling-Stuckey had been given the responsibility to lead a taskforce to fix PNG’s issues associated with money laundering and terrorist financing.

“I summoned all agency heads to a critical meeting last week giving them clear direction, in no uncertain terms, that they work day and night to avert the possibility of us getting grey listed,” Marape said.

“This review comes around every five years.

“We have only three or four areas that are outstanding that we must dispatch forthwith.”

PNG is no stranger to the FATF grey list, having been placed under increased monitoring in 2014 before successfully being removed in 2016.

Deficiencies highlighted
However, a recent assessment by the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) highlighted ongoing deficiencies, particularly in the effectiveness of PNG’s AML/CTF regime.

While the country has made strides in establishing the necessary laws and regulations (technical compliance), the real challenge lies in PNG’s implementation and enforcement.

The core of the problem, according to analysts, is a lack of effective prosecution and punishment for money laundering and terrorism financing.

High-risk sectors such as corruption, fraud against government programmes, illegal logging, illicit fishing, and tax evasion, remain largely unchecked by successful legal actions.

Capacity gaps within key agencies like the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary and the Office of the Public Prosecutor have been cited as significant hurdles.

Recent drug hauls have also highlighted existing flaws in detection in the country’s financial systems.

The implications of greylisting are far-reaching and potentially devastating for a developing nation like PNG, which is heavily reliant on foreign investment and international financial flows.

Impact on economy
Deputy Opposition leader James Nomane warned in Parliament that greylisting “will severely affect the economy, investor confidence, and make things worse for Papua New Guinea with respect to inflationary pressures, the cost of imports, and a whole host of issues”.

If PNG is greylisted, the immediate economic fallout could be substantial. It would signal to global financial institutions that PNG carries a heightened risk for financial crimes, potentially leading to a sharp decline in foreign direct investment.

Critical resource projects, including Papua LNG, P’nyang LNG, Wafi-Golpu, and Frieda River Mines, could face delays or even be halted as investors become wary of the increased financial and reputational risks.

Beyond investment, the cost of doing business in PNG could also rise. International correspondent banks, vital conduits for cross-border transactions, may de-risk by cutting ties or scaling back operations with PNG financial institutions.

This “de-risking” could make it more expensive and complex for businesses and individuals alike to conduct international transactions, leading to higher fees and increased scrutiny.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.

Journalist David Robie was speaking last month at a Greenpeace Aotearoa workship at Mātauri Bay for environmental activists and revealed that he has a forthcoming new book to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

“I don’t think I had any illusions at the time. For me, I knew it was the French immediately the bombing happened,” he said.

“You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.

“A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”

He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.

Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.

Detained by French military
He was detained by the French military while on assignment in New Caledonia a year after Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior was first published in New Zealand.

His reporting won the NZ Media Peace Prize in 1985.

David Robie’s 2025 talk on the Rainbow Warrior.     Video: Greenpeace Aotearoa

Dr Robie confirmed that Little island Press was publishing a new book this year with a focus on the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

“This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.

“It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”

Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.

The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In 1979, Sam Neill appeared in an Australian comedy movie about hacks on a Sydney newspaper.

The Journalist was billed as “a saucy, sexy, funny look at a man with a nose for scandal and a weakness for women”.

That would probably not fly these days — but as a rule, movies about Australian journalists are no laughing matter.

Back in 1982, a young Mel Gibson starred as a foreign correspondent who was dropped into Jakarta during revolutionary chaos in The Year of Living Dangerously. The 1967 events the movie depicted were real enough, but Mel Gibson’s correspondent Guy Hamilton was made up for what was essentially a romantic drama.

There was no romance and a lot more real life 25 years later in Balibo, another movie with Australian journalists in harm’s way during Indonesian upheaval.

Anthony La Paglia had won awards for his performance as Roger East, a journalist killed in what was then East Timor — now Timor-Leste — in December 1975. East was killed while investigating the fate of five other journalists — including New Zealander Guy Cunningham — who was killed during the Indonesian invasion two months earlier.

The Correspondent has a happier ending but is still a tough watch — especially for its subject.

Met in London newsrooms
I first met Peter Greste in newsrooms in London about 30 years ago. He had worked for Reuters, CNN, and the BBC — going on to become a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan.

He later reported from Belgrade, Santiago, and then Nairobi, from where he appeared regularly on RNZ’s Nine to Noon as an African news correspondent. Greste later joined the English-language network of the Doha-based Al Jazeera and became a worldwide story himself while filling in as the correspondent in Cairo.

Greste and two Egyptian colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy, were arrested in late 2013 on trumped-up charges of aiding and abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation labeled “terrorist” by the new Egyptian regime of the time.

Six months later he was sentenced to seven years in jail for “falsifying news” and smearing the reputation of Egypt itself. Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years.

Media organisations launched an international campaign for their freedom with the slogan “Journalism is not a crime”. Peter’s own family became familiar faces in the media while working hard for his release too.

Peter Greste was deported to Australia in February 2015. The deal stated he would serve the rest of his sentence there, but the Australian government did not enforce that. Instead, Greste became a professor of media and journalism, currently at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Movie consultant
Among other things, he has also been a consultant on The Correspondent — now in cinemas around New Zealand — with Richard Roxborough cast as Greste himself.

Greste told The Sydney Morning Herald he had to watch it “through his fingers” at first.

“I eventually came to realise it’s not me that’s up there on the screen. It’s the product of a whole bunch of creatives. And the result is … more like a painting rather than a photograph,” Greste told Mediawatch.

“Over the years I’ve written about it, I’ve spoken about it countless times. I’ve built a career on it. But I wasn’t really anticipating the emotional impact of seeing the craziness of my arrest, the confusion of that period, the claustrophobia of the cell, the sheer frustration of the crazy trial and the really discombobulating moment of my release.

“But there is another very difficult story about what happened to a colleague of mine in Somalia, which I haven’t spoken about publicly. Seeing that on screen was actually pretty gut-wrenching.”

In 2005, his BBC colleague Kate Peyton was shot alongside him on their first day in on assignment in Somalia. She died soon after.

“That was probably the toughest day of my entire life far over and above anything I went through in Egypt. But I am glad that they put it in [The Correspondent]. It underlines … the way in which journalism is under attack. What happened to us in Egypt wasn’t a random, isolated incident — but part of a much longer pattern we’re seeing continue to this day.”

‘Owed his life’
Greste says he “owes his life” to fellow prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah — an Egyptian activist who is also in the film.

“There’s a bit of artistic licence in the way it was portrayed but . . .  he is easily one of the most intelligent, astute and charismatic humanitarians I’ve ever come across. He was one of the main pro-democracy activists who was behind the Arab Spring revolution in 2011 — a true democrat.

“He also inspired me to write the letters that we smuggled out of prison that described our arrest not as an attack on … what we’d actually come to represent. And that was press freedom.

“That helped frame the campaign that ultimately got me out. So, for both psychological and political reasons, I feel like I owe him my life.

“There was nothing in our reporting that confirmed the allegations against us. So I started to drag up all sorts of demons from the past. I started thinking maybe this is the universe punishing me for sins of the past. I was obviously digging up that particular moment as one of the most extreme and tragic moments. It took a long time for me to get past it.

“He’d been in prison a lot because of his activism, so he understood the psychology of it. He also understood the politics of it in ways that I could never do as a newcomer.”

“Unfortunately, he is still there. He should have been released on September 29th last year. His mother launched a hunger strike in London . . . so I actually joined her on hunger strike earlier this year to try and add pressure.

“If this movie also draws a bit of attention to his case, then I think that’s an important element.”

Another wrinkle
Another wrinkle in the story was the situation of his two Egyptian Al Jazeera colleagues.

Greste was essentially a stranger to them, having only arrived in Egypt shortly before their arrest.

The film shows Greste clashing with Fahmy, who later sued Al Jazeera. Fahmy felt the international pressure to free Greste was making their situation worse by pushing the Egyptian regime into a corner.

“To call it a confrontation is probably a bit of an understatement. We had some really serious arguments and sometimes they got very, very heated. But I want audiences to really understand Fahmy’s worldview in this film.

“He and I had very different understandings of what was going … and how those differences played out.

“I’ve got a hell of a lot of respect for him. He is like a brother to me. That doesn’t mean we always agreed with each other and doesn’t mean we always got on with each other like any siblings, I suppose.”

His colleagues were eventually released on bail shortly after Greste’s deportation in 2015.

Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship and was later deported to Canada, while Mohamed was released on bail and eventually pardoned.

Retrial — all ‘reconvicted’
“After I was released there was a retrial … and we were all reconvicted. They were finally released and pardoned, but the pardon didn’t extend to me.

“I can’t go back because I’m still a convicted ‘terrorist’ and I still have an outstanding prison sentence to serve, which is a little bit weird. Any country that has an extradition treaty with Egypt is a problem. There are a fairly significant number of those across the Middle East and Africa.”

Greste told Mediawatch his conviction was even flagged in transit in Auckland en route from New York to Sydney. He was told he failed a character test.

“I was able to resolve it. I had some friends in Canberra and were able to sort it out, but I was told in no uncertain terms I’m not allowed into New Zealand without getting a visa because of that criminal record.

“If I’m traveling to any country I have to say … I was convicted on terrorism offences. Generally speaking, I can explain it, but it often takes a lot of bureaucratic process to do that.”

Greste’s first account of his time in jail — The First Casualty — was published in 2017. Most of the book was about media freedom around the world, lamenting that the numbers of journalists jailed and killed increased after his release.

Something that Greste also now ponders a lot in his current job as a professor of media and journalism.

Ten years on from that, it is worse again. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed last year, nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israel in its war in Gaza.

The book has now been updated and republished as The Correspondent.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

New York prosecutors have charged Luigi Mangione with “murder as an act of terrorism” in his alleged shooting of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month.

This news comes out at the same time as a Haaretz report titled “‘No Civilians. Everyone’s a Terrorist’: IDF Soldiers Expose Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor.”

The report contains testimony from Israeli troops that civilians are being murdered in Gaza and are then being retroactively designated as terrorists to justify their execution.

“People need to know what this war really looks like, what serious acts some commanders and fighters are committing inside Gaza. They need to know the inhuman scenes we’re witnessing,” an Israeli commander who returned from the Netzarim corridor sayshttps://t.co/2y6ONxREy8

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) December 19, 2024

“We’re killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists,” a recently discharged officer told Haaretz.

These two stories together say so much about the way the label “terrorist” is used under the US-centralised power umbrella.

The guy who shot the health insurance CEO is a terrorist, but the people systematically slaughtering civilians in Gaza are not terrorists. The people fighting against those who are slaughtering the civilians are terrorists, and noncombatants are being categorized as belonging to this terrorist organisation in order to justify killing them. The al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria were terrorists, but now they’re a US puppet regime so soon they won’t be terrorists  —  but they need to be designated terrorists for a little while longer because the claim that Syria is crawling with terrorists is Israel’s justification for its recent land grabs there. The Uyghur militant group ETIM used to be a terrorist group, but now they’re not a terrorist group because they can be used to help carve up Syria and maybe fight China later on. The IRGC is a military wing of a sovereign nation, but it counts as a terrorist group because of vibes or something.

Is that clear enough?

Really the label “terrorist” is nothing more than a tool of imperial narrative control which gets moved around based on whether or not someone’s use of violence is deemed legitimate by the managers of the empire. Because Mangione’s alleged crime has ignited a public interest in class warfare, the label “terrorism” is being used to frame it as an especially heinous act of evil against an innocent member of the public.

The empire’s favourite trick is to begin the historical record at the moment its enemies retaliate against its abuses. Oh no, a health insurance CEO was victimised by an evil act of terrorism. Oh no, Israel was just innocently minding its own business when it was viciously attacked by Hamas. Oh no, Iran attacked Israel completely out of the blue and now Israel must retaliate. Oh no, Russia just launched an entirely unprovoked war on Ukraine.

Everything that led up to the unauthorised act of violence is erased from the record, because all of the violence, provocation and abuse which gave rise to the unauthorised act of violence were authorized by the empire. Authorised aggression doesn’t count as aggression.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. If you control the narrative you can control not only when the historical record of violence begins but what kinds of violence qualify as violence. Killing people by depriving them of healthcare because denying healthcare services is how your company increases its profit margins? That’s not violence. Inflicting tyranny and abuse upon a deliberately marginalised ethnic group in an apartheid state? That’s not violence. Violence is when you respond to those forceful aggressions with forceful aggressions of your own.

If we are to become a healthy society, we’re going to have to stop allowing some forms of violence, aggression and abuse to be redacted from the official records while others are listed and condemned. Those who care about truth and justice account for all forms of violence, aggression and abuse, not only those which inconvenience the rich and powerful.

It is an act of aggression to do things which sicken and impoverish others in order to advance your own wealth.

It is an act of aggression to pollute the biosphere we all depend on for survival in order to increase your profit margins.

It is an act of aggression to use your wealth to manipulate your nation’s politics in ways which exacerbate inequality and injustice.

It is an act of aggression to maintain an apartheid state which cannot exist without nonstop violence.

It is an act of aggression to surround the earth with military bases and encircle nations which disobey your dictates.

It is an act of aggression to try to rule the world using military violence, proxy conflicts, staged coups, threats, starvation sanctions, and financial and economic coercion.

These are all acts of aggression, and any retaliation against them will never be an unprovoked attack. As we move into the future while these abuses exacerbate, it’s going to become very important to maintain an acute awareness of this.

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.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at Donald Trump’s return to the White House, we turn now to look at what it means for the world, from Israel’s war on Gaza to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During his victory speech, Trump vowed that he was going to “stop wars”.

But what will Trump’s foreign policy actually look like?

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Fatima Bhutto, award-winning author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways, New Kings of the World. She is co-editing a book along with Sonia Faleiro titled Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year. She writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Start off by just responding to Trump’s runaway victory across the United States, Fatima.

Fatima Bhutto on the Kamala Harris “support for genocide”.   Video: Democracy Now!

FATIMA BHUTTO: Well, Amy, I don’t think it’s an aberration that he won. I think it’s an aberration that he lost in 2020. And I think anyone looking at the American elections for the last year, even longer, could see very clearly that the Democrats were speaking to — I’m not sure who, to a hall of mirrors.

They ran an incredibly weak and actually macabre campaign, to see Kamala Harris describe her politics as one of joy as she promised the most lethal military in the world, talking about women’s rights in America, essentially focusing those rights on the right to termination, while the rest of the world has watched women slaughtered in Gaza for 13 months straight.

You know, it’s very curious to think that they thought a winning strategy was Beyoncé and that Taylor Swift was somehow a political winning strategy that was going to defeat — who? — Trump, who was speaking to people, who was speaking against wars. You know, whether we believe him or not, it was a marked difference from what Kamala Harris was saying and was not saying.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Fatima, you wrote a piece for Zeteo earlier this year titled “Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism.” So, you just mentioned the irony of Kamala Harris as, you know, the second presidential candidate who is a woman, where so much of the campaign was about women, and the fact that — you know, of what’s been unfolding on women, against women and children in Gaza for the last year. If you could elaborate?

FATIMA BHUTTO: Yeah, we’ve seen, Nermeen, over the last year, you know, 70 percent of those slaughtered in Gaza by Israel and, let’s also be clear, by America, because it’s American bombs and American diplomatic cover that allows this slaughter to continue unabated — 70 percent of those victims are women and children.

We have watched children with their heads blown off. We have watched children with no surviving family members find themselves in hospital with limbs missing. Gaza has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. And we have seen newborns left to die as Israel switches off electricity and fuel of hospitals.

So, for Kamala Harris to come out and talk repeatedly about abortion, and I say this as someone who is pro-choice, who has always been pro-choice, was not just macabre, but it’s obscene. It’s an absolute betrayal of feminism, because feminism is about liberation. It’s not about termination.

And it’s about protecting women at their most vulnerable and at their most frightened. And there was no sign of that. You know, we also saw Kamala Harris bring out celebrities. I mean, the utter vacuousness of bringing out Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and others to talk about being a mother, while mothers are being widowed, are being orphaned in Gaza, it was not just tone deaf, it seemed to have a certain hostility, a certain contempt for the suffering that the rest of us have been watching.

I’d also like to add a point about toxic masculinity. There was so much toxicity in Kamala Harris’s campaign. You know, I watched her laugh with Oprah as she spoke about shooting someone who might enter her house with a gun, and giggling and saying her PR team may not like that, but she would kill them.

You don’t need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don’t need to be white to practice white supremacy, as we’ve seen very clearly from this election cycle.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Fatima Bhutto, if you look at what Trump represented, and certainly the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, Jewish progressives, young people, African-Americans certainly understood what Trump’s policy was when he was president.

And it’s rare, you know, a president comes back to serve again after a term away. It’s only happened once before in history.

But you have, for example, Trump moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. You have an illegal settlement named after Trump in the West Bank. The whole question of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies in Israel pushing for annexation of the West Bank, where Trump would stand on this.

And, of course, you have the Abraham Accords, which many Palestinians felt left them out completely. If you can talk about this? These were put forward by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, when the massive Gaza destruction was at its height, talked about Gaza as waterfront real estate.

FATIMA BHUTTO: Absolutely. There’s no question that Trump has been a malign force, not just when it concerns Palestinians, but, frankly, out in the world. But I would argue there’s not very much difference between what these two administrations or parties do. The difference is that Trump doesn’t have the gloss and the charisma of an Obama or — I mean, I can’t even say that Biden has charisma, but certainly the gloss.

Trump says it. They do it. The difference — I can’t really tell the difference anymore.

We saw the Biden administration send over 500 shipments of arms to Israel, betraying America’s own laws, the fact that they are not allowed to export weapons of war to a country committing gross violations of human rights. We saw Bill Clinton trotted out in Michigan to tell Muslims that, actually, they should stop killing Israelis and that Jews were there before them.

I mean, it was an utterly contemptuous speech. So, what is the difference exactly?

We saw Bernie Sanders, who was mentioned earlier, write an op-ed in The Guardian in the days before the election, warning people that if they were not to vote for Kamala Harris, if Donald Trump was to get in, think about the climate crisis. Well, we have watched Israel’s emissions in the first five months of their deadly attack on Gaza release more planet-warming gases into the atmosphere than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations release in a year.

So, I don’t quite see that there’s a difference between what Democrats allow and what Trump brags about. I think it’s just a question of crudeness and decorum and politeness. One has it, and one doesn’t. In a sense, Trump is much clearer for the rest of the world, because he says what he’s going to do, and, you know, you take him at his word, whereas we have been gaslit and lied to by Antony Blinken on a daily basis now since October 7th.

Every time that AOC or Kamala Harris spoke about fighting desperately for a ceasefire, we saw more carnage, more massacres and Israel committing crimes with total impunity. You know, it wasn’t under Trump that Israel has killed more journalists than have ever been killed in any recorded conflict. It’s under Biden that Israel has killed more UN workers than have ever been killed in the UN’s history. So, I’m not sure there’s a difference.

And, you know, we’ll have to wait to see in the months ahead. But I don’t think anyone is bracing for an upturn. Certainly, people didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. I’m not sure they voted for Trump. We know that she lost 14 million votes from Biden’s win in 2020. And we know that those votes just didn’t come out for the Democrats. Some may have migrated to Trump. Some may have gone to third parties. But 14 million just didn’t go anywhere.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Fatima, if you could, you know, tell us what do you think the reasons are for that? I mean, the kind of — as you said, because it is really horrifying, what has unfolded in Gaza in the last 13 months. You’ve written about this. You now have an edited anthology that you’re editing, co-editing. You know, what do you think accounts for this, the sheer disregard for the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza?

FATIMA BHUTTO: It’s a total racism on the part not just of America, but I’m speaking of the West here. This has been betrayed over the last year, the fact that Ukraine is spoken about with an admiration, you know, Zelensky is spoken about with a sort of hero worship, Ukrainian resisters to Russia’s invasion are valorised.

You know, Nancy Pelosi wore a bracelet of bullets used by the Ukrainian resistance against Trump [sic]. But Palestinians are painted as terrorists, are dehumanised to such an extent. You know, we saw that dehumanisation from the mouths of Bill Clinton no less, from the mouths of Kamala Harris, who interrupted somebody speaking out against the genocide, and saying, “I am speaking.”

What is more toxically masculine than that?

We’ve also seen a concerted crackdown in universities across the United States on college students. I’m speaking also here of my own alma mater of Columbia University, of Barnard College, that called the NYPD, who fired live ammunition at the students. You know, this didn’t happen — this extreme response didn’t happen in protests against apartheid. It didn’t happen in protests against Vietnam in quite the same way.

And all I can think is, America and the West, who have been fighting Muslim countries for the last 25, 30 years, see that as acceptable to do so. Our deaths are acceptable to them, and genocide is not a red line.

And, you know, to go back to what what was mentioned earlier about the working class, that is absolutely ignored in America — and I would make the argument across the West, too — they have watched administration after, you know, president and congressmen give billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine, while they have no relief at home.

They have no relief from debt. They have no relief from student debt. They have no medical care, no coverage. They’re struggling to survive. And this is across the board. And after Ukraine, they saw billions go to Israel in the same way, while they get, frankly, nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: Fatima Bhutto, we want to thank you so much for being with us, award-winning author of a number of works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Runaways and New Kings of the World, co-editing a book called Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, due out next year, writes a monthly column for Zeteo.

Coming up, we look at Trump’s vow to deport as many as 20 million immigrants and JD Vance saying, yes, US children born of immigrant parents could also be deported.

Republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the “Axis of Genocide”. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide.

It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently.

Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.

Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi talks to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Video: Middle East Eye

Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza while blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN.

British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians.

Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.

Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.

‘They will allow extermination’
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says.

Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.

But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us?

I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer.

I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.

Dr Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).

He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was wounded four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.

Killed people he knew
Dr Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:

“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”

Part of what people find discomforting about Dr Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence” etc).

The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed.

As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”

Not a man to mince words when it comes to war crimes.

To his credit, Piers Morgan is one of the few who have invited Dr Marandi to do an extended interview. They had a verbal cage fight that went viral.

Masterful over pointing out racism
Dr Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.

“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.

“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today — meaning the holocaust in Gaza — who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.

The Collective West shares collective responsibility.

Dr Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide — as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.

“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal — Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”

I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the “Axis of Resistance” should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.

I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz