Tag Archives: Israel

Green MPs Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman demonstrated selective outrage last week, suggesting that their concern for human rights in the Middle East extends only so far as Israel can be blamed. In the space of one week they stridently and publicly condemned Israel for protecting its border and population …

Last Wednesday I was invited to a Jewish Day School to spend an hour with their Year 12 students to talk about issues related to Israel.  One aspect we discussed were the Land Day protests planned by Hamas that would be coming out of Gaza two days later. It was …

Florida State Representative Randy Fine called for the cancellation of Lorde’s upcoming concert in Florida, following the cancellation of her appearance in Israel in June 2018. The New Zealand-born singer cancelled her concert in Tel Aviv following pressure from BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement activists.  The current attempt to …

Professor Alan Dershowitz needs little introduction in legal circles.  A preeminent civil-liberties and constitutional lawyer and recently-retired Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, he has also been described as “the best-known criminal lawyer in the world” after taking on a string of high-profile cases. Professor Dershowitz was in New …

    Wednesday night and Thursday we celebrate Purim (with the celebration a day later in Jerusalem, a walled city).  As we read the Megillat Esther, we relate the story of the machinations of Haman, in the Persian court, whose goal it was to eradicate the Jews. And we celebrate …

It was Saturday morning.  I woke up to the sound of the Red Alert siren app ringing, announcing in-coming missiles somewhere in Israel. Where?  I knew it wasn’t in Haifa (yet) because the municipal siren wasn’t screaming outside but elsewhere in Israel, people were running to their bomb shelters. In …

On Saturday morning (Saturday evening in Australia), news began to filter through about an incident in Israel’s north – an Iranian drone flying into Israeli sovereign territory, a downed F-16 jet.  It was not clear straight away, but the IDF did post a timeline of the events and how the drama all unfolded: …

One tends to get the impression—on reading the news about the General Assembly vote last Thursday regarding President Trump’s new policy of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—that something of a diplomatic cataclysm had occurred. But when we look more closely we see it is not so. In fact, the reverse …

My answer to a Facebook question. I only realised after that the question really wasn’t addressed to me but to intellectuals and politicians in Arab states, a status I clearly don’t hold. The information is still valid. Pity to waste the effort.

Perhaps Donald Trump gave the Arab-Israel conflict the nudge that it needs. It is fascinating to see the various objections that many pro-Israel Jews have for United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Some people oppose the move primarily out of disdain for Trump or because they …

Most of us have known this for some time, but the hysteria about the declaration by President Trump that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel brings this reality home to us all over again. That Palestinian Arabs would react vehemently (and I’ll get to that below) was a given, and …

Sometimes, when considering the past, it is tempting to indulge in a “what if” thought experiment. 2017 is a year of milestones in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is 50 years since the 6-Day War, 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, which was the British Government’s statement of support for the …

The political/diplomatic situation is so fluid, so unstable, that sometimes I prepare to report on one state of affairs, only to discover that a day later the situation has already shifted – or was not as it had been reported. Before I turn to some of these matters, however, I …

“Go forth from your country, from the land of your birth and from the home of your father to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) Land. God’s first commandment to Avram (who would later become Avraham the father of the Jewish people) was about land. In the …

Over and over I keep hearing the word “narrative”. Most often it is spoken by people who insist on the importance of understanding and respecting the “Palestinian narrative.” How many people have actually paused to consider what “narrative” means? More importantly, how should we respond to a narrative that is …

Notwithstanding the constant polarisation that especially his domestic words and deeds seem to generate, on some foreign policy matters President Trump seems to have very wide American support. A case in point is his recently announced Afghanistan policy. Candidate Trump campaigned against increasing America’s military role there and was very …

One of the most misrepresented and emotionally loaded issues about Israel – and there is a smorgasbord to choose from – is its security barrier.  This is one of the issues that featured prominently in a recent programme on Maori TV (One World – He Ao Kotahi) where the narrator …

 I am a Zionist. If I announced that, on walking into a party in New Zealand, I would quite likely get a worse reaction than if I declared that I am a P-addicted, ISIS sympathising prostitute. It’s not the kind of thing that one can state in polite company, at …

29 July 2017 saw an anti-Israel rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square that had been billed as “Alaqsa solidarity rally” to protest against Israel’s “security measures that require Palestinians to enter through metal detectors to go pray” (sic). These measures were removed by Israel before the day of the rally, after …

Big new developments in the case against World Vision for funding terror linked groups in Gaza.   The Israeli Authorities have now confirmed all the claims Andrew Hamilton made back in 2012/13. Posted below the  letter to the Australian Foreign Minister and a Press Release. Regards Andrew Hamilton. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The …