No Israeli Embassy

We are protesting against Israel opening an embassy in New Zealand.

We are protesting on behalf of Israel’s forgotten and ignored victims. There are five million Palestinians Israel prevents from living in historical
Palestine. There are more than a million Palestinians besieged by Israel and desolated in Gaza. There are nearly three million Palestinians whose homes are being destroyed and land being gobbled up on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And there are more than a million Palestinians suffering increased discrimination inside Israel.

Israel has refused to recognise the democratically elected Palestinian government.

Israel continues to build new Jews-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These are illegal under international law. Israel’s Separation Barrier, which goes through – not round – the West Bank, is also illegal. Israel continues to increase the number of illegal settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem beyond the current half million.

Nuclear armed Israel claims that it is under threat. Yet no country has dared attack Israel for nearly forty years.

Israel’s Prime Minister talks of ‘making painful concessions for peace’ but has never actually made any such concessions. Israel used to be two faced. It used to talk peace and make war. It now insults its allies and treats a negotiated settlement as a toy it can take or leave as its government becomes more blatantly aggressive and arrogant.

There is no longer any reason to be patient. Israel has ignored the directives of the United Nations for decades. Israeli sensitivities have reached their use by date.

Only an imposed solution will work. Force has failed. Negotiations have failed. We should be telling Israel that until they make a genuine peace with the Palestinians we do not want to know them. Letting Israel set up a branch office in Wellington, to pedal its propaganda here, is rewarding its intransigence.

ENDS

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