The Coalition of Ministers Supporting Israel is asking members of Parliament in New Zealand not to take Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick’s proposed members Bill to sanction Israel “for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” seriously for the following reasons:

• On the day this Member’s Bill was launched at Parliament’s lawn on 11 December Ms Swarbrick was addressing a crowd of 350 people representing the “All Out for Gaza” rally on the south side of the Richard Seddon statue. On the north side of that statue a counter rally numbering 500 people was taking place and was opposing what Ms Swarbrick was trying to achieve. The counter-rally stood in solidarity with the people and State of Israel.
• The land Ms Swarbrick claims that Israel has “an unlawful presence in” is the indigenous, ancestral and historical land of the Jewish people, and not to acknowledge that is biased, racist and unfair. It reveals the lack of important knowledge on her part to even consider such a bill.
• The people of Israel – the Jewish State – have an inalienable right to live on land that once belonged to their ancestors, no less than the Māori people have the same right to live in Aotearoa New Zealand.
• The same people pushing for this bill to gain traction are those who often stand at rallies where “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is chanted. Such a chant declares there is no room for a Jewish State at all.

We believe the only answer to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is direct dialogue and negotiations between the two parties, and Israel is still waiting for the Palestinians to come back to the table they vacated in 2008 when PA President Mahmoud Abbas rejected a generous offer from Israel which would have handed over 94 percent of the West Bank into Palestinian hands with land swaps from the Israeli side to make up the one hundred percent. You can read more in this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0dv7rxxvo

Please do not support Ms Swarbrick’s doomed-to-fail bill. Please support open negotiations and dialogue between the parties who are the only ones who can solve the real issues. Unilateral moves by the UN will not solve this conflict; only sincere negotiations between the affected parties will. We must call for dialogue and negotiation, not sanction.

Pastor Nigel Woodley
Spokesperson
COMS-Israel
Coalition of Ministers Supporting Israel

COMS-Israel is a group of 78 Church Ministers (and growing) in New Zealand who come from Pentecostal, Baptist, Brethren, Polynesian, Presbyterian, Anglican and other churches who support the right of the Jewish State of Israel to protect its homeland.

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