Winston has been labelled a coward for the position that he took on Palestine on Saturday, which I do not think is fair because it appears to me that what he's done is actually the opposite of cowardice.
The easy thing would have actually been for him to just go with the crowd, just say, yep, we recognize the Palestinian state, because that's what everybody else is doing.
The hard thing for him to do is go against the crowd and go against what everybody at the UN is doing, go against the domestic media opinion, go against the commentator's consensus.
So actually, when you think about it, he's not being cowardly at all - and I agree with his analysis at the moment.
Set aside whether there should be a Palestinian state - because of course there should be a Palestinian state, and I think most of us think that, right? If it's possible, it should happen.
But that's not what this is about. It is about whether you do that right now, because doing it right now is rewarding Hamas and they themselves have made it clear that they see the recognition of a state of Palestine as a vindication of the massacre that they carried out on October 7th.
You cannot reward terrorists for taking innocent lives, but also, and probably more importantly, it's not gonna do anything to end the war.
If you really want to end the war, if Trump's current peace plan fails, then what we need to do is punish Israel for what they're doing. They should be sanctioned and they should be isolated from the international community until they stop. And we've been saying this for weeks on the show.
For every day that we talk about whether we recognize a Palestinian state, we are wasting a day that we could be talking about what we actually should be doing, the things that would actually end this war, like punishing Israel for what they're doing - which again, is another day that we've wasted talking about the wrong thing.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
Winston Peters call was the correct call. New Zealand does not support terrorism.
Heather Sopers has got the wrong end of the stick again. We can do two things at once, we can condemn and recognise, Starmer has the conditions laid out but Luxon is too much of a middle manager to make the tough decision. Sleepwalking into mediocrity!
Punish Israel for what they are doing? Now you are being cowardly. What about Hamas returning all the abused hostages? How about Hamas disarming? What about Hamas letting the food convoys through and not confiscating the supplies? How about the useless UN doing something to eradicate Hamas so there is no need for Israel to continue its campaign against an acknowledged terrorist organisation?
You are absolutely right, Heather.
It is crystal clear that Winston has the correct approach.
Singapore has adopted a similar stance.
Wokedom means to totally ignore fact and construct a fiction that is endlessly touted.
Winston acknowledged fact - i.e. Palestine is controlled by Hamas at this moment. When - if - this changes, a new decision will be possible.
Meanwhile, loud hysterics continue to drown out fact and trumpet the woke fiction of events. As usual.
Winston has done his job with wisdom and balance. I hope I am not alone in hoping that he can now come back to NZ and apply the same logic to getting his coalition partners to knuckle down and sort out our internal racial frictions. That said, Luxon and National are probably a lost cause until and unless they manage to take the blinkers off their eyes and plugs out of their ears and also see what is plain for all thinking, sentient beings. We need the separatists dealt with and that means some plain speaking and definitive actions.
I disagree.
We do not have to recognise a 2nd Palestinian state.
The first was 1922 & then 1948, namely Jordan.
over 70% of the Jewsih Palestine mandate was taken and given to form Trans-Jordan which became Jordan.
It is 80% full of Palestinians.
so why reward terrorists with more land, effectively the 2nd Palestinian State.
no, the Muslim arabs should be absorbed into any other Muslim state or go to Jordan.
The same for any who don't want to live under Israeli rule in Judea & Samaria known as the west bank.
mike NZ
Um, what's it got to do with Peters? He is merely the messenger who transmits the foreign policy decisions made in Cabinet to the outside world. He is just one voice around the table and subject to the same collective cabinet responsibility as any other minister. And he of all people will know how that works, having been fired as deputy prime minister and treasurer in 1998 when he publically disagreed with the cabinet decision to sell the Government's 66% stake in Wellington Airport. So enough of this personal praise. He's just doing his job!
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