NEW ZEALAND'S NEW HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER IS A ZIONIST

The new Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow has defended Israel's genocidal military assault on Gaza, but still thinks he will be 'a good defender of human rights.'


THE COALITION government has appointed a Zionist as New Zealand's new chief Human Rights Commissioner. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says Stephen Rainbow has his 'full confidence'.

Rainbow is a friend of two of New Zealand's most well-known Zionists, Juliet Moses and David Cumin. Both have continued to defend Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.

Juliet Moses and David Cumin have tried to smear prominent critics of Israel as 'anti-semitic'. They have recently been involved in a campaign to discredit Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick as 'anti-Semitic' merely because she used the popular Palestinian rallying call, 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'. They were joined in their attack on Swarbrick by Act leader David Seymour, another defender of Israel's barbaric assault on Gaza.

In January, Stephen Rainbow defended Israel's war on Gaza. In a column headed 'With every chant, Israel's case grows stronger', Rainbow took aim at activists like Swarbrick:

' ...in New Zealand, to be on the Left it seems -if the kaffiyeh wearing antics of Labour and Green MPs of late are any indication- to be anti-Israel has become an integral part of the Leftist creed'.

The column was published by the so-called Israel Institute of New Zealand, a group with alleged links to the Israeli government and run by David Cumin.

Rainbow also tried to conflate Zionism with Judaism: 'The current resurgence of antisemitism across the globe confirms more than ever the need for a nation where Jews can be safe. Every time a protester effectively chants for Israel’s destruction with “from the river to the sea”, it confirms the relentless battle against the right of Jewish people to exist and makes the case for a safe homeland for Jewish people even stronger.

But as writer and activist Naomi Klein has observed of Zionism: 'It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has travelled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.'

Despite defending Israel's genocidal war on the people of Gaza, Rainbow still thinks he will be 'a good defender of human rights'.

The Act Party campaigned to have the Human Rights Commission abolished and failed. But appointments like that of extremists like Stephen Rainbow will only serve to delegitimise the HRC in the eyes of many people. As an organisation, it will be weakened.  Act leader David Seymour will be happy.