Dr Mawera Karetai

It’s a shameful moment when a country with a global reputation for fairness chooses to align itself with those who compromise justice for comfort, and principle for “pragmatism.” With its recent decision not to recognise the State of Palestine, the New Zealand Government has asked every one of us to carry the burden of its cowardice.

For decades, we, tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti, have prided ourselves on standing up for the underdog, from opposing apartheid to supporting nuclear disarmament. Yet now, as more than 140 countries recognise Palestine and global voices demand an end to the violence, our leaders have failed to act in a way that demonstrates who we are. They have justified their actions by pointing at the chaos in Gaza and the supposed need for stability, echoing the colonial justifications our colonial ancestors used when “order” masked injustice.

Make no mistake: history is watching. This decision is not an act of neutrality; it is a choice to side with might over right. Our refusal to recognise Palestinian statehood puts us in the company of former and present colonising powers who, across centuries, took land, lives, and liberty to serve their own interests. The difference, perhaps, is that they often did so with open violence. We, instead, cloak our complicity in process, diplomacy, and “waiting for the right time,” all while ordinary people, including children, pay the price.

New Zealand’s own history is not one of innocence. Our country was founded on colonial violence, dispossession, and the subjugation of tangata whenua. We have spent generations trying to confront and address that harm, both in apology and action. Yet today, when the world again asks us to speak and act for those who are oppressed, we hesitate, afraid of offending larger allies or disturbing the geopolitical status quo. What trite, insincere nonsense, and what absolute cowardice.

Some will say that conditions in Palestine are too unstable for recognition. The uncomfortable truth is that conditions are unstable, in part, because powerful nations (and their allies) refuse to acknowledge Palestinian rights in any meaningful way. To insist on an impossible standard of “readiness” for statehood is to mimic every colonial power that has ever withheld sovereignty until Indigenous people could somehow prove themselves “civilised” enough to deserve it. To insist on an impossible standard while the colonial power who seeks to control their land, uses tactics such as expansion of settlements, military control, and legislative measures that fragment Palestinian territories and undermine governance capacity, to actively prevent achievement of that standard is despicable.

It’s not simply that this decision stains our reputation as New Zealanders, though it certainly does. It’s that it betrays every lesson learned from Aotearoa’s own painful confrontations with colonisation and injustice. New Zealanders now inherit the shame of watching our "leaders" turn away from the principles of manaakitanga, fairness, and solidarity, that we have long identified as what it is to be a "Kiwi". It is a burden we should neither accept nor forget, but let's be really honest about this - it is a pattern from this government we have also seen towards Māori over this political term, as they promote division and erase Te Tititi o Waitangi from our legislation. They are working to erase Māori, just as they are complicit in the attempt to erase Palestine.

There is a better way, and it requires meaningful changes grounded in both international law and universal principles of dignity and equality. If we wish to honour our history, and truly walk with pride in the world, New Zealand should join the overwhelming majority and recognise Palestine’s right to self-determination. Real courage means refusing to wait for perfect circumstances, just as real justice means refusing to let the oppressor decide when the oppressed are “ready” for freedom. If we do not act, we stand with those who have always taken, extracted, and destroyed to achieve their ends. If we act, we can stand for something better, and perhaps, at last, begin to set down the burdens our history has handed to us.

To borrow loosely from the words of David Morrison, the standard you are willing to look past is the standard you are willing to accept.