Mediawatch: Palestinian Statehood Push Vexes Media

Scoop

18 hours ago

Article – RNZ
An media debate over New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood was partly overshadowed by party political rows and claims it would only be a gesture.
, Mediawatch Presenter
'New Zealand is fast becoming one of the last Western democracies to recognise Palestine as a state,' Corin Dann told Morning Report listeners on RNZ National last Tuesday.
While there was a bit of cognitive dissonance in fast becoming one of the last, the roll call of those who have been more decisive was comprehensive.
'Australia, Canada, the UK, France, and 147 other countries have made similar declarations as the world responds to the ongoing destruction and famine in Gaza,' he added.
Just a couple of weeks ago, news organisations were prevaricating over whether they could say 'famine' was happening in Gaza or not, but not so much now.
The previous evening, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, put out a statement that said the government would 'carefully weigh up its position … over the next month'.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters recognition was 'not a race'.
But back on Morning Report on Tuesday, former prime minister Helen Clark told Dann she thought it really was urgent.
'I've seen victims of the war in the hospital in a nearby town. I've seen the trucks turned around carrying food and medicines which were unable to enter Gaza. This is a catastrophic situation. And here we are in New Zealand somehow arguing some fine point about whether we should be adding our voice,' she said, after a trip to the Rafah border crossing.
But in the media here, party political tensions were overshadowing debate about New Zealand's official response.
When Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick condemned what she saw as government's spinelessness in the House, it led the ZB news soon after – followed by points of order about MPs accessories from ACT leader David Seymour.
And Swarbrick's eventual expulsion led TVNZ's 1News at Six soon after that.
But on Newstalk ZB, the hosts overwhelmingly declared that declaring Palestinian statehood was just a gesture.
'Two groups determined to wipe each other off the face of the earth will never stop until one wins. Definitively recognising one as a state will not make a jot of difference,' Mike Hosking insisted on his breakfast show on Tuesday.
Later on her ZB Drive show, Heather du Plessis-Allan reckoned it was just a distraction – one that had already distracted the media.
'For every minute and every column inch that we dedicate to talking about whether we should or should not support the state of Palestine in September, we are not spending … talking about getting aid into kids who need food,' she said.
'I'm sorry, but recognising Palestine right now while this war between Hamas and Israel is ongoing is rewarding Hamas for what they did on October 7th,' she added.
Half an hour later, du Plessis-Allan's partner Barry Soper backed her up.
'Is that going to stop the war? Is Hamas going to finally put down the arms. They can see it as a badge of honour if they did do that.'
Neither of them were convinced by Child Fund chief executive and politics pundit Josie Pagani.
'The only way that we're going to get any movement forward on this is to recognise a two state solution,' she said on the same show 24 hours earlier.
'The purpose of recognising Palestinian statehood is not to instantly magic up a happy ending to the misery in Gaza. It's to preserve the viability of a two-state solution,' The Herald's senior political correspondent Audrey Young wrote in response.
Clark had also told Morning Report that she'd just been talking to Egypt's foreign minister about plans.
'There's elaborate plans which don't include Hamas. So I think it's all a bit of a red herring now to be talking about Hamas. There are credible plans for moving forward,' Clark said
The same day University of Auckland international relations professor Maria Amoudian – on Jesse Mulligan's Afternoons show on RNZ National – said Palestinian statehood would not just be symbolic.
'It would mean they would get a seat at the United Nations. A better voice in UNESCO, diplomatic relations among countries which could evolve into economic support and trade. Also legal rights over territorial waters, airspace and sovereignty over their own territory,' she said.
On RNZ's Midday Report the same day, Otago University professor Robert Patman said that our government's current position not only 'lacked moral clarity,' it was actually inconsistent with our own recent actions and statements.
International law was being 'trashed on a daily basis by Israel,' Patman said.
'In Gaza, cameramen and journalists from Al Jazeera were assassinated by the Netanyahu government. It raises issues which go right to the heart of our identity as a country. I think most Kiwis are very clear. They want to see a world based on rules.'
Meanwhile, political reporters here sensed that we were international laggards on this because partner parties in the Coalition were putting the handbrake on.
In his online newsletter Politik, Richard Harman pointed out ACT MP Simon Court had said in Parliament there cannot be progress towards a Palestinian state until all Israeli hostages are returned and Hamas is dismantled.
He said it was also the position of the foreign minister, though Peters himself had not actually said that. And Luxon had said on Monday Hamas held hostages that should be released.
'We are thinking carefully about all of the different sides … rather than trying to prove our own moral superiority over each other, which the likes of Chlöe Swarbrick have just been doing,' ACT's David Seymour told ZB when asked if ACT was holding up Cabinet support for recognition of Palestine.
Seymour gave a similar response to the Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters.
It was later posted to ACT's YouTube channel as 'David versus the media. David Seymour WARNS against rushing Palestine'.
He repeated his worry that Hamas might benefit. But when a reporter pointed out a Palestinian state means more than just Gaza, and that Hamas doesn't control the West Bank, that episode of 'David versus the Media' came to an end.
'Right now everyone is focused on Gaza. And no one, if you recognise any kind of state – is going to think that this is about the West Bank. That's where the image of every country is going to be judged,' he said.
'Talk to you about domestic politics tomorrow,' Seymour said in closing.
On TVNZ's 1News, Simon Mercep highlighted another practical problem.
'All five permanent members of the UN Security Council. – America, Russia, China, France and the UK – have to agree on statehood.
'Israel's major ally, the US, does not agree. It used its veto as recently as last year.'
It wasn't much mentioned in the media this past week, but the veto right is something that New Zealand has long opposed.
Back in 2012, foreign minister Murray McCully called on the five permanent members to give up their veto rights issues involving atrocities.
He said the inability to act in Syria had 'cost the UN credibility in the eyes of fair-minded people around the world'.
Three years later, he said that the Security Council was failing to prevent conflict – and during a stint chairing the Security Council later that year (when New Zealand was a non permanent member for two years) McCully criticised it again.
The government paid for New Zealand journalists to travel to the UN at the time to watch sessions chaired by New Zealand.
In late 2016, New Zealand co-sponsored a UN resolution that said Israeli settlements in the occupied territories had no legal validity – and were dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution.'
The resolution passed, Israel withdrew its ambassador here – and the incoming President Trump said 'things will be different in the UN' after his first inauguration.
'The position we adopted is totally in line with our long established policy on the Palestinian question,' McCully said at the time, stuck to his guns.
Back then he also said he hoped the attitude of Israel would eventually soften.
Eight years later, it's the attitude of New Zealand's government – and its clarity on two-state solution – that seems to have diluted.