Israel Institute of New Zealand co-director, Dr David Cumin, has reacted to remarks by Foreign Affairs Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, in which she appears to blame Israel for the current escalating violence in the Middle Eastern state.<\/p>\n
Responding to more violence in Israel and Gaza, overnight, Ms Mahuta is quoted as saying that she is \u201cdeeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Jerusalem and Gaza\u201d and calls for \u2018rapid de-escalation from Israel and Palestine\u201d. She goes on to only specifically condemn Israel, calling the Jewish state to \u201ccease demolitions and evictions and for both sides to halt steps which undermine prospects for a two state solution\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Dr Cumin calls the statement \u2018unacceptable\u2019 and says that it \u2018continues to promote the mythology that Israel is the instigator of the violence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time New Zealand abandoned its gutless practice of pretending that there are two parties equally responsible for the violence; and singling out the democratic side for specific condemnation.<\/p>\n
Israel tolerated dozens of indiscriminate rocket attacks before targeting militants in Gaza to defend women and children. It is unconscionable that Hon Ms Mahuta would blame Israel for this\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Dr Cumin says the last time a New Zealand Minister clearly condemned terror against Israel was 2006.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelen Clark was the last New Zealand Minister to clearly call out the indiscriminate rocket attacks and terror against Israel \u2013 at a time when Mahmoud Abbas was recently installed as President of the Palestinian Authority\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is disgraceful that New Zealand has not joined allied democracies in condemning acts of violence from terror groups avowed to destroying Israel and murdering Jews over the past 14 years\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israel Institute of New Zealand co-director, Dr David Cumin, has reacted to remarks by Foreign Affairs Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, in which she appears to blame Israel for the current escalating violence in the Middle Eastern state. Responding to more violence in Israel and Gaza, overnight, Ms Mahuta is quoted as saying that she is \u201cdeeply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5720,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719\/revisions\/5720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}