Protest the Israeli ambassador!

On Friday 7 May the newly appointed Israeli Ambassador will be presenting his credentials to the Governor-General of New Zealand

Protest outside Government House,  75 Woburn Rd, Lower Hutt. @ 10:30am –  Friday 7 May

Organised by NIEW Coalition (No Israeli Embassy in Wellington)

(There will be some cars available for transport departing from Trades Hall, Vivian Street at 9:45 am for people who need a lift)

New Israeli embassy faces protest threat

NZPA Report

An Israeli ambassador-designate will arrive in New Zealand within the next week, but a group of activists have announced plans to protest noisily outside the reopened embassy – when they find out its location.

The Israeli embassy in Wellington closed in 2002 for financial reasons, and the Canberra-based ambassador was accredited to New Zealand.

Plans to reopen the embassy were first announced last May, with the new ambassador-designate, Shemi Tzur, named in November.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) spokesman Chris Wilson said the Israeli government had made a request to open a new diplomatic mission and nominated Mr Tzur as the head of the mission in mid-2009.

Both had received approval from the New Zealand Government.

Israeli officials had been looking for a new site for the embassy in Wellington, but told 3News last month they had failed to find a building with security to protect against the threat of attack.

A spokeswoman from the Canberra-based embassy was unable to say whether a building had been found in Wellington, but said more details would be available in coming weeks.

Mr Wilson was also unable to confirm whether a building had been found, and said details of its location would be made available after it had opened.

Mr Tzur was due to arrive in New Zealand within the next week, Wellington Regional Jewish Council chair and former Israeli honorary consul David Zwartz said.

Mr Tzur participated in Middle East peace talks in the 1990s, and had held diplomatic posts in South Africa, Turkey, Australia, Fiji and Uzbekistan.

He had previously been the Israeli ambassador to Cyprus, Finland and Estonia.

Mr Tzur would need to present credentials from the Israeli president to New Zealand’s Governor General before he officially became the ambassador.

The ceremony, involving a traditional Maori challenge and a military guard of honour, would take place at Government House in Wellington on May 7.

A new group, No Israeli Embassy in Wellington (NIEW), yesterday announced its plans to protest outside the new embassy.

“Wherever the embassy goes, it’ll be a noisy neighbourhood. We intend to have a frequent presence and make our objections known,” spokesman Alastair Reith said.

NIEW was protesting the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government, including bulldozing houses and building Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Mr Reith said.

They were also protesting the theft and forgery of foreign passports by Israeli spies.

Fake British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports were believed to have been used by Mossad agents to enter and leave Dubai to kill Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Relations between Israel and New Zealand chilled after two reported Mossad agents, Eli Cara, 50, and Uriel Kelman, 31, were caught and jailed for trying to illegally obtain New Zealand passports in 2004.

A third suspected Mossad agent was a former Israeli diplomat based in Europe, Zev William Barkan, 37, who stole the identity of a tetraplegic Aucklander to fraudulently obtain his passport.

Police also sought a fourth person.

Helen Clark, who was prime minister at the time, said there was no doubt the men were Mossad operatives and suspended high-level diplomatic relations for more than a year until Israel apologised in 2005.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3555828/New-Israeli-embassy-faces-protest-threat

Noisy Welcome Promised for New Israeli Embassy

A campaign formed in Wellington to oppose the opening of an Israeli embassy says nobody would want the embassy as its neighbour.

NIEW – No Israeli Embassy in Wellington – is a coalition set up to oppose Israel plans to open an embassy in Wellington for the first time since 2002.

NIEW spokesperson Alastair Reith says there is fierce opposition to what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian population under occupation and its refusal to consider peace measures.

“Wherever the embassy goes it’ll be a noisy neighbourhood.  We intend to have a frequent presence and make our objections known.  We can’t make it as bad as Israel makes it for the people living under military siege in Gaza, but everyone will know we will be laying protest siege to wherever they finally locate the Embassy”.

NIEW was set up to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, which is supported by over 70 Palestinian civil society groups.

Mr Reith says “New Zealanders protested for boycotts divestment and sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era, and we now need to do the same for Israel, the worlds last race based state.”

“Israel doesn’t allow half the Palestinian population to live in historical Palestine, and most other Palestinians have been under occupation for more than 40 years without the vote.  It’s effectively a democracy only for Jews and a few Palestinians.  That’s just like in South Africa where apartheid was a state for whites and a few select blacks,”  Mr Reith says.

Mr Reith says NIEW is astonished the New Zealand government has agreed to let Israel open an embassy at this time.

“The timing is awful for a start.  How come we are inviting Israeli diplomats here at exactly the same time the British government is expelling them?”

But Mr Reith says Israeli aims and strategy have remained the same for years.

“They are just more open and arrogant about it now.”

“It’s taken decades to shift half a million Israelis into illegal settlements on the West Bank to displace Palestinians, whose homes have been bulldozed down.  New settlements are not news to the White House.  Likewise Israeli spies have been stealing and faking foreign passports for years, including our own New Zealand ones.  There is no surprise this is going on.”

“The same way it has always been clear and not new, that Israel intends to hold on to East Jerusalem as part of any peace deal with the Palestinians, despite Israel having no legal claim to the city.  Only Israel has the cards to play to achieve peace but is now more blatant about it than ever that it doesn’t want peace only territory,” Mr Reith concluded.

For further information contact NIEW Spokesperson:

Alastair Reith – 027 711 9591 or alastair.reith@gmail.com or visit https://noembassy.wordpress.com/

No Israeli Embassy in Wellington [NIEW] Mission Statement

On Saturday, March 26th 2010, Palestine activists from around Wellington met to plan a campaign of resistance to the opening of an Israeli embassy in our city. The decision was made to form a coalition involving all interested groups and individuals.

We are calling on all groups opposed to the Israeli occupation and specifically to the opening of an Israeli embassy in our capital to sign on and declare support for this mission statement, and to contribute in whatever ways they can to this campaign.

The coalition has united around the following mission statement.

Mission Statement of NIEW

NIEW opposes the New Zealand Government’s invitation to the racist, apartheid state of Israel to open an embassy in Wellington.

NIEW expresses its solidarity with Palestinians and with the international BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign to target; political, economic, cultural, sporting, intelligence and military ties with Israel.

NIEW undertakes this mission because of Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes, human rights violations and ongoing grave breeches of international law, including the building of Jewish only settlements and demolition of Palestinian homes on occupied land.