Monthly Archives: May 2016

Don Krausz to The Star: RE: BLOODTHIRSTY LEADERS AREN’T CONFINED TO AFRICA.

30 May 2016

The Letters Editor,

The Star.

RE: BLOODTHIRSTY LEADERS AREN’T CONFINED TO AFRICA.

By Nabila Ismail, Media Review Network. 30-5-2016.

It has been said that it is better to remain silent and thought ignorant, than to speak up and remove all doubt.

Here we have a “researcher” who accuses all and sundry of “horrendous war crimes” without, as is standard procedure with the MRN, providing any evidence whatsoever.

They said it and so it must be true!

Ms. Ismail reminds us that last year Turkish authorities issued warrants of arrest against Israeli military commanders in connection with the Mavi Marmara attempt to breach a perfectly legal Israeli blockade. Nine Turks died in the incident and the Turks caused a furore. Human life is precious.

Yet is it not strange that to this day Turkey has not admitted, apologised or made amends for the one and a half million Armenian men, women and children that they caused to perish during World War One?

Amongst those that committed “heinous crimes against humanity” Ismail lists Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, all Israelis. Moslems such as Idi Amin, Muammar Gadafy, Amin al Husseini, Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden are not mentioned.

I believe that we are here to learn. Would Ms. Ismail be so kind as to provide evidence against Messrs. Peres, Sharon and Netanyahu? Sharon withdrew every settler and Israeli soldier from Gaza in 2005, thus enabling the sector to continue with the lucrative export trade with Europe, using Palestinian labour. Instead the Gazans manufactured and imported rockets to launch by the thousands into Israeli residential areas.

Sharon also fought in the 1948 totally unprovoked onslaught on miniscule Israel by her Palestinian neighbours and neighbouring states. He was wounded in the battle for Latrun, lay helpless on the battle field and had to watch as Palestinians came down from the hills to rob, mutilate and butcher the Israeli wounded.

Victor Gordon: Letter to the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany

HIS EXCELLENCY, THE AMBASSADOR OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, MR. WALTER LINDNER

EMBASSY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY,

PRETORIA

SOUTH AFRICA

 

30 MAY 2016

 

Dear Ambassador Lindner,

You are no doubt aware of past statements by the German Chancellor, Ms. Angela Merkel,  in which she has repeatedly affirmed Germany’s unequivocal support of the State of Israel.

To quote:

Jewish Voice from Germany  2013 (An interview)

 “In our exclusive interview, the chancellor… underlined the unconditional solidarity Germany shares with the Jewish state … We’ll never be neutral and Israel can be sure of our support when it comes to ensuring its security.”

May 30 2016, Jerusalem Post

“ Germany’s support for Israel’s security is part of our national ethos, our raison d’etre.”

Dec 1,  2012 Haaretz

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reassured Israel of her country’s support on Saturday, two days after Berlin disappointed the Jewish state by abstaining in a UN vote on the Palestinians’ status.In her weekly podcast, Chancellor Merkel said:  “Germany will always stand on the side of Israel on the issue [of Israeli security).

March 19, 2008| Richard Boudreaux, a Times Staff Writer reported:

In an emotional tribute to victims and survivors of the Holocaust, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Nazi genocide “fills us Germans with shame” and pledged to stand by Israel’s side against any threat, particularly from Iran.”

“This historic responsibility is part of my country’s fundamental policy,” Merkel declared in a speech delivered in German to a special session of the Israeli parliament. “It means that for me, as a German chancellor, Israel’s security is nonnegotiable.”

Tellingly, sir, these positive affirmations were echoed by yourself during the recent commemoration of the Shoa at the West Park Cemetery, Johannesburg. In the Jewish Report you are quoted as having given the assurance that “in Germany, Israel and the Jewish people worldwide had a staunch ally and that commitment to the security of Israel was one of the pillars of German society.” In fact only this past weekend at a gathering at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre you stated that Germany regularly stands alone with the US and Israel in voting at the UN.

It is with this in mind that as recently as May 25, Germany together with the UK and France and other EU states voted for a UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation,  that singled out Israel at the annual assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the only violator of “mental, physical and environmental health,” and commissioned a WHO delegation to investigate and report on “the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory” and “the occupied Syrian Golan.” This was to be again placed on the agenda at next year’s meeting.

By contrast, the UN assembly failed to address nor pass any resolution on any other country! Out of 24 items on the meeting’s agenda, only one, Item No. 19 against Israel, focused on a specific state.

The absurdity of enacting a resolution accusing Israel of violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan  (while in reality, Israel has established field hospitals within meters of the Syrian border to provide treatment for Syrians fleeing the Assad regime), is nothing short of palpable. Unable to deny Israel’s medical treatment of thousands of wounded Syrians, the regime accuses Israel of  “healing armed terrorists from Jabhah al-Nusrah” so that they can “resume their subversive terrorist activities directed against the country’s peaceful citizens and its infrastructure.”

Three reports mandated by last year’s Arab-sponsored resolution were also adopted: a “field assessment” on “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory”, a similar report by the WHO director-general, and a related report by the WHO secretariat.

In identifying with all this, Germany joined the targeting of Israel in the form of a special debate, three lopsided reports, the resolution, and the publication of country submissions, including an inflammatory 59-page Palestinian submission which blamed increased Palestinian traffic accidents on the fear of “being pursued by settlers”  as well as a Syrian submission  circulated as an official UN document alleging that “the Israeli occupation authorities” continue “to experiment on Syrian and Arab prisoners with medicines and drugs and to inject them with pathogenic viruses.”

Several countries, including Iran, Egypt, Venezuela, Pakistan and the representative of UNRWA,  all of which can hardly be regarded as paragons of democracy, took the floor prior to the vote to condemn Israel alone.

With the vote 107 to 8 for the resolution, (with 8 abstentions and 58 absent), the unavoidable question is;  if the U.S., Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea comfortably joined  Israel in opposing what was quite obviously a highly politicized agenda item, why not Germany, which has always so staunchly expressed its solidarity?

In the face of all this, Germany (and the EU) were silent, with the EU justifying its vote by claiming the resolution was “technical.”  Had Germany so wished, it could have set the record straight, and taken a stand against such base demonization of the Jewish state and in doing so, distanced itself from joining the lynch mob bent on Israel’s demonization.

If the argument offered is that Germany’s support is based on threats to Israel’s security  alone  (while this matter cannot be regarded as such), it should be understood that by perpetually chipping away at Israel’s legitimacy,  her very security is continually and seriously compromised. At times like this the intervention of good friends should not be beyond expectation.

By scapegoating the Jewish state, those countries which voted for this inflammatory resolution aided and abetted the UN and its World Health Organization in betraying the cause of humanity and the very principles upon which they were founded.

Yours faithfully,

Victor Gordon

Media Team, Israel

(With acknowledgement to Hillel Neuer, UN-Watch)

Monessa Shapiro re “One holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss

Victoria Brittain, in her article “One holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss” has indeed hit a raw nerve.

You see, Ms Brittain, members of my family, were murdered by Germans while innocently siting at their Friday night Shabbat supper table.   Others were shot in pits – in fact I have a cousin who as a four year old miraculously survived because her mother fell on top of her.  Still others were herded to their deaths in gas chambers.

Do you know why this took place Ms Brittain?   Not because these people fired rockets at the Germans or dug tunnels under their houses in order to murder Germans.  And certainly not because they had as part of their belief system the need to murder all Germans and wipe them off the face of the earth.  No, it was merely because these were Jews and the Germans believed Jews needed to die in order to make the world a better place.

But as you opine that what is taking place in Gaza is yet another holocaust lets look at the facts.   In 1967, according to the Levy Institute the population of Gaza was 394,424.  In 2015, according to a US Census the population in Gaza had risen to 1,819,982 .   Prior to World War 2 and the holocaust there were 16,6  million Jews worldwide and in 2015, according to the Jewish People Policy Institute, there were 14,2 million.  The Jewish population was so decimated that it has still not reached its pre war figures!  According to the CIA world factbook life expectancy in Gaza in 2015 was 74,85, twelve years higher than life expectancy in South Africa.   Life expectancy in the concentration camps during the Holocaust was zero, nil because people were shot at for sport or gassed, and those not murdered died of starvation, typhus, inhumane surgical experiments and brutal work conditions.

So Ms Brittain, to imply that what takes place in Gaza, however hard life may be for the Gazans is to be totally disingenuous.   It is an attempt to sway emotion through evil lies and the obfuscation of facts.  In addition it is a denial and belittling of the true holocaust and we all know where holocaust deniers stand in the world, don’t we?

Don Krausz to the SA Jewish Report

Don Krausz to the Sunday Independent: https://mediateamisrael.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/don-krausz-to-the-starre-one-holocaust-many-dont-like-to-acknowledge-or-discuss/

21 May 2016.

The Editor,

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT DISPATCHES.

RE: WE CRY WITH THE PALESTINIANS as they mark 68 years of the Nakba

by Imraan Baccus.

WHAT AN INSULT TO THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE READERSHIP THIS ARTICLE IS!

Here is a writer who bewails the Nakba, the sound defeat of murderous Palestinians and their neighbouring invading armies during the totally unprovoked attack on nascent Israel in May 1948!

When the secretary of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, proclaimed that: “THIS WILL BE A WAR OF EXTERMINATION AND A MOMENTOUS MASSACRE WHICH WILL BE SPOKEN OF LIKE THE MONGOLIAN MASSACRES AND THE CRUSADES!!”

When unprepared, outnumbered and outgunned Israel with it’s +/- 600,000 men, women and children were attacked by their Palestinian neighbours and the well equipped armies of five neighbouring countries, some with British officers.

When according to the British Encyclopaedia 6,000 Jews fell in battle and 30,000 were wounded; one percent of the total Jewish population.

When Buccus has the insensitivity to write of how HEARTBREAKING it is to see Palestinian refugees show the keys to their erstwhile homes from where they sallied forth to destroy Israeli transport bringing food to beleaguered Jerusalemand to mutilate and  butcher  the wounded.  No wonder that Israel destroyed their homes overlooking that blood soaked road. And what have the Israelis to show after that war? 6,000 graves of their husbands and sons and 30,000 maimed and wounded?

Homes can be rebuilt but not lives and people!

Buccus quotes Edward Said describing the trauma of being refugees. IT IS ME, ME, ME, ALL THE TIME by people who refused their own state in 1947 and launched that war.

Today Israel is a prosperous nation. There is no reason why the Palestinians could not have been in the same financial category with all the finance available from the oil states.

He quotes Prof. John Dugard in his negative comparison between Israel and S.A Bantustans. The inhabitants of thoseBantustans did not launch 14,000 missiles at S.A. residential areas or send suicide bombers to kill 1,000 mostly civilians, or terrorists to murder 3,817 men, women and children!

Buccus’ diatribe is propaganda, indoctrination, not info. Nowhere does he describe the calls emanating from Palestinian pulpits and press to go out and murder Jews, not only Israelis. To laud and venerate the murderers, to teach little school children the glory of murder and assassination, as abhorrent an example of child abuse as one can find.

He has the audacity to urge his readership “not to forget the attack on Gaza a few years ago.” What, after the Gazans launched 80 missiles a day at Israeli residential areas?

I have visited Sderot within sight of Gaza after 4,000 missiles were launched at that tiny town and have seen the trauma in the faces of little children when their parents and teachers only had 15 seconds to find shelter before impact. When the streets were empty at midday, shelters in front of every building and the schools had double roofs to withstand impact.

I do not want to waste more words on Buccus. Readers can reach their own conclusions.

Don Krausz to the Star:Re: One Holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss.

The Editor,

THE STAR.

 

Re: One Holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss.

The  Star – 18 May 2016 – by Victoria Brittain.

 

 

Victoria Brittain writes that the violence suffered in Gaza is the result of “a siege of eight years and three wars.” Would it not have been less misleading to have provided some background, such as the 14,000 mortars and rockets fired at Israeli civilians, men, women and children, over these eight years? Or the fact  that Israel only invaded after the Hamas in Gaza began to launch 80 missiles a day into Israel?

 

And the so-called siege that makes no mention of the:

 

·         Erez Crossing – for Gazans seeking medical attention in Israeli hospitals and which have included close family members of the Hamas ruling class. Since 2008 more than 10,000 Gazans have availed themselves of this humanitarian assistance.

·         Nahal Oz Crossing – for fuel from Israel into Gaza.

·         Karmi Crossing – for grains, sand and gravel, the latter for reconstruction but apparently used to build tunnels into Israel.

·         Sufa Crossing – the main transfer point for goods, where about 90 trucks a day unload food, medicines, raw materials for humanitarian projects and aid from international organizations?

·         (In times when there is no actual combat.)

 

This is taking place in an area where Israel has had to fight eight totally unprovoked wars and in the first of which (1948) she suffered 6,000 dead and 30,000 wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia’s page 142.

One percent of her total population!. In the following years suicide murderers and terrorists caused 3817 dead and 25,000 wounded, and that is not including the so-called “knife and car intifada” that is still taking place.

 

All within territory that has had a Jewish population for +/- 4,000 years (refer Bible). Even when the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Romans occupied the area and removed large sections of the Jewish population, they left their armies in situ, which had to be fed by the Jewish farmers. These “foreigners” were followed by 400 years of Ottoman rule.

 

After 1918 Palestine became a British Mandate. The name is not derived from Arabs but from the Philistines, the so-called Sea People, Greeks that occupied the coastal area much as the Phoenicians did. In 1917 Britainrecognised the territory as a Jewish Homeland, later accepted at the San Remo Conference of
1920. That decision was unanimously confirmed by all 51 members of the League of Nations in 1922, adopted later by the United Nations and has never been abrogated. It is still legally binding between the parties who signed it.

So much for the illegality of Israel! Palestinians lay claim to Judea and Samaria.

Where do you think that the biblical name Judea originated?

 

The most important point is this: During the 1967 defensive war Israel occupied the Gaza strip which had previously been conquered by Egypt, just as the West Bank was governed by Jordan. During that period Israeli settlers developed a lucrative export trade from Gaza with Europe using Palestinian labour. In 2005 Israelwithdrew all troops and settlers from the territory, leaving behind its trained Palestinian staff and infrastructure. The Palestinian terrorists Hamas and Fata replaced the Israelis, with Hamas later murdering and expelling Fata. With Arab finance, the overseas contacts and that trained Palestinian staff the export trade could have been continued.

 

Instead the synagogues and hothouses were destroyed, the agriculture and horticulture export discontinued and instead factories manufacturing rockets created for launching into Israel erected. Long range rockets were shipped in from Iran.

 

The Israeli author Vic Rosenthal stated: “We didn’t start this hateful war and we cannot end it. The keys to a ceasefire are in the hands of the Palestinian people.”

 

Victor Gordon: An open letter to John Robbie

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN ROBBIE

 

Dear John,

This past Friday morning you  received a call from a woman named Fahima who referred to a local SA celebrity who was visiting Israel.

Fahima expressed her opposition to the visit as she firmly believed that Israel was an apartheid state. This elicited an enthusiastic “Yes” from you (listen to the recording) and the statement that “There’s many of us who believe that being critical of Israel is not being anti-Semitic at all. In fact it’s being pro-Israel in the same way as us being Anti-apartheid, and I’ll argue that with anyone”.

Well, at your invitation John, here’s my counter argument.

Clearly, you agreeing with Fahima’s claim that Israel is an apartheid state reveals how little you appear know about the country. Otherwise how would you explain how a country with full voting rights for all citizens,( Jews, Arabs, Druze, Ethiopian etc); with five Arab parties represented in the Knesset; with Arab judges appointed to the judiciary (including the Supreme Court); where two Arab judges adjudicated the trials of a former State President for sexual harassment and a  former Prime Minister for fraud, resulting in both currently serving jail sentences; where two Arabs have acted as Israeli Ambassadors; where the press is amongst the freest in the world; where there is complete freedom of association and of speech and where the rights of gays are fully protected can possibly be guilty of practising apartheid?

According to ‘Freedom House’, the independent monitor of democracy worldwide, Israel is both fully democratic and free. Therefore, John, explain how a fully democratic country can simultaneously practise a policy of apartheid? Are the two systems not anathema?

As for your patronising claim to be “pro-Israel” by adopting a critical form of tough love (which you say should never be construed as anti-Semitic), your hypothesis is shaky for the following reasons:

  1. Of course being critical of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic. There are none more self-critical than the Israelis themselves. However, when one’s criticism is continually directed at Israel alone and no-one else, one is forced to ask what lies behind so one-sided a stance.

Sadly, with the alarming worldwide surge of so-called “anti-Zionism” (a euphemism for ‘anti-Semitism’) – where most people have no understanding of the true meaning of Zionism – and an equally alarming hostility aimed at “Zionists” (a euphemism for ‘Jews’),  Jews can be forgiven for their sensitivity when the John Robbies of this world tell their trusting audience that their one-sided criticism is inspired by their deep concern for our welfare.

  1. I have never heard you express any understanding of Israel’s point of view but only ever an appreciation of the plight of the Palestinians. In fact, you’ve repeatedly turned the past three wars against Hamas into no more than a numbers game based on comparative casualties figures  with no appreciation of the factors that create these casualties in the first place, or their respective numbers.
  2. Other than endorsing a commonly expressed desire for a peaceful settlement, I have yet to hear you apportion any of the blame for the conflict to the Palestinians. Israel comes off as the eternal villain and the Palestinians the eternal victim.

Perhaps, John, the time has come to visit Israel to see things for yourself, as did Mosiuoa Lekota, Bantu Holomisa and a group of young Black ANCYL members all of whom came back with a picture far removed from what they had traditionally believed. A visit to both Israel and the Palestinian territories, free of restraints, can be arranged. No doubt the opposition from BDS will be formidable but being a man of moral courage you would no doubt handle the pressure.

In conclusion, John, I’m delighted that you are reading “Jerusalem, a Biography”. The benefits are obvious, especially to someone interested in the ways of the Middle East.  May I offer you the loan of any book about this conflict and its history from my personal library which will only enhance a clearer understanding of its true context and complexities. To start I would suggest “Globalising Hatred” by Denis MacShane (not Jewish).

Victor Gordon to the Star:One holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss”

THE STAR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Refers:  “One holocaust many don’t like to acknowledge or discuss”

 

Of course Victoria Brittain is right; There was never a Bantustan which suffered the violence Gaza has – a “siege” of eight years and three wars in the last six years. But never was there a Bantustan that fired 14,000 rockets and mortars at its neighbour and allowed itself to be ruled by a terrorist organization that in its Charter called for the destruction of her neighbour and the murder of all her citizens.

Indeed, besides her open bias in which she focuses obsessively on the plight of the Gazan’s alone, Brittain fails to mention, even once, the true reason for their suffering – a seemingly irrelevant entity named Hamas.  Obviously, it is too problematic too admit that Hamas’ futile commitment to destroy the Jewish state of Israel is the root cause of the sea blockade and the wars that have resulted in so much misery and destruction.

Perhaps Brittain might find the courage to admit that each of these wars was brought about by Hamas’ incessant rocket fire resulting in Israel’s eventual retaliation. With Hamas’ brutal policy of utilizing its civilian population as human shields in the knowledge that their inevitable harm would predictably elicit the sympathy displayed by Victoria Brittain, proves that anything goes provided the public buy into it.

Throughout her article she gives the clear impression that Gaza’s miseries are solely inflicted by Israel.  It becomes so easy to decry the sad state of Gaza’s economy but ignore the wilful destruction of an entire hot-house industry worth many millions of US$ donated to the Gazan’s by American Jews following Israel’s withdrawal from the region in 2005, only to have it raised to the ground as the last Israeli departed.

Neither does she mention that the pitiful state of  disrepair of the sewage works that led to the catastrophic flooding of Um Al Nasser in 2007 was predominantly caused by official neglect with the cement sent for reconstruction from Israel, stolen by Hamas to build underground tunnels.

While eagerly endorsing the description of Gaza as an “open-air prison”, she fails to remind readers that Hamas’s policy of terrorism has resulted in it being sealed off by Egypt as well as by Israel. However, despite the constant rocket fire into Israel during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the Kerem Shalom crossing remained open.

During the 50 day conflict, 3044 trucks entered Gaza through the Erez Crossing carrying essential humanitarian supplies and another 5,779 through the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

4.58 Million liters of diesel, 9.8 million liters of fuel and 4,843 tons of domestic gas were also delivered. Medical supplies amounted to 997 tons.

One need only imagine how this humanitarian effort would have been reciprocated were the positions reversed.

The fact that Brittain fails to consider the suffering endured by one million Israelis who, for weeks on end were compelled to live in underground bomb shelters; who still live in fear of an underground attack tunnel emerging in their yard and  whose children are as traumatised by their ordeal as are Palestinian kids, we will continually be bombarded with one-sided articles such as this which only serve to mislead and which achieve absolutely nothing in the interests of any hope of eventual peace.

Monessa Shapiro to the Independent: re the Nakba

Imraan Buccus opines that we should cry for the Palestinians as they commemorate 68 years of their Nakba.   He is indeed correct for it is a tragedy of immense proportions that the Palestinians do not have their own state.  A tragedy that has resulted in the death of thousands of both Israelis and Palestinians.  And a tragedy that could so easily have been averted.

For in 1947, the United Nations, in UN Resolution 181, partitioned what was left of British Mandatory Palestine ( after carving off all the land east of the Jordan in the formation of trans-Jordan) into a land for the Jews of Palestine and a land for the Arabs of Palestine.   The Jews accepted this partition but the Arabs refused and together with Israel’s neighbours waged war on the fledgling Jewish state with the intention of driving the Jews into the sea.   Had the Arabs accepted their state they would today, with Israel, be celebrating 68 years of independence.

And then again, in 1967, after the 6 Day War, Israel offered to give up land in exchange for peace.   This was met by the now infamous 3-No’s of Khartoum.  No to peace, no to negotiations and no to recognising Israel.  The year 2000 saw a farther offer by Israel when Ehud Barak offered Arafat  97% of the West Bank (with land exchanges for the other 3%), all of Gaza, and east Jerusalem.   This offer was met with the second Intifada, in which hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians were murdered in buses, restaurants, hotels and nightclubs, while going about their daily activities.

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon removed every Jew from Gaza, making the area Judenfrei for the Palestinians living there in the hope that they would begin building their own state; and with the intention that should Gaza work the West Bank would follow suit.   The Jews left behind an infrastructure worth billions and the thoughts were that Gaza would soon become the “Singapore of the Middle East.”   Instead the buildings and hothouses left by the Jews became the launching pads for thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel aimed at murdering as many Israeli men, women and children as possible.

In 2008 Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas 94% of the West Bank with land swops, a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank, East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, and the old city of Jerusalem under international supervision.   This offer was again refused, as Abbas admitted during an interview on Israel’s Channel 10 : “I did not agree, I rejected it out of hand.” (quoted in The Tower 17/11/15)

And so yes, we should all weep for the Palestinian people.  A people cursed with intractable leaders.  Leaders who hate Israel and the Jews more than they love their own people.

Victor Gordon to the Cape Times:Call to address ‘Nakba atrocity”

 

CAPE TIMES

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Refers:  “Call to address ‘Nakba atrocity”

 

Interestingly, the Cape Times saw fit to devote over 75% of “Call to address ‘Nakba atrocity” to the views of seven disgruntled Jews representing ‘South African Jews for a Free Palestine’ (SAJFP) who, together with Palestinians, regard the establishment of Israel as a Nakba (“Catastrophy”). In contrast, the Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s independence) celebration held concurrently and celebrated by over 2000 supporters of the Jewish state, was allocated three short paragraphs.

Within the greater pro-Nakba body of the article we were told that “almost one million” Palestinian Arabs were forced to flee when the generally accepted figure has always been 800,000 – with the United Nations placing the figure at closer to 640,000. However, we understand that  “One Million” delivers a far greater emotive impact.

We are then told that the Jews fought a “War of Liberation”, a term never used in this context as this war is commonly referred to as “The War of Independence” – just another example of sloppy journalism.

Claiming that the celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut is, according to SAJFP, “an extremely partial version of history” (as it fails to acknowledge the disaster that befell the side that not only started the war in the first place but vowed to drive the Jews into the sea), is like telling  Holocaust death-camp survivors to ensure that on Yom Hashoa (Holocaust Memorial Day) they acknowledge the pain experienced by their SS tormentors following Germany’s defeat in 1945.

While calling for the recognition of the Nakba as a Palestinian catastrophe, perhaps the SAJFP should try to understand it for the right reasons amongst which ‘ethnic cleansing’ is not one. Every historian of note acknowledges that the flight of the Palestinians in 1948 was the result of a multitude of factors, not the least being the call by their own leaders to abandon their homes for just a few short weeks within which the Jews would be roundly defeated. Thereafter, they could happily return.

This is documented on  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFrefugees.html#1 with each statement from Arab sources fully referenced. In all probability, the only dissenting voice would be Ilan Pappe, regarded by his peers as an unreliable historian who openly admits that he wilfully distorts history to suit his personal agenda.

One has only to consider SAJFP representative, David Sanders’ picture of  “fleeing people collapsing as they fled and of bodies lying on the roadside” to understand how ‘facts’ are distorted to gain an emotive reaction.  I would be curious to know where Sanders acquired this information being a description I have never before encountered.

While Sanders calls for a righting of “historical injustices” he fails to recognise the injustice dealt at that time to the Jews who, by accepting the UN offer of partition, acquired just 10% of the original region granted to them for the establishment of a homeland by the San Remo Conference of 1920 and later ratified by the League of Nations.  Their co-operation lay in the hope of establishing peace with their neighbours while the real injustice lay with the Arabs who attacked the fledgling state bent on its total annihilation. This resulted in the deaths of 6000 (1%) of Israel’s total population.

Had this war not occurred there would have been no Nakba, no protracted futile 68-year war against the very existence of Israel, but instead, a developed, blossoming Palestinian state, living side by side with a supportive, peace-loving Jewish neighbour.

Intransigent neighbours who launch attacks, then lose, should not cry “foul” when faced with the outcome of their folly. That and nothing else is the sad reality of the Nakba.