AS Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka celebrated the opening of Israel’s embassy in Suva with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a group of protesters waved Palestinian flags several floors below.
Police moved quickly to stop the protest which Sa’ar dismissed as “not so many’’ people.
Sa’ar said he did not know how many people were protesting in Suva, before turning to the broader Israel-Palestinian conflict and accusing Palestinian leaders of rejecting statehood in favour of destruction.
“The problem of our Palestinian neighbours was always the same. They were never so eager to have their own state as much as they were eager to destroy ours,” Sa’ar said.
This appeared to be reference to the 1947 United Nations partition of Palestine and the subsequent Arab Israeli war.
He said the issue had repeatedly taken a destructive path and argued that the public demonstrations in Suva were misplaced, given the diplomatic and positive developments he said were taking place between the two nations.
Rabuka defended Fiji’s decision to allow the embassy to open and said the matter should be handled through diplomacy rather than domestic political debate.
“That is none of our business. We deal with them at diplomatic level,” Rabuka said when asked how the embassy opening fit with his vision of Fiji and the Pacific as a region of peace, particularly against the backdrop of reported human rights violations in Israel.
Rabuka added that Fiji was working with Israel, a United Nations member state, in a diplomatic framework.
“We are dealing with members of the United Nations and setting up and allowing them to set up their embassy here.’’
He added that allegations of human rights abuses were being handled in the appropriate United Nations court, where Fiji’s submissions would be presented through its representative.
The exchange came as pro-Palestinian groups protested in Suva and Wellington, where the Palestine Solidarity Network staged demonstrations in response to the embassy move.
The protests formed part of a wider regional debate over Fiji’s deepening engagement with Israel at a time of heightened geopolitical tension across the Pacific and renewed scrutiny of the war in Gaza.
