Source: PSNA (Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa)
PSNA (Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa) understands the government is set to announce later today (Wednesday) that New Zealand will formally designate Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen as “terrorist” organisations.
This decision is wrong at every level.
“New Zealand should use terrorist designations from the United Nations – not from the United States” says PSNA National Chair John Minto. “These designations will be a cowardly capitulation to US and Israeli interests”
“Hezbollah and the Houthis have made it clear they have attacked Israel to help prevent genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and will stop their attacks as soon as Israel agrees to a ceasefire. At the same time the US is providing tens of billions in weapons and munitions to Israel to continue its deadly rampage across the Middle East”
“It is the US and Israel which should be given the terrorist designation – not countries doing their best to stop the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians – which has gone on for 76 years.”
The official death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is now almost 44,000 people – mostly women and children – with over 3,000 killed in Lebanon.
This “terror” designation is especially galling when the New Zealand government, which has condemned every act of Palestinian resistance, has refused to condemn Israel for any of its shocking war crimes across the Middle East including:
- Mass killing of civilians
- Wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure
- Mass slaughter of journalists, doctors and nurses
- Collective punishment of the civilian population
- Denial of food, water, fuel and basic media supplies
- Use of starvation as a weapon of war
- Forced displacement of civilians
- Implementation of the “general’s” plan in northern Gaza which involves the mass killing of civilians, starvation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
Not a word of condemnation of any of this, no sanctions, no “terror” designation. Just the silence of a morally-crippled government.
John Minto
National Chair PSNA
