6 June 2010 The Editor The Sunday Independent – Mark Steel’s article “How to make killing kosher” refers.
I wonder whether Steel saw the video showing how the Israeli commandos were attacked when they landed on the Turkish ship. Each soldier was surrounded by several armed individuals, disarmed, beaten, knocked down and in at least one case one could see the soldier being thrown onto a lower deck. Such commandos are normally armed with fully automatic weapons and grenades and yet the video showed no firing.
Steel attempts to portray the soldiers as brutal killers bent on perpetrating a massacre. Despite being attacked with knives, clubs and other implements and the fact that there were 581 assumedly hostile people on board, Israel’s crack, brutal, bloodthirsty thugs only succeeded in slaughtering nine passengers and Steel sees that as proof of malignant intent…
The captains of all the ships had been warned repeatedly that they were breaking a perfectly legal maritime blockade which extends into international waters and therefore were liable to military action. Is it not significant that only one of the six ships suffered such action? All the five others as well as the subsequently arriving Rachel Corrie peacefully allowed themselves to be directed to the Israeli port of Ashdod to have their cargo examined. Incidentally, the soldiers who peacefully landed on the deck of the Rachel Corrie were the same unit of barbarian thugs who according to Steel had demonstrated their bloody-mindedness on the Turkish ship.
Events do not take place in a vacuum and Steel deliberately chooses to ignore the background to this story.
In 1967 Israel was attacked by Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt boasted that when his troops set foot on the sands of the Sinai Desert, they would find the ground soaked with blood. I don’t know whose blood he had in mind, but six days later that war was over.
Under international law, when a country is attacked and occupies erstwhile enemy territory, it has the right to retain possession of that territory until a peace treaty is drawn up. When Egypt made peace with Israel, Israel returned the occupied Sinai Desert with its oilfields to the Egyptians. From this it is obvious that all the Palestinians have to do in order to end the “occupation” is to stop their attacks and make peace.
They have chosen not to do so. In 2005 Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, bowed to international pressure and withdrew his troops and settlers from Gaza. These settlers had established thriving export enterprises employing thousands of Palestinians during the 38 years of their tenure. These settlers had to abandon their life’s work and return to Israel, leaving behind their experienced and trained staff, hothouses and other infrastructure.
Logically speaking the Palestinians should have been able to continue with their endeavours of the past 38 years, but logic in Gaza is only notable by its absence.
So what should peace loving Palestinians do when there are no more Israelis to attack in Gaza? First of all burn down all the synagogues that the settlers had abandoned. Then manufacture and fire rockets at the civilian settlements in Israel proper. Two years ago I visited Sderot, a small town of some 20,000 men, women and children within sight of Gaza and which claims to have been hit by 4,000 missiles fired from Gaza. At that range the interval between firing and impact is 15 seconds.
Israel withdrew her settlers and forces in the hope that doing so would stop Palestinian attacks. Elsewhere such a tactic may have worked but not in Gaza. For eight years the civilians in Israel proper endured the bombardment of an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 missiles.
Unlike all her Arab neighbours Israel is a proper democracy. The government’s inability to safeguard its southern citizens could cost it the next election apart from the human suffering involved. With difficulty a ceasefire was arranged with the Hamas that controls Gaza and whose charter proclaims its intention not to recognise the Jewish state, calls on Moslems to kill Jews and to “raise the banner of Islam over every inch of Palestine.”
When the Hamas broke the truce by firing 80 rockets and mortar bombs a day at the civilian settlements, Israel retaliated at long last and conquered Gaza.
To stop the importation of explosives and the manufacture of rockets Gaza was blockaded by land and sea. Egypt collaborated in this blockade. In the final stages of the war Israeli cities were hit by rockets that were far more powerful than the locally made Kassams. These latest rockets could only have come from outside the territory and that is why Israel instigated its perfectly legal maritime blockade that extends into international waters.
After inspection the innocuous part of the cargo of the ships is trucked into Gaza. Contrary to the propaganda there is no starvation in the city. This has been verified by Western and Palestinian journalists
Don Krausz
6 June 2010 The Editor The Sunday Independent – Mark Steel’s article “How to make killing kosher” refers.
I wonder whether Steel saw the video showing how the Israeli commandos were attacked when they landed on the Turkish ship. Each soldier was surrounded by several armed individuals, disarmed, beaten, knocked down and in at least one case one could see the soldier being thrown onto a lower deck. Such commandos are normally armed with fully automatic weapons and grenades and yet the video showed no firing.
Steel attempts to portray the soldiers as brutal killers bent on perpetrating a massacre. Despite being attacked with knives, clubs and other implements and the fact that there were 581 assumedly hostile people on board, Israel’s crack, brutal, bloodthirsty thugs only succeeded in slaughtering nine passengers and Steel sees that as proof of malignant intent…
The captains of all the ships had been warned repeatedly that they were breaking a perfectly legal maritime blockade which extends into international waters and therefore were liable to military action. Is it not significant that only one of the six ships suffered such action? All the five others as well as the subsequently arriving Rachel Corrie peacefully allowed themselves to be directed to the Israeli port of Ashdod to have their cargo examined. Incidentally, the soldiers who peacefully landed on the deck of the Rachel Corrie were the same unit of barbarian thugs who according to Steel had demonstrated their bloody-mindedness on the Turkish ship.
Events do not take place in a vacuum and Steel deliberately chooses to ignore the background to this story.
In 1967 Israel was attacked by Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt boasted that when his troops set foot on the sands of the Sinai Desert, they would find the ground soaked with blood. I don’t know whose blood he had in mind, but six days later that war was over.
Under international law, when a country is attacked and occupies erstwhile enemy territory, it has the right to retain possession of that territory until a peace treaty is drawn up. When Egypt made peace with Israel, Israel returned the occupied Sinai Desert with its oilfields to the Egyptians. From this it is obvious that all the Palestinians have to do in order to end the “occupation” is to stop their attacks and make peace.
They have chosen not to do so. In 2005 Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, bowed to international pressure and withdrew his troops and settlers from Gaza. These settlers had established thriving export enterprises employing thousands of Palestinians during the 38 years of their tenure. These settlers had to abandon their life’s work and return to Israel, leaving behind their experienced and trained staff, hothouses and other infrastructure.
Logically speaking the Palestinians should have been able to continue with their endeavours of the past 38 years, but logic in Gaza is only notable by its absence.
So what should peace loving Palestinians do when there are no more Israelis to attack in Gaza? First of all burn down all the synagogues that the settlers had abandoned. Then manufacture and fire rockets at the civilian settlements in Israel proper. Two years ago I visited Sderot, a small town of some 20,000 men, women and children within sight of Gaza and which claims to have been hit by 4,000 missiles fired from Gaza. At that range the interval between firing and impact is 15 seconds.
Israel withdrew her settlers and forces in the hope that doing so would stop Palestinian attacks. Elsewhere such a tactic may have worked but not in Gaza. For eight years the civilians in Israel proper endured the bombardment of an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 missiles.
Unlike all her Arab neighbours Israel is a proper democracy. The government’s inability to safeguard its southern citizens could cost it the next election apart from the human suffering involved. With difficulty a ceasefire was arranged with the Hamas that controls Gaza and whose charter proclaims its intention not to recognise the Jewish state, calls on Moslems to kill Jews and to “raise the banner of Islam over every inch of Palestine.”
When the Hamas broke the truce by firing 80 rockets and mortar bombs a day at the civilian settlements, Israel retaliated at long last and conquered Gaza.
To stop the importation of explosives and the manufacture of rockets Gaza was blockaded by land and sea. Egypt collaborated in this blockade. In the final stages of the war Israeli cities were hit by rockets that were far more powerful than the locally made Kassams. These latest rockets could only have come from outside the territory and that is why Israel instigated its perfectly legal maritime blockade that extends into international waters.
After inspection the innocuous part of the cargo of the ships is trucked into Gaza. Contrary to the propaganda there is no starvation in the city. This has been verified by Western and Palestinian journalists
Don Krausz
Letter to Cape Times by Chris Eden – 12 March 2010 – Zionism “a terrible enemy” No so!
Yakov Rabkin’s criticism of Zionism as his contribution to Israel Apartheid Week is best described using the Afrikaans idiom “Hy sit die pot mis.” Roughly translated it means he got it wrong. Two issues stand out in his article.
Firstly it is written within the framework of Israel Apartheid Week. The Palestinian journalist, Khaled Abu Tomeah, writing for Hudson.org on 9th March had the following to say about Knesset Member(Member of Israeli Parliament) Ghaleb Majadlah’s own contribution to Israel Apartheid Week on Israel on Canadian and the US campuses, “If Israel were an apartheid state, what is this Arab doing in the Knesset? Doesn’t apartheid mean that someone like this Knesset member would not, in the first place, even be permitted to run in an election?
Fortunately, Arab citizens can go to the same beaches, restaurants and shopping malls as Jews in this “apartheid” state. Moreover, they can run in any election and even have a minister in the government [Ghaleb Majadlah] for the first time.
In this “apartheid” state, the Arab community has a free media that many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip envy. Ironically, an Arab newspaper in Nazareth or Haifa that is licensed by Israel enjoys more freedom than the media controlled by Hamas and Fatah, as well as most corrupt Arab dictatorships. ” Tomeah’s article doesn’t deny aspects of discrimination in Israeli society but maintains that Israel’s 1.4 million Arab citizens would be best served by people like Majadlah working to address specific issues through the existing institutions of state.
Secondly Mr Rabkin’s very broad brushstrokes concerning Christian support for Israel are neither verifiable in terms of numeric strength or representative of the motivation for Christian support. In fact the views expressed by Mr Rabkin is the oft-repeated mantra of those seeking to demonise Christian support for Israel. Most Christian support is not selfishly rooted in some future event but in fact looks backwards to the Abrahamic covenant, a covenant that establishes Israel as the primary vehicle for God’s blessing to all nations. The return of the Jewish people and the restoration of the land of Israel is not Christian theology, it is rooted in the Jewish Scriptures and described in sufficient detail by Ezekiel, Isaiah and others prophets to cause those Jews and Christians, who read these scriptures with a practical expectation, to recognise the events of the last decades as being of spiritual significance. Christians have also noted that the reuniting of Jewish people with their ancient homeland has produced some rather remarkable results: The desert is receding, modern cities stand on the foundation of their Biblical equivalents and Israeli inventions have changed the way we communicate, medicate, farm and much more.
Letter to Cape Times by Rodney Mazinter- 4 February 2010
Dear Sir
The Independent (Israel’s Choice – Cape Times leader February 4, 2010) is nothing if not obtuse.
On 29 January 2010, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a 46 page Paper, “Gaza Operation Investigations: Update,” which describes Israel’s procedures for the investigation of allegations of violations of the Law of Armed Conflict. The Paper focuses on investigations, legal proceedings and lessons learned, in relation to the actions of the IDF in the course of the Gaza Operation from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. This paper supplements and updates a paper released in July 2009, “The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects,” which addressed a range of factual and legal issues related to the Gaza Operation, including the thousands of missile attacks that necessitated the Operation, and the deliberate Hamas entrenchment in civilian areas which made combat so complex and challenging.
If The Independent can bring itself to include information that actually contributes to Israel’s credit it would have noticed some Key Points: o Israel is committed to full compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict, and to investigating every allegation of violations, irrespective of the source of the allegation. o To date, the IDF has launched investigations into 150 separate incidents arising from the Gaza Operation. Of the 150 incidents, so far 36 have been referred for criminal investigation. Criminal investigators have taken statements from almost 100 Palestinian complainants and witnesses, along with approximately 500 IDF soldiers and commanders. o Israel’s system for investigating allegations of violations of the Law of Armed Conflict is comparable to the systems adopted by other democratic nations, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Its commitment and ability to investigate and prosecute violations of international law has been confirmed by outside observers and foreign legal systems. o Israel’s investigative system includes a range of checks and balances and multiple layers of review to ensure impartiality and independence. These include the Military Advocate General Corps, which is independent and not subject to the military chain of command; the civilian Attorney General by whom any decision of the Military Advocate General as to whether to investigate or indict may be reviewed; and the Israeli Supreme Court whose review of any decision of the Military Advocate General or the Attorney General can be initiated by any interested party, including NGOs, Palestinians, and other non-citizens. o The Paper details the status of all of the investigations initiated following the Gaza Operation, and is not limited to the incidents described in the Report of the Human Rights Council Fact-finding Mission, chaired by Justice Richard Goldstone. It is not intended as a comprehensive rebuttal of the Goldstone Report or a catalogue of the Report’s flaws. The Paper does, however, note some of the Report’s inaccuracies and misrepresentations of Israel’s investigative system. o As regards the incidents described in the Goldstone Report, the Paper notes that prior to the publication of the Report, Israel was already investigating 22 of the 34 incidents it addresses as a matter of routine. The remaining 12 incidents, none of which had previously been brought to the attention of the Israeli authorities, were promptly referred for investigation upon the Report’s publication. The Paper details the various stages of investigation of these incidents.
There is more that a basic application of journalistic principles of research can bring to light but most importantly the Israeli papers show that Israel recognises the importance of conducting the investigation process in a timely manner. At the same time, it remains committed to ensuring that all legal processes are conducted thoroughly and with full due process, and in a manner comparable with that of other States guided by a respect for the rule of law.
Letter to The Sunday Independent by Don Krausz- 31 January 2010 – Israel a racist state? Live there
I am familiar with D Wolpert’s letters and cannot see why his disagreement with a Muslim writer’s viewpoint makes him Islamophobic. Siddique reminds us of ant i-Muslim statements made by prominent Israelis. So what? Does he believe that they represent the views of every Jew? On May 15, 1948, the Secretary of the Arab League announced the declaration of war against the one-day-old Israel with the words: “This will be a war of annihilation and the story of the slaughter will be told like the campaigris of the Mongols and the Crusaders.” Before attacking Israel, Nasser stated that when the Egyptian army set foot on the sands of Sinai that soil would be soaked in blood. To me that does not make every Muslim a bloodthirsty mass murderer. vSiddique claims that “the true picture of Israelis a racist supremacist country which applies apartheid policies in subjugating Palestinians”. I lived for years in Israel and this is news to me. Words are cheap. Does Siddique not think that some facts and figures would substantiate his allegations?
In rejecting Wolpert’s reminders of Muslim acts of terror, Siddique cites acts committed by Jewish fighters during the British Mandate. These were mostly directed against the British authorities, not innocent civilians. They did not include blowing civilian planes out of the sky with all their passengers, or taking over cruise ships and murdering passengers, or hijacking a passenger plane and flying it to Muslim-controlled lands with the threat to murder the Jews on board, or murdering 3000 innocents in Manhattan Island. And I wonder what excuses Siddique can concoct for the frequent bomb outrages between the Shia and Sunni in Muslim countries? Israel had a hospital up and operational five hours after arrival in Haiti. That took the Americans a week. Not bad for a racist supremacist little country practising apartheid policies.
Letter to The Herald by Chuck Volpe – 6 January 2010
Ismail Moola (Herald 5 January) expresses his surprise that the world is less than sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. He calls on the ‘governments of the world’ to do something to lift what he calls, the ‘siege of Gaza’.
Before making appeals to others for help, he should consider appealing to the Palestinians themselves. Last year, the question “Are Palestinians acting in their own best interests?” was a topic in the BBC?sponsored Doha Debates, Qatar’s forum for free speech in the Arab world. After extensive debate the 98% Arab audience voted ‘No’ (by a 75% majority).
It’s not such a surprise. One has only to ask question: Was the firing of over 8000 rockets into the south of Israel in the Palestinians’ best interests? Especially after Israel had withdrawn totally from the Gaza Strip?
Then, there is the Hamas Charter which doesn’t exactly engender good?neighbourliness. Let’s take a look.
Just as the Freedom Charter defines the ANC, so the Hamas Charter defines what Hamas stands for. But unlike the noble & admirable ideals of the Freedom Charter, the Hamas Charter reveals a mindset that is racist, fascist, intolerant, and more than mildly delusional. For example, Hamas’s stated aim is “to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” i.e., to wipe Israel off the map (Article 6) and further that “the so?called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of [Hamas] (Article 13).
Furthermore, “the Zionist invasion (which) relies … on clandestine organizations … such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, (and) Lions… to demolish societies, to destroy values, … and to wipe out Islam… stands behind the diffusion of drugs and toxics of all kinds in order to facilitate its control and expansion” (Article 28).
The narrative of victimhood which places all blame on Israel may be comforting, but it denies moral autonomy to Palestinians who need to take responsibility for their situation, rather than remaining crippled by their own resentments.
Letter to Mail & Guardian by Sydney Kaye – 15 January 2010
You seem to reserve an Inordinate amount of space to inane articles about the Middle East dispute, “A protest deferred” (January 8) being a particularly good example. Written by Ilham Rawoot, a guest of the Palestine Solidarity Alliance, which coincidentally favoured your newspaper with a full-page advertisement in the same issue, the article was rather like a restaurant review where the reviewer had had her meal paid for by the reviewee.
The article elevated a childish jaunt into a world-shaking event, with the 15-strong South African contingent lauded by the equally world-renowned Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee as “platinum”. Dissatisfied with Egypt’s response to their irritating demands, they are now considering adding Egypt to the non-existent Israeli boycott, and therefore may as well add Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and most Arab states, if they wish to be consistent. The truth, to which these activists will remain eternally blind, is that Egypt and those other Arab states are not against Israel but with her in the war against the real enemy: Iran and its war-mongering, anti-modern spawn Hamas. Those who genuinely have the interests of Palestinians at heart (and that certainly does not include the Israel-haters behind the campaign) should think through the issue, free of emotional propaganda, and support the secular and modern forces who see the defanging of Iran and Hamas as the first and essential step to progress in that region.
Letter to Mail & Guardian by Joshua Schewitz, National Director, SAUJS- 15 January 2010
IIham Rawoot should take a careful look at a situation before writing an article. She talks about “an end to the occupation in Gaza”. What occupation”? If she is referring to the occupation of Gaza by Hamas then she would be correct. But she is referring to the phantom “occupation” of Gaza by Israel. I say “phantom” because there Is no occupation of Gaza by Israel. Israel pulled every Jew as well as every Jewish solder out of Gaza in 2005. Between then and now, the only Jewish soldiers to enter Gaza did so one year ago to stop the missile attacks. That operation lasted three weeks and ended with every soldier leaving Gaza, other than those kidnapped.
There is no Israeli occupation of Gaza. There is a blockade to stop the missiles. It does not include the delivery of humanitarian aid, food, water, electricity and other articles required for daily life. It excludes items required by Hamas to worsen the situation. Hundreds of trucks enter Gaza from Israel every day. British MP George Galloway’s claim that “nothing that ever goes to Israel ever arrives in Gaza” is patently untrue. Rawoot refers to South Africa’s acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate party as if this is a progressive, peace- promoting move. It is an embarrassment that South Africa accepts as legitimate an organisation that in its charter calls for genocide of Jews around the globe, has as its goal the enforcement of extreme Islamic ideology, akin to that of the Taliban of Afghanistan, and murders civilians.
Letter written to Mail & Guardian by Rolene Marks – 15 January 2010
Professor Gordon is in a unique position in the Middle East. He Is a professor at an eminent university and, as a citizen of one of the world’s most democratic countries, he Is allowed to express his disdain for Israel’s policies. The Israeli government Is not above reproach and academics and the free press are allowed to do what they do best: criticise and shine a light on the dark corners that need illuminating. The same cannot be said for their counterparts in the Palestinian territories, where any kind of press (unless it bears the Hamas seal of approval) Is banned, peace movements are a pipe dream (especially when one grows up indoctrinated that you too can become a martyr) and genocidal charters are the Ideology on which government policy Is based. Peace is a duet and not a solo dance. If blame is to be levelled at Israel, does It mean that the Palestinians are absolved of any accountability or responsibility?
Letter to The Star by Victor Gordon – 11 January 2010
Sir, vBoth letters from Samaoen Osman and Firoz Osman (Jan 7th) illustrate a refusal to face reality and apportion blame where it deserved.
S. Osman (“Blacklist is Racial and an injustice to all Muslims”), who places the responsibility on existing protocol for “lapses in security screening measures at … Lagos and Schipol airports”, should rather condemn the radical Muslims who cause the problem in the first place. Sadly, Muslims who regard themselves as above this sort of behaviour are glaringly absent in their condemnation of their radical brothers, prefering to deflect attention elsewhere. Until that happens it is inevitable that all passengers with connections to the 14 countries on the “suspect list” will inevitably be “tarred with the same brush”. This is not racial but plain common sense.
The fact is, while obviously not all Muslims are terrorists, the vast majority of those who perpetrate random terrorism are Muslims. The only one’s who can remedy this are Muslims themselves – and ignoring the reality is not only unhelpful but dishonest.
Every one of the 14 countries on the list have not only proved their instability but have either promoted or tolerated terrorism in one form or another, deserving the negative attention they receive.
Dr. Firoz Osman’s claim that most of these 14 countries are “either invaded and occupied or have domestic puppet rulers” leaves us wondering which countries he has in mind considering that even Afghanistan and Iraq are not under foreign rule but still bear a military presence because of continual terrorist activity. Its termination would result in the immediate departure of all foreign troops.
Osman ignores the fact that Lebanon is under the domination of a foreign Muslim power, Hezbollah, and has previously been occupied by another; Syria. Most of the others are indeed ruled by despots – but whose fault is that ?
Predictably, both writers manage to impart the blame for all this on Israel’s “occupation” of the Palestinian territories without explaining what this has to do with terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Spain, London, Bali where Israel was hardly the target. Once this is credibly explained their protests might be taken seriously.
Letter to the Mail & Guardian by Rodney Mazinter- 8 January 2010
Dear Sir
The timing of the overabundance of anti-Israel articles and advertisements in this week’s edition of the M&G alerts readers to the fact that we are approaching the first anniversary of “Operation Cast Lead” when Israel finally reacted to the seven-year murderous bombardment of civilians in Southern Israel from Gaza. When your newspaper protests strongly and persistently against Israel, I wait to see if it is also willing to visit the perfectionism you demand from this one miniscule country on any other people or nation. Bearing in mind that Israel was involved in a defensive action it is fair to ask why the M&G does not also rail equally against the perpetrators in countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Rwanda, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, China and more where the slaughter of innocents truly runs into hundreds of thousands. vFor this sin of journalistic omission bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display: Only Israeli “scandals” – real and imagined – matter. Here is what British journalist, Tom Gross, had to say on the matter “THE GAZA I saw was societally intact. There were no homeless, walking wounded, hungry or underdressed people.
“From what I saw and was told in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead pinpointed a totalitarian regime’s power bases and largely neutralized Hamas’s plans to make Israel its tool for the sacrifice of civilian life. Corroboration of my account may be found in tardy and piecemeal retractions of claims concerning the UNWRA school at Al-Fakhora; an isolated acknowledgment that Gaza is substantially intact by The New York Times; Internet media watch corrections; and the unresolved discrepancy between the alleged wounded and their unreported whereabouts. By seizing the fuel, food, and medical supplies that Israel is transferring to the Gaza strip, and using the supplies itself, the Hamas terror organization is basically holding the civilian population of Gaza hostage.”
“Israel has continued to supply fuel, food, medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, despite Hamas attacks precisely on those crossings Israel must use to transfer the supplies. It is apparent that Hamas is targeting the crossings in order to prevent the transfer of humanitarian aid to the civilian population, thus both needlessly depriving its own population as well as causing an artificial humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Clearly, Hamas wants to create a crisis in order that international pressure will be placed on Israel.”
Letter to Mail & Guardian by Don Krausz
Dr. Neve Gordon’s article of 8-1-2010 under “Comment” refers.
He writes that he has been asked why the Palestinians have not established Peace Movements as the Israelis have done. He answers that “A peaceful grassroots movement has always existed.” He insists that “in the past six decades Palestinians have continually deployed non-violent forms of opposition to challenge the occupation.”
His six decades of “non-violent opposition” takes us back to the 1950’s. I worked in Israel then and was aware of the murderous attacks launched within the country. Every explanation of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians contains the word “Occupation.” Well, at that time there was no Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, unless these peaceful souls are referring to the fact that Israel was allocated a state by the United Nations.
One obvious answer to the question about the lack of Palestinian peace movements is that the Palestinians don’t want peace. At the time of partition in 1947 the Palestinians were offered their own state. They refused it, believing that by attacking and annihilating the future state of Israel and its Jews they would gain much more.
After Israel’s pre-emptive Six Day war in 1967 she found herself in control of the Sinai desert, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Hers had not been a war of conquest but of necessity to remove an existential threat. Having removed that threat Israel then offered to return much of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians in return for peace.
On the first of September, 1967, the Arab League convened a summit in Khartoum and resolved to reject Israel’s peace overtures. They proclaimed what has become known as the Three Noes: “No peace with Israel, no recognition and no negotiations with it.”
Dr. Neve Gordon states that after September 1967 Palestinian leaders did not initiate terror attacks and he denies reports to the contrary. I have before me a statement of terror attacks carried out in Israel proper between March 1968 and November 1970 only, a period of 32 months. The victims numbered 353; 47 killed and 306 wounded. They included 90 children, 24 soldiers and 3 Arabs.
In the year 2,000 President Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the head of the Palestinians Yasser Arafat at the Taba conference. The object was peace. Barak offered to return Gaza and 97% of the occupied West Bank for peace. Arafat’s response was to launch the Second Intifada onslaught against Israel. The result was 1,000 Israeli and 3,000 Palestinian dead. It also led to Israel erecting a Security Wall between itself and the Palestinians which resulted in the death toll at the hands of Palestinian suicide bombers being reduced by at least 90%. Separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian traffic reduced the incidence of drive-by shootings considerably.
For over 100 years the Palestinians and other Moslems have proclaimed hatred of Jews from their pulpits, in their press and in their schools. They have been responsible for at least 10,000 deaths among Jewish men, women and children. Since 1948 Israel has gone from strength to strength. Is it not time that these peaceful, non-violent Palestinians stop their hatred and aggression and reach an accommodation with their Jewish neighbours?
Eusebius McKaiser in “Another View” of last Sunday 18th July wrote on being “guilty of culpable amnesia”
However we need to question who is suffering from amnesia given the democracy and human rights enshrined in our constitution, much closer to home and certainly more current and topical that Eusebius ignores or forgets to criticize whilst so quick to focus on others.
When the oppressed gives full support to the oppressors such as the UN report in May of 2004 South Africa consistently voted together with Indonesia, Russia and Nigeria against motions to censure North Korea, Cuba and Turkmenistan. That same year we assisted in the veto of UN efforts to censure Zimbabwe.
Not to mention our continued support of the Mugabe regime’s oppression of half his population, yet we wine and dine him whilst refuse the Dalia Lama entry to our country.
Early 2007 The Security Council failed to adopt a draft resolution on the situation in Myanmar – the result of the vote on the draft tabled by the U.S. and U.K. was 9 in favor to 3 against (China, Russia and South Africa) yet Aung San Suu Kyi has spent the last 15 years or so under house arrest and worse. Is Aung San’s story that much different to Nelson Mandela?
Do we hear much condemnation of the rape and mutilation of over 500000 women in the DRC or the plight of those in Darfur or the 50 million girls under the age of 11 forced into marriage in other Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Yet South Africa the formally oppressed demonstrates this culpability most admirably whilst our Eusebius suffers for moral amnesia
Eusebius as the saying goes – “don’t throw stones”
Sir,
Eusebius McKaiser has written some excellent, insightful articles focusing on the scourge of racism, homophobia and xenophobia. In all, he respected the need for context, an essential prerequisite when approaching so intricate a subject. Why then has context taken a backseat when discussing Israel’s relationship with Apartheid South Africa?
Having dealt with the extent of the cooperation between these two (at the time) rogue states, largely in terms of US$ (from disclosures made in a new book by Sasha Polakow-Suransky), McKaiser aims at the morality, or the apparent lack thereof by Israel in particular whilst in the pursuit of her own self-interests.
On the surface, McKaiser makes a good case. How can it be that within so short a period after emerging from the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish State could align itself with a pariah that had formerly displayed an allegiance to the former Nazi Germany?
Here, I urge McKaiser to consider the following context.
Two thousand years of persecution saw Jew-hatred finally culminate in, first, a devastating series of Russian-lead pogroms in Eastern Europe followed by the final act of planned Jewish genocide, the Holocaust. No matter how many times McKaiser sees “Schindler’s List”, Spielberg’s Hollywood version of a miniscule aspect of the Final Solution, he will never understand what impact that event has had on the psyche of the Jewish people.
Through an almost serendipitous quirk of fate the Holocaust brought together two streams of Jewish history – the emergence of the Nationalist movement of Zionism (the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people) and the desperate need for a haven of safety following the cruelty and indifference displayed by the “civilized world” towards its helpless Jewish victims.
The UN partitioning of the area known as Palestine in 1947 finally brought the State of Israel to reality.
Anyone believing that this was accompanied by a flood of goodwill should acquaint oneself with the true history as nothing could be further from the truth. President Harry Truman, generously regarded by many as the benevolent “father of Israel” had the insight to note that any goodwill offered to the new state should be quickly capitalised upon as it would not last for long. His words were indeed prophetic. Even his own State Department had done its utmost to counter Israel’s independence in the interests of Arab oil and regional influence. The British, too, could hardly have been less supportive.
Hardly had Truman recognised the new state when he slapped an embargo on American arms sales on the entire region which lasted almost 20 years. Neither was there assistance forthcoming from any other major western nation and Israel entered a war for her very survival only hours after her independence against five Arab nations, having to largely fend for herself.
In 1967, when threatened once again with annihilation Israel once again found herself alone. Armed at this stage with French Mystere fighters she defeated her attackers following warnings from America and France that were she to fire the first shot it would cost her their support. Her victory resulted in the French refusing to provide spare parts for the Mysteres she had previously willingly supplied.
In 1973, Israel again fought a battle against extinction, only salvaging the situation at the last moment after Henry Kissinger, then US Secretary of State, insensitively commented, “Let them bleed first” before replacement fighters were dispatched on the instruction of Pres. Richard Nixon. The “bleeding” reached a figure of over 3000 dead.
This brings us to the period of the 70’s to which McKaiser refers – the period of SA/Israeli cooperation.
The obstacles placed in the way of Israel’s success coupled with the unreliability of her so-called “Western allies” were clearly understood in Israeli circles. Famously, Gen, de Gaul had said, “France has no friends, only alliances” and Israel was hardly a slow learner. Clearly, no country would place her interests above their own, a situation appreciated only by another nation regarded in the same light – another pariah state, South Africa.
Ultimately, two outcasts in a hostile world recognised one another’s needs, each with something to offer the other.
This brings us to the morality that, to McKaiser, is of the greatest concern.
Indeed, in a perfect world it is unlikely that Israel would have aligned herself to a country with so negative an aura as Apartheid South Africa. However, in the face of such unreliability, such duplicity and such negativity and, above all, the ongoing dangers she faced, few alternatives existed and expediency trounced most other considerations.
Dominant for Israel was the need to defend herself against overwhelming odds and ensure the safety and security of her citizens. Little has changed as even today she faces open threats of attack from Iran and her proxies, Hamas and Hezbolla with Syria close behind.
The sort of morality to which McKaiser refers is a luxury that even Israel can, at times, ill afford, try as she does to maintain the principles of democracy throughout her diverse population. For that she should be (but is not) given the utmost credit.
Perhaps McKaiser, when denigrating Israeli morality should consider the following and explain why this does not appear to bother him much.
We live in a country that has come through decades of Apartheid, designated by the United Nations as a crime against humanity. Despite having been exposed to the lessons of these crimes, our government is comfortable in not only maintaining close relations with some of the most vicious exponents thereof, but conspicuously refrained from voting against their excesses while we occupied a seat on the Security Council.
We are continually reminded that we do not turn our backs on former friends which in itself would appear to be morality at its most noble. However, how moral is it to hide behind this stance when the perpetration of such crimes is so obvious? Surely our moral standing should be a great deal higher after all we have been through and in this regard, we too should be “a light unto the nations”? After all, none of these comrades pose any danger to us and appear to have precious little to offer in any regard.
For some reason best known to McKaiser and other detractors, Israel has become the convenient whipping boy, subject to standards that fail to be applied to others and the case for morality is selective to say the least.
Now, thirty years on with the benefit of hindsight, I would be far happier had Israel not formed an alliance with Apartheid South Africa. However, I can safely say that I clearly understand why she did.
All too often we as Jews are reminded that because of the Holocaust we should “know better” – or as McKaiser put it “the oppressed (should not become) the oppressor.” But then so should all other nations know better and cease placing Israel in the sort of danger that compels her to follow a course that she would undoubtedly prefer to avoid. So, also should other nations display the same level of morality that McKaiser demands of Jewish Israel. In no way is morality a Jewish exclusive.
Eusebius McKaiser’s article When the oppressed become the oppressor (ST July 18) gives one an unusual opportunity to postulate a view that others may find interesting. McKaiser says at the end of his article “They (the Israelis) opted to prop up the apartheid state in the face of universal political and moral condemnation. They defied their own experiences of moral crimes, crimes that were arguably worse than those experienced by black South Africans. This is a tragic illustration of immoral statehood and culpable amnesia. History is mandated to judge Israel harshly.” There are a number of issues upon which one can comment.
McKaiser’s view that history is mandated to judge Israel harshly is not quite correct. History could be mandated to judge other countries equally harshly for “propping up the apartheid state” (including many of the African states that were formally enemies of the apartheid state) but it won’t because none of the other states are Jewish states. I suspect Israel did not single-handedly “prop up apartheid” but I leave that to the historians to battle over.
I am intrigued that McKaiser has referred to the Jewish experience as “…moral crimes, crimes that were arguably worse than those experienced by black South Africans.” This view confirms a suspicion that I have had for a long time – that many victims of apartheid are reluctant to classify any genocide and any other experience of oppression as worse than their own. Rwandan genocide isn’t up there. Neither is Biafra or the 5 million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo etc. I am prepared to nail my colours to the mast and say that the persecution and genocide of the Jews trumps, a bit, the oppression of black South Africans. My stats are better than McKaiser’s stats – check this out. In 1939 there were 11 – million Jews comprising a world population of 2,3 billion or 0,0026%. By 1945 over six million Jews had been murdered by anti-Semites. This approximates to 60% of the world’s Jewish population. It’s the equivalent of extermination almost the entire population of the Eastern Cape which comprises 14% of the population of South Africa. This isn’t as ancient history as it may sound. Every single one of my father’s family that did not leave Eastern Europe before 1939 was murdered. We have ascertained that one of my father’s elderly relatives was shot for walking on a pavement. The baby of a younger relative was grabbed from its mother’s arms and had it’s head smashed against a wall. My father-in-law’s father committed suicide so that his wife and daughter could obtain some money from his life insurance as every thing he made a living from was confiscated by the Nazis. Sadly, the proceeds of the policy were also confiscated. My husband’s aunt and grandmother? Died in Auschwitz. The estimates for the number of people who died during 40 years of apartheid is in the region of about 25 000.
I have no doubt that McKaiser’s response would be “But exactly! How could the Jews (Israel) defy their own experiences of moral crimes? Surely they should know better? Surely they should be held to a higher standards than other imperfect states?” Well, yes but it doesn’t quite work that way. It goes like this: millennia of persecution leave Jews stateless. But after the Holocaust the world goes “oy vey” (probably not) and the United Nations recognises a Jewish state in the British mandate in Palestine. Imperfect, but life’s a bit like that. Problem is that the neighbours won’t recognise a Jewish state of any shape or size in the Middle East. So war erupts. The aim is to destroy the Jewish state. This goes on for decades. In the process Israel makes a whole lot of regrettable decisions, not least of which is its relationship with the apartheid state. But the problem is when 60% of your population is wiped out in a genocide organised with more efficiency that the stadia in the 2010 World Cup, your enemies manage to declare Zionism as racism in the United Nations which recognised the right for a Zionist entity to exist (weird that!), you have to go to war more often than most people in the West go to gym, hen you stop having warm fuzzy feelings for others, even if they are poor and oppressed. This is exacerbated by the fact that although the world ostensibly wants you to negotiate peace with your poor and oppressed neighbours, the pressure to compromise is placed on you. But the one compromise you a looking for is barely articulated and certainly not the subject of international pressure. This one compromise is that your neighbours agree to disavow your right to exist and to force you into the sea. When people genuinely believe their existence is threatened, again (viz. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas), they fight for survival. Your opponent’s survival is their problem.
If the latter compromise isn’t being reached, then as a country in these circumstances you probably will build settlements that piss everyone off, in a state of paranoia you make clumsy and tragic attempts to board Turkish aid ships, and your approach to your enemies is less than giving.
One thing about negotiations is that if one side has to compromise before the negotiations start, they’ll never start. It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. If I sound a bit sarcastic about the issues and this is interpreted to suggest that I demean the suffering wrought by apartheid, I don’t intend to. However, the moral relativism over Israel’s behaviour over Saudi Arabia’s, Hussein’s Iraq, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or even Al Bashir’s Sudan is chilling. Mostly because it is the only state in the post-Communist world which people, such a McKaiser, suggest immoral statehood rather than immoral governments or rulers. The implication that has become common currency is that Israel’s statehood.
McKaiser’s byline says that Israel and the perpetrators of xenophobic violence are culpable amnesia regarding South Africa. Pity he doesn’t examine the latter. It does suggest, however, that he has some understanding of the factors that trigger the unattractive nature of “xenophobia”. I would ask him to consider the same in respect of Israel.
Media Team Israel 