Declare your city Genocide-free. Lessons from New Zealand’s Nuclear-free movement.

Today I attended a demonstration outside both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Israeli Embassy in Wellington. The day before, the Israelis had blown apart 174 children in Gaza in a surprise attack that announced the next phase of the Genocide.  About 174 Wellingtonians turned up to a quickly-called protest: they are the best of us; the best of Wellington.  

In 2023 the City made me an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian for service across a number of fronts (water infrastructure, conservation, coastal resilience, community organising) but nothing I have done compares with the importance of standing up for the victims of US-Israeli violence. What more can we do?  And then it crossed my mind: Declare Wellington Genocide Free.  And if Wellington could, why not other cities?

New Zealand’s nuclear-free campaign

The nuclear-free campaign back in the 1980s, is a template worth reviving. 

Wellington became the first capital in the world to declare itself nuclear free in 1982.  It followed the excellent example of Missoula, Montana, USA, the first city in the world to do so, in 1978.

These were tumultuous times. I vividly remember heading into Wellington harbour on a small yacht, part of a peace flotilla made up of kayakers, yachties and wind surfers that tried to stop the USS Texas from berthing. It won that battle that day but we won the war.  

This was the decade which saw the French government’s terrorist bomb attack on a Greenpeace ship in Auckland harbour to intimidate the anti-nuclear movement. 2025 is the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira. Little Island Press will be reissuing my friend David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire later this year. It tells the incredible story of the final voyage of The Rainbow Warrior. [For more on this].

Standing up to bullies and choosing independence

Labour under David Lange successfully campaigned and won the 1984 elections on a nuclear-free platform which promised to ban nuclear ships from our waters. This was a time when we had a government that had the backbone to act independently of the US. Yes, we had a grumpy relationship with the Yanks for a while and we were booted out of ANZUS – surely a cause for celebration in contrast to today when our government is little more than a finger puppet for Team Genocide.  In response to bullying from Australia and the US, David Lange said at the time:  “It is the price we are prepared to pay”. 

With Wellington in the lead, nuclear-free had moved over the course of a decade from a fringe peace movement to the mainstream and eventually to become government policy.  The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 was passed and remains a cornerstone of our foreign policy.  

New Zealand took a stand that showed strong opposition to out-of-control militarism, the risks of nuclear war, and strong support for the international movement to step back from nuclear weapons.  It was a powerful statement of our independence as a nation and a rejection of foreign dominance. It also reduced the risk of contamination in case of a nuclear accident aboard a vessel (remember this was the same decade as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine). 

The parallels between the nuclear-free campaign and Palestine

Each of those points have similarities with the Palestinian cause today and should act as inspiration for cities to mobilise and build national solidarity with the Palestinians.  

To my knowledge, no city has ever successfully expelled an Israeli Embassy but Wellington could take a powerful first step by doing this, and declare the capital Genocide-free.  We need to wake our country – and the Western world – out of the moral torpor it finds itself in; yawning its way through the monstrous crimes being perpetrated by our “friends and allies”.   

Shun the Israelis until they stop the genocide 

No city should suffer the moral stain of hosting an embassy representing the racist, genocidal state of Israel. Wellington should lead the country to support South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, end all trade with Israel, and end all intelligence and military cooperation with Israel for the duration of its genocidal onslaught.  Other cities should follow suit. 

Declare your city Nuclear and Genocide Free.

Eugene Doyle

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz.

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