Zionists trick Islamic FIANZ into Harmony Initiative as UN special rapporteur calls for full boycott

Wow, you gotta hand it to the Apologists for Israel’s war crimes, they just want it more!

NZ Muslim-Jewish accord: Leaders sending powerful message says Mark Mitchell

UPDATED: A new agreement being signed in Auckland today by Muslim and Jewish leaders, the New Zealand Harmony Accord, is a response to rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism around the world, according to the Cabinet Minister who initiated it, Mark Mitchell.

He is praising Jewish and Muslim leaders for their decision to sign an accord, which will form the basis for a joint organisation, and co-operation with each other in a bid to prevent overseas conflicts from threatening social cohesion in New Zealand.

“It’s not about me,” Mitchell told the Herald in an interview yesterday.

“It’s about the leaders that have had the courage in our Jewish and our Muslim communities to step forward at what is a very difficult time, recognising that there is a lot of global conflict going on.

“We’re seeing a rise around the world of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. We don’t want to see that in our country. We want our kids to feel safe. We want every community that settles and makes New Zealand home to feel safe,” he said.

Mark Mitchell and the Governor General have desecrated their offices by allowing themselves to become a whitewash for genocide, because that’s exactly what this Harmony Initiative is!

Tricking FIANZ into this ‘Harmony Initiative’ is a desperate scramble by Zionists to manufacture consent towards the next wave of public revulsion at Israel’s war crime as the Israeli Far Right plot open genocide…

Israeli far right discusses Gaza ‘riviera’ plans

Some Israeli far-right leaders held a public meeting this week to discuss redeveloping the Gaza Strip into a tourist-friendly “riviera”, as Palestinians face a worsening humanitarian crisis in the devastated territory.

The meeting, titled “The Riviera in Gaza: From Vision to Reality”, was held in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, under the auspices of some of its most hardline members.

It saw the participation of firebrand Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, as well as activist Daniella Weiss, a vocal proponent of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, among others.

The name of the event evokes a proposal floated by US President Donald Trump in February to turn the war-ravaged territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East” after moving out its Palestinian residents and putting it under American control.

The idea drew swift condemnation from across the Arab world, and from Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land would recall the “Nakba”, or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

…at least FIANZ has the modesty to blush and frantically justify its decision to white wash Zionists.

Here’s the truth…

Government’s Jewish Muslim ‘Harmony Initiative’ helps Israeli campaign to redefine Palestine conflict – Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa says a just-signed government-produced ‘Harmony Initiative’ will help in Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently announced ‘Eighth War Front’.

This is an Israeli government propaganda campaign to present Israel’s brutal assault on Palestinians as a response to global antisemitism.

Netanyahu has likened Israel’s worldwide ‘information war’ to its physical attacks on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, neighbouring Arab countries, and Iran.

The Israeli aim is to silence its overseas critics.

Some Jewish and Muslim groups have signed onto the ‘Harmony Initiative’ which describes its purpose as to foster ‘positive relationships’ and set up a Muslim-Jewish Council.

The government says it wants to avoid what it calls ‘domestic impacts resulting from overseas conflicts’.

But PSNA CO-Chair Maher Nazzal says that is code for the government trying to defuse protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“You can’t see any references in this ‘Harmony Initiative’ to supporting the implementation of international humanitarian law or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for example.”

“Instead, we get the Muslim-Jewish Council having an obligation to ‘publicly challenge expressions of hate’.”

“There will be some people sitting on that Council who believe any expressed support of Palestinian rights is hate speech. One of the ‘Harmony Initiative’ signatories is the Holocaust Foundation.  The Holocaust Foundation is funded by the Israeli embassy.”

“If you put various government moves together, there is a clear agenda to stifle criticism of Israel.”

“Amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 are under secret consultation, but with a clear signal that the recent draconian suppression of free speech on Palestine we have just seen in the UK is very much a model on the list for us too.”

“The Human Rights Commissioner, a self-confessed Israel supporter, wants to appoint an Antisemitism Envoy because they have one in Australia.  But the antisemitism test they are using there is a list of examples of criticising Israel.”

Nazzal says he can understand why some community groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have signed on to the ‘Harmony Initiative’.

“The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand for instance, quite rightly believe that if they are not on this ‘Muslim-Jewish Council’ then the government would simply create and appoint another Muslim body to purportedly represent Muslims.  That would leave FIANZ with no input.”

…this is all happening right when the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has just last week announced that all people of conscience need to cut all ties with Israel…

Francesca Albanese: Cut All Ties With Israel

On July 15 and 16, delegates from thirty nations around the world assembled in Bogotá, Colombia, for a conference aimed at stopping the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, now in its twenty-first month.

In her address to the conference on July 15, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories — who was sanctioned by the Trump administration last week in retaliation for her firm pro-Palestinian stances — explained why states must suspend all ties with Israel.

…the Harmony Initiative is made up of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand Incorporated, the New Zealand Jewish Community Security Group Charitable Trust, the New Zealand Jewish Council Incorporated on behalf of: Auckland Hebrew Congregation, Progressive Jewish Congregation of Auckland, Waikato Jewish Association, Wellington Jewish Community, Wellington Progressive Jewish Congregation, Nelson Jewish Community, Christchurch Hebrew Congregation, and Southern Lakes Jewish Community; and Dayenu, New Zealand Jews Against Occupation Incorporated.

The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories is very clear…

The occupied Palestinian territory [OPT] today is a hellscape. In Gaza, Israel has dismantled even the last United Nations function — humanitarian aid — in order to deliberately starve, displace time and again, or kill a population they have marked for elimination. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing advances through unlawful siege, mass displacement, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, widespread torture.

Across all areas under Israeli rule, Palestinians live under the terror of annihilation, broadcast in real time to a watching world. The very few Israeli people who stand against genocide, occupation, and apartheid — while the majority openly cheers and calls for more — remind us that Israeli liberation, too, is inseparable from Palestinian freedom.

The atrocities of the past twenty-one months are not a sudden aberration; they are the culmination of decades of policies to displace and replace the Palestinian people.

Against this backdrop, it is inconceivable that political forums, from Brussels to New York, are still debating recognition of the state of Palestine — not because it’s unimportant, but because for thirty-five years, states have stalled and refused recognition, pretending to “invest in the Palestinian Authority” while abandoning the Palestinian people to Israel’s relentless, rapacious territorial ambitions and unspeakable crimes.

Meanwhile, political discourse has reduced Palestine to a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity rather than a political issue demanding principled and firm resolution: end permanent occupation, apartheid, and today genocide. And it is not the law that has failed or faltered — it is political will that has abdicated.

But today, we are also witnessing a rupture. Palestine’s immense suffering has cracked open the possibility of transformation. Even if this is not fully reflected in political agendas yet, a revolutionary shift is underway — one that, if sustained, will be remembered as a moment when history changed course. This is why I came to this meeting with a sense of being at a historical turning point, discursively and politically.

First, the narrative is shifting: away from Israel’s endlessly invoked “right to self-defense” and toward the long-denied Palestinian right to self-determination — systematically invisibilized, suppressed, and delegitimized for decades. The weaponization of antisemitism applied to Palestinian words and narratives, and the dehumanizing use of the terrorism framework for Palestinian action (from armed resistance to the work of NGOs pursuing justice in the international arena), has led to a global political paralysis that has been intentional. It must be redressed. The time is now.

Second, and consequentially, we are seeing the rise of a new multilateralism: principled, courageous, increasingly led by the global majority. It pains me that I have yet to see this robustly include European countries. As a European, I fear what the region and its institutions have come to symbolize to many: a sodality of states preaching international law yet guided more by colonial mindset than principle, acting as vassals to the US empire, even as it drags us from war to war, misery to misery — and when it comes to Palestine, from silence to complicity.

But the presence of European countries at this meeting shows that a different path is possible. To them I say: the Hague Group has the potential to signal not just a coalition but a new moral center in world politics. Please, stand with them. Millions are watching — hoping — for leadership that can birth a new global order rooted in justice, humanity, and collective liberation. This is not just about Palestine. This is about all of us.

Principled states must rise to this moment. It does not need to have a political allegiance, color, political party flags, or ideologies: it needs to be upheld by basic human values. Those that Israel has been mercilessly crushing for twenty-one months now.

Meanwhile, I applaud the calling of this emergency conference in Bogotá to address the unrelenting devastation in Gaza. So it is on this that focus must be directed. The measures adopted in January by the Hague Group were symbolically powerful. It was the signal of the discursive and political shift needed.

But they are the absolute bare minimum. I implore you to expand your commitment, and to turn that commitment into concrete actions, legislatively and judicially in each of your jurisdictions, and to consider first and foremost what must we do to stop the genocidal onslaught. For Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, this question is existential. But it really is applicable to the humanity of all of us.

In this context, my responsibility here is to recommend to you, uncompromisingly and dispassionately, the cure for the root cause. We are long past dealing with symptoms, the comfort zone of too many these days. And my words will show that what the Hague Group has committed to do and is considering expanding upon is a small commitment toward what’s just and due based on your obligations under international law — obligations, not sympathy, not charity.

Each state [must] immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel: their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic relations — both imports and exports — and make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities, and other goods and service providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT. These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency.

Let’s be clear: I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the OPT is not an option.

This is in line with the duty on all states stemming from the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion that confirmed the illegality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, which it declared tantamount to racial segregation and apartheid. The UN General Assembly adopted that opinion. These findings are more than sufficient for action.

Further, it is the state of Israel that is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, so it is the state that must be responsible for its wrongdoings. As I argued in my last report to the Human Rights Council, the Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation and has now turned genocidal. It is impossible to disentangle Israel’s state policies and economy from its long-standing policies and economy of occupation.

It has been inseparable for decades. The longer states and others stay engaged, the more this illegality at its heart is legitimized. This is the complicity. Now that the economy has turned genocidal, there is no “good” Israel and “bad” Israel.

I ask you to consider this moment as if we were sitting here in the 1990s, discussing the case of apartheid South Africa. Would you have proposed selective sanctions on SA for its conduct in individual Bantustans? Or would you have recognized the state’s criminal system as a whole? And here, what Israel is doing is worse. This comparison is a legal and factual assessment supported by international legal proceedings that many in this room are part of.

This is what concrete measures mean. Negotiating with Israel on how to manage what remains of Gaza and West Bank, in Brussels or elsewhere, is an utter dishonor to international law.

And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter — not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.

…the Harmony Initiative is a whitewash for genocide. It is ugly that we are supporting this with Minister Mark Mitchell and the Governor General.

This will be a stain on our mana throughout history.

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