So far, the New Zealand government has been remarkably silent about the Gaza-Israel conflict. Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta could be helping meditate for peace, Geoffrey Miller writes.

The growing Gaza crisis is testing Nanaia Mahuta’s recent assertion that New Zealand has an independent foreign policy.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza could be a golden opportunity for Mahuta to take the lead and forge her own path on the world stage.

New Zealand could be following Norway’s example and helping to broker a ceasefire and mediate wider peace attempts in the region.

But if anything, New Zealand’s response to the growing Israeli-Palestinian crisis to date appears to be slower and lower-key than that of its traditional English-speaking partners.

As of Monday morning, Mahuta’s public reaction appears to have been largely limited to a tweet and – in diplomatic terms – a fairly standard, 180-word written statement.

?? is deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Jerusalem and Gaza. We call for rapid de-escalation from ?? and ??. We call on Israel to cease demolitions and evictions and for both sides to halt steps which undermine prospects for a two state solution.

— Nanaia Mahuta (@NanaiaMahuta) May 11, 2021

Mahuta has largely echoed the calls of others calling for de-escalation in the crisis.

Notably, she does not appear to have given any TV or radio interviews about the topic.

Late PM comments
For her part, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s first comments on the crisis appear to have been made in a scheduled weekly TV interview on Monday morning – nearly a full week after Israel began launching airstrikes on Gaza, in response to the firing of rockets into Israeli territory by Hamas.

Ardern, who talked of her “despair” at the conflict, seems to have been the last of the Five Eyes leaders to comment on the crisis publicly.

Overall, it appears the government would prefer not to become involved in a distant conflict that – to many – appears intractable and unsolvable.

Other NZ parliamentarians – with the notable exception of Green MPs, especially Golriz Ghahraman – appear to be taking much the same position. According to Hansard, the conflict did not even rate a mention in the New Zealand Parliament last week – in stark contrast to its Australian, British and Canadian counterparts, which all debated the issue.

Neither did New Zealand’s public statements differ greatly in tone or substance from those made by other Five Eyes countries.

Marise Payne, Australia’s Foreign Minister, called for de-escalation at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Thursday. And Canada and the United Kingdom have both have issued similar statements at prime ministerial and foreign minister level.

Mediation role?
Other countries are trying to find a solution to the crisis, including Egypt, Qatar, Russia and the US.

Each country has its own potential advantages in mediation: Qatar and Egypt have traditionally held the ear of Hamas, for instance, while Israel is most likely to listen to its closest ally, the United States.

But there is plenty of scope for others to become involved.

For example, China last week worked with non-permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members Tunisia and Norway in repeated attempts to try and find agreement on a joint statement on the crisis – efforts that were ultimately blocked by the United States.

New Zealand, too, could also play a more active role in brokering a solution.

Ardern’s heartfelt response to the conflict on Monday morning resembled that of a political commentator and observer, rather than of a participant in international affairs.

The conflict was tragic, but ultimately for others to solve – or at least that was the impression she gave.

More active earlier role
But New Zealand has played a more active role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before. As Professor Robert Patman pointed out on Sunday, New Zealand co-sponsored UNSC Resolution 2334 in 2016 that condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The move prompted Israel to recall its ambassador from Wellington and sever diplomatic ties with New Zealand for six months as a symbolic punishment.

Despite this history, New Zealand still has a good chance of being seen as an honest broker by all parties.

With most other smaller Western democracies falling under the EU’s umbrella, New Zealand is one of only a handful of countries with the credibility and neutrality to talk to both sides.

Palestinians in #NZ stage #rallies protesting against #Israeli ‘brutality’ #Palestine #PalestineBleeding #PalestineUnderAttack #NakbaDay2021 #AsiaPacificReport #humanrightshttps://t.co/ty6SF2AMkz pic.twitter.com/G4cELFe7dt

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) May 16, 2021

There are other helpful factors.

The fact that New Zealand has recently distanced itself from the Five Eyes alliance – and New Zealand’s overall good working relationship with China – would help to remove any impression of bias towards a particular side.

Moreover, New Zealand has designated only Hamas’s military wing as a terrorist entity, rather than the organisation as a whole – unlike the EU, US, Canada and Japan.

And Jacinda Ardern’s own personal star power and diplomatic clout – as shown again by her leadership of the Christchurch Call meeting at the weekend – would also help New Zealand win friends and influence people at the negotiating table.

Nordic template?
A template for New Zealand’s involvement could come from another small democracy – Norway. The Nordic country – also a ‘team of five million’ – has remained an active player in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.

In the current crisis, Norway is again trying to help – its top diplomat Tor Wennesland is playing a leading role, under secondment to the UN.

Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of deescalation. The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now

— Tor Wennesland (@TWennesland) May 11, 2021

For New Zealand, former Labour leader David Shearer – who has extensive experience in the Middle East and once headed the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem – could be the ideal equivalent appointee.
David Shearer with children in Koch

David Shearer could be an ideal choice for a mediation role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Geoffrey Miller writes. Photo: Supplied

Shearer is now back in New Zealand after finishing up at his job as the head of the UN mission in South Sudan – and he spoke at length about the Gaza conflict in a TV interview on Sunday.

Could New Zealand be the Norway of the South?

Absolutely – if it wants to be.

Geoffrey Miller is an international analyst at the Democracy Project. He has lived and travelled extensively in the Middle East and is a fluent Arabic speaker. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, former prime minister of Papua New Guinea and a giant of Pacific politics, has died from pancreatic cancer. He was 84.

Known as “Mike” to some and “the chief” to others, Somare in more recent years became widely referred to as “the grand chief” – the highest position in his nation’s honours system.

In his long career, Somare dominated PNG and Pacific politics.

He was regarded as the “father of the nation” for his role in moving PNG from colonial dependency of Australia to a fully fledged independent state. He helped build a nation that sits at the meeting point between the Pacific and dynamic East Asia with all the strategic, economic and cultural issues that brings.

Somare was the colossus of PNG’s political landscape: chief minister from 1972 to 1975 while the country was still an Australian-administered territory, its first prime minister (1975-1980), as well as its third (1982-85) and 12th (2002-2011, although some consider that his term concluded in 2012).

In fact, for 17 of PNG’s 45 years since gaining independence – more than a third of the period – Somare was its leader. When not in this role, he was very much the power behind the scenes, kingmaker, sometimes troublemaker and – often – peacemaker.

In 1967, Somare joined with other young nationalists, discontented and angered by the slow progress towards independence from Australia, to form one of PNG’s first political parties, the PANGU Pati (Papua and New Guinea United Party). Their criticism of the worst kind of Australian paternalism brought them attention from the colonial authorities, which Somare wrote about using a pseudonym.

PANGU’s mild politics
In truth, PANGU’s politics were of the mildest variety. When anti-colonial movements in other places were pursuing armed revolution, Somare and his fellows – always a small group of educated (and thus, elite) Papua New Guineans – forecast merely:

[…] if the present system of colonial or territory government continues, with all its inevitable master-servant overtones, serious tensions will develop.

They then made modest calls for self-government by 1968.

When Somare and other PANGU members were elected to PNG’s territorial House of Assembly in 1968, they formed an unofficial opposition to the administration. In April 1972 – before the election of the Whitlam Labor government in Australia – PANGU, with Somare as leader, was able to form a coalition that took the territory to independence in 1975.

In that year, Somare – amazingly – found the time to write his autobiography, Sana, which records his journey from his village in the Murik Lakes area of the Sepik River to becoming the nation’s first prime minister on the eve of PNG’s independence. The book provides a first-hand account of PNG’s path to self-government and nationhood, importantly from the perspective of the colonised.

Always a strong communicator, Somare used the book to foster pride among Papua New Guineans in their own nation, which gained its independence in a way that was both constitutional and peaceful. As its first governor-general, Sir John Guise, famously pronounced on September 16 1975, PNG Independence Day:

[…] we are lowering the flag of our colonisers […] not tearing it down.

The way PNG gained its independence owes a great deal to Somare’s careful devotion to the spirit of sana: a word from his people’s language that denotes taking a peaceful, consensual approach to resolving disputes.

In the face of a colonial system that was often stubborn and narrow-minded, and amid an expatriate population – overwhelmingly Australian – who were too often discriminatory and racist, he could have chosen a path of violent resistance. Instead, he chose the way of peace, of toktok (Tok Pisin for discussion) and of consensus.

‘Radical, red-ragger’
Even as a young leader, described in British government confidential notes as “a radical and red-ragger”, he believed in words over guns. It was a quality that was demonstrated in his handling of the separatist movement in Bougainville, which threatened to divide PNG even before it gained independence.

As well as drawing on the principle of sana to keep the nascent state together and prevent secession, Somare’s greatest achievement was bringing a reluctant people to embrace the creation of their nation.

Aided by a body of capable and committed PNG leaders in the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) that he established soon after becoming chief minister in 1972, Somare set out on a mission to develop a constitution that was, in his words “home-grown”.

The CPC was given the task of consulting widely with Papua New Guineans in their highlands and islands, to ensure they felt their wishes and beliefs would be fully reflected in the new nation’s foundational document. By the time of independence in 1975, it is reasonable to say this goal had been achieved.

The recently retired secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), Papua New Guinean Dame Meg Taylor, recalled of that time:

It is perhaps presumptuous for me to say that I was a constitution‐maker, but in some respects we all were. Anybody who went to a CPC meeting […] was a constitution-maker.

In following the principles of sana – consensus, discussion, inclusion and peaceful resolution of conflict – Somare was adhering to a way of dealing with others that is shared across the Pacific region. It is appropriate that Taylor, who learned about sana from working closely with Somare, should have held to these principles in her role as PIF secretary-general.

Shared identity across Pacific
With her retirement from this role, and even more so with the death of Somare, there is a pressing need for some sana to be deployed, to hold this important Pacific regional organisation together. Toktok, talanoa, or just conversation that recognises a shared identity across the Pacific from West Papua to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), is needed.

It is a tragedy that perhaps the greatest exponent of this – Michael Somare – has left us. His life spanned the modern history of PNG and now, more than 45 years after his nation gained independence, his influence remains profound.

He will be remembered as a quiet but persistent champion of his people. In a region that is dominated by superpower rivalry and challenged by climate change, perhaps we would all do well to learn from his example and practise more sana.

Dr Jonathan Ritchie, senior lecturer in history, Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz