Don Krausz to The Mail & Guardian RE: THE NUCLEAR RACE IS RIDDLED WITH HYPOCRACY by Mosibudi Mangena – 2015/08/28.

The Letters Editor,

            Mail & Guardian.

 

            Dear Sir/Madam,

 

            RE: THE NUCLEAR RACE IS RIDDLED WITH HYPOCRACY by Mosibudi Mangena – 2015/08/28.

 

There are two positive aspects to this article. One is that none of the statesmen at risk of the implementation of his views are going to pay the slightest attention to Mr. Mangena, and the other that he is no longer a Cabinet Minister.

 

The country and people most at risk are obviously Israel and its Jews. Within living memory the Jews of the world have suffered the murder of one third of their number without any of the countries that they inhabited for at least one thousand years lifting a finger to save them let alone accepting their victims and refugees in any significant number. And that is despite the blatant threats made against them by the haters and murderers. And that even after the latter proved to be true to their murderous intentions and the Jews formed their own state. When that was attacked by the local Palestinians and seven  Arab countries the Jews had the utmost difficulties in obtaining any assistance from the so-called civilized world. The Jews prevailed, but at a terrible cost in lives.

 

Israel knows that Iran and the Arab states with their subject terrorist organizations have unendingly threatened her with war and extermination. She has had to defend herself against their aggression on numerous occasions. To this day portions of territory that are controlled by Palestinians are ruled on the explicit understanding that when these lands become independent no Jew will be allowed to live there.

 

These Palestinian-controlled areas have their own militia, some of which have been designated terrorists by world bodies. They are armed in part by Iran.

Their attacks on the population of Israel have been responsible for that country suffering tens of thousands of casualties. Iran to this day proclaims its intention of destroying Israel. And now when there is a strong likelihood that this murderous regime will obtain nuclear weapons the world does nothing effective to stop them, least of all Mr. Mangena. A previous leader of Iran, Mr. Rafsanjani, has already calculated that it will only take one atomic bomb to eliminate that “infidel” country.

 

Now just where does the hypocracy lie?  With the longtime ally who stated that he would have Israel’s back and then wants to conclude a deal with Iran that does nothing of the kind, or with Israel, who has learned the bitter and costly lesson that it cannot rely on the assurances of so-called allies, especially when dealing with sworn and proven enemies who are guided by the concept of Taqqiyah, Deception, the concluding of deals that are only intended to be adhered to for as long as it suits one party only.

 

And does Mr. Mangena, an ex Cabinet minister, really think that under the aforesaid circumstances, tiny Israel (just look at the map of the Middle East),

with its +/- seven million Jews and faced with one and a half BILLION FANATICALLY HOSTILE MOSLEMS ought really to give up the only realistic defence that it has?

 

Mr. Mangena opines that Mr. Netanyahu ought to take Iran at its word that it has no sinister nuclear ambitions, despite its regular threats to “wipe Israel off the face of the map.” I take it that Mr. Mangena and his family do not live in Israel.

Monessa Shapiro to The Jewish Report

The BDS has once again shown its true colours.  Not in South Africa this time but in Spain.

The Rototam Sunsplash Reggae Festival, held in Valencia Spain, under pressure from the BDS, disinvited Jewish American singer, Matthew Miller (Matisyahu) from taking part in the festival.  Matisyahu is not an Israeli.   He is Jewish and because he is Jewish he was singled out and told that he could not take part in the concert unless he signed a declaration in support of a Palestinian state.   No other artist was asked to give views on any political situation in the world.

 By singling out Miller, the BDS provided us with confirmation that theirs is not a fight for human rights but rather a quest to pursue the oldest racism known to mankind – that of  Jew hatred.   As the Wall Street Journal so aptly put it on August 18: “Remember the reggae star Matisyahu the next time anti-Israel proponents insist their aim is to promote Palestinian rights, not anti-Jewish bigotry.”

Monessa Shaipro to The Cape Times

Abraham Cunio’s letter refers.

Israel’s national anthem is called “Hatikvah” – the hope.   What is the hope and prayer of the Jewish people?  To be “Am chofshi” – a free people in our land.  Not one word of war-mongering or desire for conquest in the entire anthem.

On the 18^th July 2015, The Ayetollah Khameini praised the Iranian people as follows:   “At Al-Quds day rallies last week, you heard ‘Death to Israel’, ‘Death to the US.’  You could hear it. The whole nation was shaken by these slogans. It wasn’t only confined to Tehran. The whole of the nation, you could hear, that was covered by this great movement. So we ask Almighty God to accept these prayers by the people of Iran.”  (The Times of Israel).

In The New York Post on August 1,2015 Amir Taheri describes a book just published by the Ayatollah  called “Palestine”.  According to Taheri,  ‘Khamenei makes his position clear from the start: Israel has no right to exist as a state. He uses three words. One is “nabudi,” which means “annihilation.” The other is “imha,” which means “fading out,” and, finally, there is “zaval,” meaning “effacement.”’

So the American Congress is being asked to vote on a deal that will allow a war-mongering, hateful regime  to pursue its annihilistic aims.  Let’s hope that they vote correctly and that the dream embodied in the Israeli national anthem will become a reality.

Don Krausz to The New Age

The Letters Editor,

The New Age.

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: ZANDISILE LUPHAHLA’ S ARTICLE of 2015/8/24: Boycott Israel campaign ropes in schools.

Once upon a time Russian communism was greatly admired by the Left Wing.

I remember them publishing statements such as: Truth is a bourgeois concept. During the 1936-37 Russian purges children of the accused would be brought into court to plead with the judges to sentence their parents to death for having offended the party. The judges would oblige. I remember a Russian boy being hailed as a national hero for volunteering to give evidence against his parents, and Russian youth encouraged to emulate him.

The fact that these children were coerced, didn’t know what they were doing and thus would be stigmatised in their own and other’s eyes for a lifetime did not matter. They had served their purpose.

Today we recoil from such stories and see it for what it was: Child abuse! Just as used by the Nazis. How could a school child differentiate between truth and indoctrination?

And so now we read with disgust that “Activist Mohammed Desai, of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign against Israel, has taken the cause for Palestinian liberation to the classroom.”

Is he telling those children of the totally unprovoked attack on Israel in May 1948 by the Palestinians and seven Arab countries during which 6,373 Israelis were killed and 30,000 wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia? One percent of Israel’s Jewish population? Equivalent to SA losing 500,000 of its citizens on the battlefield?

Or that despite being totally outnumbered and outgunned Israel beat back the attackers who had promised a massacre of the Jews? Or that after their defeat surrounding Arab countries attacked, expropriated and expelled their Jewish citizens, many of whom had lived there for 2,500 years? Some 700,000 Jews became refugees, most of which were absorbed by Israel.

I very much doubt that for this information is never mentioned by them, only the anti-Israel propaganda, fictitious or not.

Parents, if you do not want your children to be brainwashed, indoctrinated, and filled with unsubstantiated hatred, then I strongly recommend that you find out just what they are being taught during their history lessons. Especially by people like Mohammed Desai and his accomplices.

Don Krausz to The Saturday Star RE: THE BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions.

Dear Ms. Ajam,

 

RE: THE BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions.

 

Today’s Saturday Star contains two articles on the BDS, on the front page and page 3.

 

What is the BDS?

 

Judging from an interview that their representatives gave recently to the media and which was reported by Victor Gordon, they “voiced their beliefs that Israel, being the only country in the world that deserved their ire for alleged abuses of human rights and contravention of international law, deserved to be isolated to the level of a pariah state, because, in their opinion, it was solely responsible for the demise of the Palestinians, the lack of progress in the quest for peace and the apparent illegal, on-going “occupation” of so-called Palestinian territories.”

 

“No attempt was made to define and present any form of context which would have been helpful in explaining to readers how these conclusions were reached or why this impasse existed in the first place. Positions were clear;Israel was the indisputable villain and the Palestinians pure as the driven snow.”

 

“While BDS is occupied with the intolerable presence of Israeli avocadoes on Woolworth’s shelves…it pays no heed to real apartheid applied to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan where, over decades, there has been a total block on alleviating their plight or improving their circumstances.”

 

“Neither is BDS interested in the real human rights abuses perpetrated by the Syrian government where 240,000 civilians have died, the occupation of Tibet by China, the disputes over Kashmir between India and Pakistan or the persecution of the Kurds, to name but a few.”

 

Who are equally fascinating are the Jewish supporters of this viciously anti-Israel movement. People who lend their names to the disruption of a concert given by an Israeli musician. Or their National Co-ordinator who complains when he is prevented from wearing a shirt that gives offence to many Jewish attendants at a gym. Yet he is present when some of his less well endowed members shout:”Shoot the Jew!” at a concert given by an Israeli Jazz group. 

 

Actually the Jewish component of the BDS is not surprising. During the Holocaust that ended 70 years ago one third of European Jewry was murdered. South African Jewry hails mostly from Eastern Europe and so there can be very few Jews here who did not suffer the loss of very close relations. That makes them traumatised people, people with problems, and not all such people are able to find solutions to their trauma. Many are unable to face the implications and seek escape in other faiths, in political parties that negate their origins and obligations of loyalty to their traditions, kith and kin.

 

And when the reality dawns that their choice is either to forsake their own and cooperate with the enemy as happened in the Death Camps or perish, then it does not behove any of us to point a finger in condemnation.

 

All we can do is feel very sorry for them.

Don Krausz in The Star

15 August 2015.

 

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

Dear Sir,

 

RE: SA HAS OPPORTUNITY TO RIGHT WRONG by Aayesha J, Soni (13-8-2015)

 

“Guantanamo is the same as the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WW2.” Really?

 

Since 2002, 799 men have been detained there, almost all Moslems. The US authorities  considered them as their most dangerous enemies. It must cost plenty to maintain such a facility and unlikely that the Americans did so without good reason. Where such prisoners escaped it cost the authorities nearly $1 million a day in overtime just to try and recapture them.

 

Obviously few Moslems are terrorists but unfortunately almost every terrorist is a Moslem.

 

Aayesha J Soni, vice chairman of the Media Review Network, has taken pity on the 116 prisoners remaining in “Gitmo” and out of the goodness of her heart now wants South Africa to provide a new home for these poor, innocent souls. What a splendid idea, but  let’s look at the implications.

 

According to US prison records, of the 750 inmates imprisoned for “terrorist” activities in 2002 at Guantanamo 620 were released. Of these 107 (17.3%) resumed their violence in the countries to which they returned, while 77 (12.4%) are under suspicion of recidivism. So when Senator McCain suspects that closing down Guantanamo will put some 250 trained and fanatical murderers back on to the streets he is not far wrong.

And for those who need a second opinion, another US think-tank calculated that out of 620 releases investigated 54 resumed their ill-conceived activities, i.e. one out of three.

 

Now let us just pause here and contemplate what this means. In this country we have plenty of miscreants committing mayhem, but they are not Moslem terrorists. They don’t bomb market places, churches, synagogues. They don’t fly planes into office towers while murdering 3000 innocents. They don’t get little children to explode themselves in crowded places all for the greater glory of God to the approval of their families and co-religionists.

 

The US army does not release those people without some investigation. They first put them before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, (CSRT). In the case of the remaining 116 poor innocent persecuted inmates that tribunal concluded that 44 were not fit to be let loose on the population. But please don’t tell Aayesha Soni that, you’ll spoil her day.

 

Remember, it only took 19 fanatics to murder 3,000 innocents on 9/11. Don’t forget 7/7 in London, the train bombs inMadrid, the slaughter of the innocents in Toulouse, Paris and Charlie Hebdo, decapitations by Isis or the unbelievable 240,000 Syrian dead in the Middle East, all by religious fanatics.

 

Some years ago the Time magazine ran an interview with a suicide bomber, front-page picture and all. He was asked what he expected the Deity to say to him once he got up there and had materialised again. His answer? “How many infidels did you kill?”

 

I think that we are in our rights to compliment Aayesha Soni of the Media Review Network on her generosity, but say: “No Thanks!”

 

Victor Gordon: PRETORIA NEWS LETTER TO THE EDITOR Refers: “Woolies an ethical firm but …”

LETTER  TO THE EDITOR

Refers: “Woolies an ethical firm but …”

On Wednesday 12^th August, this newspaper saw fit to devote an entire page to three lengthy articles by exponents of BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) against the State of Israel, two of whom are leaders of that movement in this country. The third article was an interview of an unnamed representative of Woolworths by journalist Janet Smith who has consistently shown herself sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and antagonistic towards that of Israel.

Each gave voice to their beliefs that Israel,  being the only country in the world that deserved their ire for alleged abuses of human rights and contravention of international law, deserved to be isolated to the level of a pariah state, because, in their opinion, it was solely responsible for the demise of the Palestinians, the lack of progress in the quest for peace and the apparent illegal, on-going  “occupation” of so-called  Palestinian territories.

No attempt was made to define and present any form of context which would have been helpful in explaining to readers how these conclusions were reached or why this impasse existed in the first place.  Positions were clear; Israel was the indisputable villain and the Palestinians were pure as the driven snow.

This, of course, is nothing new.  From the very moment of its birth in 1948 when it faced simultaneous attack from 5 Arab nations; while the “friendly” USA imposed an arms boycott that lasted for almost 20 years; while benevolent  Britain kept the doors to Palestine shut to desperate Holocaust survivors with nowhere to go, Israel has fought seven wars without the aid of a single foreign soldier.

She has also faced the hostility of the United Nations which was originally responsible for the country’s creation;  the abandonment of the virtually the whole of Africa following her victory in the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars  and  continual threats of boycotts, isolation and other unfriendly acts despite ending its occupation of Gaza in 2005 and offering to hand back up to 97% of the West Bank on no less than four occasions only to be spurned each time.

Needless to say, none of this was alluded to in any of the articles which suggested that, were Israel to simply end the “occupation”, all parties would sing Kumbaya and peace would forever reign.  No consideration was given to the enduring calls by both Hamas and also Mahmud Abbas, the PA President,  for the annihilation of Israel which goes hand in glove with the genocide of its people.

While BDS is occupied with the intolerable presence of Israeli avocados on Woolworth’s shelves (while failing to realise that packets marked ”Israeli Tomatoes”  are not even imported from Israel but cultivated in Limpopo using  Israeli technology), it pays no heed to real apartheid applied to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan where, over decades, there has been a total block on alleviating their plight or improving their circumstances.   Neither is BDS interested  in the real human rights abuses perpetrated by the Syrian government where 200,000 civilians have died, the occupation of Tibet by China,  the disputes over Kashmir between India and Pakistan or the persecution of the Kurds, to name but a few.

Here, writer Kwara Kekana, deputy co-ordinator and spokeswoman for BDS SA, quotes Desmond Tutu who said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. What she fails to recognise is that by targeting only one tiny “culprit” throughout the entire family of nations and ignoring all the others, you have failed to grasp the significance of Tutu’s words.

Throughout, the hypocrisy behind the BDS campaign is sickening. Only this morning Muhammed Desai, national co-ordination of the BDS SA, appeared on John Robbie’s show on Radio 702 complaining that he had been threatened by the management of a Virgin Active gym in northern Johannesburg for wearing a T-shirt stating BDS’s support for the Palestinian cause. This facility apparently has a large Jewish membership who took acception to the introduction of so provocative a political slogan within their midst.

While Desai, with the support of John Robbie and, later, Redi Thlabi,  complained at this infringement of Desai’s  right to freedom of speech no mention was made of Desai’s presence at Wits University when  BDS demonstrators chanted “Shoot the Jew” during a concert by an Israeli Jazz group. Previous to this, BDS members had broken up a concert at the same venue by the Israel classical pianist, Yossi Reshef.

So much for the peaceful application of freedom of speech. This is the tolerance that BDS  claims for itself but denies to others.

This is further illustrated by its attack on 10 young representatives of several organizations  traditionally hostile towards Israel who had the “audacity” to visit that country and examine the situation for themselves.  This resulted in their suspensions and a bevy of other threats; their crime being to not only expose themselves to the other side of the issue  but vocally acknowledge that another side actually existed.

Quite obviously, BDS is desperate to keep its dishonest hypocrisy hidden as exposure to truth is far removed from its game plan.

Debbie Mankowitz to The New Age: Re: planned pro-Palestinian protest in Cape Town against Woolworths and Pharrell Williams concert (The New Age 10 August 2015)

Dear Sir

Re: planned pro-Palestinian protest in Cape Town against  Woolworths and Pharrell Williams concert (The New Age 10  August 2015)

It is perplexing that another pro-Palestinian march is planned targeting Woolworths and the Pharrell Williams Cape Town concert. The fact that the city of  Cape Town has restricted the protest to 150 people has also inflamed the ANC who support the notion  that civil society has a right to gather in large numbers, blocking roads and disrupting traffic in order to protest human rights. In a democratic society, this notion is admirable if  applied with balance and integrity. As this specific protest is preoccupied with Palestinian rights, it appears that pro-Palestinian civil rights groups in South Africa have simply overlooked the brutal torture and murder of Palestinians by Shiite militias in Iraq. Since 2003, the number of Palestinians there have dropped from 25,000 to 6,000.  (http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6314/ethnic-cleansing-palestinians)

However,  the ANC and civil rights groups in South Africa are not alone with their complete indifference towards the mistreatment of Palestinians in the Arab world, as it appears that international  human rights organizations, the UN,  the media and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are also not concerned, and seem to be oblivious to the suffering and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Arab world.

It is obviously easier for the world to nod sanctimoniously when the PA calls for “war crimes” against Israel, even though the wholesale rape, torture and murder of Palestinians in Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon continue unabated. This, without censure or protest from  other Muslims, civil society or even the ANC government. Is this reader missing something?

Since 1948, Arab countries  have instituted Apartheid- like policies with draconian laws against Palestinians residing in their countries which prevent them from becoming equal citizens, and now they are killing them while the world turns the other way. While there is always room for  compromise in every conflict, the irony is that demographically Palestinians are not threatened as a people in Gaza or Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and  their numbers continue to increase, and since 2003 from  3,314,519  to 4,682,467 in 2015. If the time has not yet come for pro-Palestinian activists, civil society and BDS to be screaming in the streets against the genocide of  other Palestinians in the  Arab Middle East then their blatant hypocrisy is simply contemptuous.

D. Mankowitz

Don Krausz to The Star – re Iqbal Jasset

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

 

Dear Sir,

 

RE: IQBAL JASSAT: 11 AUGUST 2015.

 

Once again we are confronted with an article by Iqbal Jassat on the subject of APARTHEID ISRAEL. Each time he receives a reply proving that there is no apartheid in that land. If there was than he should be able to contradict the opposing evidence but does not do so. He simply repeats it over and over just as the Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels advised. Repeat a lie often enough and eventually those who do not know the truth will believe it.

 

And so we once again have to read of the “occupying power, Israel.” Israel evacuated all its troops and settlers fromGaza in 2005, so who is occupying it now? Israel fought five  Arab onslaughts from Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt and was victorious in each. But she is unable to win against a handful of terrorists in Gaza and once again become an “occupying power”? Please! And if, as Jassat maintains, Israel is a colonial regime, she is not a very successful one.

 

Then we come to the oft repeated lie of apartheid Israel. Surprising, because it is foisted on a population that knew all about that subject some 20 years ago, but then most of those that suffered under it may be only too pleased to forget all about it.

 

Let’s remember. Sorry to do this but it was not my idea.

 

Under apartheid the black majority was denied the most basic of human rights because of the colour of their skin. Not in Israel, and if I am wrong then prove it!

 

South African apartheid laws were enforced by parliamentary legislation. No such thing   in Israel. Prove me wrong, Jassat.

 

Blacks in SA were oppressed only on grounds of their colour. Show me where this is legislated in Israel.

 

Blacks in SA were not allowed to vote and were excluded from parliament.

Israel’s parliament is multiracial. In 2007 the acting president of Israel was a Druze. Can you imagine Verwoerd having a coloured deputy?

 

During apartheid the judiciary was all white. Israeli Arabs serve in the Israeli system.

It was an Arab judge in Israel’s Supreme Court who sent Israel’s former president to jail on a rape charge and don’t come and tell me that he was jailed for breaching the colour line.

 

Black South Africans were unable to get medical treatment in white hospitals. Every Israeli citizen, irrespective of race or creed, is entitled to equal treatment in Israeli hospitals.

 

 

Black South Africans were not allowed to own their own property in the country.

Israeli Arabs have equal right to purchase long-term leases of land.

 

Interracial marriage was legally prohibited in SA. No such thing in Israel.

 

Apartheid was the defining feature of every aspect of the lives of black South Africans.

 

The rights mentioned above relate to Palestinians who live in Israel proper. Those who live in Gaza and the West Bankare treated differently because they are not citizens of Israel. The Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank, and Hamas governs Gaza in which there is no Israeli presence.

 

In refutation of the above, Media Review Network members have pointed out that one swallow does not make a summer, meaning that a few handpicked Arabs do not refute apartheid. During winter migrations birds in their multitudes fly to Israel before continuing their southerly course. Perhaps they know something that the MRN prefer not to see.

 

Don Krausz to The Star

Dear Sir,

 

                 RE: THE SOUTH AFRICANS OF JEWISH DESCENT.

 

                 Today’s Star contains an article written by South African Jews who claim to be only of Jewish Descent under the heading:

   LET’S ESPOUSE HUMANISM. Their Jewish parents and grandparents must be very proud of them.

                

   It ostensibly deals with last year’s war between Hamas and Israel, supplies many statistics while strangely failing to mention the most significant

                 fact of all, the cause of the conflict. That is the launching over nine years of more than 14,000 missiles and counting from Gaza at civilian residential areas in Israel proper. How effective this vicious onslaught was is not the point; each and every one of those munitions was fired with the intention to maim and kill. Their timing, during periods when children were either on the way to school or on their way home, i.e. in the streets, proves this point.

 

   Those of us who have visited the scenes of their attempts at atrocity and seen the effects on Israel’s population, especially the children, will not be impressed by the arguments that they use against Israel. At least 60% of those affected by the Hamas bombardments suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is what happens when one has only 15 seconds between launch and impact. 15 seconds to gather your spouse, children and pets and dive into a shelter.

 

                 To me the omission of this primary cause of the conflict and its resulting devastation makes anything else written by the authors irrelevant and I am not   prepared to waste my time in countering their arguments. These pathetic people are unwilling to be recognised for what they are: JEWS, whereas every anti-Semite in the world is able and willing to do so.

 

                 That they belong to one of the most remarkable and courageous peoples on this earth has not penetrated, nor the truth that Jewry’s contribution to the world’s welfare in every sphere of human endeavour is indisputable. Jews consist of a fraction of one percent of the world’s population and yet have been awarded 22% of all Nobel prizes ever issued. Our scripture deals very convincingly with HUMANISM.

 

                 Two days ago was the commemoration of the destruction of our two Jerusalem temples thousands of years ago, events of tragedy. We acknowledge them with fasting and mourning. And yet my synagogue distributed a leaflet advising that “should we be privileged to experience the Messianic Revelation, that day will be observed as a holiday…” Shame on you who only admit to being of Jewish Descent, you’ll miss the boat!

 

                 We survived millennia of persecution and opprobrium, Hitler’s Holocaust during which one third of the world’s Jews perished. I am sure that we will overcome the lies and inferiority complexes of these misguided and pathetic individuals who are only prepared to admit being of Jewish Descent.