Asia Pacific Report
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has challenged the New Zealand government to support a move by Türkiye to vote to suspend Israeli membership of the United Nations.
Türkiye Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Riyadh that Israel should be suspended from the crucial meeting of the UN General Assembly next month, for its “genocidal aggression”.
PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement that New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters would have to take a stand on this issue.
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“Cabinet should give him clear instructions to vote against Israeli war crimes and support Palestinian rights,” he said.
“Suspension of Israel will have a lot of backing from many countries horrified with the starvation and carnage in Gaza, and they want to do something effective, instead of just recognising Palestine as a state.
“Even if the US vetoes such a move in the Security Council, there is a precedent going back to 1974 when South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly because it practised apartheid.
“The General Assembly suspended a member then, and New Zealand should back such a move now.”
Original condition
Minto said Israel’s original condition in 1948 for joining the UN was that it allowed the 750,000 Palestinians it had expelled from Palestine to create Israel to return home.
“Israel won’t even talk about its obligations to let Palestinians return, and certainly never had any intention of allowing them to go home. Israel should pay a price for that, along with punishment for its genocide,” he said.
Minto said the escalation of the Israeli assault on Gaza called for immediate international action without waiting wait until the General Assembly debate next month.
“The Israeli ambassador in Wellington should be told to leave right now, because his government is openly committing war crimes.”
“We’ve just seen a famine declared in Gaza City. Aid is totally insufficient and deliberately so,” Minto said.
“Israel has called up its military reservists for the major assault it’s conducting on Gaza City to drive nearly a million of its inhabitants out.
“Israel’s latest dumping ground of choice is South Sudan, even though its government says it doesn’t want to have expelled Palestinians turn up there.”
“And we’ve had the news that Israel has once again killed journalists, who work for international news agencies, such as Reuters, Al Jazeera and NBC.”
“Netanyahu says it was a mistake. Who believes that?”
