Government kicks can down the road on Palestinian statehood

NZ Herald

16 hours ago

But will it happen?
When asked at his post-Cabinet press conference on Monday what the Cabinet had actually decided to do, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said there was now a 'process' the Government would work through in order to come to a final decision.
When asked what this process actually was, he couldn't say.
'We had a conversation today, we'll make a Cabinet decision in September and we'll communicate that in September … but again, I'm not wanting to get ahead of the process. I don't want to presuppose an outcome,' he said.
Pressed again, Luxon said there will be 'ongoing conversations with Cabinet to get to a position'.
The oral item Peters said he took to the Cabinet on Monday could have thrashed the issue out there and then. Instead, the parties have resolved to work through the issue over the next month.
That means the most important thing heading into September is how the various parties feel.
National seems the most likely to back recognition of Palestine.
National's MPs are feeling the heat from their constituents, but it has some strong backers of Israel around the Cabinet table.
Act, meanwhile, is more clearly unlikely to shift from New Zealand's current position. Its view is best summed up by MP Simon Court's contribution to a parliamentary debate last month, saying that recognising a Palestinian state would be viewed as 'a reward for acts of terrorism' committed by Hamas against Israel.
NZ First's position is less clear. Peters has for a long time been a staunch supporter of Israel, but the fast-changing international position could see him change his mind.
Peters is the conduit for MFAT's advice to the Cabinet, and that advice is likely to reflect the fast-changing international political situation, which has rendered New Zealand's 'when' not 'if' approach to Palestinian recognition untenable.
Recognition, if it happens, has been a long time coming. Of the 193 United Nations states, 147 recognise a Palestinian state. Of those countries, most made some form of recognition in the 1980s.
It might have happened in 2023, when Labour took a policy to the election of inviting the General Delegation of Palestine in Canberra to present credentials in Wellington, effectively recognising Palestine's statehood. This has remained Labour policy in opposition, with the party loudly calling on the Government to recognise a Palestinian state since 2024.
This seemed most unlikely nearly two years ago, when Hamas' October 7 2023 attacks on Israel, killing 1200, made the recognition of a Palestinian state seem further away than ever (whatever Labour, soon to go into opposition, might have said).
But Israel's bloody war in Gaza changed all that.
Since October 2023, more than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli military operations, according to the BBC. That, plus Israel's inability to stop widespread starvation in the strip, has led the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to describe the situation as 'genocide'.
The Government's position, as articulated by Peters, has been that New Zealand's longstanding support for a two-state solution means recognition of a Palestinian state is a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'.
That position was a convenient one. It gives the Government something to say to the majority of states that do recognise Palestine, without doing the deed itself and risking the ire of Israel and its main backer, the United States.
The United States isn't idle in its threats. Last month, when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada would recognise a Palestinian state, President Donald Trump took to social media to say it would 'make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them'.
New Zealand's holding pattern has become untenable, both internationally and domestically.
Since French President Emmanuel Macron announced in July that France will recognise Palestine, there has been a cascade of what our Government often calls 'like-minded' nations following suit, or threatening to.
This made the Government's position challenging. It was happy being among several countries waiting for certain conditions to be met to recognise a Palestinian state, but being one of the last countries to recognise a Palestinian state is about as good as not recognising one at all.
The decision of Australia, New Zealand's closest partner, on Monday to join them, was possibly the cherry on top.
In the past, countries like New Zealand and Australia had been able to kick the can down the road, pointing to the lack of proper infrastructure in Palestine for recognition to take place.
But that position has been replaced by one articulated by Australia's Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, that if recognition did not happen now, there's a risk 'there will be no Palestine left to recognise'.
The position is becoming domestically untenable too. Daily, New Zealanders read, watch and listen to the latest from Gaza, where Israel zealously prosecutes a bloody war, whilst doing little to lift the famine taking hold in the strip.
National holds most of the country's electorate seats. Those electorate MPs' inboxes groan under the weight of outrage expressed by New Zealanders over what they see. As the polls start to take a tumble, those MPs are becoming increasingly sensitive to what they're hearing from their constituents.
With polls on Monday showing the Government in trouble - including one poll showing a hung Parliament - it's possible that this selfish sentiment, as much as anything more altruistic, is driving some of this change, with anxiety in National's caucus room driving change at the Cabinet table.