When North Korea launched a ballistic missile earlier this week, it took mere hours for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to issue a sharp condemnation. Rightly so. Ballistic missile launches violate international law, escalate tensions, and pose an unacceptable threat to civilians. But when multiple ballistic missiles were fired from Yemen by Iranian-backed Houthis toward Israel (missiles capable of and intended to create mass destruction) over the last month, MFAT said nothing. Days passed. Then weeks. Still, silence.
This isn’t just a bureaucratic oversight. It is a political decision — one that reveals a deeply troubling double standard at the heart of New Zealand’s foreign policy apparatus. In its silence, MFAT has exposed a willingness to treat Israeli lives and sovereignty as less worthy of protection, less worthy of outrage, and less worthy of even basic diplomatic acknowledgment.
For a ministry that frequently proclaims its commitment to “rules-based international order,” the refusal to apply those rules when Israel is the target is a stain on New Zealand’s moral credibility. And the responsibility lies not just with officials, but with those leading them: Foreign Minister Winston Peters, his associate Todd McClay, and MFAT’s top brass — Chief Executive Bede Corry and Deputy Secretary Grahame Morton, who continues to frame New Zealand’s Middle East posture under a thin veneer of neutrality.
In truth, this is not neutrality. This is moral cowardice.
The facts are undisputed: Iran’s proxies in Yemen have repeatedly launched ballistic missiles at Israel — the most recent of which just four days ago failed to be intercepted and landed in the vicinity of Ben Gurion Airport, in a direct attempt to kill civilians. These are deliberate acts of aggression by a non-state actor supported by a state sponsor of terror. They mirror the kinds of provocations MFAT rushes to denounce elsewhere in the world. Yet in this case, MFAT has opted for strategic silence, sacrificing principle for political convenience.
New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel, Zoe Coulson-Sinclair, has likewise failed to offer public support or solidarity with her host country in the face of ballistic terror. This dereliction of basic diplomatic duty reflects either a wilful misreading of the situation or an institutional bias so deeply entrenched that it no longer recognises its own prejudices.
Let us be clear: ballistic missile attacks from Yemen into Israel are not part of the Israel–Palestinian conflict. They are acts of international aggression carried out by a third-party militia thousands of kilometres away. They are not “complex” or “context-dependent.” They are clear violations of international law, and they should have drawn the same swift and unequivocal condemnation MFAT has shown in other regions.
So why the silence? Why the double standard?
Perhaps MFAT is afraid that acknowledging attacks on Israel as violations of international law might undermine its carefully cultivated posture of “balanced” diplomacy in the region — a posture that too often equates a liberal democracy under fire with those seeking its destruction. Or perhaps, as many observers suspect, there is a deeper institutional hostility toward Israel embedded within MFAT’s culture — one that prefers to frame Israeli security as an inconvenient obstacle to a preferred narrative rather than a legitimate concern.
Whatever the reason, the consequences are damning. When MFAT chooses silence in the face of terror, it does more than fail Israel. It fails New Zealand. It undermines our credibility, it abandons the very values we claim to stand for, and it signals to rogue actors across the globe that New Zealand’s condemnation is not guided by principle, but by politics.
This is not diplomacy. It is duplicity.
If New Zealand wishes to be taken seriously on the world stage (as a nation that stands for law, for peace, and for human dignity) then its leaders must urgently correct course. MFAT must issue a public and unambiguous condemnation of the Houthi attacks on Israel. More importantly, it must re-examine the institutional rot that has allowed this blatant inconsistency to pass without accountability.
Until then, every future statement about upholding a “rules-based order” will ring hollow. And every silence will speak volumes.
