Having come to office by the “power of one” to general acclaim 14 months ago, the Coalition government has developed a unique ability to alienate its supporters. And few things demonstrate that more than its blind support for Israel, which has upset many of its most diehard fans.
The Prime Minister completely misrepresents Fiji’s actual position on the front page of today’s Fiji Sun. He says Fiji supports Israel’s right to defend itself. So do scores of countries, including Australia and New Zealand. But Fiji has gone one step further to join the United States as the only two countries of the world to explicitly support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.
That has what has upset members of the NGO Coalition in Fiji and a great many ordinary Fijians, who are dismayed that their nation that once took of the principled stance of being “friends to all and enemies to none” should take such a partisan stance in the Middle East in favour of Israel without accepting the right of the Palestinians to self-determination.
Countries like Australia and New Zealand can support the right of Israel to defend itself but still support an eventual two-state solution in which the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians are recognised. But not Fiji, which has effectively green-lighted the right of Israel to defy world opinion and occupy Palestinian land.
By whose authority is Fiji doing this? It certainly wasn’t with the authority of the Fijian people at the last election. We knew before that election that SODELPA wanted to establish a Fijian embassy in Jerusalem. But there was nothing about full blown support for Israel in defiance of international opinion in the manifestos of any of the parties. So the Coalition’s current breathtaking stance clearly does not have an electoral mandate or the support of the Fijian people as a whole.
What has happened is that a relatively small group of religious fanatics has commandeered Fijian foreign policy to push through a rabidly pro-Israeli agenda that is shared only by the United States, where the influential Jewish-American lobby has traditionally had a big say in foreign policy. So we have a shocking situation in which of the 193 member nations of the UN, only two – Fiji and the US – are taking such a hard line in supporting Israel and the other 191 are taking the principled stand of recognising the justice of the Palestinian cause. And on any rational assessment, it is as much of a just cause as Israel’s right to exist.
It ought to be extremely disturbing for any Fijian that such an important foreign policy position doesn’t represent the democratic will of the Fijian people but a faceless elite who are imposing their will on the rest of us. Individuals like the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, the SODELPA leader, Bill Gavoka, and the high chief and Fiji Airways freeloader, Ro Teimumu Kepa, are entitled to their private beliefs that Israelis and Fijians are somehow God’s chosen people. But they do not have the right to impose that extreme position on the rest of us and make it a cornerstone of our foreign policy.
Even more disturbing is the approach of the mainstream media to this issue. Today, the Fiji Sun gives balanced coverage to the government’s hard-line support for Israel and the equally hard-line opposition of the NGO Coalition. But the Fiji Times chooses to ignore the protest about the government’s stance altogether with the astonishing headline “Fiji stands by Israel” when that is not the case at all. The nation doesn’t stand by Israel in its defiance of international law. A group of religious fanatics from the elite are choosing to unquestioningly stand with Israel and that is not the same thing at all.
As Grubsheet has long highlighted, the Fiji Times long ago ceased to be a proper newspaper, reporting without fear or favour and drawing a firm line between opinion and its news coverage. But its failure to report the NGO Coalition’s opposition to Fiji’s policy – which was a story readily available for most of yesterday – confirms the Fiji Times as a pro-government propaganda rag as bad as the Fiji Sun at any time under the last government. It routinely spins stories in the Coalition’s favour and it is doing the same with this one.
The immediate consequences locally are that many of the government’s supporters now have an added reason to turn against it – as people like Roshika Deo did yesterday – not only because of the injustice of Fiji’s indifference towards the long-suffering Palestinians but because of the undemocratic, secretive nature of the decision to side with Israel’s excesses.
This is bound to have an effect at the ballot box whenever an election is held. Because it merely confirms the growing public perception that this government is a sham. It came to power promising to govern for all and restore standards of transparency and accountability. And instead, Fiji’s minorities are being marginalised and the Coalition’s conduct is no more transparent than its predecessor. And in this instance, as with many others, it is as bad if not worse. Because any democratic nation’s foreign policy has to represent the will of its people and this decision has simply been imposed.
More serious is the adverse impact on Fiji’s image in the world. The United States can afford as a superpower to take a hard-line position in favour of Israel in the Middle East. As a Small Island Developing State in the Pacific, Fiji can’t. With this decision – which is wilfully out of step with majority opinion in the world, including the other democracies – we aren’t making friends but making powerful enemies.
This is going to have serious consequences, whether it is compromising the neutrality of Fijian peacekeepers in the Middle east and exposing them to more danger or damaging our standing with countries that would otherwise support Fiji in global forums and benefit us with investment and friendly engagement. What are we going to get from the many friends of the Palestinians? Nothing.
It is simultaneously mad and totally counterproductive but is something we have come to expect from the Coalition. It has yet to realise that its racist policies and general bias in favour of the iTaukei are a big factor in what is becoming a stampede of Fiji’s remaining best and brightest towards our larger neighbours. And it is yet to realise that taking sides in the intractable Israeli-Arab conflict and turning a blind eye to the aspirations of the Palestinians is another act of collective madness – a nation wilfully shooting itself in the foot. And worse, not asking any of us if we want to carry that wound in an increasingly hostile and uncertain world.
UPDATED 1000 TUESDAY: Frank Bainimarama – wearing the hat of former prime minister and leader of FijiFirst – issues a statement strongly criticising the government’s position ( see below). But why isn’t that statement coming from the party’s parliamentary leader, Inia Seruiratu? Two days ago, Seruiratu issued a statement on the national crime and drug crisis after Grubsheet questioned why he was “missing in action”. Why didn’t Frank Bainimarama issue that statement?
Who is actually the voice of FijiFirst – Seruiratu who is still in the parliament and is designated parliamentary leader, or Bainimarama, who resigned from the parliament and is facing criminal charges? We know who is still the power behind FijiFirst – Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum – but no political party can have a puppet leader in the parliament and prosper.
We know there is an internal struggle in FijiFirst with Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum trying to get Inia Seruiratu replaced as parliamentary leader by Faiyaz Koya. But until all this is resolved and the Fijian people know exactly who speaks for the biggest bloc in the parliament, these guys have no hope of getting political traction or winning a fresh election.
Inia Seruiratu needs clear air and to get the Bainimarama and Khaiyum monkeys off his back. And he needs to fight the attempt to replace him with Koya – who will be both a lame duck and a puppet – or FijiFirst is doomed.
Shaan Prasad says
Where were all these “look at me women” all this time? The humanitarian feminist bullshits. Surviving on and misusing donor funds from hardworking people overseas.
I will say one thing Graham.
All the NGO Coalition were the very women who have been turning their backs on what all minority Fijians have been facing for nearly 18 months.
Shamima, Roshika, other influencers parading around Rabuka have been a disgrace.
How fast did they forget the years of brutality that Fijians faced under Rabuka.
Get this right you la la lot of women…
The PM of Fiji is an abuser.
You women advocated for him not too long ago.
Now you can surely have one thing in common and that is you are equally responsible for the killing of women and children in Gaza.
We don’t need your candle light vigils anymore. All a show.
Disgraceful and yuck.
Boycott Fiji says
The Prime Minister of Fiji should never be the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Simple politics 101 that Fiji f**ked up when they gave the untrustworthy man that role.
Now face the consequences.
#boycottfiji
#backto1987
Timaima Rounds says
Give Richard Useless Naidu a column piece in Fiji Times on the humanitarian rights he was up about. Did it all suddenly stop, Richard?
You and your NFP clowns deserve a standing kick on your backsides.
And where are the faith based leaders on this? Shameless people all in hiding.
Fjord Sailor says
Given that Rabuka conducted two ethnic cleansings in the past and is currently undertaking another one in the civil service and judiciary, this position taken by Fiji is no surprise.
Rabuka and Siromi are anti anything Indian or Muslims.
Vili says
Yesterday’s darlings of social media are now pariahs and for what? A quick grubby buck? Reputations trashed faster than you can say “tax holiday”
NFP voter says
There is no shame nor compassion left in this Government and that same attitude is creeping onto the mindset of our people.
We will forever regret voting these donkeys into power. Unfortunately the milk is already spilt and the cats such as Richard Naidu, Wadan Narsey, Shamima Ali, SSTP, Nirmal Cheema have gone into hiding.
I voted for Bimaan influenced by people such as above, now I feel like putting a spit emoji on their posts on social media. Bimaan is a coward of all cowards. We are in ruin. I feel for Fiji as it goes down.
Golf Tango says
Theres no such thing as a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. The palestinians want a one state solution that is total anhilation of the Jews. They wanted war on oct 7 and they got one.
Graham Davis says
Gold Tango, pleas refer to my response to Steve Marshall. It is the Israelis who are opposing the two state solution, which multiple governments are pressing for as the only way to address this intractable stalemate.
Anon says
Of course the Israelis are (now) opposing a 2 state solution…who would blame them for attempting self preservation!! Enough is enough. Those “multiple govts” of nations who are pressing for a two state solution are not the target of the genocidal aspirations of their neighbours like Israel is.
Graham Davis says
So what’s your solution?
Anon says
The solution(s) are as practical as giving “freedom” to occupied USA, occupied Australia, occupied NZ etc and other lands settled in the migratory behaviour of humans or by historical wars and conquests in the process of empire building – by returning the countries / lands to the presumed original rightful inhabitants. Any rationalised workable solutions will be thwarted by conflicting idealogy of the subject cultures in the middle East.
Any proposed solution is just blather unfortunately. However, if as in nature or evolutionary natural selection that enables the propagation and survival of the species, the stronger will prevail by overcoming the weaker. It would be rational to prefer that the winner is the one whose values are of life and living and all that is good.
Patrick says
You got this so wrong. Two weeks before this happened. Netanyahu went before the Arab League with a map with greater Israel, calling it the “new Middle East without Palastine.”
October 7 was about Freedom fighters breaking out from the world’s largest open air prison – Gaza.
Colonised people have the right to armed resistance under international law. When they broke those walls. They went in to take hostages and in the ensuing resistance, this led to some very unfortunate incidences.
What Hamas has done is not lost the war but won the world over. The brutal assualt with 30000 dead. More then 70% being woman and children has shown that this is genocide happening before our very eyes. We cannot support such autrocities
Pita says
This is a far greater source of shame for Fiji than any adulterous cabinet ministers and their behaviour. It’s like flying a giant flag saying “look how stupid we are”. And uneducated.
While I am not generally a fan of Michael Field, he did pose an interesting question/conspiracy theory….Are some rich Israeli backers going to settle the debts?
These religious nuts are a menace and have been for a long time.
Note there are two of us “pitas” in the comments,maybe another name is appropriate. Glad to see you spot on the issue here Graham.
Ben Trader says
Some years ago, I had commented on a Grubsheet web-post defending the then NFP Opposition MP’s at that time – Biman, Lenora and Pio Tikoduadua. I now have no qualms in saying that having observed the silence of these same NFP MPs in many instances of SODELPA and PA ethnonationalists and religious fanatics dictating almost all govt policy and position, I hold them equally culpable.
It was my hope that NFP would hone down these extremist misinformed elements of these two parties, ALAS, I was deeply wrong and taken for a ride by the NFP.
What an utter shame.
Steve Marshall says
Quote from your article Graham – “Countries like Australia and New Zealand can defend the right of Israel to defend itself but still support an eventual two state solution in which the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians are recognised.”
The Middle East is very complicated, but this is the obstacle to any peace. Arabs/Palestinians have REFUSED to have a state, ever! They don’t want one. They want Israel gone, the Jews dead.
– Peel commission 1937
– UN partition plan 1947
– Israel declaration of independence 1948
– Oslo accords 1993 incompletion
– Barak offer Camp David 2000
– Saudi initiative 2002
– Olmert’s offer 2008
– Kerry Obama initiative 2013
– Trump’s “deal of the century” 2020
The reason has ALWAYS been their refusal to acknowledge the right of Israel to EXIST as a Jewish state.
Between 1969 and 1982, Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian militias ran over Lebanon, using the country as a springboard for their war on Israel, inviting retaliation, starting a civil war that killed 300,000 Lebanese and destroyed a once thriving country. In 1982, Israel ejected Palestinian militias from Lebanon the same way it is decimating Hamas in Gaza today. In 1983, Syria’s Assad again ejected Arafat, who had returned to northern Lebanon, because Assad thought of himself as the sole Arab leader and didn’t welcome competition or sharing. In the same way Hamas massacred 350 Palestinian Authority partisans and took over Gaza in 2005. Assad forces occupied Lebanon between 1976 and 2005.
Neither Palestinians nor Syrians have apologized to the Lebanese. On the contrary, both Palestinians and Syrians still accuse every Lebanese who wants out, i.e. who calls for Lebanon’s neutrality, of being a sell-out to Zionism, imperialism, settler colonialism etc
Until there is a change in Arab thinking to arrive at an internal peace with themselves, no matter how many times Secretary Blinken visits the Middle East, there will never be Arab peace with Israel.
Just imagine what the prosperity of Gaza could have been if the billions of dollars channelled into the underground labyrinth below Gaza, and the tens of thousands of rockets manufactured, and arms purchased, had gone into normal civilian infrastructure. As it was, Gaza was quite a city before this war.
Islam does not recognise Jews, let alone anyone else. Pure Islam believes in world domination being the will of Allah. Nothing else is acceptable. President Adbel el-Sisi of Egypt is on public record of saying there must be a change of this doctrine. Of course, he’s up against a brick wall because the leaders of Islam believe that Mohammed is the last true prophet, never mind that his writings are inconsistent.
Arab Muslims invented colonialism centuries before the British and modern-day European countries, the difference being millions were killed by the Arabs, hundreds of thousands were enslaved.
History records the Jews being the people of Israel for thousands of years before Mohammed even existed. Islam is traced back to just 610AD.
This is not me now, I’m quoting Hussain Abdul-Hussain on X. Britain created Palestine in 1920 as a state for both Arabs and Jews. The word Palestinians referred to both Arabs and Jews. Palestinians never referred to Arabs only. The 1947 UNGA 181 resolution for partition stipulated the division of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, not a Jewish state and Palestine. At the time, the Arabs in Palestine referred to themselves as Arabs, and called their riot against Jews the Arab Revolution of 1936, and got Arab governments to speak on their behalf at the London Conference 1939 and later at the UN. The Arabs of Palestine used a variant of the flag of the Great Arab (Hashemite) revolution as their flag.
The Arabs of Palestine did not call themselves Palestinian, even after the creation of Israel in 1948. Then when Syria seceded from Nasser’s United Arab Republic in 1961, and while Nasser was taking a beating in Yemen starting in1962, to avenge his losses and hit the Jordanians and the Saudis back, Nasser instigated the Arabs of the West Bank to secede from Jordan and create a Palestine that would join Nasser’s United Arab Republic (Egypt) and replace Syria. End of quote.
Graham Davis says
With respect, this is the true position right now, as reported by Wikipedia: “Following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the subsequent Israel–Hamas war, multiple governments renewed the long-dormant idea of a two-state solution. This received serious pushback from Israel’s government, especially from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
So much for your claim that it is the Arabs/Palestinians who don’t want a two state solution. We can go on and on about this but why are “multiple governments renewing the long-dormant idea of a two state solution”? Because how else is this impasse going to be resolved?
Anonymous says
Because they don’t acknowledge the reality Graham. Try and find Israel on an Arab map. The multiple governments referred to do not include Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and more. You and I would both push back too if we were PM of Israel and knew the facts.
So bizzare says
Vinaka Steve Marshall for laying it out candidly. Political correctness aside, it is what it is, in that part of the world.
Back here in Fiji, it is the idiotic, fanatical Fijians among us, the wanna-be Jews, who claim to be the “lost tribe” that presents a problem – although one that is not insurmountable. As clearly evident, they’ve become both a nuisance and a liability to our collective, national interest.
Pita says
Eminent Jewish historians like Phillippe Sands,AVI Shlaim, Norm Finkelstein and others completely rebuff everything you are saying Mr. Marshall.
Bibbawarra. Boy says
We are being governed by clowns and idiots.
Not voting for these clowns ever again says
Philanderers, kaicolos in business class and fornicators. Before the elections an Indian man was sending suggestive texts to a Japanese lady, followed closely by selfies in business class and subsequently followed by the fornicators of room 233. Then the idiots voted with Israel and put the lives of all Fiji soldiers in the middle east at risk of being bombed by suicide bombers of Hamas and Hezbollah. The UN will not entertain peacekeepers from a non neutral country. No more gade gade mai lepanoni or Sinai.
One wonders if there is any grey matter between the ears of all government MPs. I along with thousands of disgruntled Fiji citizens voted Rabuka to change the government or rather the dick…..tators. Now we have these jungles in government.
Sobosobo Viti!