“I implore people to not get sucked into despair” — Nadia Abu-Shanab on Palestine and BDS
"Our struggle illuminates internationalism for people. People in every corner of the world are invested in seeing our liberation — they want to know that people can struggle against power and win."
Last week, Israel unilaterally ended its ceasefire deal with Hamas just two months after it was signed. 730 Palestinians have been killed and 1,367 injured in Gaza since.
Nadia Abu-Shanab is a member of Justice for Palestine in Pōneke/Wellington. She is a campaign organiser of the Don’t Bank on Apartheid campaign, which is calling on ASB customers to switch their Kiwisaver accounts away from ASB unless the bank divests from Motorola Solutions Inc., a company complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement activities.
Nadia Abu-Shanab is a mum, daughter, sister, partner, educator and union organiser. Her whakapapa is to England, Ireland and Palestine. She has been a learner in various movements for the last 20 years, after walking out of school to protest the War on Iraq in 2003. She told me that her political education “began with learning about Palestine at the laps and ankles of parents, uncles and aunties during the first and second Palestinian Intifadas.”
I interviewed Nadia on Friday. We discussed the end of the ceasefire, and why we shouldn’t exceptionalise Trump and his administration’s role in this genocide. Nadia’s main message was that activists in Aotearoa cannot give in to despair. We have the power to apply diplomatic and economic pressure to Israel through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — if we organise to force politicians, banks and companies to take action.
First of all, could you please summarise for people what's going on with Israel ending the ceasefire and resuming its genocide?
Nadia: I want to start by saying that what is occurring in Gaza right now is a crime that no amount of strong words can adequately summarise. That said, it’s best understood as we Palestinians think of it, as part of the ongoing Nakba (catastrophe) against our people.
There are two things going on right now. One is that continuation of a 77-year-long project of extermination and expulsion waged against Palestinians. And the name for that project is Zionism. This project, built on the ruins of Palestinian villages and founded through massacres, is about a Jewish-only state at the expense of the native Palestinian population. With or without October 7th, Israel has always wanted to “finish the job” of what they began in 1948.
What we see today is an extension of the ideas that built Israel. And if we think about what began happening in the West Bank after the fragile ceasefire deal came into place in January, Operation Iron Wall, you see some of the ideas that existed within early Zionism, when they first settled in Palestine — that the way to achieve that state is through use of brute force and violence against the Palestinian people.
The second thing is that all of this is occurring in a wider geopolitical context where Palestine is essentially the pincushion for every existential issue we face as people on this planet. Land theft, ecological violence, economic violence, the drive to redirect social and welfare spending into technologies of war. Those selling weapons and technologies of population control benefit, in the billions, from promoting a divided world and endless brutality. There's a lot happening globally at this time, but it's clear and plain for everyone to see that what we're getting an education in now is the way in which empire — US empire — is the enabler, is the cheque giver, is the only reason Israel is able to do what it does. Under the Trump Presidency that is laid bare.
There was a sense of confusion among some people when it appeared as if Trump had managed to bring about a ceasefire that Biden had not. Obviously now, we've seen his rhetoric, and we've seen that he's allowed Israel to break this ceasefire two months later. Could you articulate what's going on with the Trump administration's role in facilitating this genocide?
We need to understand the world we live in. We may have moral interests. We — you, me, and all the people reading this article may have moral interests, may be motivated by moral interests — for example, that we want to see all people live in dignity. But in terms of how our world operates, those who lead it are not motivated or governed by an “international rules based order,” or international law. We live in a world governed by material interests.
The reason that the United States of America has supported the Israeli project of settler colonialism, apartheid, occupation, domination, etc. — a genocidal project — is that there are geopolitical and strategic interests in having a close ally in the Middle East. There's also a deep affinity with the settler narrative. That's the background context. So US policy around Palestine has always been in a form — in a different form — what it is today. I think it's useful for us to zoom out and recognise that.
We analyse things wrong when we exceptionalise Trump. But to characterise Trump — we have someone who is literally a real estate agent. A deals guy. One proposition he put forward in his campaign was cutting US spending, both domestically, but particularly abroad. He talked about wanting to see an end to both the Russia-Ukraine War and the War on Gaza — not for the same reasons that we do, because of the crimes against humanity, and the stain on us all that that is — but because what he established as one of his priorities was eliminating some of that spending in the foreign context. We see that with the closing down of USAID, and so on. US empire is less interested in its soft power now.
There was no desire, at large, in either Israeli society or government for a ceasefire agreement. You’ve got elected political leaders who not only reflect back the dehumanising attitudes against Palestinians, they whip it into a genocidal fever pitch. That's what happens when you’ve been getting away with not only the attitudes of apartheid, but the policies and practice of it. The Trump camp was clear with Israel that if they could reach a ceasefire in Gaza, they could have free reign for Israeli settlers to continue to annex the West Bank.
A lot has been said on Trump’s “Gaza plan,” and how outrageous that is. But what I would highlight is that saying the outrageous is a political tactic in itself, as many people recognise. It's a tactic that aims to disorient us and change the arena in which his deals and transactional politics are able to play out.
In all these conversations too, it's important to come back to Palestinian agency. No, the United States didn’t pull levers for a ceasefire because of the human cost of continued war. However, the political cost of the war on Gaza will be real for the United States for all its years left ahead as an empire. The idea of Palestinians as subjects that are just to be moved around like chess pieces on a board, completely actually ignores that even with some of the most advanced military technology in the world, the backing of the United States of America, the most powerful military force in the world, actually, the War on Gaza was not successful in achieving any of its stated aims. Nor was it successful in the aims it stated through its actions – expunging Palestinians from Gaza.
The Palestinian people remain in Gaza, and they have an intent to rebuild in Gaza. The people of Gaza and Palestine have also succeeded in escalating the political cost for Israel, and the USA, as both countries continue down a path which ultimately torches the cloak of rights-based propaganda they’d operated under. Trump is emblematic of this.
You mentioned the “international rules-based order.” There has been a narrative among liberals, and people who have faith in Western foreign policy, that Trump's meeting with Zelensky and his betrayal of Ukraine represents the end of this order. This comes, as we know, both 17 months and 77 years into Israel's genocide in Palestine.
What would your message be, and what should the message of our movement be, to people who are outraged about what Trump is doing in relation to Ukraine, but don't seem to apply that same logic to Palestine?
The framing that I find useful is to remember that, as a result of Israel's own genocidal actions, as a result of the inherent contradictions of Zionism and the fact that so many people have seen them, I think people’s collective ideas on how we make change and the scale of the change we need, are shifting. And rapidly. While some people have that blindspot, most don't.
We have to recognise that the majority of people in this country are supportive of Palestinian human rights. For example, where people know what they think about the issue of sanctions against Israel, they're more likely supportive of the idea of sanctions against Israel. And we are going to continue making and winning that case. The reason we're going to do that is because people are experiencing a political education in the limitations of the moral appeals to the institutions of the rules-based order.
Personally, despite disillusionment with the institutions and their limitations, I’ve come back to a strong position on the need for universal human rights. We've always been, as Palestinians and as people in the Global South, the genuine advocates for an international system of human rights. It befalls on all of us to bring that into meaning.
I think about it much like I think of how organised workers negotiate with the boss in contract negotiations. One thing that we know is that, where the boss can get away with it, they're going to break the law, right? It's a question of what we can get away with, right? That's how US empire works — the law doesn't apply. It doesn't apply to the rich first of all, and it doesn't apply to imperial powers. No one has meddled in democracy and supported fascist regimes more than the USA. No one has so nakedly stated their intent for genocide, and then committed their genocide, in such a recorded and visible way as the current Israeli government, right?
But we can collectively enforce international law and enforce a people's led movement for justice, freedom, equality, and for human rights for all people. That is, in fact, our task. While that might seem like a really daunting task given what we're faced with, I think it's important for us to remember that when you're a worker in a union, when you build and organise the power to properly enforce your rights in your workplace, you’re making it clear that you have a power you’re willing to use to achieve those rights. We can’t plead around international law anymore, we just have to get organised and collectively enforce it.
This is much bigger than Palestine now. The rules based order has been openly torched in front of our eyes. In fact, in a very symbolic act of political theatre, the Israeli representative at the United Nations got up on stage and put the UN Charter through a mini paper shredder. At this point, Israel and its supporters really have no idea how they look to the rest of the world.
It’s not lost on Palestinians that the birth of the UN itself, and the whole promise of these institutions, had an exception for Palestinian rights baked-in. The UN was one of the midwives to Israel's birth in 1948. But these are ideas which have always been ours. They've always been ours to fight for. They've always been ours to gain from. They've always been ours to win. And we will win them.
Thinking back to the outbreak of the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror. How do you compare the societal reaction to the War on Terror, and the reaction in the Global North and in the Global South, to the reaction to what's happening in Palestine right now? Do you think the anti-war movement is similar? Is it stronger? What different challenges does it face?
Sometimes when we're trying to answer political questions, we're navigating a series of tensions rather than looking at things in black and white. So one of the things that you said was, is it similar? Yes, absolutely. It's similar. It's part of the same political trajectory. It's part of a trajectory of global anti-imperialist organising that predates the War on Terror, and will live long beyond this moment.
It also faces different challenges. Again, there are contradictions here, because on the one hand, what a lot of Arabs and Muslims and Palestinians would say to you is that over the last 20 years, in the wake of the War on Terror, one of the things that Zionism exported to the world was anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia. And it worked in their interests.
The War on Terror was perfect for Zionism. It built on and expanded a narrative that they had spent decades generating. The idea that all Palestinians, even the Palestinian child, is innately born to be a terrorist. That process of dehumanisation is part of why Israel is able to get away with what it is today.
But would I say that this is totally distinct from the position that we were in in 2001? Has there not always been a divide between the Global South and the Global North? Have there not always been forms of racism and dehumanisation? Could colonialism and imperialism have been achieved here in the Pacific or across great swathes of Africa, Asia, the Americas, if we hadn't had an idea that indigenous people in these parts of the world were lesser than? You can only steal land and implant your governments, or toy in their democratic processes, with an underlying belief in your own supremacy.
I note of course, we shouldn’t detach racism from its material or economic origins. Racism is the justification for extraction and exploitation.
So this is part of a much longer legacy. And, while there is a distinct legacy of the War on Terror, its Islamophobia, and on a deeper level its anti-Palestinian racism that we witness today, there is also a longer legacy of colonial racism which that was built upon.
But also, as I alluded to in the beginning, we have our own legacies of trying to communicate to the world that we all, no matter where we live, have an interest in universal dignity and rights. That we all have an interest in protecting the rights of people who resist against colonisation, who resist against imperialism; because these struggles are very much also embedded in our own struggles that we experience here, like our own economic struggles, our own struggles against right-wing governments, fascist governments increasingly. So what I think is unique about this time, and what is hopeful about this time, is that people are coming to a greater sense of connectedness.
For our part as Palestinians, our homeland was chosen as the location for this violent project. But also, partly because of the scale of our dispossession and the fact we ended up everywhere, our struggle illuminates internationalism for people. It illuminates the connections between things. People in every corner of the world are invested in seeing our liberation because they want to know that people can struggle together everywhere against power and win.
So are we in a better place politically, materially on the ground, as Palestinians than we were in 2001? No, there's been more land lost. You look at the reality — there's no minimising what's happening on the ground right now. But in terms of our ability, our unharnessed, slightly disorganised ability to be able to confront imperialism, and to be able to pose a real threat to it? We have all the ingredients in the world today, and we’ve just got to cook with them. Just gotta cook with them!
What is the New Zealand Government's role in this imperialist project in Palestine?
It's important to understand how New Zealand positions itself in the global context. New Zealand, Canada and Australia position themselves as softer parts of the imperial core. Of course, it's no coincidence these are all settler colonies. We're a part of Five Eyes alongside these countries and the US and UK, “an Anglosphere intelligence alliance”. The role that New Zealand has played, alongside Australia and Canada, is aligned with, but still distinct from, that of the US. I think it's important to state that difference, even if we know our government is complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Because when we flatten those differences, and we fold ourselves in, or we imagine that we're experiencing the same things that activists in the US are experiencing, we miss some of the unique openings we have here.
To turn our minds to the international is important, and we have to understand what's happening in the imperial core. But it's not the centre of things. We need to de-centre it, and understand that in our context, because of the legacy of the work that activists did here, very much in our place in the Pacific, we did have this notion of an independent foreign policy. Now, I've said, that's in a drawer somewhere. I don't know where the fuck it is, because we haven't seen it. But there have been flickers of it, right?
So, for example, when the UN General Assembly voted on a motion around sanctioning Israel, we were the only Five Eyes country to support that motion. We now have consensus within our opposition parties around sanctions against Israel. I don't think we can underestimate what that's taken, and what a huge move that is from the New Zealand Labour Party as well, because that's a unique position. It's not a position that, for example, the UK Labour Party has taken, or the Australian Labor Party has taken. And that's a testimony to our work — not just the work of our generation, but the work of generations before us — of Māori, Pasifika and Pākehā organising here in this place.
So let's understand, we have the basis of this lofty idea, this notion — kind of like the idea of international human rights — of an independent foreign policy, right? It's not something our leaders are acting on. It's not something they're living up to. It's not something they're particularly interested in. But these ideals are upheld by us when we build the movements that make ignoring these values impossible.
New Zealand? Ultimately, as far as US Empire is concerned, we are completely inconsequential. But in a way, that's why I think we have a unique role to play, probably and hopefully, in being the leading edge of the beginning of a breakaway of that core of Five Eyes nations who will take a position in the coming years diplomatically against Israel, and in favour of sanctioning Israel. It’s not going to be easy, but we have it in us to align differently and orient away from empire. I’m not naïve about what that means, but I don't think any of us look around the world right now and feel naïve about the stakes. In fact, the stakes are exactly why we need to do things very differently.
We need to be ambitious for that. And so not imagine that we're in the context of the US. Because we're actually not. So, we should have different, more ambitious expectations of our political leaders.
Yeah — I do find sometimes that the rhetoric is hard to get right, because there is nuance that's lost if we just treat Luxon as the same as Biden or Trump.
Yeah.
So the most important question is: it's very easy for people who are watching with horror as this genocide unfolds on their phone screens to feel powerless. What can people do to try and make a difference here in Aotearoa?
It’s natural to wrangle with hopelessness and despair at a time like this. Our grief and rage comes from a deeply human and ultimately beautiful part of us — which is that more and more people every day wake up, and they see through the veil of dehumanisation of Palestinians. And they recognise that, just like everyone else, Palestinian children deserve the right to wake up alive, not bombed in their beds for the mere crime of being on a land that somebody else wishes to colonise. That’s one breakthrough that allows us to bind together. But we need to recognise that — as Hera Lindsay Bird said recently — that the antidote to despair is action.
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched 20 years ago with an accurate analysis of the problems we faced then and today. And that is to say that we cannot expect our Western institutions and leaders to stand for international law, to stand for human rights, to stand for self-determination for Palestinian people; that they must be dragged there. We must alienate and isolate Israel from the ground up as voters, community members, members of organisations and unions.
We have the ability to get our councils to divest, as was done in Nelson Whakatū. We have the ability to change our Kiwisavers. We have the ability to pressure banks and providers. We have the ability to not buy HP laptops, Obela Hummus. When we use our boycotts in an organised and targeted way, we exert real pressure and we undermine the profitability of targets we know play a meaningful role in Israeli apartheid. I understand why, as a matter of conscience, some people want to boycott hundreds of products and companies that might be connected to Israel. However, if we want to be effective and win, it’s better to loudly target a few companies Israel really needs than to quietly boycott brands that don't even know you’re boycotting them. With campaigns aimed at winning, we take seriously our duty not just to be good individual consumers, but to use collectivism and organising to cut-off the oxygen that flows in the form of capital to not only Israeli companies that are complicit in human rights abuses, but also British, US and European companies that also benefit from apartheid and occupation.
I really compel people to think about a quote that I love from Malcolm X, which is, “We are not outnumbered. We are out-organised”. That's why targeted actions to apply pressure to Israel are what will see Israel held to account, because they help us build organisation, leadership and skills together. They already have built into them an understanding that we will see indifference from political leaders, that we will see indifference to Palestinian suffering, that we will see inaction. That understanding that many people are coming to today is built into the very foundations of this 20-year-old strategy.
We also have come to terms with the bitter pill that the liberation of a people, faced with what we're faced with, won't happen overnight. It will happen. Dr. Yara Hawari said to us last week that it's hard to talk about the weakness of Zionism when you've seen its brutality and violence play out as it has in Palestine. But any state committing genocide is ultimately a weak and fragile project. And so I implore people to not get sucked into despair, to not get sucked into the fatalistic narrative that nobody cares about this, to remember that for every person who is indifferent there are three who care. Lots of people care, they’ve just been taught that we’re not the ones who move the needle of history. People need to be reminded of concrete actions that they can take that are meaningful and strategic. And so I would say, talk to the people who care about this issue. Encourage them to participate in organising and in action, because those two things not only connect us with each other, but ultimately, we have the numbers. It's just about channeling people into the kind of effective action that is going to cost Israel. And we're capable of it.
Final question. What ongoing campaigns or immediate actions do you recommend for people to engage in right now?
This week is Israeli Apartheid Week, which is a global week of action that’s been going for 20 years this year. There are four concrete things that people can do over the next week. I'll start with the ASB campaign.
If you happen to be an ASB Kiwisaver customer, you can join hundreds of people who have already left ASB Kiwisaver over their investments in Motorola Solutions. If you bank with them, switching banks or writing a complaint is also going to help support the ongoing divestment campaign we’re going to keep at until they divest. Of course, there are many Kiwisaver funds with investments in companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, so switching funds is something you can do even if you’re not with ASB. For many of us, our Kiwisavers are the only investments we actually have that we can move in 30 minutes.
You can also support the ASB campaign by helping to pressure NZ Superfund into dropping their investments in Motorola Solutions by writing them a complaint.
We need to extend and also fortify support for Chlöe Swarbrick's Sanctions Against Israel Bill, which has united support across the Opposition now, and needs six Government MPs to support it when it's pulled out of the biscuit tin to trigger a conscience vote. So we should target government MPs. However, I would say it’s very worthwhile right now going to talk to Labour MPs about why sanctions and Palestinian human rights matter to you. We are going to need to hold the Labour Party to account, so that when they are leading their next government — and we hope and expect that they will be leading the incoming government in 18 months time — they will make that historic move of being the first Five Eyes nation to sanction Israel. So go and let your Labour MPs, your National MPs, your local electorate MPs know how much this matters to you. Follow up with them.
You can also participate in consumer boycotts of Obella, Caltex, things like that.
But I really do say — think about the ‘D’ and the ‘S’ in BDS. Divestment and sanctions. Because that shit is the shit that starts to slap. So that's what we need to be doing.
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Welcome to my Substack! Thanks for reading this interview.
My name is Elliot Crossan, and I am a socialist writer and activist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. I am the Chair of System Change Aotearoa, an ecosocialist campaign group. You can check out our website here.
I am a freelance writer, and I intend to make all posts on this Substack free. The goal of my writing is to help bring about political change — to contribute to the movement for workers’ rights, indigenous rights, climate action and global justice. I have no plans to publish anything behind a paywall.
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Thanks for this interview Elliot! It was sorely needed right now. Also with a lot of information that is helpful to me and will be to others.