The Questions That Need Answers

Greg Bouwer
IINZ

Recognition, sanctions and genocide are serious instruments and claims of foreign policy, not expressions of solidarity. Labour needs to explain exactly what it proposes, why, and what it expects its policy to achieve.

New Zealand’s election campaign has acquired a significant foreign-policy dividing line.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says that, if elected, Labour would formally recognise a Palestinian state and join other countries taking economic measures against Israel. He has also declared that there is an “unfolding genocide” in Gaza and accused the present government of failing to fulfil New Zealand’s responsibilities under the Genocide Convention.¹

“The current government’s position on Israel is an embarrassment to the country,” Hipkins told RNZ.

“We should be sanctioning Israel along with like-minded countries like the UK, Canada, and France. These are our friends who are now saying that what Israel is doing is wrong and they should be sanctioned for it.”

He added:

“New Zealand’s missing in action when it comes to taking a principled stance on what’s happening in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide happening.”¹

This is not an isolated campaign remark. It continues a position Labour developed during 2025. In September that year, foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare called for recognition of Palestine and broad economic sanctions against Israel. Labour was already describing Gaza as an “unfolding genocide”.²

Hipkins has now carried those positions into an election campaign as prospective government policy.

That changes the question. Labour is entitled to advocate a different foreign policy. But recognition, sanctions and allegations of genocide are consequential decisions and claims. Each needs to be defined, justified and connected to an achievable objective.

On September 10, the Israel Institute of New Zealand put these issues directly to the Labour Party, seeking clarification of its proposed sanctions, the conditions it would attach to recognition, its assessment that genocide is occurring, and its claim concerning New Zealand’s obligations under the Genocide Convention.

At the time of publication (September 18), no response had been received. Should Labour provide one, this article will be updated to reflect its answers.

The questions therefore remain substantive rather than rhetorical. At least seven require answers.

1. What exactly does Labour mean by “sanctioning Israel”?

The immediate context for Hipkins’s comments was an international move to restrict imports originating in Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”).¹

That is a specific policy.

Hipkins’s language was considerably broader: “We should be sanctioning Israel.” The distinction matters.

A prohibition on importing goods produced in settlements is one policy. Targeted sanctions against particular Israelis are another. Cutting trade and economic relations with the State of Israel is another again.

And Labour has previously advocated the broader option.

On 13 September 2025, Labour called for “immediate diplomatic and economic sanctions on Israel”. Foreign affairs spokesperson Peeni Henare said these “must include cutting economic ties and trade, freezing assets, and implementing travel bans on named individuals”.³

Fourteen days later, following the government’s decision not to recognise Palestine, Labour repeated substantially the same prescription. Henare called for “meaningful sanctions on Israel through cutting trade and economic ties, freezing assets, and implementing travel bans on named individuals as we have with Russia in response to the illegal invasion of Ukraine”.²

The repetition matters. These were separate official Labour statements, two weeks apart, advocating substantially the same package. Broad economic sanctions were therefore an established Labour position before Hipkins entered the 2026 election campaign saying New Zealand “should be sanctioning Israel”.

So what is Labour’s election policy?

Is it proposing restrictions solely on settlement goods? Targeted sanctions against particular Israelis? A broader sanctions regime against Israel? Or the cutting of trade and economic ties Labour twice advocated in September 2025?

These are not interchangeable policies. They have different legal bases, different economic consequences and different diplomatic purposes.

Before voters can decide whether Labour’s sanctions policy is justified, they need to know what that policy actually is.

2. What Palestinian state would New Zealand be recognising?

Recognition sounds straightforward until the obvious questions are asked.

What are the borders of the state Labour proposes to recognise? Who is its government? Does recognition encompass Gaza? If so, who exercises legitimate authority there? What happens if Hamas retains weapons or political power? And what obligations does Labour expect the recognised state to accept towards Israel?

These are not objections invented to prevent Palestinian statehood. They are substantially the questions New Zealand considered when recognition was formally examined in 2025.

MFAT recommended recognition. Cabinet chose otherwise.⁴

That disagreement matters because it demonstrates that there was a genuine policy choice rather than a simple division between supporting and opposing Palestinian self-determination.

Officials believed recognition alongside international partners could help preserve the two-state solution and strengthen a Palestinian leadership capable of engaging seriously and peacefully with Israel. The government concluded that too many questions remained about the viability and legitimacy of a future Palestinian state, particularly while Hamas remained Gaza’s de facto government.⁴

Foreign Minister Winston Peters subsequently explained the decision:

“With a war raging, Hamas remaining the de facto government of Gaza, and no clarity on next steps, too many questions remain about the future State of Palestine for it to be prudent for New Zealand to announce recognition at this time.”⁵

New Zealand’s underlying position nevertheless remains that Palestinian recognition is a matter of “when, not if”. It continues to support Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution.⁵

The disagreement with Labour is therefore narrower, and more interesting, than the political rhetoric suggests.

It is not fundamentally whether Palestinians should have a state.

It is when recognition helps create one capable of producing peace.

3. What does recognition achieve?

Recognition is not merely a statement that Palestinians possess a right to self-determination. New Zealand already accepts that.

Recognition is also an instrument of foreign policy. And New Zealand can confer it only once.

The current government has therefore adopted an explicitly conditional theory of recognition. Its published explanation states:

“We would prefer to use our future recognition of Palestinian statehood to reward positive steps taken in the direction of a negotiated agreement.”⁶

The factors identified include viable and legitimate Palestinian institutions, Hamas’s disbandment and disarmament, and the renunciation of violence and terrorism by Palestinian political leaders.⁵

Labour proposes a different theory. It needs to explain what it is.

What does immediate recognition accomplish that conditional recognition cannot? What incentive does it create for Palestinian institutional reform? Does Labour require Hamas to be excluded from government and disarmed? Does it require Palestinian elections? Does it expect a future Palestinian government to accept that statehood represents an end to the conflict rather than another stage in it? And if recognition is unconditional, what diplomatic leverage remains to encourage those outcomes afterwards?

These questions become more important because New Zealand has already endorsed an international framework connecting Palestinian statehood with precisely these reforms.

In the New York Call of 29 July 2025, New Zealand joined Australia, Canada, France and other countries in welcoming commitments by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn the 7 October attack, call for the release of hostages and Hamas’s disarmament, terminate the prisoner-payment system, reform education, hold elections within a year, and accept the principle of a demilitarised Palestinian state. The statement also envisaged Hamas being excluded from future Palestinian governance.⁷

Those were apparently important components of the international pathway to Palestinian statehood in 2025.

Labour should explain what role they play in its recognition policy in 2026.

4. What does the ICJ actually say about genocide?

Hipkins’s most serious assertion may not concern recognition at all.

It is this: “There is an unfolding genocide happening.”¹

Genocide is not a synonym for civilian suffering, disproportionate warfare or even war crimes.

It is a specific international crime requiring certain prohibited acts to be committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such.⁸

The case brought by South Africa against Israel remains before the International Court of Justice. The court has issued provisional measures. Those orders are legally significant and should not be minimised. But nor should they be misrepresented.

In January 2024, the court concluded that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa were plausible – specifically, the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts, and South Africa’s right to seek Israel’s compliance with the Genocide Convention. It consequently ordered measures intended to preserve those rights while the case proceeded.⁸

That was not a finding that Israel had committed genocide. More importantly, it was not a finding that the court had established genocidal intent as a plausible fact.

The distinction was subsequently made explicit by Joan Donoghue, who was president of the ICJ when the January order was delivered. In an interview with Stephen Sackur on BBC HARDtalk in April 2024, Donoghue directly addressed what she described as a frequent media mischaracterisation of the ruling:

“It did not decide – and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media – it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”⁹

Donoghue explained that the court had instead decided that Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim. She added that the court had identified a risk of irreparable harm to that Palestinian right, but reiterated that the frequently used shorthand – that the court had found a “plausible case of genocide” – was not what the court decided.⁹

The court’s own order supports that distinction. It explained that provisional measures exist to preserve rights that may subsequently be adjudged to belong to a party, and that at this stage it was deciding whether the asserted rights were at least plausible. The court also restated that the acts listed in Article II fall within the Genocide Convention when committed with the intent to destroy the protected group, in whole or in part.⁸

That distinction matters because intent is precisely what separates genocide from other grave violations committed during war.

There may be serious arguments about Israel’s conduct under international humanitarian law. There may be allegations of war crimes deserving investigation. None of that makes genocide legally interchangeable with them.

Labour is entitled to examine the evidence and reach its own political conclusion.

But if the leader of a party seeking to govern New Zealand states as an established fact that another state is committing genocide, he should explain the evidential basis on which he has moved beyond the unresolved proceedings before the world’s principal judicial body.

What evidence establishes the specific intent to destroy Palestinians as a group? How does Labour distinguish that intent from Israel’s stated military objective of defeating Hamas? How does it weigh statements by individual Israeli politicians against operational decisions and other evidence concerning state intent? What evidence would cause Labour to conclude that genocide was not occurring?

Those are not semantic objections. They go to the defining element of the crime Hipkins says is happening.

5. How is New Zealand supposedly failing the Genocide Convention?

Hipkins goes further.

He says the government is failing to fulfil New Zealand’s responsibilities as a signatory to the Genocide Convention.¹

That is potentially an allegation about New Zealand’s compliance with international law, not merely criticism of its foreign policy.

The convention does impose an obligation to prevent genocide. And the International Court of Justice has explained what that obligation means.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro in 2007, the court described prevention as an obligation of conduct rather than an obligation to guarantee a particular result. A state must employ “all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible”. The court said the notion of “due diligence” was of “critical importance”.¹⁰

But the capacity to influence is not identical for every country.

The court said it depends, among other things, upon geographical distance, the strength of political and other links with the relevant actors, and the state’s legal position. It also held that the duty to act arises when a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide will be committed and possesses means likely to have a deterrent effect.¹⁰

That makes Hipkins’s allegation worth taking seriously.

If New Zealand possesses genuine means of influencing events in a situation where genocide is seriously threatened, the Convention cannot simply be ignored because New Zealand is geographically distant.

But the same legal framework also demonstrates why the existence of the duty does not prove Labour’s policy prescription.

Declining to recognise Palestine does not automatically breach the Genocide Convention. Refusing a particular trade restriction does not automatically breach it. 

Nor does Article I specify Labour’s preferred package of sanctions as the legally required response.

The question is whether New Zealand has failed to employ means reasonably available to it, judged against its actual capacity to influence the relevant actors.

If Hipkins believes the present government has crossed that threshold, he should identify how. Which reasonably available measure was New Zealand legally required to take? Why was that measure required by due diligence? What influence would New Zealand reasonably have been expected to exercise through it? And is Labour alleging that New Zealand is actually in breach of the convention, or simply using the language of treaty responsibility to argue for a different foreign policy?

Those are very different propositions.

6. ‘Our friends are doing it’ is not an independent foreign policy

There is another revealing element in Hipkins’s explanation.

“We should be sanctioning Israel along with like-minded countries like the UK, Canada, and France,” he said. “These are our friends.”¹

That is a curious justification for a policy presented as a matter of principle.

The present government could use precisely the same reasoning whenever its position aligns with Washington: the United States is our friend and it agrees with us.

Labour would presumably regard that as inadequate. It would be right to do so.

New Zealand’s foreign policy should not consist of selecting whichever collection of friendly governments happens to validate the policy a government already wishes to pursue.

The government made essentially that point when explaining why New Zealand did not follow some close partners into recognition in 2025. Its position was that New Zealand should make its own decision according to its principles and national interest – the essence of an independent foreign policy.⁶

That principle should operate irrespective of which country is applying the pressure.

Sometimes Washington will be right. Sometimes London, Ottawa and Paris will be right. Sometimes New Zealand should disagree with all of them. 

‘Our friends are doing it’ is an argument for diplomatic company, not for diplomatic correctness.

7. Where are the Palestinian obligations?

This is the largest omission in Labour’s announcement.

There is considerable specificity about what Israel should face.

Israel should be sanctioned. Settlement activity should have economic consequences. New Zealand should recognise Palestine. Israel’s conduct in Gaza is characterised as genocide.

What does Labour’s proposed policy require from the Palestinian side?

This question should not be overstated. Labour has condemned Hamas’s 7 October attack and called for the release of Israeli hostages. Its September 2025 statement explicitly did so.²

But condemnation is not the same as making Palestinian obligations part of the architecture of recognition.

A viable two-state settlement ultimately requires two political systems capable of accepting the permanence of the other.

That makes Palestinian governance relevant. So are Hamas’s weapons. So is political violence. So are functioning institutions. So is the ability of a Palestinian government to exercise a monopoly on force. So is acceptance that Palestinian statehood means coexistence beside Israel rather than continuation of the conflict from a stronger diplomatic position.

As already noted, New Zealand signed the New York Call in 2025, explicitly connecting the pathway towards Palestinian statehood with Hamas’s disarmament and exclusion from government, Palestinian elections, institutional reform and acceptance of a demilitarised Palestinian state.⁷

If Labour still supports those objectives, the question is straightforward:

Why should New Zealand give up the leverage of recognition before they are achieved?

There may be an answer.

Recognition might strengthen moderate Palestinian institutions. It might increase the diplomatic cost of annexation. It might help preserve the political possibility of two states at a time when that possibility is eroding.

Those are serious arguments, and MFAT itself made versions of them when recommending recognition in 2025.⁴

But Labour needs to make that case.

Otherwise its policy contains a conspicuous asymmetry: concrete consequences for Israeli conduct, but recognition for Palestinians largely disconnected from Palestinian conduct.

Recognition is a means, not an objective

None of this requires opposition to Palestinian statehood, or indifference to Israeli conduct. The substantive dispute is about means.

Labour’s position is no longer merely opposition rhetoric. During 2025 it advocated recognition and repeatedly called for broad economic measures against Israel. Hipkins has now carried that policy into the 2026 election campaign.² ³

A party seeking a mandate to implement it should therefore define it: what sanctions would it impose; what Palestinian state would it recognise; what does immediate recognition achieve that conditional recognition does not; what obligations would accompany statehood; what evidence leads Labour to declare genocide as an established fact; and, if the present government is failing its Genocide Convention obligations, what exactly does Labour say international law requires New Zealand to do?

These are the questions that arise once Palestinian statehood is treated as an objective of serious foreign policy rather than as a symbolic declaration.

Calling the policy ‘principled’ does not answer them.

A serious foreign policy should.

Editorial note: Before publication, IINZ sent the Labour Party questions concerning the policies and statements examined in this article and invited a response. No response had been received at the time of publication. This article will be updated should Labour subsequently provide answers. 

References

1. RNZ, “Labour would prioritise recognition of Palestine, sanctions on Israel”, 9 September 2026. 
2. New Zealand Labour Party, “National Govt an embarrassment on Palestine”, 27 September 2025. https://www.labour.org.nz/news/release-national-govt-an-embarrassment-on-palestine/
3. New Zealand Labour Party, “Labour MPs march for sanctions on Israel”, 13 September 2025. https://www.labour.org.nz/news/release-labour-mps-march-for-sanctions-on-israel/
4. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Recognition of Palestine: Options for New Zealand, Cabinet paper, released 27 September 2025. https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/media-and-resources/recognition-of-palestine-options-for-new-zealand
5. Rt Hon Winston Peters, “NZ to maintain approach to recognition of Palestine”, New Zealand Government, 27 September 2025. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nz-maintain-approach-recognition-palestine
6. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Israel-Hamas Conflict”, section on recognition of Palestinian statehood. https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/middle-east/israel-hamas-conflict
7. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Israel / Palestinian Territories: Joint statement of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs – New York Call”, 29 July 2025. https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/media-and-resources/israel-palestinian-territories-joint-statement-of-the-ministers-of-foreign-affairs-new-york-call
8. International Court of Justice, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v Israel), Order of 26 January 2024. https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447
9. BBC HARDtalk, Stephen Sackur interview with Joan E. Donoghue, former President of the International Court of Justice, April 2024, Former head of ICJ explains ruling on genocide case against Israel brought by S Africa. BBC HARDtalk programme/clip, broadcast 25–26 April 2024.
10. International Court of Justice, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment, 26 February 2007, paras 430–431. https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103164

This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.