Victor Gordon to The Business Day in response to Cosatu boycotting Israeli made circumcision devices

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Refer:  “Cosatus rejects Israeli circumcision devic”  20 June

Gentlemen, if you have the choice of having your penis circumcised utilizing a discredited device called a Tara Klamp,  widely used in KZN to prevent  AIDS and other STD’s, or opting for a new  non-surgical devise approved by the World Health Organization that virtually guaranteed  your safety, what would  you choose?  A no-brainer according to Patrick Craven, spokesman for COSATU.  Go for the dubious Tara Klamp and enjoy the ride!

Why not the new, safe,  PrePex?  The answer is easy and, of course, completely illogical. The PrePex  was designed and manufactured in (wait for it) –  Israel –  and, according to Craven, it is far better to suffer in pursuit of boycotting Israeli products than use the ‘Zionist-tainted’ but far less painful Prepex.

But then  Craven, presumably, will not be standing in line to undergo his circumcision, so – no skin off his pen …  sorry, I meant ‘ nose’.

Were Craven and his ilk firmly committed to their ideological, anti-Zionist beliefs, they would throw away their cell-phones and  laptops as the technology for both was developed in,  (you guessed it),  Israel. But, like physicist,  Stephen Hawkings, who cancelled his proposed visit to Israel under pressure from the BDS movement while  depending on Israeli  chip technology to enable him to speak, dishonesty and hypocrisy are as common as mother’s milk – but let’s refrain from moving from penis to breast.  Things are confusing enough already. 

Patrick … ever thought of changing your name to Dick?

Victor Gordon to The Cape Times

LETTER  TO THE EDITOR

CAPE TIMES

 

REFER: “Israel accused of torturing children”  21 June

What leaps from this article is the word, “agenda” … that being the continual and oh, so obvious campaign to discredit one country and one country only, Israel.

Those who read continually reoccurring articles of this nature which have become tedious in their regularity and ferocity, must wonder if there are no other ills in this otherwise perfect world,  demanding our  attention. Over 80,000 dead Syrians in a matter of two years doesn’t appear to deserve even a single demonstration outside the gates of that country’s embassy.

Only Israel, the size of the Kruger Park, despite its commitment to full democracy; its accommodation of all religions; its freedom of speech and the press;  its universal  voting rights;  its acceptance of gay rights … in fact everything for which it should be respected and admired,  appears to earn this negative attention as it has since 1948. In this the media is undeniably culpable.

The article referred to (by Reuters’  Stephanie Nebehay),  reports on the latest claims against Israel by the UN Human Rights Commission, notorious for its palpable anti-Israel bias.  With the vast majority of its members comfortable within the anti-Zionist /pro-Palestinian block,  it is inevitable that this body, which has aimed over 40% of all its resolutions against Israel alone, will inevitably produce one damning report after another.  The latest, condemning Israel for its alleged abuse against Palestinian children, lives up to expectations.

As early as paragraph 3 we have a typical example of this “agenda”.  Nebehay writes, “Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank … are routinely denied registration of their birth and access to healthcare, decent schools and clean water.”

It is not the responsibility of Israel to register births and educate Palestinian children as Gaza and the West Bank have their own governments (Hamas and the Palestinian Authority), who bear those responsibilities. This applies to healthcare as well, although it is little known that in 2012 alone, Israel treated  over 180,000 Palestinians in its own hospitals. Only days ago, a 10 year old Palestinian child who had been on dialysis for the past seven years,  received a  life-saving kidney removed from a brain-dead Israeli boy, Noam Naor,  at Israel’s renown Petah Tikvah hospital. The Palestinian father said he was at a loss for words of gratitude. If this was reported in the general media I failed to see it.

With regard to medicines, Israel transports humanitarian aid, including medicines  into Gaza through border crossings every single day unless these crossing points are under attack by elements of Hamas.  These are the truths about which journalists should be reporting but don’t.

Were clean water a problem it is doubtful that the daily scenes we witness on TV news would reveal so many healthy looking Palestinians who certainly do not appear to be suffering in this regard.

The rest of this unbalanced, uncontextualised  and completely biased article carries on in the same mode and can be refuted were space not the issue. Given the opportunity I would gladly do so.

Victor Gordon

Maurice Ostroff responds to Stop the JNF’s Allan Horwitz

Kudos to the SA Jewish Report for giving Alan Horwitz the right of reply to Victor Gordon’s letter of June 7. But right of reply cannot allow the last word in a discussion if it is abused by publishing misinformation which leaves readers with a false impression about the subject under discussion. 

I therefore ask for the right to correct factual errors in Mr. Horwitz’s piece titled “JNF role in forced removals under the loupe”. For those unfamiliar with the word,  a loupe is a type of  small magnifying glass used by watchmakers. And with great respect I suggest that by using a magnifying glass to focus on the minutiae, Mr. Horwitz is depriving his readers of the broader context that is essential to an understanding of reality.

Mr. Horwitz describes as sinister the fact that the JNF was established to acquire land in historic Palestine to be held forever for exclusively Jewish settlement, but egregiously he withholds from his readers the fact that this restriction on land transfers was abandoned as long ago as 2004 when the High Court ruled that the state cannot discriminate between Arabs and Jews in land allocation and furthermore that the couple involved in this case could buy the plot they had applied for at the price prevailing in 1995, when they first sought to buy in the village of Katzir.

Not telling the full story is just as bad if not worse than telling a false story.  Omitting this type of essential information which leaves the reader with a misconception cannot be justified. 

Rather than interpret the JNF intention in 1901 to acquire land by purchase for a people who then had no land of their own as a form of affirmative action similar to those adopted in the USA and South Africa to compensate underprivileged people, Mr. Horwitz regards the JNF intention as sinister. In the circumstances it is fair to ask why he is silent about the fact that several Palestinians have been summarily executed for selling land to Jews in terms of a 1997 PA law authorizing such executions.

Mr. Horwitz’s magnifying glass is so intensely focused on exaggerating every Israeli wart, that he has no comment to offer about Article Eleven of the Hamas charter which states unambiguously that 

“the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day.. any part of it, should not be given up.. This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force..”.

And one must wonder why Mr. Horwitz offers no comparison between the JNF restriction (which no longer applies) and the extant prevalence in Israel and the Islamic world of the concept of Waqf, by virtue of which property donated purely for Muslim religious or charitable purposes cannot be alienated. 

Similarly his reference to relocating Bedouin villages lacks context. In referring to the Prawer plan he omitted mentioning that it contained a proposal that the villagers be relocated in new cities with proper sanitation and facilities and furthermore that the Bedouin be offered compensation of between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion including $365 million for expanding the townships.  It is also highly relevant to note that relocating residents of slums to better housing is undertaken in many countries including South Africa and that it is not uncommon for intended beneficiaries to refuse to be moved to better housing.

A 2005 study titled “Forced Evictions in Johannesburg” by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions reports that in Imbali outside Pietermaritzburg, more than 100 houses built at the cost of over R2 million have been vacant since their completion in 2002 because the intended beneficiaries refused to take occupation or transfer  on the grounds that the houses are too far away from Pietermaritzburg.

The new South Africa is similar to Israel in so far as both must cater for different ethnic communities with distinct cultural and religious backgrounds. Not all citizens are governed by the same law in South Africa. While polygamy is unlawful for the general population, tribal law permits President Zuma to have several wives. 

On June 16, 2012, the New York Times carried the headline “South Africa Debates Law to Support Tribal Courts”. It reports that a widow had to give the court a live sheep, 50 liters of maize beer, two cases of regular beer, two bottles of brandy and two bottles of juice for the crime of breaking customary law by calling the police to investigate a burglary at her house without informing the village headman.

More seriously on Mr. Horwitz’s home ground there is much that deserves his attention and competent pen. In October 2008 the Mail and Guardian published an article under the headline ‘New land Act like apartheid’. It reported that the land ownership rights of about half of South Africa� population hinges on a court action that will affect about 21-million people living under traditional leadership, by handing control of their communally owned land over to traditional leaders for administration. 

Hopefully even Mr. Horwitz will admit that there is something positive and even laudable in the JNF’s achievements as recorded in his article 

�ver the past 109 years, JNF has evolved into a global environmental leader by planting 250 million trees, building over 210 reservoirs and dams, developing over 250 000 acres of land, creating more than 1 000 parks, providing the infrastructure for over 1 000 communities, bringing life to the Negev Desert and educating students around the world about Israel and the environment.

Victor Gordon to The Saturday Star

 

 

 

“In the footsteps of injustice” 15 June 2013

 

Janet Smith’s review of Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan’s documentary, “The Village Under the Forest” is based solely on what this polemicised film portrays; the destruction of the Arab village of Lubya during the 1948 War of Israeli Independence with no real understanding of the true history of this period. If otherwise, there would hardly be so many uncontextualised observations and blatant mistruths.

 

The agenda is set in the 3^rd paragraph where Smith writes that Grunebaum “immediately tells us the truth about this place”, a “truth” based on the film-maker’s subjective interpretation of what occurred, which is superficial at best.

 

Both Grunebaum’s documentary and Smith’s review are based on the rationale behind Israel attacking and subsequently flattening this seemingly benign enclave being to simply eradicate Arab life from this area. This, Smith contends mirrors Sophiatown under apartheid. Such ridiculous comparisons instantly highlights sheer ignorance instead of an appreciation for an historic issue of significant complexity.

 

The eradication of Sophiatown followed an unjust policy of white domination, (quite unlike the circumstances arising from fighting a war of survival against 5 Arab armies) and offers no analogy to the War of Independence.

 

Such emotive statements for no other purpose than to evoke a negative reaction against Israel,  do little to clarify history and, instead, add to the murky waters of suspicion and conflict.

 

Smith’s choice of words in writing that “The Jewish minority in South Africa has undoubtedly been stereotyped as conservative and anti-Palestinian” reveals further ignorance. South African Jews, by and large, are not necessarily “anti-Palestinian” but pro-Israel. The difference is vast but is only understood by someone able to appreciate the difference.

 

Were Jews universally anti-Palestinian, there would hardly be the longing for peace, nor the many offers from Israel to negotiate the creation of an independent neighbouring Palestinian state, supported by the majority of Jews throughout the diasporah. The hatred that exists does not emanate from Jews but from Muslims who live by charters, Koranic verses, Hadiths and weekly sermons calling for the elimination of Jews from the face of the earth. That is the truth.

 

Perhaps Smith and Grunebaum should spend some time reading “Deception”, a collection of over 1500 such statements broadcast over official Palestinian TV (many involving tiny children), each one offering the website, date of broadcast and full verification in order to appreciate from whence the hatred originates.

 

Grunebaum is quoted as saying that the documentary is about “what it means to be accountable to the history of injustice”. The problem is that her assessment of injustice is entirely one-sided. It simply ignores that the destruction of Lubya, in the course of this war, was not without justification.

 

The battle, according to the extensively researched account by the imminent Arab historian Dr. Mahmoud Issa,  is well documented.  Local  Lubya-based militia and Arab forces had ambushed a Jewish convoy on the village’s outskirts, signalling the inability of the Israelis to keep the roads open.  Subsequently, Israeli forces attempted to create a route between Tiberias and the village of Shajara, which required attacking Lubya. Seven Israelis and six Arabs were killed with many more wounded.  Yet, the impression given is that Israel maliciously destroyed the ‘peaceful enclave’ of Lubya for no valid reason other than supposed “ethnic cleansing”.

 

Grunebaum’s claim that the purpose of the forest cultivated amongst the ruins of Lubya  was to merely to “disguise deliberate obliteration” and to eliminate all traces of Palestinian life is, again, strange, as the film contradicts its own assertion by showing extensive ruins of the village. If its purpose was to eradicate all traces of Arab life the Israelis did a seemingly lousy job. Why, also, would this forest have been planted some 16 years after the event?

 

Considering the deliberate construction of the Dome of the Rock directly above the holiest site for the Jewish people, The Temple Mount, in order to erase all traces of Biblical Jewish history,  this claim is indeed rich.

 

Smith’s and Grunebaum’s further one-sidedness is revealed in their dismissal of what occurred to the 800,000 Jews forced to flee every Arab land following the 1948 war with no more than the clothes on their backs. Telling is their apparent disinterest in what remains of the hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses abandoned by refugee Jews after living there for centuries, looted by robber-barons who lost no time in occupying dwellings and premises for which they paid not one cent. So much for the obliteration of history.

 

Israel destroyed Lubya in the course of an unasked for and unnecessary war and not with the purpose of “destroying Palestinian life. The “Nakba” was the direct result of the Arab’s own intolerance and stupidity, repeated again in 1967. So be it.

Felicia Levy to the Saturday Star

 

 

Today there is no excuse f or ign or ance. One can’t help then, but wonder why film makers such as Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan and newspaper rep or ters such as Janet Smith (Saturday Star June 15) choose to dist or t and manipulate facts which are so apparent and easily accessible.

In the case of Grunebaum, one can possibly explain her motivation: the facts simply did not fit the requirements of her unmistakable agenda in making her film. Her aim was to produce a film which p or trayed the Jewish Palestinians in 1948 as  ruthless destroyers of quiet,  peaceful Arab  villages and in so doing demonise and delegitimize the modern State of Israel, accusing it of attempting to ‘cover up’ past injustices. The fact that Lubya  (the Arab village referred to in the film), was the central headquarters of the Arab Liberation Army in the n or th of Palestine and a base from which many attacks were launched against Jewish villages and convoys was understandably, discarded by Grunebaum. The fact that the local Arabs together with the surrounding Arab nations initiated a war against the Jews of Palestine with the aim of destroying the fledgling Israeli State , also did not comply with the film-maker’s agenda and consequently also had to be discarded.

Since these glaring hist or ical facts are apparently not acknowledged or referred to by Grunebaum and Kaplan in their film,  Grunebaum’s claim that the film “…is a complex search f or truth…” gravely undermines her and the film’s credibility.

Smith, refers to the “Nakba” (catastrophe), which befell the Arab Palestinians with the establishment of Israel in 1948, f or which she blames the Jews. The tragedy which resulted in around 700,000 – 100,000 Arabs becoming refugees (not “millions” as exaggerated by Smith) is not, as Smith and others contend the consequence of the establishment of the State of Israel, but rather a consequence of the Arabs rejecting statehood and choosing war and destruction instead. Had the Arab Palestinians chosen to establish their own independent state alongside Israel, there would of course, have been no fatalities, no destruction of villages and no refugees- both Jewish and Arab. Quite possibly, there may today, have been a modern, democratic Arab Palestinian state alongside Israel . Tragically, the Arabs have, f or decades, been consumed with the destruction of Israel at the expense of establishing peace and Statehood. The truth is, that Palestinians are the victims of their own self-destructive choices.

Isn’t it time that journalists examine facts critically and objectively as is demanded by their profession, rather than allow personal prejudices to cloud their judgement? 

Monessa Shapiro to The Cape Times

One wonders as to the motives behind Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan’s making of  ‘The Village Under the Forest’ and their obvious need to distort the truth and obfuscate facts.

 

But more so, one wonders about the comments made by Ms Smith – comments that jar, comments indicative of such ignorance as to the events of the 1948 war.   Are you aware, Ms Smith, that on the day Israel declared independence she was attacked by her 5 Arab neighbours: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq?  You must surely be familiar with the League of Nations Resolution of 1922 that awarded the Jewish people a homeland in the whole of their ancient home of Palestine,(some 28,000 square kilometers) whilst dividing the rest of the Ottoman Empire between the Arab nations (some 750,000 square kilometers); and then UN Resolution 181 which divided what was left of Mandatory Palestine into a land for the Jews and a land for the Arabs (after Britain had reneged on her obligation and given the land East of the Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom in the creation of Transjordan).   The Jews accepted their state even though it was 13% the size of the original mandate of 1922, whilst the Arabs refused theirs and immediately waged war on the fledgling Jewish state. 

 

Do you know that in this war Israel lost 6000 people, 1% of her population, equivalent, in American terms, to 3,000,000 people?   Do you also know that some 850,000 Jews from Arab countries became refugees during this period?  They were expelled or forced to flee, not because they were fighting a war but because they were Jews.

 

In addition Ms Smith, Lubya was not merely a Palestinian hamlet but was the headquarters of the ALA (Arab Liberation Army) in Central Eastern Galilee.  So an objective appraisal of the situation would accept that it had to be a place of major fighting.  And no, there were not “thousands of refugees” escaping the fighting, instead only 2,350.  

 

And so, not in your wildest imagination, Ms Smith, can what happened in Lubya be likened to “Sophiatown, where under apartheid, a racist government destroyed lives to serve its own interests.”  To state that so bluntly is both mendacious and nefarious.

 

Victor Gordon to the Cape Times

Refer: “Seeing the wood for the trees”  7 June 2013

 

Support for the BDS campaign against Israel comes from several sources with one common aim; the weakening and ultimate destruction of the State of Israel. No lesser an opponent of the Jewish State than Norman Finkelstein railed against the leaders of this thoroughly misguided movement for failing to acknowledge this as their ultimate goal.

 

Currently in this country, the various bodies that spearhead the BDS attack against Israel are conjoined under the banner of a new documentary film, “The Village Under the Forest”, the creation of two local Jews, Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan.

 

One might well ask what all the fuss is about. The answer is history – its interpretation and manipulation in the interests of ideology. In this, a notice posted by the BDS movement makes the intent of the documentary perfectly clear. “The film … explores … the role of the controversial parastatal, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in building a forest over the Israeli destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya”, (destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948 during the Palestinian “Nakba”)

The destruction of Lubya was not without justification. During the War of Independence it was defended by local militia as well as elements of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) composed of  British-trained and armed forces from 5 Arab countries as well as volunteers from several other sources. The battle, according to the extensively researched account by the Arab historian Dr. Mahmoud Issa, a senior researcher in the Information Department of the Danish Refugee Council in Copenhagen, is well documented. Local militia and ALA forces had ambushed a Jewish convoy on the village’s outskirts, signalling the inability of the Israelis to keep the roads open. Also, the ALA were adopting the offensive in the eastern Galilee.

In early March, Israeli forces attempted to create a route between Tiberias and the village of Shajara, which required attacking Lubya. Militiamen repulsed the Israelis, killing seven and losing six of their own. However, the impression given is that Israel maliciously destroyed the peaceful enclave of Lubya for no valid reason other than supposed “ethnic cleansing”.

Further on, the BDS notice states, “ …(Israel) construct(ed) … forests above Israeli-destroyed Palestinian villages in an attempt to erase all traces of Palestinian life.” Strangely, the film contradicts its own assertion by showing extensive ruins of the village. If their purpose was to eradicate the village from the face of the earth the Israelis did a lousy job.

 

Were Israel so concerned about hiding Lubya from the scrutiny of the world it is indeed strange that this forest was planted some 16 years after the event.

 

Considering the deliberate construction of the Dome of the Rock directly above the holiest site for the Jewish people, The Temple Mount, in order to erase all traces of Biblical Jewish life, this claim is indeed rich.

 

The difference lies solely behind the intent of both acts. Israel destroyed Lubya in the course of an unasked for and unnecessary war and not with the purpose of “destroying Palestinian life”. Most certainly, this was no priority at that time.

 

One question posed by Grunebaum is why so many Jews in both Israel and the diaspora appear to be so indifferent to the magnitude and implications of  the ”Nakba”? Why are we not all carrying the burden of guilt and remorse depending on which narrative one believes? The answer, I believe, is fairly simple.

 

The day many Jews will feel remorse is when they are convinced that any meaningful number of Arabs feel the slightest reciprocal remorse for what occurred to the 800,000 Jews forced to flee every Arab land following the 1948 war with no more than the clothes on their backs.

 

They will feel remorse when an apology is forthcoming for the massacre of 127 defendants of Kfar Etzion who surrendered to Transjordanian forces only to be slaughtered by their captors and when they hear a whimper of sympathy for the 67 defenceless Jews, including little children who were massacred in Hebron during the pogrom of 1927. The list is endless.

 

While forests partially cover what was the village of Lubya, I am left wondering what remains of the hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses abandoned by refugee Jews fleeing hostile Arab lands after living there for centuries, where trees, no doubt, are replaced by the ominous shadows of looters and robber-barons who lost no time in occupying dwellings and premises for which they paid not one cent. So much for the obliteration of history.

 

This was just another in a long line of Jewish “Nakbas” that we have had to absorb, rationalise and accept.

 

Until this apology is forthcoming, I remain tired of being coerced, by guilt-ridden left-wing Jewish liberals (and others) who wallow in sackcloth and ashes about events that not only occurred 75 years ago but could have well resulted in the annihilation of the entire population of the fledgling state of Israel, following which, I believe, not a single word of regret would have been forthcoming.

 

In conclusion, the destruction of Lubya should never have happened but it did, within the course of a war chosen by the Arabs. The “Nakba” was the direct result of their own  intolerance and stupidity, repeated again in 1967. So be it.

Don Krausz to The Star

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

Letters by Nabila Ismail and M M Allie of 12 June refer.

 

Commenting on Raubenheimer’s “branch of Islam,” Ismail writes that the most vicious and dangerous branches are the “colonialist,” “imperialist,” and, (of course,) the “Zionist” ones of Western hegemony.”

He ends his letter by stating that if Assad falls, the new government will be at the beck and call of imperialists and Zionists.

 

Imperialists I can understand, but Zionists?

 

Allie follows a similar, if more elaborate theme. He mentions the Native Americans who were almost annihilated by colonialists, the Aborigines of Australia, India and the rest of the colonised world.

What, not by the Jews and Zionists?

 

He then elaborates on the sins of the Crusaders. Now there he cannot blame the Jews and Zionists who were victims themselves, unless Allie has a different interpretation.

 

I was impressed by Ismail’s statement that “knowledge is a treasure house and its key is enquiry.”

I therefore looked up Islamic colonialism on the internet and guess what I found?

 

Under the heading The History of Islam on page seven it states:

The Colonial period in the Middle East began with the expansion of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, which at its height (1550) ruled practically the whole of North Africa (excluding Morocco and Algeria), the Western part of the Arabian Peninsula including Mecca and Medina, the whole of Palestine (that is where the Jews come in), and what is now Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, the western part of Iran and, of course, Turkey.

 

In addition it included the Balkans right to the gates of Vienna. Southern Russia including Crimea were annexed.

 

Not bad for people that Allie does not include in his article on colonialism. I wonder why?

Victor Gordon responds to Alan Horwitz of Stop the JNF in the Jewish Report

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALLAN HORWITZ

 

Dear Allan Horwitz,

I refer to your contention that Stop the JNF does not call for the destruction of the State of Israel but rather a negotiated settlement with Palestinians that respects individual and collective rights “as enshrined in various UN Charters and the South African Bill of Rights.” However, I find it strange that you omit Israel’s own Declaration of Independence which clearly states;

“ … that the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”  Why the need to look further?

In 1994 the Knesset amended two basic laws, Human Dignity and Liberty and Freedom of Occupation, introducing a statement saying, “the fundamental human rights in Israel will be honoured …  in the spirit of the principles included in the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel.”

You appear to suggest that Israel excludes itself from “a call for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians” despite its repeated well documented offers to do just that with both Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas (never mind the infamous Khartoum Resolution – the “3 No’s” – following the Six-Day War which effectively slammed the door on future negotiations with Israel for decades to come). It’s unlikely that you would not be aware of this history.

While you demand that Israel “cease its armed occupation and annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its siege on Gaza”, you fail to offer any solution to the very real problem of how it could guarantee that withdrawal would not result in an even worse barrage of missiles than experienced from Gaza. Further, I challenge you to explain what benefit Israel derives from her presence in the West Bank as the cost of remaining in this enclave is horrendous with miniscule reward. Disingenuousness  

Your well-worn demand that Israel “cease its current denial of basic human rights to those under occupation”  is not only frayed at the edges but irritating in its disingenuousness.  

No country having treated 180,000 Palestinian patients in its hospitals during 2012 alone while allowing essential goods to stream across the border with Gaza should be accused so falsely and maliciously. It is the usual empty, dishonest rhetoric that organizations such as yours spew forth daily.

Finally, you wish to show “solidarity with those Israelis and Palestinians who share universal concerns for justice and peace and to confront the Zionist movement with the current reality.”

In layman’s terms, what does this mean? I contend that there are thousands of Israelis across the political spectrum from Left to Right who share these concerns and are far more aware of their implications than you, seated as you are in the comfort of your Cape-based armchair. I also contend that in your mind, “universal concerns for justice and peace” apply to Left-wing liberals alone while all ‘others’ must revel in anticipation of ongoing occupation, all-out war and the potential loss of their sons and daughters.

I am also curious to learn what “the Zionist movement” means to you as you refer to it as some suspicious, troublesome, entity lurking in the shadows of Israeli politics with an outdated  agenda of its own.

Finally, you are naive to think that “non-violent protest against Israel’s policies” remains non-violent. Your organization is close enough to the BDS campaigners to know what  occurred at both the Yossi Reshef concert as well as the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations in Johannesburg.   Not all the members of your organization and your affiliates can be relied upon to behave in a civilized manner and respect the rights of mutual discourse that you claim for yourselves. If, as you say, “the Jewish community should (not) be deprived of freedom of association and assembly” why have you not publicly condemned those who have tried to stifle this right in the past? Your hypocritical silence speaks for itself.

Finally, the matter of the Bedouins is not a simple one for discussion in a matter of a few lines. It is convoluted and complex, no more so than the issue of land redistribution in our own country. At best your comments are simplistic and unsubstantiated.  I respectfully advise you to examine www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/Bedouin.html which provides an extensive overview of the Bedouin and their place in Israeli society.

My advice to you, Allan is quite simple: If you feel uncomfortable about donating your hard-earned cash to the JNF it’s your prerogative to direct your charity elsewhere. We can all exercise the same freedom of choice.

Victor Gordon to The Cape Times

CAPE TIMES
LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

I dislike comparing the practices of one religious entity against another as it an area wrought with nuances and context. Without an honest examination of both,  all claims become meaningless diatribe of little substance.

Sipho Gumede’s response (“Selective truth”  June 3)  to a letter written by Rolene Marks (“Bad sport”, May 31) is a case in point.  While attempting to place the cancellation of the Gaza race in some sort of acceptable context,  he evades the fact that while it all boiled down to Hamas “misguidedly” calling for a dress code for women participants as well as the separation of men and women, it still resulted in the cancellation of the event as pointed out by Marks.

I personally have no problem with that;  if that is the policy of the government of Gaza based on religious principles, so be it. 

But  Gumede couldn’t resist having  a comparative dig at Jewish Orthodox dress codes imposed by the ultra-Orthodox segment of Israeli society, nor the arrest of women who “dared to pray at the Wailing Wall”. Here context again takes a back seat as women may freely pray at the Wall but may not wear the apparel that has been traditionally worn by Jewish men alone. It is this, as well as women carrying the Torah Scrolls, that has inflamed passions amongst some Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sectors of Israeli society.

Personally, I defend neither the Haredi  or the Hamas reaction which, to me, are both extreme.

However, Gumede misses the point that while women (including Arab women) are treated as equals in all other secular sectors of Israeli society (the right to vote, to an education, to work, to travel, to openly practise their religion of choice, etc), this is not the case with Palestinians  under Hamas.  Haredi extremes effect only a small percentage of Israeli women while the imposition of restrictions in Gaza impact on the lives of all Muslim women.

A telling fact according to a recent special report issued by the European Union: “Muslims in the European Union – Discrimination and Islamophobia”  reveal  (amongst many other statistics) that,  while 56% of all Israeli women are employed,  only 13% of Palestinian women work. These discrepancies (see: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/571/620.html )  apply to almost all aspects of both societies and need to be seen in their true light.

As for some incidents of racism directed again Arab and Muslim football players in Israel, sadly, this is the case, as is the anti-Semitic hatred directed against Israeli players who currently turn out for QPR, Chelsea and some European teams.  Even games  against  Spurs, long associated with Jewish support, evoke Nazi salutes and anti-Jewish slurs despite that club not even fielding Jewish players.

Racism in football is a world-wide problem and Israel is no more immune than anywhere else. Hooligans remain hooligans by any standards. However, only Israel has been targeted for opprobrium  by Archbishop Emeritus Tutu and nowhere else. What does this tell us?