THE NEW ZEALAND Government has shown no hesitation in punishing Russia for its military assault on Ukraine. This week the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced yet another round of sanctions—more than 30 individuals and entities accused of involvement in the forced relocation, abduction, and re-education of Ukrainian children. The New Zealand Government wants to be seen as principled, consistent, morally anchored. It wants the world to know it stands firmly against abuses of civilians, especially children. But that moral clarity evaporates the moment Israel enters the frame.
In stark contrast, the Government continues to deliberately avert its gaze from Israel’s devastation of Gaza and now southern Lebanon. Winston Peters, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, routinely expresses 'concern' about events in the Middle East, but concern without action is diplomatic theatre. It is designed to obscure the real priority: aligning New Zealand’s foreign policy with the preferences of the Trump administration, even when those preferences mean silence in the face of mass killing. Peters has made it clear—through omission, through alignment, through the studied avoidance of any meaningful criticism—that Israel’s conduct will not be challenged by his government. The Government’s stance is not one of neutrality; it is one of quiet endorsement.
This is not an accusation made only by critics at home. Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, told RNZ’s Guyon Espiner that New Zealand’s stance on Gaza carries 'a certain Trumpian accent.' Her assessment was blunt:
'New Zealand has always been a country that, what is the expression, punched above its weight. In human rights terms, in solidarity terms, you know, by holding the line on a number of very fundamental questions. Right now, this is not what is happening...At Amnesty International, we are worried about this evolution. Internationally, we don't hear New Zealand. We haven't heard New Zealand on some of the fundamental challenges that we are confronting, including Israel's genocide, Palestine or climate.'
That absence is not neutral. It is complicity.
When Peters announced the new sanctions package against Russia, he declared that 'children should never be used as instruments of war.' Yet Peters has chosen to remain silent while Israel has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, including thousands of children. If children should never be used as instruments of war, then what does Peters call the systematic destruction of Palestinian childhood?
New Zealand’s foreign-policy establishment wants to pretend that its positions on Ukraine and Gaza exist in separate moral universes. They do not. The same principles invoked to condemn Russia—sovereignty, human rights, protection of civilians, accountability for war crimes—apply with equal force to Israel. Yet the Government enforces them selectively, as if Palestinian lives are somehow exempt from the protections afforded to Ukrainians. This is not diplomacy. It is hierarchy. It is the quiet endorsement of a world in which some victims matter and others do not. The Government’s silence is not an accident; it is a choice.
The consequences of this double standard extend beyond foreign policy. They erode New Zealand’s credibility, its historical reputation, and its claim to moral seriousness. A country cannot champion international law in Europe while ignoring its obliteration in the Middle East. It cannot condemn abductions in Ukraine while ignoring mass killing in Gaza. It cannot speak of protecting children while refusing to acknowledge the thousands of Palestinian children already dead. The hypocrisy is corrosive. It diminishes New Zealand’s standing and signals to the world that its principles are negotiable.
Under Peters’ direction, New Zealand has retreated into a timid, Trump-aligned posture that treats Israeli impunity as a diplomatic inevitability. And the world has taken note, because foreign policy explains to the world who we are and what we stand for.
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