by Greg Bouwer
Pacific nations are building relationships with Israel because they see something worth gaining. New Zealand Labour's response is to demand why Christopher Luxon did not try to stop them. Apparently, keeping Israel out matters more than what Israel might bring.
There is something almost comical about the New Zealand Labour Party's reaction to Israel becoming a partner of the Pacific Islands Forum. Almost, because the underlying attitude is considerably more troubling.
Israel has secured a regional partnership focused on water management, desalination, agriculture, climate adaptation and sustainable development. Pacific nations are strengthening diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Three have opened embassies in Jerusalem, and a fourth intends to follow.
And Labour is furious that New Zealand apparently failed to stop it.
Labour's foreign affairs spokesperson, Vanushi Walters, told RNZ that a Labour government would have opposed Israel's admission. Christopher Luxon, she declared, has "serious questions to answer on how this situation has come about and what steps New Zealand took to object."
Read that again. Not what benefits the partnership might deliver. Not whether Israeli expertise could help Pacific communities struggling with water security or agricultural resilience. Not even whether the arrangement is consistent with the Forum's development priorities.
What steps did New Zealand take to object?
The implication is unmistakable. Israel's exclusion is apparently a foreign-policy objective in its own right. Whether that exclusion benefits anyone in the Pacific seems almost beside the point.
The Pacific has spoken. Labour doesn't like the answer.
Israel's acceptance was not a unilateral announcement dressed up as diplomacy. According to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the decision was made at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Palau, attended by Luxon himself.
Israel has been admitted as a Forum Partner, participating in the Sectoral Partnership Stream. This is not full membership, not a seat at the Forum's decision-making table, and not an endorsement of every action taken by the Israeli government. It is a framework for practical cooperation, with a Partnership Action and Commitment Plan intended to identify projects and measure results.
In other words, a fairly conventional diplomatic arrangement.
Yet Labour's reaction suggests that even this limited engagement is too much.
The irony is difficult to miss. New Zealand's political establishment spends considerable time declaring its commitment to Pacific sovereignty, regional partnership and listening to Pacific voices. We are repeatedly told that Pacific countries must not be treated as pawns of larger powers or instructed by outsiders on which relationships they may pursue.
Until, apparently, those relationships involve Israel.
Papua New Guinea opened an embassy in Jerusalem in 2023. Fiji followed in 2025. Nauru opened one in September 2026. Samoa has announced its intention to do likewise. Israel has opened an embassy in Fiji, serving nine additional Pacific island nations.
These are not confused governments waiting for Wellington to explain international affairs to them. They are sovereign countries making deliberate diplomatic choices.
Labour is entitled to disagree with those choices. But if its preferred response is for New Zealand to obstruct a regional partnership, it should explain why its political preferences deserve greater weight than the priorities of the Pacific governments seeking closer ties.
Respecting Pacific sovereignty cannot mean respecting it only when Pacific governments reach the conclusions the Labour party prefers.
Apparently, Israeli water is political
Consider what Israel is actually proposing.
Water management. Desalination. Agriculture. Climate adaptation. Innovation. Sustainable development.
For Pacific countries, these are not fashionable additions to a diplomatic communiqué. They are practical challenges with consequences for food production, public health, economic security and resilience against environmental pressures.
Israel has extensive experience in precisely these fields. Its achievements in irrigation, wastewater recycling, desalination and agricultural technology are well established.
Whether particular Israeli solutions will prove suitable for particular Pacific communities is a matter for those communities and their governments to determine. That is what practical partnerships are supposed to establish.
But Labour's position appears to place the diplomatic exclusion of Israel ahead of even exploring those possibilities through the Forum.
What exactly would be achieved by keeping Israeli expertise outside this framework?
Would Pacific communities have more freshwater? Would farmers have better irrigation? Would island nations become more resilient to drought?
Or would New Zealand's opposition simply deliver the satisfaction of having excluded Israel from another international institution?
There is a peculiar arrogance in assuming that Pacific governments need New Zealand politicians to protect them from a partnership they have chosen to establish.
The ICC is not a universal excuse
Walters invoked Luxon's statement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered New Zealand, referring to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant.
The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel rejects the allegations and disputes the Court's jurisdiction.
But an arrest warrant against an individual is not an arrest warrant against a country. It does not make Israeli agricultural scientists internationally prohibited persons. It does not ban Israeli water engineers from sharing their expertise. It does not require international organisations to exclude Israel from development cooperation.
This is not a difficult legal distinction.
If a person subject to an ICC warrant seeks to enter New Zealand, the government must address its applicable legal obligations. That is a separate question from whether Israel can participate in the Pacific Islands Forum's sectoral partnership arrangements.
Using one to argue against the other is not legal sophistication. It is political theatre. And it raises an obvious question about consistency.
China is a longstanding partner of the Pacific Islands Forum. Its government faces serious allegations of human rights abuses, including the treatment of Uyghurs and the suppression of political freedoms in Hong Kong.
Does Labour believe China should be excluded from the Forum's partnership arrangements? Has it demanded that New Zealand oppose China's participation on human rights grounds?
If Labour's principle is that countries accused of grave human rights violations should be denied regional partnerships, then it should apply that principle consistently. If its position is that Israel alone must be excluded, then it should explain the distinction.
Otherwise, international law becomes less a consistent standard than a convenient political instrument.
Israel is not as isolated as Labour would like
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of this controversy is what it says about the widening gap between the political campaign to isolate Israel and the diplomatic choices being made elsewhere.
For years, anti-Israel activists have demanded boycotts, divestment, sanctions and diplomatic exclusion. The objective is not simply to criticise particular Israeli policies but to make engagement with Israel politically and institutionally unacceptable.
The Pacific developments demonstrate the limits of that strategy.
Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Nauru have opened embassies in Jerusalem. Samoa intends to join them. Israel has expanded its diplomatic presence in the region. The Pacific Islands Forum has now admitted Israel to a formal partnership framework.
These countries have not necessarily endorsed every Israeli policy, nor have they abandoned their own foreign-policy interests. They have simply decided that a relationship with Israel is worth pursuing.
That is precisely what makes the reaction from Labour so revealing.
Israel is offering cooperation. Pacific governments are exploring it. Labour wants to know why New Zealand did not object.
The contrast could hardly be clearer.
The questions Labour should answer
Christopher Luxon should explain New Zealand's position at the Palau meeting. Did his government support Israel's admission? Did it raise concerns? Was the decision reached by consensus? The publicly available announcements do not establish those details, and the government should provide them.
But Walters has questions to answer too.
Would Labour have attempted to persuade Pacific leaders to reject Israel's application? Would it oppose Israeli participation in development projects negotiated through the Forum? Would it seek to restrict Israeli diplomatic representation when New Zealand hosts the Forum in 2027?
Why does Labour oppose Israeli involvement but not Chinese or Cuban or Malaysian or Canadian or any other country’s partnership?
And most importantly, what would the Pacific gain from Labour's preferred outcome?
There is a difference between criticising Israel's government and attempting to make Israel's participation in ordinary international cooperation unacceptable. Labour's stated opposition to this partnership brings that distinction sharply into focus.
A party genuinely concerned with Pacific development should be prepared to assess a partnership on its merits, including its potential benefits, limitations and risks. A party committed to Pacific sovereignty should recognise that its neighbours are capable of making diplomatic decisions for themselves.
Instead, Labour's first instinct was to ask why New Zealand had not tried to stop Israel.
That is not a development policy. It is an exclusion policy.
And it is particularly revealing that the target is a country offering expertise in precisely the areas where Pacific nations face substantial challenges.
The Pacific Islands Forum has chosen to engage with Israel. Several Pacific governments have gone further, establishing embassies in Jerusalem and expanding bilateral cooperation.
Labour would apparently prefer that none of this happened.
The real question is not why Christopher Luxon failed to stop Israel joining the Pacific Islands Forum. It is why the Labour Party thinks New Zealand should be in the business of stopping Pacific nations from working with the Jewish state.