Monessa Shapiro to The Mercury

Dear sir

Please find below a letter in response to Ahmed Iqbal Bhigjee.

Ahmed Iqbal Bhigjee questions me in his letter, ‘Shapiro’s letter has selective arguments’, as to whose home Israel really is.

Jews have lived in what is today known as Israel since about 2000 BC.   Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived in, amongst others, cities such as Hebron, Beersheba and Shechem.  Jesus Christ, himself a Jew, was born in Bethlehem.  There has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence in Safed, Tiberius, Jerusalem and Hebron, the four holy cities of Judaism, since biblical times.  King David, of the bible, made Jerusalem his capital city long before the city of London was even a thought.

After the fall of the Ottomon Empire in the early twentieth century, Palestine (both sides of the Jordan River) became a British mandate.  The Balfour Declaration of 1917, acknowledging the right to a Jewish homeland in the whole of Mandatory Palestine, was accepted in its entirety at the San Remo conference of 1920.  It was at this conference that the mandate system for the Middle East countries (all part of the fallen Ottomon Empire) was decided upon. Britain was given the mandate over Palestine and the obligation to reconstitute the Jewish homeland in the whole of British Mandatory Palestine.   In 1922 the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations Security Council) ratified the Balfour Declaration.  Britain reneged on the Balfour Declaration and gave the land east of the Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom for the creation of Transjordan – modern day Jordan.    In 1947, in terms of United Nations Resolution 181, the rest of Mandatory Palestine was divided into a land for the Jews and a land for the Arabs.  The Jewish land was to be 13% of the original mandate.  The Jews accepted the division.   The Arabs did not.

There can be no question, therefore, as to the legality of the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, the origins of which are the most legislated of any country in history.  Question the legality of her establishment and you must question that of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon or any other country established by means of a UN resolution.  Question an ancient Jewish presence and you must malevolently disregard the overwhelming evidence that literally permeates every stone and edifice in modern day Israel.

And today, sir, irrespective of all the above, or perhaps because of all the above, Israel is recognized as an independent, sovereign state.  And as with any sovereign state, she is entitled to protect her borders from those who wish her harm.

Monessa Shapiro to the Mercury

“Over the last decade I have argued that we cannot have a bias against Israel at the U.N…….Decades of political manouvering have created a disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel……. In many cases, instead of helping the Palestinian issue, this reality has foiled the ability of the U.N. to fulfill its role effectively”. So said UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in his address to the UN Security Council (CBN News.com 12/9/2016).   And that Ms Dadoo,  in a nutshell, is why Israel refuses to take part in these UNHRC investigations.   In addition, unlike her neighbours, Israel, being a vibrant democracy,  has its own totally free and independent judiciary that investigates and rules on any claims put before it.  

An objective reading of the report immediately reveals the prejudice within it.   Firstly, that which the investigators were charged to investigate  is of itself one-sided,  “military assaults on large-scale civilian protests.”  Before the investigation began, the decision was made that the protests were civilian.  Within the report cursory mention is made of the incendiary balloons ( two of which fell on schools), the burning tyres, the cutting of the border fence and the trauma to Israeli citizens.   No mention is made of the Hamas order, found on its Facebook page “to tear out their (Israeli) hearts,”  or the fact that Gazan citizens were told ‘if you are hungry, eat Israeli livers’ (Alarby.co.uk March 30). It was not acknowledged that the demonstrators were told ‘to bring a knife or a gun, to hide them under their clothes and not use them except where there is a need to capture soldiers or residents of Israel’ (Hamas Facebook page). 

Palestinian resistance is great Ms Dadoo and the citizens of Gaza are welcome to protest as much as they like inside Gaza.   I am sure though that you would agree that if someone tries violently to come into your home you would stop him before he hurts you and your children.  That unfortunately was the case with the Great March of Return, named such, because as Hamas Political Bureau Chief, Ismail Haniyeh said: ‘On Friday we stopped at the border, next time we don’t know where the border will be.’ (YNetnews.com).  You see Ms Dadoo, Israel took the Hamas leadership at its word.

Monessa Shapiro to the Mail & Guardian

Like Dudu Masango- Mahlangu, I too weep for the citizens of Gaza.  I weep for their daily suffering and I weep for their inability to change it.  In 2006 they voted in Hamas as their government.  In 2007 Hamas violently forced Fatah out of Gaza, throwing Fatah officials out of buildings.  There have been no democratic elections since.

I weep that it is Hamas who used building material to build tunnels into Israel, rather than to build an infrastructure for its citizens.  I weep that Hamas turned back trucks loaded with medical supplies, so badly needed by its citizens, merely because they came from Israel (Times of Israel May 16).  I weep that Hamas encouraged and paid families to approach the fence during the protests rather than heed Israel’s call to stay away.  And I grieve over the fact that Hamas’s wicked ploy of using human shields has awarded them, in the eyes of the world, the status of victimhood. For back in 2008 Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said: “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.  The elderly excel at this and so do the miyahideen and the children.  This is why they have formed human shields of the women and the children.” (Al-Aqsa TV Feb 29,2008).  I lament each rocket of the thousands upon thousands that Hamas has fired into Israel, for I know that eventually Israel must respond, and that because these rockets have been fired from within the civilian population, there must be civilian casualties.   I weep that Gazan children are forced to attend summer camps where they are taught how to murder Israelis and where they are indoctrinated with the meritorious idea of martyrdom, rather than enjoy childhood as childhood should be enjoyed. (http://www.thetower.org/article/at-summer-camp-hamas-raises-the-next-generation-of-killers/).

And then my weeping with Masango-Mahlangu turns to anger.   In his attempt to compare the Jews in the Holocaust to the citizens of Gaza he displays not only total ignorance but profound wickedness.   No Sir, the Jews in the concentration camps were not able to resist anything.  They were herded into the camps in cattle trucks, and those who survived the harrowing journeys of days and nights without water and food were immediately sent to gas chambers.  And no, Jewish children could not ‘come out week after week’ – they had their heads smashed against pavement curbs in front of their mothers. And do you know why, sir?   Only because they were Jews.   They did not hate Germans, nor did their ideology call for the murder of all Germans.   They did not strap bombs onto their bodies and then explode them in crowded pizzerias or on buses filled with German citizens.   They did not fire rockets into German towns; they did not burrow tunnels underground to kidnap and murder German women and children.

Masango-Mahlangu and the BDS organization he represents, have, in this opinion piece, sunk to the lowest level of immense depravity.  Depravity which unequivocally confirms for us, that at the root of their ‘pro-Palestinianism’ is primal Jew-hatred.

Don Krausz to The Star

Once again Israel is being accused of shooting Palestinian children at the Gaza border. These condemnations have been going on for some time now and reached a crescendo when the Hamas, who rule Gaza, organised them last year.

The numbers involved are reported to have reached 50,000. They are said to have burnt masses of tires, thrown Molotov cocktails, supplied wire cutters to those involved to cut through the barbed wire barricades protecting the Israeli troops positioned to defend the border and prevent the mobs from penetrating.

The Israeli troops involved could only have been minimal and under instruction not to open fire unless their lives were threatened.

Therein lies the problem. Your Israeli soldier is recruited at the age of 18. He is well aware of the antagonism of the Palestinians and of the hostile role that they have played in Israel’s history. He knows that he is faced by Moslems whose Quran incites the killing of Jews.

When the demonstrations started last year foreign journalists arrived to interview the demonstrators. I remember one asking such a demonstrator to tell him the reason for the demonstration and being given the answer that they were there to break through the Israeli ranks and liberate the country from the Israeli occupation.

Any soldier faced with that situation does not have much choice other than to use his weapon, especially under extreme conditions of aggravation such as when faced with hatred, howling, hostile mobs, stone throwing, burning tires, wire cutters, slingshots and Molotov cocktails. It makes for a very inflammable situation.

He is also aware of the background. That since 1920,  24,861 Jews have been killed in terrorist attacks and 35,356 wounded. That when the State of Israel was declared in 1948 it was promptly attacked by its local Palestinians and five neighbouring states. 6,000 Israelis died and 30,000 were wounded according to the British Encyclopaedia, one percent of its total Jewish population. When Yasser Arafat released his suicide bombers

1,200 Jewish men, women and children were killed. The erection of the Security Fence cut that figure by 90%.

Your Gazan parent/organiser knows this as well, which prompts the question:

What are children doing there in such a place and such a time? The truly horrifying answer would be that they were sent deliberately in the full knowledge of what was bound to happen and the worldwide propaganda effect.

Monessa Shapiro to The Star and Mercury

Not surprisingly The UN Human Rights Council has just published a report finding Israel’s actions during the 2018 Gaza protests unlawful and excessive. The report describes graphically the injuries and deaths inflicted by Israel.  No-one expected otherwise, for the UNHRC has displayed, since its inception, mind-blowing anti-Israel bias.   It has consistently ignored who and what Hamas is and what it is doing not only to Israel but as importantly to its own citizens.  More UNHRC resolutions have been passed against Israel than against any other country in the world.

The report deals with the human rights of one group – the citizens of Gaza.   It states that  one Israeli soldier died and no Israeli civilians.   Obviously the investigators would have felt more comfortable had there been a substantial Israeli death toll.  The fact that Israeli soldiers protected their citizens from the marauding crowds is viewed as reprehensible behavior.

Hamas is a terrorist organization.  Its charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.   It has, over the years, committed numerous acts of dastardly terrorism against Jews and Israelis.  In addition, it has fired thousands of rockets into Israel aimed at civilians.   It has dug underground tunnels from Gaza into Israel to kidnap and murder Israeli citizens.   This information, easily accessible by all, is conveniently ignored in the report.

Hamas’s hatred for Israel is visceral.  It has used cement and other building materials brought into Gaza to assist with the building of infrastructure, to build its tunnels into Israel.  During the march, it turned back trucks loaded with much needed medical supplies because they were sent by Israel (Times of Israel May 16).  It employs human shields in all confrontations, including in the Great March of Return.  In conflicts, women and children are used as human fodder in order to augment its media victory.  Hamas encouraged and even paid families to approach the fence rather than heed Israel’s call to stay away. The more women and children killed, the more wicked Israel becomes in the world’s eyes, thus ensuring a greater victory for Hamas.     Back in 2008 Fathi Hammad, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said: “For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.  The elderly excel at this and so do the miyahideen and the children.  This is why they have formed human shields of the women and the children.” (Al-Aqsa TV Feb 29,2008)   Hamas paid 3000$ to families who lost a family-member during the marches and between 300 and 500$ to those wounded.  All these facts were overlooked in the report.

As in previous UNHRC findings the report fails to take cognizance of Hamas’s violent genocidal quest.  No mention is made of the swastikas – denoting death to Jews – flown by the protestors.    The incendiary kites, the stones, the burning tyres, the cutting of the border fence and the trauma to Israeli citizens is glibly cited and deemed totally innocuous.   There is no suggestion that Hamas’s purpose was to break down the fence, invade a sovereign country and kidnap or murder her citizens.  Objective investigators could easily have found Hamas’s messages to the Gazans on social media, news print or television.  The Hamas Facebook unashamedly called for “tear(ing) out their (Israeli) hearts.”   As reported in Alaryby.co.uk on March 30^th, Gazan citizens were told: “if you are hungry, eat Israeli livers.”  Hamas Political Bureau Chief, Ismail Haniyeh, is reported on YNetnews.com to have said: “On Friday we stopped at the border, next time we don’t know where the border will be.”    On Nakba Day the message on the Hamas Facebook page read as follows: “the demonstrators are requested to please act in accordance with the demand to bring a knife or a gun, to hide them under their clothes and not use them except where there is a need to capture soldiers or residents of Israel.”

Yet again the UNHRC has proved both its nefarious nature and untarnished bias.   It needs to know that human rights are universal and belong equally to Jew and non-Jew.