Minister, the 592nd day of Israel’s genocide is not the time for patience!

Four days ago, on the 592nd day of Israel’s genocide, Foreign Minister Winston Peters joined 23 countries in objecting to Israel’s escalating violence, and calling for the restoration of humanitarian aid. Peters’ diplomatic step was not accompanied by the usual MFAT media report or published statement, nor has there been any action to substantiate this call.

After 62,000 Palestinian deaths, Peters told RNZ that “we are running out of patience”.

While Peters’ patience runs low, according to a UN press release on19 May, Israel’s escalation:

is inflicting conditions of life on Palestinians increasingly incompatible with their continued existence in Gaza as a group… Furthermore, the pattern of strikes on Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) tents and residential buildings, as well as on crowded hospitals, indicates that little, if any, care is being taken to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza, while reports of the use of weapons with wide area effects suggest deliberate, indiscriminate attacks. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is beyond description.

In the 85^th week of Israel’s genocide, while we waited for Peters to act, 629 people were killed including nine journalists – the highest weekly death toll for journalists since this onslaught began. Gaza’s director-general of health reported the assassinations of 12 nurses and paramedics. Israel’s blockade has starved 58 people to death.

Minister Peters, when will your patience actually be spent? For 19 months, while 62,000 Palestinians have died, Aotearoa has done nothing to alter its relationship with Israel or impact the normal flows of trade and treatment. You have not called the ambassador in to hear our objections, let alone put him on a plane or sanction his government. You have not acted as per the world court’s advisory opinion to cease normalising an illegal occupation, nor have you brought the slightest pressure to bear on what the court calls Israel’s plausible genocide.

Peters told RNZ that such “symbolic gestures” are of no help to starving babies. That is fundamentally and historically incorrect. Diplomatic pressure is precisely the brake that has ended Israel’s assaults on the blockaded community of Gaza.

Israel can live without our approval as individuals. However, Israel cannot live in the style to which it is accustomed without European, North American and other diplomatic permission, interactions and normalcy. Israel is built on impunity, and that can be revoked.

In 2015, Israel’s Office of the State Comptroller published its assessment of Israel’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza. Israeli newspapers called the report  “scathing” “scalding… blistering”. Among its criticisms: Israel bombed Gaza for fifty days without consistent objectives to focus and limit its violence. Israel’s security cabinet and IDF periodically paused to assess the war’s impacts on Israel’s international standing. Finding that states did not require Israel to stop, the security cabinet opportunistically wrote new objectives and carried on bombing. They did that four times – until they were stopped.

It is wrong to think that only Trump matters to Israel. Israel is deeply integrated into international – particularly European and American – trade, tourism, and culture. There is every reason to believe that Israel remains susceptible to broad international pressure.

States including Aotearoa have always held the power to make this genocidal onslaught end. This week governments cleared their throats and said some words, but that is not enough.

Right now, 81% of Gaza is unilaterally designated as an IDF military zone for operations and / or is under displacement orders. The people of Gaza are being funneled into killing zones.

The danger to Gazan Palestinians is desperate and words do not protect them. We applaud the government’s step, but we must see the actions which convey seriousness.

Now 596 days have passed and we are in the 86th week of genocide, and still we are waiting. Gaza cannot wait.

Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa New Zealand