THE TWIN MONSTERS OF IMPERIALISM AND ZIONISM

 

It's the United States and Israel that are threatening the world — not Iran.


THE GREATEST danger facing the world today does not come from the places that our capitalist class habitually points to. It does not come from the so-called “rogue states” like Iran or Venezuela that dominate Western security rhetoric. The real threat comes from the two states that have, for decades, acted as though international law is a inconvenience to be ignored rather than a constraint: the United States and Israel. Their record of military aggression, carried out with near-total impunity, has normalised a world in which might makes right and the rules-based order is invoked only when convenient. And yet, despite this long and bloody history, the New Zealand Government continues to avert its gaze, refusing to condemn even the most flagrant violations.

This moral abdication has become especially stark in the wake of Israel’s barbaric assault on Gaza, an assault that has left tens of thousands dead and reduced an entire society to rubble. The scale of destruction, the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, the starvation imposed on a trapped population—these are not unfortunate by-products of war. They are the hallmarks of a campaign that many legal scholars, human rights organisations, and UN officials have described as genocidal. And still, the New Zealand Government's response has been little more than a diplomatic shrug disguised as 'balance'. The Government’s refusal to name what is happening in Gaza for what it is has already placed New Zealand on the wrong side of history.

But the consequences of that silence do not end at Gaza’s borders. Once a government accepts that some lives are expendable, that some states are above the law, and that some atrocities are too politically inconvenient to acknowledge, it becomes easier—almost inevitable—to look away again. That is how we arrive at the present moment, in which the United States and Israel launch an unprovoked military attack on Iran, and the New Zealand Government once again declines to offer even the mildest criticism. The pattern is unmistakable: from Gaza to Tehran, from Iraq to Lebanon, the twin engines of American imperialism and Israeli militarism continue to drag the world toward barbarism, and New Zealand’s leaders continue to pretend that nothing is amiss.

The United States has, for generations, treated military intervention as a default instrument of foreign policy. Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria—the list is long, the outcomes catastrophic, and the accountability nonexistent. Israel, for its part, has maintained a decades-long occupation, repeatedly invaded its neighbours, and carried out operations that would provoke global outrage if committed by any other state. Together, they form a partnership that has rewritten the norms of international conduct: pre-emptive war is acceptable, civilian casualties are regrettable but unavoidable, and international law is something to be cited selectively rather than obeyed.

What makes this moment particularly dangerous is not only the violence itself, but the erosion of the global mechanisms meant to restrain it. When powerful states violate the UN Charter, ignore International Court of Justice rulings, and dismiss the authority of human rights bodies, they send a message to the world: law is optional. And when smaller states like New Zealand refuse to challenge that message, they become complicit in its spread. Silence is not neutrality; it is endorsement by omission.

New Zealand once prided itself on an independent foreign policy. The anti-nuclear movement, the refusal to join the invasion of Iraq, the willingness to speak out against apartheid—these were moments when the country chose principle over pressure. Today, that tradition is being steadily abandoned. Instead of solidarity with the oppressed, we get deference to the powerful. Instead of condemning illegal military aggression, we get statements crafted to avoid offending Washington or Tel Aviv.

It is not difficult to imagine a different path. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the US Congress have condemned the attack on Iran, recognising that endless escalation serves no one except those invested in perpetual conflict. If elected officials within the United States can speak plainly, why can’t the New Zealand Government? Why must our leaders remain trapped in a posture of timid alignment, unable or unwilling to articulate even the most basic principles of international law?

The world is entering a perilous phase. As geopolitical tensions rise, as great-power rivalry intensifies, and as the norms that once constrained violence crumble, the need for moral leadership becomes more urgent, not less. New Zealand cannot claim to support a rules-based order while refusing to call out its most egregious violators. Nor can it claim to champion human rights while remaining silent in the face of mass slaughter. The choice is stark: either we uphold universal principles, or we accept a world in which the powerful act without restraint and the rest of us live with the consequences.

The twin monsters of imperialism and Zionism are not abstract concepts; they are lived realities for millions whose homes, families, and futures have been destroyed by wars they did not choose. To ignore that reality is to abandon the very idea of a just international system. With little debate, the New Zealand Government is dragging the country down the path of complicity, when we should be standing against the forces dragging the world into darkness.