Israel and Iran are at war. After months of worsening tensions highlighted by occasional posturing, the Iranian-Israel feud over Iran’s nuclear ambitions erupted into war on Friday last week.
There is absolutely nothing to gain from continuing the war for a minute longer. The conflict only increases the likelihood of a further deterioration in peace prospects for the Middle East. It all but ensures that another generation or more of Israelis and Iranians will only ever grow up knowing suspicion and hatred of each other.
It is also Israel’s fault. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since the day former President Barak Obama announced a deal in 2015 that would secure Iran’s compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency on its nuclear ambitions, has said Israel would not recognize the deal. At every opportunity since, he has relentlessly pushed the message that no kind of nuclear programme – peaceful or military – can be permitted in Iran and that Israel would be prepared to use armed force to ensure this.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a warmonger. He is a war criminal. He is the face of modern day fascism in the Middle East. Mr Netanyahu is of the belief that there is no place for Palestine in the Middle East. The only thing he believes in is that Israel has some kind of God given right to do as it pleases, with attacks on Lebanon, Yemen and Syria and the seizure of land in the Golan Heights. All of this is in addition to committing acts of a purely genocidal nature in Gaza.
Few people will have much sympathy for Israel in the third world. Not many have much sympathy for it in the developed world either except among conservative parties, the M.A.G.A. movement in the United States and possibly the companies that do well out of supplying Israel with war material.
Does this mean I support the regime in Iran, and that I am anti-Israel/anti-Semitic?
No. No, on all three counts.
- On the subject of the Iranian regime:
- I know people from Iran who have fled the regime and are now fearing the worst; lovely brave and very intelligent people who know of a time when the regime didn’t exist and Iran was a secular country – all this before the C.I.A. interfered with Iranian politics in 1979 (and prior to that in 1953);
- If I supported the Iranian regime, that would imply support for the terrorist groups that Iran fund and arm, which I am quite happy to see getting listed as such – and I have been working with Iranians in Christchurch to get the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which arms HAMAS and Hezbollah added to the list
- If I supported the regime, I would not have written letters to M.P.’s in New Zealand asking them to list the I.R.G.C. as a terrorist group; attend rallies by the local Iranian community
2. On the subject of being anti-Israeli
- If I was truly anti-Israeli, I would point blank not recognize Israel’s right to exist; I recognise its pre-1967 borders and its absolute right to those borders
- I condemn the attacks by various terrorist groups over the years – contrary to what many of the Green M.P.’s here and supporters of Palestine over the years have been saying, those rockets are not home made; the Katyusha is a former Soviet short range rocket dating back to W.W.2; the Iranian missiles with more powerful warheads, better guidance and longer range are all post-W.W.2. designs
On the subject of being anti-Semitic
- If this were true, I would not have any Jewish friends – I have several
- If this were true do you really think I would have visited places such as Anne Frank Huis and Holocaust Museum, both in Amsterdam in 2018
Both the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic allegations don’t actually mean much to me. Over the years of speaking for a two state solution – which is now dead – I have been accused of being both anti-Israeli and anti-Palestinian. I have been accused of being ignorant of history on both sides, which in itself is a kind of ignorant accusation given that Middle East politics and the various actors very much make it a multi-dimensional issue.
And that brings me nicely to my disappointment at the apparent inability of New Zealand at the moment to stand up and be counted. We are a nation of considerable soft power and when we use it well, the world notices. We are a nation that has regard for international law. We pride ourselves on how we treat other peoples and like to think that we are an egalitarian country that gives everyone a fair go – or at least tries.
Right now we should be standing up to Israeli aggression. Bombing the daylights out of Iran will not do anyone any favours, and will only ensure decades more misery. If Israel closes its diplomatic mission in Wellington long term, that is their loss – they should have thought about the consequences before they started bombing Tehran.
Right now we should be pushing with urgency through the United Nations a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional end to the violence, with a warning to Israel that suspension from the United Nations is not impossible.
But, does Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters have the gumption to do it?
And therein lies the problem. I am not sure that a party that was once one of the leaders in N.Z. politics in promoting the very international diplomacy I am advocating for here, wants to know.
Will we, Aotearoa New Zealand, have the gumption to stand up to Israel at a time when someone needs to put their foot down hard?
Leftist Kiwi Writes 