WINSTON PETERS: ETHNIC CLEANSING MIGHT BE A 'PRACTICAL' PLAN

Even though it flies in the face of the Geneva Convention, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has hinted that it might be 'practical' to purge the Palestinian people from Gaza.

ARTICLE 49 of the Geneva convention states that 'Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive'.  However, Donald Trump regards both domestic and international law as mere inconvenient obstacles in the way of imposing his authoritarian plans. And his new plan is to purge Gaza of the Palestinian people and construct a shiny new outpost for American capitalism, or what Trump likes to call his 'Riviera of the East'.

The proposal for ethnic cleansing is so obscene that even UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rejected it, although his rejection of Trump's plan is not motivated by any concern for the Palestinian people. While Starmer has been happy so supply Israel the arms to fight its genocidal war against the Palestinian people, he recognises that any attempt to permanently exile some two million Palestinians will only add to the instability in the Middle East. And that can only have negative consequences for western interests in the region.

But not only have we had no similar rejection from the New Zealand Government, the Foreign Minister has suggested that it might be 'practical' to adopt such a plan. Said Winston Peters:

'What has been said, I believe, was that for Gaza to be rebuilt there are certain things that need to happen, and at this point in time Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio is still explaining to us what that means.... It is how you reconstruct Gaza. And if you look at it from that point of view, looking at the horrific damage there, then there might have to be plans that we practically have to agree with, because it is very difficult to reconstruct when people are in the same situation and needing to be looked after.'

In April last year Winston Peters and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, convening for talks at the State Department, declared in a joint statement that their two countries were 'working more closely than ever'. It's not a coincidence that the New Zealand Government has done next to nothing to oppose Israel's brutal war in Gaza. It appears that 'working closely' with the new Trump administration also means not opposing ethnic cleansing, in direct contravention of the Geneva convention.

Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has observed that 'comments by Foreign Minister Winston Peters on Trump's proposal either signal a dramatic shift for Aotearoa New Zealand's foreign policy or were uninformed. Neither are acceptable. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must, now more than ever, be clear that we regard such a plan as grotesque and illegal, and will use our reputation and alliances on the international stage to not only condemn, but ensure it never happens.'