An alarming decision was made by Victoria University to host Yael Holan, the Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of Israel as a guest speaker in an International Relations course on Tuesday morning.

The decision to host the Israeli Embassy official comes at a time where Israel is two weeks into a mass bombing campaign across Lebanon. The guest lecture was originally planned to be held in-person but was moved online.

Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke (SJPP) organisers were informed that Holan relayed several falsehoods during her lecture, including incorrectly describing Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine in the following way: “If we want to parallel it to New Zealand, Jews are the tangata whenua of the land of Israel.” This was reported by a Jewish student in the class, who opposed the statement. The class did not engage with her during her lecture except to pose critical questions at the end of her presentation.

In response to this statement, SJPP organiser Leila (Tainui Waikato) says, “This false equivalence shows how Holan fails to acknowledge her context within Aotearoa New Zealand including her responsibilities to te Tiriti o Waitangi. The actions of the Zionist state of Israel, including armed land grabs, apartheid laws and ethnic cleansing, are reflective of a settler-colonial entity. Solidarity for tangata whenua has always been, will always be, must always be with the Indigenous and oppressed peoples of the world including Palestinians, ka whawhai tonu mātou.”

“Our university has made its own commitments to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which means it should not be platforming a representative of the apartheid Israeli state – a state that has been committing genocide in Palestine for a year, and has now expanded its violence through bombarding Lebanon. Why are we giving space to Israeli officials to spread what is clearly Zionist propaganda in an educational environment? A course on “international security” that does not critically confront the way states like Israel uses these platforms to normalise its colonial, expansionist violence is an embarrassing indictment of our University.”

“This decision confirms the need to have an institutional boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) policy at VUW. The VUW Foundation Board may have divested from its Israeli Government Bonds, but the University’s refusal to stand against genocide and apartheid couldn’t be clearer,” said Hana Pilkinton-Ching, another SJPP organiser.

The Israeli state has killed over 41,000 people in Gaza since October 7 last year. Over 1000 people have been killed as a result of Israeli strikes in Lebanon in less than two weeks.

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