Palestine Free from the River to the Sea
Register at https://palfree.nz/
Aotearoa’s newest political party is contesting the 2026 general election in the name of a free united democratic Palestine.
Palestine Free from the River to the Sea is not just running candidates in an election it is trying to raise awareness of issues. We chose this name because Palestinians do not enjoy fundamental human rights and freedoms. Our demand is for nothing more than basic human rights and the acceptance of international law.
The party was the brainchild of long-standing Palestine solidarity activist, party president Paul Hopkinson. He says he felt the “need to highlight that genocide is still ongoing in Gaza and Palestine and to hold our government and its MPs, regardless of party, to account for NZ's inaction and support for this genocide”.
Under the UN Genocide Convention we as a nation are obliged to take action to prevent and punish acts of genocide. When the International Court of Justice ruled that there was a plausible case of genocide on the 26th of January 2024, we had a moral and legal obligation to act and our government did nothing. When Israel, which chose to be part of this case voluntarily, failed in all instances to make any efforts to comply with court orders we had a moral and legal obligation to act and we did nothing. When Israel subsequently ignored the ICJ’s emergency provisional measures on the 28th of March and the 24th of May we had a moral and legal obligation to act and we did nothing.
According to Paul Hopkinson, “The New Zealand Government policy has supported the ethnic cleansing, murder and oppression of the Palestinian people for over 78 years. Our policy is one controlled and subservient to American foreign policy.”
Our government has done nothing while the genocide continues. Deadly attacks on people in Gaza have not ceased. Since the “ceasefire” October 10 last year Israel has killed at least 856 Palestinians and wounded 2,463 others. The last Israeli killed by enemy action was on October 28. This is a one-sided slaughter with no plausible military rationale. It is carried out on a people under a cruel and brutal siege by a society whose leaders often proclaim outright a genocidal intent and a goal of total ethnic cleansing. Despite Gaza being recognised internationally as the sovereign territory of Palestine, Israel has now effectively occupied 60% of Gaza,concentrating the remaining survivors into 40% of the tiny Gaza strip, where conditions are bleak. There is no accounting for the excess death and the suffering caused by malnutrition, disease, and exposure, but this combination of prolonged violence and misery brings to mind some of the worst and most condemned acts of modern history.
In the West Bank, one-sided violence by Israelis has continued to intensify. Murder, abuse, provocation, humiliation, deprivation and displacement are daily events. Over 40,000 have been driven from their homes so far this year. Israel’s desire to cleanse the land of Palestinians and annex all of the occupied territories cannot be denied by any serious commentator, and yet remains unspoken by all authorities including our own government.
The Palestine Free From the River to the Sea party aims to end this deafening silence. We seek to challenge those who claim to support Palestinians but seem to care more about appearing credible in a rigged, racist, corrupt media and political environment. We seek to bring clarity. We will call out the two-faced and help those who want to be able to speak the truth by debunking double-standards and outright lies.
Malcolm X warned “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” This statement rings true for how a majority of western media has covered the Palestinian issue over the decades since the Nakba in 1948. Our media and political classes violate basic tenets of honesty and good faith when they condemn Palestinian armed resistance as being “terrorism”, when armed resistance against occupation is enshrined as a right in international law
The double standards of language used by our media and public figures would be inexcusable if this actually was an instance of two parties engaged in a war, but this is even worse. There is no real war. This is genocide. The disparity of violence is stark and undeniable. The motives of the perpetrator are all too clear and well stated. To avoid the inconvenient truth they demonise the victims. Israel’s unmistakable role as occupier and oppressor is hidden from people by a constant strident screeching of outrage about antisemitism and terrorism, while the genocide against Palestinians is ongoing.
At base there is a completely racist trope about Palestinians, about Arabs, and about Muslims that underpins the entire spectrum of Israel’s apologists. The genocide deniers are not just Israel’s rabid supporters but also those liberal pseudo-critics who think Israel has “a right to defend themselves” but goes too far because they kill a too many innocent civilians. That trope that gives life to these lies, the ugly victim mask behind which 78 years of genocide hides itself, is the notion that Palestinians act from irrational hatred and fervour and Israelis merely react.
History will not be kind to those who embrace the notion that Palestinians have a culture of violence. It would be hard to measure the violence perpetrated by Palestinians against the violence perpetrated against them, but the difference is crystal clear. Palestinians are by any rational measure the victims. Many experience direct violent coercion every single day, and all live in a world where violence against their people has a constant negative impact on them. In terms of direct fatalities from violent trauma the disproportionality is undeniable and it is increasing. For any time period after 7 October 2023 the ratio of Palestinian and Israeli civilian deaths becomes unbelievably stark, reaching levels in excess of 1000 to 1.
Racism is not simply an outcome of ancient enmities, it is an indispensable institution of the colonial project. The notion of Palestinian irrationality has always been central Israeli propaganda. Golda Meir famously said: “Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us.” This cold cruelty is needed because once people see Palestinians as human they will immediately see that Israel has always been the aggressor and perpetrator. It is only Israel that has a motive to continue the bloodshed. The vast majority of Palestinians want peace at almost any cost because they are human and they do love their children. When we actually step back from our prejudices, this is obvious.
The impoverished, stateless, land-poor, divided, besieged economically dependent people with no army, navy or air force are not the aggressors. To suggest otherwise is irreducibly and undeniably bigoted.
Our party website affirms our: “Unconditional and complete solidarity for the Palestinian resistance in all forms accordant with International Humanitarian Law.” Under International Humanitarian Law Palestinians cannot be denied the right to resist aggression and occupation. Equally, Israel cannot use offensive military actions as “self-defence” until they end their military occupation fully and comply with relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
The reality is simple, but we are force-fed a diet that inverts perpetrator and victim. Texts as diverse as George Orwell’s 1984, Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, and Disney’s surprisingly subversive Andor all make the point that fascists seek to abolish the truth. Over 250 years ago Voltaire wrote that “anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” There is nothing more absurd than the way our elite classes talk about Palestine.
It is normal for fascists to promote infantile absurdities. They trade in bloated Big Lies inflated with such hyperbole and comically synthetic outrage that they needle of truth would burst them if could only get near. But these Big Lies are guarded and coddled by a corrupt media system. Any journalist who does their job in covering the context of the genocide risks becoming jobless. The media landscape is totally rigged. We want to use our party as a means of reaching people in unmediated rooms.
Through our campaigning, our advertising, our person-to-person contact and our use campaign events we will change people’s views. Most people in Aotearoa have a negative view of Israel’s actions but they lack the certainty to demand action. They can be shown suffering, but they are systematically kept from seeing the cruel calculation of US and Israeli leaders and from seeing the rabid fascist fervour that grips Israel's ordinary people. Thus they make excuses for the politicians, the journalists, the pundits, not knowing how grotesque and criminal their holocaust denial has become. We will educate, we will waken, and we will unleash their outrage. The world needs outrage.
The name of our party has chosen brings in to focus the fact that censorship is being used to control the way people talk about Palestine. The phrase “from the river to the sea” is proscribed by law in Queensland, Austria, and Bavaria. In Berlin a protestor was convicted of “condoning a crime” for using the phrase. Multiple European jurisdictions claim that it may be illegal if used certain ways and both France and Germany have moves to legislate against the phrase.
We have to be allowed to tell the truth about Palestine. It seems odd to quote from Star Wars, but it is hard to overlook the urgency of the words placed in the mouth of a fictional senator and broadcast in May of 2025 as if they were written for that very time: “The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
We believe that the truth, and only the truth, can defeat the screaming monster. We are not alone in this country. The world stands with Palestine, but we have huddled ever closer to the US empire. That is why our small country matters so much. As our party president says, “the people of Aotearoa can make a difference when united, the anti-apartheid and anti-nuclear movements are proof of this.”
At the moment we desperately need to grow our membership. It costs only $2.00 to join, though you can only join if you are qualified to vote in NZ. You can join even if you belong to another party. Register at https://palfree.nz/.
E tū! Let’s go! Yalla!