26 Here-turi-kōkā 2026
26 August 2026

Two steps for Palestinian solidarity this week

If you want to, please edit the messages to better reflect Your thoughts. Or if you are happy with them, please just send them as they are.

1) Click here to send this message to Ultimate New Zealand (Frisbee competitors)

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nzu.eo@ultimate.org.nz; nzu.treasurer@ultimate.org.nz; nzu.hpadmin@ultimate.org.nz;

nzu.board@ultimate.org.nz;

Kia ora Iain, Anna, Kath and the board of Ultimate New Zealand,

Shame shame shame!

We were deeply offended to see Ultimate New Zealand standing with racist, apartheid Israel in complicity with the genocide in Gaza and thumbing your noses at Palestinian calls for boycotts of all representatives of the regime.

By entering New Zealand teams and competing against Israel you have brought shame on this country, shame on our history and shame on yourselves.

Sport and politics are always inextricably linked – just as Ultimate New Zealand is now linked with complicity with Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

Having the Otakaro team put out a self-justifying statement does not absolve them or Ultimate New Zealand from complicity.

Based on your past behaviour of ignoring our messages we don’t expect a reply to this email. But be assured that from our end that your collaboration with racism and genocide will not be forgotten.

(your name)

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2) Click here to send this message to the Foreign Minister

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Rt Hon Winston Peters
Foreign Minister
w.peters@ministers.govt.nz

Kia ora Mr Peters,

64 days and still counting…

How is the study going?

It’s been 64 days and you still appear to be “studying” the United Nations Independent Commission report on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel

Is this report in your inbox or do you need to retrieve it from the rubbish bin?

Surely it can’t be that hard. This is the report which found Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers were engaged in a “game” of target practice with “different body parts of children being targeted on different days”.

Don’t shame New Zealand any more with your silence.

Please respond to this email urgently.

(your name)

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3) Spend a few minutes looking through our social media channels. Like, follow and share.

Website:

www.psna.nz

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Palestine-Solidarity-Network-Aotearoa-PSNA-100064134091562/

Instagram (north to south):

Items in this newsletter

Nationwide rallies/marches/flagwavings this week

Nationwide rallies/marches/flagwavings this week
When resistance to complicity with genocide goes viral
Calling all social studies teachers!
A few pics from around the country this week
Quote of the week
How the western media manufactures consent for genocide
What genocide looks like from the air
Documentary series – “Genocide in Gaza”
Fighting for the last Christian valley of Bethlehem
October 10 – International Day of Action for Palestine
Humanity (but not our politicians) has woken up to genocide
Important stories this week

Films, books, performances, Palestinian culture

“How to sell a genocide” – book review
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” film coming this month
The Doctor’s Wife – new screenings
Asra – Stories of Palestinian Prisoners – tickets available now!

Regular items

“Sitting on the Fence” documentary now available for general release
Your KiwiSaver may be funding violations of Palestinian rights
Join the ICC Six watch
MPs Complicit with Genocide
Keep spreading the message about the Genocide Hotline!
Annual Palestinian Solidarity Dates
How to Donate
Palestine Solidarity Groups around Aotearoa

Nationwide rallies/marches/MP protests/vigils this week

To view events around Aotearoa:

We have an events page on our website as well as a Facebook events page

PSNA Website events page:

You can find it here – www.PSNA.nz/Events

The QR code for the PSNA website events page is this:

It is updated on Wednesday afternoon and ongoing as events are notified to us. Please check back on Friday afternoon to see if there has been Additions or Changes.

Or go to the PSNA Homepage – www.PSNA.nz. Scroll down to the button “For a list of events Nationwide, please click here - Check back often for updates”. Click the button. Check back on Friday for any moves, adds or changes

PSNA Facebook events page

Go to the PSNA Facebook events page here

There are more than 30 events around the Motu this week.

When resistance to complicity with genocide goes viral

The video clip of PSNA National Chair Ben Vordereggor challenging Prime Minister Christopher Luxon last Wednesday at his public meeting in Christchurch has now had over 400,000 views from our PSNA Instagram account. And it has had over 300k views from the Middle East Eye Instagram page and 3,000 reposts (shares)

Well done Ben and the other five people who disrupted the meeting in a well-staged fashion!

You can watch the video on Instagram here with further reports below

Christopher Luxon Christchurch meeting disrupted by protesters here

WATCH: Luxon interruption: Six protesters disrupt public meeting in Chch here

Protesters interrupt ACT's South Island campaign launch here

Calling all social studies teachers!

The Year 10 Social Studies Curriculum

We are pleased to say the new Year 10 Social Studies curriculum which was released last week includes important changes sought by PSNA in a lengthy submission we made to the Ministry of Education earlier this year.

We support study of the Holocaust in the curriculum but giving it a broader context. If the main lesson from the Holocaust is NEVER AGAIN then this must apply to all peoples at all times. The final curriculum is here.

PSNA is very keen to develop, alongside teachers, high-quality resources for the delivery of this section of the curriculum. We’d love to hear from you if you are a teacher with the time and energy to help develop these resources. Please contact secretary@psna.nz if you are able to help.

A few pics from around the country this week

**Will Alexander escorted from Christopher Luxon’s public meeting – one of six interruptions! (See story earlier in the newsletter)**

**The weekly flagwaving on Friday afternoon at the Bridge of Remembrance in Ōtautahi/Christchurch**

**The PSNA team waiting to greet people coming out from “The Voice of Hind Rajab” in Ōtautahi/Christchurch**

**Getting sign-ups for the PSNA Nakba petition outside “The Voice of Hind Rajab”**

**Poster for the Tamaki protest this week**

**The Otago Daily Times highlights the film “The Voice of Hind Rajab” in their weekend paper**

Quote of the week

“Modern warfare does not end with explosions. It lingers in the poisoned water, the mountains of uncollected rubbish, the collapsed sewage systems and the desperate overcrowding that follows.

Some of the clearest evidence of the humanitarian collapse we now face comes in much smaller forms: weasels, rats, and other vermin moving freely through tents, hospitals, and ruined neighborhoods.

This is what prolonged humanitarian collapse feels like—not a single dramatic moment, but the slow accumulation of indignities that make ordinary life almost impossible”

—Huda Skaik; Journalist, The Nation

How the western media manufactures consent for genocide

“Western media, by employing double standards, censorship, deceptive language, amplifying Israeli lies and dehumanizing Palestinians, facilitates the genocide in Gaza.

The Western media manufactures consent for genocide. It normalizes Israel’s decades-long military occupation and apartheid. It erases Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. It perpetuates the fallacy of Israeli victimhood. It betrays, discredits and demonizes the work of Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, at least 220 of whom have been killed by Israel between Oct. 7, 2023, and August 2025. It supinely accepts draconian Israeli censorship. It acquiesces with tepid letters of protest at Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters in Gaza — an effort by Israel to mask its war crimes. It amplifies Israeli lies, from beheaded babies to widespread sexual assault of Israeli women on Oct. 7, to obfuscate the truth”

The full story is here (Chris Hedges)

What genocide looks like from the air

Documentary series – “Genocide in Gaza”

Check our this series of 15 videos here or on X (Twitter) here

Fighting for the last Christian valley of Bethlehem

The full story is on their website here

Put this date in your diary now – October 10

International day of action for Palestine

Humanity (but not our politicians) has woken up to genocide

Important stories this week

Editor’s picks

The Rats Terrorizing Everyone in Gaza here
‘Bloodthirsty psychopath’ – Israel’s Ben-Gvir touts viewing booths at gallows for Palestinians here
Why can’t Israel be held accountable for its genocide in Gaza? It’s the media here
Israeli strikes hit Gaza water plant as Hamas denounces genocide here
NSW judge says anti-Israel graffiti case went ‘haywire’ when vandalism was labelled antisemitic here
NSW Supreme Court criticises IHRA definition as 'detached from reality'here

Films, books, performances, Palestinian culture:

“How to sell a genocide” – Book Review by Don Carson

How to sell a Genocide
Author: Adam H. Johnson

This book has just been swept off the shelves of the Waverly City Library in Sydney by ‘outraged’ and ‘upset’ Zionists.

It’s a supreme irony of any such in-depth and forensic analysis of how the Israeli lobby manipulates and cancels media and politicians. Israeli acolytes treat any exposure of Israeli bias and lobby-cancelling as a recipe to follow.

Their argument goes “it’s so outrageously antisemitic to claim that we conspire to ban books, that we demand any book which states this should be banned,”

It’s not surprising that American journalist Adam H. Johnson struck such a nerve with Sydney information gatekeepers with his recent volume.

He has written an excellent and painstaking quantitative breakdown of the bias of the US media towards Israel, comparable to the Centre for Media Monitoring exposure of the BBC bias against Palestine a year ago.

Johnson concentres his attention on where it matters – the conglomerate media giants such as Fox News and the New York Times. For instance, he documents their standard use of particular expressions, such as ‘massacre’ to describe Palestinian actions, but very rarely to categorise Israeli actions.

These western thought (sic) leaders determine our mainstream news paradigms too.

Not that Johnson has written a dry book. His targeted excoriation is the ‘liberal’ Atlantic magazine, for which “a crucial role in defending and opening up ideological and political space for the genocide in Gaza cannot be overstated.’

Its writers pretend to be academic and open minded, yet slavishly follow the Israeli paradigm. Johnson makes it wry entertaining reading.

How to sell a Genocide is available from Pluto Press.

The Voice of Hind Rajab – screening in cinemas around the country now

In The Voice of Hind Rajab, the voice in question is a small one, belonging to a young girl alone and in unconscionable peril, high and breathless with fear and confusion. But it cuts through Kaouther Ben Hania’s film with piercing clarity, largely because, in contrast to a surrounding chorus of frantic adult voices, it isn’t performed. Rather, it’s a real-life recording of the last words ever spoken by Rajab, a 5-year-old Palestinian child killed on Jan. 29, 2024, after her family’s car was shelled by Israeli forces during their invasion of the Gaza Strip. In her final hours, the girl repeatedly phoned call-center volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society, pleading for a rescue vehicle that never made it to her.

Making that horrifying 70-minute audio file the heart and spine of her film, Ben Hania baldly confronts her audience with the real-time fate of one of more than 18,000 children killed so far in an ongoing genocide.

If The Voice of Hind Rajab opens one hitherto blinkered eye, or ear, to the atrocities in Gaza, it will have done its job. - Guy Lodge, Variety

More information here

The doctor’s wife – new screenings

The number of screenings around the country is increasing steadily – 3 in Auckland last week – some with audiences of 70-80 . Retirement villages have been especially keen and have requested repeat visits as word has spread. Donations have flowed into the charity Alan and Hazel Kerr set up and $200,000 has been raised so far. The money was initially spent on heavy duty tents in Gaza but also some funds for a medical team from NZ to go to the Occupied West Bank when possible.

Check out https://whitioraproductions.com/the-doctors-wife

Coming screenings

Asra – Stories of Palestinian Prisoners – tickets now available

View this short video about this amazing production

Auckland Details:

Thursday 3 September, 7:00 pm
Friday 4 September, 7:00 pm
Saturday 5 September, 7:00 pm
Sunday 6 September, 2:00 pm & 6:00 pm
Te Pou Theatre, 2 Mount Lebanon Lane, Henderson, Auckland

Tickets are available here

Regular items

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“Sitting on the Fence” now available online

In Sitting On The Fence, Kiwi voices speaking truth to power in Aotearoa, US and Israel over their complicity in genocide have at last been given the platform that those in Parliament, the media and diplomacy have sought to silence.” Jane Kelsey - Emeritus Professor of Law, Auckland University, Aotearoa / New Zealand

With the NZ International Film Festival not selecting Sitting On The Fence it can now finally be released online in NZ.

The film can be viewed at this link www.sittingonthefence.tv. Please share on your social media networks.

Your KiwiSaver may be funding violations of Palestinian rights

Important message from Barry Coates – founder and CEO of Mindful Money

(Website: mindfulmoney.nz. Join our mailing list here)

The judgement won by PSNA forcing the NZ Super Fund to review its investments in four companies that violate the rights of Palestinian people was important. It also sends a warning across the bow of KiwiSaver and other investment funds funds. You may not realise it, but your KiwiSaver might be invested in those four companies.

Mindful Money is a charity that tracks investment in KiwiSaver, including companies on the United Nations Human Rights Council database of companies involved in the building and maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Our analysis shows there is even more invested in the four companies by KiwiSaver funds than by the NZ Super Fund.

So what can you do? Check your fund – it is free, quick and easy to do so. Go to www.mindfulmoney.nz, type in the name of your KiwiSaver fund into the Fund Checker, click the button ‘Show Companies’ and look for the companies with an OPT symbol. If you see any of those companies in your fund, write to your fund manager (the address is on your KiwiSaver statement) and tell them you don’t want your savings going to those companies.

If you want to shift to a fund that doesn’t invest in those companies, use the Fund Finder to find a Mindful Ethical Fund. You can also use the same website for non-KiwiSaver managed funds.

It’s your money. Don’t let it be used to fund companies that violate human rights.

Join the ICC Six Watch

Share the poster on social media – keep alert – email ICC6@PSNA.nz if you find where any of these six genocide deniers are due to show up.

Keep spreading the message about the Genocide Hotline!

Remember possible action for local groups

For groups affiliated to PSNA we suggest the following actions could be taken at any time in support of this campaign

Asking your local backpacker accommodation to display the poster and draw it to the attention of any Israeli soldiers here on “rest and recreation” from the genocide.
Pasting the hotline poster (use the version in this newsletter which includes a contact email) around the vicinity of backpacker venues in your local area. This is already happening in some areas.
Hand out flyers to people in the vicinity of your local backpackers
Contact us on the hotline if you come across Israeli soldiers

Merchandise for sale - please check with your local branch and/or contact us Merchandise@PSNA.nz

**Recent new material – leaflets and stickers are free the bucket hats and caps are $25**

If your local branch does not have what you are after we are ready to mail to you any of our t-shirts, long ($35) and short ($30) sleeved, hoodies ($45) bumper stickers ($3), Tino/Palestine pins ($3) flags large & medium ($10 or $7) and other items plus postage.

The watermelon and the fist stickers will be back in stock early next week.

See more on the PSNA website here.

Reminder: Annual Dates for Palestine Solidarity

28 Mar – 4 Apr Israel Apartheid Week

30 Mar Land Day Palestine

5 Apr Palestinian Childs Day

9 Apr Deir Yassin massacre - Irgun Terrorism - 107-120 Palestinian men, women and children massacred

17 Apr Palestinian Prisoners Day

11 May World Kufiya Day

15 May Nakba Day – marking the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine in 1948

5 Jun Nakba Day - Start of 1967 War - Land Grab – Invasion of Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt and Syria - 5 June 1967 – 10 June 1967

20 Jun Attack on Gaza - 6–21 May 2021 (2 weeks and 1 day)

16-18 Sep 40th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres

28 Sep Second Intifada - 28 Sept 2000 – 8 Feb 2005

2 Nov Balfour Declaration

29 Nov United Nations - International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

8 Dec "First Intifada - 8 Dec 1987 – 13 Sept 1993

Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign?

We will need some serious money to make our campaign as effective as possible. For example, we will need somewhere in the vicinity of $25,000 to bring speakers to New Zealand over the next year and organise large public meetings to help spread the message.

You can help. Are you able to donate a cup of coffee a month to the campaign? In other words, can you afford to make an automatic payment of $5 per month to support the Palestinian struggle? (If you can afford more that would be great!)

Our account details are:

Account name: Palestine Solidarity Network
Account number: 38-9015-0849542-00

We are happy to provide a receipt upon request (however, we are not a registered charity so this is not tax-deductible)

Nationwide Rally list

To view events around Aotearoa:

Go to the PSNA Homepage – www.PSNA.nz. Scroll down to the button “For a list of events Nationwide, please click here - Check back often for updates”. Click the button. Check back on Friday for any moves, adds or changes
Or events are on the PSNA Facebook events page here
Or Scroll down to the bottom of this Newsletter for the detailed list of events for this week.
We have added a page to the PSNA website where we now post the Events list. You can find it here – www.PSNA.nz/Events

The QR code for this is:

It is updated on Wednesday afternoon and ongoing as events are notified to us. Please check back on Friday afternoon to see if there has been Additions or Changes.

More ways you can get involved

Forward this Newsletter – If you know people who may be interested in this movement, please forward this Newsletter to them.
Join in local activities in your area - Contact Secretary@PSNA.nz if you would like to know where and how to get Flags and Banners
Help set up a Students for Justice in Palestine groups on your campus
Tell Your MP your opinions on Divestment and Sanctions of Israel.
Write Letters to Newspapers – Call Talkback Radio
Keep in touch with the campaign on social media

o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network website: https://www.PSNA.nz

o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/671376706283605/

o NZ Palestine Solidarity Network email: Secretary@PSNA.nz

The Palestine Human Rights Campaign produces the In Occupied Palestine newsletter. It is a regular daily newsletter on the daily situation in Palestine, compiled by Leslie Bravery and emailed to subscribers. If you would also like to become a subscriber, please contact Leslie at “lesliebravery @ icloud .com” (remove the spaces to use as an email address) for further information.
Keep Updated on our Facebook pages and websites (listed below)
Human rights for Uyghur refugees - In line with our support for human rights for the people of Palestine we have added our name to the petition in support of human rights for Uyghur refugees so they can be included in the government’s refugee quota. PSNA members who wish to also sign this petition can do so here - https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/open-letter-let-s-show-compassion-to-the-uyghur-community