Israel's blunt message to New Zealand
Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) www.palestine.org.nz | Press Release
2 November 2015
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Israel sent “a blunt message to New Zealand: Don't try to renew peace
talks”. The message was delivered on 28 October 2015 when Israeli officials summoned New Zealand's ambassador to Tel
Aviv. The newspaper also revealed that the Israeli Foreign Ministry “has instructed its ambassador in New Zealand to
relay a message to the government in Wellington, according to which Israel has no intention to even entertain a
discussion on the matter.”
The draft resolution presented by our UN representative asserts that a two-state solution, achieved through direct
negotiations, is the only path to peace. This failed policy, the so-called 'peace process', has over the past 48 years
provided a cover for Israel that has enabled the Zionist state to take more and more Palestinian territory. Israel has
used this time to transfer ever more Israeli Jewish citizens into illegal settlements in Occupied Palestinian territory
in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and at great cost to Palestinian life, limb and property. It is a deep
shame that what the world can see, the New Zealand Government cannot, or will not, acknowledge.
The present prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was re-elected on his promise that there would never be a
Palestinian state so long as he was prime minister. He said so in answer to a direct question and nine other Israeli
government ministers agree with him. Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked declared to a conference in Washington DC
that, “We are against a Palestinian state. There is not and never will be a Palestinian state.” A CNN article dated16
March 2015 confirmed Netanyahu's opinion that Israel must “beat back international pressure to divide Jerusalem and
return Israel to its pre-1967 borders”. The article also revealed Netanyahu's determination to build more settlements in
Occupied Palestine.
Meanwhile, the defenceless Palestinian people are contemptuously told that Israel has a right to defend itself –
although no Western leader has ever acknowledged that right for the Palestinian people. With the world majority agreed
that the Israeli Occupation is unacceptable, New Zealand should be calling for UN sanctions to be imposed upon Israel to
end its impunity. If sanctions fail to put an end to Palestinian suffering, then the United Nations should send
peace-keepers to defend the Palestinian people. It is time Murray McCully acknowledged the truth and stopped shaming New
Zealand by covering for Israel.
ends