How can a polity have separate military and political wings when the political wing signs the cheques, signs off on military strategies, appoints and pays the military leaders and gives the orders to open fire or cease fire?
If Israeli political leaders – as the ultimate authority that sends the Israeli security forces to carry out government policy pertaining to security, conflict and military strategy – are apparently liable (in Gaza and the Palestinian Territories) to be investigated and potentially prosecuted by international bodies, why do a number of Western governments – New Zealand amongst them – insist on splitting hairs and defining Islamic terrorist organisations as having separate political and military entities, even when they don’t define themselves as such?
New Zealand, in contrast to all of its US, EU, Australian, Japanese partners and allies – all of whom define any and all Hamas organs as part of the same illegal and outlawed terrorist organisation – has formulated a progressive alternative whereby they accept Hamas political leaders as sanitised and halal while Hamas military leaders are considered illegal and criminal and not halal!
This means that Yahya Sinwar, the current political head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a convicted terrorist murderer who was sentenced to four life sentences for his dastardly deeds, who served 22 years in Israeli prisons but was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, is now halal in the eyes of NZ MFAT, Mahuta and Ardern. Even though he is personally responsible for past murders and all the mayhem in Gaza and Israel in the current round of fighting, this convicted terrorist and murderer has “clean hands” and is totally acceptable to the New Zealand government as a partner for ceasefire talks, peace talks or even just a chin wag, a cup of tea and scones at elevenses.
New Zealand prides itself on its independence in the world and its “clean hands” status, believing it puts them in a unique position to act as unbiased facilitators towards a ceasefire-cum-peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. But after New Zealand’s sponsoring of UN resolution 2334 (a one-sided anti-Israel anti-Jewish resolution), coupled with their willingness to recognise and work with the so-called political wing of an internationally designated terrorist organisation – whose unchanged founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of all its Jewish inhabitants – how can they possibly consider that their hands are clean? Am I missing something?
Recent one-sided statements by both Mahuta and Ardern that blame Israel for everything regarding current tensions and make demands only on Israel clearly show that New Zealand has “unclean hands” and would not be seen by Israel, nor by its western friends, as part of any useful solution.
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