NZ foreign policy – Asia Pacific Report

NZ anti-war protesters call for independent foreign policy and peaceful planet

APR editor — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 19:41:03 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Liz Remmerswaal

Up to 1000 people joined a March for Peace in Auckland last weekend to demand that Aotearoa New Zealand become a voice for peace rather than a complicit partner in US-led illegal wars.

The march on June 20 was organised by a new group, Anti-War Aotearoa (AWA), and Greenpeace Aotearoa, and stopped outside the US Consulate en route because it is important that the New Zealand government refuses any “war mineral” deals with the Trump administration.

The groups are urging the government to implement a fully independent foreign policy grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, diplomacy, and international law.

Niamh O’Flynn, programme director at Greenpeace Aotearoa, said the nation’s environmental and international priorities were fundamentally linked.

“NZ out of Trump’s wars” banner at the Auckland March for Peace on June 20. Image: Liz Remmerswaal/WBW

“We oppose [NZ Prime Minister Christopher] Luxon and the coalition government allowing Aotearoa to be drawn into Trump’s wars, and we strongly oppose the minerals deal being negotiated to fuel those wars,” said O’Flynn.

“We call for an independent foreign policy in Aotearoa that prioritises peace, upholds the UN Charter, and supports the wellbeing of people and the planet. We must not sell off Aotearoa’s natural places to the highest bidding war-monger.”

A spokesperson for Anti-War Aotearoa (AWA) said the march was a necessary public response to escalating imperial aggression, the erosion of international law, and a “dangerous shift in domestic priorities”.

The author, Liz Remmerswaal, during the protest march down Auckland’s Queen Street on June 20. Image: Liz Remmerswaal/WBW

“We are marching because Aotearoa needs to become a voice for peace and reason in an increasingly unstable world, rather than acting as a supporting player in these illegal, foreign wars,” AWA spokesperson Gabriella Brayne said.

“We demand that the New Zealand government places immediate sanctions on Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, gets fully behind the ICC [International Criminal Court] and ICJ [International Court of Justice] cases against war crimes, and pulls public funding from militarisation so it can be invested into health, housing, and education,” said Brayne.

A “No NZ troops for USA/Israeli wars” banner at the March for Peace in Auckland on June 20. Image: Liz Remmerswaal/WBW

Liz Remmerswaal Hughes is a mother, journalist, environmentalist activist and former local government politician in Aotearoa New Zealand and is World BEYOND War NZ coordinator. This article was first published by World BEYOND War on 25 June 2026 and is republished with the author’s permission.

Paul Hopkinson: Why NZ’s ‘Free Palestine’ party seeks to put Gaza genocide at centre of politics

APR editor — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:17:03 +0000

INTERVIEW: By Ibrahim Othman

In an unprecedented move on New Zealand‘s political scene, the Free Palestine Party Aotearoa has been launched with the Palestinian cause at the heart of its political platform, describing it as the foremost moral, political and economic issue in the world today.

The party’s launch comes in an election year with the ballot on November 7, amid growing debate over New Zealand‘s position on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its relations with Israel.

In an interview with The New Arab, party leader Paul Hopkinson has discussed the reasons behind its formation, its political goals, its position on Palestine and Aotearoa New Zealand foreign policy, and how he sees the party’s role in the country’s political life.

Why did you choose to establish a party focused on Palestine in New Zealand, rather than limiting yourselves to participation in events and protest movements? And why now?

We chose to establish a party built around the Palestinian cause because we believe it is the most important moral, political and economic issue facing New Zealand and the world today.

It is the most important moral issue because it represents the greatest genocide and holocaust of this century, taking place in full view of the entire world.

It is also the most important political issue for our country because any state that fails to oppose this genocide and defend international law not only becomes complicit in these crimes against humanity but also loses its credibility and standing on the international stage.

In addition, from an economic perspective, it is the most important issue facing New Zealand and the world because the Israeli regime‘s practices and acts of aggression, alongside the United States, against Palestine and Lebanon — as well as its war on Iran — are pushing the world not only towards recession, but towards depression if they continue.

We all take part in protests and events in support of Palestine, and most of us have been involved in supporting the Palestinian cause for decades. The holocaust of the Palestinian people has been ongoing for more than 78 years.

All the parties currently represented in the New Zealand Parliament have held power at different stages, but they have failed to support international law or take action against Israel when atrocities were committed against the Palestinian people.

The mainstream media, because of its biased coverage, has also become complicit in the ongoing holocaust of the Palestinian people.

We believe that having an officially registered political party will put this issue directly before the people of New Zealand.

As for the timing, it is linked to the fact that Palestine and the Palestinian people have not faced this level of threat since the Nakba in 1948, regardless of the fact that 2026 is an election year in the country.

New Zealand’s pro-Palestinian party founder Paul Hopkinson . . . “This is the most important moral issue because it represents the greatest genocide and holocaust of this century, taking place in full view of the entire world.” Image: The New Arab

The party’s name, “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea”, is controversial and has already drawn criticism. Why did you choose this name in particular?

The party’s name for registration purposes is Free Palestine, while our main slogan is “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea”.

We hope to change the party’s name to this slogan once the registration process is complete.

We chose this slogan and want to adopt it as the party’s name for two reasons. First, because it is the only solution capable of achieving peace in the Middle East and justice for all Palestinians. Second, because it preserves freedom of expression on Palestine, a freedom that no longer exists in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere.

Are you concerned that the party’s name could become a point of confrontation and alienate the public and other political forces, rather than helping the party become a force for Palestinian advocacy?

As for the criticism this may provoke, it is impossible to support Palestine without being criticised by Zionists and their supporters.

The slogan “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” is not confrontational. Rather, it is a just and clear solution to the genocide and oppression practised by the Israeli apartheid state.

The one-state solution was the answer to apartheid in South Africa, and we, as supporters of Palestine, cannot allow Zionists and their supporters to determine what may be said or done.

The March for Peace in Auckland, New Zealand, last Saturday with protesters outside the US Consulate . . . protests like this have happened across Aotearoa for the past two-and-a-half years yet are rarely reported by the biased mainstream media. Image: Kerry Sorensen-Tyrer

What is the party’s legal status? Has it been officially registered, met the requirements and received approval?

The party is still in the registration phase, and this process takes time.

We believe we have submitted a strong and comprehensive registration application. However, the party faces many administrative obstacles and will be subject to opposition and strict scrutiny.

Despite this, strong public support has enabled us to gain, in record time, a number of paid-up members far exceeding the legal minimum requirement of 550.

How would you explain your political programme, and who are you seeking to address in New Zealand?

Our political programme, as outlined in our principles, is based above all on respect for international law, human rights and UN resolutions, and on demanding an independent foreign policy that does not make New Zealand complicit in crimes against humanity.

The right of return and a democratic one-state solution were positions held by the Palestine Liberation Organisation before the disastrous Oslo Accords.

This position remains that of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as many other groups that represent Palestinians.

I would also note here that Hamas also believes in a one-state solution. Ultimately, it must be the Palestinian people who decide the nature of their state.

We intend to direct our political programme to all New Zealanders.

We also plan to use our position as a registered political party to hold all other parties to account on the issue of Palestine.

Our six core principles, in brief, are:

the right of return;
the primacy of international law and UN resolutions;
respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to Zionist violations;
the one-state solution;
unconditional support for all forms of Palestinian resistance; and
an independent New Zealand foreign policy, including withdrawal from military and security alliances with the United States.

You have previously described the New Zealand government’s position on Palestine as “cowardly”. Why, and what steps do you believe it has failed to take?

I think I have already made my views on the failures of the New Zealand government clear.

As I said, the holocaust of the Palestinians has been ongoing for 78 years.

Throughout this entire period, the New Zealand government has been part of military and security alliances, including the Five Eyes alliance, with the United States, which is Israel’s main supporter. The alliance includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Since the beginning of the latest genocide against the Palestinian people, New Zealand soldiers have taken part in military exercises with the Israeli army and US forces.

On the other hand, successive New Zealand governments have failed to take any steps to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law or to support UN resolutions related to Palestine.

None of the politicians or parties in our country has shown the courage to take practical steps against the Israeli apartheid state or hold it accountable in any international institution.

As the national spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine campaign in New Zealand, how do you respond to those who view your association with this cause as controversial?

As I mentioned, I am the national spokesperson for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in New Zealand.

As is clear from the party’s principles, we offer unconditional support for all forms of Palestinian resistance, including armed resistance.

I do not see this as controversial because international law grants Palestinians, as a people under occupation, the right to all forms of resistance, including armed resistance.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is also not listed as a terrorist organisation in New Zealand.

I believe that other resistance organisations, such as Hamas and other Palestinian factions, should not have been placed on any terrorism list either, if New Zealand had an independent foreign policy.

What message would you like to send to members of New Zealand’s Jewish community who may have concerns or reservations about your party’s positions?

As is clear from our six core principles, nothing in them should concern anyone who believes in human rights and justice, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

There are many Jews within our movement in New Zealand and around the world who support Palestine.

The attempt by Zionists and their supporters to link all Jews to the most lethal and depraved apartheid regime in the modern world is shameful.

Republished from The New Arab under Creative Commons.

Te Kuaka advocacy group calls for NZ transparent, independent ‘Pacific foreign policy’

APR editor — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 01:32:41 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A New Zealand policy research and advocacy group released a detailed blueprint today for a fresh “independent” Te Tiriti and Pacific-based approach to foreign policy, and called for greater transparency in election year.

The current coalition government has “radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions” — including by moving the country away from a principled defence of its independent values to “unquestioning support” for the actions of the Trump administration, said Te Kuaka spokesperson Dr Marco de Jong.

“New Zealand’s slide under this government towards a tightly aligned, militaristic foreign policy is not inevitable,” he added.

Te Kuaka’s foreign policy “alternative” brief. Image: te Kuaka

Te Kuaka — a group made up of academics such as Dr de Jong and Dr Arama Rata, and lawyers with expertise in international and constitutional law like Fuimaono Dylan Asafo and Gabriella Brayne — released a policy brief, “A Foreign Policy Alternative for the 2026 New Zealand Election”.

The group refers to the need to revitalise “an independent, Te Tiriti-based, Pacific-centred, internationalist foreign policy”.

Last year has witnessed “tumultuous developments in world affairs” such as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, US aggression in Venezuela, and US and Israel waging war on Iran.

Independent values
Te Kuaka’s policy brief says the current government “has radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions”, including by moving NZ away from a principled defence of its independent values and interests towards total, unquestioning support for the actions of the Trump administration.

The brief calls for:

greater transparency around trade agreements;
a War Powers Act to ensure parliamentary authorisation for going to war,;
shifts in New Zealand’s approach to the Pacific towards non-militarisation;
NZ intervention in support of South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel; and
other changes.

“How New Zealand acts in the world has always mattered,” said Dr de Jong. “And we need our political parties speaking more openly about their plans on how to maintain and strengthen our independent foreign policy.”

The policy brief also calls for New Zealand to take more strident steps in relation to Indigenous self-determination in Kanaky New Caledonia and to support a human rights visit to West Papua.

The coalition government did not have a mandate for this “dramatic repositioning” in support of the Trump administration, Dr de Jong said.

Call for ‘greater clarity’
“Before the coming election we are calling for greater clarity from political parties about what the public can expect to see from them in relation to New Zealand’s position in the world.”

The policy brief notes that Te Tiriti o Waitangi has not been sufficiently honoured in foreign policy, and also proposes formalising requirements for Māori representation alongside official New Zealand delegations to international forums.

“We are in a rupturing world,” said Dr de Jong. “We need to ensure we’re not unthinkingly caught in the riptide of major powers’ priorities, and that instead we chart our own course, appropriate to our histories and our location in the Pacific.”

Te Kuaka has previously published reports on conflict prevention and peace mediation, New Zealand’s positioning on AUKUS, and civilian casualties and the NZ Defence Force.

NZ Palestine protesters condemn govt over failure to impose sanctions against Israel

APR editor — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 09:21:16 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

New Zealand Pro-Palestine protesters gathered at West Auckland’s Te Pai Park today, celebrating successes of the BDS movement against apartheid Israel while condemning the failure of the country’s coalition government to impose sanctions against the pariah state.

“They’ve done nothing,” said Neil Scott, secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), noting that some 35 protests were taking place across the motu this weekend and some 4000 rallies had been held since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023.

He outlined successes of the global BDS Movement and explained now New Zealanders could keep up the pressure on the NZ government and on the Zionist state that had been “systematically” breaching the US-brokered “ceasefire” in Gaza.

The criticisms followed the condemnation of New Zealand’s stance last week by the secretary-general of the global human rights group Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, who said the government had a “Trumpian accent” and had remained silent on Gaza.

“Internationally, we don’t hear New Zealand. We haven’t heard New Zealand on some of the fundamental challenges that we are confronting, including Israel’s genocide, Palestine or climate,” she said in a RNZ radio interview.

Te Atatu MP Phil Twyford also spoke at the Te Pai Park rally, saying that the government was “going backwards” from the country’s traditional independent foreign policy and that it was “riddled with Zionists”.

After the rally, protesters marched on the local McDonalds franchise. McDonalds Israel is accused of supporting the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) genocidal crimes in Gaza by supplying free meals to the military, prompting a global BDS boycott.

Türkiye arrest warrants for Israelis
Meanwhile, Türkiye has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and 36 other suspects over Gaza genocide charges

Israel, under Netanyahu, has killed close to 69,000 people, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 170,600 others in the genocide in Gaza since October 2023.

PSNA secretary Neil Scott speaking at today’s Te Pai Park rally in West Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report

TRT World News reports that the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said yesterday it had issued arrest warrants for 37 suspects, including Netanyahu, on charges of “genocide” in Gaza.

In a statement, the Prosecutor’s Office said the warrants were issued after an extensive investigation into Israel’s “systematic” attacks on civilians in Gaza, which it described as acts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The probe was launched following complaints filed by victims and representatives of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a civilian humanitarian mission, that was recently intercepted by Israeli naval forces while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.

A “Free Gaza now” placard at today’s Te Pai Park rally in West Auckland. Image: Asia Pacific Report

The statement said evidence gathered from victims, eyewitnesses, and international law provisions indicated that Israeli military and political leaders were directly responsible for ordering and carrying out attacks on hospitals, aid convoys, and civilian infrastructure.

Citing specific incidents, the Prosecutor’s Office referred to the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab by Israeli soldiers, the bombing of al-Ahli Arab Hospital that killed more than 500 people, and the strike on the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, among other atrocities.

Turkiye has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials, accusing them of ‘genocide and crimes against humanity’ over Israel’s war on Gaza https://t.co/ijOfz1wZSF pic.twitter.com/34UJIQosKR

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 8, 2025

Additional war crimes
The office said that the investigation determined Israel’s blockade of Gaza had “deliberately prevented humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians,” constituting an additional war crime under international law.

The suspects, including Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi, and Navy Commander David Saar Salama, were accused of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.”

As the individuals are not currently in Türkiye, the Prosecutor’s Office requested the court to issue international arrest warrants (red notices) for their detention and extradition.

The investigation is being carried out with the cooperation of the Istanbul Police Department and the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), and it remains ongoing.

The statement concluded that Türkiye’s legal actions are based on its obligations under international humanitarian law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, affirming the country’s commitment to accountability for war crimes and justice for the victims in Gaza.

Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave and Türkiye has joined South Africa and other countries in bringing the allegations.

In Tel Aviv, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel “firmly rejects, with contempt” the charges, calling them “the latest PR stunt by the tyrant [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan”.

A fragile ceasefire has been in force in the devastated Palestinian territory since October 10 as part of US President Donald Trump’s regional peace plan.

The Islamist militant group Hamas welcomed Türkiye’s announcement, calling it a “commendable measure [confirming] the sincere positions of the Turkish people and their leaders, who are committed to the values of justice, humanity and fraternity that bind them to our oppressed Palestinian people”.

The Te Pai Park pro-Palestinian rally in West Auckland today. Image: Asia Pacific Report

NZ government has ‘Trumpian accent’, says global human rights advocate

APR editor — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 22:28:28 +0000

RNZ News

The current New Zealand government has a “Trumpian accent” that should be a red flag for the people, one of the world’s leading human rights voices says.

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard spoke this week on 30 with Guyon Espiner during her first official visit to New Zealand.

Once a country that was seen internationally as “punching above its weight” in terms of human rights, Callamard said it was not currently seen as having a strong voice.

“New Zealand has always been a country that, what is the expression, punched above its weight. In human rights terms, in solidarity terms, you know, by holding the line on a number of very fundamental questions.

“Right now, this is not what is happening.”

This led to the government having a “certain Trumpian accent”, she said.

“These are red flags, I think, for the New Zealand people, because, you know, the shift can happen very quickly.

“At Amnesty International, we are worried about this evolution. Internationally, we don’t hear New Zealand. We haven’t heard New Zealand on some of the fundamental challenges that we are confronting, including Israel’s genocide, Palestine or climate.”

Amnesty’s top official says New Zealand is losing its reputation as a human rights leader Video: RNZ News

Critical of Trump
Callamard was critical of United States President Donald Trump — saying she would not give him any credit for his actions regarding the Gaza ceasefire.

“For the last 10 months of power, he has shielded Israel,” Callamard said.

“Everyone agrees that this ceasefire, this deal, could have been made in March. This deal could have been made in June.

“Okay, it’s being made now. But why did we have to wait so long? Israel would never have been able to do what they’ve done without the support of the US.”

She said she was “super happy” the bombing had stopped but she would not thank the US for waiting “24 months” to act.

New Zealand’s silence on issues, including the war in Gaza, was being noticed internationally, she said, with “dwindling voices coming from the Western world”.

‘Speak loud. We need you’
It was something she had raised with the government itself, although not resonating in a positive way.

“They don’t see it that way. I see it that way. We just have to leave it at that.

“We have different views on how New Zealand stands right now, and it is a critical juncture for the world and any voice that we don’t hear any more for the protection of the rules-based order is dramatic.

“I want to invite the New Zealand people and New Zealand leaders to really please speak up. Speak loud. We need you.”

The Prime Minister’s Office has been contacted for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cole Martin: The Gaza ceasefire isn’t the end – what six months in Palestine showed me

APR editor — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:21:12 +0000

Returning to Aotearoa after half a year in the occupied West Bank, Cole Martin says a peace deal that fails to address the root causes — and ignores the brutal reality of life for Palestinians — is no peace deal at all.

COMMENTARY: By Cole Martin

A ceasefire in Gaza last week brought scenes reminiscent of January’s brief pause — tears, relief, exhaustion and devastation as families reunited after months, years and even decades in captivity.

Others were exiled or discovered their entire family had been killed; thousands returned to their homes in northern Gaza, others to rubble – but just like last time, it didn’t last.

Already Israeli leadership has been calling for a renewed onslaught in Gaza and have continued airstrikes across the strip, including more than 100 strikes on Sunday alone. More than 50 Palestinians were killed, including a family of 11, seven of whom were children, in one strike on a bus.

An Israeli checkpoint near Al-Khalil, Hebron . . . Palestinians stand in a crowded, fenced corridor with metal bars, waiting to pass through a turnstile gate. Image: Cole Martin

The prevention of food, water, aid and critical infrastructure continues; the borders remain closed; and across the rest of Palestine, Israel’s brutal system of domination, apartheid and displacement continues.

It’s impossible to ignore two critical elements that this deal omitted: a failure to address the root causes and a jarring lack of international accountability.

Despite human rights organisations, the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice all ruling Israel’s occupation is illegal, and their practices constitute apartheid, world leaders including New Zealand have refused to act, let alone sought to prevent genocide in Gaza.

I returned to Aotearoa this week after six months documenting and reporting from the occupied West Bank, where Israel continues its campaign of violent displacement and colonial expansion. Almost everyone I know has tasted the terror of Israeli domination.

Broke into bedroom
My Arabic tutor described how soldiers broke into her bedroom at night to interrogate her family about a man they didn’t even know. My climbing partner warned you can be shot for climbing in the wrong place, with most of their crags now inaccessible.

I visited Jerusalem with a friend who scored a one-day permit. He lives in Bethlehem, just a half-hour away, but they’re barred from visiting and must return by midnight; a process involving biometric scanners and intrusive searches.

And I was based in Aida refugee camp, one of dozens across the land where thousands of families have lived since their violent displacement in 1948 — the ethnic cleansing which saw 750,000 expelled, 15,000 killed and 530 villages destroyed.

Refused the right to return, their homes are now dormant ruins in “nature reserves” or inhabited by Israeli families. Israel was built on the land, farms, businesses and stolen wealth of these families — and countless more who remain as “present absentees” within the state of Israel.

My friend Yacoub lives just 10 minutes from his childhood home, yet he is denied return.

Left: Palestinian climbers enjoy one of their last accessible crags, the others too dangerous to access because of settler violence. Right: Yacoub Odeh, 84, walks the ruins of his childhood village Lifta, denied his right to return to live, despite living just 10 minutes away. Images: Cole Martin

More than 9100 Palestinians remain in Israeli captivity, including more than 400 children – thousands without charge or trial. But even “trials” bring no justice.

I visited the Ofer military courts and witnessed a corrupt system designed to funnel Palestinians to prison based on extortion, plea bargains and “secret evidence” which the detainee and lawyer aren’t allowed to see. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers receive full legal rights in Israeli civil courts; two vastly different legal systems based on race — if the settler is arrested at all.

Almost everyone I met has experienced detention firsthand or through a close family member — involving beatings, humiliation, starvation and threats. A nurse my age humorously asked why I wasn’t married yet; when I asked the same, he explained he’d only recently left years of Israeli captivity.

Settlers’ impunity
In July, fundamentalist settler Yinon Levy shot dead my friend Awdah Hathaleen on camera, in broad daylight. Authorities arrested more than 20 of Awdah’s family, withheld his body for over 10 days, then barred people from attending the funeral.

His killer was free within five days, back harassing the family, and has established an illegal settlement in the middle of their village — destroying homes, olive groves, water and electrical infrastructure with no repercussions.

Tariq Hathaleen stares at the bloodstained courtyard where his cousin and best friend Awdah was shot. Tariq was detained for several days following Awdah’s death. Image: Cole Martin

I visited countless communities across the West Bank who face daily harassment, violence and incursions from Israeli settlers, police and military. Settlements continue to expand, preventing Palestinians from reaching their land.

Almost 900 checkpoints, roadblocks and settler-only roads restrict movement between towns and cities, including urgent medical access. Israel controls the water, funnelling over 80% to their colonies while heavily limiting access to Palestinian communities.

All of this continues, none of it is halted by the “ceasefire”; and most of it will escalate as soldiers leave Gaza and look to exert their dominance elsewhere.

I’m truly fearful for my friends in the West Bank, particularly as Israel openly threatens annexation. A peace deal that ignores these realities is no peace deal.

Resilience and courage
But I also witnessed resilience and courageous persistence. Palestinian civil society and individuals have spent decades committed to creative non-violence in the face of these atrocities — from court battles to academia, education, art, demonstrations, general strikes, hīkoi (marches), sit-ins, civil disobedience.

These are the overlooked stories that don’t make catchy headlines, but their success depends on the international community to provide accountability. Without global support, Palestinians have been refused their right to self-defence, resistance and self-determination.

If we really care about peace, we need to support justice. To talk about peace without liberation is to suggest submission to a system of displacement, imprisonment, violence and erasure.

This is not the time to turn away, this is the time to ensure that international law is upheld, that Palestinians are given their dignity, self-determination, right to return and reparations for the horror they’ve faced.

Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist who has been based in the occupied West Bank for six months and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by the The Spinoff and is republished with the author’s permission.

Gordon Campbell: The lack of spine in New Zealand’s foreign policy on Gaza

APR editor — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 13:12:40 +0000

ANALYSIS: By Gordon Campbell

The word “Gaza” is taking on similar connotations to what the word “Auschwitz” meant to a previous generation. It signifies a deliberate and systematic attempt to erase an entire people from history on the basis of their ethnic identity.

As a result, Israel is isolating itself as a pariah state on the world stage. This week alone has seen Israel target and kill four Al Jazeera journalists, just as it had executed eight Red Crescent medical staff and seven other first responders back in March, and then dumped their bodies in a mass grave.

Overall 186 journalists have died at the hands of the IDF since October 7, 2023, and at least 1400 medical staff as of May 2025.

READ MORE: Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

On Monday night a five-year-old disabled child starved to death. Reportedly, he weighed only three kilograms when he died. Muhammad Zakaria Khudr was the 101st child among the 227 Palestinians now reported to have died from starvation.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters keep on saying that with regard to New Zealand recognising a Palestinian state, it is a matter of “Not if, but when.” Yet why is “ but not now” still their default position?

At this rate, a country that used to pride itself on its human rights record — New Zealand has never stopped bragging that this is where women won the right to vote, before they did anywhere else — will be among the last countries on earth to recognise Palestine’s right to exist.

What can we do? Some options:

Boycott all Israeli goods and services;
Engage with the local Palestinian community, and support their businesses, and cultural events;
Donate financial support to Gaza. Here’s a reliable link to directy support pregnant Gaza women and their babies;
Lobby your local MP, and Immigration Minister Erika Stanford — to prioritise the inclusion of hundreds of Gazans in our refugee programme, just as we did in the wake of the civil war in Syria, and earlier, in Sudan;
Write and phone your local MP, and urge them to support economic sanctions against Israel. These sanctions should include a sporting and cultural boycott along the lines we pursued so successfully against apartheid South Africa
Contact your KiwiSaver provider and let it be known that you will change providers if they invest in Israeli firms, or in the US, German and UK firms that supply the IDF with weapons and targeting systems. Contact the NZ Super Fund and urge them to divest along similar lines;
Identify and picket any NZ firms that supply the US/Israeli war machines directly, or indirectly;
Contact your local MP and urge him or her to support Chloe Swarbrick’s private member’s bill that would impose economic sanctions on the state of Israel for its unlawful occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Swarbrick’s Bill is modelled on the existing Russian sanctions framework.If 61 MPs pledged support for Swarbrick’s Bill, it would not have to win a private members ballot before being debated in Parliament. Currently 21 MPs (the Greens and TPM) formally support it. If and when Labour’s 34 MPs come on board, this will still require another six MPs (from across the three coalition parties) to do the right thing. Goading MPs into doing the right thing got Swarbrick into a world of trouble this week. (Those wacky Greens. They’re such idealists.);
We should all be lobbying our local MPs for a firm commitment that they will back the Swarbrick Bill. Portray it to them as being in the spirit of bi-partisanship, and as them supporting the several UN resolutions on the status of the occupied territories. And if they still baulk ask them flatly: if not, why not?
Email/phone/write to the PM’s office, and ask him to call in the Israeli ambassador and personally express New Zealand’s repugnance at Israel’s inhumane actions in Gaza and on the West Bank. The PM should also be communicating in person New Zealand’s opposition to the recently announced Israeli plans for the annexation of Gaza City, and expansion of the war in Gaza.
Write to your MP, to the PM, and to Foreign Minister Winston Peters urging them to recognise Palestinian statehood right now. Inquire as to what further information they may need before making that decision, and offer to supply it. We need to learn how to share our outrage; and
Learn about the history of this issue, so that you convince friends and family to take similar actions.

Here’s a bare bones timeline of the main historical events.

This map showing (in white) the countries that are yet to recognise Palestinian statehood speaks volumes:

Those holdout nations in white tend to have been the chief enablers of Israel’s founding in 1948, a gesture of atonement driven by European guilt over the Holocaust.

This “homeland” for the Jews already had residents known to have had nothing to do with the Holocaust. Yet since 1948 the people of Palestine have been made to bear all of the bad consequences of the West’s purging of its collective guilt.

Conditional justice
The same indifference to the lives of Palestinians is evident in the belated steps towards supporting the right of Palestinians to self-determination. Even the recognition promised by the UK, Canada, France and Australia next month is decked out with further conditions that the Palestinians are being told they need to meet. No equivalent demands are being made of Israel, despite the atrocities it is committing in Gaza.

There’s nothing new about this. Historically, all of the concessions have been made by the Palestinians, starting with their original displacement. Some 30 years ago, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) formally recognised Israel’s right to exist. In response, Israel immediately expanded its settlements on Palestinian land, a flagrant breach of the commitments it made in the Oslo Accords, and in the Gaza-Jericho Agreement.

The West did nothing, said little. As the New York Times recently pointed out:

In a 1993 exchange of letters, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s chairman, Yasir Arafat, recognized the “right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security” and committed the PLO to peaceful negotiations, renouncing terrorism and amending the Palestinian charter to reflect these commitments. In return, Israel would merely recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people — and only “in light of” Mr Arafat’s commitments. Palestinian sovereignty remained remote; Israeli occupation continued apace.

This double standard persists:

This fundamental unfairness has informed every diplomatic effort since. The rump Palestinian government built the limited institutions it was permitted under the Oslo Accords, co-operated with Israeli security forces and voiced support for a peace process that had long been undermined by Israel. Led by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority’s statehood campaign in the 2000s was entirely based on playing the game according to rules set by Israel and the Western-dominated international community. Yet recognition remained stalled, the United States blocked Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations — and still, no conditions were placed on the occupying power.

That’s where we’re still at. Luxon, Peters and David Seymour are demanding more concessions from the Palestinians. They keep strongly denouncing the Hamas October 7 atrocities — which is valid — while weakly urging Israel to abide by the international laws and conventions that Israel repeatedly breaches.

When a state deploys famine as a strategic weapon, doesn’t it deserve to be condemned, up front and personal?

Instead, the language that New Zealand uses to address Israel’s crimes is almost invariably, and selectively, passive. Terrible things are “happening” in Gaza and they must “stop.” Children, mysteriously, are “starving.” This is “intolerable.”

It is as if there is no human agent, and no state power responsible for these outcomes. Things are just somehow “happening” and they must somehow “cease.” Enough is enough, cries Peters, while carefully choosing not to name names, beyond Hamas.

Meanwhile, Israel has announced its plans to expand the war, even though 600 Israeli ex-officials (some of them from Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent to the SIS) have publicly said that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel.

As mentioned, Israel is publicly discussing its plans for Gaza’s “voluntary emigration” and for the permanent annexation of the West Bank. Even when urged to do so by Christopher Luxon, it seems that Israel is not actually complying with international law, and is not fulfilling its legal obligations as an occupying power. Has anyone told Luxon about this yet?

Two state fantasy, one state reality
At one level, continuing to call for a “two state” solution is absurd, given that the Knesset formally rejected the proposal a year ago. More than once, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly denounced it while also laying Israel’s claim to all of the land west of Jordan, which would include the West Bank and Gaza.

Evidently, the slogan “ from the river to sea” is only a terrorist slogan when Hamas uses it. Yet the phrase originated as a Likud slogan.Moreover, the West evidently thinks it is quite OK for Netanyahu to publicly call for Israeli hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Basic rule of diplomacy: bad is what they do, good is what we do, and we have always been on Team Israel.

Over the course of the three decades since the Oslo Accords were signed, the West has kept on advocating for a two state solution, while acting as if only one of those states has a right to exist. On what land do Luxon and Peters think that a viable Palestinian state can be built?

One pre-condition for Palestinian statehood that Luxon cited to RNZ last week required Israel to be “not undermining the territorial integrity that would then undermine the two state solution.” Really? Does Luxon not realise that this is exactly what Israel has been doing for the past 30 years?

Talking of which . . . are Luxon and Peters genuinely expecting Israel to retreat to the 1967 borders? That land was agreed at Oslo and mandated by the UN as the territory needed for a viable Palestinian state. Yet on the relatively small area of the West Bank alone, 3.4 million Palestinians currently subsist on disconnected patches of land under occupation amid extreme settler violence, while contending with 614 Israeli checkpoints and other administrative obstacles impeding their free movement.

Here’s what the land left to the Palestinians looks like today:

A brief backgrounder on Areas A, B and C and how they operate can be found here. Obviously, this situation cannot be the template for a viable Palestinian state.

What is the point?
You might well ask . . . in the light of the above, what is the point of recognising Palestine as a state? Given the realities on the ground, it can only be a symbolic gesture. The reversion to the 1967 borders (a necessary step towards a Palestinian state) can happen only if the US agreed to push Israel in that direction by withholding funds and weaponry.

That’s very hard to imagine. The hypocrisy of the Western nations on this issue is breath-taking. The US and Germany continue to be Israel’s main foreign suppliers of weapons and targeting systems. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership as well, the UK sales of military equipment to Israel have sharply increased.

New export licensing figures show that the UK approved licenses for £127.6 million worth of military equipment to Israel in single issue licenses between October to December 2024. This is a massive increase, with the figure in this three-month period totaling more than 2020-2023 combined.

Thanks to an explicitly enacted legal exemption, the UK also continues to supply parts for Israel’s F-35 jets.

UK industry makes 15% of every F-35 in contracts [estimated] to be worth at least £500 million since 2016, and [this] is the most significant part of the UK arms industry [relationship]with Israel . . . at least 79 companies [are] involved in manufacturing components.

These are the same F-35 war planes that the IDF has used to drop 2000 pound bombs on densely populated residential neighbourhoods in Gaza. Starmer cannot credibly pose as a man of peace.

So again . . . what exactly is the point of recognising Palestine as a state? No doubt, it would boost Palestinian morale if some major Western powers finally conceded that Palestine has a right to exist. In that narrow sense, recognition would correct a historical injustice.

There is also optimistic talk that formal Palestinian statehood would isolate the US on the Security Council (Trump would probably wear that as a badge of honour) and would make Israel more accountable under humanitarian law. As if.

Theoretically, a recognition of statehood would also enable people in New Zealand and elsewhere to apply pressure to their governments to forthrightly condemn and sanction Israel for its crimes against a fellow UN member state. None of this, however, is likely to change the reality on the ground, or prevent the calls for Israel’s “accountability” and for its “compliance with international law” from ringing hollow.

As the NYT also says:

After almost two years of severe access restrictions and the dismantling of the UN-led aid system in favour of a militarised food distribution that has left more than 1300 Palestinians dead, [now 1838 dead at these “aid centres” since late May, as of yesterday] . . . The 15 nations [at a UN meeting in late July that signed a declaration on Gaza] still would not collectively say “Israel is responsible for starvation in Gaza”. If they cannot name the problem, they can hardly hope to resolve it.

In sum . . . the world may talk the talk of Palestinian statehood being a matter of “not if, but when” and witter on about the “irreversible steps” being taken toward statehood, and finally — somewhere over the rainbow — towards a two state solution. Faint chance:

“For those who are starving today, the only irreversible step is death. Until statehood recognition brings action — arms embargoes, sanctions, enforcement of international law — it will remain a largely empty promise that serves primarily to distract from Western complicity in Gaza’s destruction.

Exactly. Behind the words of concern are the actions of complicity. The people of Gaza do not have time to wait for symbolic actions, or for sanctions to weaken Israel’s appetite for genocide. Consider this option: would New Zealand support an intervention in Gaza by a UN-led international force to save Gaza’s dwindling population, and to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected, however belatedly?

Would we be willing to commit troops to such a force if asked to do so by the UN Secretary-General? That is what is now needed.

Footnote One: On Gaza, the Luxon government has a high tolerance for double standards and Catch 22 conditions. We are insisting that the Palestinians must release the remaining hostages unconditionally, lay down their arms and de-militarise the occupied territories. Yet we are applying no similar pre-conditions on Israel to withdraw, de-militarise the same space, release all their Palestinian prisoners, allow the unrestricted distribution of food and medical supplies, and negotiate a sustainable peace.

Understandably, Hamas has tied the release of the remaining hostages to the Israeli cessation of their onslaught, to unfettered aid distribution, and to a long-term commitment to Palestinian self-rule. Otherwise, once the Israeli hostages are home, there would be nothing to stop Israel from renewing the genocide.

We are also demanding that Hamas be excluded from any future governing arrangement in Gaza, but – simultaneously – Peters told the House recently that this governing arrangement must also be “representative.” Catch 22. “Representative” democracy it seems, means voting for the people pre-selected by the West. Again, no matching demands have been made of Israel with respect to its role in the future governance of Gaza, or about its obligation to rebuild what it has criminally destroyed.

Footnote Two: There is only one rational explanation for why New Zealand is currently holding back from joining the UK, Canada, France and Australia in voting next month to recognise Palestine as a full UN member state. It seems we are cravenly hoping that Australia’s stance will be viewed with such disfavour by Donald Trump that he will punish Canberra by lifting its tariff rate from 10%, thereby erasing the 5% advantage that Australia currently enjoys oven us in the US market.

At least this tells us what the selling price is for our “independent” foreign policy. We’re prepared to sell it out to the Americans – and sell out the Palestinians in the process – if, by sitting on the fence for now, we can engineer parity for our exports with Australia in US markets. ANZAC mates, forever.

John Hobbs: New Zealand’s shameful stance on Israel

APR editor — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:14:10 +0000

ANALYSIS: By John Hobbs

Aotearoa New Zealand once earned praise for its “principled” and “independent” foreign policy. Think nuclear-free Pacific, for example.

Yet that reputation doesn’t hold true when it comes to Gaza and the Palestinian desire and right to self-determination.

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, states must take positive steps to prevent genocide. The New Zealand government appears to be failing in this obligation.

Researcher John Hobbs . . . “So far, our ministers have chosen carefully crafted diplomatic language buried under joint country statements to influence the situation in Gaza.” Image: John Hobbs

So far, our ministers have chosen carefully crafted diplomatic language buried under joint country statements to influence the situation in Gaza, while at the same time protecting relationships with allies, particularly the US.

An example of these was a statement issued last month, in which New Zealand joined a group of 28 “concerned” countries to express horror at the “suffering of civilians in Gaza”, which, it says, “has reached new depths”. The statement calls for the lifting of restrictions on the “flow of aid” and demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire.”

Just to be clear, the “flow of aid” is the life-saving food and water that’s needed to prevent the mass starvation of Palestinians as famine driven by Israel deepens.

Demands for a ceasefire have been made on numerous occasions in the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council, to no effect.

Failure to sanction Israel
Yet countries like New Zealand fail to sanction Israel for its non-compliance. Indeed, they do worse. These same countries continue to trade with Israel, and a number of them continue to provide weapons and arms.

According to trade data, New Zealand in 2023 imported goods and services of US$191 million from Israel and exported US$16.4 million the other way.

Most recently, New Zealand joined 14 other countries to “express the willingness or the positive consideration of our countries to recognise the State of Palestine, as an essential step towards the two-State solution.”

The statement is heavily caveated by saying that “positive consideration” is one option — so it’s not clear if all, or indeed any, of the countries will end up recognising Palestinian statehood.

By contrast, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has issued a separate statement, saying the UK would recognise the state of Palestine in September if Israel doesn’t agree to a ceasefire.

Starmer’s concern for the starvation of civilians in Gaza hasn’t stopped the UK from sending military arms to Israel. But this is at least a clearer stance than New Zealand has been able to muster.

More than 147 UN member states out of 193 formally recognise Palestinian statehood now.

Level of solidarity
And while recognition of statehood is largely symbolic, it does signal a level of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Inexplicably, New Zealand has been unwilling to take that step, while calling it a future option under “two-state” diplomacy.

New Zealand has trundled out its support of the two-state solution since at least 1993, reinforced by its co-sponsorship, in 2015-16, of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion.

That resolution declared settlements in occupied territories illegal under international law and urged member states to distinguish in its dealings between Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.

Since then, Israel has continued to transfer its citizens to the West Bank and Gaza. More than 750,000 Israeli settlers are now living illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — areas where a future Palestinian state would be located.

Meanwhile, New Zealand has failed to take any meaningful action — sanctions or suspension of trade, for example — to implement the requirements of the Security Council resolution. That the government consistently frames its response as supporting a two-state solution beggars belief in light of such inaction.

New Zealand’s refusal to sanction Israel is nothing but shameful.

When foreign affairs minister Winston Peters expressed shock about the “intolerable situation” in Gaza, RNZ asked him whether New Zealand would entertain placing sanctions on Israel. He responded by saying that we are a “long, long way off doing that.”

The genocide in Gaza is happening with the support of countries like New Zealand, through inaction and failure to implement sanctions.

And statements about recognising statehood provide the appearance of supporting an end to the genocide, but change nothing in reality.

John Hobbs has been a career public servant, working in a number of government departments (most recently the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet). He also worked for a number of ministers on secondment from government agencies. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Te Tumu School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies, Otago University. This article was first published by E-Tangata and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

NZ ‘lagging behind’ world by failing to recognise Palestinian statehood, says former PM Helen Clark

APR editor — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:18:59 +0000

By Craig McCulloch, RNZ News acting political editor

New Zealand is lagging behind the rest of the world through its failure to recognise Palestinian statehood, says Former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Canada yesterday became the latest country to announce it would formally recognise the state of Palestine when world leaders met at the UN General Assembly in September.

It follows recent similar commitments from the France and the United Kingdom.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon suggested the discussion was a distraction and said the immediate focus should be on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.

But, speaking to RNZ Midday Report, Clark said New Zealand needed to come on board.

“We are watching a catastrophe unfold in Gaza. We’re watching starvation. We’re watching famine conditions for many. Many are using the word genocide,” she said.

“If New Zealand can’t act in these circumstances, when can it act?”

Elders call for recognition
“The Elders, a group of world leaders of which Clark is a part, last month issued a call for countries to recognise the state of Palestine, calling it the “beginning, not the end of a political pathway towards lasting peace”.

Clark said the government seemed to be trying avoid the ire of the United States by waiting until the peace process was well underway or nearing its end.

“That is no longer tenable,” she said.

“New Zealand really is lagging behind.”

Even before the recent commitments from France, Canada and the UK, 147 of the UN’s 193 member states had recognised the Palestinian state.

Clark said the hope was that the series of recognitions from major Western states would first shift the US position and then Israel’s.

“When the US moves, Israel eventually jumps because it owes so much to the United States for the support, financial, military and otherwise,” she said.

“At some point, Israel has to smell the coffee.”

Surprised over Peters
Clark said she was “a little surprised” that Foreign Minister Winston Peters had not been more forward-leaning given he historically had strongly advocated New Zealand’s even-handed position.

On Wednesday, New Zealand signed a joint statement with 14 other countries expressing a willingness to recognise the State of Palestine as a necessary step towards a two-state solution.

However, later speaking in Parliament, Peters said that was conditional on first seeing progress from Palestine, including representative governance, commitment to non-violence, and security guarantees for Israel.

“If we are to recognise the state of Palestine, New Zealand wants to know that what we are recognising is a legitimate, representative, viable, political entity,” Peters told MPs.

Peters also agreed with a contribution from ACT’s Simon Court that recognising the state of Palestine could be viewed as “a reward [to Hamas] for acts of terrorism” if it was done before Hamas had returned hostages or laid down arms.

Luxon earlier told RNZ New Zealand had long supported the eventual recognition of Palestinian statehood, but that the immediate focus should be on getting aid into Gaza rather than “fragmenting and talking about all sorts of other things that are distractions”.

“We need to put the pressure on Israel to get humanitarian assistance unfettered, at scale, at volume, into Gaza,” he told RNZ.

“You can talk about a whole bunch of other things, but for right now, the world needs to focus.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Academic slams NZ government over ‘compromised’ foreign policy

APR editor — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 10:43:27 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A prominent academic has criticised the New Zealand coalition government for compromising the country’s traditional commitment to upholding an international rules-based order due to a “desire not to offend” the Trump administration.

Professor Robert Patman, an inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chair and a specialist in international relations at the University of Otago, has argued in a contributed article to The Spinoff that while distant in geographic terms, “brutal violence in Gaza, the West Bank and Iran marks the latest stage in the unravelling of an international rules-based order on which New Zealand depends for its prosperity and security”.

Dr Patman wrote that New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, emphasised partnership and cooperation at home, and, after 1945, helped inspire a New Zealand worldview enshrined in institutions such as the United Nations and norms such as multilateralism.

Professor Robert Patman . . . “Even more striking was the government’s silence on President Trump’s proposal to own Gaza with a view to evicting two million Palestinian residents.” Image: University of Otago

“In the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, the National-led coalition government has in principle emphasised its support for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza and the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank,” he wrote.

However, Dr Patman said, in practice this New Zealand stance had not translated into firm diplomatic opposition to the Netanyahu government’s quest to control Gaza and annex the West Bank.

“Nor has it been a condemnation of the Trump administration for prioritising its support for Israel’s security goals over international law,” he said.

Foreign minister Winston Peters had described the situation in Gaza as “simply intolerable” but the National-led coalition had little specific to say as the Netanyahu government “resumed its cruel blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza in March and restarted military operations there”.

Silence on Trump’s ‘Gaza ownership’
“Even more striking was the government’s silence on President Trump’s proposal to own Gaza with a view to evicting two million Palestinian residents from the territory and the US-Israeli venture to start the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in late May in a move which sidelined the UN in aid distribution and has led to the killing of more than 600 Palestinians while seeking food aid,” Dr Patman said.

While New Zealand, along with the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway, had imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli government ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben Gvir, in June for “inciting extremist violence” against Palestinians — a move that was criticised by the Trump administration — it was arguably a case of very little very late.

“The Hamas terror attacks on October 7 killed around 1200 Israelis, but the Netanyahu government’s retaliation by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) against Hamas has resulted in the deaths of more than 56,000 Palestinians — nearly 70 percent of whom were women or children — in Gaza.

Over the same period, more than 1000 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank as Israel accelerated its programme of illegal settlements there.

‘Strangely ambivalent’
In addition, the responses of the New Zealand government to “pre-emptive attacks” by Israel (13-25 June) and Trump’s United States (June 22) against Iran to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities were strangely ambivalent.

Despite indications from US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran had not produced nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Peters had said New Zealand was not prepared to take a position on that issue.

Confronted with Trump’s “might is right” approach, the National-led coalition faced stark choices, Dr Patman said.

The New Zealand government could continue to fudge fundamental moral and legal issues in the Middle East and risk complicity in the further weakening of an international rules-based order it purportedly supports, “or it can get off the fence, stand up for the country’s values, and insist that respect for international law must be observed in the region and elsewhere without exception”.

New Zealand’s ‘symbolic’ sanctions on Israel too little, too late, say opposition parties

APR editor — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:21:29 +0000

By Russell Palmer, RNZ News political reporter

Opposition parties say Aotearoa New Zealand’s government should be going much further, much faster in sanctioning Israel.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters overnight revealed New Zealand had joined Australia, Canada, the UK and Norway in imposing travel bans on Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Some of the partner countries went further, adding asset freezes and business restrictions on the far-right ministers.

Peters said the pair had used their leadership positions to actively undermine peace and security and remove prospects for a two-state solution.

Israel and the United States criticised the sanctions, with the US saying it undermined progress towards a ceasefire.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, attending Fieldays in Waikato, told reporters New Zealand still enjoyed a good relationship with the US administration, but would not be backing down.

“We have a view that this is the right course of action for us,” he said.

Behind the scenes job
“We have differences in approach but the Americans are doing an excellent job of behind the scenes trying to get Israel and the Palestinians to the table to talk about a ceasefire.”

Asked if there could be further sanctions, Luxon said the government was “monitoring the situation all the time”.

Peters has been busy travelling in Europe and was unavailable to be interviewed. ACT — probably the most vocally pro-Israel party in Parliament — refused to comment on the situation.

The opposition parties also backed the move, but argued the government should have gone much further.

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has since December been urging the coalition to back her bill imposing economic sanctions on Israel. With support from Labour and Te Pāti Māori it would need just six MPs to cross the floor to pass.

Calling the Israeli actions in Gaza “genocide”, she told RNZ the government’s sanctions fell far short of those imposed on Russia.

“This is symbolic, and it’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long to get to this point, nearly two years . . . the Minister of Foreign Affairs also invoked the similarities with Russia in his statement this morning, yet we have seen far less harsh sanctions applied to Israel.

“We’re well past the time for first steps.”

‘Cowardice’ by government
The pushback from the US was “probably precisely part of the reason that our government has been so scared of doing the right thing”, she said, calling it “cowardice” on the government’s part.

“What else are you supposed to call it at the end of the day?,” she said, saying at a bare minimum the Israeli ambassador should be expelled, Palestinian statehood should be recognised, and a special category of visas for Palestinians should be introduced.

She rejected categorisation of her stance as anti-semitic, saying that made no sense.

“If we are critiquing a government of a certain country, that is not the same thing as critiquing the people of that country. I think it’s actually far more anti-semitic to conflate the actions of the Israeli government with the entire Jewish peoples.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer . . . “It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation”. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the sanctions were political hypocrisy.

“When it comes to war, human rights and the extent of violence and genocide that we’re seeing, Palestine is its own independent nation . . . why is this government sanctioning only two ministers? They should be sanctioning the whole of Israel,” she said.

“These two Israel far right ministers don’t act alone. They belong to an entire Israel government which has used its military might and everything it can possibly do to bombard, to murder and to commit genocide and occupy Gaza and the West Bank.”

Suspend diplomatic ties
She also wanted all diplomatic ties with Israel suspended, along with sanctions against Israeli companies, military officials and additional support for the international courts — also saying the government should have done more.

“This government has been doing everything to do nothing . . . to appease allies that have dangerously overstepped unjustifiable marks, and they should not be silent.

“It’s not a war, it’s an annihilation, it’s an absolute annihilation of human beings . . . we’re way out there supporting those allies that are helping to weaponise Israel and the flattening and the continual cruel occupation of a nation, and it’s just nothing that I thought in my living days I’d be witnessing.”

She said the government should be pushing back against “a very polarised, very Trump attitude” to the conflict.

“Trumpism has arrived in Aotearoa . . . and we continue to go down that line, that is a really frightening part for this beautiful nation of ours.

“As a nation, we have a different set of values. We’re a Pacific-based country with a long history of going against the grain – the mainstream, easy grind. We’ve been a peaceful, loving nation that stood up against the big boys when it came to our anti nuclear stance and that’s our role in this, our role is not to follow blindly.”

Undermining two-state solution
In a statement, Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said the actions of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir had attempted to undermine the two-state solution and international law, and described the situation in Gaza as horrific.

“The travel bans echo the sanctions placed on Russian individuals and organisations that supported the illegal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

He called for further action.

“Labour has been calling for stronger action from the government on Israel’s invasion of Gaza, including intervening in South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, creation of a special visa for family members of New Zealanders fleeing Gaza, and ending government procurement from companies operating illegally in the Occupied Territories.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s foreign policy stance on Palestine lacks transparency

APR editor — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 11:49:02 +0000

COMMENTARY: By John Hobbs

It is difficult to understand what sits behind the New Zealand government’s unwillingness to sanction, or threaten to sanction, the Israeli government for its genocide against the Palestinian people.

The United Nations, human rights groups, legal experts and now genocide experts have all agreed it really is “genocide” which is being committed by the state of Israel against the civilian population of Gaza.

It is hard to argue with the conclusion genocide is happening, given the tragic images being portrayed across social and increasingly mainstream media.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has presented Israel’s assault on Gaza war as pitting “the sons of light” against “the sons of darkness”. And promised the victory of Judeo-Christian civilisation against barbarism.

A real encouragement to his military there should be no-holds barred in exercising indiscriminate destruction over the people of Gaza.

Given this background, one wonders what the nature of the advice being provided by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the minister entails?

Does the ministry fail to see the destruction and brutal killing of a huge proportion of the civilian people of Gaza? And if they see it, are they saying as much to the minister?

Cloak of ‘diplomatic language’
Or is the advice so nuanced in the cloak of “diplomatic language” it effectively says nothing and is crafted in a way which gives the minister ultimate freedom to make his own political choices.

The advice of the officials becomes a reflection of what the minister is looking for — namely, a foreign policy approach that gives him enough freedom to support the Israeli government and at the same time be in step with its closest ally, the United States.

The problem is there is no transparency around the decision-making process, so it is impossible to tell how decisions are being made.

I placed an Official Information Act request with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in January 2024 seeking advice received by the minister on New Zealand’s obligations under the Genocide Convention.

The request was refused because while the advice did exist, it fell outside the timeline indicated by my request.

It was emphasised if I were to put in a further request for the advice, it was unlikely to be released.

They then advised releasing the information would be likely to prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand and the international relations of the government of New Zealand, and withholding it was necessary to maintain legal professional privilege.

Public interest vital
It is hard to imagine how the release of such information might prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or that the legal issues could override the public interest.

It could not be more important for New Zealanders to understand the basis for New Zealand’s foreign policy choices.

New Zealand is a contracting party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Under the convention, “genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they [the contracting parties] undertake to prevent and punish”.

Furthermore: The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide. (Article 5).

Accordingly, New Zealand must play an active part in its prevention and put in place effective penalties. Chlöe Swarbrick’s private member’s Bill to impose sanctions is one mechanism to do this.

In response to its two-month blockade of food, water and medical supplies to Gaza, and international pressure, Israel has agreed to allow a trickle of food to enter Gaza.

However, this is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to avert famine. Understandably, Israel’s response has been criticised by most of the international community, including New Zealand.

Carefully worded statement
In a carefully worded statement, signed by a collective of European countries, together with New Zealand and Australia, it is requested that Israel allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza, an immediate return to ceasefire and a return of the hostages.

Radio New Zealand interviewed the Foreign Minister Winston Peters to better understand the New Zealand position.

Peters reiterated his previous statements, expressing Israel’s actions of withholding food as “intolerable” but when asked about putting in place concrete sanctions he stated any such action was a “long, long way off”, without explaining why.

New Zealand must be clear about its foreign policy position, not hide behind diplomatic and insincere rhetoric and exercise courage by sanctioning Israel as it has done with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

As a minimum, it must honour its responsibilities under the Convention on Genocide and, not least, to offer hope and support for the utterly powerless and vulnerable Palestinian people before it is too late.

John Hobbs is a doctoral candidate at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with the author’s permission.

Cook Islands needs to ‘stand on our own two feet,’ says Brown – wins confidence vote

APR editor — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 22:15:32 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Prime Minister Mark Brown has survived a motion in the Cook Islands Parliament aimed at ousting his government, the second Pacific Island leader to face a no-confidence vote this week.

In a vote yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, Cook Islands time), the man who has been at the centre of controversy in the past few weeks, defeated the motion by 13 votes to 9. Two government ministers were absent for the vote.

The motion was put forward by the opposition MP Teariki Heather, the leader of the Cook Islands United Party.

READ MORE: Other Cook Islands leadership reports

Ahead of the vote, Heather acknowledged that Brown had majority support in Parliament.

However, he said he was moving the motion on principle after recent decisions by Brown, including a proposal to create a Cook Islands passport and shunning New Zealand from deals it made with China, which has divided Cook Islanders.

“These are the merits that I am presenting before this House. We have the support of our people and those living outside the country, and so it is my challenge. Where do you stand in this House?” Heather said.

Brown said his country has been so successful in its development in recent years that it graduated to first world status in 2020.

‘Engage on equal footing’
“We need to stand on our own two feet, and we need to engage with our partners on an equal footing,” he said.

“Economic and financial independence must come first before political independence, and that was what I discussed and made clear when I met with the New Zealand prime minister and deputy prime minister in Wellington in November.”

Brown said the issues Cook Islanders faced today were not just about passports and agreements but about Cook Islands expressing its self-determination.

“This is not about consultation. This is about control.”

“We cannot compete with New Zealand. When their one-sided messaging is so compelling that even our opposition members will be swayed.

“We never once talked to the New Zealand government about cutting our ties with New Zealand but the message our people received was that we were cutting our ties with New Zealand.

“We have been discussing the comprehensive partnership with New Zealand for months. But the messaging that got out is that we have not consulted.

Cook Islands PM accuses NZ media, experts of thinking ‘we are too dumb’ https://t.co/ADrWN4Yjp9

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) February 25, 2025

‘We are not a child’
“We are a partner in the relationship with New Zealand. We are not a child.”

He said the motion of no confidence had been built on misinformation to the extent that the mover of the motion has stated publicly that he was moving this motion in support of New Zealand.

“The influence of New Zealand in this motion of no confidence should be of concern to all Cook Islands who value . . . who value our country.

“My job is not to fly the New Zealand flag. My job is to fly my own country’s flag.”

Last week, hundreds of Cook Islanders opposing Brown’s political decisions rallied in Avarua, demanding that he step down for damaging the relationship between Aotearoa and Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands is a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand. It is part of the Realm of New Zealand, sharing the same Head of State.

This year, the island marks its 60th year of self-governance.

According to Cook Islands 2021 Census, its population is less than 15,000.

New Zealand remains the largest home to the Cook Islands community, with over 80,000 Cook Islands Māori, while about 28,000 live in Australia.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Money link to illegal Israeli settlements ignites divestment battle in NZ city

APR editor — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 22:39:16 +0000

By Craig Ashworth, Local Democracy Reporter

New Plymouth has admitted it has investments in companies active in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, contrary to New Zealand government foreign policy and United Nations rulings.

The revelation comes a week after Mayor Neil Holdom refused a request from Parihaka Pā and all the district’s iwi to make sure the council was not invested in companies profiting from the settlements.

The shareholdings sparked a hostile debate with Holdom accusing councillor Bali Haque of politicising the district’s nest-egg for virtue signalling, and Haque in turn questioning the mayor’s honesty and integrity.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY REPORTING

The investments were made from New Plymouth District Council’s $400 million Perpetual Investment Fund (PIF).

The money is managed by Mercer in a passive fund, which automatically follows an index of companies and chooses which shares to buy.

Eight companies invested in by Mercer have been named by the UN as enabling and profiting from the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian Occupied Territories:

Motorola Solutions — the security arm of the mobile phone maker.
Travel companies Expedia, Airbnb, and Booking Holdings which owns Booking.com and other sites.
French multinational railways manufacturer Alstom
Three Israeli banks, including the country’s first and third biggest — which often offer concessionary loans to settlers.

Less than $1m involved
Less than a million dollars is involved, just a quarter of one percent of New Plymouth’s PIF.

Haque wanted Mercer to be told that NPDC strongly disagrees with investing in companies active in the settlements and wants the investments ended as soon as possible.

He also proposed that the council-owned company overseeing the fund — the PIF Guardians — bring more advice on the process and cost of divestment if Mercer did not act.

“We need to do something,” Haque said.

“It’s small, I understand less than a million we’re talking about, but it is significant in terms of the impact . . . This is something we can actually do and control.”

Mayor Neil Holdom repeated his explanation to the Parihaka delegation for opposing any action.

“Given the deeply sensitive and complex nature of the Israeli-Palestine conflict we’ve gotta approach this with a great deal of care and it’s my view that supporting this could be seen as taking a position in a dispute that has profound emotional and personal significance for members of our community on both sides.”

‘A terrible conflict’
The Mayor then turned to Haque.

“It is clear councillor Haque cares deeply about this issue and wants this debate and in the desperation to signal his personal conviction now wants to start playing politics with the PIF.

“It’s a terrible conflict, it’s a disaster for everybody involved but now someone wants to drag our community’s $400 million investment fund into this and make it a political football, to make a political point.”

Haque, clearly shocked, said it was Holdom himself who had told him to bring the motion to the Council Controlled Organisations committee.

“I’m staggered that now you have now done an about face and turned the tables . . . You were the very person who encouraged me to put this very motion to this committee and now you are attacking me personally for actually acting on the basis of what you asked me to do.

“So my respect — with respect — has declined in your honesty and integrity.”

Neil Holdom: “Wow! Wow, unbelievable.”

Chair Marie Pearce: “Yeah”

Councillor Murray Chong “He didn’t attack you at all

Councillor Anneke Carlson Mathews: “That was a full-on attack!”

Pearce barely kept control of the meeting.

‘Getting out of hand’
“This is getting totally out of hand.”

Councillor Bali Haque is questioning the mayor’s integrity over the council’s treatment of investments. Image: RNZ/John Gerritsen

Once tempers cooled, the Mayor explained that advice from the PIF Guardians was that the low-cost passive fund offered no control over Mercer’s decision and putting the funds in different management could cost up to $3.2 million a year in higher fees.

Holdom said he had told Haque of the advice.

Haque said that he had adjusted his proposal in response and read Holdom’s text message advising him to bring a proposal to instruct Mercer to comply with UN resolutions.

“We heard that it might be expensive but I’d quite like to know what it is we’re up for if Mercer decides not to act on the basis of what we’re saying,” said Haque.

Councillors Haque, Carson Matthews, and Bryan Vickery voted for Haque’s proposal.

They were defeated by Mayor Holdom and councillors Pearce, Murray Chong and Max Brough.

Councillor David Bublitz abstained, wanting the PIF to divest shares linked to any conflict anywhere in the world.

NZ co-sponsored Resolution 2334
New Zealand in 2016 co-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 2334, declaring Israeli settlements in Palestine a violation of international law.

The resolution obliges states and entities “to withdraw all recognition, aid and assistance to Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestine territory.”

In July this year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s settlements in Gaza and West Bank are illegal and ordered Israel to stop building new settlements and evacuate existing ones.

In September, the UN General Assembly — including Foreign Minister Winston Peters — called on all States to make sure their people, companies and entities and authorities “do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a community partner of both RNZ and LDR.

NZ’s shameful act over Hamas in defiance of Gaza atrocities reality

David Robie — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 06:54:56 +0000

COMMENTARY: By David Robie

New Zealand has taken another shameful act in its tone deaf approach to Israel’s War on Gaza this week by declaring Hamas a “terrorist entity” at a time when millions are marching worldwide for an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace founded on an independent state of Palestine.

It would have been more realistic and just to condemn Israel for its genocidal war and five months of atrocities.

Instead, it has been corralled into the Five Eyes clique with an increasingly isolated United States as it continues to support the war with taxpayer funded armaments and providing the cloak of diplomacy.

READ MORE: More children die of malnutrition — Israel hits Gaza amid truce push

It was really unwise of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s coalition government to declare the Hamas political wing as terrorist, after already having declared the military wing terrorist in 2010.

Many argue around the world with increasing insistence that actually Israel is a rogue terrorist state.

Also, it is very unlikely that Benjamin Netanyahu will succeed in his aims of “destroying” the Hamas movement, whatever the final outcome of the war.

As John Minto points out, Palestinian resistance movements have the right under international law to take up arms to fight against their colonial occupiers just as the African National Congress (ANC) had the right to take up arms to fight for freedom in apartheid South Africa.

Hamas represents an ideal, an independent Palestinian state and that can never be defeated.

Factions meet for unity
The various factions of the Palestinian resistance and political movements, including Fatah and Hamas, have been meeting in Moscow this week to settle their differences and stitch together a framework for a “Palestinian government of unity” as a basis for the future political architecture of independence.

Meet Gaza’s 11-year-old war reporter Sumayya Wushah, who says she was inspired by Shireen Abu Akleh to tell Palestine’s stories. pic.twitter.com/a7vB99nkqa

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 27, 2024

The United Nations General Assembly in 1969 — two years after the 1967 Six Day War when Israel seized Gaza from Egypt and Occupied West Bank from Jordan — recognised and reaffirmed “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.

This includes the right to choose their own representatives, including Hamas, an Islamist nationalist independence and resistance movement defending their illegally occupied territory, not a “terrorist” movement that the US and Israel try to have the world believe.

They are still very likely to be in the post-war line-up ending the status quo after five decades of illegal military occupation of Palestinian lands and the rash of illegal Israeli settlements.

American economist and public policy analyst Professor Jeffrey Sachs . . . “Israel is a criminal. Israel is in non-stop war crime status. Image: Judging Freedom

American economist and public policy analyst Professor Jeffrey Sachs summed up the reality over Israel’s colonial settler project in an interview this week by describing the Netanyahu government as a “murderous gang” and “zealots”, warning that “they are not going to stop”.

“Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. Starved. I am not using an exaggeration.

“I’m talking literally starving a population,” said the director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at New York’s Columbia University.

‘Israel is criminal’
“Israel is a criminal. Israel is in non-stop war crime status. Now, I believe, it is in genocidal status, and it is without shame, without remorse, without truth, without insight into what it is doing.

“But what it is doing is endangering Israel’s fundamental security because it is driving the world to believe that the Israeli state is not legitimate.

“This will stop when the United States stops providing the munitions to Israel. It will not be by any self-control in Israel. There is none in this government.

“This is a murderous gang in government right now. These are zealots. They have some messianic vision of controlling all of today’s Palestinian lands. They are not going to stop.

“They believe in ethnic cleansing, or worse, depending on whatever is needed. And it is, again, the United States, which is the sole support. And it our mumbling, bumbling president and the others that are not stopping this slaughter.”

In addition, to the growing massive protests around the world against the Israeli extremism, a growing number of countries and organisations, inspired by two International Court of Justice cases against Israel — one by South Africa alleging genocide by Israel and the other by the UNGA seeking a ruling on the legality of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine — have introduced lawsuits.

A Dutch court last month ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel following concern that the country may be violating international laws such as the Genocide Convention.

Follow-up lawsuit
South Africa is preparing a follow-up lawsuit against the US and the UK for “complicity” in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. South African lawyer lawyer Wikus Van Rensburg said: “The United States must now be held accountable for the crimes it committed.”

Nicaragua is suing Germany at the ICJ for funding Israel – its export of weapons and munitions to the country has risen ten-fold since the Hamas deadly attack on Israel last October 7 — and cutting aid to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), the major humanitarian agency in Gaza.

It has called for emergency measures that would force Germany to cease military aid to Israel, and restart funding to the UNRWA.

Nicaragua lawyers said in their lawsuit that the action was necessary because of Germany’s “participation in the ongoing plausible genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law” in Gaza.

“Would it be OK for you if they killed me?” . . . placard with child in pram at the Palestine solidarity rally in Auckland on Saturday. Image: David Robie/APR

Instead of joining the US-led coalition in the Red Sea operation against the Houthis, who are targeting US, UK and Israeli-linked ships to disrupt maritime trade in support of the Palestinians, New Zealand would have been more constructive by joining the South African case against Israel in The Hague.

Principle before profit if New Zealand is really committed to international rules based diplomacy.

A record of US, UK isolation and cynicism . . . how the UN Security Council members have voted in three Gaza ceasefire resolutions. Image: Al Jazeera/Creative Commons

No time to be ‘neutral’
This is no time to be “neutral” over the War on Gaza, there are fundamental issues of global justice and human rights at stake. As various global aid officials have been saying, every day that passes without a ceasefire and a step towards an independent Palestine as a long-term solution means more children dying of starvation or from the bombing.

The death toll is already a staggering more than 30,000 — mostly women and children. The war is clearly directed at the people of Gaza, collective punishment. At least, 112 Gazans were killed while seeking food aid in Gaza City when Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) troops opened fire in what has been described as the “flour massacre”.

At least, 15 children have died from malnutrition so far.

Caretaker Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila told Al Jazeera that “the ceasefire is much more important than having food under fire . . . People are running from one place to another just to save their lives.”

Australian columnist Caitlin Johnstone warns against neutrality, advice that might have been heeded by New Zealand’s foreign affairs advisers.

“At least be real with yourself that by refusing to pick a position you are licking the boot of a nuclear-armed ethnostate that is backed by the most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”

And that impunity needs to end.

John Minto: Why New Zealand should not designate Hamas a terrorist group

Pacific Media Watch — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 06:50:59 +0000

COMMENTARY: By John Minto

The New Zealand government is shortly to announce whether it will designate Hamas a “terrorist” group in response to the October 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas was involved.

The US and most of the Western world calls Hamas “terrorists” but so far New Zealand has only designated the armed wing of Hamas as a terrorist group.

More importantly, the United Nations — along with most of the rest of the world — has not taken this step and neither should New Zealand.

It is for Palestinians to decide which groups they support in their struggle for self-determination but it’s important here to respond to the incessant, hysterical lies told about Hamas by Israel and the pro-Israel lobby around the world.

There are probably more lies spoken about Hamas than any other organisation in the world.

One of these is the lie that the Hamas Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide. (For example, this was claimed in an opinion piece in The Post newspaper recently by Israeli diplomat and former ambassador to the United Kingdom Daniel Taub — in response to which the newspaper declined to print any letters)

The truth is that in the latest Hamas charter from 2017, the organisation says

“Hamas reiterates that its conflict is with the Zionist project and not with the Jews based on their religion.”
“Hamas is not fighting against the Jews because they are Jews, but against the Zionists who are occupying Palestine.”
“Hamas rejects the persecution of people or the undermining of their rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian ground.”

Hamas accepts Israel with 1967 borders
In fact, their new charter goes further and Hamas accepts the state of Israel based on 1967 borders — precisely the same policy as the New Zealand government along with the US, the UK and most of the world!

It is clear to everyone that war crimes were committed in the October 7 attack on Israel.

Killing civilians and taking civilian hostages are war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be condemned.

These crimes should be investigated by the International Criminal Court as were crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Those investigations resulted in arrest warrants issued against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The same process should be followed for the October 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s genocidal response. For example, arrest warrants should be issued by the ICC against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and at least half his cabinet for war crimes and crimes against humanity — including the crimes of genocide and apartheid.

As things stand there were eight Palestinian resistance groups involved in the October 7 attack on Israel and we simply do not know yet which groups and leaders were responsible for war crimes.

Palestinian resistance groups have the right under international law to take up arms to fight against their colonial occupiers just as the African National Congress (ANC) had the right to take up arms to fight for freedom in apartheid South Africa.

Aotearoa New Zealand must respect this right and not pander to the deep-seated racism and cheap political sloganeering of the pro-Israel lobby.

A knee-jerk reaction from New Zealand to designate Hamas a terrorist group would be a further step backwards from an independent foreign policy.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7 came after Israeli settlers had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and after a record number of Palestinians had been killed by Israel at that point in 2023.
Other maps and charts — Live tracker

The besieged Gaza Strip . . . Hamas’s surprise attack on October 7 came after Israeli settlers had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and after a record number of Palestinians had been killed by Israel at that point in 2023. Image: Al Jazeera

NZ foreign policy critics warn over ‘inflaming’ Red Sea crisis, call for Gaza ceasefire

APR editor — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 07:39:07 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A group of foreign policy critics alarmed at the Aotearoa New Zealand government’s “undemocratic decision” to step up support for US-led strikes against Yemen have warned against “inflaming” the Red Sea maritime crisis.

They have urgently called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza as they say the Israeli war that has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians is the root cause of the crisis.

The foreign policy group, Te Kuaka, said in a statement that the government’s decision to deploy a six-member NZ Defence Force team to the Middle East was “deeply alarming”.

The government announcement came this afternoon at a post-Cabinet media conference.

Group co-director Dr Arama Rata said: “New Zealand’s involvement in the Red Sea will just inflame regional instability and cause more civilian deaths without addressing the root cause of the Houthi actions, which is ending the genocide in Gaza.”

Dr Rata said it was deeply alarming that this decision was made without a Parliamentary mandate, particularly given the incredibly high stakes of the crisis.

“There has been no explicit authorisation of military action in self defence against Yemen by the UN Security Council either,” she said.

‘Frightening precedent’
“This sets a frightening precedent for how foreign policy decisions are made.

“There are huge risks to not just the Middle East, but New Zealand directly, when we take the side of the US and the UK, nations that have a long history of oppressive intervention in the Global South.”

Co-director Dr Marco de Jong said: “We know that public opinion and a Parliamentary mandate would have swayed any foreign policy decisions in the direction of calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

“Public polls and weekly protests for Palestine, since October 7, have shown this to be the case.”

Thousands took to Queen Street in the heart of Auckland for the 15th consecutive week to protest over the war and to call for a ceasefire and an end to genocide. One of the Palestinian speakers addressing the crowd reminded them millions of citizen protesters were demonstrating all over the world.

The protesters condemned Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for failing to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

At today’s, post-cabinet media conference Luxon claimed the Houthi attacks were hurting New Zealand exporters.

Global trade
“Nearly 15 percent of global trade goes through the Red Sea, and the Houthi attacks are driving costs higher for New Zealanders and causing delays to shipments,” Luxon said.

However, Dr de Jong said: “By pre-empting these criticisms [such as by critics and protesters] in its own announcement, the government is wrongly suggesting that our intervention in the Middle East will not be viewed in the context of genocide in Gaza and highlighting NZ’s previous involvement in US-led misadventures — which have been similarly deadly and destructive.”

Dr Rata added: “We need to have an honest reflection about our positioning alongside the US and the UK.

“Instead of colluding with these colonial powers, we should be standing with countries like Brazil and South Africa, which are challenging old colonial regimes, and represent the majority of the international community.”

Ian Powell: Context of the ‘New Washington Consensus’ and China ‘threat’ for New Zealand

APR editor — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 03:00:39 +0000

POLITICAL BYTES: By Ian Powell

There is a reported apparent rift within cabinet between Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Andrew Little over Aotearoa New Zealand’s position in the widening conflict between the United States and China.

While at its core it is over relative economic power, the conflict is manifested by China’s increased presence in the Pacific Ocean, including military, and over Taiwan. Both countries have long Pacific coastlines.

However, the United States has a far greater and longstanding economic and military presence (including nuclear weapons in South Korea) in the Pacific.

READ MORE: Other China-US geopolitics reports

Despite this disparity, the focus is on China as being the threat. Minister Mahuta supports continuing the longstanding more independent position of successive Labour and National-led governments.

This goes back to the adoption of the nuclear-free policy and consequential ending of New Zealand’s military alliance with the United States in the mid-1980s.

On the other hand, Minister Little’s public utterances veer towards a gradual shift away from this independent position and towards a stronger military alignment with the United States.

This is not a conflict between socialist and capitalist countries. For various reasons I struggle with the suggestion that China is a socialist nation in spite of the fact that it (and others) say it is and that it is governed by a party calling itself communist. But that is a debate for another occasion.

Core and peripheral countries
This conflict is often seen as between the two strongest global economic powers. However, it is not as simple as that.

Whereas the United States is an imperialist country, China is not. I have discussed this previously in Political Bytes (31 January 2022): Behind the ‘war’ against China.

In coming to this conclusion I drew upon work by Minqi Li, professor of economics at the University of Utah, who focussed on whether China is an imperialist country or not.

He is not soft on China, acknowledging that it ” . . . has developed an exploitative relationship with South Asia, Africa, and other raw material exporters”.

But his concern is to make an objective assessment of China’s global economic power. He does this by distinguishing between core, semi-periphery, and periphery countries:

“The ‘core countries’ specialise in quasi-monopolistic, high-profit production processes. This leaves ‘peripheral countries’ to specialise in highly competitive, low-profit production processes.”

This results in an “…unequal exchange and concentration of world wealth in the core.”

Minqi Li describes China’s economy as:

“. . . the world’s largest when measured by purchasing power parity. Its rapid expansion is reshapes the global geopolitical map leading western mainstream media to begin defining China as a new imperialist power.”

Consequently he concludes that China is placed as a semi-peripheral county which predominately takes “. . . surplus value from developed economies and giving it to developing economies.”

In my January 2022 blog, I concluded that:

“Where does this leave the ‘core countries’, predominately in North America and Europe? They don’t want to wind back capitalism in China. They want to constrain it to ensure that while it continues to be an attractive market for them, China does not destablise them by progressing to a ‘core country’.”

Why the widening conflict now?
Nevertheless, while neither socialist nor imperialist, China does see the state playing a much greater role in the country’s economy, including increasing its international influence. This may well explain at least some of its success.

So why the widening conflict now? Why did it not occur between the late 1970s, when China opened up to market forces, and in the 1990s and 2000s as its world economic power increased? Marxist economist and blogger Michael Roberts has provided an interesting insight: The ‘New Washington Consensus’.

Roberts describes what became known as the “Washington Consensus” in the 1990s. It was a set of economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the “standard” reform package promoted for economically struggling developing countries.

The name is because these prescriptions were developed by Washington DC-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the United States Treasury.

The prescriptions were based on so-called free market policies such as trade and finance liberalisation and privatisation of state assets. They also entailed fiscal and monetary policies intended to minimise fiscal deficits and public spending.

But now, with the rise of China as a rival economic global power globally and the failure of the neoliberal economic model to deliver economic growth and reduce inequality among nations and within nations, the world has changed.

The rise of the BRICS. Graph: Statista 2023

What World Bank data reveals
Roberts draws upon World Bank data to highlight the striking nature of this global change. He uses a “Shares in World Economy” table based on percentages of gross domestic production from 1980 to 2020.

Whereas the United States was largely unchanged (25.2 percent to 24.7 percent), over the same 40 years, China leapt from 1.7 percent to 17.3 percent. China’s growth is extraordinary. But the data also provides further insights.

Economic blocs are also compared. The G7 countries declined from 62.5 percent to 47.2 percent while the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also fell — from 78 percent to 61.7 percent.

Interestingly while experiencing a minor decline, the United States increased its share within these two blocs — from 40.3 percent to 52.3 percent in G7 and from 32.3 percent to 40 percent in OECD. This suggests that while both the G7 and OECD have seen their economic power decline, the power of the United States has increased within the blocs.

Roberts use of this data also makes another pertinent observation. Rather than a bloc there is a grouping of “developing nations” which includes China. Over the 40 year period its percentage increased from 21.5 percent to 36.4 percent.

But when China is excluded from the data there is a small decline from 19.9 percent to 19.1 percent. In other words, the sizeable percentage of growth of developing countries is solely due to China, the other developing countries have had a small fall.

In this context Roberts describes a “New Washington Consensus” aimed at sustaining the “. . . hegemony of US capital and its junior allies with a new approach”.

In his words:

“But what is this new consensus? Free trade and capital flows and no government intervention is to be replaced with an ‘industrial strategy’ where governments intervene to subsidise and tax capitalist companies so that national objectives are met.

“There will be more trade and capital controls, more public investment and more taxation of the rich. Underneath these themes is that, in 2020s and beyond, it will be every nation for itself — no global pacts, but regional and bilateral agreements; no free movement, but nationally controlled capital and labour.

“And around that, new military alliances to impose this new consensus.”

Understanding BRICS
This is the context that makes the widening hostility of the United States towards China highly relevant. There is now an emerging potential counterweight of “developing countries” to the United States’ overlapping hegemons of G7 and the OECD.

This is BRICS. Each letter is from the first in the names of its current (and founding) members — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Around 40 countries have expressed interest in joining this new trade bloc.

These countries broadly correspond with the semi-periphery countries of Minqi Li and the developing countries of Roberts. Predominantly they are from Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Central and South America.

Geoffrey Miller of the Democracy Project has recently published (August 21) an interesting column discussing whether New Zealand should develop a relationship with BRICS: Should New Zealand build bridges with BRICS?

Journalist Julian Borger, writing for The Guardian (August 22), highlights the significant commonalities and differences of the BRICS nations at its recent trade summit: Critical BRICS trade summit in South Africa.

Al Jazeera (August 24)has updated the trade summit with the decision to invite Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join BRICS next January: The significance of BRICS adding six new members .

Which way New Zealand?
This is the context in which the apparent rift between Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Andrew Little should be seen.

It is to be hoped that that whatever government comes into office after October’s election, it does not allow the widening conflict between the United States and China to water down Aotearoa’s independent position.

The dynamics of the G7/OECD and BRICS relationship are ongoing and uncertainty characterises how they might play out. It may mean a gradual changing of domination or equalisation of economic power.

After all, the longstanding British Empire was replaced by a different kind of United States empire. It is also possible that the existing United States hegemony continues albeit weakened.

Regardless, it is important politically and economically for New Zealand to have trading relations with both G7 and developing countries (including the expanding BRICS).

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

Ukraine a year on – how the invasion changed NZ foreign policy

APR editor — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 09:04:30 +0000

ANALYSIS: By Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato

One year to the day since Russian tanks ran over the Ukraine border — and over the UN Charter and international law in the process — the world is less certain and more dangerous than ever.

For New Zealand, the war has also presented a unique foreign policy challenge.

The current generation of political leaders initially responded to the invasion in much the same way previous generations responded to the First and Second World Wars: if a sustainable peace was to be achieved, international treaties and law were the mechanism of choice.

But when it was apparent these higher levels of maintaining international order had gridlocked because of the Russian veto at the UN Security Council, New Zealand moved back towards its traditional security relationships.

Like other Western alliance countries, New Zealand didn’t put boots on the ground, which would have meant becoming active participants in the conflict. But nor did New Zealand plead neutrality.

It has not remained indifferent to the aggression and atrocities, or their implications for a rule-based world.

The issue one year on is whether this original position is still viable. And if not, what are the military, humanitarian, diplomatic and legal challenges now?

President Biden makes a surprise visit to Kyiv in dramatic show of U.S. support for Ukraine days before anniversary of invasion https://t.co/iqUrTrRqvq

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 20, 2023

Military spending
While New Zealand has no troops or personnel in Ukraine, it has given direct support.

Defence force personnel assist with training, intelligence, logistics, liaison, and command and administration support. There has also been funding and supplied equipment worth more than NZ$22 million.

This has been welcomed, although it is considerably less on a proportional basis than the assistance offered by other like-minded countries. However, the deeper questions involve how the war has affected defence policies and spending overall internationally.

While New Zealand’s current Defence Policy Review is important at the policy level, the implications affect all citizens and political parties. Specifically, most countries — allies or not — are increasing military spending and collaborating to develop new generations of weapons.

For New Zealand, this calls into question the longer-term feasibility of its relatively low spending of 1.5 percent of GDP on defence. And Wellington is increasingly being left out of collaborative arrangements (AUKUS being just one example), which in turn reinforce alliances and provide pathways to technology.

This is tied to the largest question of all: whether New Zealand wishes to relegate itself to becoming a regional “police officer” or wants to carry its fair share of being part of an interlinked modern military deterrent.

Amid U.S. claims that Beijing may be poised to send weapons to help Russia’s war in Ukraine, China accused the Biden administration of spreading lies and defended Beijing’s close partnership with Russia. https://t.co/52tRnRRAFh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 20, 2023

Diplomacy and domestic law
New Zealand also needs to reconsider its commitment to humanitarian assistance. So far, almost $13 million has been spent and a special visa created allowing New Zealand-Ukrainians to bring family members in for two years. With the war showing no sign of ending, this will likely need to extend.

But New Zealand’s non-neutral status also means it has other responsibilities, and should consider greater assistance with the Ukrainian refugee emergency. This would require going beyond the current visa scheme, and opening and expanding the refugee quota programme’s current cap of 1500.

Diplomatically, New Zealand also has to start considering what peace would look like. This raises hard questions about territorial integrity, accountability for war crimes, reparations and what might happen to populations that do not want to be part of Ukraine.

New Zealand has enacted a stand-alone law to apply sanctions on Russia. But because this now sits outside the broken multilateral UN system, a degree of caution is called for, given the door is now open to sanction other countries, UN mandate or not.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his state-of-the-nation speech to announce Moscow was suspending participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

Preparing for the worst
Finally, New Zealand needs to prepare for the worst. The war is showing no sign of calming down. Weapons and combatant numbers are escalating unsustainably.

Nuclear arms control is in freefall, with Russian President Vladimir Putin suspending participation in the New START Treaty, the last remaining agreement between Russia and the United States.

At the same time, the US has ramped up the rhetoric, suggesting China might supply arms to Russia, and declaring unequivocally that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

Were China to go against Western demands and provide weapons, countries like New Zealand will be in a very difficult position: its leading security ally, the US, may expect penalties to be imposed against its leading trade partner, China.

While Putin may be able to live with the rising death toll of his own soldiers (already over 100,000), at some point the Russian population won’t be. As the US discovered in Vietnam, it was not the external enemy that ultimately prevailed, it was domestic unrest, as more people turned against an unpopular war.

How Putin will respond to a war he cannot win conventionally, while risking losing popularity and position at home, is impossible to predict.

Everyone might hope his nuclear threats are a bluff, but New Zealand’s leaders would be wise to plan for the worst.

Whether a small, distant, non-neutral South Pacific nation might be a direct target or not is conjecture. What is not speculation, however, is that if the Ukraine war spins out of control, New Zealand would be in an emergency unlike anything it’s witnessed before.

Dr Alexander Gillespie, professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand lacking principles on Israeli occupation of Palestine

APR editor — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 10:40:16 +0000

COMMENTARY: By John Hobbs and Richard Jackson in Dunedin

The New Zealand government’s silence on the thousands of Palestinian deaths in the ongoing Gaza conflict with Israel fails the Palestinian people and perpetuates injustice, as this Newsroom article reports.

The recent Israeli incursion into Gaza (Breaking Dawn) has killed 49 Palestinians, including 17 children. Not that many New Zealanders would know much about this.

It has received little coverage by the New Zealand press, and the New Zealand government has made no public comments on the situation.

It was only a year ago that Israel attacked Gaza under the banner Operation Guardian of the Walls, killing more than 260 Palestinians, including 67 children.

READ MORE: Other reports about the Palestine’s Occupied West Bank and Gaza

New Zealand, by remaining silent, in effect plays its part in giving a free pass to Israel to continue with its ongoing attacks on Gaza and the other Palestinian territories it occupies.

In 2014, Operation Protective Edge killed more than 2000 Palestinian people, including more than 500 children. Operation Cast Lead in 2008 killed some 1400 Palestinian people, including 300 children.

Operation Summer Rains and Operation Autumn Clouds in 2006 were similarly destructive in terms of the loss of Palestinian life.

Indeed, Defence for Children International estimates that 2218 Palestinian children have been killed across the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2000. Notwithstanding the sanitising rhetoric that frames them, the deadly incursions by the Israeli State into Gaza and the Occupied West Bank has resulted in thousands of needless Palestinian deaths on their own land, since it was illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.

Is the New Zealand government’s silence because the Israeli incursions into Occupied Palestine are so commonplace they are not worthy of coverage any more? Or has the loss of Palestinian life become so normalised it fails to generate the horror the loss of Ukrainian life appropriately elicits from the New Zealand public?

NZ gives Israel ‘free pass’
New Zealand, by remaining silent, in effect plays its part in giving a free pass to Israel to continue with its ongoing attacks on Gaza and the other Palestinian territories it occupies.

This includes daily military incursions into Palestinian homes in the Occupied West Bank, resulting in ongoing loss of life.

Israel is bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the human and civil rights of the individuals living under its occupation. That Israel has been able to ignore these responsibilities enshrined in international law, and the multiple resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council condemning its behaviour, is a failure of the international community, including New Zealand.

It is incumbent on New Zealand to firmly stand behind the Palestinian people, as our silence perpetuates the injustice, fails to hold Israel to account, and does not align with our stated principled and independent values-based approach to foreign policy.

During New Zealand’s time on the United Nations Security Council in 2015-2016, it played an important role in advancing a Resolution (UNSC 2334) to halt further illegal Israeli settlement expansion in the Occupied West Bank.

However, beyond this setting, and the once-in-a-generation opportunity to participate (1993-1994 being the last time), we do little to voice our concerns and remain largely silent.

Accordingly, it’s hard to know what motivates the New Zealand government on the conflict. Having successfully shepherded Resolution 2334 in 2016 we have failed to speak up as Israel has rapidly continued with its settlements programme in the Occupied West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.

8 Palestinian villages for demolition
As a result of a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision, eight Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in Southern Hebron, containing 1200 residents, will be demolished by Israel to secure it for a firing/security zone — which in turn will almost certainly become Israeli settlements.

Again, the New Zealand government has remained silent.

We have also failed to advance one of the key clauses of UNSC 2334, which calls on states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”. Practically, this implies the inclusion of a differentiated country of origin labelling regime by the member states of the United Nations.

The New Zealand government has been completely silent on this requirement.

As New Zealand governments have repeatedly said, we operate a principled and independent foreign policy. But it is clear we are failing the Palestinian people in terms of our own stated values.

We either say nothing or adopt a neutral and benign linguistic position that appears to be critical of the latest human rights abuses but fails to hold Israel to account. We talk of supporting the Peace Process (Oslo Accords 1993) and a two-state solution but fail to do anything proactively to keep this possibility alive.

One might argue there is simply nothing to be gained from New Zealand seeking to advance the resolution of the conflict. After all we are a small country, and our focus must be closer to home, so the argument goes.

But this fails to explain our involvement in Ukraine, and Afghanistan in the recent past.

Risk of ‘upsetting US’
What appears to be more relevant is the risk of upsetting our key ally the United States, which is deeply invested in the conflict and its geostrategic interest in supporting Israel at all costs.

However, this position is indefensible as it implies a severely self-interested and limited foreign policy position, one inconsistent with Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s early statements about adopting a values-based approach to foreign policy — which include the values of manaaki (kindness), whanaunga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (shared aspiration), and kaitiaki (stewardship).

The absence of a New Zealand government voice on the conflict or its carefully crafted neutral rhetoric, designed not to give offence to its close Western English-speaking alliance friends, fails the Palestinian people miserably.

It is incumbent on New Zealand to firmly stand behind the Palestinian people, as our silence perpetuates the injustice, fails to hold Israel to account, and does not align with our stated principled and independent values-based approach to foreign policy.

John Hobbs is a Master of Arts student at the University of Otago’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and Dr Richard Jackson is professor of peace studies at the University of Otago. This article was first published by Newsroom here and is republished with permission.