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Thursday, October 16, 2025

Bob Edlin: Middle East ceasefire is widely celebrated.....


Middle East ceasefire is widely celebrated – but Peters notes that the pro-Palestine protesters have been silent

Come in Chloe and your fellow champions of Palestinian statehood and tell us what you think of happenings in the Middle East in recent days.

There was widespread celebration – not only in Israel and Gaza but around the world – of news of a cease-fire and that the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists two years ago would be freed.

Since then, US President Donald Trump and other world leaders have signed a Gaza ceasefire deal during a summit in Egypt. Trump hailed a “historic dawn of a new Middle East” in remarks before the Israeli parliament.

The signing came after Hamas returned the 20 remaining living hostages in Gaza to Israel and handed over the remains of four dead hostages. 250 Palestinian prisoners and over 1,700 detainees from Gaza, held by Israel for two years without charge, have been released.

But one group has not been celebrating: the pro-Palestinian (and pro-Hamas) activists in the West.

Writing in the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill asks: why not?

Professor Jerry Coyne posted some excerpts on Why Evolution is True.



Normal people are cheering the prospect of peace in Gaza. Some might even raise a glass to Donald Trump for his valiant efforts to end this horrible war Hamas started. But there are others who will be feeling forlorn. The anti-Israel mob, to be specific. Won’t you spare a thought for this tragic community that built its entire personality around hating Israel – what are they going to do now?

There is an eerie silence in anti-Israel circles this morning. The people who spent the past two years hollering ‘Ceasefire now!’ seem strangely downbeat about the prospect of a ceasefire. No doubt that’s partly because they would rather eat hot coal than credit Trump with a geopolitical win. But it’s also because they feel the rug of relevance being pulled from under their feet. The brutal truth: peace will rob them of purpose.

It’s been clear for some time now that the fashionable animus for Israel is more than a political position – it’s a religious crusade. These people see Israel not only as a nation fighting a war they don’t like, but as a demonic entity, uniquely barbarous, the poison in the well of humanity. Israel has become a Satan substitute for a godless activist class, the devil against which they measure their own decency. If this war ends, so might their false religion.

They wear the holy garments of Israelophobia so that others will know the depth of their devotion to the cause: the keffiyeh around the necks, the Palestine flag draped like a pashmina over their shoulders. They repeat Israelophobia’s mantras, with little thought but great bombast. Witness how ‘From the river to the sea’ usurped ‘Trans women are women’ as the mating call of woke’s true believers.

. . . .Perhaps the most dangerous thing for the genuflectors to Israelophobia is that Trump’s peace deal shatters the founding lie of their fake faith – namely that Israel is hell-bent on genociding the Palestinian people. In truth, Israel has signed up for a deal that envisions a ceasefire soon and which expressly says that not one Palestinian will be forcibly expelled from Gaza. And so their church crumbles under the weight of its own calumnies.

If the deal works, if Trump and Israel bring peace and banish the anti-Semites of Hamas from public life in Gaza, what will these people do? How will they get their moral kicks? By what means will they advertise to the world their implacable virtue? What will occupy their every waking thought and inform their every political utterance if not that dastardly Jewish State and its ‘genocide’?


Professor Coyne – after suggesting there’s always Trump to preoccupy them – said he was about to ask “And what will Greta do?”,

O’Neill beat him to the punch:

And poor Greta! She’ll have to go back to talking about climate change, won’t she? Having failed to ‘Save Gaza’, she’ll have to content herself with that oh-so-Nineties mission of saving the planet. Boring! One thinks, too, of the YouTubers who have monetised their hatred for Israel, spending every hour of every day slamming the Jewish State for clicks and bucks. Blessed be the peacemakers, sure, but won’t someone think of the videomakers?

But let’s not forget that the war is far from over: phases 2 and 3 entail setting up a Gazan government and having Hamas surrender, giving up its weapons.

Until that’s done, as Coyne contends, the protests will continue and the Israel haters will march on.

He cites O’Neill:

Of course, there’s another possibility – that they will double down. That they will carry on traipsing against Israel, zombie-style, even when peace descends. Indeed, Your Party, the Zarah Sultana/ Jeremy Corbyn freakshow, is advertising a march in London this weekend. ‘We march on’, the flyer says, ‘until apartheid falls’. For two years, they screamed ‘Ceasefire now!’ – so why are they still marching? I’m tempted to go and laugh from the sidelines. Who’s with me?

Coyne is emphatic with his response:

Not me! For peace hasn’t descended yet.

They will continue marching until there are two states: Israel and Palestine, or one state: Palestine engulfing Israel. Either is a long way off.

The main point that should dampen O’Neill’s glee is that although the protestors did cry “Ceasefire now!” what they really meant was “Eliminate Israel and get rid of all the Jews.” And that ain’t gonna happen. So the marches will continue.


In this country, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealanders are watching with cautious optimism the events of the last 24 hours in Gaza, with the ceasefire holding and the release of hostages and detainees.

He told Parliament today:

It has been a moment of immense relief and celebration for the 20 hostages who were released after so long in captivity, their families, and, indeed, the people of Israel. We must also remember all of those hundreds of hostages who died in the two years since Hamas brutally took them captive.

Everyone who cares about peace should be welcoming this much delayed ceasefire, which has come after so much suffering. We note that while Hamas has released 20 hostages, Israel has released around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

New Zealand commends the leadership of the United States, Donald Trump, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Indonesia, and other countries in bringing this deal together, and we view the events of the last 24 hours as providing momentum for peace and constituting a significant first step towards ending this devastating conflict—and not making stupid statements, like the people on my right.


It had been 2½ weeks exactly since he outlined New Zealand’s approach on the Middle East question to the United Nations General Assembly.

Subsequent events had reinforced a number of arguments New Zealand made at that time in New York, including
  • that those countries with influence over the situation should step up and exercise leadership, and
  • that the international community’s focus should be on achieving a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the flow of humanitarian assistance to alleviate the calamitous situation impacting on Palestinians and Israelis alike.
We are gratified that this is precisely what has happened. Yesterday’s historic achievement is a critical first step towards implementing the wider peace plan and securing a lasting peace. Already we have seen a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the surging into Gaza of humanitarian assistance. We urge both Israel and Hamas to abide by the ceasefire and to continue to engage in good faith to secure agreement on the outstanding issues.

New Zealand continues to hold the position that recognition of a Palestinian State is a matter of when, not if.

We will recognise a Palestinian State when the conditions are right. A ceasefire and hostage release were, indeed, two initial steps in the right direction to creating those conditions, but further steps remain. What we need now to focus on is the achievement of a durable and sustainable peace, the disarmament and dissolution of Hamas, and the rapid development of Palestinian institutions capable of forming a legitimate and credible Government in both the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians will not be able to develop these institutions alone, and New Zealand stands ready to play its part alongside other members of the international community.

And how have recent developments in the Middle East been received in New Zealand?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, the silence over the past week from some of the so-called pro-Palestinian protesters around this country has been absolutely deafening. For two years, they have ranted and raved and fumed and fulminated about the situation in Gaza. They have demanded that we do more, give more, say more, and virtue signal more, and then, over the past week, as a peace deal has been struck—as a peace deal has been struck…

Then, over the past week, as a peace deal has been struck, as a ceasefire has taken hold, and as hostages have been released, from them not a mutter, not a murmur, not a syllable, not a sound. We have seen not a press release, not a tweet, not a parliamentary question, and the question is: why this deafening silence? Because you’re all about performative politics.


Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick called for a ceasefire in Palestine (and should be welcoming this one), but her advocacy has included pushing for sanctions against Israel and recognising Palestinian statehood.

During an urgent debate on Palestinian statehood in August, Swarbrick was ejected from the House after refusing to apologise for comments she made about government MPs. She called on six government members “with a spine” to back a Green Party bill which aimed to sanction Israel for what Swarbrick called “its war crimes”.

Swarbrick has defended New Zealanders’ right to legally protest in support of the Palestinians, stating that their anger is understandable given the situation in Gaza.

She accused government ministers of bullying protesters after Foreign Minister Winston Peters criticised demonstrations outside his home, one of whom smashed a window.

But Swarbrick – so far as PoO can see – has not publicly commented on the Gaza ceasefire deal brokered by Donald Trump.

Probably – when we do hear from her on this matter – she will want to focus on sanctions and the recognition of Palestinian statehood rather than on aspects of a US-negotiated deal that don’t gel with her party’s demands.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.

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