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It seems that there is a contradiction between the genocide described by a UN report in Gaza, and New Zealand’s declaration at the United Nations last Saturday stating it would not join 157 countries to recognize a Palestinian State.
Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand welcomed the government decision relayed at UN General Assembly by Foreign Minister Winston Peters. He claimed that recognition of a Palestinian State legitimizes Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Helen Clark, the former Labour Prime Minister, said that “New Zealand is very much in the wrong part of history”. She called the position of the government “confusing”.
The National-led Coalition’s stance has been certainly ambiguous in practice. The coalition has repeatedly called for an end to the violence in Gaza and reiterated support for two states.
In January 2024 it agreed to deploy a smaller Defence Force as part of an alliance led by the United States against Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea despite US using their Security Council veto in order to prevent a Gaza ceasefire.
The government was also strikingly silent on the proposal made by President Donald Trump in February of this year, to end the possibility of a Two-State Solution through the acquisition of Gaza. This would have effectively led to the expulsion of two million Palestinians from Gaza.
The report also said little about the controversial US-Israeli initiative to launch the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at the end of May. This move, which has effectively sidelined UN aid distribution while causing the deaths of over 1,000 Palestinians in their quest for food, was a controversial one.
In June, together with Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom the Government imposed sanctions against two extreme-right Israeli ministers: Bezalel smotrich, and Itamar Ben Gvir, for inciting “extremist violence” towards Palestinians.
The Trump administration strongly criticized the decision, but the New Zealand government’s position and that of close allies seemed to be hardening.
Christopher Luxon, the Prime Minister of Canada in August declared Israel’s assault on Gaza City as “utterly unacceptable” and that Benjamin Netanyahu “lost his plot”.
We now know that none of these arguments was sufficient to persuade the government to recognize the statehood of Palestine, as other liberal democracies have done, such as Australia Canada UK France Portugal.
NZ’s reputation is on the line
Peters’ political argument is that, while Hamas is the de facto ruler of Gaza, and “war is raging”, a viable Palestinian state is not possible to recognize.
The prime minister said that this decision was “balanced”, and in line with the independent foreign policy. It is also possible to argue that the strategy rests on some questionable assumptions.
Israel and Hamas have not succeeded in destroying Hamas. Hamas has also failed to prevent Gaza from being reduced to a pile of rubble. Smotrich said that such destruction is “unprecedented in the world”. “The world won’t stop us.”
The government seems to have overlooked the role that the international recognised Palestinian Authority of the West Bank, which is based in Gaza, could play as a governance body in Gaza for a future Palestinian State.
New Zealand seems to have accepted tacitly the position that Netanyahu had taken against any role of this kind for the Palestinian Authority.
Peters described Gaza’s situation as “simply unbearable”. It’s possible that this has happened without New Zealand’s official recognition of the Palestinian state. How does delaying the recognition of a Palestinian state improve matters?
Netanyahu, after all, has been against the idea of a “two-state” solution since mid-1990s. His far-right government pledged that it would annex West Bank and take control of Gaza, in violation of UN Resolutions and international law.
The latest wave of recognition of the statehood of Palestine is a result of a belated realization by several democracies of the fact that Netanyahu would never accept such a state. This is before Israel has completed its attempt to absorb all the territories occupied.
The countries who have recognised the Palestinian state have also considered all of the pros and cons. They have chosen, however symbolically, to take a stand on morality and law in support of the Palestinians’ right to political self-determination.
New Zealand risks being seen to be aligned with Israel and the US, who are responsible for the prolongation of the Gaza conflict.
This perception could have a devastating impact on New Zealand’s reputation as an independent state committed to international law.
