Victor Gordon to The Star:Re: “Proof that Israel is apartheid outpost”

THE STAR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re:  “Proof that Israel is apartheid outpost”  (20/4/18)

For years Dr. Firoz Osman has continually claimed that Israel is an “apartheid state”, in the fullest sense of the word.  The fact that this accusation has repeatedly been exposed as a blatant lie, (verifiable by no more than some study and common sense),  has led Osman in his letter, “Proof that Israel is apartheid outpost”  (20/4/18) to now hypothesise that even though Israel might not practise  so-called “petty” apartheid, she is still guilty of adopting  that policy.

This led to Osman’s convoluted expose’ based on the infamous UN General Assembly resolution in 1975 equating  Zionism with racism and racial discrimination (only to be rescinded 9 years later). This slanderous resolution was adopted with the overwhelming support of the Soviet bloc and other Soviet-aligned nations, together with all Arab and Muslim majority countries. The result was a foregone conclusion.

Osman then subjected us to a lengthy definition of “racial discrimination” which, in effect, does not apply to Israel, a nation rated by the independent  watchdog,  “Freedom House”  as fully democratic and free, unlike any other country in the Middle East.

Having  stated that “apartheid is not racism”  but an exceptional form of “racial discrimination” predicated upon the enforcement of racism in law, Osman concluded that Israel still qualifies as an “apartheid state”. This he bases on his claim that there are at least 50 laws that discriminate against Israeli Arabs by providing unequal rights and obligations.  However, many of these laws apply to both Jews and Arabs.

Further, Dr. Osman purposely misleads by claiming that Israel’s controversial Admissions Committee Law is designed to exclude Arabs from 43% of all residential areas when, in fact, it applies to anyone applying to reside in a “gated” sector catering for a particular communal constituency. The law is far more likely to effect the Ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox who would balk at having to live side by side with non-observant  secular Jews.

If Israel is guilty of placing  its Jewish character and interests beyond question by defining  them in law, so be it. In doing so, she is fulfilling  the reason d’etre for her creation in April 1948.  It is no different to the ban in several Muslim countries on the practise of Christianity, where one can be put to death for merely possessing a Bible.

As Osman correctly observes, Zionism (meaning the aspiration of Jews to return to their ancestral homeland) is centred on the creation of a specifically Jewish state in which Jews would live in safety and security and practise their religion and unique customs without fear.  The desperate need for a Jewish state (or a state for Jews) was made abundantly clear after the Holocaust, which proved two things:

• Jews can depend on no one else for their security; and,
• If Jews are threatened with extinction the threat must be taken seriously.

Israel is nowhere near a perfect society. Much has been, and must still be done, to improve the lot of its Arab citizens. Yet few Israeli Arabs leave Israel and move to the Palestinian territories where their standard of living, mainly due to the corruption of its leaders, is vastly inferior.

Dr Osman is wrong in claiming that within Israel, non-Jews are “second-class citizens”.  Jews and Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20% of the population, enjoy equal rights including the vote and full  representation within the Knesset while serving as judges, ambassadors, professors, doctors etc.

It should be remembered that since 1948 Israel has known nothing but war. With some of her immediate neighbours there has never been peace. Throughout the world, this is unique to Israel and has necessitated the introduction of laws in order to meet her exceptional security requirements.  No other country has endured an incessant  barrage of 14,000 rockets or 171 attacks by suicide bombers from 1989 to 2016 alone.  This excludes continual knife and vehicular attacks on innocent civilians.

If, in order to counter this scourge, extraordinary measures are adopted (like the building of a security wall/fence which reduced suicide attacks by 90%;  the establishment of check-points to monitor Palestinians terrorists entering the country from the West Bank, or a sea blockade of Gaza to prevent the smuggling of weapons to Hamas), again, so be it. For all this to cease, all that is required of the Palestinians is to stop attacking the Jewish state and sincerely negotiate peace.

The indisputable fact is that the plight of the Palestinians is of their own making.

Rodney Mazinter to The Weekend Argus re Farid Essak

Dear Sir

President Cyril Ramaphosa bestowed the Order of Luthuli (Silver) on the leader of the BDS movement, Professor Farid Esack, for “his brilliant contribution to academic research and to the fight against race, gender, class and religious oppression.”

 The Chancellor of National Orders, Dr Cassius Lubisi said that these “are the highest awards that our country bestows on our citizens and eminent foreign nationals who have made a meaningful and significant contribution to the struggle for democracy, human rights, nation-building, justice, peace and conflict resolution.”

 Israel, which stands in the cross-hairs of Esack’s activism, is a democracy. Its opponents are not. Libya, Syria, and Iraq are dictatorships, far more brutal than even those in Egypt or Jordan. “Parliaments” in Iran, Morocco, and on the West Bank are not freely democratic. In all of them, candidates are either screened, preselected, or coerced. Daily television and newspapers are subject to restrictions and censorship; “elected” leaders are not open to public audit and censure. Death, not voters, brings changes of rule in the Arab world.

True freedom and democracy demands some prior traditions of cultural tolerance, widespread literacy, and free markets.

Only in secular Israel can one detect free speech and liberality of custom and religion,  much more so, than say, in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Palestine. Coexistance exists in Israel, very rarely so in the Arab world.

We see in Israel spirited debate, homegrown criticism and differing advocay from  Left and Right.  Israeli newspapers and television reflect a diversity of views, from rabid Zionism to almost suicidal pacifism. There are Arab-Israeli legislators and plenty of Jewish intellectuals who openly write and broadcast in opposition to the particular government of the day, a freedom not available in Palestine. Could a Palestinian, Egyptian, or Syrian novelist write something favorable about Netenyahu,  or hostile to Mr. Assad, or produce a satire about Islam? Such dissidents might suffer stones and fatwas rather than mere ripostes in the letters to the editor of the local newspapers.

We do not see goose-stepping soldiers in Haifa as we do in Baghdad. Nor are there in Tel-Aviv hooded troops with plastic bombs strapped to their sides on parade. Nor do Israeli presidents wear plastic sunglasses, carry pistols to the U.N., or have chests full of cheap and tawdry medals.

Wars in the Middle East are not fought to return the West Bank or Gaza, but to finish off what Hitler could not. Israel, be its GNP, free society, or liberal press, is a wound to the psyche, not a physical threat to the Arab world. Israel did not murder the Kurds or Shiites. It does not butcher Islam’s children in Syria. Yet both the victims and the perpetrators of those crimes against Muslims answer “Israel” to every problem.

Palestinians should see in its policy toward Israel their future hope, rather than present despair. Israel is based on true democracy that can evolve, rather than on race, religion, or language that more often cannot. If the Palestinians really wished to become accepted, then regular elections, a free press, an open and honest economy, and religious tolerance alone would do what suicide bombers and a duplicitous terrorist leader could not.

Allan Wolman to The Star

If Israel is all what Allan Kolski Horwitz accuses her of, how does one measure just how evil this country is given accusations such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid practices and human rights abuses etc. Well being comparative would be a good starting point as a measurement.

 With an ever-growing Palestinian population with the lowest infant mortality and the highest longevity rate in the entire region, is Israel guilty of both genocide and ethnic cleansing? But compared to her neighbor, Syria, where to date according to statistics presented to the British parliament more that 400,00 Syrians have been killed – that is genocide and ethnic cleansing. Not to mention the 3million Syrians who have fled to surrounding countries. Then there is the carnage in Yemen where Save the Children have reported that up to 50000 children have been killed in that country and according to UNICEF a child dies every 10 minutes. It’s estimated that almost 800,000 people have been slaughtered in Yemen to date.

 The human cost in Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated at around 350,000 deaths these past years. While it is estimated that 25000 mostly civilians have been killed in Libya. Of course, there are the daily reports of suicide bombing in most countries of the region and terror attacks by ISIS. In Africa literally, millions of innocent civilians including woman and children killed in Darfur, Sudan and the DRC but Kolski Horwitz Accuses Israel of genocide! Since the early 1900’s a total of 120,000 deaths on both sides of the Israeli / Arab conflict have occurred (an average of 1200 per year)? That is fewer than one month’s work by the Syrian regime. Given his exaggerated criticism of Israel he comes across as a human rights activist – but has yet to condemn any of the above human rights catastrophes that has claimed literally millions of lives – how can anyone believe anything he writes?

 While Kolski Horwitz lists a number of accusations he fails to substantiate these yet at the same time he wont tell us that not one single Arab country and further afield can claim a free independent and critical press, an independent judiciary and an electoral political system that ensures that elections happen every four years, and that Arab citizens of Israel also enjoy the vote as well as every other right that all citizens of that country enjoy. Isn’t it time that the likes of Kolski Horwitz and his ilk sees the Middle East in its proper perspective?

 

Rodney Mazinter to the Sunday Independent

Dear Sir

If the Hamas regime focused on peacefully building Gaza instead of destroying Israel and murdering Jews, there would be  no conflict with Israel (Samaoen Osman Dispatches 22 April).

 The Arab population under Fatah and Hamas receives more financial aid per capita than any other people on earth. However, instead of investing in schools, factories and hospitals, Hamas invests in expanding its capabilities to kill Jews. Instead of thriving, Gaza is becoming one more failed state.

Article 38 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted in 1989) condemns the recruitment and involvement of children in hostilities and armed conflicts. In 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted a treaty that raises the age limit for compulsory recruitment and participation in combat to age 18. Article 36 of the same UN document calls on states to protect children against any kind of exploitation.

When Arab children are killed or injured, it makes headlines in Western media reports. But rather than investigate who is behind the participation of children in armed confrontation,  The world’s gaze should turn towards Hamas. Its exploitation of this self-imposed tragedy is cynical and heartless. Osman should be ashamed. Hamas is killing Palestinian children because they make effective propaganda fodder for their disgusting tactics. They are sacrificed because wounded or dead children make for a potent propaganda tool.

On at least five occasions the Palestinians have said no to Israeli overtures for peace, giving credence internationally to the fact that it is not peace they are seeking but the destruction of the legitimate state of Israel.

As long as the deaths of children serve their cause, Palestinian leaders will continue to employ this strategy. 

Using Palestinian children as combatants and targeting Israeli children must stop; the world community must take a clear moral stand.

Willie Paterson to The Star

In his article “How not to cover a conflict” (The Star, April 11), Azad Essa made the same mistakes he criticised the Western media for.

 Essa has a high regard for facts and in his own words “a huge fan of nuance and immensely fascinated to read pieces that dig into the centre, into the grey”. So why does he ignore the facts and nuances in the Gaza border incidents. 

 A report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre said that 26 of the 32 Palestinians killed were connected to terror organisations.

 The “March of Return” has been disingenuously presented as a spontaneous and peaceful grassroots demonstration. In reality, the violent riots and attempts to breach Israel’s security barrier represented a carefully planned campaign developed and executed by one of the wealthiest terror organisations in the world: Hamas.

 Won’t it be a better idea for Hamas to focus on uplifting the people of Gaza who have to live in poverty while their masters live in luxury? To design new plans every year for the destruction of Israel will bring them nowhere.

 

Allan Wolman responds to Firoz Osman in The Star

Dr Firoz Osman of the Media Review Network is insistent that Israel is an apartheid state and quotes sources including Archbishop Tutu to back up his claim. So, let’s dissect some of the most significant apartheid practices that were part of the South African system and try very hard to find its mirror image in Israel.

Perhaps Dr. Osman can comment on the following aspects of apartheid and tell us if anything remotely exists in Israel where more than 20% of the population are Arabs who occupy some of the highest posts in society including the Supreme court, senior positions in academia, the military and diplomatic corps. Arabs share every single facility that is available to every citizen of that country including the vote.

 

Apartheid in South Africa was based solely on the color of a person’s skin.

• •           This meant that under the law, black South Africans were denied the very basic necessities of life or were instead appeased with the rejects and second-grade services which were deemed good enough.
• •           Black South Africans were barred from attending white schools, universities, hospitals, and clinics.
• •           They had separate entrances to buildings, they were given separate park benches, they had to use separate toilets and to ride on separate buses and trains.
• •           And in none of these cases did separate mean equal – it always meant lesser.  They were not permitted to attend white cinemas, theaters or restaurants.
• •           Every possible aspect of their lives was separate from that of the whites and was prescribed under law.
• •           Their education curriculum was both different from and grossly inferior to that of the white population.
• •           Representation in parliament and the vote were completely unattainable.

 

The real flaw in Osmans apartheid narrative is that Palestinians living in the “occupied” West Bank live under the Palestinian National Authority (PA) which is an interim self-government dating back to 1994 resulting from the Oslo Agreement and is exactly that – a self-governing authority where almost every aspect of life fall under that authority. The irony of this is that the President of that Authority has stated that no Jew will be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state -so who is practicing apartheid?

 

How hypocritical to write about Israel’s treatment of African migrants (not refugees) and xenophobic attacks and deportations when right here in South Africa we experienced and still experiencing some of the worst forms of xenophobic attacks on foreigners and have a detention center called Lindela Repatriation Centre where thousands of migrants are housed under very suspect conditions and over 200,000 migrants expelled from our shores annually.

 

Then of course we find that Dr. Osman finds space to accuse Israel of a massacre in Gaza where “scores of peaceful protesters have been butchered”. How semantics can cloud the truth – firstly these riots are not peaceful, secondly over 30000 hostile Palestinians have breached the security fence (formerly known as the apartheid wall) and invaded a sovereign state and thirdly how many suicide bombers form part of these invasions? At the same time that these invasions were happening, Syria launched air strikes against its own people in Eastern Ghouta killing and maiming hundreds of people including children – but the use of chemical weapons against children don’t seem to register on Osmans scale of atrocities

 

Allan Wolman to Th Star

(1)

Al Jazeera’s local incumbent Azad Essa in his opinion piece (The Star 11 April) does an analysis on the international media coverage of the violence on the Israeli /Gaza border and as he calls himself a fan of nuance he is doing the exact thing that he is busy criticizing the media for.

Azad claims that the rioting – and it is indeed rioting and not a peaceful demonstration by peaceful Palestinians as clear footage has demonstrated that over 30,000 angry Palestinians have breached the security fence (formally called the apartheid wall) and invaded a sovereign state. Now despite his re-naming these invaders as peaceful, again film footage has shown that many are carrying weapons. Despite re-naming these invaders as peaceful, very recent history has exposed these militant rioters as suicide bombers, kidnappers and child killers and as the Hamas charter calls for the killing of Jews wherever they are found, how can a sovereign state take a chance with such enormous numbers invading its territory?

Essa calls Hamas a militant group – the rest of the civilized world call Hamas what it is a terrorist organization. The Hamas leadership knew full well that this land invasion would result in violence and death yet they have no compunction to send children as young as 6 years into the forefront of the rioters. But this is nothing new as they use the lives of little children to trade for world sympathy, something that the international media is starting to understand and hence the writer’s dissatisfaction with the manner in which these invasions are being reported.

Tragically there have been a number of unfortunate deaths but at the same time that these invasions had taken place, the Syrian government attacked its own people in Eastern Ghouta killing and maiming hundreds with the use of internationally banned chemical weapons. Essa has written almost half a page about the Israel Gaza land invasions but not a single word about the obscenity of the use of chemical weapons and the carnage that has caused. Given that Azad’s day job is with Al-Jazeera a Qatar based international TV channel which has been discredited by most of the Arab world, it’s no wonder he omits the tragedy of Syria therefore how can we believe anything Essa writers if his own Arab brothers won’t?

Rodney Mazinter to the Weekend Argus

eekend Argus Editor

Dear Sir

Mervyn Bennun exercise in sophistry (Sunday Views April 8, Apartheid defences used) is filled with specious reasoning and fallacious argument with the intention of deceiving, and fools nobody but those who wish to be fooled.

His stigmatising of Israel is not new and is indeed is the cornerstone of the BDS movement. Even before the BDS movement’s creation, Jews and Israel had to fight for their place in the global economy while being boycotted by the world’s Arab nations.

The denial of Israel’s right to exist is the cornerstone of the entire Arab strategy. Israel has made valiant attempts on at least five occasions to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians, although as victors in all the wars it was forced into, it had no moral obligation to do so. In every case it was rebuffed and the infamous Kartoum 3-No’s are still in place and form part of their manisfesto: No peace, No negotiation, No recognition of Israel.

Besides Bennun’s antisemitic strategy to delegitimise the only Jewish state and to hold it to different standards from the rest of the world, he hides behind the argument that he is not antisemitic but “anti-Zionist”, all the while seeking to blur the distinction between the two concepts. On the one hand, he disregards Jews’ right to self-determination, despite promoting his distorted definition of Zionism as an apartheid system that seeks to take over control of land and resources and forcibly remove Palestinians and engage in ethnic cleansing. Even more so, he seeks to rewrite any manifestation of Jewish identity that does not fit his propaganda to align Jews with the South African apartheid regime.

Bennun devalues his argument by quoting from propaganda and not from independent sources. I refer him to Freedom House, which evaluates countries throughout the world and apportions a percentage score dependent on each country’s human rights performance. Israel, (79%)  despite facing constant terrorism, ranks above every country in the Middle East and North Africa, with Syria scoring a low of minus-one and Jordan a high of 37%. Israel’s record is better than South Africa’s (78%) and just behind the USA (86%).

Since June 2016 Israel has worked to keep starvation away from thousands of Syrians and provide basic medical treatment to those who cannot access it in their war ravaged country. How does this equate with “shabby racism”? The Syrian case is a state of affairs brought about by the apartheid state of Sysria, about which Bennun has nothing to say.

Rodney Mazinter to The Star

RIGHT OF REPLY

Dear Sir

It is not “objective journalism” when Hamas calls for genocide against the Israeli population and Israel defends itself. There is a very clear distinction between the two that Azad Essa fails to comprehend. (How not to cover a conflict – The Star April 11).

Here are a few “facts, context, blame, nuance and culture” that Essa does not mention:

Hamas is a terrorist organisation. That’s its official designation by the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and others.
Israel is a democratic country with an independent judiciary, the rule of law, free and fair elections, and a robust civil society.

Hamas is anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, misogynist, and anti-intellectual.
Israel is the exact opposite.

Hamas, to put it mildly, has territorial ambitions on Israel. it would like to replace Israel in its entirety with a Muslim Brotherhood or ISIS-ruled state.
Israel has no territorial ambitions on Hamas-ruled Gaza. On the contrary, Israel left it totally 13 years ago, with the hope of never having to return.

Hamas has a vested interest in using its Gaza base for permanent confrontation with Israel.
Israel has a vested interest in a peaceful, moderate, and developing state on its border.

Hamas, the sole ruler of Gaza since 2007, has used the last 11 years to smuggle in weaponry and develop a military capability, rather than building the foundation of a responsible state.
Knowing this arsenal has been stockpiled for the sole purpose of being used against it, Israel seeks, as any nation would, to prevent Hamas from attaining its lethal goal.

Hamas has no compunction about deploying terrorist cells and weapons in the midst of civilian population centres in Gaza, or, most recently, deploying people along the border and encouraging breaches, fully aware that Israel would have no choice but to respond thereby appearing to be targeting “innocent” people.
Israel goes to unprecedented lengths to avoid falling into the Hamas trap, even phoning and dropping leaflets in advance to warn civilians to leave target areas.

Hamas cynically tells the civilian population to stay put, not to react to Israeli warnings about imminent strikes. The more Palestinian casualties, the better, as far as Hamas is concerned, including women and children.
Israel makes every effort to alert its entire population, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, to Hamas missile strikes and move people into shelters as quickly as possible.

Hamas uses mosques for storing arms.
Israel uses houses of worship, including mosques, solely for prayer.

Hamas uses schools as weapons depots.
Israel uses schools solely to educate its children, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

Hamas uses hospitals as terrorist redoubts.
Israel uses its hospitals solely to cure the ill and injured, including residents of Gaza who can’t find adequate care there.

Hamas aspires to kill as many Israelis as possible, firing rockets indiscriminately in all directions.
Israel seeks out only the Hamas terrorist infrastructure, and has aborted many operations when the risks of civilian casualties were too great.

Hamas, as the record amply shows, has no qualms about falsifying information, doctoring photos, staging scenes, and inflating numbers to bolster its case to the outside world. (See staged photo accompanying the article).
Israel, by contrast, goes to great lengths, even to the point of sometimes losing the edge in the “media race,” to verify information that it presents about its operations.

Hamas supporters explode in paroxysms of glee when Israeli targets are hit.
Israelis don’t sound hooters, shoot in the air, and pass out sweets for doing what they wished they didn’t have to do in the first place, and voice regret when the inevitable mistakes in warfare occur.

Hamas knows nothing about and does not subscribe to “international humanitarian law.”
Israel’s defense forces have specialists in international humanitarian law assigned to every unit in an effort to ensure maximum compliance.

Hamas shouts from the rooftops that Israel is a brutal enemy.
Israel, unlike any other targeted nation in history, is actually providing — right now — most of Gaza’s electricity and much of its fuel and foodstuffs, even as Hamas leaders call for Israel’s annihilation and refer to Jews as targets to be exterminated.

Hamas celebrates death, something few people of goodwill can understand.
Israel celebrates life, something all people of goodwill should understand.

Allan Wolman to the Cape Argus

For a number of years the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign together with the Media Revue Network (MRN) and other anti-Israel groups has looked for any excuse to malign Israel and latch onto any current topic to expand their disparaging opinions regardless of the factual evidence available. Untruths proliferate the columns of certain newspapers on a continuous basis until an uninformed reader sees them as the truth.

Recently a number of Israel’s detractors wrote about Israel Apartheid Week – an annual hate fest which often turns ugly and suppresses intelligent debate. Just prior to that a flood of letters and opinion pieces filled the pages of newspapers with all kinds of theories about the Balfour Declaration, the land invasions by 30,000 Palestinians from Gaza, an upcoming performance by Black Coffee in Israel and of course the “A” word – the apartheid canard which doesn’t carry a modicum of truth but is rammed down readers’ throats almost on a daily basis. A flood of superfluous news together with fake news also fills these columns

Groups that include Dr Firoz Osman of MRN, a well-known antagonist of Israel (read Jews,) again try to draw a parallel between apartheid in South Africa and Israeli society but fails dismally to give concrete realities of apartheid practices in the Jewish State. Such groups call themselves “humanitarian” organizations whose purported major concern is the welfare of the Palestinian people – well, that’s what they want the reader to believe. MRN has yet to voice (or pen) any concern for the plight of those Palestinians living under the most precarious situations such as the real apartheid system they endure in Lebanon, or the carnage in Syria, or those in other Arab countries being exploited and discriminated against. The hard facts are that if there is an apartheid system prevailing it exists in the Arab world. The president of the Palestinian Authority has stated unequivocally that no Jew will ever be allowed to live in Palestine – who, Dr Osman, is practicing apartheid?

One reads constant reports about the hardship and suffering of the Palestinian people living under “the occupation” but hardly a single Palestinian from either Gaza or the West Bank has been documented amongst those almost one million and more refugees that flooded into Europe this past year from mainly Arab countries.  One wonders why, given all the hardships we read about in these columns.

Palestinians in many Arab countries are being discriminated against. The truth is that many Arab countries that once had sizeable and flourishing Jewish communities are today void of any Jewish presence. Mohamed Abbas the Palestinian president, has openly stated that no Jew will ever live in a Palestinian state. The Hamas Charter openly calls for the killing of Jews wherever they are found – so who is practicing apartheid?