Don Krausz to The Star: re: Attacker criminal not Muslim

The Editor,

 RE: ATTACKER A CRIMINAL, NOT A DEVOUT MUSLIM.

By Dr. Firoz Osman, 23/7/16.

 Dr. Firoz Osman of the Media Review Network points out that the Nice terrorist could not have been an Islamist because he violated Sharia Law.

 Under Sharia law, crimes such as honour killings, female genital mutilation, expulsion or worse of apostates take place. Men and women are stoned to death, hanged and beheaded in public. Western states have been powerless to prevent forced and underage marriages, compulsory veiling, polygamy and more in their own cities.

 In some Moslem countries Sharia law is enforced by fanatics known as the Taliban. It is they who shot a fifteen year old girl called Mouhala for insisting on being given an education, something forbidden to Moslem women in her country.

 In Afghanistan the Taliban patrol the streets, search houses and destroy any television sets, radios, cassettes and photographs which they consider to be in violation of Sharia law. They have dismantled all civil and women’s institutions.

 There and elsewhere they are perpetrating genocide against a dissident sect known as Hazaras.

 After 15,000 Hazaras had been murdered in one day in the Afghanistan city of Mazar,  Mullah Manon Niazi, governor of Mazar, announced to a crowd: “Hazaras are not Muslim. You can kill them. It is not a sin.”

Victor Gordon to the Pretoria News: SA would do well to support efforts to reign in Israel”

PRETORIA NEWS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers: “SA would do well to support efforts to reign in Israel”

It is hard to believe that Ambassador Ibrahim Coovadia could have represented South Africa in Israel for three long years only to come away with so myopic and one-sided a perspective of his host country.

How is it possible that a state, rated by the highly respected independent watch-dog, “Freedom  House” as totally democratic and free in every sense, can simultaneously be seen to be so evil?  Easy.  Anything becomes possible when viewed from the skewed perch of hypocrisy, intolerance and bias.

Coovadia is no different from the “international personalities” and “internationally respected journalists” he mentions, all renowned for their unwavering anti-Israel hostility. Their writings, statements and views are generally devoid of objectivity and consistently cast Israel as the eternal villain and the Palestinians as the helpless victim, never expected to contribute towards a solution to this conflict and never blamed for the lack of progress in finding a meaningful and lasting peace.

True to form, Coovadia disingenuously twists truth and never places anything in any sort of context.

For example, he claims that Netanyahu essentially sought the support of the four countries he visited at the UN  in exchange for Israel’s military assistance. In fact, there is no mention of a military component to Netanyahu’s visit. The focus was on water conservation, agriculture, and the general utilization of Israel’s advanced technology. Israeli weapons make up no more than 1% of military sales into Africa.

He speaks of so-called “Israeli terrorism” against Palestinians implying that there is an ongoing “terrorist” campaign aimed at Palestinians without once mentioning the daily stabbing and vehicle attacks that are the precursor to what occurred in Nice. Perhaps he could provide statistics of the number of Palestinians killed by “Israeli terrorists” in the past 12 months.

Further, he snidely asks: “Does Israel not have an undeclared programme of continually developing and upgrading its nuclear arsenal? Israel’s navy recently successfully tested long-range missiles to be used. For what purpose?” – implying that this “upgrade” poses an international threat.

The truth is, on 10 July, Israel announced that its navy had successfully tested an American-built, long-range anti-ship ‘Harpoon’ missile on a scrapped Israeli naval vessel. The “purpose” of the test was therefore no mystery and easily explained.

Coovadia’s article is replete with similar disingenuity and a typical example of deliberate distortion and  obfuscation.

Gill Katz : An open letter to the Media Review Network

Sir

Please consider my letter for publication

RE: ATTACKER A CRIMINAL, NOT A DEVOUT MUSLIM.

By Dr. Firoz Osman, 23/7/16.

An Open Letter to the Media Review Network

For aeons now, Dr. Ozman and his Media Review Network have annoyed, angered , frustrated and finally bored me to tears with their regurgitated drivel concerning everything to do with Israel.

The veritable Doctor  Oz ‘s latest letter shows his head shaking vigorously  as he protests the link between the vile mass murder by a radical Islamic terrorist and Islam. He wants to distance himself from those who he claims are performing  acts forbidden by sharia law.

Bravo Doc!

But now take a big bold step please. Rally the rest of your MRN and stage a protest march with big banners showing your indignation. Surely you realise that what the world is waiting for is a mass reaction close to the kind of demonstration shown when the Prophet Mohammed was used in a cartoon. Letters to newspapers are a good positive move but we are asking more of you and your friends.

It’s time, Dr. Ozman.

Man up and make a big difference

Allan Wolman to The Star

Any diplomat who has served as an ambassador would know better than most that bilateral discussions covering a host of issues would be on the agenda of the high power delegation headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu visiting four East African Countries recently. However Ambassador Ismail Coovadia in his letter to The Star (22 July) would have readers believe that military hardware and build up was the only point of discussion.

As reported on Al Jazeera this visit had agricultural and technical aid top of the agenda as food security being a burning issue in many African countries was the one area that Israel excels and assists many on the continent.  No doubt security issue were discussed given Kenya’s recent experience.

Coovadia talks of Israeli terrorism – how dare he claim such an absurdity – Israel is the victim of more terrorism than anywhere on earth. Terrorism is what happened in Paris, Brussels, Istanbul and in Israel  by children as young as 11 years murdering innocent civilians, yet he convolutes this obscenity by claiming that Netanyahu is a sponsor of state terror. Claims that Ethiopian Jews are “dumped in isolated segregated areas and separated from their families” borders on libellous. Serving as ambassador he knows better than most that Israel hosts more international journalists  than any other country – all salivating to dig up some dirt on Israel, why Mr. Ambassador have these facts not been splashed all over the media? But what he certainly wouldn’t write about is how Israel rescued tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews in distress.

By Israel’s initiative into East Africa she offers those countries and others around the continent more hope and opportunity than any Arab country has ever done and it is those Arab states who tried to seduce Africa for their UN support that are now seeing through those false promises and forming ties with an honest broker

 

Don Krausz to the Star:AU must be warned against Netanyahu

22 July 2016.

 The Letters Editor.

 RE: AU must be warned against Netanyahu – by Ismail Coovadia – The Star, 22-7-16.

 Ismail Coovadia was a former S.A. ambassador to Israel. As such one assumes that he must have studied the history of Israel. But if such a person has tunnel vision or is very prejudiced, he will arrive with preconceived ideas that no amount of evidence can change. Emotion usually overrides intellect.

 He ought to have known of the terrorist attacks against the Jews there since 1920 which

left 24,841 men, women and children dead and 35,356 wounded. He should have been aware of the totally unprovoked attack in 1948 by at least five neighbouring Arab countries as well as its local Palestinian population on the 650,000 resident Jews after the State of Israel was declared and supported by the United Nations. An atrocity that left 6,000 dead and 30,000 wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia. One percent of its total Jewish population.

He ought to have known of the five major defensive wars that Israel was forced to fight.

Or the continuous hatred emanating from the Moslem world who resented having a single state of “infidels” in their midst. This also applied to Israel’s neighbours and resident Palestinian leadership and clergy. Moslem infants were indoctrinated in crèches and schools to hate Jews and go out and kill them, something that is taking place to this day with clergy and Palestinian leadership venerating and lauding those that murder and butcher children in their beds or rabbis engaged in prayer.

Perhaps that is why in his benighted view he sees Israel’s hand offered to African states as a bribe instead as to mutual benefit, against all logic and responsibility. After all, South Africa loses hundreds of young men yearly to failed circumcision. Israel also circumcises its boys and has developed a device that can accomplish this at no risk. That instrument was offered to South Africa and other African countries and would have saved lives and prevented suffering. But the powers that be refused to accept it because it was invented in Israel. How irresponsible and stupid can one be?

Ridiculously, he only writes of Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians. The 2008 Palestinian census stood at 1.7 million individuals. By now it has reached two million.

What, despite Israeli terrorism? Israel is surrounded by Moslem states. Surely if conditions were that bad those millions of Palestinians would have emigrated long ago!

Is it possible that they are not attracted to lands where there is universal suffrage, no death penalty, no public stoning or beheading of women, where women are not sexually mutilated or under complete dominance by men (Ayaan Hirsi Ali)? Where a young girl is not shot for demanding female education (Mouhala)? Women’s rights are not curtailed while Palestinians can partake in every aspect of society?

Coovadia criticises the treatment of black Israelis. How did such people ever get to Israel? Is he really ignorant of the fact that Israel brought its black Jews from India, Yemen, Ethiopia? That after its devastating attack in 1948 and its resulting defeat of the invading Arabs, those Arabs states expelled and expropriated their Jewish citizens, many of which had been resident for 2,500 years? This resulted in vast numbers of Jews becoming refugees. 800,000 of these were absorbed by Israel despite the fact that the nascent country could only house them in tents.

He urges the international community to apply pressure, including “resistance operations” on Israel in order to “further the recognition of humanity.” To this day the phrase “resistance operations” are a Palestinian euphemism for terrorism. In Israel since 1920 those noble deeds have consisted of murder, rape, butchery of the young, old and pregnant, suicide bombings in discotheques and religious gatherings a la Isis and car rammings of people waiting for transport.

But then Ismail Coovadia may have his own interpretation of the word “humanism.”

Don Krausz to The Star: RE: STILL, THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE OCCUPATION,

20 Jul. 16

 The Letters Editor,

 RE: STILL, THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE OCCUPATION,

By Shannon Ebrahim, 20/7/2016.

 This canard has been offered time and again, factually disproved and yet keeps resurfacing. All praise be to Joseph Goebbels, late Nazi propaganda minister, who stated that a lie repeated often enough will eventually be believed.

 Let me pose some questions to Mrs. Ebrahim. Does she believe that over a period of 3,300 years there were Jewish kingdoms in the land once called Judea, Samaria, Palestine; that there were Jewish temples in Jerusalem? That there was always a Jewish presence there such as farmers, despite the removal of large sections of the Jewish population? (Someone had to feed the occupying troops!) Ottoman census figures showing that Jews outnumbered Arabs in Jerusalem?

 Does she believe the many 19^th Century travellers of note who reported that the territory was barren, malaria and swamp infested and that travel was made hazardous by Bedouin marauders? That apart from the cities the land was largely unpopulated (Mark Twain)?

Does she acknowledge the influx of European Jews from 1880 onwards? That they replanted the barren hills with trees, drained the swamps thus eliminating the malaria, built the city of Tel Aviv, made the desert bloom, established industries and turned Israel into one of the most advanced civilisations in the Middle East, if not the world?

Where were the so-called Palestinians while this was happening?

The Jews practise one of the oldest religions in the world. Despite their contribution to the land their presence was bitterly resented by Moslems who also came into the area, who believed that once a territory has a Mohammedan population it must remain so and even apply that notion toSpain!

The Spaniards eventually regained their country. Why don’t the UN and Moslems worldwide protest against this “Spanish Occupation”?

Is “infidel” Israel hated because today it is the one country in the Middle East that has freedom of religion, equal rights and education for women, (i.e. no female sexual mutilation, total subservience to men or the ghastly honour killings by one’s nearest and dearest, cf. Ayaan Hirsi Ali), public stoning and beheading of women and public executions of homosexuals, a much higher birth rate, infant survival and education for children?

In view of the above, why did the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries attack the tiny Jewish population of Israel in 1948? Killing 6,000, one percent thereof, wounding 30,000 according to the British Encyclopaedia? Or the unceasing murderous terror attacks on men, women, children and infants that since 1920 have claimed 24,841 dead and 35,356 wounded? Ebrahim makes no mention thereof – does she justify this because of a highly disputable occupation?

Ebrahim makes one valid point: Israel has the obligation as the occupying power to protect the Palestinian population. But she insists on ending that occupation! Shannon, dear, make up your mind…

Victor Gordon to the Pretoria News:“Unjust occupation of Palestine is the problem”

PRETORIA NEWS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers:   “Unjust occupation of Palestine is the problem”

In a startling about turn, Shannon Ebrahim, after questioning the morality of certain African countries for daring to host Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, now acknowledges that Israel , “like any other country has a right to seek allies around the world”.

She then states that, “Were Israel’s occupation … to end tomorrow and a viable two-state solution within the pre-1967 borders agreed upon, there is no doubt that most of the African continent would embrace Israel with open arms.”

Clearly, Ebrahim fails to understand that Africa is not Israel’s problem. Except for a handful of hostile Muslim states in the north like Libya, Yemen and Morocco,  Israel has enjoyed cordial relationships with Africa for decades. Currently Israel has diplomatic missions in 11 African states and 159 states world-wide.

The problem lies with the Arab/Muslim states that surround Israel and have incessantly tried to annihilate the Jewish state since its birth in 1948.

For 19 years until the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan, despite not an inch of occupation during that period, Israel had no respite from terrorism, random attacks and war. The absence of occupation made no difference to the absence of peace.

While Ebrahim harps on the need to end the occupation she fails to address the reasons for the partial occupation of the West Bank in the first place (Gaza has not been occupied since 2005). She forgets that almost immediately after the Six Day War, Israel offered to return all captured territory in return for a negotiated peace with her neighbours. This was unreservedly rejected by the Arab League leaving Israel caught in an occupation that she did not wish for and would gladly relinquish, provided her security could be guaranteed. Nothing has proved to be more elusive and a real peace remains a remote dream.

In her article of 407 words, Ebrahim devotes just 6 in acknowledging Israel’s need of security, the true cause of the conflict. The rest of her letter is devoted to the plight of the Palestinians of whom she demands no contribution at all towards the establishment of peace. They remain the eternal, innocent  victims and Israel  the eternal villain.

The Israel/Palestinian conflict is undoubtedly the most distorted and uncontextualised international issue, made worse by the biased and misleading reportage of journalists like Shannon Ebrahim. I challenge her to reveal just some of the humanitarian actions adopted by Israel; the 180,000 Palestinians treated annually in Israeli hospitals; the field hospitals set up within meters of the Syrian border to treat injured Syrian refugees, or the thousands of tons of fuel, medicines and equipment that cross into Gaza daily, to name but a few.

This, Ms Ebrahim would help diffuse the situation instead of inflame it further.

Victor Gordon to The Cape Argus:“Were Palestinians consulted in Israel’s creation?”

CAPE ARGUS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers:  “Were Palestinians consulted in Israel’s creation?”

Al Gafoor  “protesteth too much” with his transparent attempt to rob the term “anti-Semitism” of it’s true meaning and deny that it implies hatred and hostility towards Jews.

He suggests that because there appears to be a genetic link between Jews and Palestinians, the term “anti-Semitism” has nothing to do with race and is merely a “linguistic and cultural classification” with “a clear distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism”.

However, when it comes to Jew-hatred the focus is not on “Judaism”, (being the Jewish religion as such and the practise thereof), but rather on the those who practise it, namely the Jewish people.

I assure Mr. Gafoor, when it comes to anti-Semitism, after experiencing its lash for the past 2000 years,  we Jews know exactly what it means, who harbours these feelings  and what they are capable of.

The accusation that Israel was responsible for “scuttling” the succession of failed peace talks listed by Gafoor, contradicts what has been documented time and again by historians, politicians and commentators who covered these meetings. If Mr. Gafoor has information to the contrary I suggest that he produce it.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 was not (as suggested by Gafoor) a simple “roadmap for Israel to pull back to its pre-1967 borders” but a roadmap for Israel to withdraw from “territories (not ALL territories) occupied following the Six Day War following negotiations of secure borders between the warring parties and the termination of all belligerency. After the Arab League turned down all overtures for peace talks by Israel with its infamous 3 “No’s” (no peace, no recognition, no negotiations), Res 242 was effectively blocked, but through no fault of Israel.

Nowhere in Res. 242 is there a requirement that the Palestinians be granted any political rights or territory. There is only a call for “a just settlement of the refugee problem” which would obviously hinge on negotiations.

Finally, Gafoor ends by quoting a litany of disparaging comments by so-called “peace activist” and Haaretz journalist, Gideon Levy. Levy is an outspoken radical whose extreme Leftist views would, in many other countries be regarded as treasonous. However, they dovetail perfectly with the distorted argument presented by Al Gafoor.

In Israel, Levy is protected by the country’s democratic commitment to freedom of the press and of speech.  Anywhere else in the region his luck would run out.

Don Krausz: Courting Africa to overturn criticism

15 July, 2016.

 The Letters Editor,

 RE: COURTING AFRICA TO OVERTURN CRITICISM.

By Shannon Ebrahim, 15/7/2016.

 If I was Shannon Ebrahim I would be most upset about what is happening to my co-religionists. An estimated 300,000 Syrians killed, millions displaced and thousands drowning to escape to Europe in order to avoid the Sunni/Shia/Isis slaughter in their homelands. Their incessant acts of terrorism making a mockery of their “religion of peace.” The fact that hospitable countries such as Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden now bitterly regret to having opened their borders to these so-called refugees, of whom 4,000 have already been identified as terrorists, people who hail from societies with a 7^th Century morality and mentality.

Where women are regarded as chattels, females sexually mutilated and deprived of human rights. Where an adolescent girl can be shot for demanding an education.  Where infants and children have their throats cut at the instigation of the clergy and where such perpetrators are lauded and venerated.         

This does not seem to disturb Shannon Ebrahim as much as “Africa losing its moral compass.” She continues to regurgitate the untrue statement that Israel  abuses human rights. The latter make me think that she is looking at the wrong map. She repeats the old lies of “occupied territories.” What occupied territories? Arik Sharon withdrew every Israeli settler and soldier from Gaza in 2005, only to be rewarded by Hamas with the launching of 14,000 missiles at Israeli residential areas!

To stop strife the United Nations partitioned the land between Arabs and Jews.

The Jews accepted, the Arabs did not. They wanted it all as their slogan “From the river to the sea,” indicates.

In 1948 they attacked the Jews of Israel with genocidal intent, killing one percent of their total number.

Ebrahim writes of a “gigantic wall along the West Bank.” Israel erected a wire fence of which a very small portion is wall. It was created to put an end to the infiltration of suicide murderers after Israel had suffered the brutal loss of more than 1,000 of its men, women and children in these indiscriminate attacks. That barrier has reduced those losses by 90 percent.

Does Ebrahim consider that fence also a human rights abuse?

Allan Wolman to The Star:

Shannon Ebrahim opens her article (The Star 15 July) with the question: “When did East Africa lose its moral compass”? Rich indeed coming from a journalist whose moral compass is guided by her prejudice.

She is up in arms over the recent high profile and highly successful visit to East Africa by the Israeli Prime Minister, and her normal platitudes repeated again with no substance and even less truth. Ebrahim tells us about the expanding BDS campaign – indeed expanding insomuch that an ever increasing number of states are clamping down on BDS activities and exposing it for a violent and hate filled organization

Ebrahim together with her band of Israel bashers are now perplexed that many African states are seeing through the propaganda that her ilk perpetuates and are recognizing the opportunities that Israel’s incredible success can benefit their own countries by alleviating starvation and disease and almost every other field of science and technology, something that past benefactors have failed dismally to deliver to Africa.

But the Ebrahim’s, the Janet Smiths, the Iqbal Jassat’s of this world together with their Media Review Network who are afforded an inordinate amount of space on the pages of Independent Newspapers for the sole purpose of promoting an agenda of hate against the Jews as a ruse to hide the true atrocities of the Arab World and to deflect attention from the daily slaughter perpetrated by the Islamic State.

Where is Shanon Ebrahim’s moral compass when the slaughter in Brussels, Paris, Istanbul and now truck ramming in Nice (something that happens almost daily in Israel) take a back seat compared with settlement expansion in Palestinian lands. Where does that compass point when the killing of half a million Syrians now become a statistic rather than a tragedy. Isn’t it strange that all we read from these  ‘humanitarians’ are about Israel’s ills nothing about daily incitement on Palestinian TV depicting Jews as pigs and sub-humans, teaching children to hate and to murder.

But Ebrahim & Co consumed by their own hatred are blind to Palestinian and Arab violence and instead fill our opinion pages with Israeli settlement expansion – building more houses in their books is a greater crime than slitting the throat of a 13 year old child in her bed or the hundreds of other atrocities perpetrated by Palestinians on Israelis.