Australia/Israel Review

The aggressively anti-Israel posters that were widely plastered around many urban New Zealand areas are tattered or gone; the heated public fervour around the Israel-Gaza war has eased since the ceasefire began. 

But, according to Jewish community leader Rob Berg, the sentiment and rhetoric behind it have not disappeared, and will re-emerge at a similar level the next time anything happens involving Israel and the Palestinians. 

As with many other countries, the two years following October 7 saw antisemitism explode in New Zealand, alongside a disturbing normalisation of language and tropes that vilify Israel, Israelis and Jewish people. 

However, in the weeks following Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ announcement on Sept. 27 that New Zealand would not, at this time, recognise Palestinian statehood, protests against that decision reached aggressive new heights. 

Peters’ announcement at the United Nations in September came after weeks of political and public debate and action around the issue. Many expected New Zealand’s Government would join Australia, Canada and the UK in recognising a Palestinian state. 

But Peters surprised. He said there were too many questions around a future state for recognition to be prudent, and that a focus on recognition could “complicate efforts to secure a ceasefire by pushing Israel and Hamas into even more intransigent positions.”

New Zealand had long been a staunch advocate of the two-state solution, and its position remained that it was a matter of when, not if, it would recognise the State of Palestine, he said. But “what is needed now more than ever is dialogue, diplomacy and leadership – not further conflict and extremism.” 

The NZ Jewish Council, and others, supported the Government’s announcement, saying that “recognition should be the outcome of real progress towards peace, not a substitute for it.” 

But opposition parties criticised the decision, with the Labour Party saying the decision was embarrassing and put New Zealand on the wrong side of history. The Green Party said the Government should have “sent a clear message to Israel that the genocide needs to stop.” 

And pro-Palestinian activists were vocally enraged.

Less than a week after the announcement, more than 100 protesters set up outside Peters’ Auckland home with megaphones and drums. His address was shared on social media, and eventually the house was attacked, and a window broken while his partner was inside. 

Attacks on politicians’ homes have been extremely rare in New Zealand. Peters was furious, and became more so after the Green Party held a conference, ostensibly on New Zealanders who participated in a flotilla to Gaza and were briefly detained by Israel, which featured one of the protesters involved in the targeting of his home. 

On the anniversary of October 7, Peters made a “ministerial statement on the Middle East” to Parliament. He said protest action following the Government’s decision “forms part of the democratic fabric of New Zealand, so long as it respects the laws of the land. But the violent targeting of politicians’ private homes by some protesters was a disgrace; It has caused distress to our families and disturbed the peace of our neighbours. Means such as these corrupt the protesters’ ends, such as they are.” 

He also called out “those members of this House who collude and collaborate with the very protesters targeting politicians’ homes,” and said, “Do you have no shame? Do you feel so morally righteous that you and your supporters are justified to break any law, any taboo, any political norm?”

The Australia/Israel Review talked to some members of the Jewish community to get their views in the aftermath. 

Rob Berg is the former President of the Zionist Federation of NZ and current President of the Jewish National Fund NZ, but the views he shared are his own.

Berg said he was pleased with the Government’s decision not to recognise a Palestinian state at this time: “The decision was a well-thought-out and principled decision, and the right decision to make in the face of what had led to it.” 

Berg questioned whether the decision made a big difference in the broader scheme of things, but said it was good to hear someone on the public stage say what Peters did, including the point that recognising a Palestinian state would reward Hamas’ actions.

“Public discourse seems quieter post the ceasefire and the protests at Peters’ house. It’s possible the protests could have impacted on people’s view, but it would be a negligible amount,” he added. 

The vilification of Israel, especially on social media and through the likes of Al Jazeera, was all playing out online and this made a greater impact on many people than what they saw outside Peters’ house, he said. 

“The lid of antisemitism has been opened, the cat is out of the bag, and we are all awake to this ‘new normal’. Because when something happens in Israel again, this is the new starting point for it, so we need to be more aware than ever before.” 

For Dane Giraud, an active member of the Jewish community and of the Free Speech Union, the protest outside Peters’ house definitely crossed a line. He says, “Peters was not there, but his partner was, and the protesters were prepared to make his neighbours’ lives a misery, too. It was intimidation. 

“But it was a protest that told New Zealand a lot about who the protesters are, and it’s not nice… free speech enables them to show how vile they can be, how uninterested in debate they are, and how threatening they can be.” 

There was so much hysteria and inflammatory rhetoric around the Israel-Gaza conflict that people could decide breaking a window or screaming outside a house was nothing compared to a “genocide”, he said. 

“It gives them permission to behave badly… Those protesters have convinced themselves their behaviour is completely just because Israel is supposedly so bad.” 

For Giraud, the real worry is the slow march of tropes, such as “Israel is an apartheid state” or “Israel is committing genocide,” turned into accepted political opinion. 

That throws every Jew under the bus because it means “we must all support apartheid if we don’t agree with [the protesters],” he said.