To whom do you answer, Prime Minister?

September 17, 2025

To whom do you answer, Prime Minister?

The UN Human Rights Commission has found that Israel is committing genocide:

“The acts of Israeli political and military leaders are attributable to the State of Israel. The Commission therefore concluded that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish the perpetrators of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Israeli leaders, already wanted for crimes against humanity, openly boast that ‘Gaza is burning’ while they pound a captive, defenceless community and destroy what remains of Gaza City. They are pulling a city down upon the hundreds of thousands of civilians who remain in it.

Former chief of Israel’s military acknowledges they have killed and wounded ‘over 200,000’ Palestinians, largely civilians. He boasts that legal concerns have not restrained Israel’s actions at all.

Israel and its contracted killers have slaughtered 3000 people who were seeking food in the midst of Israel’s manufactured famine, in areas under the humanitarian banner.

These are among two days of headlines; two of the 711 days of genocide that we have all watched. In those same two days, one of your cabinet ministers has trespassed priests who peacefully protested in Auckland, while another cabinet minister has denigrated the priests who peacefully protested in Wellington.

Our Five Eyes allies, who you so slavishly follow, will largely recognise a Palestinian state in the coming days. There. You needn’t even lead in conveying our outrage to the world. You can merely follow.

You say that a decision has been made but we will not be informed.

We ask, to whom are you accountable, Prime Minister – which back room? Which lobbyist? To whom do you answer, if not to the outraged, heart-broken people of this country?

We demand your condemnation of this genocide. We demand that you comply with the directions of the highest court in the United Nations system, to bring this illegal occupation and this genocide to an end. We demand that you recognise the state of Palestine before Israel swallows it as a possibility.

Grow a spine, Prime Minister. Your inaction costs lives and we are ashamed of it.

Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa