Jew-baiters have long invoked Nazism and the Holocaust as a way of getting up Jewish noses. This usually takes such trite and puerile forms as “Hitler should have finished the job” taunts or making mock “Heil Hitler!” salutes, but it generally hits the target. Indeed, Jewish sensitivities in this area are so pronounced as to almost invite such malicious needling. Not only do many of them foolishly allow such mischief-makers to push their buttons — reacting with noisy indignation when they would do better to merely maintain a scornful silence — but they have failed to sufficiently appreciate that invoking Nazism and the Holocaust for purposes of mocking and insulting Jews is increasingly taking on another, and even more pernicious, form.
“Israel the Apartheid State” is evidently not strong enough for a growing number of Israel bashers; now depicting Israelis as the new Nazis and their country as a warmed-up version of the Third Reich perpetrating a ‘holocaust’ against Palestinians is increasingly becoming the order of the day.
One doesn’t have to look very far to find local manifestations of this. For example:
On 16 January, the Palestine Solidarity Group and Women in Black SA chose to hold a “Public Women’s Vigil in solidarity with the people of Gaza” in a parking lot close to the Cape Town Holocaust Centre, explicitly to draw attention to what it believed to be “parallels between what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza and the Holocaust which was an unspeakable crime against humanity that virtually wiped out European Jewry”.
Speaking at last week’s Cosatu’s-headed solidarity rally in Lenasia, Salim Vally of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee remarked that the people who were “resisting this racist Zionist killing machine” in Gaza was reminiscent of “the brave young Jewish men and women in the Warsaw ghetto when they were resisting Nazi occupation”.
“What about the Holocaust that they are creating now?” asked ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte on the Jon Qwelane Show (Channel Islam International, November 25) after referring to the Holocaust in Europe.
It goes without saying that lurid emails juxtaposing Holocaust images with harrowing images from the Gaza conflict are doing the rounds.
It should really be self-evident why evocations of Nazism are both false and deeply offensive. However, given the present climate of irrational rage, I feel constrained to spell out just why this is so. I will endeavor to do so as concisely and unemotively as possible, basing this on certain essential facts whose cannot be seriously disputed.
This is why the analogy is false:
It is undeniable that Israel has a formidable array of deadly modern weaponry at its disposal and that it could therefore easily inflict tens, and even hundreds, of thousands of civilian casualties if it set out to kill and maim as many people as possible. One need only refer to the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945, which resulted in an estimated 40 000 civilian deaths in just two nights, and that was accomplished with weaponry that was a great deal less sophisticated than what Israel can bring to bear.
Next, it is not in dispute that when Palestinian militants carry out their attacks against Israel, they do not try to avoid inflicting civilian casualties but that, on the contrary, they seek to maximise them. This is why their missiles are primarily fired at residential areas rather than military targets and why their bombs are detonated in buses, restaurants and other public places frequented by civilians.
It is therefore hardly rocket science to conclude that if Israel were to adopt the Palestinian tactic of deliberately targeting civilians, then real genocide — that is, orchestrated mass slaughter targeting an entire population — would indeed ensue.
However, and this is the third “fact”, the number of Palestinians killed in the three-week Gaza war was not much more than 1 200, inclusive of militants and civilians. In other words, Israel very obviously did not carry out “systematic mass murder” against the Gaza Palestinians, although it certainly had the ability to do so.
Finally, it can persuasively be argued that the objective facts exonerate Israel of responsibility for those comparatively few Palestinian non-combatants who were killed in the fighting. By launching attacks from within the confines of densely populated areas, by storing missiles and rocket launchers under mosques and civilian residences, by using university facilities and other protected places to develop weapons and explosives, Hamas systematically abused the protections afforded to civilians and civilian objects under international law, while placing the safety and welfare of these civilians at great risk. Such tactics in fact made deaths and injuries to Palestinian civilians impossible for Israel to avoid when countering such attacks.
The real moral responsibility for those casualties must therefore be squarely laid at the door of Hamas.
So much for disproving the grotesque “Nazi = Israel” comparison. Why, in fact, is it so very offensive? Here’s why:
By equating Nazi methods of tyranny with Israeli self-protection measures, it implies that Israeli actions are as bad as Nazi ones, a repellent accusation given the kind of unrestrained brutality the Nazis indulged in and which the Israelis have so scrupulously avoided despite the intense provocation they face.
Atrocity denialism is further implicit in the way that Palestinians are depicted as the “new Jews”. This effectively depicts them as being as harmless, helpless and completely innocent as Jewish victims of Nazism undoubtedly were. Thus are countless acts of Palestinian aggression — including the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians, frequently in extremely barbaric ways, shamelessly airbrushed out of the historical record.
Another implied message suggests is that the Nazi campaign of mass murder against the Jewish people was in some measure provoked by Jewish atrocities against the German civilian population when in reality they were done to death not because of what they had done but solely for being what they were. To infer otherwise is an infamous slander against their memory.
Finally, it implies that what the Palestinians are enduring can be equated to what the victims of the Holocaust suffered. This minimises Nazi crimes to an extent that borders on outright Holocaust denialism.
In responding to this last point, the British-Jewish political scientist Emanuele Ottolenghi wrote the following: “In Gaza, since the start of Israel’s offensive, there have been fewer than 50 deaths a day, up to 70% of them Hamas fighters. Nazis took joy at massacring civilians. Israelis give warning via phone to civilians. Nazis starved their victims for months before destroying the Ghetto. Israel sends humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicines every day. Intelligent people should be able to see the difference and refrain from such comparisons. But the effect is to demonise Israel by comparing it with Nazism, the quintessential evil of modern European history. And, in the process, it ends up trivialising the Holocaust as well, much like Holocaust denial. If only 50 people a day died in the Warsaw Ghetto while the Nazis were resupplying their hapless Jewish victims with food and medicine, one cannot fault the Nazis too much.
It also follows, logically, that Jews trying to turn that history into a paradigm of evil are exaggerating. For political goals perhaps? You see where this can go. Anyone with a sense of history should know better than to compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. Even in Zimbabwe things are worse than Gaza. Does that remind them of the Warsaw Ghetto?”
“Look at me, Jew — I’m a Nazi!” right-wingers taunt; “Look at you, Jew, you’re a Nazi!” hiss their lefty counterparts. There is, in other words, a “right wing” and a “left wing” way of using Nazi-Holocaust terminology to humiliate and/or intimidate Jewish people. The second is perhaps even more repulsive because it is framed in the guise of concern for justice and human rights (although, to be fair, some have been sufficiently taken in by the dominant anti-Israel line to have convinced that their intentions are good).
Last year, an investment company ran an advertisement that posed the question, “Is your bank manager a dictator?” accompanied by a picture of someone made up to look like Hitler. I found the ad rather amusing but certain of my Jewish brethren took such serious umbrage that the company hastily removed it. It reminded me of an absurd incident in Cape Town several years ago prior to that when someone named Nazim caused consternation by having a personalised number plate that bore the first four letters of his name. In the end, he agreed — rather generously in the circumstances — to render the offending legend innocuous by having the ‘i’ removed.
It seems ridiculous that such innocuous skirmishes are being pursued when Nazi imagery has come to be used in a far more demeaning, and even threatening, manner in the way anti-Israel propaganda is developing.
Fluit, fluit, my storie’s uit. What’s the bet that responses to this post will include at least one sneering observation about Jews “crying anti-semitism” in order to draw attention away from their “brutal oppression of the Palestinian people”. Watch this space.
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91 Responses to “The Jew as Nazi — A new form of blood libel?”
Its quite interesting reading your post. rather than taunt you as you put it, i will try to engage you in a healthy debate. but before i start i will give you some background on myself. I went to a Jewish School, have many jewish friends. and i am Muslim.
Now that we have that out the way let us proceed.
The deaths on both sides have been well documented. Innocent women and children killed during this war. What no-one can deny is that one life lost- be it a jew, a muslim, a christian or an atheist is one life too many. Allegations of the use of white phosphorous in a civilian built up area has come to light, the legality of which is being disputed. Accusations and counter-accusations spring forth daily. however in the midst of all of this we are still no closer to finding peace- a lasting peace.
We’ve seen in our own violent past that uprisings and fighting doesn’t work. only when the apartheid government decided to secretly reach out to the ANC did we find a final solution. (its worth pointing out that the U.S state dept. still considered the ANC a terrorist organisation until recently). As with all conflicts its always about the Land. In this case the land which is sacred to both muslims and jews. I feel the visions of Israel being an Apartheid state is borne out from the fact that many of the Leaders today remember what it was like living under the apartheid regime - bantustans, pass laws, whites only areas. Its their opinion and they are entitled to it. One mans terrorist is another mans Freedom Fighter.
What you failed to mention in your article is the fact that Hamas were democratically elected by their people and to quote former President George Bush those elections were “Free & Fair”. Instead of engaging the “enemy” and offering them an olive branch the western powers chose to denounce their rule by saying that they will not negotiate with them, putting in place a blockade on any trade in the area.
As a result, out of sheer frustration these oppressed people have had to resort to suicide bombings, “terrorist” attacks, just so that the world takes notice of their plight.
Some people have called the coverage of this conflict one-sided. If thats the case why were tv crews barred from entering gaza? using that notion of it being for their own safety is pathetic.
What happened to the jewish people in the Nazi concentration camps was wrong. So too is the murdering of a nation kept captive in an open air prison, surrounded by a wall that is a symbol of oppression. I am sorry. But no amount of spin can forgive what is going on. and just btw. if it were happening to another people i would react in the same way!
Given that it is possible to kill 3000 people with something as crude as a couple of airliners, it defies all logic that anyone but a rabid anti-semetic bigot could conclude that one of the most powerful armies in the world must be excercising an almost ridiculous degree of restraint. To equate the Gaza death-toll with the holocaust is about as insane as people who still deny women as much as the right to drive a car, accusing Israel of ‘Apartheid’. Would any of those equating Jews with Nazis please explain what Nazis did to homosexuals? And what does Israel do to them? (like: nothing) And now just what happens to gay people in Hamas’s chief sponsor, Iran? Which is is closer to Nazi thinking? The Nazis considered the ‘Aryans’ to be an uber-race with seperate law and value for them and the lesser, lower races. Would one of the ‘Jews are Nazis’ like to explain to the rest of us what a Dhimmi is? (That’s us, the lesser races, whom it is Ok to kill and we have a value of 1/10 of Muslims according to that other Hamas role model, the Taliban.) How very like the Nazis they are. Oh these are also the sweet people who kill and maim little girls for the evil of going to school. That’s apartheid incarnate. I’m not Jewish and have no interest in living in Israel, but if anyone needs a decent PRO it is Israel, not people who use human shields to attempt to massacre civilians.
I myself find it offensive to the extreme that Israel is portrayed as an apartheid state and akin to be the modern day Nazis. It just seems that this line of reasoning is becoming more and more prevalent in South Africa, certainly amongst our ruling class.
The actual numbers and tactics mean nothing. Israel will and does inflict as much harm as it can. It’s hand is stayed, not by any civilising influence, but by the bad PR that any obvious genocidal tactics will create.
“Jewish MP compares Israeli troops in Gaza to Nazis”
I for one understand what you write and have overcome my problem by accepting that no matter what one does or says the label to the uneducated and historically illiterate sticks. In reading many books I have come to the conclusion that your deed does not have to be grossly vile to earn the chagrin of the masses. It is perception that counts above all.
I am a white male South African and being such I am labelled a Racist and one who abhors anything a darker shade of light coffee.
I cannot put into words the freedom one attains by accepting that no matter the event or intentions you are a Racist. The feeling of well being that allows for my understanding that behind the word, “Racist”, are many faces of truth.
For the word Racist, was invented by others guilty of Racists thought or those who carry an unnamed shame but cannot allow its mention lest they too are labelled the same.
Once you learn to accept your label, decisions become easier and your position superior because you become immune to the aggression and learn to question rather than respond in kind.
It is not better to find unanswerable questions as a defence and live life by helping deserving others.
“Palestinians killed in the three-week Gaza war was not much more than 1 200″
1200 dead, MOSTLY civilians, not enough for you? Sorry, what IS the number required to attain the lofty title of “systematic mass-murder” these days? Just so that we are all clear…
What the fuck do you think with the comparison of the zionist state with the nazi’s behaviour? It is because they are murderous like the way the nazis were, there is no difference there. You keep on exploiting the world’s sympathy of the holocaust to cover up your shit. One day the zionist empire will fall, ask those who have helped you to create state of israel.
I may be mistaken but I get the impression that you think that Israel’s military and government are above reproach because they don’t treat people as badly as the Nazi authorities treated Jews and many other people in the Second World War?
If that is the case then you have a dilemma of gauging morality, the Nazi’s are not a benchmark for good behaviour, I agree that equating IDF activity with genocide is incorrect legally as well as evidence of a lazy intellect. Still there are many valid complaints to be laid at the door of the IDF and the Israeli goverment, for instance the occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, collective punishment of suspected or known Palestinian fighter’s families, annexation of territory, individual brutality against civilians in the West Bank, camp 1391, Sabra and Chatila, assissinations and most recently the bombing of refuge centres in Gaza [which is indefensible according to the Geneva Conventions regardless of the alleged provocation]
I don’t think that such criticisms can be lightly shrugged off because of “security issues”, infamous regimes have used such excuses throughout history and Israel is not an exception to this rule. I’m not an apologist for Hamas or “terrorism” in it’s more accurate definitions. A conflict can not be viewed from one side only if it is to be understood and resolved.
I realise I’ve gone off on a tangent as my response is not directed solely at the essence of your article but I only wish to point out that though people are incorrect in calling Israel the fourth reich they are not incorrect in showing sympathy and solidarity with the people of Gaza [not Hamas] who face tremendous hardship. Their suffering is real, psychologically, socially and physically so, to deny that is callous and immoral at best.
You are apparently unaware of the history of the Holocaust, nor the nuymber of Jewish Collaboraters there were, even after they discovered that the Nazis were planning on exterminating everybody.
Amongst the more interesting things and historical examples are Goldberg the Jewish Policeman involved with Oskar Schindler’s list who appears to have selling places on it using his power with the Nazi Camp guards, to the extent there is some evidence he took people off of it and sold their places to others lying about having put their families on it when he only put one name and without Schindler’s knowledge. (Go and read the original book.)
There is some historical evidence that a member of the Stern Gang offered to form a Jewish Waffen SS battalion in return for guns to fight the British in Palistine, thinking they were more important enemies, and that the German Embassy in Istanbul turned down this offer.
And there is one know example of a Jewish Spy who was a German Soldier who agreed to spy for the Germans on the British in Egypt and was released from Auschwitz in order to be parachuted into North Africa. He was also by his own recorded words wanting to do it, but he may have been suffering from long tern traumatised shock at the time after his experiences in the Death Camp.
There are other examples like Kurt Gerstein, the German who infiltrated the Waffen SS, was involved in the Chenical development of killing Gas and spent his time trying to inform the world and Diplomats what was going on to get them to stop it. (His writings of a visit to Belzec are one of the few primary sources of the Experimental Death Camp left, since there was only one know surviving escapee by the end of the war.)
Just because someone is Jewish doesn’t mean they cannot be right wing and a fascist, nor does somebody wearing an SS Uniform developing Zyklon B mean that he was a Nazi.
Perhaps a better description than Nazi, would be Fascist, for those Jewish Settlers who were recently filmed on video beating a Palistinian Arab Shepherd with Baseball bats for trying to work one of his fields near a settlement termed illegal under International law:
playing around with the nazi salute is probably more offensive to Germans than to Jews, because it pokes fun at Hitler and Germans rather than implying “go kill jews, the disabled, gypsies and who ever else Hitler tried to exterminate”. But I am not Jewish, so if you feel so sensitive about the salute then I cant argue, can I? The same degree of sensitivity for another group’s plight would make your sensitivity seem a little more honest, perhaps even divine.
Meanwhile, it is rather nice that the Israeli’s call the Palestinians just before they bomb them. How does it go? Like this?
“You are about to bombed, your houses are going to be destroyed, your kids are going to maimed. You are safe nowhere, so do not hide in the schools or hospitals. All we want are the terrorists. We know you voted them in, but they are still terrorists and we must get rid of them to secure a lasting peace solution. We know they are your fathers, your brothers and your sons, but if you give them up, we will allow you to live in your squalor in peace”
As usual this ‘unbiased’ commentator ducks the issue. The root reason for Palestinian aggression is that Gods Chosen People have stolen their country and continue to do so, piece by piece. To justify this they reiterate the ‘poor put upon me’ attitude assisted by such as this journalist whos twisted logic considers that not killing more people (Yes, they are people - remember that.) was an act of great restraint. Kid yourself not! Only the potential bad publicity prevented that, not mercy but pragmatism.
Not only am I not Jewish, I’m an atheist. If the whole middle east became a nuclear wasteland I wouldn’t notice. However I must say Palestinians have great PR. Weeks of missiles entering Israel aren’t reported, one Palestinian dog is injured and it’s all over the papers. South African reporting is completely one sided - I read the international papers and I’m amazed that Israel has been so patient and careful to avoid collateral damage.
Was the UN hospital bombed by Israel warned via phone before the attack, I wonder?
Both sides are equally in the wrong. Israel has more funding and is much better the game on all levels (except perhaps propaganda, but they trade on the “eternal Jewish victimhood” effect to good extent).
(JERUSALEM) — Palestinian militants detonated a bomb targeting an Israeli army patrol along the Gaza border, the Israeli military said, in the first violence since a cease-fire went into effect more than a week ago.
IOL shows a photo of “helpless little Palestinian children sit in the rubble of their home” (which was constructed out of reinforced concrete surprsingly)” M&G’s front page story is “Israel’s white death powder spurs Amnesty to cry ‘war crime’.
Palestine breaks the cease fire - shhhhh! It’s just not news you know.
I appreciate the measured, civilised tone of this response, but it is a pity that it was marred by the concluding hyperbolic and self-evidently untrue statement that Israel is “murdering..a nation kept in an open-air prison”.
Some quick facts:
Here are examples of the assistance Israel continues to render to the Palestinians even while the Palestinians continue to attack it:
• Some 80,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and 40 000 from Gaza were able to come to Israel for medical treatment in 2006.
• Nearly 13,000 patients from Gaza were evacuated to hospital in Israel between June 2007 - January 2008, a period during which Palestinians fired over 1500 lethal missiles at Israeli population centres.
• In the same period, over 17,600 lorries carrying over 408,600 tonnes of supplies crossed into Gaza from Israel.
• Israel’s supply to the Gaza Strip power station has been maintained, providing 60 MW, with a capability of 60 MW.
I challenge anyone to find a another case anywhere in history in which one nation continues to supply another with fuel, electricity etc even as the other is carrying out a continual bombardment of its territory. Frankly, I believe Israel has been altogether to soft-hearted. They certainly don’t get any thanks for it.
“Murdering a nation”? Obviously not.
Does anyone ask why Israel imposes such restrictions on Gaza’s borders? It should be obvious - Hamas is an unapologetic terrorist movement committed to Israel’s violent destruction.
(It is also poisoned through and through by ideologies of radical anti-Jewish racism, which I may elaborate on at a later stage).
Even Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in mid-2005 made no difference. There was no undertaking on its side to halt carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in Israel proper, nor to stop smuggling in Iranian-supplied weaponry to use to attack Israeli targets. If the people of Gaza elect such an organisation to lead them, what on earth do they expect Israel to do? Sit back and wait for more of its people to be murdered and maimed?
I BELIEVE THAT THOSE WHO TRULY CARE FOR THE WELFARE OF GAZA PALESTINIANS WILL NOT MAKE EXCUSES FOR THE BARBARIC METHODS OF ITS LEADERS BUT WILL ADVISE - INDEED IMPLORE - THEM TO STOP ACTING IN A WAY THAT IS NOT ONLY IMMORAL BUT ALSO FUNDAMENTALLY SELF-DESTRUCTIVE. IF JEWS WERE BEHAVING IN SUCH A WAY,AND WERE RECEIVING THE SAME TREATMENT AS A RESULT, I WOULD HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM - NONE AT ALL.
Alan Dershowitz in his book “The Case for Peace” writes:
“Notice that Israel is never compared to Stalin’s Soviet Union, to Mussolini’s Italy, to Franco’s Spain, to Castro’s Cuba, to Pinnochet’s Chile, or even to Hirohito’s Japan. It is always and only compared to Hiter’s Nazi Germany. I have often wondered what could motivate any person of presumed decency to compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust. Israel’s goal is to protect it’s civillians from Palestinian terrorism, whereas the Nazi goal was to genocidally destroy every Jewish baby, child, woman and man so as to eliminate the Jewish race. The analogy is obscene and yet it is repeated daily on college campuses, by mainstream European political activists, and even by writers and intellectuals. It’s target audience is the current generation of college students too young to remember the Holocaust and too caught up in the passions of the day to bother to research the history. When a lie is repeated often enough, it risks becoming conventional wisdom. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is anti-Semitism, pure and simple. There is no other explanation, especially in the light of the reality that there is no actual similarity between Hitler’s systematic genocide of the Jews and Israel’s efforts to defend itself from genocidal threats against it’s Jewish population”.
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on January 27th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
More comments have since come in, several of which I would like to respond to:
Firstly, Azad Essa: Have you ever heard of a Palestinian terrorist informing his prospective victims that he is about to blow them to fragments? No? Why on earth not? Because it would prevent civilian deaths and injuries, of course, which spoils everything.
Next, so long as Gaza Palestinians continue to devote their efforts towards destroying Israel while at the same time electing leaders who are oppressive and grossly corrupt, then they will continue to live “in misery and squalour”. Why is it so hard to hold the Palestinians responsible for the actions that determine their own destiny?
MICHAEL BOSWELL
I agree with a lot of what you say, and I don’t think we fundamentally disagree. However, nowhere do I claim that Israel is above reproach. There has not been a war in history in which one side can claim to have been faultless, guiltless and pristine, and the Middle East is no exception. However, criticism of Israel’s policies where deserved must be PROPORTIONATE - comparisons with Nazism are totally out of line in this regard, as I demonstrated in my original article.
Finally, I don’t deny that Gazans are suffering, but believe that those who truly care for them should be practising a little “tough love” and letting them know the very considerable extent to which their plight is self-inflicted.
Alistair Budd
I never claimed that Jews were incapable of becoming Nazis/Fascists - the potential for the blackest evil is in every human heart. I also agree that the thuggish behaviour of some West Bank settlers is shameful and unacceptable. I ask only that it all be seen in reasonable perspective and not malicioulsy exaggerated.
ABU - do you really think you have made a worthwhile point? Try to be rational.
I know what you mean Saks. Great article.
One can only think of those who take every chance to trivialise Apartheid if not to deny it. The case here is different because many blacks are still poor and work as servants in the homes of whites while whites are obscenely wealthy and yet keep harping on about the ills of Affirmative Action etc when it fact white women have been the biggest beneficiaries of AA.
What is more base is when they try and compare the ruling party to the Apartheid government (Apartheid which they conveniently deny except when opportunities to spread propaganda arise.)
As a Jew whose father perished in Poland, I feel sick to my stomach when I read all these spineless racists trying to deny the Holocaust and Apartheid.
Tom Gross, the media analyst writes: “While many in the Islamic world and in the West have strongly condemned cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims, such as those that appeared in a Danish paper caricaturing Mohammed, there is near-silence among western media and NGOs about anti-Semitic cartoons that are spreading across the globe.”
BLACKLISTED DICTATOR on January 27th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
David,
You write.. “Speaking at last week’s Cosatu’s-headed solidarity rally in Lenasia, Salim Vally of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee remarked that the people who were “resisting this racist Zionist killing machine” in Gaza was reminiscent of “the brave young Jewish men and women in the Warsaw ghetto when they were resisting Nazi occupation”.”
Has Vally read the Hamas Charter? It is inherently anti-semitic!
Who cares what anyone calls you? I am black been called many thing in my life but it does not change who i am and i dont care.
dude you say “I challenge anyone to find a another case anywhere in history in which one nation continues to supply another with fuel, electricity etc” i challenge you to name one nation that behaves like Israel and people feel sorry for them. You say Hamas is a terrorist org arccoding to you? Do you think Palestinians think like you. They voted Hamas in so everyone must learn to respect their views.
10yr ago ANC was a terrorist org. do you still think they are?
Both sides have messed up in the middle east so stop trying to make it look like isrtael has suffered the most. Please provide stats for me and tell me how many Israelis have died in the past 10 yrs compared to Palestinians?
I am sorry to say but i think Jews must get over themselves and move on with their lives they are not the only people who have suffered in this world.
@David - ” I BELIEVE THAT THOSE WHO TRULY CARE FOR THE WELFARE OF GAZA PALESTINIANS WILL NOT MAKE EXCUSES FOR THE BARBARIC METHODS OF ITS LEADERS BUT WILL ADVISE - INDEED IMPLORE - THEM TO STOP ACTING IN A WAY THAT IS NOT ONLY IMMORAL BUT ALSO FUNDAMENTALLY SELF-DESTRUCTIVE. IF JEWS WERE BEHAVING IN SUCH A WAY,AND WERE RECEIVING THE SAME TREATMENT AS A RESULT, I WOULD HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THEM - NONE AT ALL”
interesting those comments… in the same token maybe you should not condone the actions of the IDF in this war.
History judged that the Holocaust was wrong against the Jews. History judged that the killing of Kurds by Sadam Hussein was wrong. History judged that the Berlin Wall was illegal and was destroyed when an american president went and ordered that it be broken down. History will judge that the “security fence” is morally and ethically wrong and one day in the near future it will be taken down. I guess those “jewish-only” highways leading to the illegal settlements( and dont even begin to dispute it because a UN resolution declaring them illegal DOES exist)also are meant to protect the people of israel whilst hindering the free movement of the palestinians? And lets not forget the 2 Political parties that were banned from participating in the upcoming elections, their only crime was showing solidarity with the citizens of GAZA.
” challenge anyone to find a another case anywhere in history in which one nation continues to supply another with fuel, electricity etc even as the other is carrying out a continual bombardment of its territory. Frankly, I believe Israel has been altogether to soft-hearted. They certainly don’t get any thanks for it.” Israel should have given the people of Gaza a chance to see if their elected representatives would make a difference. wouldnt that have been a more sensible way of proving to the world that Hamas is “evil” and a “terrorist organisation”?
“Even Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in mid-2005 made no difference. There was no undertaking on its side to halt carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in Israel proper, nor to stop smuggling in Iranian-supplied weaponry to use to attack Israeli targets.”
Although not Jewish, I know something about Judaism and Jews which David Saks and his allies either don’t, or pretend not to: not all Jews are Zionists.
Firstly there are orthodox Jews who believe a human-created state of Israel is a blasphemy. They are exempt from military service in Israel.
Secondly there are Jews who place humane values over nationalistic ones. Some of these are imprisoned in Israel for refusing military service.
Hence the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is specious.
Attempting to refute comparisons of Israeli and Nazi behavior by pointing to the former’s lesser scale are equally spurious; it is the logic of collective punishment which is the same. After years of demolishing the homes of alleged suicide bombers’ families, it is being extended to entire neighbourhoods.
I hold no brief for Hamas but note that for years Islamism was tacitly encouraged as competition for the “leftist” PLO, while nonviolent Palestinian protesters were jailed.
I pity most Jews who a pawns in this grand deception. The problem in Middle East will not be explained by superficial “history or facts”; it goes deeper into the world of people who want to establish their Global Rule. Here is the thing; in 1871 Mazzini and Albert Pike ( Freemasons, Illuminati, Jesuits agents) conspired to have three World Wars to facilitate creating a World Order which can only be said to be satanic (Google Albert Pike or World War Three)! Interestingly, they planned creation of a Jewish state after the Second Waorld War. Seing that this happened more than 75 year before Isreal was born makes it even more fascinating.They further planned that Third World war would arise out of a conflict between the newly created Jewish State and the Arab World. In other words they advocated creation of a Jewsih state to be a catalyst for a final war. Why Israel in general and Jews in particular? THE SABBATH!!
The history of the Sabbath will show that its not just another day to its foes! There have been bold and open attempts to obliterate it from the peoples minds but its not easy when the Torah and the bible are clear about it. The only way to deal with it and make people hate it is to make those who believe in it hated and then convince the whole world to hate the day. Please check the position of the Catholic Church on the Sabbath as recorded in history. No wonder why they church was silent during the holocaust. In the not so far future world opinion will be manipulated against Israel and all things Jewish and the nation of Israel will find itself being collateral damage to a new World Order which will take us back to the days of Inquisition where Sunday worship will be legislated and all against it will feel the wrath of the Beast. By then both Palestinians and Jews will realise how gentiles have caused the sons of Abraham to fight amongst themselves while they take the spoil. Wake up Palestine, Wake up Israel you are both safer united than in conflict.
What a line….1200 dead is not mass murder really…Thank you and Isreal for not killing more, oh chosen people.
BTW: Did Israel not support the South African Apartheid government. Even i were an atheist, that alone would be enough to never trust Israel.
You can spin, but you cannot hide…now stop smoking that Afghan Hashish…
I agree that the analgoy between Israel and Nazi Germany is a false one. But I think I can understand why it is made.
The protestations at Israel’s behaviour toward Palestine are usually met with a stubborn indifference; most notably by Western politicians.
It does sometimes seem that the horrors of the holocaust have resulted in a fear on behalf of the current generation of leaders (who were undoubtedly more exposed to it than the current crop of emerging leaders), to condemn Israel’s actions in the many instances where it is appropriate to do so.
The killing of Palestinian civilians by Israel is not comparable to the systematic attempt to exterminate the Jewish population by the Nazis.
That said, the large numbers of people who are willing to draw this analogy despite it being false do so, I beleive, out of sheer desperation borne of the fact that Israel seldom seems to be be held accountable for its actions by Western governments.
There seems to be an assymetric approach to the dialogue surrounding the Israelis/Palestinian conflict. It is one in which Israel are perpetually portrayed as the victims which somehow justifies their actions, and Palestinians as the aggressors. This is quite simply not always the case and this fact is becoming increasingly clear to the western world. Western governments are going to have to accept this. and soon begin responding appropriately.
The propensity to compare Israel to Nazis Germany, however false an analogy it is, is a powerful tool in redressing this imbalance, and in some cases outright bias, toward Israel on behalf of Western leaders.
The sooner this taboo is dismantled, and politicans can condemn Israel without the associatied risk of being seen as anti-semitic etc, and the sooner Israel can be held accountable for its, lets face it, at time indefensible actions, the sooner progress can be made; and the sooner ridiculous analogies like this will stop being drawn.
“Even Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in mid-2005 made no difference. There was no undertaking on its side to halt carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in Israel proper, nor to stop smuggling in Iranian-supplied weaponry to use to attack Israeli targets.”
Okay so we accept that most here are anti Jew. These make their comments and run never to return. But why is it that few read what others write?
Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that most base their dislike for Jews on newspaper reading, as the opinions expressed herein appear to repeat.
How many of you learned persons can give me a,
1] Ten-point synopsis on what Hamas really stands for and what they hope to achieve by rocketing Israel? Example = Let them know Hamas is watching.
2] What does Hamas gain by rocketing Israel ? Example = Cause retaliation so Hamas can cry foul.
I will bet a pound to a pinch of salt, that one, if any of you learned persons will reply and that reply will be based on rhetoric and not sound research.
David Saks said “I challenge anyone to find a another case anywhere in history in which one nation continues to supply another with fuel, electricity etc even as the other is carrying out a continual bombardment of its territory. Frankly, I believe Israel has been altogether to soft-hearted. They certainly don’t get any thanks for it.”
It must be hard when the children of the people you killed show so little gratitude for the fact that you allow them to continue to live in misery…
David Saks said “Does anyone ask why Israel imposes such restrictions on Gaza’s borders? It should be obvious - Hamas is an unapologetic terrorist movement committed to Israel’s violent destruction.
(It is also poisoned through and through by ideologies of radical anti-Jewish racism, which I may elaborate on at a later stage).”
The following is from an article called Israel’s Lies by Henry Siegman:-
Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. This was confirmed not only by every neutral international observer and NGO on the scene but by Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, a former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division. In an interview in Ha’aretz on 22 December, he accused Israel’s government of having made a ‘central error’ during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing ‘to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip . . . When you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,’ General Zakai said, ‘it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire . . . You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.’
As I understand it the majority of the people in Gaza were unjustly displaced from Israel at the time of its founding. If the roots of a problem are ignored, as is happening in this instance, it is impossible to find a solutiion.
Comments seem to use the concept Jew and the concept Israel in the same breath. In so doing one can blame the religion of Jews for what the behaviour of the state of Israel. The same confusion between Hamas as a political party, representing the Palestinians, and the Muslim faith.
The debate becomes like a tennis match with two balls.
Jews -worldwide- have been very active in keeping the memories of the holocaust alive and almost owning it. For the ignorant onlooker to the extend that holocaust and Jews are inseparable, seemingly forgetting that many others have suffered the same fate under the Hitler regime.
It is therefore understandable that -when referring to the recent Christmas party of Israel in Gaza- people take it out on the Jews, which in turn calls for references to the Holocaust.
It is fair to say that Israel, plunked in the area by US, UK and UN, has not created an atmosphere of brotherhood with its neighbours.
The Palestinian neighbours had all the reasons to feel p’d off about the arrival of these neighbours as they were not consulted and subsequently chased off their land.
Will it ever end? With reported gas reserves in the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza and the involvement of British Gas (BG), the conflict has escalated to a battle for resources.
Revenues from gas could go to Gaza or Israel. Israel more likely to take the side of US and UK when it comes to distribution.
If you have a problem with the use of the word in relation to Israel and the Palestinian conflict take it up with Collins and the Oxford English dictionaries etc, because their definition makes the the use of the word in its definition apt.
I consider upwards of 300 children killed by Israelis recent bombing of Gaza, some at close range, a holocaust, I imagine their families consider it such as well.
You admit there are such things as “bad Jews” then.
Such as the Isreali Army Officers who were stated to be present at summary executions of prisoners at the Khiam prison in South Lebanon. (And at least one who released a prisoner because a tearful mother begged him to.)
And those who have been using Palistinians Civilians as “Human Shields” in numerous documented and recorded cases, over the years?
And if you want a bit of balance you might like to know that some estimates put the number of Jews or Jewish descended people (or married to Jews) in the Wehrmacht who fought for Hitler as high as 150,000. Until they were weeded out and their “exceptions certificates” where revoked after they had been supporting Hitler by force of arms for years, whilst he oppressed their Jewish fellows and relations.
“Comments seem to use the concept Jew and the concept Israel in the same breath.”
David Saks, in his capacity as a representative of major SA Jewish Organisations is defending Israel. If anything, SA Jewish organisations encourage the confusion so that the debate can be redirected away from Israeli brutality to charges of anti-semitism.
You CANNOT hold Israel’s wothdrawel from Gaza as an example of honourable conduct and a claim it as an example of Israel’s supposed wish for peace. The fact is that the very reason why the Palestinians are in Gaza in the first place is because when the world attempted to found Israel, the Palestinian people were forcible, and violently, removed from the land upon which they had lived for centuries. Regardless of who had lived there prior to that.
This is the root cause of the problem. Israel’s withdrawel from Gaza, in the greater scheme of things, means nothing. And klling Palestinian children won’t make this fact go away.
Gerald Sibanda - regurgitating thoroughly discredited anti-Semitic conspiracy texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as you are doing, does not help the discussion and makes it all the easier for Israel’s apologists to paint all criticism of Israel’s policies as rooted in anti-Semitism.
Yes, the Nazis also murdered Gypsies, intellectuals, homosexuals amongst others. Watch any documentary about the Holocaust and this is always mentioned.
Jews were singled out for special attention by the Nazis as is born out by the meeting at Wannsee which produced the Final Solution, setting out the specifics of liquidating the remaining Jews of Europe.
Many of the repsonses here have gotten way off topic. Anyone who equates what is happening in the Palestinian territories with Nazism either 1) ignorant of the history of the Holocaust, 2) taking cheap shots at Israelis or 3) just plain anti-semitic.
Also, please understand the negative effect of inappropriate usage of terms like “Holocaust” and “Genocide”. Improper usage just leads to dilution of meaning. What happened in Rwanda was genocide. What happened in Cambodia was genocide. As terrible as the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza is right now, it certainly does not qualify as genocide or a Holocaust as some claim.
The irony of your one sided, exculpatory moral-equivalence argument is that it makes an even stronger case for the ‘blood-libel’ than curing it. Then again maybe thats the objective-keep the victim narrative alive.
Jacques - as far as I am aware, Israel has spent the last few weeks demonstrating what it can do - namely, use overwhelming military force to kill Palestinian civilians. That capability has never been in doubt. What is in doubt is whether that strategy will do any good in the long term.
Michael Liermann on January 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I’ll begin by thanking Abdul for confirming my prediction that at least one respondent would invoke the “Jews are using antisemitism as a smokescreen for their oppression of the Palestinians etc”.
ABDUL also writes “It occurred to me that the piece could just as easily have been titled David Saks’ Lies”. Well, frankly Abdul, I doubt whether you’d recognise the truth if it jumped up and bit you.
Next:
Some are objecting to my seeming to in some way brush off the seriousness of civilians, including children being killed. Let me firmly state that I have been sickened by such horrors BUT hold Hamas entirely responsible. THEY provoked Israel’s response by innumerable acts of naked aggression and THEY used their own civilians as human shields behind which to plan and carry out such attacks.
I repeat: Those who truly cared about the Palestinians would have advised them to stop their illegal, immoral and self-destructive attacks on Israel lest they bring inevitable disaster on themselves. This never happened, raising the question whether the Palestinians’ plight is really just an excuse to demonise Israel. TREVOR - are you paying attention?
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References are being made (e.g. by GRAHAM) to Gaza’s population being drawn from those driven out of “their land” at the time of Israel’s founding and that this is the root cause of the problem. My answer to that is that even if one insists on believing unquestioningly the self-serving Arab narrative of the events of 1948 (ignoring the extensive contrary evidence that the Arab states provoked the original war that ultimately rebounded so disastrously for the local Arab population), is it realistic for those whose forebears were displaced by war in the first half of the last century to continue their futile attempts to try by terrorist violence to put the clock back? And is it realistic for Israelis to be expected not only to swallow the official Palestinian “nakhba” narrative but to submit themselves without a fight to the depredations of those bent on destroying them out of a bogus sense of historical guilt? Tens of millions of others around the world were displaced by warfare during the last century, but we don’t see their descendants making futile and destructive attempts to reverse history’s verdict.
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Hugh Robinson raises the valid point of what is Hamas, what is its ideology and what is it seeking to achieve. Well, for that one need look no further than its own Charter (let alone what is said in the Palestinian media, schools, parliament, universities, mosques etc).
If I am to believe that Israel has a right to defend itself against terror/terrorism – which I do – then the same applies for the Palestinians, no?
But what recourse do they have? And here I specifically refer to Gaza. Many commentators here throw the word “terrorist” around with great ease, clearly to establish for all and sundry who the good and bad guys are. (Off the point, please somebody define for me what a terrorist is in the first place?) But Hamas, though with a significant urban guerrilla capacity, has none of the modern conventional weaponry at the disposal of Israel.
The point of terror/terrorism, is to terrorize the target population to achieve political ends, no? Indeed this is Hamas’ objective (as abhorrent as terror is and as pointless as the rocket fire may be, arguably). But again, what other recourse do they have in the name of self-defense?
Israel has practiced terror too (yes, democratic states engage in terrorism as well). The bombing of Gaza, dressed up in the rhetoric of collateral damage and smart-bombing etc, killed over 1200 people. Half of whom were civilians, at least. Hamas fires rockets because of the asymmetry of their conflict with Israel. Israel bombed – in their view - military targets in the most congested of urban spaces, knowing full well that Gazans couldn’t flee anywhere and that there would be significant loss of civilian life. So how can Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire, be any worse than Israel’s bombing? Not to mention the asymmetry in the death toll on either side.
More importantly, what has Israel achieved? Democratic states have a nasty way of responding to terrorism. And this usually comes in the form of disproportionate force, and usually it provokes much more terrorism. The point of the rocket fire is, arguably, to provoke a reaction. But Israel still had a choice in the form of its response – they chose the disproportionate option. I saw very little of the restraint mentioned in the comments above.
Gaza is not a state, neither is the West Bank. They are occupied territories. Occupied people resist, and usually with whatever means are at their disposal. How can one expect that because Hamas cannot launch a jet fighter to bomb an IDF base killing thousands of soldiers (which seemingly is acceptable by Western standards), they thus shouldn’t use violence? But because the IDF have sophisticated weaponry, which apparently can tell the difference between a toddler and a militant, they are then allowed (legitimately, in the eyes of many here) to kill over a thousand because their intention was only to attack military targets.
We can go back and forth on who punched first. But Israel used disproportionate violence in Gaza, and it was indiscriminate in its effect. You simply cannot kill over a thousand people and then lump the blame on their leaders for exercising the only military means at their disposal. Nor does it assuage the guilt of perpetuating an illegal and disastrous occupation, and more specifically, the creation of a humanitarian disaster through a blockade, in order to punish an oppressed people for democratically electing a militant organization.
Crudely put, the more Israel bombs the Palestinians, the more sway the crazies will get among the oppressed.
“Tens of millions of others around the world were displaced by warfare during the last century, but we don’t see their descendants making futile and destructive attempts to reverse history’s verdict.”
Indeed, but there are also millions around the world who fight oppression, occupation, segregation and injustice so as to receive a better verdict of history. Again David, you seem to apply a political, economic and social equity to the Palestinians and Israel. As if they are two dogs fighting over a bone the one dog won in a similar fight 50 years earlier. And how dare the vanquished claim a right to live in a free state and resist occupation?
Israel has a right to a secure state, don’t get me wrong. And I do not see the point as debatable. Moreover I cannot support Hamas’ determination to see it destroyed. But, surely this militancy was bred by occupation, conflict and oppression? One cannot run away from Israel’s complicity in this, even less so considering recent events.
You cannot be so morally even-handed when the costs on the one side so far outweigh the other. This is by no means an attempt to diminish the suffering of Israeli citizens during this conflict. But the two are not the same.
I think you ask too much of the Palestinians, although as per usual, the oppressed are always expected to make the biggest sacrifices for the sake of peace. A peace that often, as history’s numerous verdicts show, is enjoyed by the oppressor with little or no justice for the oppressed.
Jay - while I buy into the idea that it’s not the cleverest response they could make, you really don’t know much about military capability. To quote: “I saw very little of the restraint mentioned in the comments above.”
I had to read that about five times. Had the Israeli’s set about genocide (as various totally unbiased people assert - while carefully avoiding explaining ‘dhimmi’ or what kindness and tolerance Iran - Hamas’s sponsor has for homosexuals remarkably Nazi-like - they are far-right wing facisti)the death-toll would — conservatively — be a hundredfold what it is now. Please, don’t believe me. Ask a professional. That’s reality. That’s the reality the likes Hamas, Hezbollah, and Mullahs want to achieve.
I think you’re incorrect about Hamas’s rationale for rocket fire too. I think it is to keep themselves in political power. ie. If they stopped then Israel would stop, and, as most of their operatives lack any skills beyond bombastic rhetoric and thuggery, and, given 20 years they’d be lucky to get street-sweeping jobs. Rather like a large number of mk veterans and ANC organisers: if the party fails to stay in power, they too have nothing to keep them in positions of power, wealth, and influence. (not being nasty here, just dispassionately honest. Take McBride - what sort of job could he have got if not for politcs?)
As for a ‘proportional’ response: Perhaps Israel should play this along and then agree to a directly proportional response - preferably approved by all the howlers. And then set up exact copies of captured rockets on an automatic, random selection, with no human hand involved, to fire one rocket in response to any one fired. That would involve no assymetry of response - it would also kill and maim many more civilians. Would that be better? Israel refrains from proportionality to NOT place itself on the same level of terror.
BTW has it occurred to anyone — after years of reading reports of the same conflict from two sides — which bear absolutely no resemblance to each other — to be possibly just a little skeptical about the figures? Hamas, who control the figures coming out of Gaza with absolute totality, are the only real source of data. It is — anyone with half a brain can see — very much in their best interest to claim as high a casualty rate and high a proportion of civilians as possible. While I agree one civilian casualty is one too many, how come this 1300 figure is quoted without caveat? Nobody believes either the Sri Lanka government or Tamil Tigers as unverified tellers of truth. Besides as stick to beat Israel with - why is this figure quoted as ‘true’?
“Some are objecting to my seeming to in some way brush off the seriousness of civilians, including children being killed. Let me firmly state that I have been sickened by such horrors BUT hold Hamas entirely responsible. THEY provoked Israel’s response by innumerable acts of naked aggression and THEY used their own civilians as human shields behind which to plan and carry out such attacks. ”
again david.. it was the Israeli’s who provoked the Palestinians when they invaded them yet again on in November 08. What we saw from Hamas was merely a retaliation.
I notice that you conveniently ignore the fact that the israeli’s stolen more and more land from the palestinians as each years goes by, a clear and blatant breach of the UN Resolution of 1967. So why should Hamas adhere to laws when Israel see’s fit to ignore internation law? an answer to this from you would be much appreciated.
I guess you dont view the bulldozing of palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlements.
Its clear that the solution will only reached when Israel withdraws to the borders as set out in the UN Resolution of 1967 and give back land it stole from the palestinians.
It answers many questions about the conflict and refutes the positions held by people like David Saks and Chief Rabbi Goldstein by providing context for many of their generalisations.
It’s long, but well worth the read if you really want to learn how they deliberately misrepresent the issues to further their aim of denying the Palestinians a homeland.
Here is a quote from the Q&A:-
—
Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians –whether by rocket or by suicide bomb — are immoral and counter-productive, strengthening the most reactionary elements in Israeli society. But they are not surprising. In 1999, Ehud Barak — today Israel’s defense minister — confessed to an interviewer that if he had been born a Palestinian he probably would have joined a terrorist organization. And former Israeli politician Yossi Sarid wrote on January 2, 2009:
“This week I spoke with my students about the Gaza war, in the context of a class on national security. One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions — that is opinions tending slightly to the right — succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: ‘If I were a young Palestinian,’ he said, ‘I’d fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies.’”
—
This is what Davis Saks does not want you to know. That the Palestinians have been so brutalised by Israel, that anyone who was exposed to the Palestinian experience, let alone lived it, would see the Israeli’s for the brutes they are.
You might also want to read what King Abdullah had to say on the matter in 1947:-
The fact is, the Jews of today have no more historical claim to the land of Judea/Palestine than do the Palestinians. Just read (Jewish) historian Schlomo Zand’s book if you want to be enlightened - here are some articles that should give you a taste:
No, Dave. You are the one who needs a lesson in military capability. The idea that aerial bombing can successfully settle conflicts has been around since WW2. It has hardly ever worked, but yet the bombs keep indiscriminately raining down on civilian areas with greater levels of violence. It only dramatically escalates civilian casualties with very little political gains. Western governments, including Israel, have pursued and attempted this strategy for years. But the only thing it gains is greater resistance.
I never argued that Israel was perpetrating genocide. My point was simply that Israel pursued a strategy with very little point but to demonstrate its military might, which was badly dented during the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon (2006). Then it hides behind arguments that its warfare is no more brutal than NATO countries (enter white phosphorous), and that it adheres to Western standards of violence – as if we are to believe that those standards are anymore humane. Nonsense.
And it is a poor attempt to use Israel’s massive military capability as an excuse and an explanation for their “exercise in restraint.” Am I now to applaud Barak and Olmert for not ordering the carpet bombing of Gaza? Again, nonsense.
And no Dave, Hamas did stop rocket fire, for a number of months. But the blockade of Gaza continued, so not much reciprocation
there.
“Israel refrains from proportionality to NOT place itself on the same level of terror.” Surely you jest? So killing larger numbers of people in a ‘conventional military fashion’ is less terrifying for the people being bombed on the ground?
And it is Israel Dave, not Hamas, who control information coming out of Gaza. Remember they do not allow the media into Gaza, they control the borders, the checkpoints etc.
Israel won the war in Lebanon, and has won the war in Gaza.
In both cases Israel’s objective was to force the world to police the borders through which the weapons were coming to Hezbollah and to Hamas.
Why do you think that some nut in Lebanon sent off 3 rockets - and appologies flew all over the place!
Hezbollah is even more powerful and influential in Lebanon than before the war in 2006 (the stated aim of which was to ‘crush Hezbollah’). Hezbollah currently retains an even larger arsenal and remains firmly entrenched in southern Lebanon.
It is also commonly argued and often accepted, within Israeli media and politics, that Israel’s military action in Lebanon was poorly implemented and affected at too great a cost to Israel, with Olmert’s government receiving widespread criticism domestically. In short, the Israeli military machine “lost face.”
Moreover, your discourse leaves much to be desired. Winning of wars? Goodness. Clearly might is right (sounds familiar doesn’t it) and the victors decide their own version of history, with deafening applause from those such as yourself.
Jay - Israel controlled access to Gaza. However once inside Gaza all sources of information, including what reporters are allowed to see, and, by terror and intimidation, what they were allowed to hear are controlled by Hamas. Censorship outside simply stopped the press being used as propaganda. Free reportage has not existed inside a large part of Muslim world for many years if ever. Reporters have a choice - go along with the powers that be or take the consequences. You can complain about censorship in Israel, but don’t even mention it in Gaza because they’ll chase you out, kidnap you or kill you. Your conclusions are at the level of the guy who looks at South Africa and says white middle class women are the most dangerous drivers (they get stopped and fined), and government blue-light convoys and minibus taxis have the best drivers with the safest vehicles.
As for “aerial bombing can successfully settle conflicts has been around since WW2. It has hardly ever worked,”
Lucky for Bosnia that it did there. Lucky for Iraq it did there. Lucky for Israel it did in the 6 day war. Actually… why don’t you just say it didn’t work in Vietnam? and even there: Aerial superiority wins every engagement where it is called into conflict. It does not win wars, although it can make them unwinnable by the other side.
I am not jesting: there are two choices - _try_ to target individuals (hard with a bomb or tank shell) and make an example of infrastructure, or simply indiscriminately try to kill civilians. The latter is Hamas’s choice. Yes in cloud cuckoo land they could reach a political solution without it. But Hamas know that if they actually fail to get a ‘victory’ or something they can claim as one, they’re out of power and probably dead at the hands of other Palestinians.
As for my knowlege of military matters — you contended that you could not see how anyone could say Israel had excercised restraint. I pointed out that using 1/1000 of your destructive capacity is restraint. Using your full capacity is not. Seems logical to me. Mind you logic is not your strong suite along with facts - about this ‘ceasefire’. I suppose those were Islamic Jihad violations? Bad Israel, should have rewarded Hamas and punished them? And how, rocket scientist?
The bottom line is that every time Israel has given any concession it has been rewarded with opponents taking it as a sign of weakness and reason for more and worse. When they’ve negotiated from position of strength - with Jordan and Egypt for eg. they’ve actually got somewhere, and it has been mutually beneficial. If you hold that terrorising the civilian population is pointless and merely strengthens their resolve… You’ve had years and 15000 rockets to explain this to Hamas. How many comments have you written to suggest this to them? Like the blue-light brigade or taxi drivers, they’d ignore you or kill you. So target the suburban housewives. I keep reading about taking Israelis to court for war crimes. Yet to see anyone ever mention charging Hezbollah members or Hamas. By all means charge the Israelis. Some will be guilty — just as long as you charge all the rocket-firers and those who gave the orders, and those who used civilian human shields to fire from in the dock too. Oh, you don’t know who they are and they’d issue a fatwa condemning you to death if you did? Guess it is back to suburban housewives again.
Dave,
You assume too much. Let’s try to set you straight then. Though we may continue to disagree in the end.
“Censorship outside simply stopped the press being used as propaganda.” All major news channels (except al-Jazeerah) continuously complained that Israel wouldn’t allow them access. What gives Israel the right to decide how, say, the BBC would negotiate what is obviously a minefield of political sensitivities in its reporting from Gaza? The Gazans wanted their plight broadcast to the world, it is in their interest, fair enough, but this is the same for every conflict and its protagonists. In other words you wouldn’t trust the BBC to be able to accurately report and investigate the goings on in Gaza because Hamas is authoritarian. So enter the benevolent Israeli’s to save them from what surely be a terrible abyss of journalism. Seriously.
As for Bosnia, NATO bombing never stopped the massacres until ground troops moved in, which barely worked as well. Just ask the people of Srebinica. And it what way did aerial bombing settle the conflict in Iraq? Oh, I suppose the insurgency over the past years doesn’t count in your world of ‘conventional warfare is the only game in town.’ And don’t get me started on bombing in Afghanistan, great success that’s turning out to be. Seriously.
The point is that military precision strikes are not as precise as any of the Western governments would have you believe and only serve dish out collective punishment on civilian populations. Yes, they were successful in the Six Day War and Kosovo. But you use examples of conflicts fought between conventional militaries. Well I have news for you, those consist of ¼ of the world’s conflict. In short, conventional warfare has very little, if any, success against political formations using unconventional means.
And no Dave, this is not cloud cuckoo land. Hamas knows it will never march into Jerusalem on the back of a military victory, no matter the rhetoric. All they have to do is survive (and it may seem currently that they have) and continue to resist in order to remain politically relevant. You seem to believe that Palestinians think they can “liberate” the whole of Palestine. I think not. So the question begs again, at what cost did Israel prosecute this war? The same can be applied to Lebanon 2006, to an even greater extent given Hezbollah’s resurgence.
“I pointed out that using 1/1000 of your destructive capacity is restraint. Using your full capacity is not. Seems logical to me.” Fair enough. But this doesn’t make the levels of violence that Palestinians were subjected to any more horrific, immoral, and politically bankrupt.
“Bad Israel, should have rewarded Hamas and punished them? And how, rocket scientist?” Well this rocket scientist would think easing the blockade and opening up the Rafah crossing may have done the trick. But you seem to paint all Palestinians with the same brush. They do not seem to have any claim to a diversity of politics or forms of resistance to the occupation.
How, has Israel developed a position of strength? It has had that for decades. The Palestinians do not hold the cards here, hence their use of terror. How can you compare the Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan? These are states; the Palestinians have no state they are under occupation. Their livelihoods, particularly in Gaza, are controlled by Israel. I could go on for hours. Yet you expect them to have the open political spaces to constantly seek peace when they receive very little concessions in return. Concessions which are weak by any stretch of the imagination. But again, they should be happy they get something right? How dare they demand freedom of movement and trade across their borders.
And finally, I never said Hamas’ rocket firing was politically ‘smart’, legal, or moral. It is not. It is terrorism.
Approximately 22 Israeli’s have been killed from rocket fire in Gaza, since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2000 until November 2008. But how many Gazans have been killed by the IDF, and how many of those were civilians? I leave you to do the research…
Could you confirm whether Winston Churchill compared Hitlers Mein Kampf to the Muslim Koran and whether Mein Kampf is still a best seller and distributed in Arabic by Hamas?
There was a basic injustice perpetrated against the Palestinians living in what is now Israel by the then leadership of the Israelis. No injustice can go away of its own accord and this injustice will only be resolved when Israel is genuinely prepared to sit down and negotiate in good faith with the aggrieved party.
I have been on “The Times” this week - as there were problems with TL. Some idiot has posted that “the Jewish Board of Deputies did nothing to object to human rights violations during apartheid”. I think that unlikely. Can you give me some facts?
I can confirm that the SAJBD’s position during Apartheid was that they would not conflate their own struggle with the one against Apartheid. In fact, they barred people like Suzman from speaking out on behalf of all Jews in SA.
Maybe there’s a bigger question to be posed here about Jewish nationalism vs prioritising identities in the Jewry of the diaspora.
JAY - Significantly, for all Hezbollah’s bluster and bragging, Israel’s northern border has been quieter over the last three years than it has been in decades. It is further significant, as Lyndall correctly points out, that despite having fully rearmed, as you correctly say, Hezbollah made no attempt to come to the aid of their ideological bedfellows by launching diversionary attacks. It suggests that Israel did win the war in 2006, albeit not as conclusively as it should have and needed to do.
Lyndall - my recollection is that, following some anti-Semitic rumblings and veiled threats from the apartheid government, organised Jewry in SA made a point of distancing itself from any Israeli criticism of SA’s apartheid policies. Which is understandable when you’re dealing with a government that includes unabashed Nazi sympathisers, but it does tend to erode the moral high ground right out from under one’s feet.
Speaking of Nazi sympathisers and related issues - can we expect Mr Saks to at some point comment in his official capacity on the Vatican’s decision to bring a Holocaust denialist back into the fold? Because if we’re pointing out the apparent increased acceptablity of anti-Semitism, we should point at that too.
I don’t think that is what the Pope has done. He has, himself, spoken out subseqently against holocaust denialism and said that these guys will have to agree to the authority of the Pope and the Vatican Council before they can be re-included in the communian (i.e. they will have to deny their denialism first). Just being fair - I am no fan of the Pope!
David Saks says “JAY - Significantly, for all Hezbollah’s bluster and bragging, Israel’s northern border has been quieter over the last three years than it has been in decades. It is further significant, as Lyndall correctly points out, that despite having fully rearmed, as you correctly say, Hezbollah made no attempt to come to the aid of their ideological bedfellows by launching diversionary attacks. It suggests that Israel did win the war in 2006, albeit not as conclusively as it should have and needed to do.”
LOL. It couldn’t be that seeing as Israel has ended it’s decades long occupation of Southern Lebanon there is not reason for Hezbollah to attack Israel, could it.
This whole issue is overblown and is certainly not anti-Semitic. Rejection/opposition of the foreign policy and domestic policies of the Israeli state, South African state (or ANC), Zimbabwean government (or Zanu), American state/administration, etc, is not the same as hating the citizens of that country and the two should never be conflated. I oppose the Israeli state’s policies and believe that Israeli’s and many Jews’ (in the diaspora) support of these policies is misguided and counterproductive. Case in point being the recent genocidal campaign in Gaza, I HATE IT and condemn those who support it! This does not equate to hating Israeli’s or Jews (for merely being Jews and/or Israeli’s). The same applies to America’s proxy and overt wars of aggression; they don’t make me hate Americans although I hate their foreign policy and its negative impact to global stability!
What should only establish whether the statements are factual or fabrications (and accordingly praise, for the education, or condemn, for the fabrication).
Do Jews have greater wealth and influence than any other ethnic group and do the have a disproportionate influence in the USA political system (relative to their numbers)? I am uncertain if they have greater wealth than any other group and therefore cannot comment but I certainly know that they have a disproportionate influence on American internal politics and foreign policy. There’s nothing wrong with stating this and if I were Jewish I would be proud of the influence of my community to the politics and foreign policy of the only remaining superpower (unless I surreptitiously seek control without visibility for my own nefarious reasons).
Regarding the service of young Jews in the IDF, it’s a widely known fact that many young South African citizens (who happen to be Jewish) have gone to Israel for military training. It is also a widely known fact that many South African, from different racial groups (but primarily white) have served in the armed forces of other nations, in spite of the illegality of such conduct. What we should be doing is to investigate the extent of these transgressions and prevent them. South Africans (including Jews) have the responsibility of assisting our authorities to prevent the continue transgressing the Foreign Military Assistance Act, Finish and Klaar!
Lastly, regarding the suggesting that Jewish business be boycotted for their support of the IDF genocide in Gaza, South Africans are well entitled to spend their money were they please and to do business with whom they please, provided this is within the law. I am quite certain that many Jews would be unlikely to do business with a company the clearly advocates the cause of HAMAS or some or other neo-Nazi grouping. There’s nothing wrong with this (it is neither anti-Palestinian nor anti-German).
“Agree to the authority of the Pope” and “renounce their Holocaust denialism” are not the same thing. To the best of my knowledge, other than some mouth noises about how Holocaust denialism is a bad thing, the only demand the Pope has so far made of this lot is that they accept Vatican II and, hence, his authority.
Jewish bodies in Germany are in an uproar over this. Curious it’s not being addressed locally - if we’re sniffing out anti-Semitism, I mean, and not merely trying to act as apologists for Israel. Last time I checked, the Pope still had a lot more influence than a handful of South African politicians do.
David Shalom
You are quite right. Only the Jews know what it is to suffer. Ever since the Babylonian captivity we have been persecuted. The Romans burnt down the Temple. The Christians treated us like dogs and put us in ghettoes. Look at Shakespeare and Shylock,Isabella of Spain and teh Russian pogroms. All this hullaballoo when Jews defend themselves from aggression is nothinh more than age old gentile propaganda
David says: “I’ll begin by thanking Abdul for confirming my prediction that at least one respondent would invoke the “Jews are using antisemitism as a smokescreen for their oppression of the Palestinians etc”.
Just because you predicted it does not make untrue…
ABDUL also writes “It occurred to me that the piece could just as easily have been titled David Saks’ Lies”. Well, frankly Abdul, I doubt whether you’d recognise the truth if it jumped up and bit you.
Of course you doubt that, because what you really want me to recognise is your truth. And you are right, I will not recognise your truth even if it jumped up and bit me.
David said: “Let me firmly state that I have been sickened by such horrors BUT hold Hamas entirely responsible. THEY provoked Israel’s response by innumerable acts of naked aggression and THEY used their own civilians as human shields behind which to plan and carry out such attacks.”
1: Hamas is fighting a brutal occupation. You keep framing the issue as if Israel was minding it’s own business when Hamas attacked it.
2: Hamas abided by the terms of the ceasefire, Israel did not. Israel also broke the ceasefire. This is documented and mentioned multiple times.
3: Hamas is part of the people of Gaza (and Palestine). Gaza is a small piece of land. There is no other place for Hamas other than amongst the people of Gaza. In addition, human shields are only effective against an enemy that values life. Israel is not that enemy.
David says “I repeat: Those who truly cared about the Palestinians would have advised them to stop their illegal, immoral and self-destructive attacks on Israel lest they bring inevitable disaster on themselves. This never happened, raising the question whether the Palestinians’ plight is really just an excuse to demonise Israel. TREVOR - are you paying attention?”
I repeat, Hamas did stop their attacks. Israel did not keep their part of the bargain, and Israel broke the truce.
Israel had options. Based on the fact that Hamas had reduced rocket fire by 98%, Israel had the option of either attacking Hamas to stop rocket fire, or lifting the siege to stop rocket fire. Israel chose to go to war, even though a viable alternative was available.
I for one am heartily sick of hearing about the alleged holocaust. As Has been pointed out if the Germans were so efficient at gassing the Jews how come there are so many survivors left. I mean this all happened 60 years ago so I would presume the youngest survivor must be about to retire by now. The Jews have always cultivated a persecution complex. Why is it that the Jews think they are the only ones who have suffered. The last 50 years has seen plenty of genocides that equal in ferocuity the Final solution. yet somehow those are not important. Only Jewish lives are of value, not Salvadoran Indians, Cambodians, Rwandans or any of the others. If the Zionists love Israel so much why do they not go and live there. Perhaps it is better to live in JHB or New York and send poor Russians to go and live in what must be a bit of a tinderbox
Half of the Jews of the world were wiped out in the holocaust. Give me such a fgure for any other nation or race. THAT is why there are only 13 million in the whole world today.
Michael
The article that I read in the Cape Times (my favourite paper - sadly to be forced into an amorphous mass by Independent Newspapers) quoted the Pope in full. He did spell out that he himself accepted the truth of the holocaust, denial was forbidden by him and the Council, and if these guys did not accept that they would NOT be re-admitted.
Israel and the apartheid Nats.
They might have been co-operating in the 1970s against the common enemy of communism, but they certainly were not doing so in 1948. When the Nats first came into power most of them had been virulant supporters of Hitler and the Nazis, and many had been jailed as traitors during the war. For the next 20 years the Jews had to keep a very low profile in SA.
For as long as Jihadist Extremists can con the “liberals” of the world that they are fighting a defensive, not an offensive war, they can continue Jihad.
In the Quraan Jihad is only allowed as a defense NOT as an offense.
This is actually an offensive war by Muslim extremists against the west, not a defensive war at all. As such it is FORBIDDEN in the Quraan.
Lyndall
Do you have a job or do you just spend all your time posting conspiracy theories all over the place. I heard you on the radio the other day using the “f” word and getting cut off by the presenter. Now the genocides in San Salvador against the indigenous Indians (sponsored by Ronald Reagan) the deaths in Cambodia and the massacare in East Timor (sponsored once again by America) killed as many people proportionally as the Final Solution. The Zionist love to single out the Final Solution as the ultimate in world evil. Why is that? The Turkish extermination of the Armenians was pretty thorough.
Your blog was better when you had pictures of your daughter’s wedding on it.
I am afraid that indigeneous populations were either wiped out or assimilated in most of the world. However, DNA is beginning to prove that more were assimilated and less wiped out than was originally supposed.
There are a whole string of websites linked on Sentletse’s latest post. Many are likely to be Jihadist or neo-Nazi sites. I would not recognise them and can’t be bothered to research so many. Maybe you should take a look?
“One thing the “old” and the “new” South Africa have in common is a passion for inventing history. History is not seen as a dispassionate inquiry into what happened, but rather as part of political mobilisation promoting some form of collective self-interest….I know that significant parts of what has been, or is being invented, are not the way I experienced them….
Mbeki, who in exile pushed for negotiations and was vilified…now…loves to use martial language…refers to “the forceful overthrow of the apartheid regime” that “”toppled apartheid rule” ”
“The Other Side of History” by Van Zyl Slabbert
I use every medium I can to explode the Mbeki Myths - hoping that as many people as possible can go to the polls an make an informed choice.
Radio is one of those forums. On that particular occassion they had me holding on for an expensive 20 minutes and then the presenter (a stand in in that slot ) asked me three times a damn silly question instead of letting me make my point. So eventually I lost my cool and to the question “What caused the problems in the Middle East” replied “Britain caused the F**k up!”
And I have no idea why my pictures have dissapeared. Amagama was down for a few months while they changed servers - and when it came back up, the pictures were gone!
I must say I am quite astonished that a journalist such as Mr Saks can make such sweeping generalisations and conflate issues with such impunity.
Israel broke the ceasefire this time, not Hamas, and even the BBC has been forced to acknowledge that.
The use of White Phosphorus and DIME weaponry (which cause instant amputation at street level) is, in itself, not consistent with Israel ‘being restrained’ among civilian populations.
One and a half million Gazans are squashed into an area smaller than the size of London - an open prison - and then are attacked with phosphorus and DIME ordinance. Can you say “shooting fish in a barrel?”.
It’s very ugly stuff and no amount of spin will rescue things this time.
Yuri: “You are quite right. Only the Jews know what it is to suffer.”
Anyone else pick up the overweening narcissism, ego-centrism and self-centredness in this statement? I do not know what it is to suffer if I am a goy? Is that it?
Alistairn bud, you insult every martyr of the Holocaust. your random facts here and there can be met by concrete evidence of 1,5 million Jewish children being killed. 6 million jews did die. for those holocaust deniers, and nazi apologists, please explain to my grandparents, my parents and myself where all our families and communities in Europe went to? Surely, we would know what happened to our brothers and sisters, and eveeryone had one.
David , keep up the good work. it seems a fashion these days to steal every sense of dignity from a Jew by calling Jews anything to demean them, besides the actual word “Jew”.
I am a Jew but I am not a Zionist, for the simple reason that I believe to be a good and decent human being, and a good and decent Jew, one cannot follow a doctrine that calls for another people to be deprived of their land, home and dignity. I do not need to argue my point, I will let the founding fathers of Zionism speak for themselves.
Theodore Herzl - founder of Zionism: ‘We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country… Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly’
Dr. Eder - member of the Zionist Commission: ‘there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the numbers of the race are sufficiently increased.’ 1921
“Joseph Weitz - director of the Jewish National Land Fund wrote in December 19, 1940: ‘It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country…The Zionist enterprise so far…has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with ‘land buying’ — but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe’.
The history of Israel in its earliest inception has been one of bloody suppression of the local arab peoples. Their claims that their actions are defensive are rubbish. They have been the aggressor in many subversive ways, not least of which are the so called security checkpoints which are really designed to strip Palestinians of freedom of movement and dignity, and sometimes even their lives.
I was born in Israel, and for years I felt that anyone who verbally attacked Israel and their actions was launching a personal attack on me as a Jew. It took me many many years and a lot of pain, to realise that the State of Israel is one founded in blood and flawed in its ideology of a country for Jews only. Such a state would immediately require ethnic cleansing of some form.
My views don’t stem from my joining a political group in opposition to Israel or anything like that, but in a personal journey in which I re-educated myself. I believe Zionism is one of the true evils perpetrated on the Jewish people and the humanity in general.
Zionism is about the return of Israel to the Jews. You don’t believe the state of Israel should exist? Should the Turks also return Turkey to the Christians? And the Muslims return North Africa to the animists? Or is it only Israel which is “imperialist”?
Leonard
Gaza does not only have one border. If Egypt opened its border - the aid could come through Egypt (a Muslim country). Ever TRIED to think why Egypt does not want Hamas either?
I never mentioned the word imperialist or suggested that Israelis leave the state of Israel and give the land back - though they should leave the occupied territories. I just pointed out that Israel’s actions stem from a Zionist policy which right from its beginnings has wanted to rid the land previously known as Palestine, of the arabs.
You don’t dispute that fact, yet try and counter with a facile ridiculous argument that has no value and sits at odds with Israel’s claim to the land in the first place. Don’t Zionist’s believe their claim lies in the fact that Jews were there 2000 years ago?
Israel needs to be accountable for its policies and find peace by changing them. They are, after all, the ones with all the power.
There have been many genocides in history, with half or more of a population wiped out.
Half of the Chinese were slaughtered by the Mongols, 50-70% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama in the genocide committed by the Germans.
Up to 90% of original inhabitants (there were anywhere between 30-50 million of them) of Mexico died within a century of the arrival of the Spaniards. (Most died from diseases introduced by the Spaniards).
A genocide that has been under reported until recently, is the genocide of the Bamileke in Cameroon, which started in the late 1950s and continued until the 1970s. French colonel Jean Lamberton was the strategist behind the genocidal policy in Cameroon. I don’t know whether half of the Bamileke were killed, but the numbers are big - as many as 1 million Bamileke and Bassa were killed.
First recorded genocide (if the Old Testament can be regarded as 100% true) was the extermination of the Amalekites by the Hewbrews. As the Jewish Encyclopedia puts it, “David waged a sacred war of extermination against the Amalekites”.
The death of the majority of the native Mexicans within a century of the arrival of the Spaniards was not genocide. Historians have recently established that the disease was not from Europe. European priests who worked among the Indians also died from this disease, which was initially spread by rodents, but the virus mutated so it could be transmitted directly from humans to humans. Scary thing, the scientists say, is that this disease could flare up again - it is triggered when heavy rains follow years of drought, and this time it could spread rapidly around the world.
Lyndall Beddy,
What are you harping about Egypt not opening its boarders to Hamas.For a historian you got the wrong end of the argument again.
#Don’t you know that Egypt is the second largest recipient of American aid on earth? In order for money to come through, Egypt has to toe the American and Jewish line and do its bidding…… or…. swoosh nothing!
..And on whose side is the American government? You know, don’t you?
#Don’t tell me that you are unaware that Gaza was bombed with the blessings of Sir Husna Mubarak the dictator, puppet and stooge of the Zionist entity and America?…. that sold his people down the tubes! and Mubarak keeps power through American money…ask the people of Egypt, they’ll tell you!
#Georgie Bush himself said that the Gaza election … was free and fair. Then why did’nt he honour the election?… because it did not suit Georgie’s agenda!
Cum’on Lyndall don’t try to shield the mass murders and blood letting in Gaza. I am sure that your conscience is telling you something else!
Lyndall stop behaving like an idiot, if you cannot accept what Rachel an Israeli born Jew has to say about Zionism, then there’s no hope for you - a denialist of the highest order.
In an open letter, the fourteen signatories of the letter said that the United States and Israel must change their policy towards Hamas and engage the Palestinian movement if progress is to be made on peace in the Middle East.
The signatories include former Israeli Foreign Minister Ben-Ami and the UN’s former envoy to the Middle East Quartet, Alvaro de Soto, have stated that a peace settlement “without Hamas will not be possible.”
The group said that the three-year policy under which Hamas has been ostracized by the international community had backfired and needed to be changed.
“There can be no meaningful peace process that involves negotiating with the representatives of one part of the Palestinians while simultaneously trying to destroy the other”, wrote the signatories.
The letter comes ahead of a visit to the region by George Mitchell, the newly appointed US envoy to the Middle East, and Javier Solana, the European Union’s envoy.
On Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that talking to Hamas was the “right thing to do”.
The democratically-elected Hamas government, sacked by Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas, has been excluded from the US-mediated peace talks between Palestinians and Israel.
Hamas says excluding the legal government, elected by a majority of votes, from the peace process does not create a positive atmosphere to achieve success in the talks.
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David Saks has worked for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) since April 1997, and is currently its associate director. Over the years, he has written extensively on aspects of South African history, Judaism and the Middle East for local and international newspapers and journals.
David has an MA in history from Rhodes University. Prior to joining the SAJBD, he was curator -- history at MuseumAfrica in Johannesburg. He is editor of the journal Jewish Affairs, appears regularly on local radio discussing Jewish and Middle East subjects and is a contributor to various Jewish publications.
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Its quite interesting reading your post. rather than taunt you as you put it, i will try to engage you in a healthy debate. but before i start i will give you some background on myself. I went to a Jewish School, have many jewish friends. and i am Muslim.
Now that we have that out the way let us proceed.
The deaths on both sides have been well documented. Innocent women and children killed during this war. What no-one can deny is that one life lost- be it a jew, a muslim, a christian or an atheist is one life too many. Allegations of the use of white phosphorous in a civilian built up area has come to light, the legality of which is being disputed. Accusations and counter-accusations spring forth daily. however in the midst of all of this we are still no closer to finding peace- a lasting peace.
We’ve seen in our own violent past that uprisings and fighting doesn’t work. only when the apartheid government decided to secretly reach out to the ANC did we find a final solution. (its worth pointing out that the U.S state dept. still considered the ANC a terrorist organisation until recently). As with all conflicts its always about the Land. In this case the land which is sacred to both muslims and jews. I feel the visions of Israel being an Apartheid state is borne out from the fact that many of the Leaders today remember what it was like living under the apartheid regime - bantustans, pass laws, whites only areas. Its their opinion and they are entitled to it. One mans terrorist is another mans Freedom Fighter.
What you failed to mention in your article is the fact that Hamas were democratically elected by their people and to quote former President George Bush those elections were “Free & Fair”. Instead of engaging the “enemy” and offering them an olive branch the western powers chose to denounce their rule by saying that they will not negotiate with them, putting in place a blockade on any trade in the area.
As a result, out of sheer frustration these oppressed people have had to resort to suicide bombings, “terrorist” attacks, just so that the world takes notice of their plight.
Some people have called the coverage of this conflict one-sided. If thats the case why were tv crews barred from entering gaza? using that notion of it being for their own safety is pathetic.
What happened to the jewish people in the Nazi concentration camps was wrong. So too is the murdering of a nation kept captive in an open air prison, surrounded by a wall that is a symbol of oppression. I am sorry. But no amount of spin can forgive what is going on. and just btw. if it were happening to another people i would react in the same way!
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