Government needs to take a much stronger stand on the latest conflict in Gaza - David Shearer

Labour Foreign Affairs spokesperson David Shearer told TV1’s Q+A programme today that the Government needs to take a much stronger stand on the latest conflict in Gaza.

“I haven't heard very much from Murray McCully, and I believe that we should be emphatic. We should be divesting ourselves of any type of investment like we've seen in the paper this morning, where we are investing through our Superfund into Israeli chemical factories. That should absolutely be off the table. Any products that come out of the occupied territories, where Israelis are operating in the occupied territories, we should be stopping those absolutely. And we should be pulling in the Israeli Ambassador wherever we can throughout the world and saying this is unacceptable.”

“New Zealand has always stood out in the past. I mean we're the mouse that roared if you like, and we are listened to, and we are seen as a clean open player on the international circuit, and I think we need to have our voice heard out there, and to be quite emphatic in the sense of being able to say, this is unacceptable. We need to have a ceasefire yes of course. But we also need to address the fact that for nearly 50 years now the Palestinians have been occupied by Israel, and the conditions that you have put people in, inside of Gaza is breeding the kind of extremism that we're seeing right at the moment, rather than trying to resolve it.”

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:35pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz

Thanks to the support from NZ On Air.

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