Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Foreign Minister and High Commissioner to London Phil Goff says
New Zealand needs to do more than just use words
to deal with the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza right now.
Phil Goff has written an opinion piece today accusing Israel
of committing war crimes and he's calling for sanctions. He's
with us now, he Phil, Yeah, hi, how are you?
I'm well, thank you. Are sanctions even in our phil
to change what Israel is doing as fast as it
(00:22):
needs to change.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, probably nothing is enough. The only thing that would
really move Israel as if the Trump administration was to
say no more. But unfortunately the president's not doing that.
He's in fact put sanctions not against Israel but against
the judges on the International Criminal Court that found Netanyahu
(00:45):
guilty of war crimes. And you know, far from stopping
what appears to be now genocide, moving people out of
their homes, out of their homeland, out of their Gaza altogether,
he's encouraging that, saying send them to Libya and let's
make this the riviera of the Middle East changed so unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I think things have rapidly changed in the last couple
of weeks, haven't they. So why when you are faced
with what we are seeing on television every night at
the moment of children starving, why is the US not
doing anything about it?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Do you think I don't think the US cares about
the Palestinians. The Israelis clearly don't care about the fact
that you know, they've killed seventeen thousand kids, that's a
conservative estimate. They've probably nimed forty or fifty thousand kids.
They don't Their goal is now clear. The extremists are
(01:38):
in charge of Israel. This is not the Israel that
I spent time on in when I was young, on kibbutzim.
This is an Israel that wants that don't believe they
are living there in the Palestinian areas have any rights.
They want them out, They want the whole territory and
are making life as difficult and as horrible as possible
(01:59):
for the people that are still there. And it does
it breaks your heart to see those pictures that we
see nightly from the comfort of our living rooms at
home in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, do you think that is the endgame? I mean,
is the point here basically to clear out Gaza? So
that there are no Palifornia's normal from us there.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have said that probably a
year ago or six years ago. But I believe that
that now is the end game. And people like Ben Gavere,
the National Security Minister, and smot Rich who's the Minister
of Finance. These people are really extreme. You know, Ben
Gaverea has been convicted in the past of urging the
(02:38):
elimination of the Arabs. You know, you saw marches through
Jerusalem last weekend where people where Jewish people were chanting
kill the Arabs. Now that's not all Jewish people. There's
a lot of good people in Israel that think that
what's happening here is wrong. And in the article I
quoted the former Prime Minister of Israel, who Hud Almut,
(02:59):
who came from Mettanja, who's own party, and he talked
about the indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.
So people within Israel understand that what Destanna who's basically
doing is fighting for his not only his political life,
that is freedom because he knows that he will face
criminal charges for corruption when he ceases to be Prime minister.
(03:24):
The people that are in charge of that place now.
Are extreme in every way and what they're doing is
totally intolerable. So it's up to us now to take
whatever steps we can. We're a small nation, but in
the past we've worked with other countries, you know, like
like Ireland and Sweden are both calling for sanctions against Israel.
(03:45):
If the EU put sanctions against Israel, that's a third
of Israel's total trade. That will hurt Israel. If we
were to put sanctions not just against the extremist settlers
that our government has put sanctions against, but against the
political leadership of of Israel, then we could make a difference.
If we were to stand up in the UN and
lead rather than simply follow, that would also make a difference.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, thank you for your time. I appreciated Phil GoF,
former Minister of Foreign Affairs, obviously former Commissioners High Commissioner
to London. By the way, his replacement has just been announced,
Hamish Cooper will take the job in September.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
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