Call to recognise Palestine as state
The Labour Party has urged the Government to officially recognise Palestine as a state, seeking a shift in New Zealand’s long-standing position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
But Foreign Minister Winston Peters has denied the request from Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman David Parker, saying the Government believes it is a matter of “when not if” – but now is not the right time.
Both Labour and National governments have for years backed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which has seriously worsened since October. Israel is levelling Gaza, killing an estimated 30,000 people, in response to a terrorist attack by Palestinian extremist group Hamas that killed more than 1000 people.
The backing of the two-state solution implies New Zealand will officially recognise Palestine as a state, instead of occupied Palestinian territories, in the future.
Parker on April 12 wrote to Peters urging him to follow the example of some 139 United Nations members to recognise Palestine as a state. “The international community, including New Zealand, should not stand by and watch Israel breach international law and ignore entreaties without taking meaningful action,” he said in the letter, which Labour made public yesterday.
“We believe it is time now for New Zealand to reinforce our opposition to the war and our support for a lasting peace, including Palestinian independence. “There can be no lasting peace without Palestinian statehood. Recognition signals this. It doesn’t matter that the state is yet to be fully established, with agreed borders. Many states and much of the Western world recognised Israel well before it was established as a state. Similarly with Kosovo.”
Peters, in response, said the immediate need was for a ceasefire, and for humanitarian aid to be provided to the “innocent civilian population”. “We cannot afford to take our eyes off the current crisis. Bluntly asserting statehood unilaterally at this point, however well intentioned, would do nothing to alleviate the current plight of the Palestinian people. Indeed, it might impede progress.
“We would need to be sure that any change in our current settings would contribute credibly to a serious diplomatic push to achieve a two-state solution. We do not believe we are currently at that point.”
Labour campaigned at the 2023 election on inviting a Palestinian representative to become an ambassador to New Zealand, which amounts to recognising Palestine as a state. But the party was more muted about doing this after the Hamas attack.
In the months before the attack, then-foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta had been planning a trip to Palestine that was deferred due to the election, and a group of Labour MPs had been pushing for their government to recognise Palestine as a state.
Asked yesterday why the party had not recognised Palestine while in power, leader Chris Hipkins said the “time and tide” had changed.
The United States has given Ukraine a “chance for victory” in its battle against Russian occupation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after Washington finally approved another US$61 billion (NZ$103b) in military aid.
After months of delay caused by opposition from within the Republican Party, the House of Representatives cleared the funds at the weekend, voting 311-112 to back a US$95b bill that also included aid for Israel, Gaza and Taiwan. US senators are expected to pass the bill this week.
Kyiv is hopeful the injection of money will help it to wrest back the initiative from Russia, which has gained the upper hand in the war in recent months as Ukraine’s ammunition supplies have dwindled.
Zelensky said the funds would send a message to Moscow that Ukraine would not be “a second Afghanistan”; an apparent reference to the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country in 2021. “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine and we will have a chance for victory,” he said, urging the Senate to push through the measures as soon as possible.
“We want to help get things as fast as possible so we get some tangible assistance for the soldiers on the frontline as soon as possible, not in another six months.”
Moscow criticised the new funding package, with Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council, describing it as a vote “for the continuation of civil war of the divided people of our formerly united country” and “for the maximum increase in numbers of victims of this war”.
He added: “We will, of course, be victorious regardless of the bloodsoaked US$61b, which will mostly be swallowed up by their insatiable military industrial complex.”
US President Joe Biden said after the weekend’s aid vote: “I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs.”
US critics of the aid package had said Washington should focus more on domestic concerns, but Zelenskyy insisted the bill was in American interests.
“[Americans] first and foremost are protecting freedom and democracy all over Europe,” he said. “The US army now does not have to fight protecting Nato countries. Ukrainians are doing that. And it’s only ammo that the civilised world is providing. I think it’s a good decision.”
He was asked about Donald Trump’s comment in February that if re-elected, he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to those countries.
Zelensky refused to be drawn on the matter, but warned that if Putin were victorious in Ukraine he would target the Baltic states before turning to Poland and even parts of Germany.