Greg Bouwer
IINZ
New Zealand’s Cabinet is debating whether to recognise a Palestinian state. It is a decision freighted with symbolism, but one that must be grounded in principle and reality, not in sentiment or political fashion. Recognition will not magically create peace. Done prematurely and unconditionally, it risks entrenching the very forces that have made peace elusive for decades.
The Core Problem: Hamas Dominance
At the heart of the issue is Hamas. Every credible Palestinian poll shows that Hamas remains the most popular faction among Palestinians. This is not a movement that seeks coexistence with Israel: it is one that openly calls for Israel’s destruction. Its founding charter rejects any compromise. On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered, raped, and burned alive 1,200 Israelis (the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust) and it celebrated those atrocities as a ‘divine victory’.
To recognise a Palestinian state today, without clear guarantees that Hamas will not govern it, is to reward mass murder with international legitimacy. It would not create a partner for peace: it would create a terrorist state.
Selective History and Misplaced Blame
Some in New Zealand politics and media suggest Israel has ‘destroyed’ the two-state solution. But history tells a different and more complicated story.
- In 1947, the United Nations proposed partitioning the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no – and launched a war to strangle Israel at birth.
- After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel indicated a willingness to trade land for peace. The Arab League responded with the famous “Three No’s of Khartoum”: no peace, no recognition, no negotiations.
- In 2000, 2008, and again in 2014, Israeli governments offered Palestinian leaders statehood over almost all of Judea and Samaria (the so-called ‘West Bank’) and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as a capital. Each time, the Palestinian side rejected the offer.
The obstacle to peace has never been Israel’s refusal to allow a Palestinian state. It has been Palestinian leaders’ refusal to accept a Jewish one.
Numbers, Narratives, and Propaganda
Recognition advocates cite figures of ‘60,000 deaths in Gaza’. These numbers come directly from Hamas-run institutions, with no independent verification. They make no distinction between Hamas fighters and civilians and deliberately erase the fact that Hamas embeds its arsenals, command centers, and rocket launchers in schools, mosques, and hospitals.
Israel faces an impossible moral dilemma that no other democracy is asked to endure: if it fights Hamas, civilians tragically die; if it refrains, Hamas re-arms and strikes again. To cite inflated figures without context is not neutral reporting – it is adopting Hamas’s propaganda as fact.
The False Choice
Some frame the choice before New Zealand as binary: either recognise Palestine to balance Israel’s ‘excesses’, or else condone Israel’s actions. This is a false dichotomy. There is a third option – the responsible one: supporting Palestinian statehood only after Palestinian institutions reform, reject terror, and demonstrate readiness to coexist peacefully.
Anything less is not peacemaking – it is capitulation to extremism.
What Recognition Should Require
If New Zealand is serious about contributing to peace, recognition must be conditional. At minimum, it should require:
- Free and fair elections – allowing Palestinians themselves to choose legitimate, accountable leadership.
- Explicit exclusion of Hamas and other terror factions – groups committed to Israel’s destruction cannot form the basis of statehood.
- Commitment to demilitarisation and coexistence – with guarantees backed by international partners.
Without these, recognition would not advance a two-state solution – it would bury it under Hamas’s shadow.
Why It Matters for New Zealand
Some argue recognition is ‘merely symbolic’. If that is so, why risk legitimising Hamas at all? Symbols matter. They shape narratives, shift public opinion, and signal legitimacy. By recognising a Palestinian state now, New Zealand would send a dangerous message: that terrorism pays, that massacres and hostage-taking can yield diplomatic rewards.
New Zealand has a proud tradition of principled foreign policy. We opposed apartheid South Africa. We stood for a rules-based international order. That tradition obliges us to resist simplistic solutions that reward violence.
Conclusion: The Courage of Restraint
To be ‘on the right side of history’ is not to follow international bandwagons or to appease noisy protest movements. It is to act with moral clarity and strategic foresight. Recognition without reform would not be a step toward peace, but a step toward legitimising Hamas’s genocidal ideology.
New Zealand should withhold recognition until Palestinians themselves demonstrate readiness for peaceful statehood. Anything else would be a betrayal – not only of Israel’s security, but of the very principle that peace must be built on justice, responsibility, and coexistence.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
