It doesn’t get much worse than this.
The government has got itself involved in an effort to build “strategic partnerships in agriculture” with Israel, assisted by the Israeli embassy.
The Chief Science Advisor to the Ministry of Primary Industries, John Roche, is scheduled to speak at this on-line event on 15/16 February, which has been organised by Agritech New Zealand.
This is an outrage!
Israel’s agriculture sector is based on ethnic cleansing, war crimes and human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.
Our government and our farmers (Federated Farmers are part of this) should be demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their land instead of helping Israel profit from this stolen land.
Israel is a racist, apartheid state* and its agriculture sector is based on:
- Abuse of International law. (eg Illegal Jewish-only settlements built on occupied Palestinian land)
- War crimes (eg Illegal settlement building on occupied Palestinian land is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
- Violation of United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. (eg UNGA 194, UNSC 242. UNSC 2334)
- Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land and the blatant refusal to allow refugees to return to their land (UNGA 194)
- Frequent racist attacks by Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli Defence Force, on Palestinian farmers (eg here, here, here and here
- Seizure of water supplies and blatant theft of water from Palestinian farmers. (eg here and here)
- Destruction of Palestinian crops and olive groves (eg here, here, and here)
- Instances of draining sewage onto Palestinian land and crops (eg here and here)
- Indiscriminate aerial spraying of Palestinian farmland along the border with Gaza. (eg here, here, here, and here)
This Agritech seminar is a celebration of ethnic cleansing, war crimes and human rights abuses.
Withdrawal is the only moral and ethical course for the government.
*Background on Israel as a racist, apartheid state
Early in 2021, B’Tselem, Israel’s largest and most respected human rights organisation, released a report calling Israel “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”
In April 2021, the Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning US-based organisation Human Rights Watch released a 213-page report detailing how Israeli policies constitute crimes of apartheid and persecution.
The recently deceased Nobel Peace prize winner and South African Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, said international solidarity such as BDS is critical to ending injustices like apartheid.
“I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing in the Holy Land that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid,” says Tutu.
“We could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through… non-violent means, such as boycotts and disinvestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime”
Bishop Tutu says when it comes to Israel we should “Call it apartheid and boycott!”
It’s also worth recording here Tutu’s words that for anyone “to be silent in the face of oppression is to take the side of the oppressor”. Taking the side of the oppressor is precisely the position the Ministry of Primary Industries is taking with Israel through this event.
This speaks to the character of NZ government.
But this is how war works. USA threatens to got to war with Russia. USA beats Russia in the women’s world rugby sevens 36-12. Now where does N.Z. fit in the grand scheme of things again?
I think your post is in the wrong place. There is no reference whatsoever to my post at all, unless that is your point….
How to do it
The price of being a member of our Western Civilisation is to be part of having double standards over every moral issue and to also accept extreme levels of corruption and hypocrisy from our military/industrial leaders.
The Zionist regime is an apartheid one, but it is not like the old South African regime.
Zionism is settler colonialism, a much more cruel form of colonialism than the Boer regime was.
The intent has always been to rid the land of Palestinians..to steal their land, their water, and expel the people or make their lives so miserable that they go away.
As for what’s being done to the people of Gaza, that is genocidal.
And shame on our government for looking the other way..that is being complicit.
As fellow human beings we have a moral obligation to oppose the Zionist regime.
A good source of information on the situation is to look for articles, and interviews with the American-born , Israeli academic, anthropologist, activist Jeff Halper.
We should demand that our government heed the message of Dr Mazin Qumsiyuh
‘STAY HUMAN”
ps We’ve met both Jeff and Mazin. Good men!
Agreed, all Jews should not be held responsible for the actions of the Kahanists that control the Israeli administration.
Now to your second point. It is disingenuous to spray comments around without context. Please provide the relative life expectancies of Israelis and Palestinians – both are said to live in a democracy and therefore have equal access to all resources and goods and services.
Well, you might have read about Ben and Jerry’s but obviously you didn’t understand what you read. Unfortunately, The Times of Israel doesn’t support your claim. It was the parent company, Unilever, worth around 26 Billion Euros that had a drop in profit .Ben and Jerry’s is only a small subsidiary that sure as hell didn’t lose $26B, it is only worth $39.3 million.
Is this (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2021-005625_EN.html) the defunding you claim? Big deal! Only one organisation has been defunded and Oxfam has been told to stop funding until the situation has been clarified. Of course, you may have more recent information if Israel has recently provided the required evidence, in which case, you should present proof.
Instead of quoting opinion pieces it would make sense to do some homework: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/05/19/Saudi-Arabia-reaffirms-commitment-to-Palestinian-state-with-East-Jerusalem-as-capital
Of course, by now your tactics are very well understood by TDB regulars so you won’t have won any converts.
Eek! “Precision Farming” ie: taking the humanity out of farming, this is scary shit, is this what you want, farmers? A hackable farm?
In light of the relatively human concepts of re-wilding, re-generation and natural animal-husbandry this is as scary as a ute tax:
‘Precision Farming Ltd provides farmers throughout New Zealand with an advanced electronic farm management platform to improve farm productivity and profitability. Key to the benefits we deliver to farmers in their ability to aggregate, analyse, decide and delegate from their own centralised database – rather than having to work with many suppliers’ databases that deliver data relevant to each supplier. Precision Farming’s system is not like simple recording systems where farmers can merely record what they already knew or store records they already had. The Precision Farming platform is an information system that gathers real time data from sensors, GPS units & devices in tractors & trucks and spreaders and sprayers, irrigators, effluent systems, and health & safety systems. This information is presented any any smart device not only to make informed decisions, but also to implement those decisions by sending orders to contractors, instructions to staff or signals to electronic controls.
Precision Farming is an exclusive technology partner to Ballance Agri-Nutrients’ MyBallance farm management system for nutrient, compliance and sustainability across their 19,000 shareholder-customers, because we provide their farmer-shareholders with 360º information on their farm. Nutrient information is important, but not the only information that is important, so Precision contextualises Ballance data. Precision Farming processes all MyBallance outbound orders for commercial spreading throughout New Zealand.’
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