RNZ has done it again

Radio New Zealand has done it again!

RNZ has interviewed the ambassador of a state widely recognised as conducting genocide and a well-known Zionist for a lengthy article which denigrated the Palestinian right to self-determination, with a third Jewish voice added in at the end for ‘balance’. No Palestinian was given an opportunity to respond. Palestinians were portrayed simply as the sum of Zionist-Jewish fears, as if Palestine itself is no more than a discussion between Jews.

RNZ uncritically conveyed three harmful untruths.

1. Both speakers seem to believe that they withhold or grant inalienable rights to other human beings. They are wrong in their arrogance; Palestinians have rights and their right to self-determination in their land has been affirmed by the highest court in our international system. RNZ, which other people would you denigrate by implying that they have less than a full complement of rights?
2. Both speakers conflate Palestine with Hamas, and use that as a pretext to deny Palestinian rights. They are wrong, first because Gaza is not Hamas. To imply otherwise is to discount the civilian protections of two million people against whom Israel has conducted a nightmarish campaign of annihilation for nearly two years. Beyond that, rights are not a reward and they are not conditioned on the niceness of those in government or bearing arms. Israel’s prime minister is wanted for crimes against humanity. His cabinet colleagues are banned from Aotearoa for their filthy politics, and Israel’s military is carrying out genocide. Yet your speakers have not invalidated the rights of Jewish Israelis or rescinded their recognition of Israel.
3. To reduce any people to a single attribute, as these speakers reduce Palestinians to their supposed threat, is the very essence of racism. As our Human Rights Commission published under its former commissioner, to do so with respect to Palestinians builds on our history of regarding Muslims (and those we presume to be Muslim) as threatening.

RNZ, you must stop broadcasting such racialised, dehumanising and factually incorrect views.

Our government has shown that it is intent on erasing Māori history. It acts as if settlers did not disrupt independent, sovereign Māori iwi. So we should not be surprised that yesterday, our government chose to align with Israel’s similar acts of attempted erasure.

But we still need better from our national broadcaster. Why is RNZ failing to broadcast Palestinian voices?

Alternative Jewish Voices