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Shalom.
How October 7 impacted the NZ Holocaust Centre
Last week, Kris Clancy joined our Christchurch meeting to discuss the work of the Holocaust Centre, how he came to work for them, and how October 7 has significantly impacted the Centre’s work.
The recording of our meeting can be viewed here
Our latest newsletter is out!
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Shalom.
Beware False Moral Equivalence Between Israel and Hamas Militants
Most New Zealanders are unfamiliar with war and its realities. We are even more unfamiliar with the laws that deal with the conduct of war. This article is a good resource that explains in layperson’s terms a high level introduction to how the laws of war differ from those in times of peace.
Hamas’ murder of six Israeli hostages, including a U.S. citizen, is another reminder not only that Hamas remains a genuine danger to Israel, but that it is among the most immoral, illegal, and barbaric armed groups in the world.
War, by its very nature, is a brutal endeavor. The international law that regulates war justifies significant violence that would otherwise be unlawful in peacetime. It also acknowledges the legality of attacks that kill or injure civilians when it is “incidental” to an attack on a legitimate military target and not excessive in relation to the value of attacking that target—one of the most difficult assessments combat leaders must make when deciding whether to conduct an attack. This law, however, categorically prohibits deliberately attacking civilians to kill them, injure them, or terrorize them. Even launching such attacks, regardless of outcome, is absolutely prohibited.
There is, however, one rule of war that is arguably even more fundamental than protecting civilians from deliberate attack: the obligation to treat humanely any captive or detainee.
Our latest newsletter is out
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A deal will embolden more October 7 attacks
[NZFOI: Published in the Christchurch Press, June 13]
Dear Sir/Madam
John Minto (11 June 2024) states that loss of life could have been avoided if a negotiated deal had been closed.
A negotiated deal would embolden Hamas and others to repeat October 7 type attacks. Indeed, Hamas has promised exactly that.
Hamas puts civilians in harm’s way by holding hostages among them.
There are two tangata whenua who cherish the same land. Both were offered statehood. One thought let’s give co-existence a shot and accepted. The other thought, no, and gambled on a winner takes all, fight to the death. They lost. People have been dying ever since.
Jews have lived continuously in the region for nearly 4,000 years. To brand Jews as colonialists is to rob an indigenous people of their right to return.
Misusing the term genocide to mean any mass killing, is attention seeking exaggeration and disrespects the victims of genuine genocides, the Armenians, the Tutsis and the Jews.
Hamas wanted war when they attacked on October 7, they got it. They wanted shahids (martyrs) for their propaganda war, they got that too. They wanted humanitarian aid to store in tunnels and sell. They got that too. They want to destroy Israel, they won’t get that.
Regards
Tony Kan
We Shall Dance Again — A Review
We Shall Dance Again – A Review
Director: Yariv Mozer
Screened: DocEdge Festival, Christchurch
Date: June 25, 2024.
We Will Dance Again takes you right there into the Nova Festival. The festival-goers could be your friend, your brother or sister, your son or daughter. It is visceral, it is raw and heart-rending. Already, there are those who wish to deny that it happened at all. For this reason, for those who can steel themselves, it is a must-see.
I approached this documentary with trepidation. I had already seen footage and imagery that had been captured from the Nova Festival, including much of what had been recorded by Hamas’ attackers on the day.
What this documentary brings is the very personal, raw, and visceral experience of the festival goers.
We are taken into the lives of several festival goers, we learn of their friendships, their loves, how they came to hear of the festival, how some had not told their parents as the festival began on a Shabbat.
Upon arriving, one or two noted that they could see the Gaza security fence which unsettled them a little, but quickly put these concerns aside as they either put their faith in the organizers’ threat assessments or hadn’t heard or could recall any breaches of the fence in a long while.
Much has been made of the intelligence available to the authorities that a potential attack was coming. Rehearsals had been observed for many months. But the idea of an attack on this scale just seemed a fantasy.
The producers of Fauda, a popular counter-terrorism drama, even considered an attack like this as a potential scenario for an upcoming season but quickly discarded it for being implausible.
It’s easy to be critical and smug in hindsight.
The first warning of trouble comes when the first rockets are launched at dawn. Even though, we know what will happen, we agonize with the festival-goers as they try to understand what is going on.
Just like in the Christchurch Earthquake when everyone was asked to go home rather than stay at school or work, traffic congestion quickly blocked the exit routes off-site.
Many sat around while they waited for the traffic jam to clear.
Meanwhile, those who thought they were fortunate to be the first to drive away and avoid the traffic jam back at the festival site, started encountering terrorists both from the north and the south of north-south running highway. There was now no way to drive out without encountering terrorists.
Terrorists start arriving on the festival site and the sound of automatic gunfire is the first sign that evil had arrived. And it became clear that they were in deadly danger.
Many began recording on their phones, as if realizing that they may not survive this and wanted to leave something behind.
We are taken inside the migunit or rocket shelters packed with festival-goers. At first, an Arab farm worker, also sheltering from the rockets, goes out to talk the terrorists around, he is brutally beaten and executed. The festival goers are forced to throw out grenades thrown into the shelter by the terrorists. Horror, there is no where to go!
We are running alongside them as they flee through trees, and shrubbery only to find that they are now faced with vast open spaces where there is no cover, yet the terrorists can be heard pursuing them from behind. Run!
We sense their loss as friends fall beside them as they run, but there is no time to stop and provide assistance. Run!
We hear a young man, who has taken a woman under his protection and though she feels she cannot run anymore, she stumbles, he supports her, he speaks words of strength and encouragement. Run!
We follow a mother and her child who have hidden themselves inside a freezer cabinet within one of the food stalls. She can hear the killing go on around her. Be quiet! But there is only so much air in the freezer…
Others who have not run far, decide to hide in a rubbish skip. Unfortunately they are discovered and the terrorists open fire. She hears her partner struggle to breath, she is hit herself. She knows she cannot call out. Be quiet!
Some hide under shrubs, bushes, and ditches. Their calls to emergency services are met with incredulity, their stress makes it hard for them to give the details needed for first responders to locate them.
There is a scene that etches deeply in my mind. Two girls run as a terrorist pursues them on the road. They turn the corner but the terrorist catches up with them and one girl falls as she is shot from behind. The other girl can run no more, is made to kneel and she is executed by the terrorist standing in front of her. He sharply turns around to find more to kill.
The scene evokes an image of an Eisantzgruppen killer standing in front of a woman, taking aim with his Mauser rifle at a Jewish woman standing before him at point-blank range. Ugh.
Hours later emergency responders and security forces reached the festival site and the survivors began to emerge, to discover the enormity and horror of what had happened.
There is a profound scene where a survivor who was in the rubbish skip, shares about the loss of her partner, though despite her best efforts to maintain her composure tears begin flowing down her cheeks, and then we are shocked as the camera pans out to reveal she is in a wheelchair, unable to walk.
This was the world premier for this documentary, it is an Oscar-qualified film festival and if the documentary wins a prize, it is eligible for consideration for the Academy Awards.
Because it is the world premiere, we were privileged to meet Yariv Mozer, the award-winning filmmaker who made himself available for questions and answers after each screening.
Mozer is an Israeli film producer, screenwriter, and film director. He teaches at the Steve Tisch Film School at Tel Aviv University. He is best known for his documentaries, Ben-Gurion, Epilogue; The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes.
Mozer approached MGM Television almost the day after and they quickly agreed to support the project.
Other partners soon joined the project including the BBC, SIPUR, Bitachon 365, and Hot Channel 8.
There had been two documentaries already completed in the eight months about the Nova Festival following October 7, so Mozer chose to take a more personal approach.
However, the project was fraught with difficulty. The IDF refused to cooperate as some of the information was militarily sensitive. The footage was also material evidence required for an ongoing criminal investigation and may be required for a future indictment.
Understandably survivors were also suffering from PTSD, and many, understandably, were yet unable to talk about their experiences. For this reason, Mozer says, there will be many more stories to come out over the next months, if not years.
Professional psychiatric and psychological support had to be provided before, during and after filming.
Various members of the team had to record, examine and select material for the documentary. These experiences were in themselves traumatizing and all also required professional psychiatric and psychological support.
New material was constantly surfacing, and this had to be reviewed too.
The documentary hardly touches on the sexual assault aspect of the attack. Though the evidence was there, it was deemed too insensitive to explicitly show.
The title We Will Dance Again is inspired by Mia Schem’s tattoo, and suggests that there would be a stronger message of hope but the documentary focuses exclusively on the events of October 7, at one of the partners’ request.
This documentary, is raw, visceral and intense. Yet it is paced well, and the story it tells is well organized.
As a young New Zealander, going to Gallipoli was a deeply sobering experience. Visiting Dachau and Auschwitz was even more sobering and unforgettable. We Will Dance Again took me to a deeper level again, because it takes you right there into the Nova Festival. You will come to connect with the people sharing their stories. They could be your friend, your brother or sister, your son or daughter. It is so real, and your heart should bleed. The festival goers are not just statistics. Already, there are those who wish to deny that it happened at all. For this reason, for those who can steel themselves, it is a must-see.
The documentary will be aired in the UK by the BBC, Hot Channel 8 in Israel and in North America on Paramount+.
DocEdge because of public demand, they have added an extra screening at the Lumiere Cinema in the Christchurch Arts Centre tomorrow on Friday, June 28 at 6pm.
DocEdge will also be screening We Will Dance Again in Wellington and Auckland in July.
If you can’t make it to the screenings in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, from July 15-31 you can view it online in the Virtual Cinema.
Fri 28 Jun, 6 pm Christchurch, Lumiere Cinemas.
Thu 11 Jul, 6pm Wellington, The Roxy Cinema
Thu Jul 11, 6pm Auckland, The Capitol Cinema
July 15-31 Virtual Cinema, on-demand New Zealand
Tickets for all screenings and online viewing can be found here.
Tony Kan
“I Shall Not Hate” — A review
“I Shall Not Hate” – A Review
Director: Tal Barda
Screened: DocEdge Festival, Christchurch
Date: June 26, 2024.
We started out wishing that I Shall Not Hate would be a hopeful message of equality, justice and coexistence, but it is instead hijacked by factual omissions, making this documentary just another disappointing piece of deceptive Palestinian propaganda that will recruit even more “useful idiots.”
When I first heard that this documentary was being screened at DocEdge, I was told it was about a Nelson Mandela figure, Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, who has risen above the death of three of his daughters in Gaza at the hands of the IDF in 2008, and was spreading a message of forgiveness and peace.
Dr Abuelaish is a remarkable man. He has been able to overcome the poverty and adversity that characterizes Gazan life to become an Obstretician and Gynaecologist.
He has served his community, worked in an Israeli hospital and supported his extended family by building a multi-storey apartment for them. With his community straddling both Gazan and Israeli communities, he was already an increasingly well known advocate for peace before disaster struck.
Tragedy struck in the 2008-2009 Israeli-Gaza war. The day before his apartment exploded, an Israeli tank trains its 120mm gun on them. Dr Abuelaish is able to avert disaster by calling a Network Ten newsman, Shlomi Eldar, who is able to influence the IDF to stand down.
The next evening their apartment explodes, horrifyingly killing his three daughters, a niece and severely wounding another daughter.
Immediately after the explosion, he is on the phone to Eldar, who happened to be live, on-air at the time. What followed was an extraordinarily raw, distressing, and intense dialogue that was broadcasted live.
From what we see in the documentary, it deeply moved many in Israel, and days later a ceasefire was called and it was largely kept.
The trauma and recovery of the family following the attack is deeply moving.
Yet remarkably, Abueslaish amidst his grief, renews his call for peace and declares that he shall not hate the Israelis for that was done and forgives.
This is its most important message, but this message is severely weakened by its other themes.
The documentary presents a history that is in keeping with the prevailing Palestinian narrative:
That Israel is an Occupier, Oppresser, inflicting famine, horror and doom upon innocent Palestinians, who have had their land stolen from them.
Living in Gaza is like a macabre game of “Russian Roulette” hoping that the next Israeli bullet or bomb doesn’t kill them, explains Abuelaish’s daughters.
The documentary mentions Israeli actions in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war yet omits the Arab invasion of the fledgling state of Israel just hours after its declaration of Independence.
It shows Israeli bombardment of Gaza yet omits Hamas’ publicly declared objective to destroy Israel.
Israel is described as an Occupier, yet we are not told that Gaza cannot be occupied as Israel withdrew from there back in 2005.
The audience is not told that Hamas had assassinated its political opponents and now rules unopposed.
Israel’s bombardments in several wars are shown without informing us that each Gaza-Israeli War was preceded by Hamas-led violence which had provoked that war.
Images of slain civilians many of whom are Abuelaish’s relatives are shown but it omits to tell us that Hamas are using civilians as human shields.
We are not told Hamas started a war on October 7, and then sheltered in their tunnels while their civilians pay the price, only for Hamas to harvest images of wounded, maimed and dead children to push to Western media to undermine support for Israel.
They also omit emails uncovered by the Wall Street Journal that show Hamas stating that civilian fatalities are necessary sacrifices for victory and that Israel is exactly where Hamas wants them.
Suppose one relied on the documentary for their complete guide to the conflict. In that case, it is only natural to believe that Israel randomly and malevolently starts clashes and kills civilians for sport similar to shooting fish in a barrel.
In this sense, the Documentary is deeply deceptive.
There is one short scene where Abuelaish presses his brother for an opinion of Hamas’ leadership, challenging him if anyone can speak against their regime without risk. His brother refuses to criticize Hamas and declares that he never has.
A clue to the audience that not all is as it seems. Yet this scene is so short, it could and probably will be missed amidst the avalanche of implied and expressed allegations of brutality made against Israel.
How could this documentary have been made by Tal Barda, a French American born and raised in Jerusalem, as she would be very aware of these omissions?
We watched the screening with Director Yariv Mozer, who is an award-winning filmmaker and teaches at the Steve Tisch Film School at Tel Aviv University, where he taught Barda. Ironically, his documentary, “We Will Dance Again” had its world premiere the evening before.
He told us Barda would be conscious of these omissions and has refused to give consent for it to be shown in Israel. It’s likely the documentary would turn her into a pariah there.
Yet Barda stated during the Q&A session that followed the screening, that it would be shown on Israeli television.
As the evening progressed, Mozer struggled to contain his anger and the omissions became apparent. “It was lying by omission to the New Zealand public who know relatively nothing of what is going on in the Middle East” said Mozer.
“Yet, she was one of my students at Tel Aviv University and we are friends. I will have to think carefully about our next conversation.”
For us, we started out wishing that I Shall Not Hate would be a hopeful message of equality, justice and coexistence, it is instead hijacked by factual omissions, making this documentary just another disappointing piece of deceptive Palestinian propaganda that will recruit even more “useful idiots.”
Tony Kan
Hostage Database: Updated weekly
Hi Folks
Here is a database of all the Israeli hostages known to us and their current status.
Sadly many have died. May their memory be a blessing to all.
Yet many still live.
We would like it to be a resource that can be referred back to and also for those who wish to pray, something to focus your prayers.
With a database like this, it could be easily a numbers or statistical thing but we have included postage stamp images of the hostages faces and included commentary about them so that we never forget that they are human beings.
What happened on October 7 was a crime against humanity and therefore a crime against us all.
We will keep updating it weekly until the crisis is over.
NZFOI
How do I make sense of the Israeli-Gaza War of 2023?
Background
There are two indigenous peoples who cherish the same land, Jews and Arabs.
Both were offered statehood. The Jews said we’ll give coexistence a shot and accepted. The Arabs said, no way, we want a winner takes all, fight to the death. And there has been death ever since.
October 7 sparks a war
On October 7, Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel that had been years in the planning.
For years, they had been gathering intelligence on Israel’s border and kibbutz security arrangements through Gazans employed by Israelis as agricultural and domestic workers.
By utilizing the latest use of drone warfare techniques learnt from the Russo-Ukrainian War, approximately 3,000 militants largely neutralized Israel’s frontline security and attacked communities up to 15 km within Israel.
The attacks were marked by indiscriminate, mutilations, rape, executions, abductions and acts of spectacular cruelty. Extensive video recordings were taken by the attackers, showing considerable glee and joy as they carried out their crimes against humanity. Up to 1,210 murders were carried out and up to 250 were taken hostage.
Israel’s government faced with the its duty to:
- Protect its vulnerable citizens
- Punish wrongdoing
- Prevent further wrongdoing
Had no choice except to declare war to ensure that a further attack would not occur, to deter other organizations from repeating similar attacks and to reassure its citizenry that they could be safe.
The Israeli-Gaza War 2023
This is primarily a propaganda war with civilian fatalities as its foundation
Its objectives are therefore to survive and take advantage of Western cultural repugnance toward fatalities among women and children and ignorance of what war involves to undermine world support for Israel.
To expedite this objective, Hamas infiltrates mainstream media outlets with “independent” journalist contractors, controls what can be released to media and actively seeks images, and video footage of wounded, dying or dead children.
Media coverage of this conflict is disproportionately represented by such images and video footage when compared to other conflicts currently underway in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.
Casualty figures are produced by the Gaza Ministry of Health which itself is controlled by Hamas, yet Western media nearly always publishes these figures without cautionary statements, as if they can be accepted at face value.
Hamas holds strongly to a religious tradition of martyrdom and sees civilian fatalities as a necessary price for victory.
Victim’s bodies and hostages are used as trophies to demonstrate to the Arab world their continuing resistance and to undermine Israeli prestige.
Their propaganda messaging has evolved as the war progresses:
- “War on children”
- “IDF is committing genocide”
- “Israel is withholding humanitarian aid to cause famine”
- “Israel will cause a humanitarian disaster if it attacks Rafah”
To the Arabic speaking world the messaging is quite different:
- “We are the brave underdog resistance fighters against the hated Jews”
- “See the Israelis are beatable and we are superior.”
- “We will never give up the good fight entrusted to us by Allah to destroy the Jews, even if it means sacrificing our people as martyrs“
In reality,
- Civilian fatality rates even based on Hamas’ figures are spectacularly low compared to other urban wars.
- Markets have sprung up to sell food and other humanitarian aid hijacked by Hamas and criminal gangs.
- Food and other supplies have become so abundant that Hamas has had to announce price drops.
Tunnels, human shields and using UN facilities and hospitals are Hamas’ prime tactics
For many years, Hamas has built up to 700kms of tunnels beneath Gaza leaving very few city blocks without tunnels underneath them. Each block contains multiple exits.
Hamas’ tactics include
- Using civilians as human shields
- Using civilian structures such as homes, schools, hospitals and UN facilities for battlefield cover
- Using civilian structures homes, schools, hospitals and UN facilities for operational centers, munitions storage, and food storage.
Under the Geneva Convention doing so, relieves these structures from their immunity from violence, and thus the IDF has entered schools, hospitals and UN facilities whenever they have evidence that Hamas has operated from them. The Western public unaware of this dynamic have voiced outrage.
Unfortunately, in war, and in particular urban warfare, civilian fatalities are inevitable. In all conflicts, experts have said up to 10% of civilians will refuse to evacuate.
In 2022, the UN said in recent history, for every combatant killed in urban warfare, 9 civilians die. Israel has taken more steps than any other modern military force to minimize civilian deaths.
They do this by forewarning the civilian population before beginning operations in a particular neighbourhood. This allows civilians to evacuate but it also means Hamas evacuates too as human shields are not effective unless they are in close proximity.
This minimizes civilian deaths but also has the effect of prolonging the conflict.
How will it end?
Even after Hamas has been defeated, its leadership in exile, and all hope of any remaining hostages extinguished; the hatred, prejudice and intolerance is so deeply ingrained among Palestinians and Arabs that it will take at least a whole generation of re-education to dislodge it.
Evidence of how deeply ingrained these beliefs are include:
- The mass celebrations in the 48 hours after October 7 were widespread, yet they only ended once news that Israel was massing several hundred thousand troops to enter Gaza, and the prospect of widespread devastation became apparent.
- Children’s drama and education teach antisemitism
- Reports of Palestinians who have realized that Jews are not demons after all, Hamas’ authoritarianism is the real enemy of the Palestinian people.
There are likely to be several phases before a stable solution can be fashioned. The war is an opportunity for the civilian population to be freed from Hamas’ tyranny:
- A short-term period of Israeli administration while law and order is restored. The more guerilla attacks from the tunnels etc there are, the longer they will likely stay.
- A period of UN administration while Gazan civilian society re-organizes itself and democratic elections can be held.
- The re-organization must include an independent police, an independent militia and an independent civil service. To establish these institutions, the period of UN administration could be lengthy.
