Controversy over Māori Delegation: Evidence Immunity and Antizionist Bigotry?

A recent Māori delegation to Israel has generated considerable controversy amongst Māori communities in New Zealand. Questions have been raised about who funded the visit, why Māori leaders would travel to Israel given reporting on the situation in Gaza, and whether participants were exposed exclusively to an Israeli perspective. These may be legitimate questions for journalists to ask.

But is it really journalism when a contested issue is approached with a presupposed conclusion, one that is impervious to falsification?

Broadcaster, Moana Maniapoto interviewed iwi (tribal) leader Renata Hakiwai and former broadcaster Neil Waka on the Te Ao with Moana programme, on their visits to Israel. Both men said, in different ways, that travelling to Israel had shifted their understanding of the conflict. Hakiwai said the experience had made his view “probably a little bit more balanced”; Waka emphasised that he wanted to make up his own mind, rather than simply follow prevailing opinion.

The interviewer responded with hostility and a seeming  unwillingness to entertain a deviation from the dominant antizionist narrative.

Bigotry and the problem of unfalsifiable claims

Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein provides a useful framework for considering this phenomenon. In his 2026 article, “Antizionism as a Distinct Anti-Jewish Bigotry,” Louis-Klein argues that contemporary antizionism has developed a collection of tropes, particularly the characterisation of Israel through the categories of colonisation, apartheid and genocide. He argues that these can function as “race libels”: accusations embedded within an ideological system that becomes increasingly resistant to counter-evidence.

The defining feature of prejudice is not merely that someone holds a negative opinion. There must always be space given for negative views and critique of Israel, as for every other country. However, an opinion that cannot, even in principle, be changed by contrary evidence has moved away from rationality. Evidence supporting a position confirms it; evidence contradicting it is reinterpreted as propaganda, manipulation or further evidence of underlying wrongdoing.

This is where the Te Ao with Moana interview becomes an interesting case study.

Hakiwai and Waka did not deny the devastation in Gaza. Hakiwai described the conflict as a “brutal war” and acknowledged that Israel may have “come down too hard.” But he rejected the conclusion that Israel was committing genocide. He also placed considerable weight on 7 October 2023. Having viewed footage of the Hamas-led attack, he described seeing young people massacred and elderly people burned. Imagining his own children among the victims, he said, helped him understand the intensity of the Israeli response.

Waka likewise rejected the genocide characterisation. He framed the conflict primarily around Hamas’s hostility towards Israel and Israel’s obligation to protect its citizens. He told Maniapoto, “Do I agree with everything that happens on both sides? No. I don’t think anyone’s perfect in this. What I find the most fascinating is that one side is being globally attacked.”

Journalists should ask the hard questions. A delegation that was sponsored by Israel correctly raises questions about selection, access and purpose. However, when Māori delegates return from Israel with views that differ from those dominant within much of Māori public discourse, are their arguments assessed on their merits, or is their change of mind itself being treated as evidence of something sinister?

Maui Solomon, a Māori leader who declined the trip, suggested that participants may have been subjected to “brainwashing”. The interviewer accused Waka of “sounding just like the Israeli government”. But similarity to an Israeli argument does not establish its falsity, any more than similarity to a Palestinian argument establishes its veracity. The appropriate journalistic question is whether the argument is supported by evidence. 

Otherwise an obvious circularity operates: If delegates condemn Israel, they have understood the evidence. If they become more sympathetic towards Israel, they have absorbed Israeli propaganda. If they say that time in Israel changed their minds, this demonstrates the effectiveness of that propaganda. The possibility that exposure to previously unfamiliar evidence genuinely altered their judgment effectively disappears. That is precisely the kind of self-sealing reasoning Louis-Klein’s framework examines.

Genocide is a serious allegation, but it is strongly contested. There is a body of opinion that supports the allegation that Israel’s conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide, including the 2025 UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, mentioned in the interview. However, there are also serious legal scholars who dispute this claim. They point to Israel’s stated war aims against Hamas, measures intended to reduce civilian casualties, evacuation warnings and humanitarian measures, and the distinction between an intent to destroy Hamas from an intent to destroy Palestinians as a group. David Bernstein, for example, argues that these alternative explanations make genocidal intent difficult to establish under the demanding standard developed in previous genocide jurisprudence.

As of September 2026, the International Court of Justice has not issued a final judgment that Israel has committed genocide. The South Africa v. Israel proceedings remain underway, with the Court still managing written pleadings and interventions. Rather than assert genocide as an established fact, journalists should expose audiences to the both sides of the argument.

This is where Louis-Klein’s framework becomes useful. Has a belief become so firmly embedded that competing information is no longer processed as evidence? Once that happens, disagreement becomes morally suspicious and rationality is abandoned.

The person questioning the genocide designation is no longer merely someone weighing evidence differently. He may instead become an apologist, a propagandist, someone who has been manipulated, or someone whose moral reasoning is fraught. 

This is a serious question for journalists. What evidence would change minds?

Perhaps the most useful question arising from the Māori delegations is therefore not whether Hakiwai and Waka came back with the “right” view. It is whether public discourse still permits people to change their minds or hold an alternative view. Have we reached the point where pressure to conform silences honest dissent? Such intolerance ill-fits the values of a free society.  Louis-Klein’s argument challenges us to consider the dangers of prejudice masquerading as certainty, when categories determine in advance which evidence will be believed, which voices are considered trustworthy and which conclusions are deemed respectable.