PSNA is urging the government to ‘even-up’ its
foreign policy going into the November election.
PSNA
is responding to Foreign Minister, Winston Peters’,
announcement of a new round of sanctions against Russia for
its invasion of Ukraine, which is the government’s 36th
sanction measure against Russia.
PSNA spokesperson
Rinad Tamimi says the government’s particular
justification for the new sanctions, were Russia’s forced
migration of Ukrainians and the dissemination of propaganda
to justify Russia’s occupation.
“Israel does the
same thing and the government does nothing. It has a list of
35 Israelis it won’t allow to enter New Zealand. But this
is a pathetic list against the more than two-thousand long
list against Russia.”
“Israel’s ethnic cleansing
in Gaza is vast, well documented, admitted and ongoing. Our
government won’t mention it, let alone take Russia-level
action against it.”
“And Israel and its proxies,
throughout the world, are disseminating what Israel calls
‘Hasbara’, which is propaganda and bribes to influence
news media and politicians,” Tamimi says.
“Right
here in this country, the Israeli embassy funds the New
Zealand Holocaust Centre. The Centre’s been publicly,
although fruitlessly, advocating for compulsory and
exclusive study of the Holocaust in schools. They want to
ignore and lessen the significance of other genocides in
comparison – in particular the Gaza
genocide”
“All this is intended to stifle free
speech and to legitimise Israel’s illegal
wars.”
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“The Israeli government doesn’t like the
poll results here and in most western countries.”
In
September 2025, a Reid
Research poll for Radio New Zealand found a ratio of
three to one respondents wanting the government to do more
to support Palestine, than those who wanted more support for
Israel.”
“Among National voters, support for the
government to do more for Israel was only 11 percent, while
17 percent of National voters thought the government should
do more for Palestine.”
“The poll showed most
National voters didn’t care at that time, but of those who
were interested, most backed Palestine,” Tamimi
says.
‘The Prime Minister would do well to work for
what his party members want and stop NZ First running our
foreign policy and ignoring international law. Bizarrely, an
even higher percentage of NZ First voters support Palestine
than the National voters do – nearly 25 percent for
Palestine and just under 18 precent for
Israel.”
