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.
May I also direct people to a Q&A about Gaza put together by Stephen Shalom:-
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20269#_edn74
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:-
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/kabd_eng.html
Fantastic article David.
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:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/122810/controversial_bestseller_shakes_the_foundation_of_the_israeli_state/
and the review in Ha’aretz here:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html
Then, if you think he’s an easily dismissed lone voice crying in the wilderness, also read (jew) Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm
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.
Jay
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!
Uh, Lyndall.
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.
I still say let Egypt ( a Muslim Country ), not Israel, open its borders to Gaza. Why are they also afraid of the suicide bombers?
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…
But in any event, we probably won’t agree.
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.
David
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.
Looks like one of my comments is not making it through the moderation system. Could one of the editors let me know what needs fixing?
Thanks.
Michael
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.
Nah, doesn’t fit with the official narrative…
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
Che
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.
THINK before you encourage and support Jihad!
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.
Che
I took off a year to do “Pro Deo” work.
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.
David Saks
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?
Che
“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?
Oldfox
Thanks for that link. I have a Muslim acquaintance who refuses to believe that Female Genital Mutilation happens in Egypt AT ALL! I sent it to him!
And that is another instruction that the “obedient to God” did not listen to.
The Prophet forbad any mutilation of the body. So why is it happening?
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.
Rachel
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?
Leonard,
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.
Rachel
Lyndall,
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”.
Some of the genocides in history are described in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
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.
Is Ben-Ami also wrong? See below…
“Hamas should be engaged in talks”
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.