By Juliet Moses on Plainsight…

On 15 May newbie Wellington City Councillor Nikau Wi Neera tweeted a photo of himself grinning like a schoolboy who has just been gifted a PlayStation and clutching a piece of paper. The accompanying proclamation explained that it was a notice of motion signed by 8 councillors to debate Wellington recognising the state of Palestine, becoming sister cities with Ramallah, and “in celebration” lighting up the Michael Fowler Centre in the colours of Palestine in one year (it being what the Palestinian people refer to as “Nakba Day”). This was, he said, in solidarity with the Palestinian community, “whose people have struggled under occupation on their own land for decades”.

Twitter is not representative of the wider population, of course, but the overall tone of the replies to him were less than wholeheartedly supportive. A small sample includes “just fix the bloody pipes and get the buses to run on time”, “just what we want from our local councillors – controversial international politics. Don’t worry about the obscene rates increases”, “…you’ve got bigger issues. This isn’t Uni”, “the funny/sad thing is most of your Green Party whanau would be dead in the State of Palestine” and a few, including mine, asking about the borders of the state.

It’s fairly standard business for councils to establish sister cities. I have visited Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian territories twice, which is pretty rare for a Jewish person, and prohibited for Israelis, due to it being too dangerous for them. (In 2000 two Israelis took a wrong turn there and were lynched, the gruesome photos of which are hard to forget). It seems like a modern bustling city, with towers and pristine well-stocked supermarkets that would leave ours to shame. I am not sure what the criteria are for a sister city, but I would assume they do not include having shared values or synergies, given Ramallah is a city where LGBT are routinely persecuted, general elections have not been held since 2006, and selling land to Jews is punishable by death. Never mind…

Read the full article on Plainsight here.