{"id":47546,"date":"2025-09-28T02:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47546\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:42:11","slug":"ex-race-relations-commissioner-gregory-fortuin-slams-government-for-not-recognising-palestine-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47546\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin slams Government for not recognising Palestine state"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peters acknowledged the \u201cgood intentions\u201d of those countries which had recognised Palestine, such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but warned it could be counterproductive.<\/p>\n

He said New Zealand would wait to recognise Palestine until \u201cconditions offer greater prospects for peace and negotiation than at present\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin says the Government’s now-is-not-the-time stance will lead to a “perpetuation of the carnage” and is “torturous logic”. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is, Hamas resisting negotiation in the belief that it is winning the propaganda war, while pushing Israel towards even more intransigent military positions,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHamas will seek to portray our recognition of Palestine as a victory, as they have already done in response to partner announcements. Israel will claim that recognition rewards Hamas and that it removes pressure on them to release hostages and agree to a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather, the New Zealand Government believes that it has one opportunity to recognise Palestinian statehood and it would make better sense to do so when conditions offer greater prospects for peace and negotiation than at present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MinisterMinister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters tells the UN General Assembly in New York “we are not ready” to recognise Palestinian statehood as it could be counterproductive. Photo \/ United Nations<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has already designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n

For New Zealand to recognise Palestine, Luxon said, it would require Palestinian territory to be removed from Hamas control, a return of the hostages it took on October 7, 2023 and have established governance capacity within the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is not the time,\u201d Luxon said of recognition. \u201cReally, what we need is reasonable leadership on both sides to come together to sit down and resolve this conflict, and irrespective of the position on recognition, that is the main event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortuin called this response \u201cfolding our arms and doing nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fortuin grew up in apartheid South Africa and drew parallels between that and the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.<\/p>\n

He was South Africa\u2019s honorary consul to New Zealand and was New Zealand\u2019s Race Relations Conciliator, now commissioner, between 2001 and 2002. He told the Herald the situation in Gaza was deeply personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to act now and stop the further annihilation,\u201d Fortuin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut if we are okay with tens of thousands of mainly women and children dying and being starved and their homes being bombed, then what does it say about ourselves? Because it\u2019s happening on our watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers business, breaking news and local stories from T\u0101maki Makaurau. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peters acknowledged the \u201cgood intentions\u201d of those countries which had recognised Palestine, such as Australia, Canada and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9344,5842,14903,14134,41403,41398,2082,2740,41400,266,7237,41399,42,19275,17154,43,5006,14786,21485,18154,7798,33021,39918,1123,41401,19993,13672,33022,40,38,41,39,9938,41402],"class_list":["post-47546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-announcement","tag-calling","tag-commissioner","tag-decision","tag-expediency","tag-exrace","tag-for","tag-former","tag-fortuin","tag-government","tag-governments","tag-gregory","tag-headlines","tag-mere","tag-nations","tag-news","tag-not","tag-palestine","tag-palestinian","tag-political","tag-race","tag-recognise","tag-recognising","tag-relations","tag-slammed","tag-slams","tag-state","tag-statehood","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united","tag-yesterdays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}