Action

Letter to Hon Murray McCully, Minister of Foreign Affairs

6 January 2009

Hon Murray McCully

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Parliament Buildings

WELLINGTON

Dear Mr McCully,

We write to express our discontent at your statements and the position of the New Zealand government on the continuing Israeli invasion and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Your media release, dated Sunday 3rd January, states that New Zealand is ‘even handed’ in its response. You are quoted further as not wanting to ‘point the finger’.

In the three years since the Palestinians under Israeli occupation elected a Hamas government, the State of Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip as collective punishment against the civilian population.

Israel has severely restricted the entry of essential food, fuel, electricity and medicine. It has curtailed Palestinians’ travel and the export of their goods. It has continued to sporadically attack the Gaza Strip (and Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank and East Jerusalem), destroy infrastructure and kill Palestinian civilians.

UN and UNWRA officials have repeatedly spoken of the horrific conditions in Gaza. In August 2006, Jan Egeland, the former UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, stated that Gaza was a ticking time bomb: ‘You cannot seal off an area which is a little bit bigger than the city of Stockholm in extension only, have 1.4 million people, of whom 800,000 are youth and children, and then have 200 artillery shells going in there every day’. It is attributable to public relations purposes that, after such a blockade, Israel has allowed relief convoys to enter Gaza during its military onslaught.

The initial Israeli attacks from air, artillery and ships brought huge casualties among the Palestinian population in Gaza. In South Africa, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said, ‘In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in a conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of defending themselves, the bombardment bears all the hallmarks of war crimes.’

During the past eight years of the Second Palestinian Intifada, 5525 Palestinians (1010 children) have been killed by Israelis, and Israel has destroyed some 8300 Palestinian homes. Israel continues to construct its Separation Wall through the West Bank. This structure was found to be illegal by the International Court of Justice on 9 July 2004. The Court directed that Israel demolish the wall. All 15 judges also affirmed that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem breach international law.

Israel continues to build such settlements in defiance of the international community. The court found that Israel is a belligerent occupant of all the territory it captured in 1967 and its practices are in violation of both International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law. The court went further; it declared that member states of the Geneva Conventions – of which New Zealand is one – had ‘additional obligations to ensure Israel’s compliance’ with both branches of international law. Member states are also obliged to find means to prevent Israel continuing to obstruct Palestinians achieving their rights of national sovereignty. The New Zealand government therefore is obliged to act.

The previous New Zealand government’s record has not been good. In 2006, the former Attorney General improperly intervened to prevent Auckland police executing an arrest warrant for war crimes against a former Israeli General. This favour was granted despite the fact that Israeli agents had illegally procured New Zealand passports the year before.

We note that New Zealand is campaigning for a seat on the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. New Zealand claims ‘...the promotion and protection of human rights should be…aimed at strengthening the capacity of member states to comply with their human rights obligations…’ If the New Zealand government is serious, then it must be active in pressuring the Israeli government in relation to Palestinian rights. We have some specific requests so that New Zealand can act to fulfil its obligations:

1. Revoke the credentials of the Israeli Ambassador to New Zealand.
2. Cut contacts with Israeli military and intelligence officials outside of official UN sponsored peacekeeping or observer liaison. New Zealand is acting with other countries in taking specific actions against the governments of both Fiji and Zimbabwe. It can take similar actions against Israel.
3. Ensure that New Zealand does not import goods manufactured, in whole or in part, in the Occupied Territories.
4. Ensure that the New Zealand government does not make use of Israeli products or services in its procurement provisions.
5. Take steps to ensure that New Zealand sourced goods and services are not used by Israel to further its occupation of Palestinian lands.
6. End the ‘Working Holiday Scheme’ for young Israelis.
7. Attend meetings specific to, and advocate within, international organisations for the rights of the Palestinian people.

It was a National Party Foreign Minister who first met a Palestine Liberation Organisation representative in 1982. At that time, New Zealand laid out that the UNSC resolutions, in particular 242, were the basis for a peaceful settlement. Now such statements have disappeared. It is time New Zealand returned to citing UNSC Resolution 242, making it clear to Israel that a key to peace is ending the occupation of all Palestinian territory taken in June 1967.

It is axiomatic that New Zealand continues to register its support in the United Nations General Assembly for UNGA 194 concerning the right of Palestinian refugees to return and be compensated for their losses.

In your statements, you have equated Hamas and Israeli actions. Were New Zealand to be genuinely even-handed then it would establish relations with Hamas as it has with Israel. If it is good enough for New Zealand to use Hamas to secure the release of captured photojournalist Olaf Wigg in 2006, then it is good enough for New Zealand to establish a dialogue with a group that democratically won the Palestinian elections that same year.

Without a withdrawal from the Palestinian Territories, the cycle of violence that goes back to the creation of Israel and the expulsion of most of the population of Palestine is bound to continue. ‘Even-handed’ calls for ceasefires, immediate or otherwise, will simply be a prelude to the next time Israel decides to attack its neighbours.

New Zealand contributed to the cleaning up of hundreds of thousands of landmines left by Israel in southern Lebanon as it withdrew in the 2006 invasion. We see that New Zealand and the rest of the international community would have better use of its resources than cleaning up after repeated Israeli carnages.

Our Group wrote to the Prime Minister about these issues in April last year. We presented a number of questions. We have still yet to receive a reply. We would appreciate answers to those questions.

Yours Sincerely,

Gerard Burns & Serena Moran

On behalf of the Wellington Palestine Group

McCully Ignores the Issues on Palestine

Foreign Minister Murray McCully clearly plants New Zealand as far on the periphery of the Palestine issue as he can get.

He states that the Wellington Palestine Group wants New Zealand to impose a trade ban on Israel. Indeed that would be an excellent idea. But it is not what the WPG is asking the government for. We want the New Zealand government to make sure that it does not assist the occupation of Palestinian territory in either the trade or military areas. That is quite a different thing. For example, we want a stop to the practice of effectively smuggling goods into New Zealand branded as from Israel, when the source of the goods is actually the West Bank or the Syrian Golan Heights. Despite our protests the government has never done anything to stop this, though legislation exists to outlaw false country of origin branding.

We also asked for a cut to the military and spy links with Israel. McCully only answered the spy issue. We think the people of New Zealand should know who our military forces are hobnobbing with.

A 'Group of Ten, leading US foreign policy experts, such as Brent Scowcroft and Paul Volcker, have written to Barak Obama, urging an engagement with Hamas. Mr McCully however prefers to recognise the Palestinian Authority as the sole Palestinian representative. The term of the PA President, Mamoud Abass, expired in January, but New Zealand pretends that Mamoud Abass is still the boss. His political party lost the Palestine elections, but it seems that New Zealand didn't notice and, like the US, is only prepared to accept the winner of an election that it approves of.

New Zealand diplomats may sneak reference to UNSC 242 into their reams of correspondence, but it's been years since mention of this embarasing decision of the highest body of the United Nations has seen the light of day in a speach or press release by a government minister - even when that government minister is addressing the UN General Assembly itself.

UNSC 242 has been recognised for years as the legal authority for instructing Israel to vacate the territory it occupied in 1967. Effectively, it legitimsed the Palestinian land Israel took beyond its UN allocation in 1948. That has never been enough for Israel. As 242 slips off the international agenda, to be replaced by vague notions of 'restraint' and 'a path to peace', the specific demand on Israel to relenqish its occupation grows weaker, as does its apparent right to use violence to control its occupation grow stronger.

Fundamentally, Murray McCully and the New Zealand government can't get past Israel as the good guy, amenable to reason and persuasion. That has been the strategy of the western world for Israel ever since Israel was implanted into Palestine more than 60 years ago. It has not worked. Israeli leaders have pretended to listen and then have continued to ignore the advice and persuasion to consolidate their hold over the land of Palestine by whatever means necessary.

Our government does accept that some regimes are not dealt with this way. Zimbabwe and Fiji are obviously two. Nowhere in his letter does Murray McCully explain why the political leadership of Zimbabwe and Fiji are to be isolated, but for Israel there is to be a warm and agreeable relationship.