As of this week, more than twenty governments — including New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and nearly every major European nation — have publicly demanded that Israel “do more” to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Yet these same governments have failed, again and again, to issue any serious, coordinated demand for Hamas to release the hostages it still holds or to disarm. The result is a grotesque moral imbalance that emboldens terrorists, betrays liberal values, and prolongs Palestinian suffering.
Let us be clear: the war in Gaza began not with Israeli action, but with a massacre. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a premeditated atrocity — slaughtering 1,200 people, kidnapping over 250, and live streaming acts of brutality that shocked even seasoned war correspondents. Since then, Hamas has continued to hold Israeli civilians, including women and children, in violation of every international law and shred of human decency. And yet, somehow, the dominant global message is not directed at Hamas. It is directed at Israel.
This is not diplomacy. It is cowardice disguised as compassion.
When Western nations call on Israel — and only Israel — to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, they are not just engaging in double standards. They are incentivising the very terrorism they claim to oppose. Hostage-taking is being rewarded. Civilian shields are being tolerated. And the root cause of Gaza’s devastation — Hamas’s absolute control, militarisation of civilian infrastructure, and rejection of peace — is being ignored.
The hypocrisy is staggering. The same nations that pride themselves on liberal democracy, rule of law, and human rights are turning a blind eye to a fascist theocracy that murders dissidents, uses UN schools to stockpile weapons, and steals aid from its own people. Worse, by focusing their outrage on Israel, these governments lend credibility to Hamas’s propaganda machine and sabotage prospects for a post-Hamas Gaza.
Every truck of aid that enters Gaza under Israeli facilitation — often while rockets are still flying — is twisted by international media into a narrative of Israeli obstruction. Meanwhile, Hamas confiscates aid, targets convoys, and exploits suffering to keep itself in power. Where is the outrage? Where are the sanctions? Where is the resolve that was so easily summoned against Russia for its crimes?
Let’s not pretend this is a neutral failure of policy. It is an active moral abdication.
If the international community truly wanted peace, it would issue three immediate, non-negotiable demands:
- Release all remaining hostages.
- Disarm and dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure.
- End the weaponisation of humanitarian aid.
None of these require a single Israeli airstrike or soldier on the ground. All of them would immediately end the war. That they have not been made the central pillars of Western diplomacy is a stain on the conscience of every government now pressuring Israel to “do more.”
The people of Gaza deserve freedom — but not the kind offered by Hamas. They deserve governance that does not hide behind civilians or sentence them to eternal war. And they deserve a world that will stand up to their true oppressors, not coddle them.
New Zealand, like so many others, has chosen the path of least resistance: condemning the only democracy in the region while remaining silent on the genocidal terrorist regime it is fighting. That is not peacemaking. It is appeasement.
And history will remember it as such.
