What is with New Zealand's obsession with blindly supporting Israel?

What is with the Kiwi obsession of blindly supporting Israel?

It seems that no matter what they do, no matter how grave the human rights abuses, no matter how unjust or inhumane they treat the Palestinian people, in the eyes of many kiwi's, they can do no wrong.

I fear that our blind support of Israel has more to do with our Christian roots than I am comfortable to admit. The Christian tradition in the West has often viewed the creation of the Israeli state as a sign of end times prophecy coming to life. Israel’s restoration to her former glory – in some Christian traditions – is meant to signal the coming of the apocalypse, and the Final Judgement.

Besides this idea being widely dismissed by many Christian and Biblical scholars today, it also falls down in another area. The fact that the adoption of this view has led some Christians to ignore one of the main themes of the biblical narrative. A message highlighted in the very teachings of Jesus himself, Love, for one's enemy and one's neighbour. This message calls us all to stand against injustice and to oppose the dehumanisation of any people, regardless of who they are, how far away they may seem, or the blood lines of those who are trying to kill them.

Though Christian culture no longer dominates our society, this unadulterated support of Israel seems to be a hangover from the age of Christendom. As a result of this, many people have traded in objectivity, for a sanitised and idealised view of the Israeli state. They ignore the reality of Israeli oppression against the Palestinian people, choosing to believe the lies Israel feed us as justification for their war crimes.

One such justification for Israel’s continued oppression and dehumanisation of Palestinians is that they are terrorists. We are told that they are blood thirsty monsters, wanting war and longing with every breath for the utter destruction of Israel.

Blood thirsty. Savages. Terrorists. These words slip too easily from our tongues, for they have been spoken in this land before. And we who are Pakeha should recognise them for what they are, for it is our tupuna who first spoke them. They are the words of the coloniser. They are the stories of the powerful, designed to shape the narrative and justify the unjustifiable. They are the lies of the strong, used to silence the cries of the weak.

In this country we pride ourselves on the work that is being done to right the wrongs of our past. We do not question the evils of colonisation, we recognize that our tupuna failed, and seek to find a way forward that will bring true restoration and reconciliation to this land.

We are a long way off, but we are, at the very least, seeking the path to peace.

I have often heard friends, family members and colleagues lament that we could not go back in time and prevent the colonisation and oppression of this whenua and her people.

And I join them in that sorrow, for that is something none of us can do. Yet, here before us stands more evidence that we have not yet learnt the lessons that the evils of colonisation should have taught us.

The Israeli state has taken upon itself the mantle of the English Empire. Using the tools of the Western coloniser, they have exercised violence of both word and deed, to destroy and dehumanise the Palestinian people.

And we, through our silence, have let them do it.

What is worse, is that we have not just ignored this injustice, we have both encouraged and endorsed the Israelis' actions.

Israel shoot a teenager, it was Hamas' fault.

Israel bomb Gaza, killing civilians, it was the terrorists who drove them to that action.

Israel kill hundreds of people who peacefully protest the grave human rights abuses caused by their illegal blockade, and they were only defending themselves from the savages who invaded them. When will this end?

Imagine if this was Kim Jung-un, or Trump who was illegally detaining and imprisoning a whole group of people. It would not be allowed to go on silently. It would have been loudly and publicly condemned (in fact in the case of the children on the border; it has been).

But, this has been going on for over 10 years and we have been silent.

In fact, we haven’t just been silent. We have cheered it on.

There is a thinly veiled tradition of Zionism in this country that allows us to blindly support and endorse Israel’s crimes.

We conveniently accept the dehumanising lies of the Israeli's, and this has participated in allowing their colonisation to continue.

It is time to end the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.

It is time for the International community to put pressure on the Israeli government to close the blockade.

If anyone should see the need for this it should be us.

As Kiwis we have a unique perspective, one which will not be found in other places in the world. We have seen the evils of colonisation. We remember the destruction of dehumanising a people. Our land sings to us of the consequences that come with displacing the tangata whenua.

It did not happen here so long ago that we have forgotten.

If no others will stand with the Palestinians, we must raise our voices.

For God’s sake, let us allow these people the right to return home. At the very least let us allow them the right to live in humane conditions.

It is time for us to raise our voices in a waiata of freedom!

Free Palestine!

End Israeli oppression!

Let those who have been displaced return home!

A.J. Hendry

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