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| Anti-Israel rally in New Zealand last May |
Government-backed BDS support, links to the Amnesty report, and Holocaust denial in major institutions: What’s up with New Zealand?
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis has produced an excellent overview of people who publicly promoted the latest Amnesty report, showing just how predetermined the narrative was. From the Secretary General of Amnesty, who has promoted BDS; to the Research and Advocacy Director and Senior Adviser, who reverted to antisemitic tropes of Jewish power when questioned about the disproportionate condemnation of Israel.
However, all the senior Amnesty staff who have remained silent as the once-proud organisation embarasses itself are also responsible. I was fascinated to see that one of the Vice Chairs, Tiumalu Peter Fa'afiu, hails from New Zealand. This struck me as surprising, given the image of the South Pacific as a tolerant, liberal, part of the globe and a people who should understand indigenous struggles - including those of the Jews.
Digging deeper here I was floored to learn that Mr Fa’afiu spent eight years with the New Zealand Foreign Ministry. Surely Fa’afiu’s silence in the face of his current organisation’s antisemitism was not representative of New Zealand politics?
I was about to enter a surprisingly dark rabbit hole. The island nation next to Australia might project itself as a natural ally of democratic countries and it is a member of some of the pro-Western ‘clubs’ like the Five Eyes security alliance, but New Zealand does not, in fact, hold a great record when it comes to Israel or Jews.
New Zealand, I discovered, is one of the only Western countries to not designate Hamas or Hezbollah as terror organizations;
The New Zealand Sovereign Wealth Fund recently joined Ben & Jerry’s joining of the BDS movement by divesting from Israeli banks;
Bizarrely, New Zealand maintains an Embassy in Iran and in Turkey but has no embassy in Israel whatsoever;
New Zealand is perhaps the only Western nation to have actively avoided investigating its provision of safe haven for Nazi SS officers to its shores after World War II;
New Zealand is the only Western country to have awarded a University degree for a work of Holocaust denial;
The list goes on
What the hell is up with New Zealand?
It appears the country is a sovereign equivalent of Ben & Jerry’s - an apparently cuddly brand on the outside but a bad apple on the inside. Not, in fact ‘The Lord of the Rings’, but much more like ‘The Lord of the Wrongs’.
New Zealand has been chasing a Free Trade Agreement with the USA as a ‘key goal’ for a while. While New Zealand continues to undermine America by undermining our closest ally Israel, we should make it crystal clear that a bad friend gets no free trade access.
This issue is likely to make its way to Congress via senators in much the same way an increasing set of vocal Americans notified their representatives that Ben & Jerry’s needed censure. Ben & Jerry’s is just an ice cream company, but New Zealand has influence over a number of Pacific Islands and their votes at the United Nations. New Zealand represents a case where patriotic Americans, both Democrat and Republican, can send a strong message that the US is a real friend of Israel.
Please write to your friendly senator or member of Congress and let them know that New Zealand isn’t a friend of Israel and shouldn't be rewarded without pivoting its voting at the UN, its bigoted sovereign investment policy, investigating its safe haven to Nazis, revoking its Holocaust denial theses in its Universities, and proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah.
