GUEST BLOG: Ian Powell – Gaza doctor speaks truth to genocidal power; NZ government needs to listen, learn & act
In 1962 Bob Dylan released his famous Blowin’ in the Wind, a protest song that uses a series of rhetorical questions to challenge war, oppression and human inaction on social issues like racism and freedom.
Young Bob Dylan’s lyrics applicable to today’s genocide of Gaza Palestinians
It was released in the context of the American civil rights movement. But it is equally applicable to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza for over two years.
While the lyrics appear ambiguous, the implication is that the answers to Dylan’s provocative questions are either self-obvious, but ignored, or so elusive they can never be grasped. Below is part of the lyrics:
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
If “some people” in the first line is replaced with “Palestinian victims of genocide”, “man turn his head” in the third line replaced “government turn its head”, and “he just doesn’t see” in the fourth line replaced with “it chooses not to see”, then with allowances for clunkiness, there is an unambiguous message; nothing elusive about it at all.
The message of Dylan’s song is relevant to New Zealand’s National-ACT-NZ First government’s pro-Israeli occupation approach to this genocide.
Due process smokescreen
The official Palestinian death rate in Gaza due to the genocidal Israeli war in the 18-months from October 2023 through to March 2025 was over 50,300 (the majority were women, children, and the elderly). This figure is an underestimate because it is limited to known bodies.
Israeli military’s Gaza legacy
In marked contrast, Israeli’s military filed just three criminal indictments for all Gaza-related offenses.
This is according to ‘freedom of information’ material obtained by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, between January 2024 and April 2025. Only one of the indictments resulted in a conviction, while the two other cases are still pending.
In the context of genocide this information reveals an appalling story. When cases enter the system, they remain there indefinitely under review with no visible endpoint. Investigations are rare and almost never conclude.
In other words, the system is a deliberate smokescreen to give the impression of due process while allowing the criminal genocide to continue unhindered.
What the government should have done
This reinforces how abysmal the response of the National-ACT-NZ First coalition government has been.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s government supports right of Israel to ‘defend itself’ but opposes same right for Palestinians
While, on the one hand, the coalition government supports the right of Israel to ‘defend itself’, not only does it not extend the same right to Palestinians but it allows accepts that Israeli ‘defence’ includes ethnic cleansing through genocide.
If the government were committed to the unambiguous “blowin’ in the wind” message it would have undertaken the following:
- Sanctioned Israeli Defence Force visitors.
- Closed the Israel Embassy.
- Introduced trade and bilateral sanctions against Israel.
- Advocated suspending Israel from the United Nations.
- Recognised the right of Palestinians to their own independent state of Palestine.
Brave doctor speaks truth to power
Speaking truth to power is non-violent bravery against genocide
‘Speaking truth to power’ is a non-violent political tactic of Quaker origin. Historically it is used by ‘dissidents’ against the actions and propaganda of oppressive or authoritarian governments.
Dr Nada Abu Alrub, an Arab–Australian doctor, talks truth to power from her recent humanitarian mission to Gaza. She recorded “absolutely horrific scenes” of the genocide with ‘Palestine will be free’ (10 November).
Dr Nada Abu Alrub likens providing medical care in Gaza to working in a butchery
She has been working in an environment that she describes as resembling butcheries rather than hospitals. Along with health professionals, hospitals have been among the primary targets of this barbarism.
Gaza – about the same size as the Kapiti Coast but in devastating ruin due to genocide
Consider this Gaza reality:
- 25 out of 38 hospitals are now out of service;
- The Israeli military has killed over 1,700 medical staff (including doctors and nurses);
- 103 out of 157 primary healthcare centres have been destroyed (54 are operating partially);
- 55% of medicines and 66% of medical consumables are out of stock; and
- several high-profile doctors have been murdered and many remain incarcerated in Israeli dungeons where rape and torture have been reported.
In her own words
In her own reported words first expressed in September Dr. Abu Alrub affirms that:
We are hardly surviving and hardly able to help anyone. There’s no equipment. They’re down to the very basics, running out of working scissors. There’s no soap in the theatre rooms to scrub in, no gloves — nothing at all.
And the things that we saw as we were outside and we were crying and sad — it doesn’t come to 1 percent of what’s actually happening on the ground because most of the things they don’t get captured or advertised or put on media.
How can you destroy a complete land with its people and that will be okay? How can you eradicate complete families and their extensions and call that okay? she added. How can you get away with doing that?
This horror is vividly and heartbreakingly described by her in an 11-minute video: Genocide through a doctor’s eyes. It is a must watch but make sure there are tissues accessible.
“How can you get away with doing that?”
The final above reported sentence from this brave Palestinian-Australian doctor is “How can you get away with doing that?” If this isn’t truth speaking to genocidal power I don’t know what is.
Winston Peters and his government colleagues need to demonstrate a fraction of Dr Abu Alrub’s courage and act accordingly
Foreign Minister Winston Peters, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his other government colleagues, need to have the conviction and courage to listen and watch what this courageous doctor has experienced and is now revealing.
Then they should recognise that, to paraphrase her, no-one should get away with this and act accordingly as discussed above. All it would require is a fraction of the conviction and courage of Dr Nada Abu Alrub.
Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Political Bytes
“The message of Dylan’s song is relevant to New Zealand’s National-ACT-NZ First government’s pro-Israeli occupation approach to this genocide.” Ian Powell
We shouldn’t let the Labour Party off this list. The official ‘position’ of the Labour Party, according to Chris Hipkins is that it is not a genocide.
The Maori Party and the Green Party are the only two parliamentary parties who have declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Chris Hipkins says that it is up to international courts to make that determination. Last month when asked to comment on the government’s non recognition of Palestine statehood, Hipkins doubled down defending the government’s position saying “New Zealand is not a court”.
Chris Hipkins using the excuse of waiting for the international courts to make a determination of genocide is exactly the same as Keir Starmer’s stated position. Which the UK Labour government use as an excuse to keep arming and aiding Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Genocide denial is a bellwether indicative of all the other right wing policy directions implemented by the UK labour government.
The UK Labour government cancelled penioner heating allowances, attacked free speech and civil rights, and threatens to deliver an austerity budget, was all predicated on the UK Labour party’s right wing position on Gaza.
Can we trust a New Zealand Labour government led by Chris Hipkins which also denies the genocide in Gaza, to be any different to the British Labour government led by Keir Starmer?
I certainly don’t trust any government with Chris Hipkins in charge, he seems to be more interested in getting power again than in actually helping those who are suffering. He’s probably not as bad as the current government but you would think that a major political party would want a leader with more positive recommendations.
That former Obama official just summed it up. She basically said out loud educating the world about the holocaust has made it more awkward to justify slaughter in Gaza. We of course it has you stupid women, because there is no justification. These entitled arseholes are experts at being selective with their history and who has committed atrocities. I mean weren’t the Bolsheviks wonderful. Who was slaughtering Christians and burning their churches by the thousands?