Haaretz reported that Jews in New Zealand condemned their government's sponsoring of last week’s United Nations Resolution 2334 against “Israeli settlements”.
Shamefully, after Egypt backed down from sponsoring the resolution New Zealand picked up the initiative and was one of the four co-sponsors of the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council. The resolution passed with a majority of 14-0. The United States shameful abstention instead of issuing a veto allowed it to be passed.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully's support for the resolution made the prospect of peace ever more distant and “brought ignominy on New Zealand,” the letter from the New Zealand Jewish Council stated. McCully maintains that the UN resolution is “consistent with long-held New Zealand policy positions.” It has been suggested that due to pressure from the British government, New Zealand promoted the resolution and voted in favor of it.
Before the vote, a senior official in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem called New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel, Jonathan Curr, warning that if the resolution came to a vote, Israel would close its embassy in Wellington in protest. But after the vote New Zealand's Jewish community requested the Israeli Embassy stay open.
Eventhough the community wants the Israel Embassy to stay put, they still had what to say against their country’s stand on the Resolution. The New Zealand Jewish Council, along with 26 other groups and hundreds of individuals, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Bill English on Thursday, calling on him to make a public statement on the resolution and its implications, Haaretz reported.
The letter stated that the resolution “violated the right of Jewish self-determination” and required that land where there had been a continual Jewish presence for thousands of years “become Jew-free”. “It is extremely disturbing and devastating that it makes it illegal for Jews to attend Hebrew University or to pray at their most holy site, the Western Wall, the heart of Judaism, to which Jews have physically and spiritually directed their prayers for thousands of years,” the letter said.