After more than a year of talking about a visit to Palestine, and several false starts, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has finally called off a proposed trip to the Middle East before the election citing "scheduling problems".
This is deeply disappointing for this country, as well as for Palestinians.
The proposed visit was an opportunity for the Labour government to shift New Zealand policy to give greater support to Palestinians living under the longest military occupation in modern history and hold Israel to account for its breaches of international law and Palestinian human rights.
This will not happen now and with opinion polls as they are in the leadup to October’s election it is unlikely Mahuta will ever get to Palestine as Foreign Minister.
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PSNA congratulates New Zealand film director Jane Campion on her request for her debut film “Sweetie” to be withdrawn from apartheid Israel’s Jerusalem Film Festival.
The announcement was made by PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) late last night (NZ time) in this release:
https://bdsmovement.net/jerusalem-film-festival-2023
We are delighted to have an esteemed New Zealand director join at least four other international film directors in requesting their films be withdrawn from the Festival which is partnered with the Israeli Ministry of Culture.
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Khader Adnan died on hunger strike protesting his detention without trial
Palestinian resistance leader Khader Adnan died after an 87-day hunger strike in an Israeli prison protesting his detention without trial and the arbitrary nature of the allegations against him.
Adnan was being held under Israeli “administrative detention” whereby Palestinians are arrested and held without charge or trial for long periods in Israeli prisons.
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Palestine solidarity supporters in Christchurch picketed the Israeli ambassador’s private lunch today celebrating 75th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence.
The pro-Israel lobby kept the venue secret to try to avoid protest action and were caught by surprise when Palestine solidarity protestors arrived well before the lunch.
The Israeli ambassador slunk into the venue half an hour after the advertised time.
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The Doc Edge Film Festival as abandoned Israeli Embassy sponsorship this year after a furore caused by such sponsorship last year.
“We are very pleased to chalk this up as a success”, says John Minto, National Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. “This is a win for the international BDS campaign against apartheid Israel” (BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – against Israel has been a Palestinian-led campaign since 2005)
Earlier this year PSNA wrote to all the Doc Edge festival sponsors urging them to ensure the 2023 festival was an “apartheid-free zone”. We told them it would be highly provocative for the festival to receive money from the Israeli Embassy particularly given the strident anti-Palestinian policies of the new far-right Israeli leadership.
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The Israeli leadership, keen to deflect attention from its internal crises, has launched a second vicious attack on Al Aqsa in 24 hours – firing stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian worshippers.
This is a calculated, brutal and unprovoked attack on Palestinians worshipping at Al Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam, during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Countries across the world – eg the US, Malaysia, Turkey, China, Canada etc – have condemned the Israeli violence against Palestinian civilian worshippers.
New Zealand must add its voice unequivocally on the side of freedom and justice for Palestinians.
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Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has written to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta demanding the government direct the New Zealand Superfund to end investments in Israel’s brutal oppression of Palestinians.
“The Superfund must withdraw its investments in the 112 companies identified by the United Nations Human Rights Council as complicit in the building and maintenance of illegal Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land”, says PSNA National Chair, John Minto.
Two years ago the Superfund had $73 million invested in these companies. Today it is $125 million
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I was stunned to read the South African Rugby Union is to host a rugby tour in March by a team representing the apartheid state of Israel in the 2023 Currie Cup competition. The Tel Aviv Heat have been invited to play four games in South Africa next month.
From New Zealand it seems utterly incomprehensible that a country which experienced first-hand the brutality and degradation associated with apartheid could, after liberation, agree to host a team representing another racist apartheid state.
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The swearing-in of the new far-right Israeli government means New Zealand must reassess its policy towards the Middle East.
Like most Western governments, and indeed most Western media, we have preferred to avoid the issue because it’s been made uncomfortable to talk about and seemingly difficult to deal with. However, we can no longer look the other way.
New Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his top priority is to build more illegal Jewish-only settlements on occupied Palestinian land. He says he wants to “advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights, and Judea and Samaria”. These are the Biblical names for the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
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PSNA has sent an urgent message to the Minister of Foreign Affairs today urging the government to speak out condemning the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta which has begun NOW.
In August last year New Zealand representative to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Greg Lewis, spoke out supporting the Palestinians facing eviction from Masafer Yatta.
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Every day for the past 74 years, more Palestinians have been evicted from their land using all manner of spurious, creative justifications, backed by a court system run by the Israeli colonisers.
In the spotlight today are 12 Palestinian villages with more than 1000 people who face eviction from their land in an area of the South Hebron Hills called Masafer Yatta.
Palestinians are not looking for our sympathy – they are looking for practical solidarity. If enough voices are raised around the world Israel will be forced to back down.
The strongest voice we have is the Government's. We need to insist our Government uses it on behalf of all of us.Palestinians are not looking for our sympathy – they are looking for practical solidarity. If enough voices are raised around the world Israel will be forced to back down.
The strongest voice we have is the Government's. We need to insist our Government uses it on behalf of all of us.
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Ukrainians are hopelessly under-armed compared to Russia. They are in a David Vs Goliath battle and there has been widespread media reporting of people making Molotov cocktails in an attempt to rebalance power and give the civilian population, untrained but enthusiastic, the chance to fight back.
The Molotov cocktail is the weapon of choice when you have no firearms.
As Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine, not so far away in Palestine a group of boys were making Molotov cocktails to hurl at the foreign occupying army in their country. All historic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, has been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967 – one of the longest military occupations in modern history. The boys were in the occupied West Bank where Palestinians live under a cruel military regime through which they face daily harassment, ritual humiliation, arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without trial (children included) and well-documented brutality when they resist their occupiers.
When the Israeli military turned up, 14-year-old Mohammed Shehadeh was shot and killed, allegedly while throwing a Molotov cocktail. His family say he was 300 metres away from the incident but either way this is almost irrelevant to the occupying power whose main purpose is to “teach a lesson”..
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Damien O’Connor moves from “keep politics out of sport” to “keep politics out of agriculture”
Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor is scheduled to speak at an online summit this week helping to develop “strategic partnerships” with Israel in Agriculture.
Attached is the letter Damien O’Connor sent us in response to our request for him to pull out of the event.
Here is the Open letter to Damien O’Connor from the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa in response.
Dear Mr O’Connor,
Open letter to a minister ignoring war crimes, ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses
Writing this letter to you reminds me of the letters the anti-apartheid movement wrote to the New Zealand Rugby Union and governments in the 1970s and 1980s in the campaign against apartheid in South Africa.
Back then the rugby union and most politicians refused to recognise the appeals from South Africa’s black majority for support and solidarity. They arrogantly ignored the suffering and human rights abuses which went with apartheid and wanted to “keep politics out of sport”.
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Writing this letter to you reminds me of the letters the anti-apartheid movement wrote to the New Zealand Rugby Union and governments in the 1970s and 1980s in the campaign against apartheid in South Africa.
Back then the rugby union and most politicians refused to recognise the appeals from South Africa’s black majority for support and solidarity. They arrogantly ignored the suffering and human rights abuses which went with apartheid and wanted to “keep politics out of sport”.
Today another anti-apartheid struggle is being waged against the racist, apartheid policies of Israel and its unbridled brutality against the Palestinian people. Your letter pays lip service to Palestinians but expresses solidarity with Israel and its desire to “keep politics out of agriculture”.
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The Chief Science Advisor to the Ministry of Primary Industries, John Roche, is scheduled to speak at the on-line event on 15/16 February. He must be withdrawn from the speaker line up by the government.
Amnesty International declaration of Israel as an apartheid state demands government action today.
“Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act”
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General
“Aotearoa New Zealand’s “obligation to act” begins today. There is no place to hide. The ball is in Nanaia Mahuta and Damien O’Connor’s court” says PSNA National Chair John Minto.
“Israel is a racist apartheid state and its agriculture sector is based on ethnic cleansing, war crimes and human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.”
“Amnesty International’s report confirms this”
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On Friday PSNA wrote to Fat Freddy’s Drop asking the Kiwi supergroup to withdraw from their scheduled 18 January performance at the Sydney Festival.
So far more than 25 acts have either withdraw or distanced themselves from the festival in protest over a $20,000 donation from Israel’s Australian embassy to support Sydney Dance Company’s production of Decadance by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.
In accepting this donation, the Sydney Festival is using the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs logo in festival promotional material and is aligning itself directly with the racist, apartheid state of Israel.
“We are urging Fat Freddy’s Drop to show respect for the Palestinian struggle and pull out”
“We know this won’t be easy or comfortable but it’s the right thing – and the only decent thing – to do”
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