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Palestinian

Gideon Levy’s sell-out tour of New Zealand

I’m no biblical scholar, but if I was asked to name great Jewish prophets off the top of my head, Moses, Abraham and Jonah would likely get a mention. Gideon Levy, the Israeli commentator, would not. Nevertheless, on Levy’s visit…

The problem with Ardern’s Corbyn endorsement

For many Jewish New Zealanders, their decision on which political candidate to support will at least partly be based on that candidate’s position on Israel and “the conflict”, as well as their sensitivity around anti-Semitism as it exists in 2017. …

Preparing for the election as people of faith: A Jewish perspective

The following speech was delivered at an interfaith meeting organised by the Religious Diversity Trust by Deb Levy. It is said that if you ask two Jews for their thoughts, you’ll get three opinions. We are a people of debate…

Dominion Post editor launches fanciful anti-Israel polemic

Who recently stated that Israel has “warmongering tendencies” and is engaging in a “deliberate balkanisation programme aimed at sabotaging the twin-state (sic) solution”? You would be forgiven for thinking it’s Hamas, as their charter contains very similar language. But, in…

10 Questions for Bill English on NZ’s ‘longstanding policy’

After months of evasion, the New Zealand Prime Minister has finally admitted, in response to another question from Winston Peters about UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in Parliament earlier this week, that the resolution was not put to cabinet for approval….

Journalist’s lived experience and fact-finding shifts his perceptions

In the summer of 2015, just three days after I moved to Israel for a one-and-a-half year stint freelance reporting in the region, I wrote down my feelings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A friend of mine in New York had…

United Nations agency continues to incite anti-Semitic violence

A recent report presented by UN Watch to the United States congress has uncovered more than 40 alarming new cases of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school teachers in Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria inciting…

Academic terrorist sympathisers call for sanctions on Israel

According to the NZ Herald a number of NZ’s ‘leading academics on conflict resolution have slammed the country’s “dangerous double standard” on the Israel-Palestine problem’. These “leading academics” include two University of Auckland Dance Studies lecturers, a senior lecturer of…

Trevor Norwitz: Why President Obama Should Have Vetoed Resolution 2334

…Saddest of all are what Lenin might have called the “useful idiots,” decent but distant countries like New Zealand and Japan who, although not immune to peer pressure, may actually have thought that all they were doing was registering their…

Chris Trotter’s dark reading of Israel’s dilemma

In one of the most polarizing trials in Israeli army history, 20 year old Sergeant Elor Azaria, who shot and killed a wounded Palestinian terrorist in Hebron, was found guilty of manslaughter. Three judges presiding over the military court ruled…

No place for hate speech in UN resolution debate

Almost three quarters of a century since Auschwitz was liberated (the 72nd anniversary is January 27), there are still those who either deny the Holocaust happened or wish for another one. Such sentiments are brought to the fore and amplified…

New Zealand has an issue with terrorism

When an Islamist drove his truck into a crowd in Nice last July, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key spoke out against the terror attack. When an Islamist drove his truck into a crowd in Berlin last December, New Zealand…

A “Judenrein” Jerusalem? New Zealand’s shame

A respected British commentator recently described New Zealand as “a stupid country of no other significance”. She was referencing NZ co-sponsoring UN resolution 2334, which effectively bans Jews from living in certain areas. I am not convinced that New Zealand…