LABOUR AND NATIONAL: COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE

In the UK, Labour leader Keir Starmer is facing widespread dissent from within his own party over his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In New Zealand, Labour leader Chris Hipkins can refuse to call for a ceasefire and face zero opposition from within Labour's ranks. Little wonder that Labour MP Phil Twyford was shouted down at a Palestine solidarity rally a fortnight ago.

IT WAS good to see Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger join tens of thousands of other New Zealanders on the right side of history and call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In his letter to the Mayors for Peace network, Mauger calls on other mayors to join the global campaign for a ceasefire. Over 8,000 cities are members of Mayors of Peace. 

Mauger's letter though highlights again the failure of our two largest political parties to call for a ceasefire. While both the Green Party and Te Pati Maori are demanding a ceasefire - and Te Pati Maori also wants the Israeli ambassador expelled -- both National and Labour refuse to join the ceasefire call.

The death of political difference between New Zealand's two largest parties has been starkly underscored by the two parties' response to Israel’s war on Gaza. While over 11,000 Palestinians are known to be dead, some 40 percent of them children, with many more certain to be lying under the rubble, the response of both National and Labour has been to do little more than to express 'grave concern' about the escalation of violence in Gaza - without saying who is responsible for that escalating violence -  while continuing to emphasise Israel's right to 'defend itself' What exactly is Israel defending itself from? Babies in incubators?

Calling for a ceasefire and the protection of children ought to have been a political no-brainer, especially for a political party that likes to congratulate itself for its enlightened foreign policy. But Labour leader Chris Hipkins wants to keep Labour close to the Biden administration. And that means turning a blind eye to genocide in Gaza. 

When asked last week if he thought Israel had committed war crimes, Hipkins responded that he couldn't really say because 'obviously I'm not there'. He also said that he was 'not going to make a judgement' about whether the bombing of refugee camps, hospitals and ambulances breached international law.

While Chris Hipkins, like Christopher Luxon, should be called out for his political cowardice and his complicity with genocide, the lack of dissent within Labour is also worthy of our opprobrium. Where is the dissent? 

In Britain Labour leader Keir Starmer's refusal to call for a ceasefire has been met with fierce opposition from within Labour itself. Dozens of local Labour councillors have already resigned in protest, leading the party to lose control of two councils, including Oxford.

At least sixteen members of Starmer's front bench have broken ranks, too. And on the backbench, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and fellow socialist Zarah Sultana, among others, continue to voice their criticism of Starmer - as do the Labour mayors of London and Manchester, Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham. 

In stark contrast, New Zealand's Labour's MP's, to a man and a woman, have kept their mouths shut. No one has been prepared to stand up and be counted and call for a ceasefire. It has been meek obedience to 'the party line' and, in the case of Nelson MP Rachel Boyack, even apologising for attending a march that chanted the Palestinian rallying call, 'from the river to the sea'.  She wilted under the attack of far-right Zionists who are still peddling the nonsense that the chant is anti-semitic.

At an Palestine solidarity rally in central Auckland two weeks ago, the failure of Labour MP Phil Twyford to call for a ceasefire saw him shouted down by the crowd. Twyford struggled to be heard over chants of 'Shame on Labour'.  

And while Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb has long been a supporter of the Palestinian cause, he seems to have lost his bottle too. He has also failed to call for a ceasefire and if his Facebook page is any indication, he seems more interested in making Christmas cakes at the moment. Staunch. That's not a word to describe Duncan Webb.

The goal of the neo-fascist Israeli regime is clear; a 'pure' Israel, cleansed of its Palestinian irritants. And it is prepared to reduce Gaza to a wasteland to get what it wants. It is genocide but neither Chris Hipkins nor Chris Luxon are prepared to do more than call for meaningless 'humanitarian pauses' and maybe talk vaguely of a 'two-state solution' - an option that Israel shut down years ago.