Victor Gordon responds to Joseph Dana in the Mail & Guardian

 

Ref:  “Israel’s policies come home to roost”

 

When did context disappear as a prerequisite for good journalism –  or is it only where Israel’s concerned?

The article, “Israel’s policies come home to roost” which focuses on the problems facing Israel following an influx of 60,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, is a case in point, paying scant attention to the fact that this minute country has limited space and resources both of which are already strained to cope with the thousands of  legal emigrants mainly from Ethiopia. At this level, competition for the limited semi-skilled jobs available is rife.

Why no questions about Egypt’s lengthy history of shunning these desperate people, starting well before the advent of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’?  In fact, Egypt’s response to their crossing the Sinai in trying to reach Israel is not to help them but shoot them. Few, if any have been welcomed into any of the other Arab countries in the region.

It would serve context to mention that Australia, with all its excess space and resources, has placed a cap  on the acceptance of Vietnamese “boat people” and now despatches any new illegal arrivals to the island of Papua New Guinea. Strangely, this fails to raise any question mark over Australia’s commitment to democracy.

Neither is mention made of the fence constructed by Spain to curb the influx of illegal immigrants from Morocco, or that erected by the USA to keep out illegal Mexicans.

As for the snide reference to Israel allegedly “sidestepping the past” by President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu “declining” an invitation to Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, the contextual version would have mentioned that Pres. Peres, who is 90, was suffering from flu and unable to undertake so demanding a journey, while Prime Minister Netanyahu’s security could not be assured in the time available.   Sadly, it should be acknowledged that when it comes to Israel, security is a major issue that is of little concern to the vast majority of other countries. Despite this, Israel was represented by a 7 man delegation led by the Speaker of parliament.

Finally, it is strange how Israel’s (undefined) “relations with Africa” are regarded as “nefarious” while the dozens of other countries, both developed and developing, who enjoy identical dealings with Africa, elicit no questions. Similarly, Israel’s links with Apartheid South Africa regularly raises an eyebrow while those between the latter and the UK, USA, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Iran and a host of others, are never questioned.

When will the Mail & Guardian pay head to this level of hypocrisy in the interests of fairness and simple truth?

Ben Levitas responds to Joseph Dana in the Mail & Guardian

How conceitful and self righteous to focus on Israel’s refugee problem, when it is trying to deal with an intractable problem in a humane manner. Israel is offering at its own expense to repatriate these people that entered the country illegally and pay each of them in excess of R15,000 for agreeing. Contrast this with Saudi Arabia that recently forced 150,000 Ethiopians to vacate the country, at their own expense. Contrast this with Pakistan that is forcing thousands of Afghan refugees, of which there are about 800,00 thousand legally registered and about 2 million unofficial refugees, to return by force to Afganistan. Pakistan pays scant attention to any human rights considerations, even forcing children apart from their parents, and depositing them on the border, with no food and completely vulnerable. Contrast this with the millions of hapless refugees emanating from the fallout of the ‘Arab Spring’ that are  floating around in great distress in refugee camps supported by the United Nations and other relief agencies. These and refugees fleeing from the conflicts in the Sudan, Eritria and Somalia, are savagely beaten, raped and killed as they make their way overland across Egypt and North Africa, to try to enter the safe haven of Israel. How can Dana accuse Israel, when it alone in the region is an oasis of safety for refugees?  While Dana refers to refugees in Israel living on the margins of society, at least many are leading normal lives and others are taken care of by various NGO’s within Israeli society, without being a drain on non Israeli charities. When the best nations are criticized, and the worst offenders are ignored, only more suffering will ensue, as the criminals are unhinged from bearing any responsibility.

The problems faced by Israel are similar to those faced by many democratic countries. Being a well run, economically successful country, Israel and other democracies act as magnets for people deprived of freedoms in their home countries. The chaos sweeping across the Muslim world, with the internecine Sunni-Shi’ite strife, and the struggle between people seeking more secular and democratic societies pitted against those wanting more religious, Salafist societies, has caused thousands to flee.

On the 22^ND July 2013, Australian Prime Minister, Rudd declared that all refugees arriving by boat would be redirected to Pupua New Guinea, Australia’s neighbour.
“From now on, any asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in Australia as a refugee,” Rudd said. Surely Australia with triple Israel’s population, with considerably more land and space, can do better and therefore deserves more opprobrium than Israel.

Surely Europe which is without a coordinated refugee policy, deserves more criticism than Israel, as refugees are housed in overcrowded temporary camps, particularly in Lampedusa and in other locations in Spain, Greece and Bulgaria. Europe has a population more than twenty times Israel’s and so should be in a far better position to absorb refugees.   

Is Dana proposing that Israel subject the refugees to the harsh conditions that they face in Saudi Arabia and the Emirate Gulf States, where their rights of protest are denied and they can be summarily imprisoned and repatriated to their homes countries.?

Dana should have the courage to admit that Israel, unique in the Middle East,  lives up to the highest standards of democracy, by allowing public protests and unfettered access to the media.  He should also acknowledge that refugees have had a very detrimental effect on the host society- contributing  to the increased incidence of  crimes, such as rapes and burglaries. The government of Israel, like any democratic government,  is responsible for the safety of its citizens, and is justified to be concerned by the influx of criminal elements and to take necessary policing actions.

Is it not ironic that a liberal newspaper in South Africa, a country which has a terrible record of xenophobia has the audacity to focus on Israel’s handling of refugees? Yet again, the Mail and Guardian fails the test of journalistic balance and reveals a ready predisposition to criticism Israel, even when the criticism is unwarranted and ignores far worse abuses committed by other countries.

Rolene Marks responds to Joseph Dana in the Mail & Guardian

 

To the Editor

The article “Israel’s policies come home to roost refers”.

It seems that pointing fingers at Israel and singling out the Jewish State for opprobrium is a sport that many journalists excel at. This latest offering by Joseph Dana is no exception.

Dana flagellates the Jewish State for the current policy on African asylum seekers. The situation is far more complex than Dana would have you believe. A country the size of the Kruger National Park with hostile neighbours on its borders is in a precarious position. Don’t think for one second that this doesn’t tear at our national consciousness because it does. Israeli’s would love to offer asylum to those who seek it but we also face our own social issues as does every other country in the world. Nobody is asking why they don’t accept refugees.

As an Israeli citizen who grew up in South Africa, I am proud that despite the difficulties African asylum seekers face, they feel free enough to take to the streets and demonstrate peacefully. This is in stark contrast to the xenophobic attacks I witnessed in South Africa just a few years ago. It is easy to parade figures like Eli Yishai, a clear minority voice and make him the poster child for xenophobia in Israel. He does not speak for all Israelis.

Israel has and continues to do remarkable things for the African continent in fields as diverse as agriculture, health and technology. Perhaps this could explain the growing groundswell of support from ordinary citizens for the Jewish State. Why doesn’t that get coverage?

Castigating Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Peres for not attending Madiba’s funeral is just a cheap shot. But that seems to be common practice amongst many journalists who exploit Israel’s open and democratic nature to report what they want.

People in glass houses should not throw stones lest their chickens come home to roost.

Rodney Mazinter esponds to Joseph Dana in the Mail & Guardian

Dear Sir

 

The problem with commentators like Joseph Dana is their obsessive focus on minutiae to the exclusion of contextual events on the periphery and in the wider world. (Israel’s policies come home to roost M&G January 24, 2014).

Dana does not ask the obvious questions such as why do these unfortunate migrants walk the equivalent distance of Cape Town to the Angolan border, through burning, waterless deserts, dodging a civil war in the Sudan and Egyptian soldiers who use them for target practice, in order to seek succour in Israel, whose soldiers, far from killing them provide food, water and medical care?

Dana parrots the view of other leaders in the West who believe that Israel should adopt policies on immigration or continue to make concessions towards matters that would never be tolerated in their own countries.

Dana’s report is so obviously slanted one would think that there is a paucity of stories coming out of the Middle East.

Take for instance U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, who the other day insisted, disingenuously, that, if Bashar Assad would only leave power, everything would go well — especially for all of Syria’s minorities, Druze, Christian, Ismailis, Alawites.

The problem in all these matters is that we have precedent — exact precedent. We’ve seen this paradigm before and know precisely what happens once strongman dictators are deposed.

In all Middle East nations where the U.S. has intervened to help topple dictators and bring democracy, it is precisely the minorities who suffer first. And neither the U.S. nor “the world” do much about it.

After the U.S. toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered and terrorised to near extinction, and dozens of their churches were bombed.

Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Qaddafi, torture and killing have ruled. The world stood by and watched.

Once the Muslim Brotherhood replace Mubarak in Egypt, the persecution of Copts practically became legalized, as unprecedented numbers of Christians—men, women, and children—were arrested

If Dana really wants to write about the Middle East why not highlight the plight of Christians, Copts and other minorities. Now, that is a real story.

 

Don Krausz responds to Robert Fisk

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

Robert Fisk’s article on Ariel Sharon of 14 instant refers.

 

Sharon spent nearly all his life fighting and sacrificing for the three thousand year old land of his people. His CV is fascinating and his military campaigns, that even defeated Russian plans in 1973, are being studied in military academies worldwide.

 

He was a general, and as every intelligent soldier knows, even if to his cost, a general cannot fight a war without sacrificing soldiers. But not Fisk.

 

The terrorists whose plans he thwarted or punished, those who subscribe to the aims of Azzam Pasha, the Secretary of the Arab League, who stated at the start of the totally unprovoked Arab and Palestinian attack on Israel in 1948: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades,” they are the ones that delight in calling Sharon the Butcher of Sabra and Shatila.

 

Let us examine his background in order to gain an understanding of the man, and the facts as brought before the Israeli Kahan commission of top jurists who eventually found Sharon responsible for the tragedy.

 

1928. He was born in an agricultural settlement north of Tel Aviv named Kfar Malal.

1929. Kfar Malal was razed by Arabs.

1942. Joined Haganah to help defend Jewish villages against Arab attacks.

1947. Partition Plan. Fights off Arab attacks.

1948. Five Arab countries and Palestinians attack Israel. Sharon severely wounded.

1953. Father of Counter Terrorism. Heads Commando Unit 101 formed after repeated        

          Arab infiltrations kill hundreds of Israelis

1981. Sharon becomes Defence Minister.

1982. Oversees Israeli invasion of Lebanon in an attempt to halt terrorist attacks on  Israel by multi-thousand-man Palestinian army (PLO) and to rid Beirut of Syrian troops.

PLO retreats from Lebanon and Syrian troops evacuate Beirut.

 

WHY WAS SHARON NOT RECOGNISED AS LIBERATOR OF LEBANON?

 

During August 1982 the elected Phalangist Christian President of Lebanon was assassinated together with 25 associates before he could take power. There were still heavily armed Palestinian units in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila. In dislodging the Palestinians in Lebanon the bulk of the fighting and casualties had been borne by the Israeli army. This was giving rise to complaints from the Israeli public and so the Lebanese Christian Falange troops were ordered to attack these Palestinians. They did so one week after the murder of their President and the vengeful Falange committed a terrible massacre amongst the Palestinian refugees, men, women and children, living in those camps.

 

Sharon was Minister of Defence and had to accept overall responsibility. Responding to the popular outcry and horror in Israel, top Israeli jurists formed the Kahan commission and found Sharon culpable of negligence.

 

He should have anticipated the barbarism of the Falange.

Felicia Levy responds to Robert Fisk

The Letters Editor

The Star Newspaper.

 

To his credit, Robert Fisk is consistent. (The Star 14 January 2014). With Fisk, there are no surprises; no original thought either for that matter. Israel and her people are always the ‘baddies’! His views are simple, one-dimensional and predictable. When considering Israel and her Arab neighbours there is, for Fisk, only black and white; there is no grey:- no context; no other side of the story; no complexity. Israel is always the aggressor, the perpetrator, the villain; her Arab neighbours, always the helpless, innocent, peace-loving, victims. For Fisk, Israel has never had to fight for her right to exist, never had to defend herself against Arab armies committed to her destruction and never needed to defend her civilian population against terrorists who believe that murdering Israelis is an honourable cause worth dying for. 

 

 Not surprisingly then, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli, is portrayed by Fisk as a brutal, cruel, warmonger and his Palestinian counterpart, Yasser Arafat as a peacemaker who made “…more concessions…than any other Palestinian leader”.  Facts which might contradict this simplistic portrayal would need to be ignored by Fisk, since their consideration would complicate his dichotomous framework: Israel- “ruthless aggressor”; Arab/Palestinian- “innocent victim”.

 

Fisk scores zero for honest investigative journalism, but full marks for bigoted consistency.

Victor Gordon to The New Age

NEW AGE

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Your unsigned letter, “Sharon fought against peace” refers:

 

Devoid of any context, the writer refers to Ariel Sharon as a “brute of a man (who) aggressively encroached into Palestinian territory in the West Bank in total disregard of human rights and international conventions in order to build his apartheid-like settlements”.

Placed in true context: Since the 1967 Six-Day War and the resulting UN Resolution 242 calling for the warring parties to negotiate mutually safe and secure borders (which, to date, the Palestinians have consistently refused to do), the West Bank has remained  “disputed territory”. As much as the Palestinians have adopted the right to live in Ramallah, Jenin, Bethlehem, Hebron and a host of other towns, Israel reserves the right to create settlements of her own until this matter is resolved.

While arguably unwise, this is not in contravention of international law.

Because Israel acquired control over the West Bank following a war of self defence, she has every right under international law to remain in occupation until borders are determined and her safety is assured.  Ironically, the writer ignores the fact that the Six-Day War was launched against Israel with the openly declared aim of achieving a second Holocaust. The thought of the victorious Arabs/Palestinians withdrawing from a defeated Israel is laughable.

As for Sharon “presiding over the massacre of hundreds if not thousands of innocent refugees” – the writer obviously refers to the atrocities perpetrated by the Lebanese Christian Phalangists in the Sabra and Shatila Refugee Camps  (just days following the assassination of their leader), in which 400 to 800 (exact figure disputed) were slaughtered in an orgy of self imposed brutality. Sharon had no direct involvement in this woeful episode but was nonetheless deemed responsible for “failures of foresight and supervision”. He subsequently resigned as Minister of Defence as this tragedy occurred on his watch.

With regard to Sharon allegedly “spurning Yasser Arafat’s proffered hand”, perhaps the writer will provide us with the relevant details as it’s an event of which I have no knowledge.

Undoubtedly, Sharon was a “hard man” who, in the demanding circumstances under which Israel exists took decisions that were sometimes controversial, paradoxical and often courageous. Predictably, they would not be to the liking of Israel’s enemies as they were aimed unwaveringly at Israel’s survival in a region consumed with hostility.