Media Statement From Coalition Of Ministers Supporting Israel

The Coalition of Ministers Supporting
Israel is asking members of Parliament in New
Zealand not to take Green Party co-leader Chloe
Swarbrick’s proposed members Bill to sanction Israel
“for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory” seriously for the following
reasons:

• On the day this Member’s Bill was
  launched at Parliament’s lawn on 11 December Ms Swarbrick
  was addressing a crowd of 350 people representing the “All
  Out for Gaza” rally on the south side of the Richard
  Seddon statue. On the north side of that statue a counter
  rally numbering 500 people was taking place and was opposing
  what Ms Swarbrick was trying to achieve. The counter-rally
  stood in solidarity with the people and State of
  Israel.
• The land Ms Swarbrick claims that Israel has
  “an unlawful presence in” is the indigenous, ancestral
  and historical land of the Jewish people, and not to
  acknowledge that is biased, racist and unfair. It reveals
  the lack of important knowledge on her part to even consider
  such a bill.
• The people of Israel – the Jewish
  State – have an inalienable right to live on land that
  once belonged to their ancestors, no less than the Māori
  people have the same right to live in Aotearoa New
  Zealand.
• The same people pushing for this bill to
  gain traction are those who often stand at rallies where
  “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is
  chanted. Such a chant declares there is no room for a Jewish
  State at all.

We believe the only answer to the
Israel-Palestinian conflict is direct dialogue and
negotiations between the two parties, and Israel is still
waiting for the Palestinians to come back to the table they
vacated in 2008 when PA President Mahmoud Abbas rejected a
generous offer from Israel which would have handed over 94
percent of the West Bank into Palestinian hands with land
swaps from the Israeli side to make up the one hundred
percent. You can read more in this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0dv7rxxvo

Please
do not support Ms Swarbrick’s doomed-to-fail bill. Please
support open negotiations and dialogue between the parties
who are the only ones who can solve the real issues.
Unilateral moves by the UN will not solve this conflict;
only sincere negotiations between the affected parties will.
We must call for dialogue and negotiation, not
sanction.

Pastor Nigel
Woodley
Spokesperson
COMS-Israel
Coalition of
Ministers Supporting Israel

COMS-Israel is a group
of 78 Church Ministers (and growing) in New Zealand who come
from Pentecostal, Baptist, Brethren, Polynesian,
Presbyterian, Anglican and other churches who support the
right of the Jewish State of Israel to protect its
homeland.

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