Victor Gordon to The Mercury: Refers” “Killings don’t reflect Islamic ideology”

By ridiculously claiming that “you have not seen Muslims anywhere in the world indiscriminately attack Israel over the past 60 years … neither has Hamas or Hezbollah attacked a Jewish person outside of the occupied territories”,  Nahla Moosajee must think that we’re all Alice living in Wonderland.

Are we seriously expected to simply wipe from the slate sixty years of recorded history in which Israeli civilians were killed from the very birth of the nation in 1948, (ignoring the 67 religious Jews massacred in Hebron in 1929), followed by 5 major wars; 134 suicide attacks that marked the 2^nd Intifada accounting for 1200 Israeli civilians killed with many thousands wounded; the countless number of rockets fired into Israel  by Hamas over the years resulting in dozens  killed and hundreds wounded (not to mention the emotional trauma caused to mainly children);  the bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in Argentina by Hezbollah in 1994 which killed 86 Jews;  the attacks on Jewish installations in Mumbai,  Brussels, Paris, Copenhagen  and many,  many more, none of which had any connection with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and can only be attributed to Jew-hatred.   All these attacks were perpetrated by Muslims motivate by Islamic ideology which, in itself, originates directly from the pages of the Holy Qu’ran.

Since the birth of the Jewish State approximately 25,000 Israelis have died at the hands of her traditional enemies, being  armies of the Arab/Muslim states or terrorist groups such as the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad etc.  For Nahla Moosajee to come up with so obtuse a claim displays either her total ignorance of the realities or a desperate wish to white-wash the indefensible.

Victor Gordon to The Mercury: Refers: “Open your eyes to atrocities”

THE MERCURY

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers:  “Open your eyes to atrocities”

With the article, “Open your eyes to atrocities – empathy for others is at an all-time low”,  the unnamed writer unwittingly discloses the hypocrisy that exists within the Human Rights Council of the UN.

Quoting a 2014 Amnesty International Report, 82% (131 countries of 160) tortured or otherwise ill-treated people under their control;   58% (93 of 160) conducted unfair trials where justice was not served for the accused, the victim of the crime or the public,  while 124 countries were guilty of human trafficking of both genders and children for sexual exploitation as well as forced labour and other purposes.

With these  figures  in mind, “ UN Watch”, an organization dedicated to monitoring the doings of the UN Human Rights Council, reported that unfailingly, the annual so-called “Hate Israel Day” was duly observed on the 23 March.  This is a yearly UN circus directed solely and openly against the Jewish state during which Israel gets its own ‘special treatment’  under  Agenda item 7.  Under a separate Agenda Item 4, the situations of Human Rights of all other 193 countries of the world are examined.

While there was not a single report (and therefore  no resolutions adopted) on gross and systematic human rights abuses by countries such as China, Cuba, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela and the Congo,  by the end of the week the Council had adopted 11 resolutions against Israel.

In the face of such hypocrisy, Israel is expected to take seriously the barrage of resolutions directed against her by the various arms of the UN.  Under such circumstances, what self-respecting  country would?

Monessa Shapiro to the Sunday Independent

So the peace process is over, says Ms Dadoo.   But Ms Dadoo, it was over long ago – long before you or I were part of this world.

It was over in 1948, when the Arabs refused a state alongside a Jewish state (given to them by the United Nations in terms of UN Resolution 181), and attempted instead to drive the Jews into the sea.  It was over in 1967 with the 3-no’s of Khartoum (Israel offered to return land captured in the 6 Day War in return for peace) – No to peace with Israel, No to negotiations with Israel and No to recognition of Israel.

 But within our memory this peace process was over as well Ms Dadoo. Remember 2000 when Ehud Barak offered Arafat 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza and East Jerusalem as a Palestinian state?   Instead of seizing the moment Arafat launched the Second Intifada on Israel, cold- bloodedly murdering thousands of Israeli men, women and children.  2005 and the evacuation of every Jew from Gaza is only 10 years ago.  Ariel Sharon and the world envisaged that Gaza, as a Palestinian state, would become the Singapore of the Middle East.  Instead the citizens of Gaza used the infrastructure, worth billions, left them by the Israelis, as launching pads for rockets that they fired into Israel aimed at Israeli civilians.  They then voted in Hamas as their government and Hamas has as part of its charter the annihilation of Israel and the murder of all Jews everywhere.   So much for peace!  Has your myopia caused you to forget 2008 and Ehud Olmert’s offer of 98% of the West Bank, with land swops, and East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian State?  You must recall that Mahmoud Abbas refused this offer.  And then in 2014 Abbas made a unity pact with Hamas. The same Hamas that fires rockets into Israel and digs tunnels into Israeli communities with the intention of kidnapping and murdering Israeli women and children.  The same Hamas that is hell-bent on the total destruction of Israel.

 So while I pray for peace, Ms Dadoo, and naively hope that it will still come about, the reality proves otherwise.  For only when a generation of Palestinians unfolds, that accepts Israel’s existence and that wants to live in peace with it, will there be peace.   And it behoves you, as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, to encourage the Palestinian leadership and people to accept this responsibility.

Allan Wolman to the Sunday Independent

A terrorist attack in Tunis – 23 tourists killed and the Islamic State (ISIS) claiming responsibility.

ISIS actively operating in Libya, a failed state where anarchy reigns and the death toll continues to climb.

Egypt gripped in ongoing violence with thousands killed since the Arab Spring of 2012.

Pakistan reports daily suicide bombing with the death rate running into scores of innocents.

Afghanistan has been in turmoil for decades and the human rights abuses and killings continue.

Iraq, that part not under ISIS control has its share of secular violence with suicide attacks a daily occurrence.

Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations continue with public beheadings and floggings.

Iran executes more underage children than any other country, hangs gays, and stones women to death.

Lebanon suppressing over half a million Palestinians deprived of most human rights under an apartheid system. Yes Palestinian! is Dadoo aware of this?

Yemen’s ongoing cycle of violence continues – thousands dead.

Almost half of the Syrian population languishing in abysmal refugee camps in surrounding countries existing on UN handouts with little healthcare and no education for millions of children.

All the above accounts for tens of thousands of deaths and unspeakable human rights abuses, all pale in comparison to the tragedy unfolding in Syria and ISIS controlled “Caliphate” where according to UN sources the death toll is in excess of 240,000 people.

Of course there is the ongoing catastrophe in the Ukraine where again thousand killed in a war lasting since last July 2014.

Africa continues the slaughter in any number of civil conflicts where millions have died these past few years.

But where is Suraya Dadoo and her media review network colleagues focused? Not one single country mentioned above has ever experienced democratic elections. But Dadoo is focused on the only country to have just had democratic elections (an event that happens with regularity every 4 years or so for the past 65 years). But no that’s not good enough for the her, democracy is bad news for this region – rather let the Middle East continue to erupt in an orgy of death while her group sits by and watches without so much as a “tisk, tisk”.

But hold democratic elections for its entire population regardless of color, religion, sexual persuasion no, no that’s not good enough for the media review network.

Now lets for a moment imagine that whatever Dadoo fabricates about Israel and Netanyahu are true– and even if its not Egypt enforcing the siege of Gaza – is what is happening there worse than what is going down in every country in the Arab world?

So what is the answer – perhaps lets close Israel down move all the Jews out and hand that country over to the Arab despots  – or better still let the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) takeover – now there an attractive alternative to the state of apartheid

The question is who will take those 6 million Jews of Israel? Of course, those countries who were willing to take them in the late nineteen thirties, and we know who they were!

 

 

 

 

Don Krausz to The Business Day

The Letters Editor,

Business Day.

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

RE: PEOPLE IN PALESTINE HOSTAGE TO DEEP DISUNITY by Prof. Mia Swart.

 

This article demonstrates an interesting phenomenon. People have both intellect and emotion, but often the emotion overrides the intellect. This becomes apparent when those of undoubted intelligence seem unable to apply it to subjects that they feel strongly about. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s identification of apartheid in Israel and stating that it is far worse than what he experienced in Verwoerd’s South Africa is a case in point. Those of us who lived in both countries for years know that there is no legislated apartheid in Israel.

 

Professor Mia Swart was not granted her academic recognition for nothing, but then neither was she employed by the grossly anti-Israeli United Nations without justification.

She states that the only sweetness to be found in Gaza is in strawberries, and I have no reason to fault her taste. But she also writes of children killed on a beach by mortar fire and of a fisherman killed by the Israeli navy. She uses the term “occupation” and is of the opinion that Gaza is the largest prison in the world.

 

She appears oblivious of the fact that Israel ended its occupation of the territory in 2005

after conquering it from Egypt in a defensive war. Every Israeli settler and soldier was withdrawn from the Strip. So why does Swart refer to an occupation or does she not know the meaning of the word?

 

Neither does she mention the fact that the Hamas that rule Gaza are viciously hostile to Israel and Jews in general, have called for Jewish annihilation in their charter and over the years have launched more than 14,000 missiles at civilian settlements in Israel proper. That these missiles have caused comparatively few casualties can be attributed to the shelters that Israel provides for its people, yet every single one of those weapons is launched with the intention to kill and maim. Those rockets and mortars are manufactured in Gaza and imported from Arab states such as Iran. Hence the blockade that Israel enforces by sea and land on the area in order to prevent such supplies from reaching the Hamas. Israel does allow essential food, fuel, water and building materials into the territory, only to find these materials being used in the construction of tunnels below its borders and under neighbouring Israeli settlements.

 

Those tunnels into Israel are not there to promote tourism and sightseeing, Prof. Swart.

 

Victor Gordon: Refers: “Islam in eye of the storm”

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers:  “Islam in eye of the storm”

In a major article addressing the problems that plague Islam and which qualify as the main causes of the scourge of fundamental radicalism, it took Ebrahim Rasool no more than 42 words before he blamed the establishment of the state of Israel for what he termed, “the pre-eminent catalyst for all conflict in the region and in the world from 1948 to the present”.

The remainder of his lengthy and flowery diatribe sets out to blame all the ills that plague Islam’s adherents  on everyone and everything other than their own inadequacies. And of course, true to centuries of tradition, the Jewish state – that convenient scapegoat of 6 million people,  tops the list.

While I hate to confuse Rasool with facts, perhaps he should consider the following:

According to statistics compiled by eminent Professors Gunnar Heinsohn and Daniel Pipes,  some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which “only” 35,000, or 0.3 percent, ied during 8 wars and over sixty years of fighting Israel.  In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims. 200,000 deaths have occurred in Syria alone during the past 4 years with ISIS rapidly catching up.

What this internecine  hatred has to do with Israel is beyond rational reason.

Of the 67 conflicts listed, which, since 1950, have resulted in more than 10,000 deaths, the conflict between Israel and the Arabs/Palestinians  has caused 51,000 deaths on both sides and occupies 51^st position on the list. This pales into virtual insignificance when compared to position 1, being  the 40 million killed by Red China from 1949 to 1976.

After bending over backwards to excuse the inadequacies that pervade the majority of Muslim states and to lay the blame at the feet of America and Israel, Rasool does his own people a gross disservice by failing instead to encourage them to face up to their responsibilities of building a future based on the tried and tested principles of democracy, tolerance and acceptance of “the other” instead of, (as once said by the late Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban about Yasir Arafat), “to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” .

For someone with Rasool’s obvious intellect (who else uses words like “interregnum”?) to fall back on the Hitlerian ploy of blaming the Jewish state for all the ills of mankind is immensely depressing and revealing of his true distorted beliefs.  How sad and how dangerous for all.

Don Krausz to The Star: RE: WITNESS TO THE TRAGEDY IN GAZA.

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

RE: WITNESS TO THE TRAGEDY IN  GAZA.

 

The Romans coined a phrase: “Mea Culpa,” meaning I AM GUILTY. Since then those words have seldom been used.

 

I have studied Nazi, Communist and Moslem propaganda without encountering the courage and honesty required to face up to one’s own guilt. Today’s article is no different.

 

The article has been authored by Professor Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven who is Jewish and states:”Having collected the evidence myself, I can say with absolute certainty that what Israel is doing in Palestine does not merit exceptionalism to international human rights norms and standards.”

 

So far, so good.

 

She states that she began medical school in 1979, long after the totally unprovoked attack by Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries in 1948 on the +/- 650,000 Jews in Israel in which 6,000 Jews were killed and 30,000 wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia. 1% of Israel’s Jewish population; equivalent to SA suffering the loss of 500,000 of its citizens on the battle field.

 

This is never referred to by those who defend Palestinians.

 

But then we have someone who writes a summary to this report and appears to take a very different point of view. Cause and effect are completely ignored.

 

This is the third time that Israel has attacked Gaza, not because of bloody-mindedness, hatred or colonial ambitions as some assert, but because the powers that be in Gaza chose to launch 14,000 missiles and counting at civilian settlements in Israel proper.

 

I have visited Sderot, an Israeli settlement within sight of Gaza which at the time of my visit had been hit by 4000 missiles. I saw the shelters in front of every block of houses, the double roofs on the schools to withstand impact, spoke to the infants in the missile-proof crèche and noted the signs of trauma in their little faces.

 

In the summary of the report many allegations are made which are open to question.

One such is the statement that “the initiators of the attacks …failed to take the requisite precautions that would effectively have enabled the safe evacuation of the civilian population. This includes the provision of safe spaces and routes. As a result there were…no safe escape routes from (Gaza.)”

 

Surely the Hamas instigators of the launching of 14,000 missiles into Israeli civilian territory could have foreseen that Israel would retaliate with the results described in the previous paragraph? And yet, as always, Israel is blamed.

 

As to the assertions of “prima facie evidence …of international violations of human rights

and humanitarian law,” surely those who instigated the rocketing of civilian settlements in Israel proper ought to be judged as the originators of this terrible conflict, just as happened to the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials.

Allan Wolman to The Star

Out of the blue, but not surprising though, The Star published yet another demonizing report on its opinion page “Witness to the tragedy in Gaza” and reporting on the finding of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) seven months after the events that they witnessed.

 

The reason for this opinion piece is pretty obvious and conforms to the editorial policy the Independent Newspaper Group, never to miss the opportunity to rubbish Israel but ignore the real human right tragedies within spitting distance of where your humanitarians are writing.

 

Yes the two thousand lives lost was indeed a tragedy but this was war and things happen in war, yet if these Physicians had listened to the account of Col. Richard Kemp CBE, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, of the conduct of the IDF forces in Gaza, they might have formed a different opinion. Well perhaps not, given the bias of those involved in this report.

 

The report certainly does not make mention of how many combatants were included on the casualty list, how could they if those combatants wear civilian garb. Neither will the report detail just how many civilians were killed being used as human shields – something that has been well documented not only by honest journalists but UN personnel, where rockets were fired from schools and hospitals. No these facts are so conveniently omitted.

 

 

The PHR-I investigating this tragedy seems oblivious of the 240,000 killed in Syria and almost 8 million Syrian refugees (according to the latest UN estimations). Two hundred and forty thousand deaths are a mere “statistic” not a tragedy. It might interest these concerned humanitarians to note that many of the injured Syrians are being treated in Israeli hospitals – certainly something that Baldwin-Ragaven would not have heard about.

 

That 240K death toll “statistic” might well elude this fact finding mission but why aren’t   they visiting those Syrian refugee camps where these 8 million hapless Syrian including many million children are languishing and perhaps they might discover a greater tragedy, and more importantly a greater need for their services. Millions for children having coughed through the harsh winter and with noses continuously running and little or no medication to alleviate their suffering. How many of these refugees are dying while these Physicians are busy  digging up dirt in Gaza rather than acting true to the oath that they are sworn to uphold? 

 

Over $5bn have been pledged by donor nations to the rebuilding of Gaza, how much has been raised to alleviate the suffering of these refugees? For four years these Syrian children have had no education and little hope of ever getting any which leaves a whole generation of destitute people ripe for radicalization and no prizes for guessing just who are waiting in the wings to recruit them.

 

Allan Wolman to The Witness

Talk of spewing hatred, rich indeed coming from Iqbal Jassat of Media Review Network!

Jassat claims Iran “is projected by Netanyahu as a danger to Israel’s existence primarily because the Islamic Republic is, well, Islamic.” Really! When public statement are made and repeated that Israel should be wiped off the map and threatened with annihilation – that’s not because “Iran is Islamic” no sir that’s because Netanyahu takes those threats very seriously, and with good reason as “stupid” as you think he is. 

 

Playing down the nuclear threat Jassat need ask why Iran is pursuing a “peaceful” nuclear program, a country literally drowning in oil and the second largest producer of natural gas in the world, why do they need to build expensive nuclear power stations when they have such a cheap source of energy under their feet? Needles to say Iran have developed their long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe and the U.S. solely to deliver mail!

 

Of course no conversation from this group would be complete without mentioning how Iran broke off relations with South Africa during the struggle. A quick Google search will inform the writer that Iran was a major supplier of oil to South Africa during the apartheid years, so perhaps he need question just how squeaky clean Iran is or was.

 

It’s not about the occupation, the occupation would come to an end in a heartbeat if the Palestinians were able to come to the table and make compromises only half as much as Israel is expected to.

 

It’s not about the occupation. Prof John Dugard (Dean of International Law – Leiden University – certainly no friend of Israel), who citing International law, saying that “a state is allowed to occupy a territory acquired in armed conflict pending a peace settlement. But the occupation must be temporary”.  In the aftermath of the six day war in 1967 Israel offered a peace settlement to the belligerent Arab state which was answered by the now famous three NO’s.

Who sir, occupied that territory prior to the six day war on 1967, Jordan not only illegally occupied the West Bank but annexed that territory in 1950 while Egypt also illegally occupied Gaza for the same period.

 

It’s not about the occupation, given the number of times the Palestinian leadership have rejected a peace settlement with the assurance of an end to the occupation and on terms far more favorable than what they are now demanding.

Ending the occupation and having a Palestinian state would defeat the end game  – that being the destruction of Israel. Whilst the occupation continues, world sympathy will side with the Palestinians.

 

It’s not about the occupation – the UN recently raised over $5bn in aid to rebuild Gaza, but raised less than $1bn to fight Ebola! End the occupation and you end a huge industry – an industry that siphons billions into the coffers of Palestinian leaders (Arafat’s estate estimated at over $2bn!!!), an industry that employs hundreds of UN personnel, any number of NGO’s paying their staff and lets not forget the free business class travel and five star hotels, cocktail parties and other freebees, no, all this would come to an end if the occupation were to end and who would be so ‘Stupid’

No it’s not about the occupation??

 

Don Krausz to The Star

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

Dear Sir,

 

RE: LEBOGANG SEALE’S ARTICLE: PROTEST DOES NOT RESONATE WITH ALL.

 

The article deals with the protests against assumed Apartheid in Israel. It is a most instructive article and worthy of study.

 

We who have experienced apartheid in South Africa and spent years living in Israel know that there is no legislated apartheid in Israel as there was in SA. Saying otherwise is quite simply false, whether by Desmond Tutu or those propagating hatred.

 

A look at the photo of the demonstration shows that the participants are overwhelmingly African. Have they visited Israel? Have they ever bothered to speak to an Israeli? Hardly likely, because the practice of those organising such demonstrations is to forcibly prevent any contact with visiting Israelis, such a musicians. They subject local firms that refuse to be intimidated by them to similar action in order to prevent them trading.

 

One demonstrator admitted that she did not know why she was participating. She was following instructions from the SACP. Would she know anything about Israel’s history or of the murderous attacks against that land over the years that had resulted in tens of thousands of Israeli men, women and children being killed and wounded?

 

Would those marching have been able to find Israel on a map?

 

Another marcher had a more reasoned reaction. She was participating because of the

“universal appeal by Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat and that that was good enough for her.”  Mandela did state in one of his speeches that until those lacking freedom such as the Tibetans, Chinese, Palestinians and other persecuted peoples were liberated there could not be universal freedom, or words to that effect. Fair enough, but then when were the BDS protesters, members of the SACP and ANC going to commence marching against China, Russia, Isil, Boko Haram, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc. etc.

for their gruesome and abhorrent treatment of their own citizens, those captured or of other faiths, of their women, gays and even little schoolgirls wanting an education?

Israel has been acknowledged as the only democratic country in the whole of the Middle East.

 

Yasser Arafat became notorious as one of the principal instigators of terrorism with the blood of thousands on his hands. I once read the account of a Western journalist who accompanied Arafat to a training camp for his fighters. To prepare them for the task at hand Arafat had them killing chickens. This journalist described how Arafat was dissatisfied with the efforts of his trainees and personally showed them how to tear a live fowl to pieces with his bare hands. Truly worthy of emulation.

 

No doubt Deputy Minister Obed Bapela and Suraya Dadoo of the National Coalition for Palestine must have been proud of Arafat as well.