Monessa Shapiro to Ha’aretz

Uri Klein writes that ‘no Israeli film has delegitimized the state.’  The films, he says, are a mere critique of an aspect of society.  This would be great in any normal country but Israel is simply not viewed as any normal country.   As a South African I can vouch for the fact that no country hits our newspapers, our TV stations and our radio talk-shows as does Israel.  Over two hundred thousand people have been killed in Syria, but our journalists grow rich on their stories about Israel.  Christian children are beheaded but our government officials shout of Apartheid in Israel, worse they say than was ever experienced in South Africa.

In 2013 two Israeli films came to South Africa.   “The Invisible Men” and “Within the Eye of the Storm” wowed audiences throughout the country.  Both these movies purport to represent the truth.  And both probably do.  But herein lies the crux.  There are two types of truth: the whole truth and segments of truth.

‘The Invisible Men’ depicts the lives of three gay Palestinians who seek refuge in Israel because as homosexuals, their lives, in Palestine, are in danger.  Yet they cannot gain legal status in Israel because ‘Palestine’ is considered enemy territory.  A below-the –radar Israeli organization assists them obtain asylum in a country in Europe.  But this means leaving their language, their culture and all that is familiar behind.   The men’s anger at Israel for not granting them asylum is palpable, whilst they gloss over the fact that they were forced to flee Palestine.   Israel is portrayed as a free and open society but it is the message of it being closed to Palestinians – “I was born here,” says Louis, one of the protagonists – that is all pervading.   And so the movie becomes an affirmation for the viewer, fed the diet of Israel being a racist, Apartheid state, that Israel is just that.  At no point is context provided.

 In her movie, ‘Within the Eye of the Storm’ director Shelley Hermon follows two fathers, both members of the peace organization ‘Combatants for Peace.’  One is an Israeli, and the other a Palestinian, and each have lost a daughter in the conflict.   The Israeli girl, Smadar Elhanan, was killed in a suicide bombing, while the Palestinian, Abir Aramin was shot by an IDF soldier outside her school, at a range of 40 metres, with no provocation.   Many Palestinian children have tragically died as a result of the conflict, but most as a result of being human shields, or because they were in the line of fire during an attack, and yet Hermon saw fit to make an entire movie centred round the extremely rare occurrence of an IDF soldier purposefully shooting a ten year old.    Of course once again the audience salivated over the message that IDF soldiers shoot children for target practice, a confirmation of something they have heard and read about continually.  Interestingly, when questioned in a Q&A after the screening of the movie, Hermon had no idea how many Palestinian children have been killed in this manner, and yet she chose to make a movie with this as its central theme.

The movie is replete with images that feed into the preconceived belief that Israel is a racist Apartheid state: the fence is depicted as concrete and only concrete; the slogans displayed “Occupation is racist”; the attitudes of the Israelis interviewed are harsh and unbending, far-removed from wanting peace.   Where were those who seek peace and who feel empathy for their fellow human beings?

Do these movies depict truth? I accept that they do, but they depict a selective truth and because Israel is not viewed or judged as a normal society, this is dangerous, extremely dangerous. Movies such as these travel the world, and are screened for gullible, ignorant audiences who are only too happy to have their perceptions of Israel confirmed by ‘loyal’ Israeli film directors who profess deep love for their country.  They are veritable fodder for the BDS and other such nefarious groups.  The damage they cause is irreparable for to present half-truths is to obfuscate the truth?  It is as good as the untruth.

Rodney Mazinter to The Cape Times

he Editor

The Cape Times

Dear Sir

On page 4 of this morning’s Cape Times, (Mixed reception for UN report accusing Israeli army of war crimes in Gaza),  you draw the readers’ attention to the just released report of the UN Human Rights Council, a body made up of largely undemocratic dictatorships whose behaviour towards their own citizens is as far removed from human rights principles as you can get.

The world we live in is an upside-down, Alice in Wonderland world. This UN Council claims to act in defence of human rights, but their actions and findings  do not reflect this. They give free passage to the worst abusers of human rights — countries that persecute religious minorities, suppress and kill women, throw homosexuals from high roofs, execute hundreds of dissidents every year, imprison, torture and slaughter their own citizens, separate its citizens along religious and racial divides and creates an entire underclass of second class citizens– without rebuke. 

Yet they rage against Israel, which does none of those things. It does not use torture, it does not execute anyone, not even Palestinian terrorists who have committed mass murder against innocent civilians and children — and all this while being forced to defend itself against more wars, more terrorist attacks, and more hatred than are suffered by the rest of the world combined.

The UN Human Rights Council deserves to have its report rejected and deserves the contempt of decent people holding accepted standards of moral behaviour. We have a right to expect this.

Don Krausz: RE: SUNDRY ARTICLES ON “OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE.”

Today’s Star (24/6) on page 15 lists horror stories and statistics, some of which are in dispute. That is nothing unusual in a war situation, especially when the witnesses are traumatised and the authors have preconceived ideas.

 

We have been living with wars for ages, although few have been so horrible and devastating as in the last century or so.

 

So whether we conclude that the UN report is factual or biased or its inevitable Israeli rebuttal, one fact remains beyond dispute: any country that instigates or involves itself in war will pay a terrible price.

 

Where the survival of its citizens is at stake it may have no choice. But where that is not the case, then the instigators must be held liable and bear the consequences.

 

When Germany began its air raids on Britain during the Blitz, 51,000 Britons died. Churchill then promised his devastated countrymen that he would return every bomb tenfold and he did. Germany attacked Russia and was confident that it would destroy Communism within the foreseeable future. Today both countries are extant, but at least thirty million lives have been lost. What have the USA and Japan gained from their war? Rockets to the moon and the atom bomb?

 

When a state the size of the Kruger National Park was created by the UN to preserve and safeguard the remnants of European Jewry, the Arab world and the Palestinians attacked it with the words:  “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

The result was the death of 1% of Israel’s Jews, 30,000 of its citizens wounded and the so-called Naqba.

 

When Gamal Abdel Nasser prepared to attack Israel in 1967 and proclaimed that when his troops set foot onto the Sinai desert the sands would be soaked in blood, he did not anticipate that six days later his army and that of Syria andJordan would have been defeated.

 

As long as people speak of Master Races and Subhumans, or promote the killings of Infidels, (Afghanistan: Maulawi Mohamed Hanif, after slaughtering 15,000 Hazaras in a day – “Hazaras are not Muslim. You can kill them. It is not a sin.”), or teaching in their Palestinian schools to hate Jews and that the flag of Islam must fly from the river (Jordan) to the sea, then UN resolutions and peace conferences are futile.

 

Then our youth become cannonfodder and those manning the guns mere pawns. Then there is no point in fingering underlings and blaming them.

 

Who inaugurated the hatred? Who set the rocketing and terrorism in motion knowing that retaliation had to follow? What was their motive, what did they have to gain? Universal approval?

 

When the game of chess is over, the pieces are returned to their boxes, often literally.

The players will sit down over their drinks, win or lose.

 

Like France and Germany today after the deaths of millions. Or the USA and Japan.

 

Don’t be fooled! Don’t be caught up in the artificially induced hatred! We are all human beings that want the best for our families and ourselves. Don’t be misled by the press and the pulpit!

 

You and your families will die while the warmongers survive and thrive.

 

Don Krausz: RE: Sam Ditshego’s article: There are many to blame – and they must be prosecuted

The man lists all the individuals and countries that he believes guilty of genocide and violations of human rights in Africa. He includes Israel.

I am reminded of the story of a Jew and a Nazi who both share a cabin on a ship. The Nazi immediately upbraids the Jew for being guilty of all the crime and warfare in the world. The Jew lets the Nazi finish and then quietly adds:  “And the bicycle riders.”

The Nazi is astonished and asks: “Why the bicycle riders?”

And the Jew replies: “Why the Jews?”

Let us examine the role that Israel has played in AFRICA..

She is accused of having assisted the Apartheid regime commercially. The Nationalists did trade with Israel but to a far greater extent with major countries and most of the oil that kept the Nats going came from the Arabs.

Israel’s role in Africa has been very positive.

Her technical, medical and military experts have assisted the continent almost since her creation in 1948.

In 2013 she inaugurated an 11-month agricultural apprenticeship programme in Uganda.

Students from S.E.Asia, Africa and S.America were introduced to the latest agricultural innovations during group tours in Israel. The same were provided to farmers and students of desert agriculture.

Remember, it was Israel that gained world renown for “making the desert bloom.”

Israel ran international exhibitions for agricultural technology at which greenhouse cultivation, rural development, post harvesting technology, green energy, improvement of quality and shelf life of harvested fruit and vegetables were taught as well as energy efficiency.

She ran courses on fish farming, conducted agricultural study tours, taught how to combat desertification and introduced students to revolutionary Israeli farming methods.

They were taken to profitable dairy farms where the milk production was the highest in the world.

There are places in Israel where the rainfall is as little as 2 inches per year. When the UN divided Palestine between Jews and Arabs, the Jews were allocated the greater portion. Nobody thought of mentioning that 60% thereof was the Negev desert. Well, the Israelis found ways to make that desert bloom and have been teaching it all over the world. California is the latest client.

She has developed methods of re-using 86% of her effluent water and so has become affluent! Central Europe only reuses 1%, but then Europe has better water supplies.

Israel has developed a system that can locate microscopic leaks in water pipes and patch them on the spot. Her water purification technology has aroused the interest of Brazil, India, China and Spain.

In the field of medicine she has been most innovative with new medications and techniques being created almost daily.

When disasters struck in Haiti, Turkey, and lately in Nepal, her medical army contingents were not only the first on the scene but also provided the greatest number of assistants. So efficient were her doctors that helpers from other countries often passed their more serious cases to the Israeli doctors.

Not bad for a “shitty little country” that according to Sam Ditshego is only mentioned for its genocide and violations of human rights.

Victor Gordon re : We Stand firm with a Monster

CITY PRESS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers: “We stand firm with a monster”

The respect I previously held for Mondli Makhanya has suffered a severe setback.  Sadly, it took no more than a mere 7 words to reveal the prejudices of a journalist whom I had previously held in the highest esteem.

In his otherwise excellent op-ed, “We stand firm with a monster” (21/6/15) which castigates the government for it’s disgusting display of hypocrisy in allowing international criminal, Omar al-Bashir to not only enter this country but depart without fear of arrest,  Makhanya lists just three of the 70 countries that are non State parties to the Rome.  They are Russia, China and the US.  There is no reference to  a host of others including Lebanon, Malaysia, Yemen, Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran or Zimbabwe, to name but a few – all abusers of human rights.

Special  mention however, is reserved for  Israel which he refers to as “one of the world’s most evil regimes”.

If Makhanya is obtuse enough to truly believes this  he displays both an unforgiveable  ignorance about the only true democracy in the Middle East while revealing that he belongs to that lazy school journalists who run with the non-thinking herd while doing little to reflect the truth.

I have previously believed that Robert Fisk, John Pilger,  Alistair Sparks and others,  whose special talent for making up the news about Israel, were a select group, but Makhanya’s disparaging   comment earns him an honorary membership.

For a journalist of Makhanya’s standing and experience to have the audacity to so blatantly play to the crowd with so blatant a lie shows that he is blissfully unaware of how this “evil regime” treats over 180,000 Palestinians in its hospitals every year;  how Israel established a field hospital close to her Syrian border to treat Syrian refugees;  how she sent  the largest contingent of all countries (260) together with a field hospital to Nepal  following the devastating earth quakes that shook the region. Our own government did nothing to assist leaving it to the commendable and ever-willing “Gift of the Givers” to represent us with a team of 40.

That “one of the most evil regimes in the world” upholds women’s rights in every respect as well as those of gays and lesbians (with this year’s Gay Pride Gathering in Tel Aviv attracted 170,000 visitors from all over the world), questions the status of truly evil regimes such as Iran which publicly hangs  gays and lesbians from cranes and flogs women deemed unsuitably dressed.

There is no reason for Israel to subject itself to the scrutiny of a heavily biased body such as the ICC. The UN to which the ICC is affiliated has shown an open bias towards Israel time and again and cannot be trusted to give the Jewish state a fair hearing.

Were Makhanya even handed and equitable, he would acknowledge that Israel has been the target of Hamas, Hezbolla, PLO, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist-group attacks for decades and that her incursions into Lebanon and Gaza have consistently been in response to this provocation.  Yet Makhanya has no word of criticism for any of these organizations or any suggestion that Hamas nor “Palestine” (a UN non-member state) face similar scrutiny for their actions over the years.

Don Krausz to The City Press: RE: WE STAND FIRM WITH A MONSTER.

The Letters Editor,

             City Press Voices.

             Dear Sir/Madam,

             RE: WE STAND FIRM WITH A MONSTER.

             Mondli Makhanya has expressed his views on the release by South Africa of Sudan’s leader Omar al-Bashir, whom he terms a Monster.

 According to another article in your paper, this time by former Constitutional Court judge Richard Goldstone, al-Bashir ruled the Sudan at a time when “more than 300,000 were killed, tens of thousands of women raped and two and a half million people rendered homeless. Those crimes resulted in al-Bashir being sought for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

             As befits a former judge, Goldstone has linked cause and effect. Al-Bashir is held responsible for such and such atrocities and now these are the repercussions.

             How many of us believe that these 300,000 Sudanese deserved to be killed and their women raped? Would that unbelievably ghastly genocide not have been carried out by people that had been indoctrinated through hatred and propaganda, quite possibly without cause? As happened in Europe under the Nazis, or in Rwanda at the hands of the Hutu? Or during WW1 in Turkey, not so long ago in Afghanistan, and today in Syria?

             Is there not a message in all this, quite independent of whether al-Bashir is eventually called to answer his accusers? Human beings, children, women and men, can be slaughtered on the basis of accusations, innuendo, hatred and propaganda that may have no foundation in truth whatsoever, purely on the basis of say-so, fear and hatred. And without the propagandists offering one shred of evidence!!

             Surely Makhanya knows this as well. And yet he describes Israel of having “one of the world’s most evil regimes” without offering any proof whatsoever. We are just supposed to take his word for it.  Sure he is entitled to his own opinion, but when a former editor of the  Sunday Times makes a statement, people will be inclined to take note. SURELY THEN HE HAS AN OBLIGATION TO MAKE ENSURE THAT HIS ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE!!!

             We know that there are plenty who share his opinion. As there were in Germany (“All the papers/speakers say so!”) or in the Hutu controlled broadcasting system. And today we are aware of how murderously wrong they were!

             I know that Mondli Makhanya has visited Palestine and been shown what the Palestinians wanted him to see. And I lived there for years, travelled around, visited and lodged with non-Jews who did not echo Makhanya’s views.

             Having read his account of his visit to Palestine I would be most reluctant to accept his opinions. I believe the man has tunnel vision, blinkers like on a horse and only sees what he is meant to see.

Alan Wolman to The Star

Dr. Aayesha J Soni of the Media Review Network predictably makes an interesting case built around the furor of the recent Al Bashir flight back to Sudan last Sunday.

 

Clearly, when only half the story is told, only half the truth comes out. Reading Soni’s piece in The Star today (17 June) one is left thinking that there are only three countries who are not signatories to the Rome Statue / International Criminal Court (ICC) – Britian, the US and naturally Israel. Britain is indeed not only a signatory to the Rome Statute but also ratified these statutes.

 

There are a number of countries who have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute and those include Israel, Thailand, United States, Ukraine Bahrain, Kuwait and Yemen, yet Soni only sites Israel and the US nor the many other countries who have neither signed nor ratified the Rome Statute which include the likes of Malaysia, Lebanon, Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, China amongst 41other countries.

 

While Soni singles Israel out for war crimes is he again telling only half the story. Has he forgotten that the fact-finding missions he mentions have also identified Hamas as complicit in such war crimes? Naturally he omits to tell the Syrian story – WHY??? Then there is also the Islamic State, well they aren’t so bad are they doctor?

Don Krausz to The Star: RE: US leaders won’t face similar charges as they’ve made deals.

Dear Sir,

RE: US leaders won’t face similar charges as they’ve made deals.

Dr. Aayesha  J. Soni of the Media Review Network (MRN) has written an interesting letter on SA’s release of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and I can accept many of her points. But like other people of intellect, eventually emotion overrides that intellect, in her case when she refers to the American administration and Israelis.

In her third paragraph she states, inter alia, that “(tyrants) and perpetrators must be held accountable for their crimes…and not a select few.” Definitely! But then she herself becomes selective.

She questions why ex US President George W. Bush is not being tried after he launched a “crusade” against Iraq and Afghanistan, which since 9/11 may have cost two million lives.

And yet there is no mention of the 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11 through Osama bin Laden under the most gruesome and cruel circumstances. Or the fact that the Arab world celebrated the event!

Or that the Afghanistani Taliban’s treatment of its own women and girls amounted to these poor women being stripped of their basic human rights. Women were brutally beaten, publicly flogged, and killed for violating Taliban decrees. Prostitutes were hanged. (Google).

Anything and anyone that did not conform to the fundamentalist Taliban concept of religion was mercilessly destroyed. There was a sect there called the Hazaris which were targeted for extermination by the Taliban.  After 15,000 of them were killed in one day, a Taliban leader announced: “Hazaris are not Muslim. You can kill them. It is not a sin.”

And where does that leave us infidels???

I do not think that George W. Bush believed that he was mandated to sacrifice American lives in order to eliminate these monsters. But then weren’t Churchill and the US presidents in a similar situation during WW2?

Should they also be arraigned?

Of course then it is the turn of Netanyahu, typical of the MRN.  Soni wants him tried as well. Than puts Netanyahu in the same league as Bashir who is accused of killing 200,000 people. Really?

She accuses him of launching a war on the “besieged” people of Gaza every two years or so, “wreaking havoc and death, killing children, destroying hospitals and even UN shelters.” She lists fellow travellers willing to substantiate this.

But surely an educated person such as Aayesha J. Soni must be aware of the 14,000 plus missiles fired from Gaza at civilian areas in Israel proper over a great many years?

Or of the thirty plus tunnels dug into Israel from Gaza reaching practically into civilian areas? For what purpose? Sightseeing?

Utilising the building materials provided by Israel to reconstruct the war damage in Gaza, while it’s ruined buildings have not been repaired?  The press has reported it.

Or that when those missiles, every one of which was fired with the intent to maim and kill, reached numbers such as 80 per day, that Israel felt obliged to go to war in order to protect its citizens? Yes, on three occasions!

I have been to the Israeli village Sderot within sight of Gaza which has been the target of literally THOUSANDS of Gazan missiles. I have seen the shelters built in front of every block of houses, the double roofs on the schools to minimise impact, have been told of the 15 second warning that the residents have of incoming projectiles, which by curious coincidence seem to be launched mainly when children are either going to school or leaving, i.e. when they are in the streets.

15 Seconds in which to grab your spouse, children and pets and find a shelter!

I have also visited the only missile proof building there at the time, the crèche, and seen the signs of trauma in the behaviour of those infants. According to latest reports more than 60% of the children in Sderot suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I fully agree with Dr. Aayesha  J. Soni that someone should be put on trial for such war crimes, but am not convinced that Benjamin Netanyahu is that person.

Don Krausz to The new Age

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: REFLECTIONS ON DECADES OF UN INTERVENTIONS: 11-06-2015

This is not the first time that a contributor to your paper has used deception in order to spread propaganda and thus bamboozle its readers.

On this occasion you have allowed him/her to present an article containing undeniable truths and then used it as a cover for blatant misrepresentation.

I am referring to the last paragraphs of the abovementioned article under ANALYSIS by

Somar Wijayadasa.

It is another nauseating attempt to malign Israel. You accuse the Jewish State of “attacking homes, schools, hospitals and UN shelters in Gaza killing 2200 Palestinians”

and quote the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in support.

That lady was part of the Richard Goldstone Commission which issued a report on a previous war involving Gaza and which Goldstone later amended.

Nowhere in the article is there any mention of this defensive Israeli war being the result of the thousands of missiles launched from Gaza without provocation at civilian settlements in Israel proper. Over the years the number of such missiles has exceeded 14,000 and have had a most traumatic effect on the Israeli population, let alone the casualties and damage caused.

Can you imagine the local reaction if one of our neighbours initiated such hostile action against us or the outcry that it would cause world wide? Is there one justifiable reason why you allow such blatant omission of cause and effect to appear in your paper?

Anyone who has watched the Gaza conflict on TV will have noticed that the Hamas fighters wore no identifiable uniforms. So how can anyone tell how many of those 2200 Palestinians were civilians and which were combatants? There were reports by independent journalists of civilians being used by the Hamas as human shields.

If you value your integrity in the eyes of those who are not blinded by hatred then I suggest that you publish a correction to this obviously biased article.

Monessa Shapiro to The Star

How right Dadoo is.   No person, institution or country should be above criticism.  And certainly Israel is not above criticism for she is not a perfect society.  But then again, which country in the world is perfect?

The problem arises where the criticism becomes so all-encompassing, that were it not dangerous, it would be amusing.   Such is the case, I’m afraid, with Usdin, Sanders and Daitz’s criticism of Israel.   You see, in all their letters or articles they display not an iota of empathy for the Israeli people, or an understanding of the situation.    They do not ever condemn, and I would imagine neither do you, Mr Dadoo, any atrocity committed against Israeli civilians by the Palestinians.  They have never condemned the thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately by Hamas into Israel, aimed at murdering as many Israeli men, women and children as possible.  Nor did they ever condemn the kidnapping from Israeli soil and the subsequent 5 year detention of Gilad Shalit under the most inhumane conditions, without providing him access to even the Red Cross.

They criticise Israel but turned a blind eye when Hamas operatives threw Fatah rivals out of buildings.  They criticise Israel but refuse to condemn the fact that Hamas has as part of its charter the destruction of Israel and the murder of all Jews everywhere.  Amnesty International, no friend of Israel, has recently put out a report on the last Gaza war.  Philip Luther, the Middle East and North Africa director said the following of the atrocities incurred by Hamas: “In the chaos of the conflict, the de facto Hamas administration granted its security forces free rein to carry out horrific abuses, including against people in its custody.  These spine-chilling actions, some of which amount to war crimes, were designed to exact revenge and spread fear across the Gaza strip.”  These ‘spine-chilling actions’ included the public execution of 6 men outside the al-Omari  mosque on August 22 in front of hundreds of people.  Just Google it Mr Dadoo and then explain the silence.

The world is imploding.  Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Yemen – thousands upon thousands are being murdered daily.  Heads of children are displayed on stakes,  mothers are raped, and fathers are publicly executed.  Boatloads of people are fleeing  atrocities in their war-torn home countries, many dying in the process.   But your silence, Mr Dadoo and that of Usdin, Sanders, and Daitz reverberates loudly.   Richard Cohen in a recent article in the Washington Post, “The ugly effort to boycott Israel” put it well when he said: “Out of respect for the awesome power of the word and in honour of its victims, I shy from calling this anti-Semitism.  But it is anti-something, that’s for sure – common sense or fairness or a basic knowledge of history.  Whatever it is, I suggest others ponder the cause of their frustration, why they don’t apply it universally and why still others suspect something dark in their soul.”