Before I make my point I unfortunately feel it is important to make a few context points. I’m not a supporter of Netanyahu, I don’t believe in a greater Israel and I do hold the widespread view that there is only a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in peaceful co-existence, which necessitates two states on the land concerned. Criticism of the Israeli government isn't anti-semitic, because millions of Israelis do it regularly. You might argue that believing Israel shouldn't exist is anti-semitic, and I don't hold that view, but it certainly rejects the idea that Jews are entitled to national self-determination, and for people who proclaim that this is a fundamental right, why should Jews be exempt from this, unless you think they are lesser? Israel is a thriving liberal democracy, it contains the full spectrum of views on the issues confronting it, from fundamentalists who are eliminationists about Palestinian Arabs, to radicals who question the very existence of Israel at all. This spectrum of opinion, assuming it exists, cannot be expressed in Gaza or the parts of the West Bank governed by the Palestinian Authority. Not that this matters to purported supporters of Palestinians. This post is not about debating Israel vs. Palestine, it is about whether or not you can support Palestinian Arabs as a people, without supporting the fascist eliminationist theocratic death cult of Hamas at the same time. I am fairly certain that most of those who believe the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong were not supporters of Japan's fascist imperial government. However, it would appear that many Palestinian supporters find it difficult to separate them from Hamas.
What is important is the narrow band of opinion expressed by those who openly support the Palestinian Arabs in New Zealand and how silent they almost all have been since Hamas invaded Israel to murder and abduct hundreds of Israelis, who live peacefully on territory recognised by every New Zealand government as being justifiably Israel.
With the exception of the geriatric tankie John Minto, who has always been off to the far-left, the silence has been deafening. Green list MP Golriz Ghahraman condemned the attack, but of course there is always a but… about how Israel responds. Apparently if citizens of a government are attacked, murdered and abducted, the key focus should be on “not overreacting”. In itself it may seem fair, but it's immoral to not call for Hamas to cease glorifying killing and promoting Jew hatred, and comparing that to a military defending its citizens from attack.
Auckland Central Green MP Chloe Swarbrick and Green list MP Ricardo Menendez-March have kept silent, as has Wellington Central Green candidate Tamatha Paul. Green list MP Teanau Tuiono and Labour Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb, both members of a Palestinian solidarity Facebook group that, before it locked down, contained rabidly anti-semitic rhetoric including Holocaust denial.
Then we have the absurdity of Green co-leader Marama Davidson, in The Press debate claiming that if Hamas is to be declared a terrorist group, so should the Israeli Defence Forces. She grants moral equivalence between Islamofascists who call for eliminationist genocide of Jews worldwide, and the national military of a recognised sovereign state and member of the United Nations. Even accepting, as I do, that the Israeli Defence Forces are far from angelic, Davidson’s comparison is telling – telling of either how absolutely batshit stupid she is, or how odious is her outlook on the world, and how terrifyingly she may see political violence carried out in the name of what she supports.
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Te Pati Maori list MP has also engaged in “whataboutery” around all this. Again, there has been no statement from Te Pati Maori condemning Hamas, but this is a party which has a foreign policy of being “friends to all”, except apparently when one of its “friends” tries murdering another. It’s morally empty.
Bear in mind the Green Party and the Labour Party have both been vehement in their demands for tougher laws to ban “hate speech”, it’s curious how tolerant they are of their own MPs allying themselves with people who engage in expressions that would be caught by this.
I on the other hand am quite happy for them all to show who they ally themselves with and tolerate in their campaign for Palestinian rights, and who they don’t condemn, because it speaks volumes.
Contrast it to how the Green Party acted in response to Posie Parker and her rally in the debate on transgender rights. No doubt her rallies attracted some people objectively from the “far-right”, but it was hardly dominated by it, but the approach of the Greens, and transgender rights lobbyists were to damn all of their critics as “Nazis” by association. Curious how this doesn't, at all, apply when it comes to Green MPs associating with those backing Hamas.
Hamas, of course, has zero tolerance for transgender or anyone with sexual or gender diversity at all. Like all Islamists they are ultra-conservatives who treat women as chattels, who regard homosexuality as an aberration solved by death, but overall they are fascists. Hamas spreads wanton anti-semitic propaganda and teaches children in its schools to celebrate martyrdom and killing Jews. Nazis would find much of their literature to be familiar.
So when Green and Labour MPs who support Palestinian rights don’t simultaneously condemn, unreservedly, Hamas, its ideology and its actions, are they associating with Nazis too? Does parading their slogan (shared with Hezbollah from Lebanon, and shared with radical elements of Fatah on the West Bank) mean these Green MPs are Nazis? Or does the use of the term Nazis not apply when it is a cause you believe in, even though you share that cause with people who embrace and promote actual Nazi ideology.
You might wonder then why Palestinian supporters have not said what is actually a defensible position in favour of a better life for the Palestinians:
• Hamas is an evil fascist racist organisation that will not help Palestinians to be free, and its actions and ideology are condemned unreservedly;
• The only solution to the Palestinian conflict is for a peaceful settlement whereby there are two states that exist side-by-side with mutual respect for the existence of each other, and which promote tolerance and free exchange between peoples;
• Israel has the right to defend itself, and it has the right to do what it takes to free hostages, apprehend terrorists and destroy Hamas’s means to kill its people;
• Palestinians deserve a free homeland, and the civil and political rights we take for granted, and there should be international co-operation to promote this, to not support movements that desire to eliminate Israel and promote Jew hatred.
• Israel deserves to live in peace, and to ensure all those within its borders have equal civil and political rights, and that does not mean settlements on occupied territory or to implement a Greater Israel on the occupied territories.
If any MPs or candidates support Hamas, then we all deserve to know and act accordingly. If any of them refuse to condemn Hamas, then consider how it would be to refuse to condemn the Christchurch shooter, or to refuse to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and Te Pati Maori and the Greens are a bit weak on that too).
It's been a dereliction of the duty of most of the media to not ask these questions. You might ask why? The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand published a press statement which did not condemn the actions of Hamas at all, but actually condemned those who called out Hamas. This is an organisation that gained much sympathy and publicity for its demand for tolerance after the Christchurch shooting, and rightfully so. Now it has been shown to be disgraceful sympathisers with Hamas, and as a result, sympathisers of hatred towards Jews.
So we can now see, clear as day, what the moral compass is of those who claim to have a moral compass about human rights, about tolerance, about combating hatred and even about rights for LGBT people, and women.
It’s broken. Whoever you vote for, don’t vote for individuals who can’t condemn the gleeful murder of people, who promote a theocratic fascist state with no tolerance for dissent from Islamism, no tolerance for Jews, no tolerance for political dissent, and no tolerance for gay, lesbian or the transgender people the empty vessels of the Green Party and Te Pati Maori claim to care about. Their tolerance and their opposition to hatred doesn’t apply to Jews, Israelis or EVEN Palestinians, because they are happy for Palestinians to be led by a fascist racist homophobic misogynistic death cult. That also means don't vote Green or Te Pati Maori. We can be grateful that Hipkins DID condemn Hamas, as did Luxon, Seymour and Peters.
My biggest hope is that tomorrow the Palestinian rallies are tiny, and the scenes from Sydney, where a group was not just celebrating the murder of Israelis, but calling for genocide, are not repeated. If those who are keen on the cause could just not do that...
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