Whatever the eventual outcome of the Hamas attacks on Israel today, the New Zealand government bears heavy responsibility for the loss of life of Palestinians and Israelis.
Like other western countries New Zealand has failed to hold Israel to account for its multiple crimes, including war crimes, against the Palestinian people, day after day, year after year and decade after decade. We have ignored human rights reports of Israel’s apartheid policies. Our government has been looking the other way.
The Hamas attacks are understandable.
Over recent months western countries have turned a blind eye to the brutality of the Israeli army and settler groups engaging in repeated attacks on Palestinian towns and villages and the killing of civilians and children.
The result is now playing out in more violence initiated by Israel’s brutal occupation – the longest military occupation in modern history. The occupation includes Israel’s 17-year-old blockade of the Gaza strip – the largest open-air prison in the world.
New Zealand must reassess its policy on the Middle East and demand Israel adopt a timetable to implement international law and United Nations resolutions.
John – Not encouraging Peace Talks?? This is going to end badly…for Hamas
The right to self determination of states is a right enshrined in international law.
If the New Zealand truly believed in the application of international law New Zealand should send as much military aid to the Palestinians being illegally attacked and occupied by Israel as they did to the Ukrainians being illegally attacked and occupied by Russia.
Pat, self determination is exactly what the people of Donetsk and Crimea want and are being denied by Ukraine’s neo Nazi regime, just as Palestinians are denied by the Zionist Israeli regime. I will consistently support both against these tyrannies.
What neo-Nazi regime? Have you got evidence for this? Stop repeating Kremlin propaganda.
‘Evidence’ that is being forensically dissected right now at the World Court.
If Ukraine win their case it will set a precedent for Palestine to take its own case, asserting their right to self defence against Israel, for conducting a “Slow Motion Genocide” and other war crimes. For which there is mountains of evidence. (unlike Putin’s bullshit.)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230107922_2
Home The Plight of the Palestinians
Israel’s Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine
Steve Lendman
Abstract
Israel is a serial human rights international law abuser. The UN Human Rights Commission affirms that it violates nearly all 149 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation, and is guilty of grievous war crimes.1 Imagine life under these conditions: Living in limbo under a foreign occupier; having no self determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life; being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished; having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls; having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land; having your right to essential services denied—emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water; being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes; having no right for redress in the occupier’s courts under laws only protecting the occupier; being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air; being wilfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defence;
Give it up Pat, your looney ramblings are getting goddamn ridiculous now & really, who the fuck gives a shit what the UN Court thinks or does, Israel & the US has ignored this UN Court & been committing murderous War crimes for years in the Middle East, yet you single out only the Russians for imaginary War crimes? The US even threatened to blow up the Hague if any US citizen was ever charged with War crimes? Israel is nothing more that a US Outpost in the Middle East, used to forment endless conflict & chaos in that Region so they can never be at Peace & yet you try & stupidly link Ukraine & Israel as the victims, what a fuckwit!
7 October 2023, the sovereign nation of Israel attacked without provocation. Israel good, Palestine bad. More arms to Israel, slava Israel.
One can support the Palestinians and criticise the violence perpetrated by Palestinian terrorist.
1200 rockets fired into Israel is ‘understandable’….lol
Ahhh Minto, everything is always Israels fault eh?
Here we go again! Another anti-colonial rant. So Hamas lobs 2500 missiles at Israel and it’s somehow our fault in little old NZ!! Next, you’ll be saying it’s Israel’s fault for retaliating.
I do support a free Palestine but not Hamas because they banned alcohol in the Gaza strip.
Are you not aware that it is a Muslim thing to not use alcohol? If they had learned the love your enemies bit they would be more popular although probably not able to survive the unrelenting violence from the Jewish state.
karma and more is coming. The Israeli Major General Nimrod Aloni was literally caught with his pants down. He commanded the “Depth Corps” of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) a unit specialising in operations against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
General Aloni’s capture is significant as the senior military officer has previously served as commander of IDF’s Gaza division and led the Israeli military’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls” in 2021.
This was a very professional attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and seems to have Iranian footprint in the making. Apartheid Israel has had unwavering support for its war-crimes against the indigenous palestinians from the west for decades. Geopolitical strategic is changing and the rise of east is inevitable.
Free Palestine.
It was reported recently that Palestinians were deliberately being shot in the ankles – a war crime – because it results in amputations.
Israel’s powerholders don’t want peace, they want regional dominance. It’s a corrupt and brutal regime.
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/5/headlines/gaza_medics_see_increase_in_ankle_injuries_as_israeli_forces_shoot_at_protesters_legs
Hamas terrorists will pay a heavy price for this latest unprovoked, murderous attack as Israel sends in its ground forces. You conveniently overlook that they are an internationally proscribed terrorist group whose aims are unabashedly genocidal. You also ignore the fact that Egypt enforces an even stricter blockade against Gaza than Israel does.
Egypt will join BRICS if they haven’t already? China have welcome Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to Beijing recently remember China needs the M.E. to be in a peaceful state so it can complete it BRI thru the region towards Africa and its main obstacle is a militarized warmongering state Israel that lives off the proceeds of war. There’s more than just Hamas and co persecuting this fight.
What a disgusting state of affairs that these two large economies are allowed to get away with.
It seems that nothing will ever change for the Palestinian people and it is them that get all the blame when they fight back.
Western Politicians are Gutless
Cancelling out freedom of speech seem to be a right wing phenomena when it suits
Phenomenon, please Stephen.
Phenomena is the plural.
One phenomenon, two phenomena.
Who’s fault it is, is purely academic at this stage.
Like a truck v bicycle Israel are about to smash Hamas for good this time.
“Israel are about to smash Hamas for good this time.”
Perhaps, but only in name. If so another group, under perhaps another name, will assume its role.
The nathans of this world, salivating at Hamas’s possible demise, have no clue.
Hamas and the Al Quds brigade & Hezbollah etc.. have suicide soldiers they don’t care about dying they’re fighting for their lands and will prevail soon.
Free palestine
This is a surprise given that Israel has been wreaking havoc on Palestine, even more heavily than usual, this past year. Dunno why they have chosen now to finally retaliate (in kind).
As for our government and the West. We all kow tow to the US Govt who in turn kow tows to the big money interests that fuels their government. Thus, we are the bad guys in the world but that doesn’t matter because most of us believe otherwise – that we are the good guys. This is a testament to the influence that big money media has on our world.
Governments are beholding to big money while big money runs the media that primarily shapes our views…..this is why tragic situations like Palestine and the political inaction that typically results from it exist!
Biden is sweet talking deals with the Saudis at the moment, so Israel may not have as much support as usual from the US.
Palestine is an Occupied territory and has the right to defend itself right? Like Ukraine.
Can the US finance and supply weapons to the Middle East, another war and frontline? Just in time for the US 2024/2025 election.
Will the Russians step it up in the summer of 2024 too?
China too.
Exactly what I was thinking T – follow the money, I reckon it’ll go back to Russia.
Just how is Russia going to step up fuck all, what with?
Maybe they found a warehouse of Mosin Nagants
In the Ukraine Dobass front. In summer next year. They’re producing more ammunition per month that the US, EU combined. 170,000 shells v 25,000 shells per month.
They’ve just introduced ICBMs into their arsenal that have conventional weapons that once launched NATO , US won’t be able to track or intercept. They can also be in Berlin in less than 4 minutes , UK in 7 and the US in 15 minutes. They’ve also got more better trained soldiers and have no need for more to be called up.
So, if that isn’t leverage enough for the US, Biden in his election year and NATO to chicken out and give up and cough up Zelensky to sign off the agreement again that was in play in March 2022 until the US sent bozo Boris in to fuck it all up.
The NeoCons need to be removed from the game and sensible heads need to take control. Putin’s speech yesterday is worth a listen because he was talking up a response from Russia in the new year and has captured the people’s consensus to ‘end this’.
Thanks Tane. Few will want to believe you, but it actually makes sense to me.
They dont have enough tubes to fire that many which are figures you pulled out your arse.
Well I wonder where oh where the Freedom Fighters got their thousands of rockets from then TH? The US via Ukraine? I guess the Russians had sanctions and embargoes on them so it wasn’t them ay.
The Genocide of the Palestinian people continues.
Even if your civilians have been killed by the Israelis I don’t think it helps your cause to respond in kind and then gleefully broadcast the video and pictures of you doing it.
199%
Theasus, that your opinion which means fuck all in the scheme of things
It becomes difficult to decide which is the dog and which the tail, Jerusalem or Washington? If you are Palestinian nothing good will come from either, you have nothing to lose attacking them. Without negotiation the only long term result will be the dismantling of the state of Israel with all the attendant tragedy. Isreal must negotiate now.
Over 200 hundred Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis have been killed in 2023 before this latest outbreak of full scale violence.
Who will Israel or Ukraine negotiate with…..
Out of idle curiosity, did Hamas build or buy the “thousands of rockets”?
Silly question everyone knows Palestine have the most advanced rocket technology in the world, after their throwing stones technology. I think they have had enough of the Israeli’s pinching their land and intimidating them, might be their last throw of the dice before the Israeli’s and the USA exterminate them.
I don’t condone what has happened by any means but i do agree John, it’s understandable and at this stage, almost inevitable.
When your back finally hits the wall and they keep coming, there is only one way out.
After the colonial genocide of Palestine the final descent into madness for Israel would be to flatten Gaza without the slightest regard for life, including those Jewish hostages.
After years of terrorist attacks on Israel the final descent into madness for Palestine would be for Hamas to launch an all-out attack on innocent civilians and invite Israeli retribution that will flatten Gaza.
I’m wondering why Germany wasn’t given to the Jewish people after the holocaust instead of stealing Palestine. They must have wanted a warmer climate (like those nazis who fled to South America after WW2), a place where they could build their own ghetto for the original inhabitants, where they could subjugate a people as viciously as they were subjugated.
There were more Germans than Palestinians is one obvious reason along with the deluded Zionist view that Israel was still their land based on their failure to understand conditional prophecy.
I’ve heard the spiritual homeland argument but there were millions of Jews settled comfortably in Europe in the 1930s. Palestine seemingly wasn’t the promised land for them at the time?
That’s where my first comment about the number of Germans applies, there were not enough Jews to justify upsetting the German people by having their land given away.
Both sides are as intransigent as the Irish (one side of my ancestry so I can definitely say that). Probably something to do with everyone thinking they have God on their sides, like all major conflicts
To quote Hitchens….there will never ever be peace. Both sides have God on their side, one side has a def crazier God. “There will never be peace when people are prepared to kill their neighbors and their neighbors children over a cave, a rock, a scroll”. I lived there, it’s crazy AF.
Coming out full noise as a supporter of Zionist oppression and occupation and genocide, by denying Palestinians right to resist, Chris Hipkins exposes himself as a hypocrite on the international stage.
Denying Palestinians right to resist, while at the same time in another theatre of war asserting Ukraine’s right to resist is the height of hypocrisy.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/statement-escalation-violence-israel-and-gaza?fbclid=IwAR0AdeT4Wes9D-TaCjKRrjQf9wIkB2OFCZLt-zKd5yXNFZoVDAZT-OpnhjI
“New Zealand condemns unequivocally the terror attacks led by Hamas on Israel. We are appalled by the targeting of civilians, and the taking of hostages which violate fundamental international humanitarian law principles,” Chris Hipkins said
“New Zealand has designated the military wing of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, and we recognise Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Notably, Chris Hipkins has not condemned the relentless terror attacks on Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers and Settlers in the West Bank that has led to Hamas retaliation.
Both the Israeli embassy and the Russian Federation embassy remain in New Zealand to spread their war propaganda. Showing Chris Hipkins true motives in international relations; trade deals and money, no matter how terroristic the country whose embassy we host.
Hipkins does what he thinks will win most votes.
Judged by the amount of votes the polls say he’s getting, Chris Hipocritkins can’t be thinking very much.
History tells us that when an invading colonising power cannot defeat an insurgent population.
That colonising power only has two choices.
1/ They can de-escalate, withdraw and sue for peace
Or
2/ They can turn to genocide to exterminate that population.
It looks like Israel has chosen extermination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MboCeXPTEO0
The Israeli ambassador should be asked to leave New Zealand until his country turns away from their policy of extermination.