PSNA has written to the Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, urging the government to pull out of a proposed on-line seminar with Israel’s agriculture sector.

The Chief Science Advisor to the Ministry of Primary Industries, John Roche, is scheduled to speak at the on-line event on 15/16 February.

The webinar is designed to build “strategic partnerships in agriculture” with Israel, assisted by the Israeli embassy and the Aotearoa New Zealand government. This is an outrage!

“Israel’s agriculture sector is based on ethnic cleansing, war crimes and human rights abuses against the Palestinian people” says PSNA National Chair John Minto.

“Our government and our farmers should be demanding Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to their land instead of helping Israel profit from this stolen land”

Israel’s agriculture sector is based on:

• Abuse of International law. (eg Illegal Jewish-only settlements built on occupied Palestinian land)
• War crimes (eg Illegal settlement building on occupied Palestinian land is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
• Violation of United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. (eg UNGA 194, UNSC 242. UNSC 2334)
• Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land and the blatant refusal to allow refugees to return to their land (UNGA 194)
• Frequent racist attacks by Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli Defence Force, on Palestinian farmers (eg here, here, here and here
• Seizure of water supplies and blatant theft of water from Palestinian farmers. (eg here and here)
• Destruction of Palestinian crops and olive groves (eg here, here, and here)
• Instances of draining sewage onto Palestinian land and crops (eg here and here)
• Indiscriminate aerial spraying of Palestinian farmland along the border with Gaza. (eg here, here, here, and here)

“This Agritech seminar is a celebration of ethnic cleansing, war crimes and human rights abuses”.

Withdrawal is the only moral and ethical course for the government.

© Scoop Media