Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Winston Peters made the brave choice this weekend

Can I just come to the defence of Winston Peters for a minute?

Winston has been labelled a coward for the position that he took on Palestine on Saturday, which I do not think is fair because it appears to me that what he's done is actually the opposite of cowardice.

The easy thing would have actually been for him to just go with the crowd, just say, yep, we recognize the Palestinian state, because that's what everybody else is doing.

The hard thing for him to do is go against the crowd and go against what everybody at the UN is doing, go against the domestic media opinion, go against the commentator's consensus.

So actually, when you think about it, he's not being cowardly at all - and I agree with his analysis at the moment.

Set aside whether there should be a Palestinian state - because of course there should be a Palestinian state, and I think most of us think that, right? If it's possible, it should happen.

But that's not what this is about. It is about whether you do that right now, because doing it right now is rewarding Hamas and they themselves have made it clear that they see the recognition of a state of Palestine as a vindication of the massacre that they carried out on October 7th.

You cannot reward terrorists for taking innocent lives, but also, and probably more importantly, it's not gonna do anything to end the war.

If you really want to end the war, if Trump's current peace plan fails, then what we need to do is punish Israel for what they're doing. They should be sanctioned and they should be isolated from the international community until they stop. And we've been saying this for weeks on the show.

For every day that we talk about whether we recognize a Palestinian state, we are wasting a day that we could be talking about what we actually should be doing, the things that would actually end this war, like punishing Israel for what they're doing - which again, is another day that we've wasted talking about the wrong thing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can I just come to the defense of Winston Peters
for a minute. Winston has been labeled a coward for
the position that he took on Palestine on Saturday, which
I do not think is fair because it appears to
me that what he's done is actually the opposite of cowardice.
The easy thing would have actually been for him to
just go with the crowd, just say, yep, we recognize
a Palestinian state, because that's what everybody else is doing.

(00:20):
The hard thing for him to do is go against
the crowd, go against what everybody the UN is doing,
go against the domestic media opinion, go against the commentator's consensus.
So actually, when you think about it, he's not being
cowardly at all. And actually I agree with his analysis
at the moment. Set aside whether there should be a
Palestinian state, because of course there should be a Palestinian state,
and I think most of us think that right if

(00:40):
it's possible, it should happen. That's not what this is about.
It is about whether you do that right now, because
doing it right now is rewarding Hamas, and they themselves
have made it clear that they see the recognition of
a state of Palestinian of Palestine as a vindication of
the massacre that they carried out on October seven. You
cannot reward ten terrorists for taking innocent lives. But also,

(01:02):
and probably more importantly, it's not going to do anything
to end the war. If you really want to end
the war, if Trump's current peace plan fails, then what
we need to do is punish Israel for what they're doing.
They should be sanctioned, and they should be isolated from
the international community until they stop. And we've been saying
this for weeks on the show. For every day that
we talk about whether we recognize a Palestinian state, we

(01:23):
are wasting a day that we could be talking about
what we actually should be doing, the things that would
actually end this war, like punishing Israel for what they're doing,
which again is another day that we've wasted talking about
the wrong thing. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to News Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.