For over a year the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has been trying to get the government to speak up for Palestine but we have met a blank wall. Winston Peters as Foreign Minister has maintained a protective cone of silence around Israel and its brutal military occupation and blockade of Gaza. The Labour leadership has refused to step in where Peters has failed.
Over the past year the government has:
- Refused to speak up and pressure Israel to allow Palestinians to bring in medical supplies and equipment to deal with a coronavirus outbreak in Gaza – our 22 March letter to the Prime Minister, signed by many prominent New Zealanders, has been ignored. Within the last week Covid 19 has broken out with Community transmission within Gazafor the first time. Practising social distancing and frequent hand washing are impossible in this densely populated area where 97% of the water is unfit to drink. Gaza’s severely degraded medical facilities and lack of medical supplies caused by the Israeli blockade means GAZA is struggling.
- Refused to stop buying military equipment from Israeli companies Elbit System and Roboteam by the New Zealand Defence Force under Ron Mark as Minister of Defence. Mark is a well-known apologist for Israel and demonstrated this in January last year in this nauseating display of fawning to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu – a person who should be facing war crimes indictments. Warning: Video is vomit inducing – viewer discretion advised.
- Expressed serious concern about Israeli plans to annex further vast swathes of Palestinian land under the Trump so-called “deal of the century” but refused to announce any sanction on Israel in the event of annexation.
- Refused to speak out against the frequent outrages committed by the Israeli military against Palestinians and Palestinian communities but has been quick to condemn Palestinians for rockets fired from Gaza in response to Israeli war crimes.
It’s time parliament stood up for Palestine and broke Winston Peter’s protective cone of silence around Netanyahu’s racist apartheid regime.
2 September is the last sitting day of parliament. Come to the protest. See the poster above for details. Get your friends and family in Wellington to come. Spread the word. Be there if you can!
Speak up for Palestine!
Memo to Winston:
Do you want this to be your legacy?
Read again what is written above.
There is still time for you to change this, to turn it around and leave something truly worthwhile instead.
Anyone in our NZ Parliament who has the vestiges of a conscience must speak up now!!
They have a voice. They have influence. They need to speak out now.
Chronicle Live Blog Tweet link
Gaza’s Min of Health announced Monday that despite strict measures, four Covid-19 cases have been discovered outside of quarantine areas.
This is what it is like there right now: Gaza Tweet for Help
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) called on Tuesday for all vital goods to be granted unimpeded passage into the besieged Gaza Strip, including fuel for electricity.
UNRWA made the appeal against the background of 14 years of an illegal blockade and the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The agency in Gaza is extremely concerned about the closure of the lone power plant since last Tuesday, 18 August,” UNRWA said. “The closure of the plant has caused the power feed to decline to two or three hours per day, followed by 20 hours of interruption.”
This, explained UNRWA, will have a negative impact on the wellbeing and safety of the people of Gaza and devastating effects on the Strip’s vital services, including hospitals.
“Thus, this puts at risk the lives and health of nearly two million people, including 1.4 million registered Palestine refugees.”
The official statement from the UN agency pointed out that,
“Under international humanitarian law, the passage of all relief consignments, in this case, fuel for electricity, should not be prevented.” More at this link
Absolutely!
New Zealand’s silence..silence, not just from the political elite, but from the religious, academic and media elite, amounts to complicity, complicity with crimes against humanity on a massive scale.
New Zealand is very highly respected today. Our political elite could show international leadership by not just speaking out, but by condemning Israel as a rogue state and expelling the Israeli Ambassador .
The issue is humanity. We are all , all over the world, in this together.
Our political elite could show international leadership
Absolutely right. If ever there was a time to speak out, that time is now. Covid is now in their community, outside of quarantine. Yet they are being denied the basics for dealing with it. What is happening is a crime against humanity.
The issue is humanity.
If our politicians, ANY of them! – have a sense of humanity, an awareness of the basics of humanitarian concerns, then they need to speak out now. If they fail to do so then their words and claims are hollow, and they stand for nothing.
Follow the money trail and see where it leads. It really is not that difficult.
As Mayer Amschell Rothschild (founder of the international Rothschild financial empire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild
said: “Give me control over a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”
And thence to
‘When it is pointed out that the Jews run the world, some people will scoff, and accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist. They often resort to using the communist term of “Nazi”, proving their lower IQ and in-ability to think for themselves beyond the narrow spectrum of the Jewish owned media.
Perhaps the fact that our Zionist governments, in line with their Jewish masters have ensured that our people have been brainwashed since birth via the state education systems that is compulsory explains their narrow mindedness.’
https://europeanmediacentre.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/list-of-banks-owned-by-the-jewish-rothschild-family/
And thence to who has an enormous stake in Westpac.
By the way, until the money system is changed (or collapses) nothing in our dysfunctional economic-social-militaristic and environment-attacking arrangements will change significantly.
Indeed, as resources deplete, as pollution levels rise, as population pressure on resources increases, and as overheating of the Earth increases (causing even greater stress on ecosystems and the people living in them), we must expect increased levels of conflict over resources, i.e. land, potable water and oil.
AFKTT
The collapse is not far away as the world domination of bankers are confined to a small group of greedy selfish psychopaths. They have run the wars and created mayhem from which small exclusive groups have profited and show no regard for others.
It is obvious who they are.
They have manipulated public information to their own selfish ends and continue to do so disregarding the polluting of the planet centred around their profit taking.
The time has long passed when the public opposition to these parasites was mounted and drastic systematic changes made to the information stream the public are fed.
Right out of Der Sturmer.
Your sources from your readings?
Pre 1945 the information AFKTT is giving was not established or known by all but a few.
Mahatma Gandhi saw it coming.
Please provide a reference and link, Gaby.
“Gaza fears the worst as Israel ratchets up its siege”
Excerpts from Al Jazeera 27th August 2020
“Fears are mounting for the safety of people with health issues as already-strained hospitals are largely without power and the Palestinian territory faces a coronavirus outbreak. Two million residents are surviving on only four hours of electricity a day after Israel cut off the fuel supply, leading to the shut down of Gaza’s sole power plant last week.”
Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said the power cuts have “dangerous repercussions” for hospitals with 120 premature babies needing incubators, 100 patients in intensive care, and 950 people with kidney failure requiring haemodialysis sessions every week.
“In addition, the electricity crisis endangers the daily surgeries, caesarean deliveries, and the laboratories … as the old generators can barely cover the electricity needs during this crisis,” al-Qidra told Al Jazeera.
On Monday night, a total lockdown was imposed on the besieged Gaza Strip after authorities confirmed the first coronavirus infections.
“The announcement of COVID-19 cases within the community in Gaza puts the dilapidated health system due to the blockade at a dangerous new juncture, and it is difficult to withstand without regional and international support,” said al-Qidra.
————
On August 11, Israel halted the entry of some materials into Gaza, but days later banned all transfers through the only commercial crossing except for food and medicine. The sea was also made inaccessible to fishermen on August 16.
————
Fawzi Barhoum – a spokesman for Hamas, the rulers of Gaza – called Israel’s move “a crime against humanity”.
“If the occupation thinks that this siege will undermine the determination and persistence of our people and its resistance, and that it will achieve security for them, that is delusional,” Barhoum said in a statement.
He urged intervention by the international community. “We call on human rights and humanitarian institutions and the international community – and decision-makers in the region – to break their silence and work to curb the Zionist aggression and end the blockade of Gaza.
“The absence of deterrent decisions to the occupation, but rather ignoring its crimes and normalisation with it is the main reason for its persistence in its crimes and violations against Palestinians.”
Gaza fears the worst as Israel ratchets up its siege
Why dont we upset the Americas Cup Boat Race(s)!? Just because we can!!
An ‘understanding’ has now been reached where, ostensibly, most essential supplies and services should resume. This means that it is now more important than ever to stand for the Palestinians, to ensure that this is acted on and followed through.
From the Palestinian Chronicle Live Blog, Monday 1st September 2020:
The Palestinian Hamas movement declared on Monday that it has reached an ‘understanding’ to contain the Israeli attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip. The agreement seems to have been the outcome of intense Qatari diplomacy in recent days.
Israel has bombed besieged Gaza on a nightly basis for over two weeks, shutting down Gaza’s access to the sea and sealing off the Karem Abu Salem Crossing, which provided the 2 million population of Gaza with urgent supplies.
Israel has justified its bombardment as a response to the releasing of incendiary balloons by Gaza protesters, which, according to Israeli sources, have ignited several fires in agricultural land.
Several Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli attacks, including children.
Palestine Chronicle correspondent in Gaza Wafaa Aludaini summarized the main points of the Hamas-Israel ‘understanding’ as follow:
– The Israeli army will cease its bombardment of Gaza and Palestinian protesters will halt the launch of incendiary balloons towards Israel;
– Israel will allow the establishment of several economic projects in Gaza, which will directly contribute to the alleviation of economic hardship in the besieged Strip;
– Israel will allow fuel supplies to reach Gaza in order to operate the Strip’s only power plant;
– The fishing zone will be reopened again;
– Urgently needed medical equipment and supplies will be allowed to reach Gaza as part of its efforts to confront the spread of COVID-19 disease.
The Palestine Chronicle Live Blog
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