Inconvenient Flags: Laurie & Les, Ageing Boomers, Talk Politics.

“What we used to call ‘war’ is now called ‘genocide’. By the UN definition, our fathers and grandfathers were vicious war criminals. The Allied blockade of Germany in World War I? The bombing of Dresden in World War II? Acts of genocide. Crimes against humanity. No question.”

HANNAH EYED THE FLAGS warily. Behind the bar a miniature Ukrainian flag had stood at attention since 2022. A few days earlier, however, a varsity student had asked her to position a miniature Palestinian flag alongside it. She’d stashed it under the bar. Now, one of her oldest patrons, Laurie, had presented her with an Israeli flag: “To keep the Ukrainians company”, he had said with a wink as she poured a pint of ale for him, and another for his best mate, Les.

“I’ll think about it”, she responded, passing him the brimming glasses on a tray.

“What did she say?” Les eyed the bar manager who was, he noticed, eyeing him back.

“She said she’d think about it.”

“Heh! I never had Hannah down as someone who’d try to have a bob both ways.”

“C’mon, Les, that’s not fair. This Israel/Palestine thing is so bloody polarising. If she puts up our little flag, then the pro-Palestine mob are certain to give her no end of grief.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got a point there. I’ve participated in countless demonstrations over the years Laurie, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never encountered such passion.”

“I must confess, Les, I was surprised to see you marching alongside the keffiyeh-wearers.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have been. You should have known that my tolerance for Israel’s ‘collateral damage’ wasn’t likely to be limitless. There’s only so many images of mutilated women and children that I can look at without recalling the words of Mario Savio.”

“Which you’re about to quote me.”

Les straightened his back and jutted out his chin.

“‘There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, and upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.’”

“Except that, neither you, Les, nor your passionate mates, can make the Israeli war machine stop. Because, you know as well as I do that the only body big enough to stop that apparatus belongs to Uncle Sam. And Uncle Sam doesn’t want to. Hell, it’s Uncle Sam who’s supplying Israel with the gears, the wheels, and the levers!”

“Yeah, well, I thought I had to try.”

“So, what changed your mind, Les? Why did you ask me to ask Hannah to put Israel’s flag alongside Ukraine’s?”

“Genocide.”

“Genocide?”

“I did some research and discovered that the UN’s Genocide Convention is so broad that the Allied Powers of both World Wars would have fallen foul of it. What we used to call ‘war’ is now called ‘genocide’. By the UN definition, our fathers and grandfathers were vicious war criminals. The Allied blockade of Germany in World War I? The bombing of Dresden in World War II? Acts of genocide. Crimes against humanity. No question.”

Laurie nodded.

“And just consider the metrics. In nearly two years of bitter urban warfare, Palestine has lost nearly 70,000 people – at least a third of them Hamas fighters. But, in just 100 days, Rwandan Hutu butchered 800,000 Tutsi. Dammit, Les! If both events merit the description of genocide, then the term has lost all meaning.”

“But the world doesn’t care, Laurie, which means that Hamas is winning this war. It set out to goad Benjamin Netanyahu’s government into lashing out against Gaza with such fury that the world would turn away from Israel in disgust. And its working, Laurie, it’s working. The UK, Canada, Australia: they’ve all recognized Palestinian statehood. No wonder Hamas is claiming victory!”

“What do you think Winston’s going to do? Follow suit?”

“God, I hope not, Laurie! Because if Palestine is a state, then the term, like genocide, is meaningless. I hope he’s been able to convince Cabinet that this country’s got more to gain by standing alongside Donald Trump than Keir Starmer. Who knows, it might be enough to persuade the President to lower his 15 percent tariff.”

Hannah watched the two old Boomers leave the pub. She’d overheard quite a lot of their discussion, and she was glad. It made her decision much easier. She tossed both flags, Israel’s and Palestine’s, into the bin.

“There you are,” she muttered, “the perfect two-state solution.”

This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 26 September 2025.

Recognising Palestine.

The Road Not Taken: Palestine’s half-completed parliament is still there, a dark and cavernous testimonial to diplomatic and moral failure. The building’s grey concrete walls are stained, as if by the tears of all those on both sides of the conflict who were forced to abandon their dream of a peaceful two-state future.

CHRISTOPHER LUXON has announced that by late-September 2025 New Zealand might be ready to recognise Palestinian statehood. This curiously equivocal statement contrasts sharply with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s firm commitment to recognise that unfortunate entity. Australia’s pledge matches those already given by France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Of New Zealand’s ‘Five Eyes” partners, only the United States stands unequivocally behind Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu’s list of reliable allies grows thin.

But, does New Zealand’s reticence merit the criticisms levelled at it by supporters of the Palestinian cause? When the Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, can tell journalists that Australia is moving to recognise Palestine “while there is still a Palestine to recognise”, then, surely, New Zealand awaiting the outcome of the monstrous events currently convulsing Gaza and the West Bank bears all the hallmarks of wisdom?

It might also be prudent to ascertain exactly what sort of “state” New Zealand is being called upon to recognise. If we are talking about the partitioned territory offered to the Palestinians in 1947, the boundaries of which the Palestinian authorities, such as they were at the time, emphatically rejected, then the harsh truth of the matter is that, within those boundaries, there is precious little left out of which a recognisable state of any kind could be fashioned.

As anyone who watches the news networks is only too aware, the Gaza Strip (as it was known in 1947) has been turned into a grey waste of dust and rubble. In their biblically ferocious quest for vengeance, the Israeli Defence Force has done its best (and its best is terrifying) to leave not one stone standing upon another. Indeed, not since Rome conquered Carthage has the victors’ determination to utterly destroy their enemy been so openly displayed.

The Roman historian Tacitus famously observed that “Rome makes a desert and calls it peace.” Benjamin Netanyahu goes one better. He will not even talk of peace until he has made a desert out of Gaza – and strewn it with the bones of Hamas’s fighters.

The West Bank is larger than Gaza, but only marginally more favoured. Bisected by walls, bedevilled by endless checkpoints, its people are hemmed in on every side. Israeli soldiers and their bulldozers flatten whole blocks of the West Bank’s beleaguered towns – pour encourager les autres. The flower of Palestinian youth: those whose slingshot stones have not been repaid with the explosive bullets of Israeli snipers; rot in Israeli jails. Their grandparents’ olive groves burn in the night, their livestock are driven off. Those who venture out bravely in search of their stolen goats are beaten, stabbed, shot.

Because not all the hills of the West Bank have been disfigured by the Israeli occupation. Cascading down some hillsides are the gleaming homes and lush gardens of the settler communities. As beautiful as they are illegal these settlements are peopled by fanatics every bit as bright-eyed and implacable as Hamas. When it comes to their Palestinian “neighbours”, there is only one state these settlers are looking forward to recognising – their absence.

There was a time when the “two-state solution” promoted by the United Nations seemed a viable prospect. So much so that, with generous donations from the backers of a free, democratic, and independent Palestine, its presumptive rulers commenced constructing an impressive parliamentary complex for its legislators to sit in.

Elegant of line, impressive in its austere functionality, the structure took shape in Abu Dis a neighbourhood of East Jerusalem – the designated capital of the Palestinian state. In 2003, however, construction ceased. The Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) was in the process of suffocating the Oslo Peace Accords in tear-gas, shrapnel and blood. The Israelis responded by building their infamous “Separation Wall”.

From the river to the sea there would be only one state.

Palestine’s half-completed parliament is still there, a dark and cavernous testimonial to diplomatic and moral failure. The building’s grey concrete walls are stained, as if by the tears of all those on both sides of the conflict who were forced to abandon their dream of a peaceful two-state future.

Nations that present the recognition of Palestine as some sort of panacea, should be made to argue their case from the cold concrete platforms of that doomed and gloomy monument. Hopefully, Christopher Luxon knows better than to sit there with them.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 15 August 2025.