Palestine activists standing by IDF hotline as New Zealand faces Israel visa scrutiny
Republican US senator Ted Cruz questions New Zealand's suitability as a US ally after media claim Israeli visitors are being questioned over their military service.
Palestinian activists are standing by a Genocide Hotline set-up to report on IDF soldiers entering New Zealand, while claims Israeli visitors are being questioned over their military service puts the government under pressure.
The hotline, launched two weeks ago by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA), invites the public to alert activists of IDF soldiers visiting the country so protests can be organised and the individuals told they are not welcome.
Activists have argued the action is necessary as the government is failing to hold those responsible for war crimes in Gaza to account by banning them from entry.
The campaign has been condemned by the government as dangerously unacceptable, while media have reported that it is subject to a police investigation. The initiative is not illegal and authorities have no basis to crackdown on it.
However, pressure from the US and Israel has the potential to evoke a more repressive response from the government to the campaign and protests. Last week the country’s immigration policies regarding Israeli visitors came under scrutiny following controversial stories in the Israeli press.
Haaretz and The Times of Israel reported that Israeli citizens visiting New Zealand were being required to fill out questionnaires that covered dates and locations of military service, as well as human rights abuses and war crimes.
It led Texan Republican Senator Ted Cruz at the weekend to accuse New Zealand of not being “a normal ally” of the US.
Cruz posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the supposed new rules “denigrate and punish Israeli citizens for defending themselves and their country from Iranian-controlled terrorists”.
“It's difficult to treat New Zealand as a normal ally within the American alliance system,” he wrote.
That quickly prompted New Zealand’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) Winston Peters to assure Cruz his government remained a close partner with the US and that the story was untrue, as Israelis did not need a visa to enter the country.
“This @haaretzcom story is fake news, Senator @TedCruz. We are demanding it be corrected,” he posted.
“Israelis do not need visitor visas to travel to New Zealand, let alone have to declare their military service… New Zealanders are a friendly people - and Israelis are very welcome to visit New Zealand. Many do so under our visitor visa waiver programme.”
New Zealand’s Embassy in the US also approached Cruz’s office to reassure him over the matter.
PSNA chairman John Minto at the weekend said the hotline campaign would continue amid the controversy and criticised Peters for buckling to “a Trump-supporting senator who fully backs Israeli genocide”.
He also questioned why Israel was on New Zealand’s visitor’s visa waiver list, given that it was accused at the International Court of Justice of breaching the Genocide Convention, while its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were subject to International Criminal Court arrest warrants for war crimes.
Haaretz’s original January 30 story was followed by a report by The Times of Israel, which claimed an IDF soldier had been barred from entry under “new rules”.
Government agency Immigration New Zealand (INZ) denied the individual was barred due to their military background and said “not all Israelis” were being questioned.
An INZ spokesperson told local media there may be some circumstances where Israelis are required to disclose information on their backgrounds, like military service, “but not all Israelis”, but that visitors however were required to fill in an electronic travel authority declaration.
Haaretz deleted its post on X linking to its story on Sunday after being contacted by INZ, but the story itself has stayed online, with added comment from the New Zealand government.
Citizens from countries subject to the visitor visa waiver scheme, including Israel, can remain in the country for three months. Unlike others from countries not on the visa waiver list, these countries are not obliged to complete an INZ1200 form, which requires applicants to list military history, and if they ever committed war crimes, ill-treatment of prisoners or human rights abuses.”
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which oversees Immigration NZ, was asked whether all Israeli citizens needed to fill in a INZ1200 if applying for a longer, residency visa. It had not replied by the time of publication.
A government spokesperson told media last week that no new changes had been introduced to visa procedures. Haaretz has been approached for comment.
In December 2023, In Context asked MFAT if the government kept a record of how many New Zealand residents were active IDF members or reservists and if so, how many. In a statement, the Ministry said no such information was collected and advised that the question be referred to the Israel Embassy.
Reports put pressure on government
The controversy will likely put pressure on the New Zealand government to prove it is a reliable Western ally of the US and Israel, least the country falls out of favour with a bellicose Trump administration.
Immigration NZ’s deputy chief operating officer Jeannie Melville said the media reports were “unfairly hurting the country’s reputation”.
The Israeli news reports on visa rules were linked with the PSNA campaign by think tanks and Israeli lobby groups overseas, including Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
FDD research manager David May claimed New Zealand was “enacting measures to discriminate against Israeli visitors” and condemned the PSNA campaign for drumming up “gestapo gangs”. Its senior advisor Richard Goldberg called the government’s immigration policy “blatant government-sponsored antisemitism” by a Five Eyes country.
“New Zealand has long been a hotbed for the Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment campaign with its pension fund boycotting some Israeli companies. Policymakers will need to consider a menu of diplomatic and economic responses should this continue,” he said.
Whether this type of pressure will prompt more repressive responses to Palestine solidarity campaigns remains to be seen.
The Genocide Hotline has already been smeared by politicians and pro-establishment civil society groups, wilfully conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel, ironically the same type of tactic used by the Israeli lobby against Immigration NZ’s visa policy.
The Jewish Council of New Zealand spokesperson Juliet Moses characterised the campaign antisemitic and “an incitement to violence”.
Others were more subtle. The country’s Human Rights Commissioner, Stephen Rainbow, claimed it had the potential to threaten, harass and harm members of the Jewish community.
The PSNA efforts to put the spotlight on IDF soldiers and their freedom to travel mirrors other initiatives overseas.
The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) has been identifying Israeli soldiers and government officials from social media posts to support war crimes prosecutions. In December last year, the HRF filed a complaint to a court in Brazil over an Israeli soldier who had been holidaying there.
Minto on Sunday called for an immigration ban on Israeli soldiers who had served in the Israeli military since October 2023, as well as a ban on any Israeli who lived in an illegal Israeli settlement on occupied Palestinian land.
“Last September New Zealand voted against the US at the United Nations where we sided with the majority of humanity to give Israel a year to fully get out of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” he said.
“That should be reflected in the actions of the New Zealand government.”
US pressure to keep in line
Minto and others are also pressuring the government to join the Hague group, now presenting as a diplomatic front of nations intent of holding Israel to account for perpetrating a genocide and other breaches of international law, including ethnic cleansing.
Like fellow Five Eyes security state and NATO partner Australia, New Zealand has become so closely aligned with US power that deviating from its position on Israel and Palestine is becoming increasingly difficult.
Even governments in Western countries like Ireland, with a population overwhelmingly supportive of Palestinian statehood, remain hesitant about following through with concrete actions that confront Israeli apartheid, due to the country’s entanglement with the US.
Its Parliament passed the Occupied Territories Bill in 2018, which would ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements. However, it has not been enacted into law due in part to threats of grave financial consequences from US senators. Ireland hosts major US tech and pharmaceutical companies, which contribute significant tax revenues to the state.
In October last year, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland Dana Erlich described the Occupied Territories Bill as "a discriminatory attempt that aims to target Israel" and an "attack on the Jewish people's legitimacy to a secure state in their ancestral homeland".
A month later Israel closed its Irish Embassy, with its Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar citing “antisemitism” of the government. Irish President Michael D Higgins called the remarks “a deep slander” and the decision a means of setting the country up to face a hostile response from the US.
However, Ireland last month joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention. The country joined Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Libya, Bolivia, Turkey, the Maldives, Chile, Spain and Palestine.
New Zealand, which had for decades been seen as an progressive Pacific nation exercising a degree of independent foreign policy, has faced criticism for not doing likewise.
Instead, its Labour and National-led coalition governments since October 7, 2023 have given diplomatic support to Israel’s destruction of Gaza, repeating the mantra used by other Western states, that Israel had a right to defend itself, but that it needed to respect international law.
The statement has been criticised as self-contradictory and having no basis in international law by legal experts, including UN rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese.
The country remains involved in bombing missions in Yemen, led by the United States, in response to Houthi attacks on cargo ships breaking its Red Sea blockade in defence of Gaza.
Republican US senator Ted Cruz questions New Zealand's suitability as a US ally
Perfect, good riddance.
All these so called defense and trade agreements do nothing to preserve the sovereignty of a nation - they are designed to have the complete opposite effect and transform a nation into a submissive vassal state serving empire.