Since August 11, when Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that he was leading a review of New Zealand’s position, he has said or done nothingto give hope that he was about to do a 180-degree turn.
Some people believed a recent poll in New Zealand added weight to the argument for recognition. But Peters saw it in opposite terms.
The RNZ-Reid Research poll found that 42.5% supported recognition, 22.1% did not, and 35.4% didn’t know. Peters took that as meaning that 60 per cent (57.5%) did not support recognition.
Practically, the cabinet could have made the decision back in August instead of raising false hope. The arguments, which were canvassed in a briefing note and cabinet paper released by Peters at the weekend, have not changed since then.
But the seven weeks bought Peters time to assess just how isolated New Zealand would be if he followed his instincts and continued to hold off recognition.
The answer to that lies in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and most Pacific states. By the end of leaders’ week at the United Nations on Saturday, where Peters set out his decision, none of those other like-minded countries had shifted from their positions either.
Like New Zealand, they support recognition in the future, just not now - a case of “when, not if”.
These friends give New Zealand diplomatic cover, albeit within a shrinking group of just 18.6 per cent of the UN. The decision still puts New Zealand on the wrong side of history, but in the company of respected friends.
If the hold-outs had just been New Zealand, along with the likes of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Guatemala, Nepal, Bhutan - and the United States - and if they had represented say only 10% of the UN, there would have been more pressure on the Government to join the recent momentum for recognition.
Peters delivered a comprehensive speech, but he is likely to raise eyebrows, if not the ire of close friends such as Australia, Britain, Canada and France, in suggesting that their recognition of Palestine, with “good intentions”, caused Israel to “snap”.
He linked that “snapping” of Israel to its current military assault on Gaza City and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. That is a heavy accusation to load on friends of New Zealand, rather than on the increasingly maniacal Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or on Hamas.
Winston Peters viewed a recent poll on recognition of Palestine as an endorsement of no movement. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Whatever way New Zealand decided to go on recognition, it was going to be used as propaganda by either Hamas or Israel, as it now has been by the Israeli Government.
It can certainly be seen as a reward for Netanyahu’s renunciation of a two-state solution, which is widely endorsed internationally as the fairest way to resolve the conflict.
Peters’ speech said that Palestine did not meet the traditional benchmarks for state recognition, but he did not point out, as the cabinet paper did, that that was in large part due to Israel’s explicit intention to block the emergence of such a state.
As the paper said: “The Israel-Palestine case is uniquely complicated. There are no clear precedents for a case where a state whose creation is widely supported by the international community faces decades-long occupation.”
Despite it being a unique situation, 80 years in the making, the New Zealand Government applied traditional tests for recognition, as though it were deciding whether to recognise a post-colonial independent state in the 1960s.
Besides Palestine not meeting the traditional test, both Peters and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have claimed that recognition of Palestine by New Zealand would not make a difference.
Similar arguments were made by apologists for apartheid in the 1970s who opposed sanctions against South Africa, trading or sporting, on the basis that it would make no difference. In hindsight, it did.
As in South Africa, change in Palestine cannot come about without the political agreement of the parties involved, but to suggest that other countries cannot influence the process or make a difference is wrong.
The best argument for why recognition of Palestine can make a difference came from former New Zealand diplomat Colin Keating in an interview yesterday on TVNZ’s Q&A.
“The collective act of many states progressively recognising a territory is what gives a territory legitimacy as a government and then as a state...The reality is that recognition is an incremental process [in] which collectively the international community begins to move the status quo.
“In this case, the only way to move the status quo in this 80-year-old conflict in Palestine is to begin to move the conversation in Israel towards recognition of a two-state solution.”
In other words, Keating is saying recognition might not change things overnight, but it could play a part in shifting attitudes and then actions.
What was surprising in Peters’ speech was that in simply restating New Zealand’s position as the status quo, he lost an opportunity to at least set out some clearer conditions on which future recognition would be based.
That would have gone some way to recognise the concerns that are being felt in New Zealand.
That concern does not appear to manifest itself in New Zealand quite with the same intensity as it does in Australia and Britain, but Peters effectively ignored it.
A small change may have gone a long way, politically, and given hope to at least 40% of people who support recognition.
Perhaps surprisingly, the most hopeful element of recent developments has come from United States President Donald Trump.
He stated emphatically last week that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, and his Administration has come up with a 21-point peace plan that will undoubtedly be discussed when Netanyahu visits the White House later today.
Peters alluded to the United States in his speech, saying it was countries with leverage who were most likely to achieve a breakthrough.
“That would show global leadership.”
Peters is correct that the US has the greatest leverage. But leadership comes in many forms.
Audrey Young is the NZ Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018. She was political editor from 2003 to 2021.
