Allan Wolman responds to John Dugard (The Star)

Debunking Israel’s self-defense argument by Prof. John Dugard in The Star 28^th November raises some interesting questions.

 

Who would argue with such credentials as a professor of International Law? But then who would expect a man of such repute to manipulate facts to suit his narrative?

 

But first lets place this man in perspective. He served as Special Rapporteur to the UN Council of Human Rights (UNCHR) in the Occupied Territory – this is an “honorary” position and the UN did not employ him. So working for no salary must be a special calling. There are certain criteria such as “impartiality” and “objectivity” required for this appointment, criteria most definitely questionable given his long history of hostility to Israel. Dugard was or is also a permanent “witness” for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine; something that must speak volumes for his impartiality.

 

As a professor of international law the good Prof. explains, “military or belligerent occupation is a status recognized by international law.” and goes on to say; “a state is allowed to occupy a territory acquired in armed conflict pending a peace settlement. But the occupation must be temporary”.

 

Two things that Dugard conveniently omits for his law lecture:

In the aftermath of the six day war in 1967 Israel offered a peace treaty to the belligerent Arab state which was refuted by the now famous three NO’s – therefore would Dugard give his legal opinion on the refusal  (by the defeated belligerent states) to sign a peace treaty that is required under international law?

 

The second question that needs answering is that prior to the 1967 war Jordan had seized and occupied the West Bank ‘unlawfully’, but went further by ‘unlawfully’ annexing that territory in 1950. Egypt did not annex Gaza but was the de-facto ‘unlawful’ occupying power from 1948 until 1967. These two  “unlawful occupations” were never brought under scrutiny or even questioned by the international community notwithstanding that unlawful occupation?

 

Another thing that the professor need clarify – Israel after being attacked by Syria, Jordan and Egypt defeated those belligerent countries and had international law on her side, according to Prof. Dugard. At that time in history there was no Palestinian entity so whose territory was Israel occupying?

 

Dugard’s claim that Gaza is still occupied notwithstanding Israel withdrawal from the territory in 2005, by “controlling the land crossings into Gaza” and who would question a “varsity don clocked in his academic gown”? But, doesn’t Egypt control “land crossings” also? Hope I’m not sent to the naughty corner for disclosing the obvious?

Victor Gordon responds to Barney Pityana (Sunday Independent)

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

A RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR BARNEY PITYANA – “Writing on the wall for the Jewish State”

Sir,

Just when I thought we had scraped the bottom of the barrel with the disclosure that “Dr.” Pallo Jordan had lost his credibility, we are confronted by the most unbelievable article about Israel/Palestine by Prof. Barney Pityana that it has ever been my misfortune to read.

Not only is it biased against Israel to the point of disbelief,  but largely devoid of context and substantiation while wrought with downright lies.  I am forced to conclude that Pityana mixed up Afghanistan with Israel and visited the wrong country.

Sadly, it appears from his article that the “fact-finding” group (replete with other well-known anti-Israel luminaries) spent little, if any, time in Israel other than to use the airport and visit Yad Vashem – and even this venerated memorial to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust did not escape some cynical and snide observations.

The Israel  Pityana describes is not the Israel that I and millions of other, know.  But then we have become used to so-called “fact-finding” visits by Pro-Palestinian Leftist activists who spend a week in the West Bank lead by “neutral” Palestinian spokesmen who ensure that they see the “right” sights and regale them with a bevy of “accurate” information.

How else would Pityana reach the conclusion that Israel is a “rogue state devoid of the rule of law?”  How can a man of his  assumed  intellect, produce such incredible gibberish?  Had he devoted a fraction of his time talking to informed Israelis (even those on the Left),  other than a solitary security guard at the airport (“the only one who appeared to have some humanity left in him”),  he would know that Israel is the most legally constituted sovereign state on  earth, (recognised as such by 160 members of the UN), having gone through an evolutionary  process of ratification starting with the Balfour Declaration (1917), the San Remo Conference (1920) followed by the League of Nations (1922) followed by the Mandate over Palestine granted to the British in 1922 and finally the recognition of the Sovereign State of Israel  by the United Nations (1948).

All of these steps  occurred  under the precepts of International Law and still apply to this very day.  So much for the “rogue state”, recognised as one of the most democratic nations on the planet (See Freedom House –  https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2014?gclid=CNfvr6iBlsICFTHLtAodymIA0A#.VHSYFcknW-p).

Against this, Pityana makes the false claim that “the Palestinians have a … legally-sound claim to the land going back within living memory of the events of 1948”. This is simply untrue as historically there has never been a Palestinian nation in any shape or form with Palestine either under Ottoman rule until 1918 or under British rule thereafter,  until 1948.

As for Israel flaunting the rule of law, Pityana would be surprised to learn that the Israeli legal system (in particular its Supreme  Court) has earned the unqualified respect of the western world; has had an Arab Israeli judge sentence a former State President to a jail term for sexual misconduct ,  as well as a former Prime Minister for corruption.  As for Pityana’s claim that Palestinians have no recourse against Israeli Military law, this is blatantly untrue as Palestinians have open access to Israeli courts and regularly have appeals returned  in their favour.

For Pityana to claim that in Israel there is no rule by law but “rule by fear” shows his mindset throughout his “fact-finding” visit.  Quite obviously, to him, every soldier is a monster bent on shooting, beating, killing and maiming  innocent  Palestinians.  It is virtually a national sport. In the face of such brutality, how would he explain that Israel treats an average of 180,000 Palestinians in its hospitals every year while Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, sent both his brother-in-law and one year- old granddaughter to Israel for urgent life-saving treatment where they were welcomed by the “ghoulish” Israelis with open arms?

With reference to the “wall of shame”, it seemingly escaped Pityana’s notice that this barrier served to reduce suicide terrorist attacks, responsible for the murder of over 1200 Israeli civilians, by over 90%. These are the realities of living in a tough neighbourhood and the measures Israel has had to reluctantly adopt over the years.

Pityana claims that both Jewish and Palestinian activists campaign for a new and peaceful future “at great risk to themselves”.   He then informs us that they can be found on the benches of the Knesset;  serve as academics at both Palestinian and Jewish universities; that both are activists in civil society and work as journalists in a free press. What, exactly, is the “great risk” any of them face?  Beheading perhaps?

Incredibly, Pityana  condescendingly  suggests that “the Jewish people (who have won over 170 Nobel Prizes) would benefit if they were to set aside their victim mentality and enter the brave new world in the community of nations to transform it for the better”.

To say this to a people who in a matter of 68 years extricated themselves from the fires of the Holocaust to flood the world with advanced technology (the cell phone, the Intel chip, the Memory Stick and the laptop), medical discoveries (too many to list),  inventions, ideas, start-ups, culture, music etc, while the 22 nations that surround their spiritual homeland  flounder largely in poverty and ignorance, is both astounding and revealing of Pityana’s warped mindset.

The 14 million Jews who inhabit the world have arguably contributed  more to mankind than any other ethnic group.  Therefore, as with “Dr.”  Pallo Jordan we must assume that Professor Barney Pityana also lives in a world of self delusion.

Considering the 15,000 murders committed annually  in our own country, the horrendous number of rapes, the uncontrollable crime, the ubiquitous fear, the lack of accountability and the circus that serves as our parliament, a fact-finding mission to South Africa could easily be lead to believe that this, and not Israel, is the rogue state to which the erudite  Professor refers.

Victor Gordon

Rolene Marks responds to Journey to the Holy Land (Daily Maverick)

To the Editor

 

Bruce Baigrie’s “Journey to the Holy Land” refers.

At the outset, the fact that this op-ed is written by a committee member of Open Shuhada Street, an organisation founded on the tenets of demonising Israel and simultaneously a member of the UCT Palestinian Solidarity Forum speaks volumes. This was never going to be a balanced view of the situation facing Israel and her Palestinian neighbours. 

There are so many flaws and misrepresentation of facts it is astounding. It is almost as if he went on a mission to look for incidents that incriminate Israel on purpose, after all, he helped organise the itinerary. When the tour was over the group could return to South Africa, into the safety and security of their homes equipped with alarms, walls, fencing and other security measures where they could point accusatory fingers at Israel with righteous indignation.

I am an Israeli citizen. Is there racism in Israel? Yes. Are people treated unfairly? Yes. Is it like any other country with regards to this? Yes. Are there state instituted laws of discrimination? No. Ask MK Zoabi (who would be tried for treason in any other country for speaking out against the state). Ask Supreme Court Justice, Salim Joubran. Ask a myriad of people across the country. But all of this is irrelevant to Baigrie and his friends.

Baigrie speaks about the notable lack of Palestinians in Tel Aviv. Perhaps he should have visited a few safe houses where gay Palestinians have been granted asylum. But then again I wonder how many Jews he met in Ramallah? How many signs like the attached photograph did he see forbidding Arabs or Palestinians from entering due to life threatening danger? These signs exist all along the West Bank and as an Israeli citizens I am forbidden from entering. Or buying property or even living in Ramallah. Mahmoud Abbas has famously stated that no Jews would be allowed to live in a Palestinian state. Smacks of Apartheid to me.

 

How many ordinary Israelis did your group meet with Baigrie? Scared you may have come across such a variety of views and truths it would have blown your Israel is an Apartheid state accusation wide open?

This article was published a few days after 4 Rabbis and a Druze police officer were slaughtered. Care to comment Baigrie? 

If there is to be any movement forward for both sides, perhaps people like Baigrie should leave the righteous indignation at home and visit with an open mind.

Rolene Marks

Modiin

Israel

Allan Wolman to the Sunday Independent

Barney Pitanya reporting on his ‘civil society” fact-finding mission to Israel, made up with delegates who to a man have a well documented history of bias and hatred of the Jewish state- this was no fact finding mission this was a dirt digging exercise with a predetermined outcome.

 

He describes the security measures that his group ‘endured’ –security measures dwarfed by those measures when entering the U.S. and Europe but it’s the subliminal impression he tries to create, naturally he fails to mention that his group were not even required to have visas to visit and malign Israel.

 

Again who would question his statement “protests, However peaceful, are illegal” So Barney these protest actions by Palestinian youths that the international news networks have reported in Jerusalem just this past week are illegal – really? Legal protests by Palestinian are a common occurrence every Friday.

 

Notwithstanding all the repression and brutality he describes, he trips himself by contradicting everything he says by writing that so much dissent “can be found in the opposition benches in the Knesset, among academics both at the Palestine and Jewish universities, and civil society activists, as well as journalists who continue to uphold freedom of expression in that troubled region” These institutions sound very much like the cornerstones of democracy??

 

So this was a fact-finding mission by civil society activists to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. We have read what Pityana has written and it seems that his focus was in one direction only, criticizing everything about Israel except for the weather.

 

Perhaps in his next installment we might read about his findings in:

Palestinian schools and Mosques of the occupied territories where hatred of the Jew is the  subject of choice and children inculcated into a culture of hatred and aspiring to death instead of a life of potential?

Or he might offer details of the treatment of the Christian community in the West Bank.

The delegates might want to elaborate on the life expectancy in the occupied territories being the highest in the entire Arab world and infant mortality the lowest.

And did  the delegates discover just how many Palestinians are treated in world-class Israeli hospitals annually?

 

It’s not about the Palestinians!! The Arab world stands guilty of the greatest oppression of the Palestinian people. These Arab nations deny citizenship, education, healthcare and jobs to over a million Palestinians who languish in pitiful refugee camps. Syria stands guilty of massacring thousands of these hapless people. No its not about the Palestinians is it Barney?

Victor Gordon responds to Jews for a Just Peace

JEWISH REPORT

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Clearly, despite their protestations, Jewish Voices for a Just Peace (JVJP) keep questionable company. For a start its manifesto appears in Amandla, an on-line publication that describes itself as “New Left and anti-capitalist … providing coverage and analysis of issues from a radical perspective”.

Articles listed concerning the Israel/Palestinian conflict are almost all blatantly one-sided and antagonistic towards Israel. Typical is, “Is Israel really like apartheid South Africa” by one Jaamia Galant with the answer predictably in the affirmative.

Despite the claims of their three spokespersons, Leonard Shapiro, Jessica Sherman and Rina King, that they have no affiliation with BDS or the radical American “Jewish Voices for Peace” (JVP), their sidewalk demonstration outside Huddle Park on Sunday 3^rd August against a rally in support of Israel  was openly endorsed by BDS, while JVJP boss, Leonard Shapiro, took part in a pro-Palestinian solidarity march with a BDS leaflet openly displayed on his t-shirt.

As for keeping the American  JVP at arms-length,  a recent article in Jewish Report On-line by journalist Michael Coetzee  (http://www.sajr.co.za/news-and-articles/2014/11/23/jvjp-disingenuous-on-bds-jvp-stance)  reveals that JVJP  hosted  Dorothy Zellner, a representative of  JVP during her recent visit to South Africa.

Having waded through the ‘Amandla Manifesto’,  which nobly calls for “peace, compassion and meaningful dialogue – as well as a commitment to speaking out against abuses of power and the perpetration of human suffering and injustice”, two features stand out within the tone and content of the entire text;  abuses of power and the perpetration of human suffering and injustice applies only to Israel.  “No Jew, and no human being can in good conscience support this Israeli military aggression”.  There is no attempt to place this “military aggression”  in any context.

In a thoughtful gesture of even-handedness,  JVJP  rejects “the indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas rocket fire”, correctly calling it “morally wrong and illegal under international law”. However, this recognition is immediately dampened by the excuse that “the true context of Gaza should be acknowledged in order to understand why some of its inhabitants have resorted to such desperate measures”. No mention is made of the continual incitement on PA TV and in Palestinian schools to eradicate Israel and kill Jews.

To understand these ‘desperate measures’ we refer to the article by Shapiro, Sherman and King that appeared in The Jewish Report  (21-28 Nov 14) titled “Thou shalt not bear false witness”.

“Central  to these violations”,  write the threesome, “is the ongoing occupation … of the West bank and Gaza Strip”. It’s here that JVJP part company with many of us who take a more truth-based view  of things – for anyone who can seriously claim that Israel occupies Gaza after its wholesale  evacuation in 2005 is seriously delusional.

Reading all the statements by JVJP that I am able to find, there is one ongoing,  glaring omission. Not once is there any acknowledgment of Israel’s security.  The untenable risk that Israel would be forced to take by completely withdrawing from the disputed West Bank and exposing its citizens to an undefendable attack,  seems of little interest to JVJP, none of whom would have to live with the consequences.

Of premier concern to JVJP is the morality of Israel’s actions and its alleged human rights abuses, as if Israelis themselves are blissfully ignorant of what occurs daily in their lives within the course of a 67 year-old war.  Demands for heightened morality on the Palestinian side are rarely mentioned.

Finally, JVJP calls for a just resolution to the conflict as defined under international law.  What we never see in any similar articles/letters  is a clear definition of the international law to which they refer. I would respectfully suggest that the closest would be UN Resolution 242 which the Palestinians have ignored since 1967 but which still offers the best hope of a lasting and realistic solution.  Against this the morality inherent in the conflict is irrelevant.

Victor Gordon to The Argus

THE ARGUS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re:  “Soldiers kill Palestinian man”

Unforgivably, The Argus avoids placing its grossly misleading headline, “Soldiers kill Palestinian man” into any form of context.

The impression conveyed is that the man was simply an innocent bystander killed for no apparent   reason  without  any effort to explain that he approached some soldiers wielding a knife.

This incident followed two separate stabbing attacks resulting in the deaths of an Israeli soldier as well as a 26 year-old ex South African woman waiting for a bus.  Eight years earlier, she had also been stabbed during a terrorist attack.

Just a week ago, citizens waiting for a train were purposely run over by an Arab driving a motor vehicle causing further deaths and injuries, including the murder of an infant.

How difficult would it have been to write a headline reflecting the full picture instead of cynically suggesting that ‘brutal Israeli soldiers’ had wantonly killed an innocent  man?  One expects more from a leading newspaper such as The Argus.

Allan Wolman to The Star

Dear Mr. Richie

 

Congratulations on your appointment as the new Editor of The Star. The news comes with the hope that the editorial policy of your newspaper will now reflect a more balanced view of the Middle East problem and more specifically the Israeli – Palestinian issue.

 

Media bias against the Jewish State since the Gaza war in July /August this year by the mainstream press is certainly a cause for concern and The Star is no exception. There has hardly been a week that your newspaper has not published a derogatory report or opinion without allowing any reply reflecting an opposite viewpoint.

 

Allow me to highlight just one example (there are many more one can cite) of this type of biased reporting.  I submitted the below Letter to the Editor on the 18^th August in response to an opinion piece printed in The Star the day before:

 

Whilst most major newspaper represent a certain political view most do try to also present some semblance of a balance in the interest of journalistic integrity. After all isn’t this first rule of journalism?

The Star has now for some weeks been running a vicious campaign of extreme vitriol that has fanned the flames of anti Semitism that was last witnessed in the 1930’s in Germany. When a newspaper continues to print opinion pieces that do not present the full picture the result is not only dishonest but borders on thought manipulation.

Today’s full-page op-ed by Kim Sengupta being a case in point!

Firstly who is Kim Sengupta is he a journalist of international repute that deserves a full page in your paper? Is he someone whose opinion resonates a credible discourse? Or is he simply writing with a bias (or perhaps hatred), which seems the case.

Just last week I personally sent to you, the Editor, an article written by Dennis Ross and published in The Washington Post. Dennis Ross, counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, served as President Bill Clinton’s Middle East negotiator and was a special assistant to President Obama from 2009 to 2011.

Surely with such credentials Ross’ piece would have warranted similar exposure as Kim Sengupta in today’s publication, again who is Sengupta? And who is Dennis Ross?

This is where the dishonesty, bias and lack of integrity of your newspaper is exposed – your editor is simply ignoring any veneer of an attempt at balance – ignoring that there is another narrative to this conflict ignoring most importantly the TRUTH!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hamas-could-have-chosen-peace-instead-it-made-gaza-suffer/2014/08/08/eefd2b48-1d83-11e4-82f9-2cd6fa8da5c4_story.html

 

During the first week of October, The Star published a scathing attack on Israel by a member of an advocacy group, Suraya  Dadoo. It is known that an opposing advocacy group requested the right of reply to that op ed which fell on deaf ears, where is the balance?.

 

To further demonstrate the extent of media bias: Matti Friedman a former Associated Press (AP) bureau chief describes when as a reporter for AP that agency had 40 staff members stationed in Israel which was far more than all the AP personnel stationed in Russia, China, and the whole of sub-Sahara Africa – this at the time of the Arab Spring! – During the uprising in Syria this agency only had one reporter covering the carnage in Syria.
Friedman highlights this media frenzy against Israel in that during 2013 the Israeli – Palestinian conflict claimed a total of 42 lives yet that same year almost 100,000 civilians were violently killed in Syria, yet where was the media focused?