The latest statement from “Global Jews for Palestine,” amplified locally by Sh’ma Koleinu – Alternative Jewish Voices NZ, chooses a familiar narrative: framing the UN Security Council’s November 2025 resolution on Gaza as a neo-colonial project, reducing Israel to a malign actor, and depicting Palestinian armed groups as legitimate “resistance.” What it does not offer is political responsibility, historical accuracy, or any realistic path toward peace.

For all its rhetoric, the statement rests on a simple assumption: that the parties who initiated, sustained, and ultimately lost a devastating war should dictate the terms of its conclusion. No conflict resolution model — legal, diplomatic, or historical — supports such a position.

Below, we offer a corrective rooted in documented history, international law, and the record of negotiations that Palestinian leaders themselves repeatedly walked away from.

1. The UNSC Resolution Is Not a “Colonial Imposition” but a Stabilisation Framework

UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025) establishes an international mechanism to prevent a return to Hamas rule, facilitate reconstruction, and stabilise Gaza after a catastrophic war.1 The accompanying UN press release confirms that the Council authorised an international stabilisation force with broad international support.²

Calling this “guardianship” or “colonialism” misrepresents what the text actually says. The resolution:

• received no vetoes from any permanent member;
• calls for Palestinian self-governance once security is stabilised;
• mandates international oversight to prevent diversion of aid and rebuilding of military infrastructure.

This model is not colonialism; it is the same temporary stabilisation framework used in East Timor, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone.

2. Starting, Escalating, and Losing a War Has Diplomatic Consequences

The coalition’s statement ignores the foundational reality of this conflict: Hamas initiated the war on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 240 hostages.3
No amount of ideological reframing changes that basic fact.

Over the past two decades, Islamist militant organisations in Gaza — including but not limited to Hamas — have persistently rejected peace initiatives, and their founding charter explicitly denies Israel’s right to exist.4 These groups have established military infrastructure in highly populated civilian areas, including near or within homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals, making use of the civilian population in what many observers describe as human-shield tactics.5,6 Since at least 2001, Gaza-based groups have launched thousands of unguided rockets toward Israeli population centers, many of which are inherently indiscriminate and violate the laws of armed conflict. These attacks have targeted residential areas, imposing ongoing risk to civilians rather than being solely military operations.7

To assert that a party that began and lost a war should dictate its political outcome is not anti-colonialism — it is political fantasy.

3. The Genocide Narrative Relies on Misreading International Law

Contrary to the coalition’s claims, no international judicial body has found Israel guilty of genocide.

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not rule that genocide is occurring; it issued provisional measures, a procedural step that requires plausibility, not proof or findings.8,9
• The ICJ explicitly declined to order a ceasefire, contradicting the coalition’s assertion of “clear genocide.”
• The ICC has ongoing investigations into actors on both sides, but has issued no indictment for genocide against any Israeli leader.10

Alleging genocide without acknowledging these legal realities is not advocacy — it is misinformation.

4. The Historical Record: Israel Accepted Peace Plans; Palestinian Leaders Rejected Them

The coalition portrays Palestinian politics as a unified, anti-colonial struggle. The historical record shows something else – at least five outright rejections of proposals for another Arab state alongside Israel:

• 1937 (Peel Commission): Jewish leadership accepted partition; Arab leadership rejected it.11
• 1947 (UNGA 181): Jewish leadership accepted a two-state plan; Arab leaders rejected it and launched a war.12
• 2000 (Camp David): Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a Palestinian state on 90%+ of the West Bank and Gaza; Yasser Arafat walked away without a counteroffer.13
• 2001 (Taba): Negotiators reached unprecedented proximity to agreement; again, Palestinian leadership withdrew.13,14
• 2008 (Olmert Abbas Negotiations): Mahmoud Abbas declined an offer including land swaps, Jerusalem partition, and refugee mechanisms.15

This pattern, not “settler colonialism”, explains why the conflict persists.

5. Gaza Was Not a Colony — and Israel Left It in 2005

The claim that Gaza is an Israeli colony ignores that:

• Israel unilaterally withdrew every soldier and civilian from Gaza in 2005.16
• Hamas took over in a violent coup in 2007.17,18
• Even after repeated rocket fire, Israel facilitated tens of thousands of daily work permits, medical transfers, electricity supply, and humanitarian entry.19

Control of airspace and borders for security reasons — especially after repeated rocket attacks — does not constitute “colonial domination.” Leading international legal scholars have affirmed that Gaza after 2005 exists in a sui generis security framework, not a traditional occupation.19

6. Palestinian Grievances Are Real — but Hamas’s Strategy Makes Peace Impossible

There are legitimate Palestinian grievances: statelessness, economic hardship, political fragmentation, and decades of failed diplomacy.

But Hamas’s strategy has never been to alleviate these conditions. Its founding charter calls for Israel’s destruction; its military doctrine openly embraces civilian sacrifice for propaganda gain.4,

The coalition’s framing of Hamas as “anti-colonial resistance” erases:

• its war crimes3,20
• its repression of Palestinian dissent21,22
• its theft of humanitarian aid23,24
• its systematic use of civilians as shields6

Gazans deserve political leadership committed to their welfare, not to their perpetual mobilisation.

7. A Different Path Exists — If Palestinian Leadership Chooses It

Israel has repeatedly signalled support for a negotiated resolution25,26,27,28,29,30 — a secure two-state framework, demilitarisation, economic cooperation, and shared infrastructure projects. Israeli civil society hosts dozens of cross-border initiatives aimed at future coexistence.31

The barrier to progress has never been Jewish anti-Zionists abroad; it has been the refusal of Palestinian factions to accept a negotiated compromise.

The UN resolution offers a chance — perhaps the last — to stabilise Gaza and rebuild a future that does not rely on war.
Rejecting it is not resistance. It is an abdication of responsibility.

Conclusion

Global Jews for Palestine offer slogans, not solutions. Their statement erases the record of rejected peace offers, misrepresents international law, and absolves armed groups of accountability.

New Zealanders deserve a more honest conversation — one grounded in history, law, and the hard truth that conflict ends not when maximalist demands are met, but when both sides choose political reality over ideological absolutism.

References

1. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2803 (2025), S/RES/2803 (2025), 17 November 2025.
2. United Nations, “Security Council Authorizes International Stabilization Force in Gaza,” UN Press Release, 17 November 2025.
3. APPG UK-Israel, The 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, chaired by Lord Roberts of Belgravia, 2025.
4. Hamas. The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). 1988. Translated by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
5. Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. “Evidence of the Terrorist Organizations’ Use of Civilian Facilities in the Gaza Strip.” April 2024.
6. Henry Jackson Society, Hamas’s Human-Shield Strategy in Gaza: A Report on Its Implementation and Impact, May 2025.
7. Human Rights Watch. “Rockets from Gaza: Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups’ Rocket Attacks.” August 6, 2009.
8. International Court of Justice, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Orders of 26 January 2024.
9. International Court of Justice, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Orders of 28 March 2024.
10. International Criminal Court, “Situation in the State of Palestine,” ICC Case Information Page.
11. Peel Commission Report (1937), UK National Archives.
12. United Nations, “Partition Plan of 1947 (UNGA 181).
13. Chatham House, Israeli–Palestinian Peacemaking, Camp David chapter (2018)
14. European Union, “Taba Negotiations: European Summary,” reproduced by USIP
15. Aluf Benn, “PA Rejects Olmert’s Offer to Withdraw From 93% of West Bank,” Haaretz, 12 Aug 2008.
16. Podeh, Elie. “Israel’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza: a Multilateral Move Under Unilateral Façade.” Middle Eastern Studies (2025).
17. Human Rights Watch. Internal Fight: Palestinian Abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. July 29, 2008.
18. Chen, Christine Y. “Breaking News: Hamas Takes Gaza, Abbas Dismisses Government.” Foreign Policy, 14 June 2007.
19. Etkes, Haggay, and Esteban Klor. Resumed Employment of Gazans in Israel: A Limited Contribution to Reducing Unemployment in the Gaza Strip and to Security Stability. INSS Insight No. 1542, 22 December 2021.
20. Human Rights Watch. “October 7 Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes by Hamas-Led Groups.” July 17, 2024.
21. Human Rights Watch. “Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent: Arbitrary Arrest and Torture Under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.” October 23, 2018.
22. Amnesty International. “Palestine: Hamas Security Services Must Stop Targeting Protesters in Reprisal and Respect Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in Gaza.” May 2025.
23. Israel Defense Forces. “Watch: Hamas Members Beat Civilians and Steal Humanitarian Aid.” IDF, accessed November 2025.
24. Van Koningsveld, Akiva. “Abbas Confirms Hamas ‘Gangs’ Stealing Gaza Aid.” JNS, May 4, 2025.
25. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The Oslo Accords.”
26. Rabin, Yitzhak. Speech to the Knesset on the Oslo Agreement, September 9, 1993.
27. Clinton, Bill. “Clinton Parameters.” White House Statement, December 23, 2000.
28. Kershner, Isabel. “Olmert Makes New Offer to Palestinians.” New York Times, September 16, 2008.
29. Kershner, Isabel. “Olmert Makes New Offer to Palestinians.” New York Times, September 16, 2008.
30. U.S. Department of State. Remarks on Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations, 2014.
31. Alliance for Middle East Peace. “About.” ALLMEP.