Editorial by Selwyn Manning.
New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters announced at the United Nations General Assembly that this New Zealand coalition Government will not recognise Palestine as a state – at this time.
Here, it is important to cite New Zealand’s foreign minister in relevant detail.
Winston Peters said at the United Nations General Assembly:
“We think a future generation when Israeli and Palestinian political leadership is an asset, not a liability, and where other situational variables have shifted the current calculus away from conflict and towards peace would be more conducive for recognising Palestinian statehood.
“There in lies our dilemma over any decision to recognise Palestinian Palestinian statehood now because statehood recognition is an instrument for peace as an instrument for peace also does not play because there are no fully legitimate and viable state of Palestine to recognise.
“Palestine does not fully meet the accepted criteria for a state as it does not fully control its own territory or population.
“There is also no obvious link between more of the international community recognised in the state of Palestine and the aimed objective of protecting the two-state solution.
“Indeed, what we have observed since partners pronouncements reveals that recognising Palestine now will likely prove counterproductive.
“That is, Hamas resisting negotiation in the belief that it is winning the global propaganda war while pushing Israel towards even more entrench military positions.
“Recognition at this time we also think is open to political manipulation by both Hamas and Israel. Hamas will seek to portray our recognition of Palestine as a victory as they have already done in response to partner announcements.
“Israel will claim the recognition toward rewards Hamas and that it removes pressure on them to release hostages and agree to a ceasefire,” Winston Peters said. (Ref. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/new-zealand-national-statement-un-general-assembly-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98leadership-global-affairs-united )
In essence, I argue, that Peters’ speech kicks the problem down the road. He shifts the responsibility for developing a solution to the Gaza atrocities conditionally on to a future generation of leaders. And it fails to acknowledge that at the current rate of mass killings of Palestinian people, there will be no one left to create nor nurture a future generation of Palestinian leadership.
But the statement nuances a shift in New Zealand’s position geopolitically and within the rules-based-order community of nations. The statement will confuse many observers of global politics, not the least among New Zealanders and peoples who sought asylum in New Zealand far from the paces of their birth.
Let’s consider why.
International Law.
The speech will trigger a cringe for millions of New Zealand citizens and permanent residents at realising how this right-leaning nationalistic three-party coalition government has abandoned and failed to reflect their strongly held positions for human rights principles.
It is human rights principles that have long anchored New Zealand as a strong and unshakable advocate for an international rules based order, for international humanitarian rights, for recourse to international law and justice, and signatories to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice.
It was this cumulative support for human rights and justice that compelled New Zealanders to reject the militant wing of Hamas for its atrocities against civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023.
But advocacy for human rights and justice is not a political expression. It isn’t tribal. It isn’t biased in favour of one peoples and not another. Advocacy for human rights and justice is universal and in this sense it is blind to the class or statehood where hate and atrocity originates from.
This is the same universal principle that the International Court of Justice applied when it found there was a prima facie case of genocide being committed by the state of Israel.
It is this same universal principle that the International Criminal Court applied when calling for the arrest of the state of Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu to be tried for crimes.
Peters’ speech to the United Nations General Assembly ignored these bodies and only waved a cursory glance at the ongoing murder of innocent children and peoples in Gaza, an apparent systematic act of mass murder, committed against people simply because they are of Palestinian birth. Peters’ speech failed these victims and rejected, by way of omission, their right to justice.
In a sense, this New Zealand coalition government has reflexively returned New Zealand back to that glitch-period where this nation fell estranged from the international common-good, in breach of the Gleneagles Agreement, and refused to cease engagement with Apartheid South Africa by allowing sporting contact with that murderous regime in 1981.
New Zealanders rejected that government in 1984, and today’s abandonment of New Zealand’s long held positions for rights and justice will certainly be a factor in the 2026 general elections.
Multilateralism is founded on rules and laws. Where rogue states abandon the principles that are universally agreed to by the majority, those nation states fail to advocate for the multilateral institutions that they rely on for social, judicial, and economic progress.
Peters, as the envoy for this current New Zealand coalition government cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim to be a voice for multilateralism and justice when he has delivered a decision that stands as contrary to the 81 percent of the United Nations general assembly nations who have announced and demand recognition for the State of Palestine.
Gaza and the occupied territories of the West Bank have recognised borders. Within those borders reside a peoples that reflect a common culture and a right to self-determination. They have a representative political structure that can engage itself in bilateral and multilateral forum and bodies. It cannot be ignored that it is being prevented from functioning as a state due to the atrocities that have been inflicted upon it by its occupiers.
It is the occupation that must be addressed, and the United Nations General Assembly, by way of a large majority, recognises this fact – ashamedly the New Zealand coalition government and Peters do not.
CANZ bloc and Like Minded Countries
In addition to New Zealand has long contributed to what is called the CANZ bloc at the United Nations.
The CANZ bloc is a group of nations consisting of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It has held together due to these nations sharing common values as ‘like minded countries’.
New Zealanders have long heard their representatives citing allegiance with ‘like minded countries’.
This too has been abandoned by New Zealand at a most important time for multilateralism, a time when supposed ‘like minded countries’ need to band together and present a solid powerful bloc on issues such as Palestine.
This is why Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited New Zealand on the weekend of August 9-10, 2025. Albanese sought the position of New Zealand’s current Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on whether New Zealand would recognise Palestine as a state in keeping with ‘like minded countries’ Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and France. Luxon couldn’t give him an answer. And New Zealanders were left wondering why.
On this issue, New Zealand will have sent a signal to other nations that it cannot be relied on anymore as a true advocate of peace and justice while it fails to life up to its long-held reputation as an honest broker on the world stage standing up for peace, justice and multilateral progress.
This is a day of shame that has dawned in New Zealand. And millions in this multicultural Pacific nation will feel ashamed that their political representatives have failed not only them, but victims of atrocities all over the world.
Failed Opportunity to Advocate for UN Reform
Peters’ speech before the United Nations General Assembly, while acknowledging the UN needed reform, failed dismally to present a reformist plan that New Zealand would advocate for. It was a glaring omission from a once seasoned politician that made his bones on matters of principle and law.
Peters speech also failed to identify the mechanisms and protocols that exist within the United Nations at this current time; principles like the R2P or responsibility to protect protocols that were advanced after UN observers were prevented from protecting victims of Rwanda genocide decades ago.
The United Nations (UN) Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a global political commitment adopted in 2005 by world leaders to prevent and respond to mass atrocity crimes – namely genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. It holds that state sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect populations within their borders; when a state manifestly fails to do so, the international community has a responsibility to act collectively and decisively, in accordance with the UN Charter.
All Peters and New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials needed to do is indulge themselves for a moment to reflect on this R2P protocol as published by the United Nations office on genocide prevention and the responsibility to protect. (Ref. https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/responsibility-protect/about )
Put simply, within the UN charter there is the framework and mechanism for Peters, as a representative or a once principled nation, to cite and demand be applied to resolving the humanitarian crisis and murder taking place today in Gaza, and indeed in other parts of the world.
And it is this, that illustrates greatest the areas where reform of the United Nations is required and is at a critical juncture.
The United Nations was formed as a body to advocate and restore peace. For decades now, it has shifted its emphasis onto becoming a distributor of assistance and development. This is noble and it is vital in a complex world such as we live in. But it has become moribund where it comes to ensuring a mechanism or framework structured body where nations can cumulatively restore peace and prosperity to nations, peoples, and states that are victims of tyranny.
This is the kernel of need where reformist ideals are developed and implemented. And this was largely ignored by Peters and his coalition government colleagues.
As such, New Zealand faces headwinds. It may now be regarded by our once closest multilateral partners as an unreliable and immoral unjust state that waxes and wanes, dancing on the head of a pin on distorted legalese that offers more smoke and mirrors than principled solutions.
New Zealanders and Palestinian victims deserved to witness the very opposite of what was served up to them today. They deserved to witness a representative and true advocate for – particularly in the case of the Palestinian diaspora here in New Zealand and their dead and dying relatives back in the occupied territories and Gaza – rights to recourse as individuals and as survivors to universally applied justice.
But this current New Zealand government refused them. And as such it has sided with those nations that are a part of the problem manifest in Gaza, rather than being part of the solution.
Doing nothing is complicit.
