COMMENTARY: By Gordon Campbell
Chances are, anyone whose family is dying of starvation would not be looking for New Zealand to have a prolonged debate over how they deserve to be defined.
Yet a delay in making even the symbolic gestures seems to be all that we have to offer, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to be systematically starved to death by Israel.
Could be wrong, but I doubt whether anyone in Gaza is waiting anxiously for news that New Zealand government has finally, finally come to the conclusion that Palestine deserves to be recognised as state.
READ MORE:
So far, 147 out of 193 UN member states reached that conclusion ahead of us. Some of the last holdouts — Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia — have already said they will do so next month.
So far, none of that diplomatic shuffling of the deck has stopped the Gaza genocide. Only significant economic and diplomatic sanctions and an extensive arms embargo (one that includes military-related software) can force Israel to cease and desist.
You don’t need to recognise statehood before taking those kind of steps. Last week, Germany — which does not recognise the state of Palestine — imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel that forbids sales of any weaponry that might be used to kill Palestinians in Gaza. Not much, but a start — given that (after the US) Germany has been the main foreign arms supplier to the IDF.
Meanwhile, the Luxon government has yet to make up its mind on Palestinian statehood. Our government repeatedly insists that this recognition is “complex.” Really? By saying so, we are embarrassing ourselves on the world stage.
Trying to appease Americans
While we still furrow our brows about Palestinian statehood, 76 percent of the UN’s member nations have already figured it out. Surely, our hesitation can’t be because we are as mentally challenged as we are claiming to be.
The more likely explanation is that we are trying to appease the Americans, in the hope of winning a trade concession. Our government must be gambling that an angry Donald Trump will punish Australia for its decision on Palestine, by lifting its tariff rate, thereby erasing the 5 percent advantage over us that Australian exporters currently enjoy.
By keeping our heads down on Palestine, we seem to be hoping we will win brownie points with Trump, at the expense of our ANZAC mates.
This isn’t mere conspiracy talk. Already, the Trump administration is putting pressure on France over its imminent decision to recognise Palestine statehood. A few days ago, Le Monde reported that the US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner — yes, Ivana Trump’s father-in-law — blundered into France’s domestic politics by writing a letter of complaint to French president Emmanuel Marcon.
In it, Kushner claimed that France wasn’t doing enough to combat anti-Semitism:
“Public statements haranguing Israel and gestures toward recognition of a Palestinian state embolden extremists, fuel violence, and endanger Jewish life in France,” [Kushner] wrote.
“In today’s world, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism – plain and simple.”
Breaking every civilised rule
Simple-minded is more like it. People who oppose the criminal atrocities being committed in Gaza (and on the West Bank) by the Zionist government of Israel are not doing so on the basis of racial prejudice. They’re doing so because Israel is breaking every rule of a civilised society.
Any number of UN conventions and international laws forbid the targeting of civilian populations, homes, schools, ambulances and hospitals . . . not to mention the deliberate killing of hundreds of medical staff, journalists, aid workers etc.
Not to mention imposing a famine on a captive population. Day after day, the genocide continues.
For Kushner to claim the global revulsion at Israel’s actions in Gaza is motivated by racism is revealing. To Israel’s apologists within Israel, and in the US (and New Zealand) only Israeli lives really matter.
Footnote: New Zealand continues to bang on about our support for the “two state” solution. Exactly where is the land on which Christopher Luxon thinks a viable Palestinian state can be built, and what makes him think Israel would ever allow it to happen?
Thirty years ago, Israeli settlement expansion fatally undermined the Oslo framework for a Palestinian state situated alongside Israel.
Since then, the fabled “two state solution” has become the tooth fairy of international politics. It gives politicians something to say when they have nothing to say.
Republished with permission from Gordon Campbell’s Werewolf column in partnership with Scoop.
