PSNA says an end to government silence on Israeli genocide in Gaza is overdue, but says New Zealand’s signature on an international declaration is wholly inadequate and too little too late.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa Co-Chair John Minto says a just released joint statement by 22 foreign ministers, including New Zealand’s, breaks New Zealand’s month’s long silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but falls well short of any means of making Israel comply with international law.
“We don’t need to be told all over again that the resumption of full-scale aid deliveries is vital to avoid widescale starvation, or that the UN must drive the aid distribution and there is a vital need for a ceasefire.”
“This is just New Zealand dusting off the rhetoric which it issued a year ago – which was completely ignored by Israel.”
Minto says the only promising moves with potential teeth are in a joint statement just issued by the UK, France and Canada.
“At last, some major countries are talking about sanctions,” Minto says.
The triparted statement threatens sanctions against Israel.
“If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.”
They (the three countries) also warned they would be prepared to impose targeted sanctions over attempts to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Minto says over the past few days Israel has been ramping up its assault on Gaza to even higher levels of ferocity.
“It’s time for governments’ words to end, and sanctions to be implemented. A year ago, Canada and New Zealand were issuing joint statements on Gaza, along with Australia.”
“Canada has raised the stakes. New Zealand should move past Canada and implement sanctions immediately.”
UK, France and Canada condemn ‘egregious actions’ by Netanyahu’s Israel
John Minto
Co-Chair
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa
Don’t worry, according to that piece of shit lawyer in the UK starving the Palestinians is good for obesity rates. In fact all those concentration camps in Europe in WWII were retreats for the obese so we have actually done the Germans of that era a huge disservice. They were only thinking of waistlines after all.
This government stands convicted of silence and complicity in genocide.
“PSNA says an end to government silence on Israeli genocide in Gaza is overdue…..” John Minto
Silence is Compliance
One day everyone will claim that they were always against this.
And that day is coming soon.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/14/one-day-everyone-will-have-always-been-against-this-by-omar-el-akkad-review-a-cathartic-savaging-of-western-hypocrisy-over-gaza
John Minto is right, the government’s signature on a belated joint declaration is wholly inadequate and too little too late. Afther 18 months of genocide, the government’s signature alongside others, doesn’t absolve them of their silence and complicity up till now.
The government’s belated signature on a joint declaration does not absolve their sending the NZDF to train alongside the IDF,
The government’s hypocrisy is revealed by their rushing to send a high level team of NZ lawyers to the Hague at a cost of $2million nz, to support the US and Ukraine’s much weaker case at the ICJ against Russia’s alleged breach of the genocide convention. (which was lost).
The government’s complicity in genocide is revealed in refusing to support South Africa’s strong evidential case against Israel at the ICJ for Israel’s alleged breach of the genocide convention. Our support for South Africa’s case could have strengthened South Africa’s appeal for an interim ruling for a ceasefire, and potentially saved tens of thousands of innocent lives.
One day those who deny and ignore genocide in Gaza will be as loathed and despised as Holocaust deniers are today.
One day the ministers in this government will try and distance themselves from their support for this genocide, as Jim Bolger once tried to distance himself over his government’s support for apartheid rugby. Falsly claiming tha he had always been against it.
One day ministers in this government will reference this joint declaration with their signature on it, as proof that they were always against this genocide.
The record will show otherwise.
One day New Zealand, alongside other western nations, will appear in the dock at the ICJ to face an order to pay reparations to the people of Gaza as our share of complicity in this genocide.
What will be our defence?
We once signed a joint declaration?
Israel doesn’t give a toss what those grandstanding, pontificating hypocrites say. They are all massively dependent on Israeli intelligence and tech savvy, and they know it. The war ends tomorrow if the hostages are returned and Hamas surrender unconditionally.
The war ends tomorrow if Israel finally accepts the numerous Hamas proposals to release the prisoners in exchange for a full ceasefire. There fixed it for you gaby. Again.
@ Gasbaggy. You’re like every other career liar. They lie, then when they know others know they’re lying, they keep lying anyway.
Oh, and I think israel is constantly tossing. That’s what Tossers do. They toss. Hence the word ‘Tossers’.
” In British slang, “tosser” is a derogatory term for someone considered stupid, foolish, or unpleasant. It’s a common insult, often used in informal conversations. Dictionaries like Collins Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary define it as a “foolish or despicable person” and an “offensive word for a stupid or unpleasant person,” respectively. ”
Good work @ J.M.
Country Boy you are doing yourself a great disservice with you bitter tirades against those with a differing view to you. Stick to wool prices and the sale of carpets. Maybe develop some wool prayer mats so that Muslims will be able to pray in our Parliament and you will be thanked far into the future.
Ahhhh Gaby, telling the facts in such a way upsets the left.
I believe ‘Trans and gays for Palestine’ should all be flown over and let them march and protest in solidarity with Palestine, I would happily donate to any go fund me page! (It would of course be one way tickets, they would not survive for any return flights)
“I believe ‘Trans and gays for Palestine’ should all be flown over and let them march and protest in solidarity with Palestine” Im right
thanks for the offer, Im right, but we are quite capable of making our own way there.
From Kia Ora Gaza:
https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2025/05/24/global-march-to-gaza-activists-from-31-countries-plan-march-to-rafah-border/
‘Global March to Gaza’: Activists from 31 countries plan march to Rafah border
Thousands expected to join Rafah protest from June 12–20 as organizers say blockade caused severe famine, health collapse in Palestinian enclave….
…..the campaign will begin in Egypt on June 12, when participants arrive in Cairo and travel to the city of al-Arish. They plan to begin the march toward the Rafah crossing on June 13, hold rallies on June 14, and stage a large protest on June 15…..
,,,,,The organizers expect between 2,500 and 3,000 people to join the campaign. There is no official cap on participation….
No Trans/Gays for Palestine Pat….activists I see, no openly gay/trans groups…with rainbow flags and t-shirts proclaiming they are proud to be gay/trans….if not why not?
They happily wear them here, rather aggressively too, other western countries also.
Go on Pat, tell us all they have been told their rainbow flags/outwardly gay/trans t-shirts are banned, no surely not… they can wear them with pride in Rafah eh?
” The war ends tomorrow if the hostages are returned and Hamas surrender unconditionally.” gaby
That is a flat out lie, Gaby and you know it.
To achieve Israrl’s stated war aim, the expulsion and or murder of 2 million people in Gaza, will take Israel at least another year, if not longer.
Even if Hamas surrendered and all the hostages were returned Israel will not stop this war, you know it, everyone knows it..
Israeli leaders have made it very clear that the war will not stop until Gaza has been completely flattened, and its inhabitants have been either killed or expelled.
The Israeli forces have also shown through their actions, of shooting and bombing their own hostages, that they don’t want the hostages home tomorrow, or ever, if it gets in the way of flattening Gaza and slaughtering or expelling the population.
Making Gaza Unlivable: Israel Intensifies Attacks as Netanyahu Vows to Seize All of Gaza
26,087 views May 20, 2025
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/5/20/gaza_destruction_972_mag
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to a new report that reveals how Israel is trying to make Gaza unlivable. It’s been well documented that Israeli airstrikes account for mass casualties. Now the independent news outlet +972 Magazine has spoken to Israeli soldiers who reveal new details about how they’ve been systematically using bulldozers and explosives to flatten Gaza from the ground…..
…..In Rafah, we are telling that 4% of the buildings in Rafah are unhurt, undamaged. Only 4%, a city of 210,000, 200,000 people before the war. So, it is a systematic thing. It is not done by — it’s not during battle. It’s not even a result of airstrikes, although, of course, airstrikes are responsible for some of the damage. It is a planned thing. And in this, I think it is unprecedented……..
If only there was time to reply to all your drivel Pat but just two things. Israel have mounted a couple of daring commando rescues of hostages, one of which resulted in the death of its commander. They obviously place a premium on conducting rescues of their people when they have concrete and accurate intelligence. I doubt this is something you would ever be involved in. And Rafah – the epicentre of Hamas terror, the home of Sinwar and the area with the greatest concentration of tunnels, and the last bastion of Hamas fighters driven south by the inexorable forward movement of a powerful fighting machine with expert planning and execution. Hamas had their own plans but as we have seen they have been gradually destroyed and near completion with the destruction of all of the upper echelon of their leadership. They dreamed of making a grand show of power by hoping to destroy the Abraham Accords but even if most of the remaining hostages perish, Hamas has achieved absolutely nothing.
“And Rafah – the epicentre of Hamas terror, the home of Sinwar and the area with the greatest concentration of tunnels, and the last bastion of Hamas fighters driven south by the inexorable forward movement of a powerful fighting machine with expert planning and execution……” The Salesman
That’s some Hasbara Hubris
About that “expert planning and execution”
Watch Israeli propagandist lose his shit, live on camera, after top IDF commander Major General (res.) Yair Golan said, we shouldn’t be killing babies as a hobby.
How dare he!
In the dying days of the Vietnam war as their orders became more repellant, US service men turned to what came to be called ‘fragging’
Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the United States Air Force disgusted at the US army’s complicity in this genocide.
Yair Golan’s so called. “suicide bombing”, and Aaron Bushnell’s suicide, the frightening actual fragging suicide described at the front of this following transcript wouldn’t surprise me.
YouTube
Show chat replay
HEAR IT to believe it: IDF Major General throws Israel’s soldiers under bus | Straight Up
25,353 views Premiered May 21, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-vsujiMFdE
@0:00 minutes:
A commander walks in among his troops, looks at them, and then detonates a bomb on him, killing all of his soldiers.
Sounds insane?
Sounds impossible?
Sounds unrealistic?
Yes, of course, if you’re looking at the physical realm.
But if you’re looking at the eighth front in which Israel is engaged in, this is exactly what Yair Gulan, The former Deputy Chief of Staff of the State of Israel did in an interview to Israeli media this week….
@0:38 minutes
…..He committed a suicide bombing.
Why do I call it a suicide bombing?
Because he literally ended his career……
@1:05 minutes
…..to go and say and make the accusations that he made, you don’t need Arab propaganda anymore. You don’t need Hamas propaganda. He’s done all the work for them.
@1:32 minutes
He committed a suicide bombing against our soldiers.
He created this outrageous accusation that every anti -Israeli, anti -Semitic piece of crap around the world will be quoting now. They don’t have to say anything anymore. He did the work for them…..
Meanwhile, any Gazan dissenter does not live to raise their concern about the ongoing jihad against Jews. Why is that do you think Pat? Are you going to start a campaign for free speech as you “free Palestine”?
I got a question for you Ann. It’s a simple one.
Are you a Zionist?
You do simple well Pat.
How come no one, these days, will admit to being a Zionist?
Not even anonymoursly.
What’s with that?
All human beings oppose you babyraping scum. Anti-humans will get their just desserts.
All foreign occupations will one day be ended No matter how many lies they tell, No matter how many fools they dupe, no matter how many people they kill. The US and their colonial puppets in Israel the Kremlin imperialists who murdered the Syrian people.
They will all fail
“The arc of history may be long, but it bends towards justice”. Martin Luther King.
Turkey… Cyprus?
TLDR – try editing your huffing and puffing.
Gaby – no morality no empathy just kill more people!
The Hanibal Directive and indiscriminate bombing Israel has killed more Israeli hostages than Hamas
Israel is now killing the hostages with starvation.
When you starve Hamas you starve the hostages.
From the Times Of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liri-albag-recalls-gaza-hell-pain-of-knowing-those-against-hostage-deal-would-sacrifice-her/
“When humanitarian aid wasn’t let in, it was felt. It was really felt because you suddenly go down to days of a single pita, there were days of a quarter [pita]… There were days we would talk about food to overcome the hunger… There were days… that we would drink salt water because there was no water. I lost 10 kilograms there.” Former hostage Liri Albag is interviewed on Channel 12 on March 5, 2025.
I am afraid that John gives too much credit to the western powers. They, including the Realm of New Zealand, are still supplying material support to the genocide even while they begin to hypocritically deplore its horrific effects.
Let’s face it, Winston Peters has taken the side of absolute evil and shows no sign of remorse. The ungodly colonialist regime must be destroyed for the sake of our own people and all humanity. There is no other option.
Even more hypocritically Geoff, our government, along with every other western country except the US, utters not one word about the Islamist slaughter of Christians in Africa and the Middle East.
Ann have you organised a protest yet, come on don’t sit around complaining about others organise you know you can do it.
It is even worse than that Ann. The New Zealand government is materially complicit in the slaughter of Christians in Palestine, and the destruction of their homes and churches by Zionist fanatics.
Of course that’s the Palestinians fault along with the holocaust. Just sod off with irrelevant bullshit
Why is Gaza more important than Sudan?
Gaby hostages have been returned but the slaughter continues – the starvation, lack of medicines and hospitals, food sitting in trucks on the other side of the fence denied to the oppressed people of Palestine.
Shame on you.
Ken Young – SOME hostages…
” The war ends tomorrow if the hostages are returned and Hamas surrender unconditionally ”
NO !
Thats nowhere near enough.
Israel withdraws from all the land they have stolen and stop immediately the attack against Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli thugs and killers taking their homes and land driving them out and assaulting Palestinian women who definantly stand up to them.
Israel releases all the Palestinians detained illegally for before and after October 7th.
Israel provides compensation for war crimes and those who sanctioned it face justice.
That is a small start.
But the Hamas Genocidal Charter would still remain and its associated incitement would still be thundered from pulpits around the world.
Get with the times Anne E you’re about 10 years too late. Hamas changed their charter years ago reconisizing the state of Israel within the 1967 borders and made it abundantly clear the fight was with the Zionists not the average Jew.
Better read that new, beaut charter again fingrinn. Or this from your chief Hamas-supporting, propaganda unit is a little simpler. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/2/hamas-accepts-palestinian-state-with-1967-borders
“…. without recognising the state of Israel”? One of you is telling porkies.
So how exactly did Hamas recognise the Zionists that needed killing on Oct 7th? I thought that many of them were Indonesian seasonal workers. Surely you’re not suggesting that they were Zionists by association?
When eventually Israel and the Americans face the international criminal court alongside them should be the current government who are complicit by their deafening silence. And any other support unofficially directed Israels way including intelligence.
John – It is a start…however, Hamas must get out of Gaza and all hostages a returned – alive…otherwise, the war will continue.
Read the great Jewish critics of Israel.
sumsuch – I have…interesting stuff, but my point remains.
When the Labour opposition should be taking the government to task over this country’s obligations to the genocide convention. The Labour Party’s stated position is that there is no genocide.
What’s with that?
Labour’s Damien O’Connor goes against party policy in calling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘genocide’
RNZ 5:33 am on 8 December 2023
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/504190/labour-s-damien-o-connor-goes-against-party-policy-in-calling-israel-s-actions-in-gaza-genocide
It is hard to say which is worse, ignoring a genocide or denying a genocide, I guess on balance, Labour’s genocide denial is at least more honest.
If only there was time to reply to all your drivel Pat but just two things. Israel have mounted a couple of daring commando rescues of hostages, one of which resulted in the death of its commander. They obviously place a premium on conducting rescues of their people when they have concrete and accurate intelligence. I doubt this is something you would ever be involved in. And Rafah – the epicentre of Hamas terror, the home of Sinwar and the area with the greatest concentration of tunnels, and the last bastion of Hamas fighters driven south by the inexorable forward movement of a powerful fighting machine with expert planning and execution. Hamas had their own plans but as we have seen they have been gradually destroyed and near completion with the destruction of all of the upper echelon of their leadership. They dreamed of making a grand show of power by hoping to destroy the Abraham Accords but even if most of the remaining hostages perish, Hamas has achieved absolutely nothing.
Regurgitating Hasbara triumphalist propaganda doesn’t cut it as reasoned argument.
“If only there was time to reply to all your drivel Pat” Salesman
As a Salesman, I don’t think you are doing a very good job. You say you don’t have time to reply to “All” of my points. You didn’t reply to any.
.
Labour’s genocide denial is at least more honest.
To which I would add more indictable. (The Nacts have enough cunning to know not to incriminate themselves.)
Israel’s Allies PANIC As 14,000 Babies Face DEATH – They Know A RECKONING Is Coming
Owen Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ZxAFrhsoo
96,564 views May 21, 2025
Transcript
@0:00 minutes:
Panic is beginning to break out in Western capitals, as governments realise the scale of the crime they helped facilitate from day one, is impossible to deny, to cover up, to deflect from. And that a reckoning is coming for them…..
@0:40 minutes:
….. a crime is being committed by Israel, a Western ally. in essence a western state which is armed and backed by Western states, like the United States, and Britain… [and New Zealand]
And as Israel’s leaders issue their most genocidal statements yet…
…..Panic is breaking out in the corridors of power in countries like Britain. Because they know, they know a reckoning is coming. And everyone complicit in this crime will be made to account for their words and for their deeds. That’s why the embarrassingly weak latest action by the British government….. [and our government]
@2:39 minutes:
….This government, this Labour government, led by Starmer, they are complicit in genocide, they have helped facilitate genocide every step of the way……
….They can’t claim ignorance, they can’t claim they didn’t know this was going to happen…..
Chris Hipkins is New Zealand’s Keir Starmer!
Does anyone reading these words or watching this video, think that Chris Hipkins would have done any different than Keir Starmer, if he had been in office in this country?
Just as no one should ever vote for a Holcaust denying party, no one should ever vote for a genocide denying party, either!
Nobodies panicking except you and your keyboard figures.
The Salesman – Correct…Hamas has been shown up as a bunch of human- sacrificing nut jobs.
Boers yesterday. Jews tomorrow.
First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Palestinians, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Palestinian
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
[Updated]
And now nobody is speaking for the Boers as they are destroyed, so the Jews of Israel are not going to listen to you.
When the oppressors play the victim
Everyone else should worry
Yeah, but that’s the lesson the ANC and Hamas have learned from the Left. It works.
Before you read this – it is not an excuse or attempt to minimize the Israeli governments actions and the extreme harm being done to civilians. It is intended to go into a space of counter-intuitive compassion to look for answers and solutions that bring actual change.
All religions have at their core compassion, humility and love and the reason is profoundly needed for Israel to heal. This may seem a strange thing to say given the situation but look into what is happening to the young Israeli’s who serve in Gaza. Look at the mental health and suicide statistics. They are internally destroying their own moral center and their will be pushback at some point.
Watch the haunting video of a young female FDI veteran saying – “I got home after a deployment in Gaza where I’d killed a young boy and I could never seem wash the blood off my hands after that”.
It is heartbreaking to watch and you realize the profound damage that is done to most people when they kill – especially in cold blood. Right now – the indiscriminate killing of civilians is a deep and painful self-inflicted wound that Israel will suffer extra ordinary pain from.
This call from an Israeli with James O’Brien explains the why and how Israeli’s are in the state of mind that they are. It is not an excuse but it is something I think we collectively as Europeans – share responsibility for. The multi-generational trauma of the Jewish diaspora for centuries and especially in Eastern and Western Europe. It is an existential and lived fear of extermination.
What does Israel need – “love” is the answer, to know that they will be safe and accepted if they let go of their fear. Very interesting perspective if you can get to that level of empathy given what is going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG_VSi99Zmg
That is not correct. Certainly we should love our enemies, and we can love those who do evil. But let us not deceive ourselves that our love will be sufficient to turn evil doers away from the path of wickedness. In the absence of justice, love has no power against evil. We must work to God’s impose justice upon those who are slaughtering his children, whether in the State of Israel or the Realm of New Zealand.
Or Washington DC.
Absolutely agree. But justice does not heal all wounds – Israelis themselves will need to change how they view the world and Palestinians. The level of de-humanization is Feudal it’s not something we expect to see in a modern democracy.
They are a broken society and a broken people – how do they come back from what they have done and continue to do?
Microsoft admits … https://www.timesofisrael.com/microsoft-denies-claim-its-ai-tech-was-used-by-idf-during-war-to-target-gazans/
I have seen enough video footage of IDF soldiers wearing VR headsets.
They do atrocious, but more importantly in this argument, inhuman attacks on children.
This is the reality which Wikileaks exposed.
AI’s are only as good as the information they are fed.
If our rich-rule hadn’t stomped out all democracy and humanity, my request here might make some way. Yep, the neoliberals have disproved themselves by the Gaza Genocide. Our whole modern secular morality is built around the Holocaust!
I just asked the Scottish Parliament to declare war on Israel. No right, but it would mean something. And we Scots, unlike our brothers, the Irish, have a lot to make up for. My request here would be for NZ to declare war on Israel. No military side to it. And all the wrong people would crunch down on us. So, like the Apartheid protests. We would suffer for the right.
If our rich-rule hadn’t stomped out all democracy and humanity, my request here might make some way. Yep, the neoliberals have disproved themselves by the Gaza Genocide. Our whole modern secular morality is built around the Holocaust!
I just asked the Scottish Parliament to declare war on Israel. No right, but it would mean something. And we Scots, unlike our brothers, the Irish, have a lot to make up for. My request here would be for NZ to declare war on Israel. No military side to it. And all the wrong people would crunch down on us. So, like the Apartheid protests. We would suffer for the right.
You’d be better off with actions and people like Elias Rodriguez.
Israel prepares to go full fascist with the mass execution of prisoners.
Yesterday, May 25, the Israeli parliament, Knesset, proposed a law change to execute all the Palestinian captives being held by Israel if if it can be proved they took part in the October 7 attack.
The law calls for the setting up of a special tribunal that will suspend all the usual rights of prisoners charged with serious crimes to a fair trial. Instead Israel intends to charge them all as a group, on one charge of taking part in an act of genocide, for which the penalty under Israeli law is the death sentence..
From the Timies Of Israel 25 May 2025:
Government backs bill to form special tribunal to prosecute Oct. 7 terrorists
AG’s office said to oppose legislation on the grounds it could harm the international legitimacy of Israeli prosecutors’ legal action against perpetrators
By Jeremy Sharon
The government on Sunday gave its backing to a bill that would establish a special tribunal to try and charge terrorists who took part in the October 7 atrocities with acts of genocide against the Jewish people…..
……Crucially, the bill enables the tribunal to “deviate” from the accepted legal processes and evidentiary standards in Israel’s regular courts, to effectively try the large numbers of terrorists suspected of involvement in the atrocities.
Israel’s Law for Preventing and Punishing Genocide from 1950 provides for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of violating its provisions…..