Unease over Israel/Iran conflict
Shortly after news broke of Israel's aerial attacks on Iran, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made the cautious understatement they were an "unwelcome development" for the Middle East.
He also said the military action between the two countries could be potentially catastrophic for that area and a huge concern for New Zealand.
Foreign minister Winston Peters said it was "critical that all actors prioritise de-escalation".
He and Mr Luxon saw the best way to regional security as ongoing talks between the United States and Iran.
So far, there seems little hope of that.
Even at this distance, the ramping up of military action in this fraught area will be adding to everyone's unease about the state of the world, the behaviour of some of the big players involved to date, and fears about what they might do next.
Since Friday, the conflict has intensified after retaliation from Iran to the original attacks which Israel had said were intended to target Iran's nuclear programme.
There has been considerable speculation about the timing of Israel's action, particularly when there were United States-Iranian nuclear negotiations planned for last weekend.
While it was no secret there was increasing tension between Israel and Iran, it had been reported US President Donald Trump was trying to dissuade Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from attacking Iran while the US was continuing these negotiations.
The initial attacks were clearly well-planned, with Mr Netanyahu insisting Israel had to attack now because Iran was becoming so close to weaponising its enriched uranium, a "clear and present danger to Israel's very survival".
However, there are questions about the reality of this portrayal of the situation and whether it is more likely a cynical ploy by Mr Netanyahu to avert the international community's gaze from the horror of Gaza and shore up his own support at home.
As some commentators have pointed out, the war on Gaza has not ended but the international pressure over starvation and civilian deaths, and indeed the media spotlight on it, has been superseded by concern about the implications of the Israel-Iran conflict.
Mere hours after the Israeli attack, it was reported food shipments and distribution in Gaza stopped and a French-Saudi summit looking at how to achieve wider recognition for a Palestinian state was postponed indefinitely.
The possibility of Israel's action having the perverse effect of garnering domestic support for the unpopular Iran regime, particularly as civilian deaths mount, should not be discounted.
The escalation of the conflict has not been a triumph for Mr Trump.
On the campaign trail he boasted he would be a peacemaker, quickly solving international crises through his toughness, ability to make deals, and the respect with which he was held by foreign leaders.
In his inauguration address he claimed his proudest legacy would be that of a peacemaker and unifier.
It is difficult to see any evidence of that, domestically or internationally.
The US response to the Israeli attacks was confused, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially describing them as a unilateral action but then Mr Trump later insisting that he knew about the operation in advance, and it somehow coincided with the end of a 60-day ultimatum he had given Iran to make a deal on the nuclear question.
Iran regards the US as being complicit in Israel's attack, accusing the US of aiding and enabling it, and therefore sharing in the responsibility of the consequences.
The best that can be said about the pronouncements from the players involved in the conflict is they illustrate the adage truth is the first casualty of war.
While people living here might take some solace in being thousands of kilometres away from the conflict, we will not be immune to the effects of it.
The price of oil has already risen internationally, but the Automobile Association says any effect here from that would not be seen for around a month.
The hope will be that the market will stabilise quickly, but presumably that would require some de-escalation of the conflict.
In the meantime, we can do little but hold our breath as we watch and wait for some cool and competent heads to prevail to stop the bloodshed.
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The West's War Against Iran
Clearly, the world needs to stop talking about Israel's right to defend itself, and start talking about the world's need to defend itself against Israel. Gaza, Lebanon, have become the stepping stones in Israel's plan to expand its rule, unrivalled, over all the land between the river and the sea. Iran was on the cusp of making a nuclear weapon? Even the crackpot American Congresswoman politician Marjorie Taylor Greene has been un-impressed by that excuse, noting that Israel 'has been saying the same thing for the past 20 years'. Donald Trump's intelligence boss Tulsi Gabbard recently testified under oath to a Congressional hearing that Iran was not engaged in building a nuclear weapon: Trump's intelligence czar Tulsi Gabbard, another anti-war figure, testified in March that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.'The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,' Gabbard said, while noting, however, that Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels, unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons. Iran is surrounded by enemies. Like North Korea, it may well regard having a nuclear weapon capability as its best self-defence against invasion. Yet even if one treated the nuclear enrichment- to-nuclear bomb progression as inevitable – which it wasn't - can Israel actually succeed in destroying Iran's well-protected nuclear facilities? Probably not. Not unless there is regime change in Teheran, which has long been the end purpose of Israel's aggression. Israel is unlikely to succeed in this aim, either. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in recent days, called once again on the 'proud people of Iran' to stand up for their 'freedom from an evil and repressive regime.' As this Al Jazeera columnist has pointed out: The assumption that Iranians would simply do Israel's bidding as it bombs them relentlessly and unilaterally, seems akin to the notion that if Israel starves and exterminates the Palestinians in Gaza to the required extent, they would rise against Hamas and remove it from power. Even if one bought the notion that all the Iranian people have been waiting for is an Israeli strike to move against the regime, Al Jazeera says, such beliefs demonstrate a profound lack of understanding of the wider historical forces that shape Iranian politics: While many Iranians undoubtedly oppose the Islamic Republic, Iranians of all political persuasions are consistently 'patriotic', committed to supporting Iranian sovereignty and independence from any attempts by external elements to impose their agendas on their country. For that reason, any invading force should be careful about what would come in the wake of their initial 'victory.' Israel, the US and any puppets they install in power would face being mired for a generation in a war of resistance that would dwarf what happened in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003. Shades of 2003 Talking of decision to attack Iran (even while talks between the US and Iran on limiting Iran's nuclear ambitions were still happening in Oman) shares that equally cynical historical precedent. Back in March 2003, the US had used the 'weapons of mass destruction' excuse to justify its invasion of Iraq, an attack it launched even while the UN arms inspectors were still at work inside Iraq, looking for those mythical WMDs. Then as now, we are not talking about a pre-emptive war against an external existential threat. This is a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and it is being waged by an expansionist Israel, with US approval and support. Israel would not have proceeded without getting a green light from the US, which began issuing travel advisories and moving its diplomats out of the region in the week before the attacks began. Beyond the US, Israel can always count on other Western nations to do next to nothing to halt its aggression, or to punish it in any significant way. All year, the West has been bending over backwards to avoid looking as though it is criticising Israel for its genocidal use of starvation as a weapon of war against the two million Palestinian civilian inhabitants of Gaza. For example: when the leaders of Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand announced sanctions against two extremist members of the Israeli Cabinet, the co-signing leaders made a truly pathetic distinction: These measures are directed at individuals who directly contribute to extremist settler violence," said Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand. 'The measures are not directed against the state of Israel itself." Right. So, what on earth would Israel have to do – and what would a collectively responsible Israeli Cabinet have to sign off on - before New Zealand could gather up the courage to impose sanctions on the state of Israel? To state the ago, Israel went well past the point of proportionate retaliation for the Hamas terrorist actions of October 7,2023. Israel's subsequent actions in Gaza continue to be unfathomably cruel and evil. What mother or father, watching their sons and daughters being systematically starved to death before their eyes, would not risk crowding and jostling for the inadequate amounts of dried food (much of it useless without fuel or water) that is being dribbled out through a handful of privately-run US aid centres – and not through the far more extensive and competent UN aid facilities? Desperate Palestinians are being drawn by the hunger of their families into congregating outside these sham US aid centres, where scores of them are then being shot down by Israeli troops on a daily basis. Food is being used as a lethal magnet to facilitate further mass killings, while New Zealand – and the rest of the Western world- continue to urge both sides to show restraint. Ludicrously, we continue to call on Israel to abide by the norms of international law that the IDF has consistently flouted in Gaza for the past 18 months. Nearly 20,000 dead Palestinian children later, and with the surviving children being slowly and deliberately deprived of food and water, we are still imploring Israel to show restraint. Iran's bomb Reportedly, Israel's latest attacks targeted and killed Ali Shamkani, Iran's chief negotiator in the US-led nuclear containment talks in Oman. Israel has also killed at least six of Iran's leading nuclear scientists, including Fereidoun Abbas, the former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Association. (Back in 2010, Abbas had been seriously wounded when a motorcyclist detonated a magnetic bomb under his car.) Since 2010, Israel has been steadily murdering a succession of Iran nuclear scientists, who had been working on the country's development of nuclear energy in order to meet the country's long-term and entirely legitimate energy needs. Because of the potential that further nuclear enrichment might someday result in the development of a bomb, the Obama administration struck a deal in 2015 with the then-relatively liberal administration of Hassan Rouhani in Teheran. Under the terms of that 2015 deal, Iran agreed to desist from added enrichment, in return for economic sanctions being lifted, and for Iran being enabled to trade with the West. In the wake of this opening, a more democratic society might have been able to emerge in Iran. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at the time, Iran lived up to its side of the bargain. America, however, did not. Once elected in 2016, Donald Trump immediately scrapped this deal, and imposed even heavier trade sanctions. By doing so, Trump fatally undermined Iran's political liberals, and confirmed the predictions made by the regime's hard-liners that the US could never be trusted. By scrapping the 2015 deal, Trump also forced Iran into an enduring dependence on China as the only major market for its oil. This entirely avoidable outcome gave China a reliable proxy state in the Middle East, and a platform for influence that it had never had before. Fast forward to this year. Nearly 10 years after Iran had restricted its nuclear ambitions in return for trade advantages that it never received, Trump was back again at the bargaining table in Oman – offering Iran what one critic called 'a dime-store version' of the same deal that Trump had torn up in 2016. Regardless, Iran continued to talk, while preparing for the Israeli attack that everyone knew was coming, whatever concessions Iran offered. Few will shed tears over the likely fall of the stupidly brutal and corrupt regime in Teheran, which lost its revolutionary lustre decades ago. For example: even on the cusp of the Israeli attack, the religious authorities in Teheran were engaged in a crackdown on ordinary citizens walking dogs in public, or riding with them in cars. Allegedly, a prayer said when one has a dog hair on one's clothing will not be effective. ( I'd love to know how this was tested.) To repeat: Iran will not be an easy conquest. The country has had long experience of being subjected to external aggression and to the rule of foreign-backed puppets. For example, a US/UK funded coup in 1953 toppled the democratically elected Mossadegh government, and brought the Shah to power. As mentioned above, if Iran's current government is overthrown by external forces it will be extremely difficult to govern, given the underground resistance that will surely flourish in the wake of any foreign-led regime change. might the US and Israel like to install as the ruler of a newly 'democratic' Iran? That amenable puppet could well be the 65 year old Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the Shah deposed in 1979. The more things are changed in Iran, the more they are likely to stay the same. Footnote: Meanwhile, back in Gaza: to discredit and divide support for Hamas, the Israelis have reportedly armed and assisted a criminal Palestinian militia led by a Rafah resident called Yasser Abu Shabab. Reportedly, this gangster chief and his roughly 100 armed followers have – apparently with Israel's blessing - been looting aid convoys. and re-selling the food at a profit. Footnote Two: The media coverage of the Iran/Israel conflict to date has, as usual, been heavily weighted in favour of reportage from the Israeli side of the conflict. Extensive sympathetic coverage is being extended to Israeli citizens – and to embedded Western media – sheltering under Israel's extensive Iron Dome missile defence system. As well, Israelis are reportedly getting phone warnings of incoming Iranian missiles in time to move into bomb shelters that are - also, reportedly- well stocked with food and water. The citizens of Iran have no such luck – which may explain why their death toll is currently running at nearly 20 times higher - and they are certainly not getting such sympathetic treatment from our media. Al Jazeera, again: The Iranian Health Ministry said early Monday that at least 224 people have been killed, 90 percent of them civilians, and 1,481 wounded since Israel attacked Iran. Dozens of women and children were among the dead. So it goes. In the Middle East, they seem to be chronically unwilling/unable to give more than fleeting air time at best, to non-Israeli/US voices. Even the liberal voices on Israel's Ha'aretz news service are rarely called upon. True, foreign media have been barred by the IDF from entering Gaza. Yet, as this columnist in the Independent newspaper recently pointed out, it probably wouldn't have made much difference to the coverage, anyway: The truth is the coverage would have looked much as it has done for more than a year and a half, with Israel dictating the story lines, with Israel's denials foregrounded, with Israel's claims of Hamas 'terrorists' in every hospital, school, bakery, university, and refugee camp used to justify the destruction and slaughter. British doctors volunteering in Gaza who have told us there were no Hamas fighters in the hospitals they worked in, or anyone armed apart from the Israeli soldiers that shot up their medical facilities, would not be more believed because Jeremy Bowen interviewed them in Khan Younis rather than Richard Madeley in a London studio.
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New Zealand to trial visa waiver for Chinese visitors from Australia
China was once New Zealand's second-largest source of international visitors, contributing more than $1.7 billion to the economy in 2019. Photo: Supplied / Auckland Airport Immigration Minister Erica Stanford has announced that New Zealand will begin trialing a visa waiver for Chinese nationals arriving from Australia in November. The move is part of a broader effort to strengthen economic ties with China and revitalise New Zealand's tourism sector. Stanford made the announcement on Sunday as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon prepared to visit Shanghai and Beijing on a whirlwind trip from 18-21 June . Under the new policy, Chinese passport holders with valid Australian visas - whether for tourism, work, study or family - would be allowed to visit New Zealand for up to three months without needing a separate visa. The 12-month trial has been designed to streamline travel across the Tasman Sea and attract more visitors from one of New Zealand's most valuable international tourism markets. "Our immigration settings play an important role in brightening our country's economic future," Stanford said. "More than 240,000 Chinese visitor visas were granted in 2024, and we want those numbers to grow." Immigration Minister Erica Stanford Photo: Samuel Rillstone / RNZ China was once New Zealand's second-largest source of international visitors, contributing more than $1.7 billion to the economy in 2019. While that figure declined during the pandemic, Chinese travellers remained a vital part of the country's tourism recovery . Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston described the changes as a win for regional economies and local businesses. "China is one of New Zealand's most important tourism markets, and more international visitors mean more bookings in our restaurants, more people visiting our regions and attractions, more jobs being created across the country and an overall stronger economy," she said. "In the year ended March 2025, visitors from China contributed $1.24 billion to New Zealand's economy, but there's still more work to do to grow these numbers and drive further economic growth throughout the country." Alongside the visa waiver trial, Immigration New Zealand was expected to introduce a series of additional measures aimed at supporting Chinese travellers and tour operators. The changes included a dedicated contact centre number and support in China for Chinese "Approved Destination Status" travel agents, the addition of Simplified Chinese content to the official immigration website and the removal of the requirement for certified translations on visitor visa documents, a step expected to lower application costs and streamline processing. The new settings complemented the existing five-year multiple-entry Visitor Visa and a current average visa processing time of just five working days for applicants from China.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
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Update on Iran-Israel conflict
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has updated its advice over Israel saying New Zealanders there should consider leaving when it is safe to do so. A spokesperson says MFAT has also raised the travel advice for Israel to 'do not travel'. The spokesperson says while the advice is for all New Zealanders to leave, continued airspace closures and flight cancellations may mean this is not possible for a number of days. The strikes between Israel and Iran have continued and Iran has confirmed that several senior military leaders have been killed. The BBC's Sebastian Usher is in Jerusalem.
