Source: Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)
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.”
“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.”
John Minto
Co-Chair PSNA
