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.”
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.
In New Zealand, the Israel Institute’s co-director, Dr David Cumin, on behalf of Israel and its US ally, is calling for “a moratorium on any further Kiwi taxpayer funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)”. In trying to divert attention from Israel, Cumin makes unfounded allegations of “corruption, antisemitism and extremism” against the UN agency’s hard-working officials and frontline workers.
In a Press Release published on 28 April, ACT MP David Seymour took our Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, to task because he had “failed to condemn” what he asserted was “the anti-Semitism of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The Israel Institute of New Zealand (IINZ) website carries a video message from National MP Alfred Ngaro, dated 23 December 2018, with the title National MP Alfred Ngaro on Israel and 2334. The same video can also be seen on YouTube – but under the heading New Zealand MP Alfred Ngaro – a staunch Zionist. The IINZ introduction to the video says: “National Party List MP, Hon Alfred Ngaro . . . recorded this video in which he declares his personal commitment to Israel while reminding his viewers of New Zealand’s historic support for the Jewish nation”. In his less than five-minute delivery, Ngaro states repeatedly: “I am a Zionist”.
With US President Trump’s rejoicing, Israel has re-elected Netanyahu for a fifth term. An Israeli public relations firm took credit for placing hidden cameras at polling stations on election day, successfully reducing the voter turnout in non-Jewish communities. Netanyahu’s Likud Party admitted that it was behind the deployment of a reported 1,200 hidden cameras. In a previous election in 2015, the Israeli Prime Minister published a video, warning that ‘Arabs’ were “voting in droves” with the help of left-wing organisations.
Acts of love and solidarity terrify the racist, power-hungry leaders of Israel and its allies. The great unity that expressed itself in New Zealand, following the massacres at the Christchurch mosques, sent a strong signal of rejection to all who support race-hate and population control.Challenge their inhumanities.
Reveal and shame the silence that serves to cover for them!
If there is any solace to be found following the atrocities in Christchurch, it is in the loving expressions of shared humanity that followed them. With that outpouring of grief and understanding, racism was defeated, its hateful message repudiated – not in our name! That will ring around the world. The future of humanity on this fragile planet depends upon the recognition of our oneness in diversity. Firm and uncompromising support for the UN in strengthening respect for, and observance of, international humanitarian law has become desperately urgent. Never surrender our independence.
While Palestinians are forced to live under such brutal, ideologically-driven Israeli military dictatorship, the mainstream news media and western politicians continue to behave as though it isn’t happening.
For the Palestinian people, 2019 has begun strictly as the Zionist enterprise intends – with no let up to its grim, discriminatory violations of international humanitarian law and implacably unjust rule.