Over the last decade or so there has been a noticeable increase in bias of the New Zealand government against Israel.<\/p>\n
This despite New Zealand voting in favour of the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Whilst the slide in government opinion can arguably be traced back to the Clark government, it reached\u00a0its\u00a0peak\u00a0on the world stage\u00a0under the Bill English Government\u00a0when\u00a0spearheaded by then Foreign Minister Murray\u00a0McCully’s desire to be the lap dog of Senator John Kerry and\u00a0assist in\u00a0the personal vendetta of President Barack Obama against Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0led to New Zealand co-sponsoring the one-sided anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in December 2016.<\/p>\n
Since that day when New Zealand stood shoulder to shoulder with the anti-democratic and human rights-breaking countries of Venezuela,\u00a0Senegal\u00a0and\u00a0Malaysia, the co-sponsors of the resolution, there does not seem to have been an improvement.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Winston Peters, despite his initial\u00a0statements\u00a0on behalf of Israel, has become\u00a0noticeably\u00a0quiet on the subject, yet this is despite Israel, an ally of New Zealand, coming under a barrage of rocket attacks and attempted terrorist infiltrations across the border from Gaza. Anyone who takes a serious look at the\u00a0recent\u00a0Gaza border incidents would easily see that Hamas intended to use its population on the border to send in its militia and “tear\u00a0out\u00a0their hearts\u00a0from their bodies”. ‘”Their” being Israeli Jews.<\/p>\n
There was nothing peaceful or even hidden in Hamas’ intent. Out of the number of Palestinian casualties during this period, Hamas and Islamic Jihad even admitted that\u00a085 per cent were their own operatives. The percentage could\u00a0potentially be\u00a0more.<\/p>\n
Despite this clear evidence, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed unease that no Israeli Jews had also been killed when she said during\u00a0an\u00a0interview on national TV that she was\u00a0concerned by the “devastating one-sided loss of life”. Prime minister, we make no apologies,\u00a0nor ever will,\u00a0for the lack of Jewish deaths!<\/p>\n
During and following this period of the anything but “peaceful” protest, we have seen Hamas sending in incendiary kites to Israel, causing thousands\u00a0of hectares of damage to crops, nature reserves,\u00a0and\u00a0the burning to death of wildlife, insects and bees.<\/p>\n
The so-called Green Party \u00a0has been conspicuously\u00a0quiet in the condemnation of this;\u00a0instead it\u00a0(MPs Marama Davidson and Golriz\u00a0Ghahraman\u00a0at\u00a0least)\u00a0chooses to\u00a0stand alongside those in New Zealand advocating the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state\u00a0and\u00a0resurfacing modern-day blood libels accusing Israel of genocide.<\/p>\n
New Zealand is also out of step with almost all of its major Western allies, and even more astonishingly now the UN. Over recent days and weeks, Israel has faced a barrage of rockets into its border towns near the Gaza border.<\/p>\n
In more recent days, Beer Sheva has also been targeted.\u00a0Over August 8-9, more than\u00a0180 missiles were fired into Israel, causing injury and destruction to property, with families\u00a0being\u00a0given 15 seconds to get into bomb shelters,\u00a0day\u00a0and\u00a0night,\u00a0when the sirens go off.<\/p>\n
Yet despite condemnation coming from\u00a0countries\u00a0and organisations such as\u00a0the UN,\u00a0the EU, the US,\u00a0European countries, and Canada, we hear absolutely nothing from our Government. Why is it that New Zealand is so out of step with other Western democratic countries when it comes to Israel?<\/p>\n
All\u00a0this\u00a0has\u00a0left to me\u00a0to\u00a0wonder which way the New Zealand government would vote if the UN Partition plan took place in 2018 instead of 1947?\u00a0Maybe our elected leaders can give us an answer?<\/p>\n