Baruch haba from NZ Friends of Israel, your Excellency.
Le Carre: ‘Extraordinary’ Israel, ‘crackling with debate, rocked me to my boots’ | Times of Israel
NZFOI: John Le Carre was one of the most successful spy novelists of the 20th and 21st Centuries. He arguably created the genre of the spy as the anti-hero in stark contrast to the glamorous spies created by Ian Fleming. In this interview, Le Carre reveals himself to be a staunch supporter of Israel.
In a rare interview 22 years ago, the peerless thriller writer talked about Israel and Jews; Smiley could have been Jewish, he said of his most famous character. ‘Perhaps he was’
John le Carre, the master spy novelist who died Sunday aged 89, had a long fascination and sympathy for the Jewish people and a deep admiration for Israel.
Jewish characters were interwoven in his many novels, and his research into the 1983 novel “The Little Drummer Girl” gave him his first real exposure to Israel with a visit that “rocked” him, he said in a rare 1998 interview with Douglas Davis of the Jewish World Review.
“Israel,” he told Davis, “rocked me to my boots. I had arrived expecting whatever European sentimentalists expect — a re-creation of the better quarters of Hampstead [in London]. Or old Danzig, or Vienna or Berlin. The strains of Mendelssohn issuing from open windows of a summer’s evening. Happy kids in seamen’s hats clattering to school with violin cases in their hands.”
Instead, what he recalled finding was “the most extraordinary carnival of human variety that I have ever set eyes on, a nation in the process of re-assembling itself from the shards of its past, now Oriental, now Western, now secular, now religious, but always anxiously moralizing about itself, criticizing itself with Maoist ferocity, a nation crackling with debate, rediscovering its past while it fought for its future.”
“No nation on earth,” he said, “was more deserving of peace — or more condemned to fight for it.”
Morocco joins other Arab nations agreeing to normalize Israel ties | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Israel and Morocco agreed on Thursday to normalize relations in a deal brokered with U.S. help, making Morocco the fourth Arab country to set aside hostilities with Israel in the past four months.
It joins the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in beginning to forge deals with Israel, driven in part by U.S.-led efforts to present a united front against Iran and roll back Tehran’s regional influence.
In a departure from longstanding U.S. policy, President Donald Trump agreed as part of the deal to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara, a desert region where a decades-old territorial dispute has pitted Morocco against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, a breakaway movement that seeks to establish an independent state.
President-elect Joe Biden, due to succeed Trump on Jan. 20, will face a decision whether to accept the U.S. deal on the Western Sahara, which no other Western nation has done. A Biden spokesman declined to comment.
While Biden is expected to move U.S. foreign policy away from Trump’s “America First” posture, the Democrat has indicated he will continue the pursuit of what Trump calls “the Abraham Accords” between Israel and Arab and Muslim nations.
Full Text: Ambassador’s Farewell Address Nov 12
NZFOI: As many of our members and supporters were unable to attend the farewell gathering in Christchurch, here is the full text of the Ambassador’s address on November 12.
BEGINS
Dear Friends of Israel
Kia Ora and Shalom,
The highlight of the past few weeks was the peace agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain. This historic agreements named “Abraham Accord” represents a meaningful landmark and historic breakthrough combining forces and finding common ground in the Middle East has never been more urgent than now especially in the midst of a global pandemic.
The Abraham Accord is set to generate immediate results and is essential in order to create normalization as well as real peace and security in our chaotic region.
In fact this is a historic diplomatic breakthrough that will advance large scale collaboration while unlocking a great economic potential. For instance the Health Ministers of Israel and the UAE have already agreed to cooperate on healthcare issues, particularly covid19 and set up businesses and student exchange programs.
Emirati investment firms and Israeli Hi-tech companies already signed agreements on collaborations and joint research and development; together we all will gain from the expansion of trade and commercial ties in fields such as cyber security, clean energy, medicine, finance, communications, and agriculture.
I hope that the Abraham Accord will pave the way for more countries in the region to realize the vast potential that exists in peace. Unfortunately, the Palestinian do not support the Abraham Accord despite the fact that this could be a big opportunity for them and they continue refusing to recognize the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.
Additional key concern of the UAE and Bahrain, other Sunni countries and Israel is the common threat of Iran. Iran is a rogue country with nuclear ambition as well as hegemonic regional goal and therefore Israeli missile defence systems and Israeli cyber security are of interest to the Arab Sunni Gulf countries.
Make no mistakes Iran wants to wipe out the state of Israel and is deeply meddling in Lebanon Syria and Iraq with their proxy terror organizations. Israel is acting in self-defense and in compliance with international law against internationally recognized terror organizations.
Iran has lately exceeded the limits of 300 kg. enriched uranium, builds up advanced centrifuges, and is developing medium and long-range missiles that can strike Israel as well as other Arab Gulf states. Iran also continues to support the terrorist organizations of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza strip and lately ammunition nitrate that was stored by Hezbollah in Beirut caused two giant explosions killing hundreds of people.
The U.S. made a decision to enforce all previously ended sanctions on Iran (which is called snap-back sanctions). Israel supports those sanctions because we see it as a necessary tool against Iranian nuclear capability, aggression towards Israel as well as a threat they impose against peace in the Middle East, not to mention the human rights abuses that are regularly conducted in Iran.
Last year we saw further growth in anti-Semitism, anti-Israeli sentiment and de-legitimation of the State of Israel, which are all derived from antisemitism that was transformed into Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
Together we must fight antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and BDS against Israel.
On a more positive note I’m glad that the Arab Gulf countries have understood that Israel is not the problem in the Middle East but rather a prominent solution to the regional problems and we do expect other Arab countries like Oman, Kuwait, Morocco and Saudi Arabia to follow.
The challenges we – as well as the entire world – are facing today know no boundaries and it is essential that we combine our capabilities.
We call on all counties to voice their support for the “Abraham Accord”. Although New Zealand has not yet officially supported the “Abraham Accord”, has repeatedly failed to condemn terrorism against Israel and has not designated the military wings of Hezbollah and Hamas as a terrorist entities we certainly expect them to do so, not to mention the fact that the government has continued the pattern of imbalanced approach towards Israel in its voting record at the UN as it was demonstrated by New Zealand sponsorship of the anti-Israeli resolution 2334 and when N.Z. failed to take the opportunity to ensure that Hamas terrorism would be condemned at the UN.
On the other hand, there was a very positive development in our bilateral relationship when an agreement on technology and innovation was signed between New Zealand and Israel.
Israel and New Zealand enjoy friendly relations, these relations are based on common democratic values, friendship between people to people, the history of ANZAC in Israel during the first world war as well as mutual interests led by the idea that we need to transform our challenges into opportunities.
As you know, Israel is a hub of Hi-Tech and innovation with over one thousand one hundred and fifty start-ups based on artificial intelligence. I anticipate the collaboration between New Zealand and Israel in the fields of High-Tech, cyber security, advanced and precise agriculture, clean and renewed energy as well as adaptation to climate change, usage of drip irrigation, restoration of biodiversity, green houses with mitigation of gas emission, plant species with resistance to diseases, land rehabilitation, water management, reduction of water loss, food alternatives, storage and saving of agricultural products.
So the sky is the limit. I believe that this is the time that NZ opens an embassy in Israel and for that, we need your support.
I would like to use this opportunity and thank each and every one of you for your support, true friendship and concern towards Israel, that helps us fulfill the prophecy of prophet Ezekiel (chapter 36 verse 24) ” For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your home land”.
Last but not least – soon I will be leaving NZ back home to the holy land and I would like to thank you all for the friendship you have showed me and my wife. We had a great time in New Zealand, mainly because of your friendship.
Toda Raba, Tena koutou-Katoa and Kia Kaha,
God bless New Zealand,
God bless Israel and
God bless you all.
ENDS
Full Text: Anglican Bishop’s farewell message to Ambassador of Israel
Last Thursday we held a farewell reception for H.E. Ambassador of Israel, Yitzhak Gerberg and his wife Shifra.
Many of our members were unable to attend, so here is the full text of the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch Peter Carrell’s speech.
BEGINS
Your Excellency, Ambassador Gerberg and Shifra, your wife , the rangatira of Ngai Tahuriri, Mr Grant Close of the Christchurch Hebrew Congregation, and NZ Friends of Israel, greetings!
I am glad to be here tonight. As Anglican Bishop of Christchurch I believe I should be available to be with the NZ Friends of Israel just as I am available to meet with those outside the building who are demonstrating tonight. To be Anglican is to be inclusive.
Many years ago, in 1983, I made my first and so far only visit to Israel. It took place while I lived in Egypt for a year. It was a very memorable visit. This year, 2020, Teresa and I had hoped to visit Jerusalem for what would have been Teresa’s first visit and my second visit. Unfortunately Covid-19 put paid to that. Perhaps we will make it in 2022.
One of my memories of the 1983 visit is that one moment I could look up and see a farmer making his way down the road driving a tractor – just as if I was back in Canterbury – and the next moment I could look up on a hillside and see shepherds as though I was back in the days of the Bible.
I visited Israel out of my interest as a Christian and because of my study of the Bible.
Israel’s story is a shared Jewish and Christian story. Together we share sacred scriptures, the writings which are known as The Tanakh. We have a shared commitment to the well-being of Jerusalem as the holy city of God and a shared commitment to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And we share a commitment to peace between nations and to justice between communities.
Nevertheless there are and have been testing moments in the shared history between Christians and Jews as well as tragedy and trauma through the Holocaust. A Christian commitment to Israel is a commitment to never again have such trauma and tragedy visited against the Jewish people.
Your Excellency, I wish you and your wife well as you leave these shores. As you know, there are two Promised Lands in the world, and New Zealand is one of them. You leave one Promised Land to go to the other. You are always welcome back.
ENDS
Maori-Israeli Ties Strengthened | Times of Israel
During the recent Covid 19 lockdown, a small hui (meeting) was held in Northland between members of the Ngāpuhi iwi (tribe) and outgoing Israeli Ambassador, HE Dr Itzhak Gerberg and his wife Shifra. This was the culmination of a number of engagements with Ngāpuhi, in the time that Ambassador Gerberg has been in New Zealand.
The beginning of Gerberg’s appointment in New Zealand was marred by New Zealand’s role in co-sponsoring UNSC Resolution 2334. He was recalled to Israel in a diplomatic spat that lasted several months.
Upon the ambassador’s return, Ngāpuhi kaumatua (elder), Pat Ruka felt compelled to organise a special powhiri (welcome ceremony) for him. Joined by many Māori from around the nation, a moving ceremony of apology, called a whakapāha was held at Hoani Waititi Marae (meeting house) in West Auckland. Its purpose was to express regret for New Zealand’s actions in standing against Israel at the UN and to seek forgiveness.
Distorted picture of complex Palestine conflict | Stuff
John Minto has wasted no time in attempting to lecture the incoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, MP Nanaia Mahuta, on what he thinks she should be doing in the Middle East and in urging his followers to bombard her with emails.
He has no compunction in spouting a distorted picture of what is a complex conflict.
Minto fails to mention that the so-called ‘Great March of Return’ consisted of a series of violent riots, organised, coordinated and directed by Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist organisation that is in an armed conflict with Israel.
A case study undertaken by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights found that:
The mass violent events that took place in the area of the security barrier were “unusual in their scope and in the intensity of the threat that they posed”. Tens of thousands of people participated. Under the cover of the riots, grenade and explosive devices were hurled towards the Israel Defence Forces troops, live ammunition was fired at the soldiers and explosive devices were hurled towards Israeli territory, in addition to the flying of incendiary kites intended to harm towns and residents of Israel near the Gaza periphery.
The Detail: The life and times of Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta | Stuff
NZFOI: Naturally we are interested in the background of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs for New Zealand.
Nanaia Mahuta’s appointment as the Foreign Minister in the new cabinet stunned even the political insiders but a closer look at her 24 years in parliament reveal her to be a person of depth and ambition with a record of quiet achievement.
Today, The Detail’s Sharon Brettkelly looks at the political career of Mahuta and how it was shaped by her early years spent with her father, Sir Robert Mahuta, the key negotiator in the Tainui treaty deal.
The War of Return — A review | Quillet
[NZFOI has recently acquired this book for the members’ library.]
In a story that may be apocryphal, the late Christopher Hitchens claimed that he had once seen legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban comment that the most striking aspect of the Israeli-Arab conflict is how easily it can be solved: It is simply a matter of dividing the land of Israel into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The only thing standing in the way of this solution is the intense religious or nationalist attachment of both sides to the idea of an undivided nation between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, this assumption that partition alone can bring peace has been the foundation of all of the international community’s peace efforts since the 1967 Six Day War. The only difficulty, it is believed, is persuading the two sides to agree to it.
Tens of thousands protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu |Stuff
Tens of thousands of Israelis calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign demonstrated across the country Saturday evening, saying he is unfit to rule while on trial for corruption charges and accusing him of mismanaging the nation’s coronavirus crisis.
Protesters gathered at hundreds of locations across the country due to a nationwide lockdown that has barred them from protesting at the usual site outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem. The current lockdown regulations allow people only to gather within one kilometre of their home.
