Standing beside Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 17 September, Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka declared that “the people of Fiji share a very close religious and cultural connection to the Holy Land. We deeply value your great nation, which is the birthplace of Christianity.”
“We’re brothers, we help one another,” the Israeli prime minister replied. “You recognise a truth that everybody should recognise, but few governments have so far — that this has been our capital for 3000 years, since the days of King David.”
According to Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar, “we have an alliance of believers between Jews and Christians, based on deep faith and biblical roots. We are opening a new, historic chapter in our relations.”
Fiji’s recent diplomatic support for Israel contrasts with international condemnation of Israeli policy in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Just before Rabuka inaugurated the embassy, a UN commission of inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. And he’s far from the only Pacific leader to throw their support behind Israel.
Netanyahu’s welcome to Rabuka highlights his own international isolation since the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader. Successive US presidents have welcomed Netanyahu to Washington, and he has been feted by congressional leaders, yet his arrest warrant alleges “war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
So why do so many Pacific island leaders stand with a man accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, and a nation at war with Palestinians and itself?
Rabuka was in Israel the week after the fifty-fourth Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting. Gathered in Solomon Islands between 8–12 September, regional leaders had adopted a declaration recognising the Blue Pacific as an “Ocean of Peace.” The concept was first proposed by Rabuka, who reiterated the importance of regional solidarity, non-alignment and collective security in a 2023 address to the UN General Assembly.
As he welcomed the launch of the Ocean of Peace Declaration in Honiara on 10 September, Rabuka stressed: “The world knows that we, the Pasifika people, mean business and it starts here with us.” But for many Pacific church and community leaders, this rhetoric is undercut by support for Israel’s unremitting attack on Palestinians, even though US president Donald Trump has called for an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza under a new peace deal announced this month.
During the Forum meeting, the Pacific Conference of Churches, or PCC, called on Pacific governments to “safeguard civilians; support an enforceable ceasefire and humanitarian access; pursue accountability under international law and refrain from actions that pre-judge final status issues; recognise Palestine; and invest in a just peace worthy of our Ocean of Peace.” The PCC unites thirty-five national denominations and eleven National Councils of Churches across the region.
“We have to be clear,” says the PCC’s general secretary, Reverend James Bhagwan. “If we are to be gathering at a time talking about an ‘Ocean of Peace,’ we cannot talk about peace in our region and then support people who do war, do murder and do harm on others.”
Palestine is not high on the Forum’s agenda, but after the Hamas attacks and hostage-taking of 7 October 2023, the debate could not be avoided.
Pacific leaders gathered the following month in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, at the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum. Mobilised by the early reports of civilian casualties during Israel’s reprisals in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Cook Islands women rallied outside the November 2023 Forum, with a banner calling on Pacific leaders to “please condemn the killing of displaced Palestinians and God’s innocent children in Gaza.”
Israel retained widespread community support after 7 October 2023, drawing on historic traditions of Christian Zionism. Since then, however, civil society groups across the Pacific islands’ region — from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands to Fiji, Tonga, Sāmoa and New Caledonia — have protested against the Israeli massacre in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Through petitions, vigils and rallies, activists have condemned Israel’s attacks in Gaza, and criticised the death of Palestinian civilians and non-combatants. Though small, the diversity, reach and passion of these protests is unprecedented in the islands, as elsewhere across the globe.
For Reverend Bhagwan, the crisis in the Middle East has been a moral turning point, in a world torn apart by geopolitical competition and government attacks on human rights and international law. “We grieve every life taken and reject every hatred — antisemitism, anti–Arab racism, and Islamophobia. We pray for and accompany Palestinian Christians and all communities affected by violence. Peace requires justice, reconciliation requires truth, security requires equal rights and the end of collective punishment and occupation.”
For many years, Western powers followed US policy to defer recognition of Palestine, but Israel’s massacre and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and provocations in the West Bank have broken the dam. At last month’s eightieth session of the UN General Assembly, ten Western states (France, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Andorra and Belgium) announced recognition of Palestinian statehood.
While welcoming their belated decision, many civil society groups have pushed governments to back their rhetoric with concrete action, through sanctions on the Netanyahu government and an end to arms sales to Israel. But such sentiments are often a minority opinion across the Pacific islands.
Support for Israel among conservative Christians has been boosted by groups such as the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. Established in 1980, the ICEJ claims to represent evangelical Christians around the world “who stand with Israel and the Jewish people based on biblical principles and promises.” ICEJ has branches in ninety countries, including five in Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Sāmoa and Cook Islands).
PCC’s James Bhagwan acknowledges the support for Israel among many Pacific Christians, but says: “The Pacific Conference of Churches is very concerned about the narratives around Christian Zionism that are being pushed, to gain political traction around the Pacific for the support of Israel. But it is wrong theology — it is theology being twisted for political purposes. It’s the same when theology gets twisted for ethnonationalism, for racism, or as an excuse to neglect or even harm the marginalised communities in our region.”
Across the region, only Vanuatu has formally recognised Palestinian statehood. Other states have provided diplomatic support to Israel for decades. For some governments, this public commitment has deep roots: in line with US policy, the Federated States of Micronesia has not cast a single UN vote critical of Israeli policy in the past ten years.
As he was sworn in to office in September 2025, Sāmoa’s incoming prime minister Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Fosi Schmidt said Sāmoa was founded as a nation under the “God of Israel.” Leuatea wore a scarf with the colours of the Israeli flag, and held a shofar, the ram’s horn used in Jewish rituals. Years ago, Leuatea was baptised in the Jordan River and, assuming office, he pledged: “I stand for Israel, the land of God. It doesn’t matter if the entire world is unhappy about it, that’s up to them, but Sāmoa will stand with the land of God.”
Some governments have also cracked down on pro-Palestine protests. In Fiji, police have refused permits for Palestine support rallies, even as marches for Israel have been approved. The carrying of Palestinian flags and symbols has been banned at some events.
At a time of diplomatic isolation, Israel has welcomed the votes of Pacific governments in the UN General Assembly. At the start of the current crisis in October 2023, the vote on a General Assembly resolution for humanitarian assistance to Palestinians passed 124–14. Six of the fourteen No votes came from Pacific Island states. A resolution in June 2024 calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was overwhelmingly approved, with 149 countries voting in favour. Of the twelve states that voted against the resolution, seven — Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Tuvalu — were Pacific nations.
In February this year, Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Filipo Tarakinikini delivered an oral submission to the International Court of Justice urging the court refuse a UN General Assembly request for a non-binding ruling on the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Fiji’s former Labour prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, deposed in a 2000 coup, noted that “Fiji is the only country, aside from the United States, to lend support to Israel in the current proceedings. To end this decades-old conflict, majority world opinion favours the Palestinians getting their occupied territories back, with full recognition as an independent sovereign state.”
On 12 September, the UN General Assembly voted 142–10 to adopt a resolution on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-state solution. Following the usual pattern, six of the ten No votes came from Pacific island states, with Fiji and Sāmoa also abstaining. Less than a week later, prime minister Rabuka flew to Jerusalem to open Fiji’s embassy.
Palestinians have long argued that East Jerusalem should be the capital of an independent Palestinian state. The status of Jerusalem has been contested under international law since Israel occupied the city during the 1967 war. In 1980 UN Security Council Resolution 478 reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is an occupied territory and called on all UN member states to withdraw diplomatic missions from the city.
This policy was maintained until 2017, when Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv. The Trump administration was isolated in a 14–1 vote at the UN Security Council, but the resolution that criticised the decision was vetoed by America’s then UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
In a subsequent emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly — a rare occasion — UN members voted 128–35 to ask nations not to establish diplomatic missions in Jerusalem. Only seven other countries joined the United States and Israel to vote against the resolution, including four island nations. Papua New Guinea voted in favour of this resolution — only to change its policy six years later. In 2023 PNG prime minister James Marape announced that his nation would open an embassy in Jerusalem, recognising it as Israel’s capital.
“For the first three years, the nation of Israel is paying for the cost of the embassy,” Marape told the ABC. “But going forward, they’ve indicated land available for us and we look forward to proceeding, setting up our permanent mission there.” The PNG government had made a “conscious choice,” he said. “This has been the universal capital of the nation and people of Israel. For us to call ourselves Christian, paying respect to God will not be possible without recognising that Jerusalem is the universal capital of the people and nation of Israel.”
In October 2024, the Israel Knesset legislated to prohibit consulates rather than embassies being established in Jerusalem. By then, the United States had been followed by Honduras, Guatemala, Kosovo, the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay to open embassies in Jerusalem.
First floated at a 2023 meeting between Rabuka and Netanyahu, the Fiji government’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem sparked anger amongst church and civil society groups. Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights said Rabuka was “callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza that is being deliberately orchestrated by the state of Israel.” Leading feminist Shamima Ali, chair of the NGO Coalition, condemned the Fiji delegation for standing alongside Netanyahu, “who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, including starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity.”
Rabuka, in turn, condemned her remarks, but also took aim at the leading daily Fiji Times for reporting them: “It is unbecoming of the major newspaper of an emerging power in the Pacific.” Editor-in-chief Fred Wesley responded: “While many people in Fiji venerate Israel and Mr Netanyahu, it is very important that we all understand that much of the world does not see them in a good light. Much of the world agrees with the view that the NGO Coalition has expressed. It is important that we all know this fact and reflect on it.”
Israel is one of six nations that has an application pending for Dialogue Partner status with the Pacific Islands Forum (a relationship that currently links twenty-one countries — the United States, China, France and Japan among them — with the eighteen-member regional organisation).
Alongside Ukraine and Saudi Arabia, Israel wants the partnership status that gives access to the annual Forum summit of regional leaders. But all Dialogue Partner applications were frozen in late 2023, pending a new partnership policy that would determine which countries actively support Forum policies and priorities, compared to those mainly hunting for UN votes.
As the diplomatic tide turns, and the International Court of Justice continues its investigation into presumed genocide in Gaza, the Netanyahu government is expending diplomatic capital to reinforce the shrinking number of countries that will support it in the United Nations. In a statement on 21 August, Israel’s foreign ministry announced that Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel will prepare an official tour of Pacific Island states, including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and Tonga, which support Israel and the United States at the United Nations.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar said his deputy “will lead the delegation to engage in discussions aimed at deepening and advancing Israel–Pacific relations in a wide range of bilateral, multilateral, and strategic fields.” Scheduled for this month, the tour reflects “Israel’s profound appreciation for the Pacific Island states and underscores Israel’s commitment to strengthening cooperation with them.”
This debate will continue until there is a ceasefire and political settlement in Gaza, and civil society organisations across the Pacific will maintain their pressure on their governments.
“Regarding the plans by some Pacific countries to shift embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, we counsel restraint,” said PCC’s Reverend James Bhagwan. “Such moves sit uneasily with our Ocean of Peace vision and with international law. We urge governments to avoid steps that pre-ajudge Jerusalem’s final status or normalise ongoing violations. Keep missions in Tel Aviv until a just and negotiated settlement is reached.” •
