Allan Wolman responds to The Mail & Guardian

As a medical practitioner Dr Aayesh Soni would well know that almost a quarter of a million Palestinians both from the West Bank as well as Gaza that are treated annually in world class Israeli hospitals. She would also know that thousands of refugees fleeing the carnage of Syria are treated in medical facilities close to that border by dedicated Israeli medical personnel. Yet Dr Soni turns a blind eye to these facts and goes on to claim that “legally Israel is guilty of the same crime as Hitler”

Really Dr Soni? Where Hitler decimated one third of world Jewry, the Palestinian population is expanding at an ever increasing rate – where the infant mortality rate the lowest and life expectancy the highest in the Arab world – again a medical doctor would know these facts, yet Soni accuses Israel of genocide!

The UN Commission on Human Rights is replete with some of the worst human rights abusers and to quote the good doctor that is “like getting a man who regularly beats his wife to head a group dealing with domestic violence.”

The daily death toll in the Arab world from Yemen to Iraq to Libya and of course Syria runs into tens if not hundreds and readers of the M&G are told by a medical doctor that Israel is guilty of genocide! Perhaps Dr Soni, instead of turning truth on its head, should back up her statements with facts and statistics – something that the various UN bodies and other NGO’s can certainly do but this newspaper affords space to this kind or absurdity!

Palestinian children as young as 11 years are taught to murder innocent civilians, but not a mention of this obscenity from someone having taken the Hippocratic Oath or could that read the “Hypocritic” oath?  

Victor Gordon to The Cape Argus: re : Moderate Muslim Khan no saviour

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

CAPE ARGUS

 

Refers:  “Moderate Muslim mayor Khan no saviour”

 

While the figure quoted by Ayesha Moola of 816 attacks on London Muslims during the past 12 months is indeed shocking, it is sobering to compare them in the following context to the reciprocal number of 483 attacks against London’s Jews.

There are 607,000 Muslims and 150,000 Jews living in Greater London. So while the overall number of anti-Semitic attacks is 41% lower than Islamaphobic attacks, the ratio of per capita attacks directed against Jews is 1:310, while those against Muslims is 1:743. This means there is 139% more chance of a Jew suffering an attack than a Muslim.

In the one month since Sadiq Khan was elected the first Muslim Mayor of London, hardly enough time to pass judgement on either his performance or ability. Yet Ayesha Moola appears to judge him on one issue alone – his pronouncements and general attitude towards Israel and Zionism. Nothing else seems to matter to Moola who, ironically, claims that “denouncing the Israeli ‘apartheid’ regime is such a fundamental part of being ‘fair-minded’ and (of being) a champion of human rights”.

Despite Moola’s claim to live by a strong, “fair-minded” moral code and desire for justice, she finds it incomprehensible that it just might be possible that Israel is not the apartheid state she claims it to be (see Freedomhouse.com); that Israel is not the gross abuser of human rights that she would wish us to believe; that Sadiq Khan has the intellect to revise his earlier thinking and arrive at conclusions that see and accept Israel with “fair-minded” insight without being led by the nose as are so many others seemingly incapable of original thought.

While many Jewish Londoners seem to have voted for Khan for various reason, it’s hard to believe that Zac Goldsmith, the Jewish candidate would have enjoyed far less support from his own ethnic constituency. As much as Moola wished for a Muslim Mayor, London’s Jews would have wished for their first Jewish Mayor.

Therefore to claim that the so-called “Zionist lobby” played a major role in Khan’s success and that Khan now realises that his political future is limited unless he cow-tows accordingly, is a poor argument to explain the reasoning of a man who clearly has a mind of his own.

Finally, Moola obfuscates the fundamental reason behind Naqba Day, claiming that it commemorates the displacement of the Palestinians following  Israel’s declaration of independence on May 15, 1948. She neglects to explain that Israel was attacked the very next day by five Arab armies and in the course of defending herself, gained territory formerly inhabited largely by indigenous Arabs.

The lessons are obvious:  No war, no displacement, no Nakba.

Rodney Mazinter to the Mail & Guardian re:(Israel as chair of UN legal body a horrible irony

 

The Editor

Mail & Guardian

Dear Sir

Aayesha Soni is in need of a reality check. (Israel as chair of UN legal body a horrible irony M&G 24/06/2016). She castigates Israel’s human rights rcord.

Some of the world’s worst human rights violators sit on the Human Rights Council, even though these regimes systematically violate virtually every article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These include Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Vietnam and others. Disregard for human rights is  intrinsic to the very structure of these governments.

A detailed independent report evaluating all of Council members based on their domestic record makes for some sobering reading, highlighting recent low points such as the failure of all of these members to support a draft resolution in the General Assembly documenting the shocking human rights abuses by Iran against women, religious minorities, and political dissidents. Until his demise it has had lumiaries such as Moammar Gadhafi as chairman.

At the time Kofi Annan acknowledged openly that countries had sought membership in the U.N.’s highest human rights body not to strengthen human rights, but “to protect themselves against criticism or to criticise others. … was undermined by the politicisation of its sessions, the “selectivity of its work.” It suffered from “declining professionalism” and a “credibility deficit,” all of which “cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.”

In reality the world’s worst abusers continue to get a free pass. It has been compared to “a police force run in large part by suspected murderers and rapists”. No Council member even tries tabling resolutions to help human rights victims in countries like Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Zimbabwe. The persistant target is Israel; a democracy that ranks very high among the freest countries in the world.

Every country gets reviewed. In practice, however, most of the reviews amount to orchestrated mutual praise. For example, China used the Council to praise Saudi Arabia – where 53 Ethiopian Christians were arrested for praying in a private home – for its “religious tolerance.” The next day, Saudi Arabia praised China – which has trampled the people of Tibet – for “progress” in “ethnic minority regions, at the political, cultural and educational levels.”

There is a credibility crisis that has lead it down the same ignominious path as its constituant members. Can there be a more stark example of “a horrible irony?”

Don Krausz to The Star: Re: Playing by different rules – by Shannon Ebrahim. 24/6/2016

24 June, 2016.

The Letters Editor.

Re: Playing by different rules – by Shannon Ebrahim. 24/6/2016

3,300 years ago Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and they occupied the land now referred to as Palestine, named after the Greek Philistines. Despite foreign conquest and dispersals a Jewish element remained over all the centuries. That is why Kings Solomon and Herod built temples in Jerusalem for the worship of the Jewish religion. And that is why the territory now known as the West Bank was known as Judea and Samaria. The inhabitants of Judeabecame known as Jews.

In the nineteenth century there was a large influx of European Jews, most escaping East European and later Nazi murderous anti-Semitism. They drained the malaria-ridden swamps, replanted the vanished forests, created new cities and industries and made the desert bloom. Today Israel is the one country in the world that has more trees now than one year ago.

In 1947 the land was partitioned between Jews and Arabs at the instigation of the United Nations. The Jews accepted the partition; the Arabs did not, as they wanted it all “from the river to the sea.” When the Jews in 1948 declared their own state and took in thousands of remaining survivors from the European Holocaust, the local Arabs, who  called themselves Palestinians, and some seven Arab countries attacked the 650,000 Jews. 6,000 Jews fell in the unequal battle, one percent of the Jewish population, and 30,000 were wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia.

Since 1920 there have been constant strife and six major wars between the Jews, Israelis and Arabs. These resulted in 24,841 Israeli dead and 35,356 wounded.

It is a rule of warfare that when an attacked party retaliates and occupies the attacker’s territory, that occupied territory remains in the possession of the attacked country until a peace treaty is signed. That is how Egypt regained the Sinai Desert and there is now a peace of sorts between Israel and Jordan.

So when Tokyo Sexwale refers to “territory in dispute” he is absolutely right.

When the Communist Ronnie Kasrils rejects this he is obeying Party rhetoric and politics, not international law.

Shannon Ebrahim next quotes Jibril Rajoub, chairman of the Palestine Football Association. She omits to mention that he was the deputy secretary of Fatah which today is one of the largest terrorist organisations in the world. (Google). That worthy speaks of the “cruelty of occupation” in order to justify his organisation’s atrocities.

This whole article relates to sport, which ought to bring countries onto the playing field in friendly competition. During a Christmas in World War One, it even had the British and Germans playing soccer together between the trenches.

So isn’t this whole argument ridiculous? Let the Palestinians and Israelis kick a ball around instead of each other!

Victor Gordon to The Star: Refers: “Israel’s tech feats beside the point”

THE STAR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Refers: “Israel’s tech feats beside the point”

 

As much as Firoz Osman accuses me of propagating the pro-Israel line, he forgets that the whole reason behind the establishment of the Media Review Network, of which he is an executive member, was to promote the alternative pro-Palestinian narrative.

While we both carry out our respective missions as effectively as possible, it is phrases like “Palestine had enough water to become a major exporter of fruit long before the Zionists usurped their lands” that are troublesome. When exactly was “Palestine” water-rich and when has a land named “Palestine” ever existed except in Ozman’s imagination?

Before the arrival of the Zionists over 100 years ago there was little available to export from “Palestine” other than bucket-loads of desert sand. In comparison, the water resource technology from Israel which Ozman so readily decries has turned the latter into a garden and could do the same for every other country in the region if hating the Jews didn’t take precedent over the interests of their citizens.

The three uncontextualized “categorical truths” with regard to “occupation” that Ozman lists would all be irrelevant had the Palestinians, together with their Arab brothers, not made Israel’s annihilation their top priority instead of regional cohabitation and mutual co-operation.

If  Iranian desalination and drip-irrigation is as readily available from Iran as Ozman claims, where is it?   Is Iran not one of our dearest friends?

Platitudes might sound great but they do nothing to solve pressing problems.

Don Krausz to The Star: RE: ISRAEL’S TECH FEATS BESIDES THE POINT.

The Letters Editor,

THE STAR.

Dear Sir,

RE: ISRAEL’S TECH FEATS BESIDES THE POINT.

By Dr. Firoz Osman. 20-6-2016.

Dr. Osman accuses Israel of lying and of the “theft of Palestinian water.”

Jews have lived and farmed in Israel for some 3300 years. Even when the various conquerors removed large sections of the Jewish population, they left their armies in occupation and those armies had to be fed. Hence the remaining Jewish farmers.

Were those Jews farming with Palestinian water?

Anita Shapira in her history book “Israel” describes the land at the beginning of the 19^th Century as having Arabs living in the hills where there was no malaria, and having springs and plenty of rainfall. The soil was also more suitable for farming. The resident Jewish population in Jerusalem at the time also exceeded the Moslems.

When Jewish immigrants from Europe arrived in the middle of that century the Ottoman Turks only permitted them to buy coastal land which was rife with malaria, had poor soil with inadequate water. Mark Twain in his book “Innocents abroad” testifies to the poverty of the land which he describes as barren and with “dangerous roads, infested by Bedouin and robbers.” A barren and desolate, largely unpopulated land.

A few more paragraphs and once again Osman accuses Israel of “stealing Palestinian water, land and livelihood at gunpoint.” Professor Alan Dershowitz in his book “The Case for Israel” writes on page 25 that “a professional analysis of land purchases between 1880 and 1948 established that three-quarters of the plots purchased by Jews were from mega landowners rather that those that worked the soil.”

We now come to the crux of this whole matter: Osman’s assertion that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. One may assume that he is referring to the whole of Israel, despite its creation during the San Remo Conference of 1920. After all, does not the Hamas Charter state that the land belongs to the Palestinians “from the river to the sea?”

Jews have lived in the region for some 3,300 years. They conquered it from the Canaanites. Claiming that those were the original Palestinians makes as much sense as pointing out that the Canaanites must have conquered it from some other people and therefore also ought not to have any residential rights.

If possession constitutes nine points of the law then the fact that the land was conquered after the Jews by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Ottoman Turks and eventually the British still does not prove Palestinian ownership. Even under the Ottomans the Arabs in Palestine carried Syrian passports. And so history has its way.

In 1917 the British issued the Balfour Declaration “viewing with favour a Jewish homeland” in Palestine. Even in 1915 promises were made under the McMahon-Hussein Agreement on behalf of the British government via Sherif Hussein of Mecca about the allocation of territory to the Arab people BUT WHICH EXCLUDED PALESTINE FROM THIS TERRITORY.

By 1920 came the San Remo Conference where the status of the defeated Ottoman

Empire’s possessions were determined by Britain, France, Italy and Japan. It was at this conference that Palestine was placed under the sole mandate of Britain WITH THE EXPLICIT DIRECTIVE TO ENSURE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BALFOUR DECLARATION. With its incorporation in a resolution passed by the Conference on April 25, THE DECLARATION BECAME LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE.

This decision was unanimously confirmed by all fifty-one members of the League of Nations on July 24 1922, was adopted later by the United Nations and to this day has never been abrogated making it still legally binding between the parties who signed it.

As recently as April 2010, at a ceremony held at San Remo attended by representatives from Europe, the USA and Canada, a released statement recognised the “importance of the San Remo Resolution – which included the Balfour Declaration – (and reaffirmed that) the Resolution remains IRREVOCABLE, LEGALLY BINDING AND VALID TO THIS DAY (while) recognizing the exclusive national Jewish rights to the land of Israel under international law …to the territory previously known as Palestine.

Don Krausz: RE: UN LOSES MORAL LEGITIMACY – by Shannon Ebrahim.

The Letters Editors,

THE STAR, THE PRETORIA NEWS.

Dear Sirs/Madam,

RE: UN LOSES MORAL LEGITIMACY – by Shannon Ebrahim.

Full marks to both your editors and to Ms. Shannon Ebrahim.

This is a most positive article in that it criticises the lack on the part of the UN to make a stand against the prevailing injustice in this world. Until now our moral guardians, the UN, have only played the role of the watchman who was hired to watch over certain premises.

One morning his employer arrived to find that the property had been cleaned out.

“And where were you??” he bellowed at his watchman. The latter returned his angry gaze evenly. “You hired me as a watchman,” he replied. “I watched as the burglars arrived, as they broke into the premises, as they removed all the goods and as they drove away. I watched everything that went on.”    

But by now we know what we ought to do to stop evil and suffering. Most people worship religions and the scriptures of those religions teach us not to do evil. The Prophets and people like them prescribed rules. From 30 BC until 10 AD a sage called Hillel taught:

“What is hateful unto thee, do it not to thy fellowman! That is the whole scripture, all the rest is commentary.” We can’t go far wrong with that.

And when Hillel refers to his fellowman, he includes women, children, all races, albinos, the sick and the maimed. There can be no genocides or xenophobia when people obey Hillel.

I once saw a war film in which a soldier from the South of America who had been blinded and felt lost and desperate was befriended by another American. That friend helped the blind soldier to regain his confidence. After some years doctors were able to restore the sight to the blind soldier who then realised for the first time that his friend and benefactor was a black man.         

That knowledge may have done him as much good as regaining his sight. People are not born hating, they have to be taught. Perhaps they can be taught to regain their humanity as well.

Victor Gordon responds: Refers: “Israel’s water week also a stunt to put caring face on occupation”

PRETORIA NEWS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

 

Refers:  “Israel’s water week also a stunt to put caring face on occupation”

 

Clearly, Suraya Dadoo’s established antagonism towards Israel will not produce a statement untainted by misinformation, uncontextualized half-truths and snide insinuations.

Obviously, Dadoo never heard President Zuma’s statement in his State of the Nation address in which he said, “the drought currently taking place in most of our provinces is really devastating. Livestock are dying and as a result, the agricultural sector is going through a difficult period”.

It was this which prompted the Israeli Embassy to utilize funds normally assigned to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day and invest them in a project to potentially assist this country by bringing water experts from government, academia and industry to share Israel’s vast and indisputable experience in water usage, desalination and conservation. Israel currently recycles 86% of its water, with its closest rival, Spain, reusing 18%.  Obviously, Israel has something to offer.

The fact that hundreds of interested parties from all relevant sectors attended seminars in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban which showcased Israeli innovation in this critical field, proves both the wisdom of accepting expert aid when offered as well as the application of new methods where applicable.

As one who attended the Joburg gathering, I can vouch for the enthusiasm with which this exposure was received. Amongst the self-funded Israeli delegation were representatives of twelve companies, each with something unique to offer. All of them have international exposure in dozens of  African and European countries as well as the UK, USA, Australia amongst others.

Dadoo suggests that instead of turning to Israel, we should first approach alternative countries with similar expertise. Tellingly however, no other country has stepped forward to offer assistance in this regard.

Predictably, Dadoo loses no opportunity to turn this positive event into a cynical tirade against Israel’s water policies with regard to the Palestinians.

Foremost,  is her accusation that Palestinians are wilfully starved of water in favour of Israelis.

Water is indeed a complicated issue in this region while statistics depend on who one refers to. Here,  Dadoo chooses the World Bank which places the daily Palestinian consumption at a paltry 50L/capita against almost 300L/ Israeli. Dadoo ignores the fact that the figure of “50L/day” originates solely from the Mountain Aquifer and excludes water received from Coastal and other aquifers as well as surface water pumped to the West Bank from the Jordan River.

In contrast, B’tselem, the human rights NGO and one of Israel’s harshest critics, reports the usage amongst Palestinians in the West Bank ranging from 169L to 38L depending on the locality, with an average of 73L.  Yet, according to the Israel National Water Company, the average Palestinian uses 165L/day.

What Dadoo also fails to note is the disastrous state of the PA water system where an astounding 40% is lost through inefficiency and poor to non-existent maintenance.

While denigrating Israel’s honest attempt to assist this country as “a marketing opportunity to whitewash its ‘crimes against the Palestinians’”, perhaps Dadoo would do better by encouraging the PA to repair its broken water pipes while also approaching Saudi Arabia, Iran or the Gulf States for their assistance and expertise. It would no doubt be forthcoming.

Don Krausz responds to Suraya Dadoo: RE: DESALINATION COULD SOLVE CRISIS, BUT SHOULD IT?

 

The Letters Editor,

THE STAR.

 

Dear Sir,

 

RE: DESALINATION COULD SOLVE CRISIS, BUT SHOULD IT?

By Suraya Dadoo, 9-6-2016.

 

I suppose that depends on whether your children are more important to you than your prejudices.

 

The following is taken from an Israeli blog “This ongoing war,” of 27 March 2015.

 

“Israel’s approach to storing, treating, transporting, recycling and desalinating water is admired throughout the civilised world. It’s a heroic aspect of Israel’s unique history, and one of the most significant reasons why resource-poor, postage-stamp-sized Israel does so well in so many different ways.

 

A Reuters syndicated report (“Fighters” target vital water plants across Middle East) seemed to be dealing with the way terrorists, are targeting water supply resources. Terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Gaza have also used access to water and electricity supplies as ‘tactical weapons or as bargaining chips, the ICRC said.

 

“Water is a regional issue, and one that, with close cooperation between all parties, can ensure equitable, maximal access to clean and safe water and help ensure a more peaceful environment…Unfortunately, NGO’S would rather politicize this issue and demonise Israel than improve Palestinians access to clean water.

 

Some examples:

 

• A coalition of NGO’s and UN organisations called EWASH opposed an EU-funded desalination project in Gaza that would improve water supply to the suffering inhabitants of the teeming Hamas-dominated region.  Why? Because the project would “accommodate the occupation” and “legitimize Israeli actions.”

Let the Gazans stay thirsty.

 

• Constant and widespread repetition of one core claim – that Israel’s hostility to Hamas “prevents Gaza’s children from having normal opportunities…to drink clean water.” In reality Gaza’s water problems stem from poor maintenance of water and sewage facilities by the ruling power, Hamas. As an unabashedly terrorist organization, Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure and warfare requirements chronically take preference over investing in their people. (This was also shown by their use of women and children as human shields in the latest conflict.) The neglect of vital civilian infrastructures is the inescapable result.

 

But it is actually much worse than that. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords         in 1992, the management of Gaza’s water sector has been entirely in Palestinian hands. Israel provides millions of cubic meters of water annually as those signed agreements require. The incessant Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians have (astonishingly) not changed the reality that Israel continues to live up to the obligations agreed to in the Oslo Accords. Even while under rocket fire from the people at the far end of the pipeline, Israeli water authority personnel repair and maintain the water supply to Gaza under the most stressful conditions.

 

• Water gets lost in badly run systems no matter where in the world the bad management happens. This is mostly caused by leakage, spoilage, evaporation and inadequate delivery mechanisms (normally underground pipes). In Gaza those losses run at more than 40% of available supply. In the towns and villages under PA control, losses are around 33%. In Israel it is less than one tenth of that.

 

• Allegations are made that Mekorot, Israel’s national water authority gains from

“Israeli control over a Palestinian captive market under occupation.” So the claim is made that “Mekorot applies discriminatory water prices, charging Palestinians higher prices than Israelis.” It’s back to front wrong. The NGO-Monitor report shows how Mekorot sold water to the PA and Gaza in 2013 at a loss by honouring a set price contract to the Arabs. In reality, the price they pay is not more but in fact less than one third what Israelis paytheir own supplier.

If Israel’s aim is to make unjustified profits, it’s an odd way to do it.

 

• Another constant refrain: the Palestinian Arabs are prevented from creating a better water system because the Israelis make this hard for them. The reality, which depends on understanding treaties, agreements and opaque Palestinian Arab conduct, (which most anti-Israel activists and a large part of their audience don’t bother to do), is that water projects that have got all the necessary authorisations, including those needed from the Israeli side, and for which funding is available, routinely fail to deliver the goods because of conflict within the Palestinian Arab world, and the heavy lobbying of Palestinian sectoral interests, notably their agricultural sector.

 

• And sometimes the attacks on Israel focus not on inadequate supplies of water but on too much of it. We took a close look at the beginning of March at how irresponsible, unprofessional and agenda-driven reporting from some of the world’s largest creators of it can produce outrageous lies like the one claiming   Israel uses an aggressive open-the-flood-gates strategy to drown the children of Gaza.”

 

There are no dams in the vicinity to have their floodgates opened.

 

Gill Katz reponds to Suraya Dadoo:

Ms Dadoo of the Media Review Network strives – as do others who belong to this group – to point out all the wrongs perceived as being carried out by Israel against the people who live in Gaza and the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. Israel is portrayed as the Devil himself and unless you have been to Israel or at least studied the facts on the ground
(underscore  f a c t s)  you may gasp and tear up, and join the BDS, or start your own flotilla in order to put right all the wrongs!

Whilst there is no doubt that the people under the rule of Hamas or the PLO suffer, Ms Dadoo and her fellow scribes neglect to speak about the theft on a grand scale of billions of dollars meant for the upliftment of the residents. She remains zip – lipped about the role Egypt plays ( or doesn’t play) and more importantly I have yet to see the Media Review Network offer any tangible, sensible and workable solutions to what is a terribly tangled mess.
Come up with some ideas please, Ms Dadoo. And sit down with sensibly minded South Africans who seek a genuine peace in Israel , Judea, Samaria and Gaza.