A day will come when recognising Palestine makes diplomatic sense. But it is not today

By Chris Trotter*

New Zealand's decision to delay the formal recognition of Palestinian statehood is itself a recognition of profound geopolitical transformations. While the postwar international order held, New Zealand was proud to place itself in its diplomatic vanguard. As the old order has faltered, however, the struggle between idealism and pragmatism has sharpened. The fault lines of dissent run through institutions, generations and, as the weekend just past has demonstrated, nations.

At the core of the fading international order, and at the heart of the new one, stands the United States of America. Still less than a year old, the second administration of US President Donald Trump has made it clear that the idealism generated in the successful global struggle against fascism and given institutional expression in the United Nations Organisation and its agencies in the late-1940s, is no longer guiding global events. It has been replaced by the rawest calculations of national economic advantage and military strength. “Get used to it,” says Trump, “or get run over by it.”

What New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, has made clear since Trump’s electoral victory in November 2024 is that the Coalition Government’s priority is to do everything it can to protect New Zealand from being run over. As the Trump Administration’s decision to impose a 15 percent tariff on New Zealand’s exports made clear, there are limits to how comprehensively this country’s interests can be protected. What New Zealand can do, however, is refrain from antagonising the USA and its mercurial leader unnecessarily.

Assessing the degree to which the Trump Administration is going to be affronted by the decision of three of the USA’s Five Eyes partners – the UK, Australia and Canada – to scale back their hitherto rock-solid support for Israel is challenging. Opting to do what the Trump Administration has set its face against (in this case recognising Palestinian statehood) is fraught with risk. While Trump himself sees nothing wrong with America having its cake and eating it too, such self-indulgence is not encouraged in allies whose national security is wholly dependent on maintaining Washington’s good will.

On this matter Foreign Minister Peters is clear-eyed. Over many years, he has developed close relationships with American foreign policy specialists from across the political spectrum. Peters needs little instruction in the core elements of Trumpian diplomacy. He understands that what the world is witnessing in 2025 is the return of the “imperial” American presidency – on steroids. In determining the likely response of Trump’s America, Peters need only ask: “What would Caesar do?”

The mindset of Trump’s staunchest lieutenants should also play a part in the New Zealand government’s deliberations. The reaction of Vice-President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to the diplomatic desertion of the UK, Australia, Canada, France and other hitherto reliable friends of Israel has been a caustic concoction of scorn and contempt. There were merit-points to be garnered for New Zealand by refusing to become a member of that particular club.

In the eyes of the American Right these deserter countries are seen as indulging in the same performative politics as the pro-Palestinian demonstrators thronging the streets of their capital cities. Indeed, the electoral clout wielded by the immigrant communities supplying so many of these demonstrators is held up as the principal explanation for the sudden spike of western governments’ recognising Palestine and condemning Israel. Conservative commentators are already characterising this behaviour as a twenty-first century example of “appeasement” – bowing to barbarism.

It is important to note at this point that the decision to delay recognition of Palestinian statehood is born of more than the idiosyncrasies of Foreign Minister Peters. The Washington faction within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has maintained its strength for more than 40 years. Its argument has always been that when push comes to shove there are only the Americans. In the eyes of this faction, the trick is to keep New Zealand in the front row of whatever game Washington is playing: free market capitalism; the War on Terror; globalisation; AUKUS; Trump’s neomercantilist realpolitik. Peters may have learned to play the Washington faction’s game better than most New Zealand foreign ministers, but he didn’t invent it.

In the wake of the Palestine decision, it is likely that Peters’ diplomatic efforts will be devoted to parlaying New Zealand’s conspicuous act of fealty to Trump’s Middle Eastern policies into an answering gesture of appreciation from the United States – the lowering of that 15 percent tariff on exports to the original 10 percent, perhaps?

It must surely be in the interests of the United States to demonstrate that the loyalty of traditional (albeit small) allies should not go unrewarded – anymore than the disloyalty of America’s much larger friends should go unpunished.

Where does all this cold-blooded calculation leave New Zealand’s “independent foreign policy”? Is this country now expected to remove all traces of morality from its diplomacy? Such questions betray not only a touching innocence, but also a fundamental mischaracterisation of what New Zealand has been doing on the international stage since the end of the Second World War.

What is it that New Zealanders do best? They win the admiration of the world by competing successfully at games that, on the face of it, are much too big for them. In diplomatic terms this means grasping the logic of international relations faster and more thoroughly than just about anybody else – and then applying it with intelligence and flair.

Who was a better global citizen, back in the days of the “rules-based international order” than New Zealand? Whose tariffs were lower? Whose UN peacekeepers more respected? And who has grasped the daunting fact that the “rules-based international order” no longer exists with more alacrity than the Kiwis?

Not the UK, Australia, Canada and France, that’s for sure. It’s what makes their diplomacy so weak and, frankly, so infantile. What part of the “rules-based international order” was Vladimir Putin honouring when he sent his tanks across the Ukrainian border? And which part of that same international order authorised Trump’s B2 bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Can it really be true that New Zealand’s traditional friends are expecting a clearly dysfunctional United Nations, and sundry toothless international courts, to resurrect a two-state solution out of Benjamin Netanyahu’s nightmarish wasteland of shattered homes and collateral human damage?

When Israel’s leaders are proceeding on the understanding that if a war cannot be avoided, then it must be won; and Hamas is certain it can triumph by revealing to the world the terrible human cost of such a victory; what can possibly be gained by recognising the blood-soaked earth beneath the combatants’ feet as a nation state?

The wisdom and the pathos of Peters’ address to the UN General Assembly lay in his understanding that there can be no peace in Israel/Palestine until both sides understand that the greatest obstacle to constructing a working alternative to war is their mutual enmity. A day may come when that realisation breaks through the razor-wire of hate and blame. When the leaders on both sides are finally convinced that Israelis and Palestinians have more to gain by ending their enmity than by fuelling it.

But it is not today.

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.