Call for New Zealand government to speak up and
- Condemn Israeli bombing of Gaza and
- Call for lifting of the Israeli blockade on the besieged Palestinian enclave
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs calling on the government to speak up on behalf of the besieged people of Gaza who are once more under bombardment by Israeli bombs during the global Covid 19 pandemic.
Israel claims its attacks are in retaliation for incendiary balloons sent from Gaza which have caused fires in Israel. However this is the micro issue. It is subterfuge. The cause of the conflict is the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
We have previously requested the government speak out calling for the end of the Gaza blockade because of the global pandemic but the Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister have been silent.
Previously this government has condemned Palestinian resistance but has simply called for “restraint” on the part of Israel. It’s a racist, one-sided policy of support for the aggressors and a kick in the teeth for the Palestinian victims.
This must change.
Gaza schools opened last Sunday after five months of suspension due to Covid-19 only to be hit the same night by an Israeli missile. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency tweeted that Beach Co-Educational School ‘D’ “was affected” by an Israeli air strike which has been found to be an unexploded Israeli bomb which targeted the school.
Israeli brutality knows no bounds when it comes to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
They are relying on complicity by silence from countries such as New Zealand to continue their abuses of Palestinian human rights.
It’s time for change. The New Zealand government must act immediately to uphold both international law and minimum human rights standards and demand:
NZ must demand:
- An immediate end to Israeli military attacks on Gaza, and
- The immediate and total lifting of the illegal siege of Gaza
NZ must then follow these up with concrete action which suspends all bilateral agreements between Israeli entities and New Zealand until Israel complies with international law and all United Nations resolutions.
NZ is a small player in the British-controlled financial-political empire. And since Israel was established by the Jew-influenced British government, the chances of NZ standing up for moral principles is close to zero: hence
‘Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister have been silent’.
They know which side their bread is buttered, and even if there were more blatant genocide than is already being they will remain silent.
In a world of justice there would be no Palestine concentration camp. But that’s not the world we live in. And with our own circumstances becoming increasingly dire, there will be more looking inward and less concern for those overseas who are in a worse state than us.
When the largest Christian Palestinians city in the world is Sydney, and the second largest is Perth. Do you think many in this part of the world is going to care about any other palestinians, no matter their faith?
Even Jewish Palestinians are treated like crap by the Israeli state. Israeli is become the post boy for anarchists the world over, just one more reason why you can’t trust a state – it just lets the beastly nature which bubbles under the surface come out with righteous indignation and self belief that it’s killing is justified.
John;
Truly we have so many issues to deal with even in NZ now with melting ice caps and now so much shit is coming in November as we have the worst depression and bank failures in global history to try and survive so far away in middle east we cannot really get involved now.
If not now, cleangreen, when? It didn’t take long for Winston Peters as Minister of Foreign Affairs to raise a voice when China changed its relationship with Hong Kong. Obviously, NZ has pretty much sat on the sidelines since Murray McCully put the fox in the UN hen house, something that Gerry Brownlee backtracked on within 48 hours of replacing as Minister. Do Israel and the US still control our independence, morals, sense of fairness, respect for human rights and kindness? Sure looks like it.
aom, All we should do is follow the UN role.
We just have to many thing to deal with here now as our future generations need us to make their futures secure and now we have so much work to do there.
Agreed about the work and education needed her but humanity cannot be ignored. The deathwish Israel is a road block to rational human cooperation along with the USA.
John, what is needed , desperately needed, is for mainstream media to be pressured to challenge competing parties to debate NZ’s relationships with the American and Israeli ..(and for that matter, Saudi Arabian ) regimes. All 3 are militarily powerful, arrogant and lack a sense of humanity. These are dangerous times.
I agree with what you’ve said . Also, I want to add that New Zealand should demand that Palestinian child detainees be released immediately. One child in detention has already contracted COVID-19. Defence of Children International-Palestine has confirmed this. The Israeli regime is very cruel to treat CHILDREN this way.
New Zealand leadership is, I fear, not going to come from the political elite, especially not with an election on the way, especially if mainstream media refuse to ask sorely needed questions.
Leadership must come from grass-roots, flax-roots Kiwis.
It might be more effective John to put pressure on Egypt to open the Rafah border crossing which they rarely do. I would have thought you would have better luck there. It’s interesting Egypt is so unaccommodating to their Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza. I wonder why. Do you think they might have a problem with Hamas?
When you think about it the Israelis are probably pretty annoyed at having their forests and farmland torched regularly by the incendiary balloons sent over the border by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Maybe if Hamas and IJ stopped doing stupid shit like that the Israelis might be a bit more friendly. I dunno -just a thought.
What borders John. The 1948 faux borders set up without Palestinian or Arab consultation or the fences put up by Israel as a part of their land theft.
“Egypt is so unaccommodating to their Muslim brothers and sisters in Gaza”, Crawford says.
Egypt is ruled by a vicious thug, Sisi, the darling of Israel and the US. There was hope for the Egyptian people when they elected Morsi ..but no no no . He had to be removed. As Chomsky has said in a Democracy Now interview and probably on other occasions “The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.”… . “Well, plainly, the U.S. and its allies are not going to want governments which are responsive to the will of the people.”
Perhaps the people of Gaza are “pretty annoyed” at being periodically bombed so the Israelis can test new weapons to sell to their thug friends around the world, annoyed at being held captive in a medieval siege..an unlivable siege.. a death camp really.. the situation is so disturbing to anyone with a sense of humanity.
Israel is allowed by the West to get away with anything..including cruel treatment..dispossession.. of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Zionist agenda has always been to possess the land and its resources without the native people.
oh, and ps..some Palestinians including some Gazan Palestinians are Christians..the Palestinian Christian leaders plead with the outside word for help on behalf of all the people, including their Muslim brothers and sisters.
Anther ps Many Gazans are refugees. According to UN Resolution 194, they should have been allowed to return decades ago.
As Chomsky has said in a Democracy Now interview and probably on other occasions “The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.”… . “Well, plainly, the U.S. and its allies are not going to want governments which are responsive to the will of the people.”
Lois do you think the sainted Chomsky was thinking of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority when he had this interview? I’m struggling to find sources which suggest the US and Western governments are encouraging these rulers to not hold elections. Unless I’m mistaken, Hamas has forbidden elections in Gaza since they came to power in 2007 and the last elections for the PA in the West Bank were 2006. Israel has had seven parliamentary elections since 2006.
Who is killing Palestineans Israel or lack of elections. Lets not get distracted with Propaganda from Israeli trolls.
Reading through the comments it seems like there are 2 sides who each believe they have the only truth and the other side is completely wrong. That the group they support is totally blameless and the other lot is totally at fault. Maybe that is the root of the problem. Most conflicts arise when you have 2 equally entrenched and totally blinkered ‘sides’ that ultimately want the eradication of the other. Just an observation that I’m sure will go down like a lead balloon.
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