A few days ago, my good friend Rodney Hide criticized Winston Peters when, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he made it clear that “New Zealand is deeply concerned by the deteriorating situation in the West Bank”. Mr Peters was referring to the increasing violence in the West Bank involving Israelis attacking Palestinians and destroying their homes, with the connivance of the Israeli military.

Rodney appeared to argue that, in the light of the terrible atrocities which had occurred on 7 October 2023 when some 1200 Israelis were brutally murdered, with hundreds more taken hostage, we have no right to lecture the Israelis about what is appropriate behaviour. He wondered how we in New Zealand would react if many hundreds of New Zealanders were brutally murdered.

But on this occasion, I disagree strongly with Rodney and the many people who expressed their agreement with him.

I was actually in Israel when Hamas attacked and murdered hundreds of innocent citizens on that terrible day. I saw some of the fear, the anger, and the absolute determination to punish the perpetrators. I saw the signs pointing to the air raid shelters, and to the supposedly safe rooms where hotel guests were to retreat to in the event of an attack.

Nobody should excuse the behaviour of Hamas on that day.

But Israel has surely taken revenge for that attack. The exact number of those killed by Israeli military action in Gaza may never be known, and I have no doubt that the number is exaggerated by Hamas and their supporters to gain international sympathy. But nobody doubts that the number killed by Israeli military action in Gaza is in the tens of thousands, a large number of them civilians. This was very much more than an eye for an eye.

The recent decision by the United Kingdom, Canada, France and a number of other European countries to impose a partial trade ban on Israel was not a response to Israel’s actions in Gaza but to the connivance – at very least – of the Israeli state to the action of Jewish settlers in attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, destroying their homes, killing their livestock, and driving them from areas where, historically, they have been allowed to live.

As Mr Peters said, “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are a violation of international law… New Zealand strongly condemns violence by settlers against Palestinian civilians and calls for accountability for those responsible.”

Even the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a pro-Zionist pastor, was moved to condemn such actions as terrorism.

Some years ago, I heard a speech by a prominent Israeli by the name of Amos Oz. He was speaking in Washington to an audience of American Jews. He said that the issue in Israel is not between right and wrong but rather between two rights: the Jews have a right to live in Israel; the Palestinians have a right to live in Israel. And therefore the only long-term path to peace is a two-state solution.

For several decades at least, the two-state solution has been endorsed by most countries, and by many Israelis. Mr Netanyahu and his far right political allies seem hell-bent on removing that possibility by more and more aggressive encroachment into the West Bank, the piece of land which would be fundamental to any two-state solution.

Mr Peters was absolutely right to condemn Israel’s complicity in the settler violence which makes that solution increasingly out of reach.