Victor Gordon: SA’s immoral vote at UNESCO

PRETORIA NEWS

LETTER OR OP-ED TO THE EDITOR

“SA’s IMMORAL VOTE AT UNESCO”

Sir,

In keeping with its consistent record at the UN of taking immoral decisions in the face of indisputable fact, South Africa outdid itself in joining some of the planet’s most egregious abuses of human rights and voting for a UNESCO resolution that stripped Jews of their 3000-year historic and religious connection with Jerusalem and The Temple Mount.

Worse, they did so without so much as a blush.

The Jordanian-sponsored resolution has infuriated Israel by referring throughout to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem’s Old City (Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina) only by its Muslim names: Al-Aqsa and Al-Haram al-Sharif. The site is also revered by Jews as The Temple Mount which 2500 and 2000 years ago housed the First and Second Temples and which pre-empts Islam’s claimed connection by 1000 years.

Though hardly a vindication, 26 countries including such European luminaries as Greece, France, Italy, Holland and Sweden at least abstained, being a degree better than voting  “Yes” – but only a degree.  Doing so, however, was no less cowardly, as any civilized country with a modicum of appreciation for history, truth and justice would be fully aware that the Jewish connection to both Jerusalem and The Temple Mount is irrevocable and beyond dispute.

The Arab and Muslim countries that compiled and supported this foul resolution will no doubt  celebrate their pyrrhic “victory” in the delusional belief that after 3000 years, they have succeeded in duping a gullible, ignorant and apathetic world into believing that Jewish history, Jewish heritage and the Hebrew Bible itself have no validity and may be summarily cast aside like so much trash.

For 2000 years Jews have prayed facing Jerusalem; have vowed to return to Jerusalem at the conclusion of the Passover seder; have uttered the name Jerusalem 686 times when reading the Hebrew Bible and have wept at the holiest site for  Jews, the remnant of the western wall surrounding The Temple Mount, being the closest spot to  where the two Temples are believed to have stood.

As Prime Minister Netanyahu commented, the Wailing Wall is no less part of Jewish Jerusalem than the Great Wall is to China or the pyramids are to Egypt.

While South Africa’s crass insensitivity and rank stupidity comes as no surprise, the myopic failure of developed, Christian-based countries such as France, Italy, Holland, Greece and Sweden to acknowledge that “what happens to the Jews is destined to happen to others as well”, will inevitably demand payment of a heavy price.

The unshakable link between two of the three great Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism, is dependent on Jesus Christ originating from the Jerusalem Jewish community some 2000 years ago. This acceptance and understanding is, and always has been an essential underpinning of Christianity. The dependence of Christianity on the existence of Jesus is thus a given. No Jesus, no Christianity.

It follows, therefore, that with the negation of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, comes the destruction of this vital connection between Jesus and Christianity.

Despite repeated, delusional claims by “authoritative” Palestinian leaders bent on rewriting history, that Jesus was a Palestinian, (and in some cases “a practising Muslim” – despite Islam’s birth some 650 later) he was indisputably Jewish, spending much of his formative and mature years  within the precincts of the Second Temple and its surrounds. (Read Luke 2:22-28, 2:41-52, 19:45-48 / John 2:14 / Matthew 21:12 / Mark 11:15-19).

One can only wonder at the level of hatred and hypocrisy directed towards the Jewish state within the hallowed halls of the United Nations to allow a resolution such as this to pass with the support of nations such as ours, who should know better. It is a reflection of the infamous General Assembly Resolution 3379 of 1979 which equated Zionism with Racism and which prompted the eminent US Ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan to state, “The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law… A great evil has been loosed upon the world.”

While UNESCO, the guardian of heritage, education, science and culture has failed miserably to carry out its mandate, we look to the voices of local Christian leaders like Desmond Tutu, Frank Chikane, Ray Mccauley, as well as international bodies such as The World Council of Churches and The Holy See (as the spiritual leaders of millions) to make their voices heard. After all, this is not a Jewish matter in isolation – which has never attracted much sympathy in the past – but a threat to the very foundations of the entire Christian world.

Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

Alan Wollman responds to Merlynn Edelstein

Writing in The Star Merlynn Edelstein will surely have followed the press exposure prior to and after the flotilla to Gaza event and will surely have read Lee-Ann Naidoo’s half page article of 29^th September in which she made the spurious and libellous claim of a  “video she watched” and went on to state “I was not prepared. How could anyone be, to see three separate incidents of illegal settlers executing children, shooting them and then circling them screaming ‘die you dogs’ while they bled to death in the streets with adults watching and camera’s rolling”.

Would Edelstein please tell us if she can verify the outrageous claims that only Lee-Ann Naidoo seemed to have “watched”? Surely this champion of Palestinian rights would have had knowledge of such an atrocity given that she polices every move against the Palestinians but only those Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. For four years she has yet to raise one single word in protest at the Syrian killing of thousands of Palestinians in Damascus.

Claims by Edelstein of Amnesty International and other NGO’s documenting “ongoing and deteriorating humanitarian crisis” in Gaza are meaningless unless substantiated in context – when and where, and is she sure she is not confusing this with the Washington Post report by Save the Children on the horrors of Aleppo just last week?

I had visited both Gaza and the West Bank during the early 2000’s when both territories enjoyed a growth rate of almost 9% p.a. being amongst the fourth fastest growing economies in the world with ample employment and commercial activity leading to one of the highest living standards in the surrounding region. What you describe in your letter surely should not be the case given the economic boon that could have lasted until today but for Palestinian leadership’s refusal to place the interest of their people ahead of their ideology of hate and intolerance for a Jewish State. If Edelstein fails to understand that, then she is blinded by the same ideology of the Palestinian leadership.

Don Krausz: RE: ‘APARTHEID RULES FOR PALESTINIANS.

The Editor,

The Star and the Weekend Argus.

 Dear Sir/Madam,

 RE: ‘APARTHEID RULES FOR PALESTINIANS.

By Umar al Ghubari, reported by Siyabonga Sesant, 3/9/16.

 We in Johannesburg, 6,000 feet above sea level and near the southern tip of Africa,

are dependent upon the TV and the press for our world information. This places a special responsibility on journalists and editors to ensure that we are provided with the truth. Surely they must have some methodology that verifies what they print?

 Unless of course the object is to create as much controversy as possible and thus attract  more customers.

 I lived for years in Israel and have written to newspapers since the days of the Rand Daily Mail. Time and again I have found correspondence relating to Israel that is ascertainably untrue. Why bother to continue to “dash the cup from perjured lip?”

Only the fact that knowing the readership is deliberately being misled and then not putting finger to keyboard would be as reprehensible as the lies that are being spread.

 Which brings us to Umar al Ghubari…

 He harks back to the totally unprovoked 1948 conflict when the nascent State of Israel was established, promptly invaded by five neighbouring Arab countries and attacked by its resident Palestinians who had avowed genocidal intentions on the 650,000 Jews living there. 6,000 Jews died in that war and 30,000 were wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia, one percent of the total Jewish population, but no mention thereof by Ghubari.

 He complains that towns and villages were erased. When people start wars such things happen, WW2 Europe being a case in point.

 He alleges that “the system in Israel was built to benefit ‘only one group of people.’”

Today it has a population of about 8 million people of which 20 percent are Moslem.

2008 census figures show an Arab population of 1,128,000 which by now may well amount to two million. And that is under a system from which the Palestinians gain no benefit?

 If there was any truth in Ghubari’s allegations we would face the fact that Israel is bordered on three sides by Arab/Moslem countries. The Palestinians are spoiled for choice should they decide to emigrate. Perhaps Ghubari’s “facts” have not yet reached them.

 Between 1967 and 1994 Israel was responsible for Palestinian welfare until the Palestinian Authority took over. During that period she totally eradicatedpolio, neonatal tetanus and measles from the Palestinian population. The death rate of Palestinian newborns was reduced from 60 per thousand to 19 per thousand within those 27 years of Israel’s presence.

Palestinian patients are referred daily to Israeli hospitals especially in the field of oncology, organ transplantation and acute, severe complications of trauma and pregnancy (11,000 were treated during 2003). Leading Palestinian politicians have ensured that when their close relations needed specialised medical attention, they were transferred into Israeli hospitals.

 During the Lebanese/Israeli wars Israel kept its borders open for wounded from both sides. Today the wounded on the Syrian side are often transferred across the border to Israeli hospitals.

 Can Ghubari see this working in reverse and if not then why not?

Don Krausz: RE: They’re a basic right, but family visits are revoked.

 The Letters Editor,

 RE: They’re a basic right, but family visits are revoked.

By Budour Hassan – 16/9/16.

 Shocking, disgusting, inhumane!! That is until one uses some common sense and perspective. This is Hassan’s account of one Hasan Karajah, jailed by Israel. His father was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLP, an acknowledged terrorist organisation. His sister was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment after stabbing an Israeli soldier. His brother spent 10 months in an Israeli jail. This hardly makes him sound like a poor, innocent, persecuted Mother Theresa to me.

 Do Israeli men, women and children have rights to being safeguarded from terror? Not according to 80% of Palestinians! Hardly anywhere in this article is there any mention of the reasons these Palestinians were jailed.

 Jewish residence in their land has been recorded for 3,300 years in the Bible, the Qu’ran and by numerous historians. Archaeological evidence bears it out, despite desperate attempts by Palestinians on the Temple Mount to destroy all traces of the two ancient temples.

 Since 1920, 24,841 Israelis have been murdered by terrorists and 35,356 wounded. Israel has no death penalty, making it unique in the Middle East.

It has an obligation to protect its citizenry, but how?  Other lands do not have that problem. In cases that are highly suspect administrative detention may have to be the answer as is martial law during war time.

 And in times such as these, when 300,000 people have been killed in Syria alone, we are expected to intervene when a suspect Palestinian cannot receive a family visit? But of course this is different; now Israel is involved.

 Hassan points out that 750 Palestinians are held in Israel in administrative detention, i.e. without trial. Out of two million, in a country where school children are taught to hate Jews and how to kill them? Not bad considering the anti-Jewish hatred emanating from party and pulpit. I am sure that by now European countries wish that they could do the same.

 Hassan states that any act of resistance is criminalised. But of course, when that act of resistance has the object of mayhem and murder. After unbelievable acts of terror such as the cutting of the throat of a three-month old baby in the Ittamar settlement, the drive-by shooting to death of an eight-month pregnant mother in front of her young children, after four rabbis at prayer were butchered with axes in a synagogue, suicide bombings in public venues and at religious gatherings or the recent stabbing to death of a 13-year old asleep in her bed…

 And when the perpetrators are lauded and venerated by communal leaders and from the pulpit…Was there as much indignation when the teen girl Mouhala was shot in the head for demanding an education in Aghanistan?

 Hassan writes of one Kayed who spent 15 years in an Israeli jail, but omits to explain the reason. He reports on the outrage of Palestinians but not on Kayed’s crime. One is not given a 15 year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. Is Israel not obliged to remove Kayed before he does more harm?

 And now Karajah has been denied family visits. I wonder whether his victims have any family left to visit.

Don Krausz:RE: Make no apologies for our culture

The Letters Editor.

 RE: Make no apologies for our culture – by  Sidwell Tshingilane – 22/9/2016.                   

 I agree with him – our culture distinguishes us from our neighbours. It also has to play a positive role, it ought to make our neighbours admire us and perhaps emulate us. That is why in parts of Africa cannibalism may be part of the ancestral “culture,” but may need looking into. Can you imagine arriving at immigration overseas, stating your culture and they discover that you are a cannibal?

 A case in point is circumcision. It is widely practiced in the Middle East, both on men and women and in South Africa as well. Unfortunately our local methods cause many casualties which means that we are doing something irreparably wrong.

 Now the Jews have been circumcising their male babies since Abraham, say about 4,000 years. If they had not developed some expertise in the matter they would not be around today. Being a highly developed and technical country they also agree with Mr. Tshingilane that culture must be maintained.

 So they have developed a device that can circumcise a baby without harming it. They have also offered to sell it to South Africa and its use would probably prevent much harm. Awah, aikona, says South Africa, to use a traditional term, because it is made in Israel.

 Now you go and figure out who South Africa is harming with this decision which is definitely not based on culture.

Monessa Shapiro to The New Age

A few years ago my family and I travelled to Lithuania.  Our purpose was to discover exactly where and how my husband’s family had lived before the Second World War and the Holocaust. 

 In Shauli, we found my mother-in-law’s actual school building and walked through it, feeling her very essence reverberating through the walls.  We found the markings of long removed mezuzot (the holy scroll found on the doorposts of all Jewish homes) on all the doorposts.   We traced her footsteps as a little girl when she walked the distance from her home to school.  In Rokiskis we came upon a very old Lithuanian woman who could still speak Yiddish (the language spoken by the Jews) and who took us to my father-in-law’s childhood home.

 We returned to  South Africa, acutely aware that we were returning not as refugees but as fully fledged citizens, both contributing to the society in which we lived and at the same time bettering our lives each day and year.  Such is the story of all Jews throughout the ages, made refugees from their homes through hatred and persecution but never looking back.   Instead, looking forward and working only towards their futures and their new lives.

 It is the story of the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries forced to flee from their homes and countries of their birth with the establishment of Israel.   These people fled with nothing, leaving behind everything, to the nascent state of Israel, integrated, made new lives for themselves, and helped build Israel into the success story it is today.

 In fact it is the story of most refugees the world over.  Not only does the United Nations body UNHCR care for the millions of refugees all over  the world, from all the conflicts in the world, but it has the specific mandate of resettling them.   There is only one group of people who have their own refugee organization and that is the Arabs made refugees in 1948 and 1967.   UNRWA serves only the Palestinian people, and it is only the Palestinian people whose status of refugee remains such in perpetuity.   According to UNRWA there were approximately 711,000 refugees in 1948.  In 2015 those refugees numbered 5,149,142.   No Arab country welcomed the Palestinian refugees and allowed them to integrate, nor has UNRWA ever encouraged and helped resettlement.   Instead they have been permitted them to continue as refugees like a festering sore in order to perpetuate the Arab- Israel conflict.

 Only when UNRWA, the world and the Palestinians themselves accept that refugees are a natural consequence of any war and upheaval and that the answer is to look forward, rather than hold the key and look backward, will the plight of the Palestinian refugees be solved, and with it possibly the Arab-Israel conflict.

Victor Gordon to The New Age:Refers: “Palestinian Nakba Continues”

NEW AGE

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Refers: “Palestinian Nakba Continues”

Fabiola Ortiz is just another in a long line of journalists who should delve into the realities of a subject before putting pen to paper. The only fact that she gets right is that the number of Palestinians recognised as refugees by the UN has grown with every generation since 1948.

The remainder of her article is completely devoid of any attempt at context or even rudimentary analysis as to why a refugee problem exists in the first place, and why for the past 70 years, it has been allowed to grow to such a degree.

Following the birth of Israel in 1948 and the immediate attempt by five Arab armies to annihilate the fledgling state, approximately 650,000 Arabs fled their homes, largely at the instigation of their leaders who promised a quick victory and their subsequent return. This, however, was not the outcome.

It was the Arabs who suffered defeat, (as they have in 6 subsequent wars),  resulting in their exile in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza,  while a forgotten 700,000 Jews were expelled, with only the clothes on their backs from every Arab and Muslim country in the region.

While the newly formed Jewish state took in their brethren without hesitation, the Arabs herded these refugees into squalled camps, refusing to grant them any form of citizenship. They were destined to be pawns in an endless game of chess that exits to this day.

In 1949, the newly-formed United Nations created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), originally intended to support relief for these Arab refugees who had been cast into the wilderness.

While this arm of the UN was originally mandated to provide aid to both Jewish and Arab refugees, the Israeli government took over full responsibility for the Jewish refugees in 1952.  However, in the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, and the refusal of any of the Arab states to integrate the refugees, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate, extending it year after year.

Today, because of the unique definition applied only to the Palestinian refugees, their numbers have swelled to 5 million , a number which includes all their descendants since 1948.  Each and every year, international aid is provided to Palestinian refugees to the tune of  US$1,2 Billion. It would appear that most of it disappears well before it reaches those whom it is supposed to aid.

UNRWA is the only agency dedicated to helping refugees from a specific region or conflict and is separate from UNHCR formed in 1950. This is the main UN refugee agency, responsible for aiding all other refugees all over the world. Unlike UNRWA, UNHCR has a specific mandate to eliminate the status of refugees by integration into the host country, by resettlement in a third country or by repatriation when possible.

Only UNRWA allows refugee status to be inherited by descendants.

The fact is that the miserable circumstances under which many Palestinian refugees exist could have been resolved decades ago were the Arabs not more focused on stoking  Palestinian hatred towards Israel than the establishment of a meaningful future.  It has become more important to try, repeatedly, to decimate the Jewish State than to seek a settlement that would bring peace and prosperity to the region and all its people.

This failure to recognise and cope with reality is the true “Nakba” (catastrophe) and not Israel’s creation in 1948.  With mutual co-operation  it could have heralded a completely different situation  for all concerned.

Allan Wolman to The Star

To the Star

I’m indeed intrigued by reading Dr Aayesha J Soni’s account of Gaza suffering. Like you Dr Soni I have visited Gaza. My first visit was just a few days after the Six Day war had ended and it was interesting to note that Gaza prior to the June war was under Egyptian occupation for almost 20 years, something that didn’t ever bother anyone anywhere and during all the time not one single university was built. After 1967 no less than five universities were built by the Israeli’s. Despite all the hardships that you detail in your article, today there are no less than nine universities (according to Wikipedia).

My second visit to Gaza was in 2004 where that territory under Israeli administration had experienced almost a 9% GDP making it the fourth fastest growing economy in the world. So Dr.Aayesha what happened? Well after the Israeli disengagement in 2005 and the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the infrastructure that had contributed to the phenomenal economic growth was systematically destroyed and the reign of rocket and terror attacks took precedent over the economic welfare of that population.

Now Dr. Soni you mention that during your 10 day sojourn not a “single building was completely intact” as a result of the 2014 war yet you go on to provide contradictory statistics by Euro Mid Observer that 216 houses were completely destroyed and partial destruction of 1296 homes. But you claim that your never saw a single building intact?? Another Johannesburg morning daily recently published some photographs of the Gaza City beachfront depicting a really lovely beach in the background many, many unscathed high-rise buildings. Other international publications have published similar photographs of Gaza city skyline devoid of any visible damage. I am guessing that those damaged and destroyed building that you saw must have been the one kilometre security zone that Egypt had cleared and homes demolished, something reported in all major international newspapers.

Again during the 2014 Gaza war I was part of a solidarity trip to Israel where we were taken to homes in Ashkelon that had suffered direct rocket hits very similar to those you describe in Gaza, but then again you must be oblivious of this as you probably are of the disruption and traumatic effect when sirens sound the red alert for whole populations to seek shelter from oncoming rockets. Our group was hosted by the medical director Barzalai Hospitla in Ashkelon where both Israelis and Arab patients are treated sharing the same wards and same facilities. The doctors (both Israeli and Arab) at this hospital were in daily contact with doctors in Gaza exchanging critical data that saved many lives – Dr. Soni as a medical doctor don’t tell us you are not aware of the medical collaboration between practitioners in Gaza and Israel.

Reading your statistics of the 495 children killed in 2014, your readers need to know that combatants in Gaza never wore identifiable uniforms and presuppose that child soldiers are only found in West Africa. However your concern for the lives of children should stretch about 500 km north of Gaza to Aleppo where 400 children killed in that hellhole is simply a morning’s work for the Syrian and Russian jets!

 

Allan Wolman to The New Age

Writing in The New Age, Fabiola Oritz highlights the struggle of Palestinians still living as refugees. She details the hardships of life in a refugee camp that has been in existence for nearly 50 years which is indeed a tragedy. But the real tragedy is that it should not have been and the UN agency tasked with taking care of those refugees from the 1948 war launched against Israel by 5 Arab countries, should have found solutions and assisted in resettling the refugees as was the case with all other displaced peoples.

As Europe is currently experiencing waves of refugees fleeing the disaster that is the Arab world solutions are speedily being found to accommodate such displaced persons and Germany has given refuge to almost one million desperate people this past year. The question must therefore beg, why those fleeing Russian and Syrian jets in Aleppo have found new hosts sympathetic to their plight yet not a single Arab country has opened their hearts to their Palestinian brothers these past fifty years?

But why has Oritz excluded those Palestinian refugees in squalid camps in Lebanon where life is far more intolerable than where she is focused? Why Ms. Orirz leave out those Palestinian refugees in Syria where to date thousands have been slaughtered by the Assad Regime? Do they not deserve the same attention that you afford those in the West Bank? And perhaps Ms. Oritz you can explain why only Palestinian refugees from Lebanon and Syria have joined those currently flocking into Europe yet not a single refugee from either the West Bank or Gaza have been registered amongst those descending on Europe?

Is it really your concern for refugees that inspires your writing?

Don Krausz to various media: RE: FACTS ON THE GROUND SHOW GAZA SUFFERING.

 

The Letters Editor,

The Star, Pretoria News, The New Age, Sunday Independent, The Cape Times; The Mercury, The Argus.

 RE: FACTS ON THE GROUND SHOW GAZA SUFFERING.

By Dr. Aayesha J Soni. 13/10/216.

 My reading of the above resulted in a sense of incredulity. It described a visit by the author to Gaza after a nine-year period of the launching of more than 14,000 missiles from the enclave at Israeli residential areas, without her ever linking that atrocity to the resulting three wars. Or the totally unprovoked 1948

onslaught when the resident 650,000 Jews were attacked by their Palestinian     neighbours plus the armed forces of five Arab states. Six thousand Jews died in that war and 30,000 were wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia.

Didn’t you know about that, Dr. Soni, and if you did, when did you last refer to it  when writing about Israeli “massacres?”

 You write as if being unaware that Gaza is not run by Israel and yet claim that you have been there. Who showed you around and arranged what to see if not the controlling Hamas? Who arranged your accommodation and transport, Abbas’ Fatah? Dr. Soni, are you quite sure that it is David Saks’ imagination that needs investigation?

 I have not visited Gaza, but after the war of 2014 I did go to the nearby town of Sderot, 4 km. from Gaza. By that time 4,000 missiles had been fired at that place, strangely enough at times when children were either going to or coming from school, i.e in the streets, not in shelters. A five-foot rocket or a mortar bomb fired from 4 km. takes 15 seconds from launch to impact. 15 seconds in which to gather your spouse, children and pets and find shelter.

 The streets were empty and that was at lunchtime on a working day. Every housing block had an air raid shelter in front of it; schools had double roofs to minimise impact. When we visited the only bombproof building, the crèche, it was obvious that the infants exhibited signs of trauma even when one spoke and joked with them.

 Dr. Soni, what a pity that you were not with us. It might have given you second thoughts about David Saks’ imagination. I would also love to be present when you or your ilk interrogate him, for your information is completely at variance with what I have learned and I did live there for four and a half years.

 You write of Israel’s “latest massacre” at a time when 300,000 Syrians have been slaughtered. At a time when the “Isis” movement is terrorising the whole world. Are you really sure that Israel is your problem? And even if, sadly, you are, has it not become abundantly clear to nearly the whole world’s population that Israel may be the only sane and tolerant country in this world?