This headline could get me jail time if, as reported, the New Zealand Government is planning to take the same authoritarian turn that the UK has sunk to with its proscription of Palestine Action. It would represent another dangerous conflation of protest with terrorism.

A repost from 25 September 2025.

“Hamas is better than us” is clearly heretical in terms of the Western propaganda canon but well-supported by the global majority. Should the New Zealand Government amend the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 along those lines, I will continue to repeat the observations I make here. It’s called free speech and speaking truth to power. The occasion of multiple Western states recognising Palestine necessitates us taking a hard look at the sub-texts and the players involved.

‘Hamas is a brutal terror organisation’, genocidal Israel is our ally

In announcing that the UK formally recognises Palestine as a state, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made clear this week that the Palestinian people will have little effective say in who runs that state; that will remain the prerogative of Israel and its powerful white Western allies.

“Let’s be frank,” Starmer said on 21 September 2025, ”Hamas is a brutal terror organisation. A call for a genuine two-state solution is the exact opposite of their hateful vision. We are clear. This solution is not a reward for Hamas because it means Hamas can have no future, no role in government, no role in security. We have already proscribed and sanctioned Hamas, and we will go further.”

That view of Hamas accords with the dominant Western narrative, but it hardly represents a commitment to democracy – the ability of a free and independent people to choose their leaders. Britain — which played such a central role in the disaster for Palestinians, from the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate period, all the way to the killing fields of Gaza today — is in no position to lecture anyone on good governance.

Also, exactly when this Palestinian state is to........

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