Open letter response to Winston Peters defence of Israel
On 25 September, Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters, replied to our email sent to him on 25 August. Here is our response to his reply:
Author: Leslie Bravery
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Sanctions will speak louder than words
The universally-ratified Fourth Geneva Convention is recognised by the United Nations as constituting the foundation of international humanitarian law and its essential rules. Articles 146 and 147 include the possibility of criminal liability for gross violations by individual perpetrators. Israel has chosen not to incorporate the Convention into domestic law, even though this does not relieve it of its international obligations. Instead, the Convention’s applicability to the military Occupation of the West Bank has been, and continues to be, denied by successive Israeli governments.
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New Zealand Government are serving the Israel Lobby
On 25 August we sent an email to the NZ Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, essentially similar to those already emailed to Jacinda Ardern and Ron Mark, concerning the Ministry of Defence proposal to purchase $9 million-worth of military equipment from Israel, and asking that the order be cancelled. The responses from Jacinda Ardern’s Office and Ron Mark can be seen in previous blogs.
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EXCLUSIVE: NZ First doubles down on Israeli Military Industrial Complex
On the 27 August we received an email from Ron Mark in answer to our emails of 24 July and 1 August, regarding the purchase of military equipment from the Israeli company Robo-Team. We have replied to the Defence Minister expressing disappointment that he had failed to respond to deal with the particular points we had raised in our earlier emails. We asked Ron Mark to clarify the final three paragraphs of his response as follows:
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Ron Mark dodges questions forwarded from NZ PM’s Office
Following email exchanges with the Prime Minister’s Office featured in the previous blog, which included an email sent to both Ron Mark and Jacinda Ardern, we have yet to receive any response from the Defence Minister.
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Evasive answer from NZ Government
On 24 July this email was sent by Marian and I to our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: “The crimes committed…
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A new generation unites in opposing Zionism
The New Zealand Green Party MP, Golriz Ghahraman, has upset the Jewish Council here because she described Joseph and Mary,…
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Why Zionists avoid saying ‘anti-Jewish’
According to the online Oxford English Dictionary, the term anti-Semitism means “Hostility to or prejudice against Jews”. It defines Semite as: “A member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs. From modern Latin Semita, via late Latin from Greek Sēm ‘Shem’, son of Noah in the Bible, from whom these peoples were traditionally supposed to be descended.”
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Zionism’s race-hate profiteering and vandalism
The summary of a report prepared by the Secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on the economic costs of the Israeli occupation for the Palestinian people noted: “Throughout history, colonisation and occupations have always had economic dimensions. This is also the case in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where the occupation imposes heavy economic costs on the Palestinian people and their economy.”
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Face the facts – recognise Israel’s inhumanities
On 23 May, news broke that Israel had agreed to pay compensation to two photo-journalists who had been attacked by two Israeli soldiers four years ago, in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. One of the assailants was a commissioned officer. The Israeli Army claimed that the journalists had led what it called “violent riots” that day.