Fighting Monsters.

A Friend In Deed: Surrounded by allies and friends on the UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, not only felt free to accuse Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, but also to claim that they were profiting hugely from their victims’ destruction. She did not, however, feel under any obligation to respond to the angry challenges of Israel’s defenders. 

IT WAS HER LITTLE SMILE that said it all. UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, appearing before the UN Human Rights Council on 3 July 2025, had not only accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, but also of profiting hugely from their destruction.

Her report to the Council was warmly welcomed by the League of Arab States, Venezuela, Palestine, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Qatar. But, when Hillel Neuer from the United Nations Watch organisation demanded to know why, in her entire report, there wasn’t a single mention of the October 7 massacre, Hamas, Hezbollah, or that leading sponsor of terrorism across the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ms Albanese had nothing to say.

Surrounded by allies and friends, the UN Special Rapporteur was under no compulsion to answer Neuer’s questions. Hence her brief, but highly communicative, little smile.

Israel’s fury at the rest of the world’s failure to call its enemies to account is easily understood. Less easily forgiven is the Israeli state’s apparent loss of interest in trying to appraise the rest of humanity of its enemies’ ultimate purpose.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his allies clearly prefer to concentrate all their nation’s resources upon securing the complete destruction of Hamas and its allies. Very early in the Israel-Hamas War a decision was made that civilian casualties would no longer be permitted to impede Israel’s extirpation of Palestinian terrorism.

Previous forays into Gaza had been restrained by Israel’s sensitivity to global opinion. It understood that the civilian population of Gaza had become Hamas’s human ammunition against “The Zionist Enemy”. The more casualties inflicted by the Israeli Defence Force, the less international support there would be for the Israeli state. Hamas knew this. Indeed, Hamas was counting on it. The Israelis might slap its face, but they were not prepared to endure the consequences of cutting off its head.

The horrific atrocities and the unprecedented death toll – 1,200 people – of the October 7 2023 pogrom put an end to Israeli restraint.

On paper, Israel’s winning move was to do nothing. It should have refrained from firing a single bullet into Gaza, and from dropping a single bomb. Borrowing from Hamas’s own strategy, Israel should, instead, have taken on the role of victim, and used the massacre as a grisly illustration of the true nature of Palestinianism.

On paper.

But October 7 2023 did not unfold on paper. Rather than allowing the world to discern the true nature of Hamas, Israel opted, instead, to avenge its dead and abducted citizens by destroying the terrorist organisation completely – regardless of the civilian cost.

The warning of the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche: “Have a care when fighting monsters, lest ye become a monster yourself”, went unheeded by Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty Zionist allies. Month by month, the breadth of their vision narrowed, until they could no longer perceive how decisively world opinion was being turned against Israel by a Hamas enemy whose supply of human ammunition – claims of Israeli genocide notwithstanding – showed every sign of being inexhaustible.

As Gaza was steadily transformed into an trackless waste of rubble, and the body-count climbed inexorably towards 60,000, it became increasingly plausible for the likes of Francesca Albanese to prosecute their charges of genocide. Certainly, the Muslim world raised no objections to such claims.

Israel was now in the terrifying predicament of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” Seized by that grim realisation, Israel plunged on. Soon its bullets and bombs were pummelling Lebanon – and then Iran.

Darkness now gathers around Israel as, methodically, Gaza is being flattened out. In the desolation that used to be Rafah, the IDF is preparing to build a “Humanitarian City” of tents for 600,000, rising to two million, Palestinians. Around these tents the Israelis propose to string coil-after-coil of razor-wire. Doubtless, there will be searchlights and watchtowers. Certainly, once the Palestinians are driven into this terrible encampment, they will not be suffered to leave.

Imagine the terror of the Gazans, as they shuffle under the tutelage of Israeli firepower towards the gates of this hellish place. We can only pray that, when they lift their eyes, they do not read the words: “Arbeit Macht Frei”.

The Gates of Auschwitz.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 18 July 2025.

Legislating For Liberty.

Revolutionary Intentions: The Regulatory Standards Bill sounds like one of those pieces of legislation debated on a dreary Thursday afternoon in an almost empty House of Representatives - it is anything but.

FOR A BILL set to transform New Zealand into a libertarian nightmare, it has an extremely boring name. The Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) sounds like one of those pieces of legislation debated on a dreary Thursday afternoon in an almost empty House of Representatives. Not because anyone in particular wants it, but because those whose job it is to monitor the efficacy or otherwise of government regulations declares it to be necessary.

MPs protesting to their respective Party Whips that they know absolutely nothing about this sort of bill’s content, are told that participation in such debates is good for them. Speaking for ten minutes about something one knows absolutely nothing about is key political skill. Without it, no politician should expect to do more than shepherd boring bills through a nearly empty House for the rest of their (short) political career.

The RSB may sound like one of those bills, it is anything but. According to one critic, the Bill will “neuter the ability of lawmakers to consider anything outside of individual liberty and property rights”.

That this proposed piece of alleged legislative dynamite is the product of the Act Party is entirely unsurprising. David Seymour and his caucus are the most disciplined band of ideologically-driven politicians in our Parliament. Liberty and Property are their twin lodestars, and by them they navigate the choppy seas of New Zealand’s resolutely non-ideological politics.

Knowing exactly where they want to go has made it much easier for Act to determine, often with alarming and near-revolutionary clarity, what they ought to do. Boiled down to its essence, Act’s political mission is captured in the French expression laissez-faire – loosely translated as “let them do it”.

If the actions of individuals cause no harm to others – let them do it.

If those actions involve only their own property – let them do it.

Contrariwise, if some individuals seek to compel other individuals for any reason other than preventing them from causing harm to others, then don’t let them do it. And if that compulsion involves regulating the use of other individuals’ private property, then definitely don’t let them do it!

Understandably, socialists are not (and never have been) great fans of laissez-faire. The collective welfare is (or used to be) their lodestar. Individuals determined to put themselves, and their property, ahead of measures designed to serve the common good should not be allowed to do it.

Obviously, a great deal rests on how “harm” is defined.

If your dairy farm is polluting the streams and rivers that others are accustomed to fishing and swimming in, does that constitute harm? And, if it does, then, surely, the state is entitled to regulate your farming practices? That is to say, restrict the ways in which you can legally use your private property.

Alternatively, if a friend undertakes to sell you a few grams of cannabis, what business is it of the state’s? Why should smoking weed, which most medical scientists have determined to be essentially harmless, be punishable by law? Why shouldn’t individuals, if they’re old enough to assess and accept the consequences of using cannabis, and it causes others no harm, be allowed to do it?

If pressed, Act will always put the liberty of individual New Zealanders and the sanctity of their private property, well ahead of the nation’s collective welfare. With National and NZ First’s backing, Act’s leader hopes to enshrine his party’s guiding principles in the RSB.

If it becomes law, then all regulatory legislation will be weighed carefully by an appointed board against the claims of Liberty and Property. And, if Parliament, in its wisdom, elects to override the Board’s advice, then, as is already the case with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it will be required to do so in the basilisk glare of public scrutiny.

Naturally, environmental groups, iwi, trade unionists and the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of NGO-land regard the RSB with horror and dismay. They no doubt believed that, having been soundly defeated several times already, such libertarian legislative forays were things of the past.

The Left, generally, is flabbergasted and outraged that the Coalition remains committed to the RSB’s passage. And, boy, are they making a fuss. To hear them talk, the Bill might have been co-sponsored by Sauron and Voldemort.

But, don’t be alarmed. One parliament cannot bind another. If the RSB looks like transforming Aotearoa-New Zealand into Mordor, then the next government can simply repeal it.

A version of this essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 6 June 2025.