'THE BREAD MASSACRE': NO RESPONSE FROM THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT

 

The New Zealand Government has branded the political wing of Hamas 'a terrorist organisation', but continues to accommodate itself to Israel's brutal genocidal war which has already claimed over 30,000 Palestinian lives.

ON THE SAME day that the New Zealand Government decided that the Palestinian people should also be denied any political representation and branded the political wing of Hamas 'a terrorist organisation', Israel was committing another atrocity in Gaza. It will be forever known as 'The Bread Massacre' and will serve to steel a new generation of Palestinian liberation fighters. Another war crime was committed, with Israeli troops firing on hundreds of starving Palestinians waiting in line for humanitarian aid, including flour for bread. Most reports say that as many as 150 Palestinians were killed, with over 700 wounded. The death toll can only continue to mount.

But no condemnation of this massacre has been forthcoming from the New Zealand Government. Even the fact that Israel continues to flout the rulings of the International Court of Justice, has not been enough to stir the Government into any meaningful response.

But by focusing on Hamas, the New Zealand Government denies the long decades of oppression and violence that the Palestinian people have been subjected to from the rogue Zionist state. In Israel’s version of events, and accepted by western governments, the war only began on October 7, when Hamas fighters attacked Israeli military bases, settlements, and towns in the south of Israel. No other date or event before the Hamas attack matters to Israel, the West, and a corporate media covering the war with so much concern for Israel and complete disregard for the atrocities it is committing in Gaza.

Palestinian voices that insist on discussing the Gaza war within proper historical contexts are ignored. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the siege on Gaza in 2007, all the bloody wars before and after – are denied platforms. Branding the political wing of Hamas 'a terrorist organisation' is part of denying Palestinian people a voice.

And compare Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's lack of response to 'The Bread Massacre' compared to that of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia. He has been unequivocal in his condemnation:

'The killing of over a hundred Palestinians while they are begging for food is called genocide.'