It’s pleasing to see New Zealand vote in favour of the United Nations General Assembly resolution reinforcing the International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s occupation in Palestine is illegal.
However, this vote will only have practical meaning if New Zealand follows through on the resolution’s requirement that we ban imports from companies operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The UN resolution calls on states to:
“take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel … where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
We also argue that the resolution also requires the government to suspend Rakon Limited export of crystal oscillators to the US because these are almost certainly contained in the US-supplied missiles being used by Israel to genocidal effect in Gaza.
We have communicated to the Prime Minister our expectations that legislation to enact this will be brough before parliament shortly.
Nothing will change its just lip service .Remember when NZ voted for indigenous rights .Hows that going right here and now .This will just be a smoke screen while we fuck Maori over daily.
Palestine situation very similar to the appropriations of Maori Land by the British.
Wrong. Maaori indisputably had sovereignty over the north island and the crown makes no discovery claim against the south. So, Maaori were sovereign.
People identifying as Palestinians were never sovereign ever.
Meanwhile Takuta Ferris is doing detention for the same call yesterday
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
must not call the CoC liars.
must not call the CoC liars.
must not call the CoC liars……
Then Winnie the Deflector and chief childish insult hurler, says the standards of the House have fallen.
Then Willis today tells a whopper to obfuscate ( I must not say lie ) that ” household pressures are easing “.
If Rakon lose ‘ exports ‘ , GDP is affected…
What to do, what to do…
must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
I must not call the CoC liars.
The New Zealand vote in favour of condemning Israel for its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories is interesting and may be significant.
In the vote New Zealand broke ranks with its four Five Eyes “partners”: the US, UK, Canada and Australia. That is noteworthy in itself. We now need to try to figure what caused New Zealand to drop out of “lockstep” with its Anglo-American overlords.
We can confidently say that it was not because the New Zealand government has suddenly converted to the idea that people have rights and that genocide and other war crimes are unacceptable. But the vote was still significant because it indicates a pragmatic response to the situation in the occupied territories and the world at large, and to domestic New Zealand politics. The New Zealand government knows that the vast majority of the world’s population is appalled by the genocide being perpetrated in the Palestinian territories by the State of Israel, the United States and their allies. It is also uncomfortably aware that the despite the best efforts of the regime’s propaganda machine, the majority of New Zealanders share the same view.
This was confirmed by the “Justice for Palestine” poll conducted by Talbot-Mills, which fits with my own impressions of views within my own community. A month or so ago I knocked on twenty doors in the village to canvas views on the issue of Palestine. I found one household of Christian Zionists with predictable opinions and one house where no one wanted to express a view. The remainder are appalled at events in Palestine and the wider middle east and support the call for an immediate ceasefire. So we are talking about a community 90% opposed to the New Zealand government’s implicit support of the US and Israel. That may be unusually high (the propaganda machine of the colonialist regime does not get much traction in our neck of the woods) but it is not inconsistent with feelings in the New Zealand population as a whole.
The current government may have to deal with a lot of popular discontent and outright anger over the next couple of years. It would be silly to add to that a fight over a foreign policy stance which is not vital to the survival of the state. That is why the New Zealand government may be willing to step back from unconditional support for the right of the State of Israel to “defend itself”. We might prefer a state which based itself on moral principles, but can deal with one that delivers rational, pragmatic responses – something that has been lacking to this point.
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