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Newspaper questions Japan gov’t delaying Palestinian state recognition
Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s most widely circulated newspaper, has published an editorial suggesting the country risks appearing to “tacitly condone Israel’s atrocities” if it maintains its current nonrecognition stance on Palestine.
Tokyo has decided not to join European countries in recognising a Palestinian state, but said the question is one of timing and not whether it will happen.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said at the UN General Assembly yesterday: “For our country, the question is not whether to recognise a Palestinian state but when. The continued unilateral actions by the government of Israel can never be accepted.”
The editorial said Japan was likely being cautious because it was worried about the possible impact on US-Japan relations, but said: “With even Britain — a nation sharing a ‘special relationship’ with the United States — now recognising a Palestinian state, Japan could give the impression of tacitly condoning Israel’s atrocities if it maintains its current position.”
Some accountability, the fine is peanuts, far less than then pro-Israel lobby spend on sacking him, but it's a small moral victory.
Australian national broadcaster ordered to pay journalist sacked over pro-Israel lobby outcry
The federal court has found the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) “abjectly surrendered” to pro-Israel lobbyists when it fired a journalist over sharing a social media post on Gaza.
Fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf was fired in December 2023 by the ABC for reposting a Human Rights Watch video report on Gaza on Instagram with the comment: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”
The journalist had already been awarded 70,000 Australian dollars ($46,400) in damages, but Justice Darryl Rangiah said the ABC needed to be punished again as it “let down the Australian public badly”.
Senior managers at the ABC were aware there was an “organised political campaign” by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Lattouf removed from the air, so they committed a serious breach of employment law, the judge said.
The broadcaster must now pay an additional 150,000 Australian dollars ($99,400).
