THE KEFFIYEH: WHY ZIONISTS DON'T LIKE IT

The black and white scarf, the keffiyeh, has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance. That's why New Zealand Zionists like David Cumin and Juliet Moses oppose people wearing them in public.


AUCKLAND ACADEMIC Dr David Cumin is a co-founder and a committee member of the Free Speech Union. While the FSU loudly claims to champion free speech, Cumin has continued his efforts to silence critics of Israel. His actions have continued with the blessing of the FSU.

In 2023, he targeted several New Zealand academics critical of the Zionist State of Israel including Dr Josephine Varghese of Canterbury University and Professor Mohan Dutta of Massey University.

In December last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a privacy complaint against the Israel Institute of New Zealand for allegedly harassing its staff via social media, saying they faced a real risk of physical harm. Newsroom reported in December:

'In an October 17 letter sent to the Israel Institute’s directors and copied to Netsafe and the NZ Police cybercrime team, Mfat chief executive Bede Corry said the institute’s continued naming of staff online, “combined with negative and incorrect personal accusations about these staff, [constituted] online harassment”.

'Having sent a separate letter the month before asking for the posts to be stopped and previous references to individual staff taken down, only for further “concerning posts” to be made, Corry said he was lodging a formal Privacy Act complaint.'

The Israel Institute grandly describes itself as an 'independent think tank' but it is largely just David Cumin and his laptop. It was Cumin whose online campaign against its staff that provoked the complaint by Mfat to the privacy commissioner.

Not surprisingly, it's David Cumin who complained to the Otago Regional Council because one of its bus safety campaign posters features a young woman wearing a keffiyeh and a necklace displaying Palestinian land occupied by Israel. Cumin claimed that displaying someone wearing a keffiyeh sent a 'highly politicised message' that was unfavourable to Israel.

The Zionist lobby in New Zealand has long complained about prominent displays of the keffiyeh in public. It has been a particular obsession of both David Cumin and his longtime associate Juliet Moses, a spokesperson for the Zionist-controlled New Zealand Jewish Council.

According to Cumin and Moses, we should not be outraged about Israel committing genocide in Israel, but people wearing keffiyehs, the traditional black and white scarf that has long been a symbol of Palestinian identity. This is yet another effort by an increasingly fanatical, racist, and intolerant Zionist lobby to suppress Palestinian culture in New Zealand.

What concerns Zionists is that the keffiyeh has become a symbol of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Expressing Palestinian identity has become an act of resistance in and of itself. It's a reminder, that despite everything, the Palestinian people are still here.

To its credit, the Otago Regional Council has stood firm against Cumin's efforts to discredit its bus safety campaign. ORC chief executive Richard Saunders told the NZ Herald that the teenagers in the campaign were 'entitled to freedom of speech and choice in what they wore.'

'The key theme of this campaign, “we’re all in the same team”, is focused on promoting tolerance, exclusivity, and respect on our buses. Those involved in the campaign also reflect the diversity that is in our community using the buses. We are especially proud that young people have been both the spark and the creative drive behind this,' said Saunders in a press statement.

It's worth noting that opposing people wearing the keffiyeh in public is something of an ignoble family tradition for Juliet Moses. Last year her mother, Barbara Moses, was forced to resign as a Justice of Peace after, Stuff reported, she refused to verify a young woman's divorce papers until 'she put away her black and white keffiyeh.'