The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has called on the New Zealand government to not follow Australia’s policy moves which would effectively criminalise the Palestine solidarity movement.

The Australian government has announced plans to implement recommendations from its anti-semitism envoy which PSNA says creates a “hierarchy of racism” with anti-semitism at the top, while Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism hardly feature.

At least some of the appalling anti-semitic attacks in Sydney have been bogus, said the PSNA in a statement.

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Co-chair John Minto said PSNA had no tolerance for anti-semitism in Aotearoa New Zealand, or anywhere else.

“But equally there should be no place for any other kind of racism, such as Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Our government must speak out against all forms of discrimination and support all communities when racism rears its ugly head,” he said.

“Let’s not forget the murderous attacks on the Christchurch mosques.”

Minto said the Australian measures would “inevitably” be used to criminalise the Palestinian solidarity movement across the country.

Trump ‘demonising’ support
“We see it happening in the US, to attack and demonise support for Palestinian human rights by the Trump administration.  We see it orchestrated in the UK to shut down any speech which Prime Minister Starmer and the Israeli government don’t like.”

The PSNA statement said that it agreed with the Jewish Council of Australia which has warned the Australian government adopting these measures could result in

“undermining Australia’s democratic freedoms, inflaming community divisions, and entrenching selective approaches to racism that serve political agendas.”

Minto said the free speech restrictions in the US, UK and Australia had nothing to do with what people usually understand as anti-semitism.

“The drive comes from the Israeli government.  They see making anti-semitism charges as the most effective means of preventing anyone publicly pointing to the genocide its armed forces are perpetrating in Gaza,” he said.

“The definition of anti-semitism, usually inserted into codes of ethics or legislation, is from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.  The IHRA definition includes 11 examples.  Seven of the examples are about criticising Israel.”

“It’s quite clear the Israeli campaign is to distract the community from Israel’s horrendous war crimes, such as the round-the-clock mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and deflect calls for sanctions against Israel.

“Already we can see in both the UK and US, that people have been arrested for saying things about Israel which would not have been declared illegal if they’d said it about other countries, including their own.”

Worrying signs
Minto said there were already worrying signs that the New Zealand government, media and police were “falling into the trap”.

“Just over the past few weeks, there has been an unusually wide-ranging mainstream media focus on anti-semitism,” Minto said citing:

• At least one opinion article in the Stuff newspapers from NZ Jewish Council spokesperson Ben Kepes on anti-semitism in New Zealand
• A major interview in Stuff on anti-semitism with NZJC spokesperson Ben Kepes
• A New Zealand Herald opinion article from NZJC spokesperson Juliet Moses
• A New Zealand Herald podcast featuring Holocaust Foundation spokesperson Deborah Hart.  The Holocaust Foundation is partly funded by the Israeli Embassy.
• An enthusiastic 1News item on the latest appeal to the government to adopt similar measures here to those taken in Australia (TVNZ One News, 13 July 2025)
• Stories highlighting anti-semitic graffiti in Wellington — numerous reports along these lines
• Stuff newspapers highlighting the case of an assault on a visiting Israeli after an altercation in Christchurch with the accused held overnight, denied bail and the police claiming it was a “hate crime”

However, New Zealand politicians and media had been silent about:

• An attack which knocked a young Palestinian woman to the ground when she was using a microphone to speak during an Auckland march
• An attack where a Palestine supporter was kicked and knocked to the pavement outside the Israeli embassy in Wellington.  The accused was wearing an Israeli flag.  He was not held in custody and the Post newspaper has reported neither the arrest nor the resulting charge (this case is due in court July 15)
• An attack on a Palestine solidarity marshal in Christchurch who was punched in the face, in front of police, but no action taken.
• An attack in Christchurch when a Destiny Church member kicked a solidarity marshal in the chest (no action taken by police)
• Anti-Palestinian racist attacks on the home of a Palestine solidarity activist in New Plymouth.  One supporter has had their front fence spraypainted twice with pro-Israel graffiti and their car tyres slashed twice (4 tyres in total) and had vile defamatory material circulated in their neighbourhood. (Police say they cannot help)
• The frequent condemnation of anti-semitism by the previous Chief Human Rights Commissioner, but his refusal to condemn the deep-seated anti-Palestinian racism of the New Zealand Jewish Council and Israel Institute of New Zealand.
• The refusal of the Human Rights Commission to publicly correct false statements it published in The Post newspaper which claimed anti-semitism was increasing, when in fact the evidence it was using was that the rate of incidents had declined.

‘Silence on mass killings’
Minto said that in each of the cases above there would have been far more attention from politicians, the police and the media had the victims been Israeli supporters.

“Meanwhile, both our government and the New Zealand Jewish Council have refused to condemn Israel’s blatant war crimes.  There is silence on the mass killing, mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.

“The Jewish Council and our government stand together and refuse to hold Israel’s racist apartheid regime to account in just about any way.

“This refusal to condemn what genocide scholars, including several Israeli genocide academics, have labelled as a ‘text-book case of genocide’, brings shame on both the New Zealand Jewish Council and the New Zealand government.”

“Adding to the clear perception of appalling bias on the part of our government, both the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs have met with New Zealand Jewish Council spokespeople over the war in Gaza.

“But both have refused to meet with representatives of Palestinian New Zealanders, or the huge number of Jewish supporters of the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Minto said New Zealand must “stand up and be counted against genocide” wherever it appeared and no matter who the victims were.

Two independent Jewish Voices groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have written an open letter to the government condemning the Zionist “colonisation” project leading to genocide and criticising the role of the NZ Jewish Council for its “unelected” and “uncritical support” for Israel.

The groups, Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation, have also criticised a scheduled meeting this week between Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and other ministers and the NZJC.

“The NZJC is an extremist voice. Their politics are harmful, and their actions jeopardise the good standing of Jews in Aotearoa,” the open letter said.

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“We protest in the strongest terms that Israel’s advocates are being given Prime Ministerial access.”

The alternative voices also appealed to be consulted along with representatives of the Muslim and Palestinian communities “who have lost the most to racism in recent years”.

“Hear us out before you act,” the open letter said.

The full letter (dated 16 February 2025):

We are Jewish New Zealanders, members of Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation. We understand that your office has scheduled a meeting this week with the NZ Jewish Council (NZJC) and additional ministers. We object in the strongest terms. The NZJC is unelected coterie, forever uncritically aligned with Israel. That is not the Jewish community.

We have documented in depth that the NZJC is not representative. They are not elected. Their constitution outlines a regional structure for indirect democracy, but much of that structure does not seem to exist.

They are not accountable to the community. Their president has broadcast her intention to “disempower as much as possible” Jews like Alternative Jewish Voices (AJV) members who “raise their voices”.

Several of us attended the Wellington Regional Jewish Council’s last community meeting, in 2021. The meeting roundly disavowed the Jewish Council’s tone and their relentless focus on Israel.

Indeed, the NZJC’s constitution does not even mention Israel or Zionism. The Wellington Regional Jewish Council dissolved itself after that meeting, acknowledging that they have no community mandate. They haven’t been heard from since. So much for regional representation.

Through public and private channels, members of the Jewish community have repeatedly asked the NZJC to embrace some positive, rights-based vision of the future.

Instead, through Israel’s 15-month “plausible genocide” in Gaza, the NZJC’s militarism has only become more overt. Juliet Moses was to share a platform with IDF’s head of infantry doctrine Yaron Simsolo at an Auckland event in March, until Jewish objections drove Simsolo’s session offsite.

This is not solely an issue for the Jewish community. For years, we have protested that the Jewish Council’s related Community Security Group shares politically slanted information about New Zealanders with Israel’s embassy.

They interpret objections to Israel’s occupation as a security threat to the New Zealand Jewish community, and they share their views of individual Palestinian, Muslim and other New Zealanders with a regime accused of genocide against Palestinians. This creates particular risk for Palestinian New Zealanders, should they ever travel to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories to visit family and whānau.

Let us say this clearly: there is nothing essentially Jewish about Zionism. Zionism is a project of colonisation, erasure, apartheid, ethnic cleansing — finally, of genocide. Institutions that wrap their nationalism in our Jewishness are shielding the brutality that we witness daily.

In this country, the NZJC has been a leading voice in the campaign to confuse Jewish with Zionist, enabling decades of oppression in our names.

The NZJC does not serve, represent or account to the Jewish community. How many Jewish New Zealanders would choose a representative who, like NZJC president Juliet Moses, retweets defences of Elon Musk’s Nazi salute?

The NZJC is an extremist voice. Their politics are harmful, and their actions jeopardise the good standing of Jews in Aotearoa. We protest in the strongest terms that Israel’s advocates are being given Prime Ministerial access.

It’s not hard to guess what the NZJC will be asking for: some special “antisemitism regime” that uses our Jewish identity to shield Israel from the directives of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They will be asking to divorce the Jewish community from our shared mahi of antiracism and our human rights framework. They will be seeking some exceptional status, suppressing principled protest for Palestinian rights and the criminal accountability of Israeli leaders.

That conversation should not take place without representation from the Muslim and Palestinian communities. They are the New Zealanders whose voices are being silenced, and frankly they are the communities who have lost the most to racism in recent years.

Prime Minister, any meeting with the NZJC ought to be recorded in the ministerial diaries as a session with Israel’s ambassadors. And damn it, they will be doing it in our name. We are also the New Zealand Jewish community, and we are so tired of being used this way.

We would like to join your meeting with the NZJC, bringing Jewish diversity into the room. If you will not open this meeting to the real breadth of the Jewish community, then we wish to schedule a second meeting which includes Muslim and Palestinian representation.

We work closely with the Muslim and Palestinian communities in Aotearoa, modelling the change that we would like to see in the Middle East.

Hear us out before you act.

The Aotearoa New Zealand government decision to take on observer status at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is a step backwards in the fight against anti-semitism and the struggle for Palestinian human rights.

The IHRA is a partisan, political organisation working hard to deflect criticism of Israel’s racist policies towards Palestinians with false smears of anti-semitism.

For example the IHRA has adopted its own definition of anti-semitism which claims calling Israel an apartheid state (as every major international human rights group such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch does) or calling for sanctions against Israel is anti-semitic.

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The New Zealand Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand have already adopted this bogus IHRA definition which they used in a so-called “survey of anti-semitism” earlier this year to make the absurd claims that describing Israel as an apartheid state or calling for sanctions against Israel were anti-semitic.

Palestinian civil society organisations called for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in 2005 to build international pressure to require Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions.

BDS was an important part of the fight against apartheid in South Africa and is also an important strategy in the fight against apartheid in Israel.

The three aims of BDS are to end Israel’s military occupation, end its apartheid policies towards Palestinians and allow Palestinian refugees to return to the land and homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948.

This legitimate and successful BDS strategy is fiercely opposed by Israel which is weaponising the Holocaust against Palestinian demands for human rights.

Needless to say, Palestinians had no role in the Holocaust whose cause was European anti-semitism.

By joining the IHRA, Aotearoa New Zealand is undermining the fight against anti-semitism and racism of all kinds.

The government has caved in to relentless bullying and threats of false smears of anti-semitism from the pro-Israel lobby.

Joining the IHRA is a weak, cowardly decision.

Aotearoa New Zealand should adopt the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism and insist on Holocaust education in every school in the country as part of a comprehensive anti-racism education programme.

John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with the author’s permission.