On Wednesday, 11 April, the Zionist Federation of New Zealand (ZFNZ) published a vicious attack on Green MP Golriz Ghahraman for accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people. Unable to deny the decades of ideologically-driven oppression practised by Israel against the people of Palestine, the ZFNZ Press Release resorted to the standard Zionist tactic of attempting to divert attention away from Israel and towards human rights violations elsewhere. Although the ZFNZ did assert that accusations against Israel are lies, its Press Release appeared to tacitly admit a degree of Israeli guilt, merely complaining that use of the term genocide was too strong or, as it put it, “disproportionate”.
However, in the wider world, genocide, wherever and however it is practised, is recognised for what it is. The US-based Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has demonstrated solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BKM) movement, and condemned Zionist “delegitimisation of Black and Palestinian struggle, especially by white Ashkenazi Jews that attempt to assert sole claim to the limits and bounds of what constitutes ‘actual’ genocide.” JVP says that, far from shutting down use of the term ‘genocide’, it embraces the expression. The Jewish historian, Ilan Pappe, calls the Zionist persecution of Palestinians since 1947 “incremental genocide”. According to a statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights, “Genocide can be applied to the destruction of a people or a national group as a viable group, and that can be both with their being driven from a land or the rendering of their language no longer legal, or just the destruction of their national identity.”
Referring to the expulsions of Palestinians from hundreds of towns and villages that started in 1947, the late human rights lawyer Michael Ratner, and former president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), says “It’s been going on for a long time, the killings, the incredibly awful conditions of life.” During Israel’s assault in 2014 on Gaza, Ratner said, “It’s correct and important to label it for what it is.” He asserted that such crimes can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Golriz Ghahraman should be congratulated for her courageous outspokenness. In spite of myriad UN Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions, the Israel Lobby’s malevolent political influence among Western-allied states continues to contribute massively to Israel’s impunity. The lack of informed reporting by the mainstream news media regarding Palestine is also of great help to Israel. Protest is essential – silence is shameful.
All praise to Golriz for speaking the truth about Israel. Of course none of this could happen without the full support of the all-powerful Israeli lobby in the USA.
Wake up you so called Christians of the West, and observe how Israel is in control of the USA.
“… the Zionist Federation of New Zealand (ZFNZ)…”
WTF?
https://www.facebook.com/ZionistFedNZ/
Who are they? Where are they? Whom do they influence/lobby here?
It would be very, very wise to keep a close eye on these fuckers.
Are they like the plague? They become infectious and spread before one can see the symptoms then take control?
“Who are they? Where are they? Whom do they influence/lobby here?” Sounds like you dont know much about them?
Strange then that you describe them as “fuckers”.
Wanman – And the Zionists make anappearance.
@ WANMAN. Missing a K?
Enlighten me then? Tell me all about the ZFNZ? Who they are? What they are? Why they are? Where they are? I’m all fucking ears mate.
Look at me, they say. See that fellow over there? Look at him? He’s nothing but ears.
Am I deviant? Manipulative? Abstract? Calculating? An eye for an opportunity?
Maybe? You tell me? Help me understand? Show me the way? Instruct me on how to murder, torture, twist and turn? Make money, take what’s others, because, poor me. Nobody understands me?
Sorry, I cant help you as I know nothing about them. I was just puzzled that you appear to contradict yourself by proclaiming no knowledge of them and then labelling them in a derogatory way.
While I was puzzled, it is actually sad that we continue to be so intolerant of those whose views differ from our own. I continue to live in hope that one day the human race may find a better way to behave.
The rose of tralee ….
How does one conflate a discussion where criticism of Zionist state iof Israel is offered with anti-semitism?
The rose of tralee …
Congratulations Golriz for your courageous outspokenness towards the Nazi Zionist Israelis and their war crimes, Genocide, assassinations, brutality towards children,invasions of other countries, theft of Palestinian land, illegal settlements, racism,cyber attacks[ like on Iran],Apartheid state, and fascist ideology. And let us not forget their main enablers who are complicit: The U.S. Empire, the U.K., and France , a Troika of hypocrisy ,double dealing, and predatory behaviour.
Proud to have Golriz as a NZ MP representing me and many other Kiwis in this respect. She speaks the truth about one of the world’s greatest horrors inflicted upon innocent people, over the past 70 years. Thank you for your courage.
Go Golriz, indeed a star, a ray of light and maybe hope in a very dark, dirty uncaring world.
This is a must watch interview by journalist Abby Martin with journalist Max Blumenthal on what is currently going in in Israel regarding the Palestinians. Incredibly informative and quite shocking. It has been banned in 28 countries by YouTube including Britain. I for one, didn’t know that Israel had pulverised one Palestinian city into the ground, just as badly as has happened in Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj1BRKHtv2U&t=61s&has_verified=1
Natalie Portman has refused to accept a $US1 million Genesis Prize aka “the Jewish Nobel” because Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was to be present and speak at the award ceremony.
She has issues with the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, up to and including the recent shootings of Gaza protesters.
Some are now calling for her to be divested of her Israeli citizenship. Some even called her an anti-semite.
We are entering the twilight home where obedience to the leader of the Zionist nation is becoming a litmus test for being a good Jew … . One leader, one nation one people … .
But then, Gaza began to resemble the Warsaw ghetto some years back.
The zionists dont realize that the more they try to crush criticism, the more fuel they throw on the bonfire.
Ms Gharaman is to be applauded for her courage. We saw what they tried to do to Lorde, so the price of dissent can be extremely high.
ZFNZ can’t hide inside its delusion forever. No matter how deceptive media is. You got no clothes! Only guns, nuclear weapons and brute force war with the Tangata Whenua of Palestine. By definition, an occupier of very recently stolen land (Nakbar.1947) All zion does is try to change the definitions-which is what ORWELL was specifically warning.
But History does not sleep and the facts do not wither. Israel stole the land from the people of Palestine post WW2 and continues to do so today. Israel committed genocide on the people of Palestine in 1947. And continues to do so, today. It calls the Palestinian people names if uttered in relation to Zion, would have the utterer in Jail for thought crime. It continues to expand its territory (YINON plan) and orchestrated the 911 event in conjunction with its US PNAC enablers to further that expansion. A HATE crime of monumental perfidy engineered to allow NATO soldiery to smash the surrounding armies that could contest it. ALL illegal and ALL now allied to alQaeda terrorist groups in Syria making mockery of the 911 narrative, international Law and idiots of us watching. The investigative/Judicial processes of any truely humane system are now suffering final meltdown in the face of it. We here are armless and turning in stupefied circles witnessing IDF behaviour that in any other instance we know intuitively as FASCIST.
Israel makes a fool of us all.
Israel made fools of themselves supporting regime change in Iraq, only to increase the relative power and reach of Iran within the wider ME.
And the now paranoid Sunni Moslem Arab reaction has dragged Russian and Iranian military presence onto their own door-step.
Hubris (extreme nationalism) is ultimately self-destructive.
Well done Golriz. Israel seems to have a well coordinated army of people around the world ready and waiting to condemn those who dare to criticise Israel. Craig Murray provides a very telling interview of an Israeli General at this link that reflects the attitude of those in power in Israel.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/condemned-by-their-own-words/
Would it not be interesting to hear the outrage if the Palestinians had the power to enforce their side of the fence with the same brutality
Zionism was quite acceptable, as long as the homeland they wanted would fit into Madagascar or Congo, as far as I recall uncles Adolf and Heinrich. So what is wrong with Zionism?
Dawla Islam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkVCZZy-MIA
I don’t understand Arabic Marc Are these soldiers members of ISIS /Al Qaeda patched up and returned to war with Syria by Israel
Nope – just an example of Hamas propaganda, showing Hamas fighters in training and so forth. Nothing to do with Isis or Nusra Front.
Rebel girl. Philistin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT_3hpjF4k8
Instead of posting obscure links Marc, how about coming out and describing in words where you are coming from !?
Just presenting diversity of dissenters, strugglers and fighters all over the planet, also Mid East, as examples. You just want to put me into a drawer, going by your own at times bizarre positioning, clinging to pro Russia, pro Syria propaganda and at times conspiracy theory stuff.
Marc .I merely enquired if you would elaborate so I would know what point you were making. Instead I get an ad hominem paranoid attack that explained very well your inability to coherently explain yourself!
Let me take you by the hand, dear Historian Pete. Sometimes pictures tell more than lengthy comments, as examples, showing how the social and cultural fabric of human societies in various countries has broken down or decayed.
In some cases, I think many, it is the unwillingness, the reluctance or inability of ruling elites and their upheld systems to engage with dissenters and with those suffering under the very system they uphold.
As they do not listen, do not constructively engage, and in many cases simply try to stigmatise, to isolate or even suppress such dissent, it does increasingly leave some dissenters in positions, where the only alternative they see is violence.
That is not constructive either, but when systems and governments become so intolerant, or arrogant, in many cases hostile and controlling, what other steps can people take to be heard and taken seriously?
This trend is happening everywhere, or in most places, except perhaps little docile Sleepy Hobbit Land. In many countries where there is no unrest or even insurgency, it is slowly simmering under the surface.
I fear we will have a future, for the coming years at least, that does not bode well for any of us, it will result in ever more tensions, more state and also business control (web surveillance, data mass gathering, spying, punitive sanctions), and less freedom, and people are increasingly losing a grip on their own lives and futures, becoming mere numbers in whatever oppressive country and system they may live in.
The times of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, of ‘black’ and ‘white’ comparisons, of taking sides between the master imperialist regimes, they are over, there is much grey area, much grey area, on a wider scale, no easy solution.
Thank you Marc, that clarifies the issues.
The only genocide in the middle east is being committed by Muslims against other Muslims
Ghahraman is strangely quiet on that matter….but then again she did defend a mass murderer in Africa. So maybe she’s just being consistent?
BS, Golriz has long ago declared her position re that case, and you are just bending the truth again, nothing new from Andrew The Truth Bender:
‘ Golriz Ghahraman says genocide-denier comments ‘absolutely offensive”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948524
I suggest this is also worth a read.
https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/26/when-israelis-murder-palestinians-its-a-tragedy-for-israelis/
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