Israel Under Fire Again
By Graeme Lee.. The NZ Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, thinks that the only option that he has is “to push for peace”. So on 23 December 2016 he promoted the passage of Resolution 2334 in the United Nations Security Council, just days before New Zealand’s two-year seat in the Council expired. His backers were the anti-Israel nations of Malaysia, Yemen and Libya. The resolution goes well beyond the West Bank Settlement issue. It says the east section of the Old City should be fully occupied by Palestinians and includes the Holy Sepulchre and other areas.
It should be noted that the resolution was originally planned by Egypt but under pressure from various quarters it withdrew. However Obama from the US seems deliberately to favour abstention instead of vetoing the resolution. He has done this in the past so why is he inconsistent now?
The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, has properly accosted Mr McCully in a phone call to New Zealand. He said the UN resolution was a “declaration of war”. He has called the resolution a shameful anti-Israel action! PM Netanyahu has taken further action to withdraw the Israeli Ambassador from New Zealand Dr Yitzhak Gerber. He has also banned the NZ Ambassador to Israel and warned of further sanctions in the future!
Another event was the last speech of the outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry. He angered Israel in his anti- Semitic speech. Kerry, it should be noted, had four years to promote the two state solution of Israel and failed to do so.
A further contributor was the Education Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett, who said that Israel had done nothing wrong! The days of treating the 450,000 Jewish settlers as “second class” citizens was over.
The Jewish community and all the Israel support groups in New Zealand have sent a letter to the new Prime Minister of NZ the Right Honourable Bill English. The letter of some eight clauses details the error of McCully’s actions. This was sent 28 December 2016.
The signatories were:
- Bridges for Peace NZ
- Celebrate Messiah NZ
- Christians for Israel NZ
- Christian Friends of Israel NZ
- Ebenezer Emergency Fund Trust NZ
- International Christian Embassy Jerusalem NZ
- Israel Focus Group Greenlane, NZ
- NZ Friends of Israel
- Prayer for Israel NZ
- Prayer for Israel Groups Tauranga, NZ
- Shadows of Shoah
- Auckland Hebrew Congregation
- Australasian Union of Jewish Students
- Beth Shalom Progressive Congregation
- B’nai B’rith International
- Council of Christians & Jews Auckland
- The Jewish Federation of NZ
- The NZ Jewish Council
The Jewish organisation B’nai B’rith Auckland published an article in the NZ Herald on 7 January 2017. It said they were ashamed that our Minister of
Foreign Affairs has used the final moments of his tenure to push forward a clearly one sided, inequitable and destructive resolution. They further said the resolution is unbalanced and places the settlements as the primary impediment to peace, while paying lip service to the refusal of Palestinians to negotiate a peace agreement. Other clauses were also included.
It was reported that the incoming President of USA Donald Trump, has said he will reverse the decision when he takes office on 20 January 2017.
Many believe the resolution first put forward by Egypt was withdrawn after pressure by the President Elect.
