Shameful and cowardly

That is the only way to describe the regime's refusal today to recognise Palestine. Faced with a clear moral test - an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide - they blew it. They'd rather toady to fascists and génocidaires than do the right thing.

The message is clear: if we want a government which will (eventually) follow the world and do the right thing, we need regime change. Bring on the election, so we can vote these genocidal chickenshits out.

Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza

Its official: a UN independent international commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

The COI, set up by the UN in 2021 and staffed by three independent experts, cited the killing of civilians and children in a “scorched-earth military strategy”, starvation and deaths caused by restrictions on food and medicines, mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and the physical devastation of much of the territory to support its finding.

The COI also accused Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister who has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court, and other senior Israeli leaders of incitement of genocide, and said there was clear evidence of their genocidal intent, a key legal requirement.

“The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent … The commission also concludes … that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence,” Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, told reporters.

As they point out, all states have an obligation under international law to use all means reasonably available to them to stop genocide. We're a small country on the other side of the world, but the very least we can do would seem to be sanctioning them like we sanction Russia, cutting off the hundreds of millions in trade which genocide-enablers are currently profiting from, supporting an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible, and a global intelligence and law enforcement effort to identify, locate, arrest, and deliver them for trial. Plus of course recognising Palestine.

But realistically, Rimmer - who at this stage is just a local agent for far-right foreigners - isn't going to permit any of this. And while he's nominally only deputy prime minister, Luxon's utter spinelessness has left him de facto in charge of our government. So if we want justice for Gaza, we're going to have to throw these bums out to get it.

Principles versus parliament

Yesterday the regime announced that it wouldn't consider recognising Palestine as a state until next month - so basically, waiting until Israel has murdered or deported every last Palestinian and stolen all their land. Parliament had an urgent debate on this today, with a banger of a speech by Chloe Swarbrick:

At the end of it, she challenged government MPs to support the Greens' Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Sanctions Bill, saying that "[i]f we find six of 68 government MPs with a spine, we can stand on the right side of history".

The Speaker threw her out.

I guess he didn't want a politician with actual principles making the rest of the cowards look bad.

Meanwhile, there's an obvious comparison here with John Key's famous "get some guts" over backing America's re-invasion of Iraq. On any normal analysis, its a similar allegation of cowardice. So why was it OK, when Swarbrick gets ejected?

I think the answer is obvious: It's OK When You're A Man.

"Our" Parliament is an archaic, deeply racist, deeply misogynist institution, whose "rules" are applied arbitrarily and nakedly for the political advantage of the regime and to lynch its opponents. Its no wonder MPs don't respect it. And its no wonder the people don't either. If it wants to retain its social licence to legislate, to rule by anything other than naked force, it needs to be better, to reflect modern Aotearoa, to drag itself into the present, to not do shit like this.

But good luck getting the fossils in there to understand that.

Doing less than the bare minimum

Last night, after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza, the New Zealand government finally began to do the right thing, and sanctioned two Israeli cabinet ministers for promoting genocide. Which is a good first step, but its not enough. Firstly, the sanctions are just a travel ban, saying "you can't come here", which is pretty whoop-di-shit as far as sanctions go. Secondly, wanted international criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are not sanctioned - and nor is the state of Israel itself. In other words, the New Zealand government is still doing as little as possible.

This isn't good enough. Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and an illegal occupation of the West bank, in flagrant violation of international law. We should be treating it like we treat Russia, with a full trade and investment ban and restrictions on financial dealings. IDF members should be banned from travelling here. Israeli officials complicit in or with political responsibility for these crimes should similarly be subject to asset seizures, travel bans, and trading restrictions, just like Putin and his cronies. And those sanctions should stay in place until the genocide and occupation stops, reparations (such as they can be) are made, seized land is returned, and everyone responsible is sent to The Hague to face justice before international courts. That seems like the absolute minimum we should be doing. Instead, though inaction, our government is sending a clear message that it approves of genocide. And that is not acceptable.

Justice for Gaza!

It finally happened: the International Criminal Court prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza:

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Karim Khan said his office had applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

[...]

In an extraordinary rebuke of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its conduct in the war in Gaza, Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians. Monday’s statement notably does not include any Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials, such as its chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, focusing instead on political decision-making.

The latter seems like a significant omission, since they're the people actually doing the war crimes. But maybe they're next in the queue?

Meanwhile, the question for Aotearoa: when are we sanctioning Netanyahu and his criminal regime? We have rightly sanctioned Putin and his cronies for their illegal war in Ukraine. We can hardly do less to a genocidal war criminal.

Justice for Gaza?

The New York Times reports that the International Criminal Court is about to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over their genocide in Gaza:

Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials.

The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas.

If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.

Good. Israel is clearly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, as well as committing other war crimes and crimes against humanity. And as their ultimate political authority, Netanyahu bears legal responsibility for those crimes. He must be held to account for them. Israel is hardly going to do that themselves, so international justice is what we're left with. That process may be slow and imperfect, largely amounting to stigmatisation and a de facto lifetime travel ban from all civilised nations, but its what we've got, and it seems better than the alternatives.

Aoteraoa, Ukraine, and Gaza

Today the government designated the political wing of Hamas as a terrorist entity, making supporting them a criminal offence. I honestly don't know much about Hamas' organisation, or how involved its politicians were in planning its crimes in October last year, but when Israel is actively carrying out a genocide in Gaza, designating the political representatives of its victims as "terrorists" seems a little on the nose. And it invites the obvious question: when will we apply a similar designation to the Israeli government and its genocidal "defence forces"?

But beyond that, we should think about what our obligations are as a country which supports human rights and international law and opposes genocide. And unfortunately, we have a very illustrative example right to hand: Ukraine. Ukraine is a victim of invasion by a neighbour which has explicitly announced their intention to eliminate its culture and people, and who has given effect to that intention with numerous war crimes since the invasion began. And in response, the New Zealand government has:

• Applied sanctions to the Russian economy and leadership;
• Explicitly called for Putin to be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Provided money and other support to arm Ukraine to defend itself;

I have not been especially vocal about this, because I have a low tolerance for horror at the moment. But I think that's an appropriate response for a small country at the bottom of the world with our values. Its doing what we can to support Ukraine to defend itself and to support a peaceful world with international law.

But I think we should be doing the same for Gaza too. Hamas's attacks on 7 October were a terrorist act. But the Israeli response since has been disproportionate, indiscriminate, and explicitly genocidal. And that's something we should not tolerate. We should be sanctioning Israel, Netanyahu, and senior members of his genocidal regime. We should be supporting their arrest and extradition to The Hague for trial for genocide. And we should be arming the Palestinians. A people are being exterminated while we watch. The very least we can do is give them the means to defend themselves against it.

Morally bankrupt

Over the weekend the International Court of Justice found that there was a real risk that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, and ordered it to stop. Israel responded by accusing the UNRWA, a UN agency which feeds refugees in Palestine, of supporting Hamas, and persuaded their allies the US and UK to cut funding - basicly making them complicit in Israel's genocide. And now, to our shame, Chris Luxon has decided to join them.

This is utterly morally bankrupt, and it clearly aligns us with Israel and the US and makes our government complicit in Israel's actions in starving the Palestinian people. Maybe we should be sending them to The Hague for that.

Completely hollow

RNZ this morning has a story about the moral void that is former Prime Minister John Key, in which he gloats about being a personal friend of Chinese tyrant Xi Jinping. Which just highlights what a smug, sociopathic arsehole Key is. In case anyone has forgotten, Xi is committing genocide in Xinjiang, while destroying any semblance of democracy in Hong Kong. Its one thing to shake hands and make nice with a genocidaire when you're Prime Minister, for the sake of peace and international relations and just not making a scene. But to keep it up and turn it into a personal relationship when its no longer a requirement of the job? To gloat about it? That takes someone completely devoid of morals or empathy, someone completely hollow. And we're well rid of him as Prime Minister.

Labour refuses to condemn genocide in Xinjiang

But they will condemn "possible severe human rights abuses".

What a pack of snivelling, grovelling chickenshits. Refusing to call the crime what it is for fear of offending the criminal. But maybe this is Labour's "kindness"? Fuck the poor. Fuck the kids. Fuck immigrants. But be kind to génocidaires.

But for all their grovelling, it is unlikely to be enough to satisfy prickly China, and we'll likely suffer those "trade consequences" anyway. Which makes you wonder why they're bothering. But I guess cowardice and a refusal to stand up for anything is just in their nature now.

The Greens worry about morality, Labour worries about trade

The Greens have done what was expected of them, and agreed to back ACT's motion on genocide in Xinjiang tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Labour Party is worrying about trade:

Trade Minister Damien O'Connor has warned a parliamentary debate on whether Beijing is committing genocide in Xinjiang would damage trade with China.

Parliamentarians were set to decide on Tuesday morning whether their parties would back a motion in Parliament to label the human rights abuses of the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region of China as an act of "genocide".

Senior ministers in the Labour Government have cautioned the use of the genocide label outside the definition prescribed by the United Nations. National Party leader Judith Collins said the Government should release what information it had on abuses in Xinjiang to MPs, to allow them to decide.

“Clearly the Chinese Government wouldn't like something like that ... I have no doubt it would have some impact [with trade]. That's hardly rocket science,” O’Connor said to reporters, on the way into a Labour caucus meeting on Tuesday .

Its not rocket science, and yet its also irrelevant. Genocide is being committed in Xinjiang. Its a crime under international law, and just fundamentally immoral. When that is happening, worrying that you might offend someone by calling them on their crimes is fundamentally missing the point.

But isn't it so very Labour? Make a lot of noise about their principles ("kindness", "my generation's nuclear free moment", Norman Kirk and David Lange), and then when they are actually tested, turn into whining, snivelling cravens?

Will Labour condemn genocide in Xinjiang?

ACT is planning to introduce a motion to parliament condemning genocide in Xinjiang:

The ACT party will ask Parliament to debate a motion declaring China’s oppression of the Uyghur minority an act of “genocide”, a move that could compel the Labour Government to consider symbolically admonishing Beijing for the abuses.

The motion, similar to that passed in both the United Kingdom and Canadian parliaments, will ask MPs to vote on whether the human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of China amount to genocide, and whether they should call upon the Government to “act to fulfil its obligation” under United Nations conventions.

The Chinese government's actions have been found to be genocidal by US think tanks and the US government. Human Rights Watch documents pervasive crimes against humanity, including enslavement, torture, mass incarceration, family separation and enforced disappearances, but they stop short of calling it "genocide" because they feel they cannot document the necessary intent. From my POV, its pretty clear: China is engaging in an ethnicity-based sterilisation campaign. And that makes it genocide.

Will a motion from the NZ parliament make a difference? As with the declaration of a climate emergency, that depends on whether we actually act on it. But I expect the government to vote for this (or make such a declaration itself), and to start imposing sanctions. Sadly, I expect them to make excuses, just as past governments have over this issue, or war, or pretty much anything. While Labour loves to celebrate its past of taking bold stands for an independent, moral foreign policy (e.g. over nuclear testing under Kirk, and the nuclear ban under Lange), those days are long gone.

(As for the Greens, I take it as a given they will support it, and if they don't, they're going to have some pretty serious explaining to do).

China is committing genocide in Xinjiang

China is sterilising Uighur women in Xinjiang in order to suppress their population:

Chinese authorities are carrying out forced sterilisations of women in an apparent campaign to curb the growth of ethnic minority populations in the western Xinjiang region, according to research published on Monday.

The report, based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women, has prompted an international group of lawmakers to call for a United Nations investigation into China’s policies in the region.

Genocide is defined in international law in both the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

[Emphasis added]

China is not a party to the Rome Statute - it fears international law. But it is a party to the 1948 Convention, having assumed the signature of the former Republic of China. It - and members of its regime - are thus subject to international jurisdiction for this crime. And they need to be investigated and prosecuted for it.

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Justice for the Rohingya?

In 2017, Myanmar stepped up its campaign of persecution against the Rohingya and began a campaign of outright ethnic cleansing. Villages were burned, women raped, and there was widespread murder. An estimated 10,000 were killed and 690,000 forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. A UN report has called the campaign genocide. And now, the International Criminal Court has decided that it can prosecute:

The international criminal court has ruled it can prosecute Myanmar for alleged crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people, an unprecedented decision that could expose the country’s politicians and military leaders to charges.

A pre-trial chamber at the court in The Hague said on Thursday that even though Myanmar was not a signatory to the court, its leaders could still be investigated for the crime of deportation, the forcible transfer of a population.

ICC prosecutors had mounted a novel argument that even though the allegedly coercive acts that forced the Rohingya to flee took place in Myanmar, the crime would not have been completed until the refugees entered Bangladesh, which is a party to the Rome statute that governs the court.

Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda likened deportation to “a cross-border shooting”, arguing the crime “is not completed until the bullet (fired in one state) strikes and kills the victim (standing in another state)”.

The decision opens the doors for ICC prosecutors to apply for a full-blown investigation into Myanmar for deportation and other crimes against humanity, including genocide.

Hopefully this means that those responsible for this genocide will soon be facing justice in The Hague for at least some of their crimes. But deportation is only part of the crime here. Most of Myanmar's crimes against humanity have occurred on its own territory, and are thus outside the jurisdiction of the ICC. Investigating them would require a formal referral from the UN Security Council. The sooner the UNSC provides that referral, the better.

No freedom of the press in Myanmar

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are journalists who helped publicise Myanmar's campaign of genocide in Rakhine state. And for doing their jobs as journalists and exposing that crime, they have now been sentenced to seven years imprisonment:

Two Reuters journalists arrested in Myanmar while investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims have been found guilty of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, are being held in prison in Yangon after being arrested in December, in a landmark case that has prompted international outrage and been seen as a test of progress towards democracy in the south-east Asian country.

In his ruling, judge Ye Lwin said the men “tried many times to get their hands on secret documents and pass them to others. They did not behave like normal journalists.”

As he was led to a police van in handcuffs, Wa Lone said: “I have no fear. I have not done anything wrong … I believe in justice, democracy and freedom.” Kyaw Soe Oo hugged his wife while she was sobbing and held her until police took him away.

Imprisoning those who expose state crimes is the hallmark of tyranny. But that's exactly what Myanmar is: a repressive, genocidal tyranny. The sooner they are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, the better.

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