TE PĀTI MĀORI STATEMENT ON ISRAEL & IRAN
Over 41,000 Palestinian’s have been murdered by Israel in the last 12 months. At the same time, Israel have launched attacks against at least four other countries in the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
“You cannot play the aggressor and the victim at the same time,” said Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
“What we are seeing today is the culmination of decades of US imperialism in the Middle East. Iran has for a long time been a barrier to Western control in the region. This is what the West’s uncritical support of Israel has been leading up to” Ngarewa-Packer said.
“Meanwhile the New Zealand Government is in talks with the United States about joining AUKUS to further support their war efforts. This represents the next phase of global colonisation, and it is being negotiated behind closed doors,” co-leader Rawiri Waititi said.
“The US want to use Aotearoa as a Pacific spy base. This could mean the end of our longstanding nuclear free policy to allow their war ships into our waters.
“AUKUS threatens our sovereignty as an independent nation, and the Mana Motuhake of every nation in the Pacific. It threatens to drag Aotearoa into World War 3,” said Waititi.
“The New Zealand Government is putting everyone in Aotearoa at risk through their complicity. They must end all talks about joining AUKUS immediately. They must sanction Israel and cut ties with all countries who are committing and aiding war crimes,” said Ngarewa-Packer.
“As Tangata Whenua we will not allow our sovereignty to be determined by others, whether it is the New Zealand Government or the United States Government,” said Waititi.
Te Pāti Māori condemns the killing of innocent people. We condemn all actions that have led to today’s escalation of war.
Kapai. Te Pati Maori is to be congratulated for taking the logic of the struggle against colonialism into the sphere of international relations. The policy for Aotearoa must be military and political neutrality while speaking out with courage and clarity about events in the world beyond our shores.
For the Middle East that means we condemn the genocide in the occupied Palestinian territories, the expansionist policies of the State of Israel and the complicity of the US, UK and other western states (including the Realm of New Zealand). We must also recognise those forces which have actively opposed the genocide – particularly the peoples of Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. The governing authorities of these nations have been demonised in the New Zealand media and designated “terrorist” by the New Zealand government for doing what any moral state should be doing in defence of international humanitarian law and the rights of peoples. At this time the people of Iran are the world’s main bulwark against evil, just as the people of the Soviet Union were from June 1941 to 1945.