Allan Wolman to The Argus

Writing in this newspaper Faiez Jacobs tells us about the pain suffered by Lindiwe Sisulu during the struggle years. He then goes on to liken this to the “acts of brutality meted out against Palestinian women” and of course plays on the hackneyed “apartheid” word mixed with “atrocities” against the Palestinian people.

 

It seems that Jacobs is totally oblivious of atrocities meted out by Palestinian terrorists against innocent Israeli civilians, atrocities like the slitting the throats of infants, like the suicide bombing of restaurants, like the firing of thousands of rockets at civilian targets, car ramming and stabbing of civilians by Palestinian children as young as 10 years.

 

No Mr. Jacobs this is not a one sided conflict, atrocities are visited on innocent Israeli civilians almost on a daily basis. And the struggle of the Palestinian people is not in isolation. There is the struggle for a peaceful Jewish State that hasn’t been allowed to live in peace for over 70 years. That’s notwithstanding numerous offers to the Palestinian peoples for a just, viable and peaceful state of their own.

 

Perhaps before putting pen to paper, Jacobs should do a bit of research and he may find that there are two side to this story notwithstanding his one eyed view.

Rodney Mazinter to The Cape Argus

It is extremely difficult for rational people who value personal freedom to understand the motivations of those who live comfortably in South Africa and yet embrace monstrous dictators, ideologies, and policies that leave only death and destruction in their wake. They seem to embrace toxic beliefs and contorted thought processes that represent the destruction of the very freedoms they espouse. They support totalitarian ideologies such as radical systems in the Middle East.

Equally notable and deplorable is the double standard applied by some journalists who avoid any use of the term racism with regard to bigoted invective and attacks leveled against Israel and Jews. I do not know of a single case in which any of these critics directly label Palestinians, racists notwithstanding the many documented examples of apartheid practices and bigoted statements from Arab sources.

It is sad to read in the Cape Argus’ opinion page of May 24 (Committed to ME Justice) just such an article by Faiez Jacobs. He freely bandies about such uninformed words like “apartheid” in relation to Israel and totally ignores true examples of apartheid in the surrounding countries and territories. The deligitimisation campaign being waged against Israel by inventing the Israel-apartheid analogy needs to be countered. Let us compare to see where apartheid really exists:

Voting rights, parliamentary representation, no racial classification, freedom of movement, laws guaranteeing rights for all citizens, facilities open to all citizens, freedom of religion, non-governmental control of schools and universities, no job reservation, strong trade unions, freedom protected by law, health care available to all, open sport, etc.: all available in Israel but in none of the surrounding countries and the PA.

Israel equals democracy and freedom; surrounding countries exemplify  apartheid: such is the true source of self-imposed Arab atrocities and their true nakbah.

 

Victor Gordon to The Pretoria News

43 prisoners convicted of terrorism were publically beheaded some days ago in Saudi Arabia. In the 4 months since the start of this year 129 have already been executed by either beheading or crucifixion.  These methods could not be more barbaric and the volume of victims plus the methods of execution have created an outcry throughout the civilized world …  except here in South Africa where our government is strangely mute.

But when a government is so preoccupied with downgrading its relations with the democratic state of Israel (because of its alleged intolerable abuse of human rights), who has time to protest against  so trivial a matter as the public, wanton, killing of some  anonymous citizens, some of whom were barely represented at their trials.

While keeping in mind that Israel  has no death penalty and upholds the rights of the LGBT community in all respects, Saudi punishments for the offence of homosexuality range from fines to floggings, to life in prison or torture or death. In Israel, the most stringent sentence metered out against terrorists found guilty of murder is life imprisonment together with the destruction of the perpetrator’s house – hardly comparable to beheading or crucifixion.

Amazingly, none of this makes the slightest impression on Minister Lindiwe Sisulu who clearly sees no reason to register a protest towards Saudi Arabia against so blatant an abuse of human rights. The only countries with execution tallies that exceed Saudi Arabia are China and Iran and, as we are fully aware, little chance exists of any critical comment from our otherwise impeccably moral government.

The hypocrisy is both mind-boggling and sickening.