Open mike 04/01/2025

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 4th, 2025 - 47 comments
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47 comments on “Open mike 04/01/2025 ”

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  1. Jack 1
    4 January 2025 at 7:20 am

    NZME's NZ Herald appears to be unashamedly showing its true colours, in todays "News Worth Knowing" advertisement featuring three jovial Coalition leaders.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1be55ss-HEOfbDnwznpZPGhO12xcaJMgt/view?usp=sharing

    • SPC 2.1
      4 January 2025 at 4:58 pm

      In human society there is the democratic accountability component. The elites are aware of this and are active changing the rules to try and prevent correction to their extremist order design.

  3. KJT 3
    4 January 2025 at 8:09 am

    And. Another excellent piece from Anne Salmond.

    Anne Salmond: Hunger Games in the Beehive

    • SPC 3.1
      4 January 2025 at 5:00 pm

      They no longer want the nation state to be accountable for "charity to the poor", or the adequacy of taxpayer public health care.

  4. Ad 4
    4 January 2025 at 9:59 am

    So, if you had the money and you could save a bit of New Zealand that wasn't otherwise going to be saved, would you give your money to NZNatureFund?

    This Newsroom article puts an inevitably negative frame upon it as creeping baseline funding displacement:

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/01/03/docs-big-donation-drive-gets-mixed-reviews/

    This summarises many of the big projects that NZNatureFund actually does:

    https://nznaturefund.org/projects/

    If you want to be a largely grssroots and hence very small scale effort in actual conservation work, there's myriad to choose from, and Ford and Bird are as good a clearning-house as any to get in with them.

    There are others operating on a regional scale but with little central government input, like https://arkinthepark.org.nz/ As ever so much of their work relies on a few paid staff and otherwise scores and scores of volunteers over years and years.

    Then there's the fully private version like Santuary Mountain Maungatautiri which is 3,300 hectares of fully fenced enclosure, and about the only pace I've seen 10 Tuatara in sunlight and looking very comfortable with it.
    https://www.sanctuarymountain.co.nz/

    But then there's NZNatureFund, which is a medium-scale donor aggregator to actually assist DoC with some of the big projects – the biggest one to date is the full eradication of pests from Auckland Island which would be a mighty feat.

    I have a sneaking suspicion that DoC projects have the depth of emotional appeal that enable donors both locally and from afar to do some good. I can't see a hard line policy distinction for decreasing donor influence on DoC – in fact it's more like the state is lagging behind in capturing private conservation donations when there are so many large and medium scale models across the country already operating and doing very solid work.

    But still worth a policy discussion.

  5. Jenny 5
    4 January 2025 at 11:11 am

    At UN HQ: UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Global Recognition of Gaza Genocide and Decisive Action

    https://law4palestine.org/at-un-hq-law-for-palestine-briefs-states-on-their-international-legal-responsibilities-for-palestine-states-urged-to-cease-relations-supporting-israels-unlawful-occupation-and-apartheid/

    Will New Zealand lawmakers heed her call?

    The Genocide Convention to which New Zealand is a signatory, stipulates that all countries that, detect a genocide is being committed, must take all actions to prevent it.
    Does the Luxon administration believe in upholding the international rule of law, or not?
    Does our parliamentary opposition have the courage to hold them to account?

    Proposed Parliamentary members bill:

    That the government of, Aotearoa New Zealand officially recognise that a genocide is being committed in the Middle Eastern enclave of Gaza against the indigenous Palestinian population of that territory.

  6. tWig 6
    4 January 2025 at 11:28 am

    The Guardian calls Musk, who is trolling the UK, and Starmer specifically, 'the world's richest pub bore'. Well called.

  7. Jenny 7
    4 January 2025 at 11:35 am

    Would we have done our best to save Anne Frank and the countless others like her, if we could have?

    Have our lawmakers done their best to save Hind Rajab and the countless others like her, as they should have?

    Hind Rajab The Anne Frank of Palestine by Indie Nile

    • Ad 7.1
      4 January 2025 at 1:19 pm

      Lawmakers? Really?

      It's a safe assertion that from southern Turkey to northern Iraq, all the way to the Sinai, and down to Yemen, international law isn't having any effect on peaceful outcomes.

      • SPC 7.1.1
        4 January 2025 at 5:09 pm

        Nor across to Sudan/Chad.

        • adam 7.1.1.1
          6 January 2025 at 9:54 pm

          Nor across to Sudan/Chad.

          Troll, troll, troll of the week.

          Oh wait, nope that not original an troll, is all across the place spread by members of unit 8200

          https://www.mintpressnews.com/exposed-how-israeli-spies-control-your-vpn/288259/

          • SPC 7.1.1.1.1
            7 January 2025 at 12:23 am

            How is it noting that those of Chad and Sudan have it tough at the moment, not just those in the ME, a "troll".

            PS

            There is no link between use of (or spying on use of) VPN'S and actually posting anything online – read the link properly.

            • adam 7.1.1.1.1.1
              7 January 2025 at 4:17 am

              Ya missed a few, so I say ya trolling like person influenced by unit 8200. Propaganda from them has been top notch.

              • SPC …
                7 January 2025 at 9:42 am

                Unit 8200 is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the Israel Defense Forces responsible for clandestine operation, collecting signal intelligence (SIGINT) …

                Signals intell (as per VPN access) has nothing to do with propaganda.

                Somene says Gaza, someone adds other places too, and then somone adds Sudan and Chad.

                Propaganda looks like the posts found on Standard search – "Adam Ukraine and Russia".

              • Incognito …
                7 January 2025 at 10:20 am

                Let it go, Adam, and refute their comments with strong counter-arguments if you can. The Mods and SYSOP can handle it if indeed SPC is trolling this site.

    • SPC 7.2
      4 January 2025 at 5:25 pm

      Action is mobilised at the international level.

      Can the UNGA can find work arounds for the UNSC roadblocks?

      • Jenny 7.2.1
        5 January 2025 at 10:04 am

        SPC @7.2

        4 January 2025 at 5:25 pm

        Action is mobilised at the international level.

        Can the UNGA can find work arounds for the UNSC roadblocks?

        The answer to your question SPC is, No.
        But you probably knew that.

        By design; majority votes in the UNGA are non-binding, making the UNGA powerless to decide on the evidence of acts of genocide. Even the UNSC is powerless to decide on the evidence of acts of genocide, if just one of its permanent members uses their veto to quash any proposed motion.

        If only just one member of the UNSC uses its veto. even for a vote on the crime of genocide, the UNGA and the UNSC are both rendered powerless to act.

        But….

        When it comes to the crime of genocide the UNGA and the UNSC don't need to decide to act against a genocide.

        The decision to act against the crime of genocide was made in 1948 when the Genocide Convention was first agreed to by its founding signatories.

        By design; The Genocide Convention specifically calls on all states that are signatories to the Genocide Convention to act if they detect a genocide.

        A fact that the Russian Federation falsely exploited as a political figleaf to cover its unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

        Waiting on a decision of the UNGA and the UNSC and ICJ is a cowardly abrogation of this country's responsibilities as a signatory the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (The Genocide Convention)

        If the government of New Zealand officially decides, that based on evidence put
        before them, that there is a plausible case that a genocide is being committed in Gaza by the state of Israel, then this country is legally bound to make, to the best of our ability, efforts to prevent it.

        It is for this purpose that I have suggested that at least one concerned MP put a private Members Bill in the ballot to decide the issue.

        • SPC 7.2.1.1
          5 January 2025 at 10:18 am

          An individual nations capacity might well be limited.

          There is the possibility for the UNGA to engage in dialogue with the ICC through 'quasi-judicial' resolutions, in coordinating collective responses to a recalcitrant State and individual perpetrators and also through the possible assumption of a referral power.

          https://www.jstor.org/stable/26800626

          https://www.jstor.org/page-scan-delivery/get-page-scan/26800626/0

          • Jenny 7.2.1.1.1
            5 January 2025 at 6:29 pm

            If New Zealand or any other signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, determine that a genocide is being committed, nowhere in the convention is it written that they have to wait on 'the possible assumption of a referral power' before taking action to prevent that genocide.

            That the nations represented in the UN General Assembly even has trouble referring cases to the ICC without being vetoed by the UN Security Council, pretty much confirms the impotence of the assembly of nations in the General Assembly, Which is the way it was designed from its founding after World War II by the victorious world powers of the time, Britain, China, France, USA, USSR/Russia. These five global powers still keep decision making power in the UN to themselves to this very day.

            The UNSC is the ultimate decision making body of the UN, but as your link, SPC, makes clear the UNSC is strapped by the veto not to make decisions that go against any of the interests of the five permanent members, or their allies.

            From your link:

            …..The role of the United Nations Security Council ('UNSC') in the enforcement of international criminal law has a chequered and controversial record, not least with respect to its power to make a referral to the International Criminal Court ('ICC'). Double standards permeate UNSC decision-making, with permanent members of the UNSC in particular criticized for impeding ICC scrutiny of its own nationals and those of its client states …..

            On the occasions where the nations of the General Assembly do come to an agreement, and the nations of the Security Council don't veto it, then that international agreement is often codified as a United Nations International Convention, binding on the signatory countries that ratify that convention.

            The United Nations ban on ozone depleting CFCs known as the Vienna Convention is one example of a United Nations international convention that is binding on its signatories.

            https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/vcpol/vcpol.html

            The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is another of the United Nations conventions that is binding on its signatories, making it one of the conventions that makes up part of what is generally referred to as, 'the international rules-based order', (or system).

            NZDF's Red Sea deployment extended

            https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nzdf%E2%80%99s-red-sea-deployment-extended

            New Zealand has extended its contribution to the US-led coalition working to uphold maritime security in the Red Sea, Defence Minister Judith Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today…..

            “This decision demonstrates our support to the international rules-based system and freedom of navigation.”….

            The deployment is mandated to conclude on 31 January 2025.

            The US is not a signatory to The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS,) but demands that China, also not a signatory, adhere to its principles.

            https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/us-state-department-picks-apart-prcs-south-china-sea-customary-law-claim

            The US and other supporters of the 'Rules-based International order' don't wait for a ruling from the ICC or ICJ on breaches of the UN Convention on the law of the Sea before acting on enforcing it.

            Nor do we. We did not wait for 'the possible assumption of a referral power' before deciding the Houtis enforcement of a blockade on ships heading for Israel, was illegal under maritime law.

            If this country determines that Israel is committing genocide, then neither should we wait for 'the possible assumption of a referral power' before taking action under our legal obligations to the Genocide Convention.

            Tell me SPC, after all this, do you still stand by your contention, that it not a genocide, because the IDF issue warnings to the Palestinians to leave an area before they start destroying the buildings and infrastructure and killing those remaining in that area?

            I would be grateful if you could let me know your answer.

            Israel's intent to commit Genocide is not hard to prove.

            Amnesty International

            26 Feb 2024 — Israel defying ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by failing to allow adequate humanitarian aid to reach Gaza……

            The Guardian

            3 Jan 2024 — A group of prominent Israelis has accused the country's judicial authorities of ignoring “extensive and blatant” incitement to genocide……

            Al Jazeera

            14 Jan 2024 — A database of 500 statements showing Israeli incitement to genocide provides ample evidence of genocidal intent…..

            NBC News

            13 Nov 2023 — “Some of that rhetoric can be seen as potentially genocidal from the way that it dehumanizes Palestinian civilians,”….

            Jewish Currents

            https://jewishcurrents.org › a-textbook-case-of-genocide

            13 Oct 2023 — Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent … Indeed, Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit,…..

            • SPC 7.2.1.1.1.1
              5 January 2025 at 7:30 pm

              Without the possible assumption of a referral power by a collective of nations at the UNGA level, there would not be effective action.

              Action such as the recent Red Sea one, requires nations to work together. It followed Resolution 2722 at the UNSC.

              As I posted a few days back.

              https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03-01-2025/#comment-2020540

              The ICC has yet to issue arrest warrants as per incitement to genocide, the first part of a process to punish this.

              Statements by individuals do not provide evidence of a collective guilt as per a plan to act on the incitement. Deeds do, such as denial of access to aid to civilians.

              do you still stand by your contention, that it not a genocide, because the IDF issue warnings to the Palestinians to leave an area before they start destroying the buildings and infrastructure and killing those remaining in that area?

              All the information you cited was known to the ICC and it only concluded there was a case to answer.

              So far it has limited its action to issuing warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

              • Jenny …
                6 January 2025 at 7:07 am

                Thank you SPC for your reply.

                American Steve Clemons for Al Jazeera interviews Israeli Daniel Levy.

                I would urge you to watch this video. Which I found compelling viewing.

                What it is, is two men sitting in a room talking.

                What it is not, is a video compilation of Israeli atrocities.

                Watch this video then tell me what you think.

                Then I might ask you again, if 'you' still think this is a genocide or not.

                • Jenny …
                  6 January 2025 at 9:03 am

                  '

                  Who is Daniel Levy?

                  From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

                  Israeli soldier

                  Levy served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a non-commissioned officer.[8] …

                  Peace negotiator

                  …..an Israeli negotiator in peace talks with Palestinian leaders during his IDF years under Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin (PM 1992–95)[8] and again under Ehud Barak (PM 1999–2001).[4][9] He was lead drafter of the 2003 Geneva Initiative…..

                  Political Analyst

                  ….commentator, author, and former advisor to the Israeli government with expertise on Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

                • SPC …
                  6 January 2025 at 2:21 pm

                  Levy is still on the right side of history.

                  BN of Likud opposed the Oslo Accords and exploited the assassination of Rabin to become PM.

                  I am sure he, like I, supported Barak to become PM (I wrote to the Labour leader and offered strategic and tactical advice before the election in 1999)(as I have done here and even for Blair of the UK, in 1998 – I now wish it had been in 2002 and to advise him to block Bush going into Iraq).

                  After the failure of the 2000 peace talks, I advised Barak that better treatment of the Israeli Arabs would minimise the risk of the nations place in the ME being called into question afterwards.

                  Which, as Levy noted here, is the problem for Israel if the Gaza action does not result in Palestinian (new elections) unity and a potential for resumption of peace (Palestinian state formation) talks.

                  He is right that the fences, after the intifada, created more than a physical distance between the two populations. And while Al Jazeera may not like it, if being censored by the PA leads to its return in Gaza, and new elections – then it is taking one for the team.

                  PS as per automated targeting systems, this is probably an international regulatory regime matter (as to war crimes mitigation).

              • lprent …
                6 January 2025 at 12:49 pm

                So far it has limited its action to issuing warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

                Those are comparatively easy to prove in evidence. Problem with the act of genocide is that is only really provable after the fact.

                Thus far, the leadership in Israeli hasn’t clearly stated an intent to commit genocide. Instead they appear to be acting exactly like the Nazi leadership from 1933 until the liberation of Belsen. They never claimed an intent nor acts of genocide. It took finding the gas chambers and mass graves to discover that.

                However both of those governments have been clearly involved in clear ethnic cleansing.

                The record of the IDF in 1948 in active ethnic cleansing of civilian Islamic ‘Arabs’ out of their partition was clearly documented both as intent and action by the IDF. As was the subsequent seizure of their ‘abandoned’ property. Similarly, the laws promulgated in 1948 and later that were clearly designed It followed exactly the same playbook that the Nazis used in the 1930s to enrich themselves from dispossession of Jewish families.

                The IDF was founded on unethical behaviour (and piss-poor discipline). It has continued that to this day.

                I’d be happy to provide verifiable links to all of these events. However I am sure you know the history anyway.

                • SPC …
                  6 January 2025 at 1:27 pm

                  Sure after 5 Arabs states said they would send their armies to end any Jewish state, and no nation said they would stand by Israel, the Israelis had to survive on their own.

                  Some war crimes and ethnic cleansing resulted in areas held by both the IDF and the Arab armies (no Jewish settlements outside the IDF zone survived in Palestine) and hundreds of thousands of Jews left Arab nations without their property.

                  The same happened when Yugoslavia broke up and a lot of cross border movement when Pakistan separated out of India.

                  At Wannsee there was a plan, the camps were known of long before 1945.

                  But kept secret from the western public, lest this might be seen as unethical. The 1939 White Paper keeping Jews out of Palestine (as refugees from Europe) … still enforced on concentration camp survivors after 1945.

                  • lprent …
                    6 January 2025 at 2:45 pm

                    Sure after 5 Arabs states said they would send their armies to end any Jewish state, and no nation said they would stand by Israel, the Israelis had to survive on their own.

                    You also managed to miss the context of an ongoing civil war in the Palestinian Mandate for the previous 6 months prior to the declaration since the partition scheme was voted in the UN. That, along with the massacres and ethnic cleansing by Israelis, was the context of surrounding Arab states announcing prior to the declaration of Israeli independence that they would oppose it militarily.

                    But anyway, how does even that bit of Israeli propaganda justify the brutal ethnic cleansing in 1947/8, a number of massacres by Israeli militias (particularly by the Irgun) in the same period before they joined the IDF, and the current IDF dropping 2000lb bombs on civilian apartment blocks?

                    It is a curious moral compass you operate with.

                    Because the British allowed migration into the LoN/UN mandate despite repeated appeals against it by local inhabitants, resulting in a civil war – this somehow justifies the IDF acting like unethical arseholes ever since?

                    The same happened when Yugoslavia broke up and a lot of cross border movement when Pakistan separated out of India.

                    Yes, and in the former case there have been a number of trials about ethnic cleansing related to Yugoslavia. The term was actually coined in the 1980s to describe Serbian operations in Kosovo.

                    The ethnic cleansing in the Indian subcontinent after British withdrawal as well as the Israeli effort in Palestine have both caused massive and persistent down-history aggravation. Same in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc. Which is exactly why ethnic cleansing is now regarded internationally as being a crime.

                    At Wannsee there was a plan, the camps were known of long before 1945.

                    But kept secret from the western public…

                    They were known. Written about in news media in the West prior to the war after 1935. Written about during the war.

                    What you appear to be conflating is the evidence of the extermination plans with the concentration camps (and the SS efforts on the Eastern front).

                    The evidence was known from Barbarossa and possibly earlier. However it was intelligence information from various forms of spying. No country releases that where the information gives a link to source. Which is why Coventry needed to build a new Cathedral after the war – to protect Enigma.

                    The Allies knew that there was no way to affect the Nazis extermination efforts. Perhaps you’d like to suggest realistically what they could have done – rather than just being a mindless critic pushing idiotic ‘but what abouts..’.

                    The 1939 White Paper keeping Jews out of Palestine (as refugees from Europe) … still enforced on concentration camp survivors after 1945.

                    Have you even read the damn Mandates? Summary..

                    Two governing principles formed the core of the Mandate System, being non-annexation of the territory and its administration as a "sacred trust of civilisation" to develop the territory for the benefit of its native people.[2]

                    Migration en-mass was in direct violation of the League of Nations mandate, and the subsequent short lived UN replacement(s).

                    So please justify why bringing a fuck load of Jewish migrants was of benefit to the native people.

                    Almost all of of those ancestral families of migrants had last lived in the mandate area somewhere between the Assyrian deportations and the exodus during the Crusader states. The native people were those who hadn't left. Many if not most of the native people were descendants of the original Jewish and Samaritan states.

                    I'm pretty sure that very few of the migrants that the bloody British allowed in had any similar history and attachments with the mandate lands. I don’t really think that some largely meaningless ritualistic religious waffling over centuries without much actual action really counts.

                    Anyway I'd love to hear your half-arsed fluffing of how jewish migration during the British mandate of Palestine brought any lasting benefit to the native people. It would be entertaining.

                    All I can see is that the Israeli settlers and religious Jewry are continuing to kill 'native people' in large numbers, appear to be trying to starve them to death, induce plagues, and to dispossess unlawfully their property. I can't see any 'benefit' in that to the native peoples of Palestine.

                    • SPC …
                      6 January 2025 at 3:22 pm

                      Questioning the "moral compass" of another is not a reasonable debate tactic.

                      It only leads to the conclusion that the issue is one in which a party has come to a conclusion that precludes civility in discourse about it, unless there is agreement.

                    • lprent …
                      6 January 2025 at 5:46 pm

                      Questioning the "moral compass" of another is not a reasonable debate tactic.

                      So is avoiding the points being raised. It isn't like you're bringing up anything that isn't known. Most of your responses just look to me like straight avoidance rather than something worth debating. I have been responding to each of those in counter point. But it is getting tedious watching you avoid what I think are the central issues.

                      Raising refutes to my arguments that increasingly smell of simple propaganda slogans (rather than something you have thought about yourself) then it does pull into question your interest in debating this topic in good faith.

                      If I wanted to read simple propaganda, then I'd just continue to read almost any Israeli English language news. Thye are full of that platitude tripe. Apart from possibly Haaretz.

                      If you parse them as racist trash, then increasingly they look like something that Goebbels would use to justify actions that enable extermination policies. Virtually none of them report what is actually happening inside Gaza, like the current range of endemic water borne diseases, the starvation, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, snipers shooting kids and elderly.

                      It is exactly the same when you look at the news about the West Bank.

                      In effect what I am asking you is why you think that the current and past strategies of the IDF and the British and Israeli government towards the native people of the Palestinian mandate was justifiable – on any moral, legal, or even real-politik grounds.

                      I can't see any. What is evident is that you probably cannot either.

                      What I see, as I have pointed out long before this current conflict, is that ultimately the Israeli policies since 1948 lead inevitably to one of few possible outcomes. Effectively the genocidal attacks of the Warsaw ghetto. Or the pathetic uberman racism of Israel running a even worse apartheid slave economy. Or Israel will try to force an medieval ethnic cleansing of their relatives who stayed.

                      None of those are acceptable. All of them will have been directly caused by the actions of the League of Nations and the UN. That is the mechanism that should be forced to a more equitable solution. Probably dissolve the security council veto as a starter.

                    • SPC …
                      6 January 2025 at 6:45 pm

                      I think you should look at your method of debating

                      First you claimed

                      Thus far, the leadership in Israeli hasn’t clearly stated an intent to commit genocide. Instead they appear to be acting exactly like the Nazi leadership from 1933 until the liberation of Belsen. They never claimed an intent nor acts of genocide. It took finding the gas chambers and mass graves to discover that.

                      (my italic bold)

                      I point out

                      At Wannsee there was a plan, the camps were known of long before 1945.

                      Rather than admit the point, that this was a known before 1945.

                      You find a way to launch a tirade.

                      What you appear to be conflating is the evidence of the extermination plans with the concentration camps (and the SS efforts on the Eastern front).

                      Yes the internment and or labour camps in the east became extermination camps after Wannsee.

                      The evidence was known from Barbarossa and possibly earlier. However it was intelligence information from various forms of spying. No country releases that where the information gives a link to source. Which is why Coventry needed to build a new Cathedral after the war – to protect Enigma.

                      The Allies knew that there was no way to affect the Nazis extermination efforts.

                      So I guess

                      It took finding the gas chambers and mass graves to discover that.

                      was not fact based.

                      Perhaps you’d like to suggest realistically what they could have done – rather than just being a mindless critic pushing idiotic ‘but what abouts..’.

                      I was just fact checking you, not asking for your assessment of my moral compass for doing so.

                • Jenny …
                  7 January 2025 at 12:25 am

                  '

                  "Problem with the act of genocide is that is only really provable after the fact". lprent

                  As SPC points out, that wasn't true for the Holocaust.

                  In the case of the Holocaust, not too dissimilar to today, If people didn't know, it was because they didn't want to know.

                  …..By summer 1941, British intelligence agents were listening in on classified German radio transmissions that described systematic mass murders in Lithuania, Latvia, and later Ukraine. News also came from the Soviets…..

                  ……Additional confirmation came in spring 1942, when American journalists stranded in Germany when the United States entered the war were exchanged for Axis nationals stranded in the United States. Historian Deborah Lipstadt describes the articles these journalists wrote after they returned home:

                  Glen Stadler, UP [United Press] correspondent in Germany, described what had happened to Jews in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as an “open hunt.” Some of the reporters estimated that more than 400,000 had already been killed by Hitler’s “new order,” including “upward of 100,000 [Jews who] met death in the Baltic states alone, and more than that . . . have been executed in Western Russia.”

                  Joseph Grigg, also of the UP, reported: “One of the biggest slaughters occurred in Latvia in the summer of 1941 when, responsible Nazi sources admitted, 56,000 men, women and children were killed by S.S. troops and Latvian irregulars.”

                  …..Following Poland’s defeat by Germany, Polish leaders had established a temporary “government in exile” in Britain. In June 1942, they received a secret report from occupied Poland confirming that the Germans were murdering Jews throughout the country. Newspapers around the world carried the story.

                  The London Times reported:

                  MASSACRE OF JEWS—OVER 1,000,000 DEAD SINCE THE WAR BEGAN

                  The Montreal Daily Star stated:

                  “NAZI SLAUGHTERHOUSE”—GERMANS MASSACRE MILLION JEWS IN EXTERMINATION DRIVE

                  The Los Angeles Times wrote:

                  NAZIS KILL MILLION JEWS, SAYS SURVE

                  The New York Journal American declared:

                  JEWS LIST THEIR DEAD AT A MILLION

                  https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/what-did-world-know

                  The Man Who Warned The West About The Holocaust, At A Time When No One Would Listen

                  Jan Karski, an eyewitness to the Holocaust whose daring wartime attempts to call attention to the slaughter of Polish Jews were largely ignored by the United States and Britain.

                  'This Sin Will Haunt Humanity'

                  ….Karski traveled west with a plea to make the prevention of the Jewish slaughter an explicit goal of the Allied Powers. He urged both British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to consider military strikes against rail lines used for the Nazi deportations…..

                  ….. But neither official was prepared to take such measures in time to prevent the deaths of 3 million Polish Jews. Karski, one of a handful of people to warn Western leaders of the Holocaust, and its earliest eyewitness, was largely ignored.

                  https://www.rferl.org/a/the-man-who-warned-the-west-about-the-holocaust-at-a-time-when-no-one-would-listen/25430245.html

                  Then as now, ignoring the reality of a genocide is very convenient if you want to avoid having to do anything about it.

                • Jenny …
                  7 January 2025 at 12:53 am

                  '

                  "Thus far, the leadership in Israeli hasn’t clearly stated an intent to commit genocide." lprent

                  Maybe you are just not aware.

                  Can't help but be reminded of the time you weren't aware Pokeno had a supermarket, when a quick google search revealed that Pokeno did indeed have a supermarket.
                  Just as a quick google search will reveal many statements of intent to commit genocide made by Israeli leadership.

                  https://thestandard.org.nz/climate-commission-hope-versus-nltp-reality/#comment-1788820

                  The reality of genocide is so awful, who wouldn't want to deny or ignore evidence of the reality of it?

                  The BBC

                  26 Aug 2024 — “Israelis who incite genocide or use genocidal rhetoric are immune from prosecution,” says Israeli human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard.

                  Statement by PM Netanyahu

                  https://www.gov.il/en/pages/spoke-statement251023

                  With shared forces, with deep faith in the justice of our cause and in the eternity of Israel, we will realize the prophecy of Isaiah 60:18.*

                  *[ Isaiah 60:18:."nations kingdoms that do not serve Jerusalem will be destroyed and perish” J.]

                  Statement by PM Netanyahu

                  "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”*

                  *[Samuel 15:3: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”]

                  Nissim Vaturi, Israeli MP and Deputy Speaker

                  “wipe Gaza off the face of the earth,”

                  “Gaza must be burned.” “I stand behind my words… It is better to burn down buildings rather than have [Israeli] soldiers harmed. There are no innocents there,” he said in a radio interview before calling for the “elimination” of the estimated 100,000 Palestinians left in northern Gaza. “I have no mercy for those who are still there. We need to eliminate them,” added Vaturi, who belongs to Likud, the right-wing party led by Netanyahu.

                  Isaac Herzog President of Israel

                  "It is an entire nation out there that is responsible … this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true,” Herzog said. “They could’ve risen up, they could’ve fought against that evil regime that took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”

                  “We will break their backbone,” Herzog added, while claiming – despite all evidence to the contrary – that Israel was adhering to the rule of international law.

                  Herzog’s remarks were reported by the Financial Times, which then deleted that section of its article, despite the authenticity of the speech, which was recorded on video.

                  https://x.com/adamjohnsonCHI/status/1712850249994125447

                  Israeli MP, Galit Distel Atbaryan

                  “Hate on the enemy. Hate on the monsters. Every bucket of internal conflict is a horribly crazy and stupid waste of energy. Invest that energy in one thing: erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the brave monsters will fly to the southern fence and enter Egyptian territory. Or let them die. And his name is evil. Gaza needs to be wiped out. And fire and smoke on the heads of the the nazis in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]… Revengeful and vicious IDF is required here. Anything less than that is immoral.”

                  https://www.instagram.com/combconstruction/p/C1_nOBJy18i/?img_index=1

                  Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

                  https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-database-with-500-instances-of-israeli-incitement-to-genocide-continuously-updated/

                  Now I could put up the links to these 500+ evidence of intent to commit genocide in Gaza, but of course it would trip the site's automatic spam filter for javomg too many links
                  I have already left out most of the links from the genocidal statements of intent made by Israeli leaders above for this very reason, but if you doubt the veracity of the quotes you can always google them..

                  I could go on, and continue to cut and paste lots more of these quotes and all the URL links to these statements of genocidal intent,, and all the verbatim reports and recordings of these Israeli leaders' declaring, their own words, their intent to commit genocide,, quotes cited by media outlets and by jurists and in their own press releases, maybe, just maybe, somehow, possibly, this could all be dismissed as 'propaganda' i.e. deliberately fabricated lies to make it look like these Israeli leaders intend to commit genocide, when they really don't..

                  But I doubt it.

                  • SPC …
                    7 January 2025 at 1:59 am

                    Confusing the eternity of God with an eternal Israel must be embarrassing for any Rabbi in the synagogue BN of Likud goes to.

                    And his week day teachers, the sun's existence (enabling life on the planet) is a finite one.

                    As to warrants for incitement, Cabinet Ministers first.

                    Near the bottom of this long page.

                    https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/11/14/hopeless-starving-and-besieged/israels-forced-displacement-palestinians-gaza

                    • Jenny …
                      7 January 2025 at 9:56 am

                      Hi SPC, thank you for the link you supplied to the HRW document “Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged” which goes into depth examining the warnings that Israel gave to Palestinians to leave, or evacuate, certain areas; the shortness of notice, the confusing and often contradictory nature of these warnings to evacuate, the consequence and implementation of these orders to evacuate, including detailed reports of those obeying the Israeli evacuation orders to leave their homes being attacked on the roads and in the Israeli designated 'safe areas' they were ordered to go to. The destruction of housing and private and public property and infrastructure the deliberate destruction of agricultural land, bakeries, flour mills and other means of sustaining human life in those areas and other areas of Gaza generally.

                      In light of all this, do you still contend SPC that because the IDF issue warnings to leave certain areas before attacking them, that giving warnings is not consistent with committing the crime of genocide?

                      SPC @1.1.1

                      6 October 2024 at 9:09 am

                      There is a case for accusation of war crimes, these occur in most wars.

                      Genocide…..

                      ….The practice of warning people to leave areas, is not consistent with that goal.

                      Is this still your contention?

                    • SPC …
                      7 January 2025 at 10:44 am

                      Yes.

                      But since then, there has been a refusal to allow a return to housing and or deliberation of permanent clearance of housing from some areas.

                      While there is no official plan to place anyone else in these areas, it is still a forced population removal.

                      It is (only) permitted to temporarily displace or evacuate civilians to protect them from the effects of an attack, or if civilian security or imperative military reasons demand such displacement

                      This leads to other claims, still short of genocide, about what this can be called.

                      The article linked to does not assert this is genocide of itself yet.

                      See the Haaretz article above. It seems to confirm claims in the HRW article of an intent of permanent "forced displacement".

                      The claim that civilians seeking to return to their housing in such areas are to be seen as the enemy, is incitement to another war crime.

  8. adam 8
    4 January 2025 at 1:00 pm

    Militarism is a sad joke. Why the US kills so many of it's own, start by looking at the military, it's place in society. A poor to non-existence mental health system. Economic depravity.

  9. georgecom 9
    4 January 2025 at 2:24 pm

    I made a short submission today, as follows, on David Seymours TOW bill. Little to do with the TOW, but more about claims of Maori Privilege which underpin his philosophy.

    I have heard David Seymour and others who publicly support this Bill, such as Don Brash, Hobsons Choice, Tax payers union, talk about "Maori Privilege" as a reason to revisit the Treaty of Waitangi. I think any detailed study of privilege in New Zealand would reveal that privilege, power and influence sits alongside wealth. Those with the highest concentration of wealth enjoy a higher concentration of power, influence and privilege. I think any detailed study will show that wealth and privilege is concentrated, disproportionately, with older/old pakeha males. Should the promoters of this Bill want to seriously address unequal privilege in this country the place to start is the (unequal) distribution of wealth. A good place to begin is the introduction of a comprehensive Capital Gains Tax.

    • weka 9.1
      4 January 2025 at 2:46 pm

      nice one.

    • Ad 9.2
      4 January 2025 at 3:28 pm

      It will be a collective sigh of relief for all parties except for ACT when it is voted down and killed off dead in the next couple of months.

      Then we can all get back to focusing on the ruination this government is making of our society, environment, and economy.

    • SPC 9.3
      4 January 2025 at 4:53 pm

      The real threat looming is the C of C being part of an international agenda to make foreign investors sovereign, rather than nation state.

      The next level to the fast-tracking legislation to diminish nation state rules based processes.

  10. SPC 10
    4 January 2025 at 4:48 pm

    As they cost less than a packet of smokes, there is not much of a cost barrier.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/12/31/vaping-kits-to-be-made-free-for-smokers-to-help-them-quit/

  11. Ed1 11
    4 January 2025 at 5:32 pm

    I appreciate the links to other sites in the right hand column, but it seems that our news, and more especially political comment, is becoming more and more fragmented.

    I saw an article recently that referred to an old post by David Farrar on using "Free Speech" as a vehicle for attacking human rights generally, legitimising strong political views – I think it was referred to in a recent post by a left commentator, but I cannot remember who or when – it covered recent activity regarding a "Human Rights" appointment to make objections to government policy more difficult to get action on – can anyone remember such an article? – I think it was in the last two weeks.