THE GENOCIDE HOTLINE UPSETS THE ZIONIST LOBBY

The campaign to 'out' Israeli soldiers holidaying in New Zealand has upset the Zionist lobby. Both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Human Rights Commissioner are also upset that Israeli war criminals might have their holidays disturbed. They both want the campaign to cease, but since it has also been picked up internationally, it's much too late for that.

 

THE CAMPAIGN by the Palestine Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) to 'out' Israeli war criminals holidaying in New Zealand has ruffled the feathers of the Zionist lobby. It thinks members of the Israeli military should be allowed to holiday in the country undisturbed.

The local New Zealand campaign comes at a time when Israeli soldiers are facing an increasing risk of being arrested abroad for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza. As of mid-January, some fifty criminal cases have been filed against Israeli soldiers in courts around the world.

Israeli soldiers are vulnerable to arrest because throughout the war on Gaza, they uploaded video to social media showing them searching homes and destroying residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and places of worship. On many videos, Israeli soldiers can be seen chanting racist slogans and openly boasting about committing what appear to be war crimes.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, which has set itself the task of rooting out Israeli war criminals, has, so far, sent the names of over 1,000 soldiers to the International Criminal Court.

But, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, the campaign to expose Israeli soldiers holidaying in New Zealand is an 'outrageous show of fascism, racism, and encouragement of violence and vigilantism'.

Human Rights Watch says that 'any authorised national court in the world' can charge members of the Israeli military with crimes against international law. That's unlikely to happen in New Zealand though, with the National-led coalition government having done next to nothing to oppose Israel's genocidal war. Indeed, the Act Party has supported Israel's war against the people of Gaza.

Although the NZ Herald has claimed that 'Jewish groups have slammed the hotline', the newspaper only refers to two groups, and they are both Zionist-controlled. Both the NZ Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre deny that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

The spokesperson for the NZ Jewish Council is Auckland lawyer Juliet Moses. She has been one of New Zealand's more high profile supporters of Israel's war on Gaza and has routinely tried to smear critics of Israel has 'anti-Semitic'. She has recently complained that Al Jazeera continues to broadcast in New Zealand, and celebrated the arrest of the editor of The Electronic Intifida for nothing more than publishing articles unfavourable to the Israeli far right government.

In October last year, a representative of the Holocaust Centre, Ben Kupes, spoke against a Christchurch City Council motion that proposed not to do business with any organisations trading with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Despite the many outlandish claims made by Kupes, the motion was passed.

Both the NZ Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre complained to the Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow. They would have been confident that Rainbow, also a Zionist and friend of Juliet Moses, would rule in their favour.

In January last year, in a column headed 'With every chant, Israel's case grows stronger', Rainbow took aim at activists like Green co-leader Chloe 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, a close ally of Juliet Moses. Last year, they were both heavily involved in a campaign to smear Chloe Swarbrick as anti-Semitic.

Stephen Rainbow has conceded that the PSNA campaign is not illegal. However, without providing any evidence, he also claims that the 'campaign is potentially harmful to Israeli and Jewish people in Aotearoa New Zealand'. This is simply an attempt by Rainbow to smear the campaign as anti-Semitic. It's an empty Zionist claim we've heard many times before. We deserve a lot better from the supposedly 'independent' Human Rights Commissioner.