Unpublished Letters to the Dominion Post

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Pastor Nigel Woodley, a strong advocate for Israel has sent the following ‘Letters to the editor’, to the ‘Dominion Post’. The editor chose not to publish them.

3 Jan. 2023

Benjamin Netanyahu rightly rejected the UN resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to investigate Israeli actions in the Disputed Territories. It was another one in a long line of anti-Israel resolutions sponsored by the Palestinians and backed by the huge block of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (57 nations) as well as many undemocratic and dictatorial regimes. Gratefully this time New Zealand abstained from such a biased and politically motivated resolution. However, our country should go a step further next time and side with our traditional western allies and vote against such deliberately anti-Israel and biased resolutions. The Palestinian Authority’s statement saying Israel is to be “held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people” is a deliberate distraction from its own crimes. The Palestinian Authority has withheld democratic elections from its people for over 15 years, has a terrible record of human rights abuses against its own people, entices its own people to go out and kill innocent Israelis and then rewards them for doing so, and most damaging of all they still refuse to sit down at the negotiating table with the Israelis to reach a just and mutual settlement.

4 Feb. 2023

It is great to see the Jewish people returning to their indigenous land (Saturday). They have every right to live on land in which they have a heritage that goes back four thousand years to the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the forefathers of the Jewish race. There has always been a continuous Jewish presence in the land with fluctuating numbers of course. All of Abraham’s ancient altar sites were situated within what is called today the West Bank. Apart from empires which have subjugated the land, there have only ever been Jewish political states in the land with Jerusalem as the capital. The Modern State of Israel is the third such political state in the entire history of “Palestine”. There has never been in history a political state called “Palestine”. It was simply a regional name the Romans gave it in the second century. The best thing the Palestinians could do is go back to the negotiating table with the Israelis. The table is in the same place they left it over a decade ago when they thought they could circumvent it to try unilateral declarations at the United Nations instead. A true settlement and the peace that will follow can only be reached when both sides come to an honest and negotiated agreement.

3 Apr. 2023

Once again Donna Miles has shown her ignorance and bias. Having a cup of tea with a Zionist is a good idea if she is prepared to listen to the truth the Zionist espouses. Donna’s comments “Palestinians continue to see illegal settlements expand, their houses demolished, their free movements denied, and their families killed and terrorised” are out of context completely. The Palestinians built more illegal structures on the West Bank last year than Israelis did; whether the land settlement is “illegal” is still to be determined by a negotiated peace settlement that the Palestinians refuse to take part in; only the homes of vicious murdering terrorists are demolished as the Israelis have found this an effective measure to curb the promotion of terrorism against the people of Israel; the Israelis are not killing nor terrorising innocent Palestinians, but in response to deadly terrorist attacks against their people, they in apprehending the culprits, come up against armed resistance and this unfortunately results in bloodshed. The killing and terrorising most often are seen as deliberate and incited acts against Israelis by the Palestinian side. I suggest that Donna add some sugar to her tea to sweeten her sentiments toward Israel.

This letter was in response to the following op-ed:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/131637754/were-on-opposite-sides-of-the-israelipalestinian-divide-but-this-much-we-agree-on