PSNA says Foreign Minister Winston Peters is quite
correct to identify Israeli-supporting members of parliament
as ‘extremists’.
Peters has made a ministerial
statement in parliament today where he defended New
Zealand’s non-recognition of Palestine, condemned
‘extremists on both sides…including those in this
House’ and claimed there was ‘violent targeting of
politicians’ private homes’.
Palestine Solidarity
Network Aotearoa Co-chair, John Minto says he would be
curious to know which Israeli-supporting parliamentary
colleagues Peters is accusing of having ‘fallen into a
black hole of irrationality and senselessness’ and
‘preen hysterically and monomaniacally’.
“MPs
are either critical of the Israeli genocide, or keeping
their mouths shut out of embarrassment. But there seems to
be some MPs who think it is possible Peters can be more
supportive of Israel, and are privately giving him a hard
time over it.”
“We are also curious about what
Peters means by ‘violent targeting of private homes by
some protesters’. He seems to have inflated one incident,
which we have condemned, into an imagined
epidemic.”
“People are frustrated at seeing the
worst and most transparent crime of the twentieth century
being brushed aside by our government.”
“Two
million people are under a violent blockade, which compares
with the Nazi siege and starvation of Leningrad in World War
II. Obliteration of Gaza is much more of a concern than a
single broken window.”
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“The thousands of New
Zealanders who are marching week after week to call for the
implantation of international law, protest Israeli genocide
and call for sanctions against it, are not
extremists.”
“They endure and risk increasingly
frequent physical, and rarely reported, attacks and threats
by violent Israelis and their supporters. They werely want a
just and enduring end to the cycle of violence which Peters
is so critical of.”
But Minto says Peters’
statement of political demands for ending the conflict falls
far short of what is necessary for breaking that
cycle.
“He’s called for a negotiated ceasefire,
and praised the Trump Plan as having Muslim countries
signing it off.”
“For starters, there was no
Palestinian participation at all in drafting the plan. It
was originally negotiated between the US and leading Muslim
countries. Trump then took it to Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu who rewrote it. It’s much less a plan and more a
list of take-it-or-leave-it demands.”
“There can
be no peace without a complete Israeli military withdrawal.
Peters makes no mention at all about that.”
“He
cites the need to release hostages held by Hamas, which
Hamas has agreed to several times. But Peters fails to
mention the thousands of Palestinians hoovered up and
tortured by the Israeli military and held in Israeli jails
without charges.”
“The plan simply allows for
continued Israeli ethnic cleansing, under the guise of some
international body to provide legitimacy,” Minto
says.
“It’s an historical circle. In 1917, British
General Allenby marched into Gaza at the end of World War 1,
to become the British Empire proconsul, under an
international mandate to set up a ‘Jewish homeland’, for
immigrants from Europe.”
“More than a century
later, Tony Blair, a former British Prime Minister and
architect of the destruction of Iraq, will govern Gaza the
same way and is on standby to arbitrate the competing real
estate claims of Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, and
Israeli expansionist Bezalel Smotrich.”
“Peters
says he’s familiar with the history of the region. If he
is as informed as he says he is, then he would realise
Israel’s true goals are land grabbing and ethnic cleansing
more than peace, and he would not be so effusive in praising
such disastrous and one-sided plans written by
Israel.”
