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It feels slightly surreal to see our politicians react to the violence in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on Israel two months ago.
Within the first two days of the attack Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, during the last week of the election campaign, was eager to speak out saying “New Zealand condemns unequivocally the terror attacks led by Hamas on Israel”. Brutal and horrific were other adjectives he used. At the time National leader Chris Luxon made similar comments saying the attack was “barbaric and unprovoked”. Mr Luxon didn’t explain why he thought Palestinians fighting back after 75 years of brutal, colonial oppression was somehow “unprovoked”.
It took a further six weeks and 12,000 Palestinians slaughtered before Chris Hipkins, as Labour Party leader rather than as caretaker Prime Minister, spoke out to criticise Israel. This time he called for an immediate ceasefire and said Israel’s response was “disproportionate and indiscriminate”. Few would dispute that. Even the Israeli military confirmed their bombing was focused on “damage over accuracy”. So much for going after Hamas.
Chrisopher Luxon, both before and after his election as Prime Minister, has still not uttered a single word of criticism of Israel. And neither has our newly-minted Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters.
Why did it take Israel killing the equivalent of all the students in 23 average-size New Zealand primary schools before Chris Hipkins spoke out? And why is Christopher Luxon still silent?
All the flashing red lights are saying that not only are Israel’s attacks “disproportionate and indiscriminate” but that they have the hallmarks of something more sinister which stems from Israel’s stated intentions and its follow-through military action.
Around the world the term genocide is being used widely to describe Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Numerous academics, senior United Nations officials, leading international human rights organisations and politicians across the globe are using this term to describe what we have seen on our TV screens for the past seven weeks.
Genocide always begins with words and there is a wealth of reporting on the dehumanising language being used by Israel’s political and military leaders to demonise the Palestinian people as a whole.
For example Israel’s President Isaac Hertzog says “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” and two days after the attack Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant spelt out genocidal intentions saying “we are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Unsurprisingly Israelis generally have taken up this talk across social media with calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed”. More tragic is a social media post showing Israeli children singing “we will annihilate everyone” in Gaza.
Under the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the term is defined as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”
Israel’s Defence Minister’s statement matches the UN Convention closely to the point where Israeli scholar of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Raz Segal, has described Israel’s rhetoric and actions as “a textbook case of genocide”
He says Israel is already perpetrating three of the five genocidal acts which fall under the definition of genocide, namely: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
It’s clear Israel’s political and military leaders have a case to answer before the International Criminal Court, just as does Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine.
Israel should also have to answer for war crimes such as “collective punishment” of Palestinians in Gaza which has been at the centre of Israel’s policy and practice. Mass bombing of densely populated civilian areas, the bombing of ambulances, schools, hospitals and other community infrastructure and the targeting of journalists, doctors and health professionals must all be answered for. Using starvation as a weapon of war is the apartheid regime’s latest war crime.
And the war crimes list gets longer. Israel’s clear preference is to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population and force the 2.3 million Palestinians into Egypt’s Sinai desert. Israeli soldiers are repeatedly telling their social media followers the plan is to “destroy, displace and settle”. In other words, destroy Gaza, displace the Palestinians and then annex the area as part of Israel.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention Palestinians are “protected persons” because they live under Israeli military occupation but Palestinians they need protecting from those supposed to protect them!
Meanwhile, under the cover of war, ethnic cleansing of rural Palestinian communities is taking place in the occupied West Bank by heavily armed Israeli settlers with the backing of the Israeli military. At least 15 of these communities have been driven off their land over the past six weeks while at least 235 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem have been killed resisting the Israeli occupation since October 6th.
New Zealand is a small country which talks a big game claiming we are committed to “rules-based international order”.
New Zealand has a chance to be a champion of these international rules by calling for a swift, well-resourced International Criminal Court investigation into war crimes committed in the attack on Israel and the Israeli response. This investigation must also include investigation into the crimes of genocide and apartheid.
Staying silent in the face of genocide is complicity with Israeli war crimes, state terrorism and settler colonial abuses against the indigenous Palestinians.
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