New Zealand foreign minister Murray McCully in Israel

New Zealand foreign minister Murray McCully arrived in the Middle East in a push to get Israeli and Palestinian leadership back to the negotiation table.

While at a function at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and asked by the New Zealand Herald how soon peace talks could resume Mr McCully said: "my first preference would be tomorrow morning".
New Zealand is set to have a pivotal role when it commences chairing the Security Council in July but Mr McCully is under no illusion of the challenges ahead in getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian head Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table after over a year hiatus.

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Credit to Twitter user @SarahRoseNZ . The above video and article came up in Sarah's Twitter Feed.

This is just plain embarrassing. Murray McCully making a fool of himself is a symptom of the disease that is afflicting New Zealand's foreign policy. The disease is New Zealand's foreign policy being based on idealism.

The reality of international events has played little part in successive government's foreign policy decisions. The beginnings of what I view as a tragic disease was in 1984. The Lange government's adoption of the anti American Nuclear Ban was based on left wing derangement syndrome and not intellect/sound policy.

The Israeli and Palestinian conflict bears no relation to the not so new reality's the Middle East region is facing at present. The observant reader will notice how the Israeli and Palestinian conflict has been quiet of late. In my view the Palestinians have rightly concluded that Isis and not Israel is the real enemy.

The Palestinians have had a lot of successes winning the propaganda war in the western media. During the last limited excursion by the Israel Defence Force into Gaza the Palestinians won the battle for favourable publicity in the world's press.

Simply gaining favourable media coverage won't save the Palestinians from genocide at the hands of Isis and other Islamic extremists , after a wider war has broken out in the Middle East region. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Israel and the Palestinians are sharing intel concerning the threat posed by Isis and other Islamic extremist factions.

My prediction is that in the coming war the Kurds , Palestinians and the remnants of Israel’s Jewish population will be allies in the fight against Iran. The Kurds , Palestinians and Jews will be in a bitter struggle for their own survival.

Coming back to the present it is worth examining the body language of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and McCully in the above video. Netanyahu can barley hide his feelings from the camera. Netanyahu must have felt like he was hosting one of those in laws you just dread having around at Christmas time. You know the in law someone’s better half insists on inviting.

McCully gives the feeling that he never really wanted to accept the invite to a mid year Christmas lunch. Pressure from his side of the family (his role as Foreign Minster) saw him attend the event. All in all New Zealand's diplomatic efforts in the Middle East have all the makings of a gross failure.