Aotearoa New Zealand should follow South Africa’s example and end diplomatic relations with the apartheid state of Israel

“New Zealand should follow South Africa’s lead and end diplomatic relations with Israel” says John Minto, National Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa.

South Africa’s parliament yesterday voted 208 to 94 to downgrade Israel’s Embassy in South Africa to a Liaison Office.

The motion was moved by the small NFP party but with overwhelming support from other parties, including the African National Congress.

In a statement the NFP, which moved the motion, said…

“The state of Israel was built through the displacement, murder, and maiming of Palestinians. And to maintain their grip on power, they have instituted apartheid to control and manage Palestinians. As South Africans, we refuse to stand by while apartheid is being perpetrated again.”

The NFP went on to say the downgrade should…

“serve as a catalyst to start the process of progressively and completely isolating Apartheid Israel”.

There is ample reason for New Zealand to act after last week’s Israeli settler pogrom against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. It wassupported by Israel’s Minister of State Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has since called for the Palestinian town at the focus of the settler attack to be “wiped out”.

Genocidal rhetoric from another government demands New Zealand action.

“If this were a pogrom against Jews anywhere in the world or the call for a Jewish town to be ‘wiped out’ the government would, quite rightly, condemn it and take immediate action against the regime responsible” says John Minto, “but for Palestinians facing genocide our government is silent”

In the 1980s David Lange’s Labour government downgraded the South African consulate in Wellington by closing the consular section and leaving the trade section in place.

Labour can do it again. Our self-respect as a country demands no less.