Dr David Robie – Palestine protesters renew ‘don’t buy Israeli’ pledge, demand NZ sanction Israel
Pro-Palestine activists made strong pleas for stronger boycotts of Israeli products today and again demanded that the New Zealand government sanction Tel Aviv over its Gaza genocide.
David Robie also blogs at Café Pacific
From his Asia Pacific Report
In the 153rd week of continuous protests, the activists themed the global BDS – boycott-divestment-sanctions — campaign with local targets such as the Auckland Council and other investment funds.
Speakers included activists Leeann Wahanui-Peters, Neil Scott, Kathy Ross, Achmat Esau and Anna Lee.
- READ MORE: Israel must protect West Bank’s Palestinians amid settler pogroms, says US envoy
- Other Gaza, Palestine reports
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) campaigner Neil Scott gave a blistering indictment of the current coalition government’s weak response to what he called Israeli crimes against humanity.
He also called on the government to end the “visa free” policy for anybody who is in the Israeli military.
“That’s [those] in the current military, or the military reserves — and they are in reserves until the age of 40,” he said. “These people should not be coming to Aotearoa when they are in a genocidal terrorist entity for the Israeli Defence Forces [IDF].
“That should be ended,” Scott added, and he was greeted with loud cheers and applause.
Compared with South Africa
Speakers also compared the BDS campaign with the successful anti-apartheid campaigns against white minority-ruled South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Now South Africa is spearheading the legal fight against Israel in the world’s top judiciary, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague. Last week it filed a new legal dossier highlighting the genocidal state’s non-compliance with binding provisional measures.
Another PSNA activist, Anna Lee, also called on protesters to support the BDS movement and do all they could to “damage the Israeli Zionist regime and its ability to continue the genocide”.
“We can financially damage the Israeli economy just as we did when there was an international boycott on apartheid South Africa,” she said.
“We need to target goods, services and any investments that aid the Zionist economy and assist it to do ‘business as usual’ with its apartheid and murderous activities.”
Lee reminded the crowd that boycotts did work.
“They were very successful in hitting the apartheid regime in South Africa and they are already damaging the Israeli economy.
“In fact, they are so successful that Israeli-sponsored Zionist groups in the USA are pressuring Republican state governments to persecute any state employee or contractor who admits to taking part in the boycott of Israel.”
Israeli regime ‘hurting’
The Israeli regime was “hurting” which was why it was working hard on small nations around the world to get more economic collaboration.
“This is why very recently the NZ Israeli Innovation Hub sales promotion was held here in Tāmaki Makaurau [Auckland].
“This shameful event was aimed at increasing NZ economic collaboration with Israeli companies. And it was attended by officials from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).”
Lee said the boycott movement did not just include Israeli-owned companies but included international businesses which had invested in Israel to take advantage of financial incentives and the opportunity to “profit from exploitation of the Palestinian workers in the ‘occupied territories’”.
“It’s not hard to identify these companies today. We can’t rely on the ‘made in’ labels on the packages because these businesses, like the Zionists, are devious.
“But we do have phone apps like ‘No Thanks’ which you can install on your phone.”
Lee said all people needed to do was “scan the barcode” and they would immediately get an answer.
“If the product is on the boycott list you can then make one more ‘click’ and read why. If it is OK the app will say so.”
The app was developed by a Palestinian software engineer from Gaza — “and it is a powerful tool to use to hit the Zionist regime and support Palestinian freedom”.
Activists from the PSNA and other Palestinian solidarity groups around New Zealand held meetings this week to plan actions for the Global March for Palestine on October 10. New Zealand will be the first country in the world to kick off that march.
Support groups include Banners for Palestine, the Palestine Car Convoy, and Stand With Palestine Waiheke Group.
The Auckland event is scheduled to start at 2pm in Te Komititanga Square/Britomart on that day and march up Queen Street to Albert Park.
Also, a solidarity “kite day” event at Coyle Park, Point Chevalier, is planned for next Saturday after the 2pm CBD rally.
Nobody ready to push back
Meanwhile, a prominent Israeli peace activist has warned that no one in Israel’s government was prepared to push back against the extremist policies of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Alon-Lee Green, co-director and founder of the Palestinian-Jewish activist group Standing Together, told Al Jazeera that Israeli politicians were “all fighting against each other over who is more extreme and who is winning more of the right-wing voters”.
Many opposition figures would not represent a departure from current anti-Palestine policies, the activist said, but instead sought to contest “the right wing in power over the question of who’s more right wing”.
Ben-Gvir was “trying to promise us that with more death, and more blood, and more abuse”, Israeli Jews will gain security, Green added.
“He’s lying. We will only get more violence out of it,” he said.
Hi David
Chris Hipkins has said that it is not a genocide in Gaza until the International Court of Justice rules that it is,
(Winston Peters, Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham, have all said the same thing).
By contrast; Helen Clark, has said that there is an “unfolding genocide” in Gaza.
At a rally a week ago against the genocide in Gaza:
Te Pāti Māori coleader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said in a statement, that was read ou;,
“We have heard the misleading narratives, we have heard the ceasefires where the fires have not ceased, the ‘war’ references as a blind eye gets turned to a full-blown genocide and not only have we had to witness this overseas, but our own government . . . has refused to take any meaningful action and will always sit complicit in this genocide.
Green Party MP Ricardo Menéndez said;
“From years ago when Marama Davidson joined the Freedom Flotilla towards Gaza, we have taken action in Parliament against the genocide.”
Labour Party MP Phil Twyford said;
“foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters would present “official” policy at Parliament this week”
Dr David Robie: NZ left parties condemn Luxon govt on lack of humanity, ‘complicity’ over Gaza genocide
Dr. David Robie
29 August 2026
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/nz-left-parties-condemn-luxon-govt-on-lack-of-humanity-complicity-over-gaza-genocide/
I followed parliament all week expecting the hear Vanushi Walters Labour policy statement that Phil Twyford said Walters was going to present
What would it be?
Would it be the same as Chris Hipkins statement that there is no genocide in Gaza?
Do you know why Labour’s foreign Affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters did not to present “official” policy on the genocide in Gaza last week?
Do you know if Vanushi Walters will present official policyt statement this week or sometime in the coming weeks before the election?
Was Vanushi Walters pressured not to present Labour’s official policy on the genocide in Gaza?
This could be a significant inflexion point, in New Zealand history, in relation to Palestine, the US, Israel and the international rule of law.
In 1948, New Zealand signed the genocidc convention in the UN Headquarters in New York
In 1978 New Zealkand ratified the genocide convention in the New Zealand Parliament, making the punishment and prevention of the crime of genocide binding under New Zealand law.
By international treaty and New Zealand law this country is legally bound to act to punish and prevent the crme of genocide.
The only way a New Zealand government can avoid their legal responsibility to the genocide convention is by denying that it is happening.
The Labour Party could quite possibly be the leading ruling party in a coalition government by the end of this year.
Understanding this, means understanding why Labour is reluctant to acknowledge and condemn the genocide in Gaza
Once the opposition Labour Party officially acknowledged and condemned the genocide in Gaza while in opposition, they could not turn around and deny it in government, especially with two coalition partners the Greens and TPM that both officially acknowledge and condemn the genocide in Gaza as policy
The consequences for this country would be severe
For a ruling New Zealand government to act to obey the international genocide treaty and New Zealand law on the prevention add punishment of genocide would create a bigger rift in the ANZUS, Five Eyes, and AUKUS military and intelligemce treaties with the US than the nuclear weapons free legislation. possibly leading to massive retaliatory punitive tarrifs affecting our trading relationship with the US, which would send the New Zealand economy into a tali spin.
The US is New Zealand’s second biggest trading partner, second only to China.
New Zealand exports to the US return approximately NZ$14.6 billion to NZ$16.8 billion to the New Zealand economy every year.
https://nzuscouncil.org/new-zealand-usa-relations-and-the-impact-of-tariffs/
Against this background I can understand the Labour Party’s reluctance to officially acknowledge the genocide in Gaza.
Genocide denial is an electoral liability.
The New Zealand Labour Party’s genocide denial needs to be challenged and overturned.
In overseas jurisdictions, politicians that have openly codemned the genocide in Gaza in their election campaigns are winning elections.
The genocide in Gaza is the political and moral iitmus test of our time.
Voters seem to know instinctively, that politicians that are not intimidated and take a clear and bold moral stand in condemning the genocide in Gaza, can be trusted to take a clear and bold moral stand on the issues that dorectly affect them as well.
Yesterday, Ed Miliband the current UK Foreign Secretary standing in parliament beside the UK Labour Party’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, repeated the mantra repeated by the previous UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and the Previous UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and repeated here by New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, and Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins, is that it is up to the International Court of Justice to declare that genocide is being committed in Gaza.
Schrödinger’s cat, a famous 1935 thought experiment by physicist Erwin Schrödinger illustrated the idea that a physical system can exist in multiple states at the same time until it is observed.
The difference between Schodinger’s thought experiement where a cat is sealed in a box where it can’t be observed, and the genocide iin Gazas, is that the genocide in Gaza has been observed and monitored continuously from its beginning,.
Not only has the genocide in Gaza been observed, we have read and heard the stated intention of those conducting the genocide to carry it out.
There is no excuse for genocide denial. Even if there were, the Genocide Convention is explicit in stating that is duty of states that are signatories to the Convention to prevent genocide before it has occurred, not just punish genocide after it has occurred.
A police officer witnessing a person being murdered does not wait until the person is dead to intervene. Police officers are signed up to prevent crimein its commission, as well as apprehend offenders after the fact.
In its preliminary findings the ICJ had ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza
https://www.thelawassociation.nz/international-court-of-justice-gets-it-right-over-gaza-restores-credibility-of-the-global-legal-system/
But the International Court of Justice has no enforcement powers.
I repeat, the international Court of Justice has no enforemement powers.
It is up to us.
The Genocide Convention makes enforcement and prevention of the crime of genocide the international legal duty of the states that are signatories to the convention.
A police officer that sees a murder being committed and turns away, is corrupt and should be removed from the force.
A government that sees a genocide being committed and turns away, is corrupt and should be removed from office
(Only the opposition parties that themselves don’t deny the genocide can make this powerful argument for removing the encumbent administration.)
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Great points. And an ‘israeli’ being over 40 is no excuse- we wouldn’t let ‘retired’ members of ‘israel’s ally, ISIS, come here, just because they aren’t currently part of the the active or reserve forces- and the IOF is far worse.