Palestine Solidarity Network

19.05.2018

The Palestine Solidarity Network is accusing the Israeli Embassy in Wellington of hypocrisy in its verbal attacks on the Prime Minister.

The Israeli Embassy has issued a statement criticising the New Zealand government for not condemning Hamas, which Israel blames for Israeli troops killing more than 100 Palestinians through the Gaza fence over the past few days.

The Embassy stated that peace between Israel and the Palestinians can only come through direct negotiations not what it calls an imposed solution.

But the Palestine Solidarity Network says the Embassy relies on our news media not reporting that Hamas has been trying to negotiate a long term ceasefire with Israel, but Israel ignored the offer.

Palestine Solidarity Group Network spokesperson Janfrie Wakim says the facts of what happened in Gaza spoke for itself.

“There was not one Israeli death or injury. Not one breach of its blockade line on Gaza, which incidentally Israel has never defined as its border. The protest was a symbolic March of Return which the participants knew would be violently repulsed by Israel. The march was to highlight to the world that there is a legitimate grievance that most of the Palestinians in Gaza were driven there in the first place by Israel. They want to be able to return to the homes they were forced out of over the past 70 years, instead of living for years under a blockade.”

“Israel was determined to kill protesters so it could vilify and blame Hamas. Israel has been blaming the victims in Gaza going back to 1956 when Israeli soldiers murdered more than a thousand Palestinians prisoners at Rafeh in 1956.”

This time, there are reports that Israeli snipers used internationally illegal ‘butterfly’ bullets which explode on impact, as well as new forms of gas attacks. These actions must be investigated to see if they are true.”

Janfrie Wakim says the Israeli Embassy demands that it was not subject to an imposed international settlement was another example of hypocrisy.

“Israel is quite happy to impose any solution it wants on the Palestinians, and it able to do that because it has vastly superior firepower.”

Wakim says New Zealand should respond to the Iatest attack on its government’s statements or voting record in the United Nations by pulling out of recent agreements made with Israel, ranging from trade to co-funding film production.

“We let pass with no objection Israel’s claim that New Zealand’s vote in the Security Council in 2016, was an act of war, when all New Zealand was doing was reiterating long standing international law that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories were illegal.”

Janfrie Wakim says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has summoned the Israeli ambassador for a rebuke over its Gaza massacre.

“This is the second time since John Key did the same over yet another Israeli attack on Gaza. The time for gentle posturing by New Zealand has passed. Israel is not only strangling Gaza but rapidly confiscating Palestinian land on the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in clear violation of international law.”

“Jacinda Ardern would do well to summon the Israeli Ambassador to her office so she could tell the Ambassador to leave New Zealand and take his cosy relationship deals with him.”

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