Govt will not yet recognise Palestine, Peters tells UN

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The time is not yet right for New Zealand to recognise Palestine, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced in a speech to the United Nations that has exposed a gap with some of our closest international partners. Addressing the UN General Assembly on Saturday morning (NZT), Peters finally revealed the coalition Government’s stance on Palestinian statehood. The Foreign Minister said the matter was “uniquely complicated, given it is embedded in a seemingly intractable, neverending conflict situation”. New Zealanders had been horrified by the barbarity of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens, and the terror group could not have any place in a future Palestinian state. Many were also “shocked to our core by harrowing images of famine in Gaza … [and] revolted by what can only be described as a grossly disproportionate response from the Israeli Government”. “However, there is an old saying about a musical instrument that sums up well the vexed question of Palestinian statehood recognition: ‘If the string is too tight it will snap, but if it is too loose, the instrument will not play’,” Peters said. Countries who had hoped early diplomatic recognition of Palestine would protect and promote the two-state solution had instead seen the Israeli government “snap”, and continue its widely condemned military actions in Gaza and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. “We desperately want diplomacy to succeed and we believe it is those countries with leverage who are most likely to achieve a breakthrough. That would show global leadership. “However, we do not believe that the current situation represents the last or even best chance to preserve the two-state solution.” Peters said it would instead be better to wait until Israeli and Palestinian political leadership was an asset rather than a liability, and when “other situational variables have shifted the current calculus away from conflict and towards peace”. Palestine did not fully meet the accepted criteria for a state as it does not fully control its own territory or population, while there was no obvious link between the international community recognising the State of Palestine and protecting a two-state solution. Any move towards recognition was also open to political manipulation by both Hamas and Israel, and “serve as little more than an existential act of defiance against an unalterable state of affairs”. “We are not ready to make that gesture. Rather, the New Zealand government believes that it has one opportunity to recognise Palestinian statehood and it would make better sense to do so when conditions offer greater prospects for peace and negotiation than at present.” The announcement has placed New Zealand at odds with close partners like Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, with more than 150 countries in total now recognising the state of Palestine. Labour Party foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said the announcement was an embarrassment and had put the country on the wrong side of history. “[Christopher] Luxon had a chance to stand up for what is right, but he failed. There is no two-state solution or enduring peace in the Middle East without recognition of Palestine as a state,” Henare said. ““We’ve watched an unfolding genocide on our screens for nearly two years. This Government is failing to take any of the action required to help stop the atrocities and suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza.” This month, an independent UN commission of inquiry concluded Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.