M&G: "Israel wall suggests Jews are more beautiful than Palestinians"

Just as I thought the M&G had hit rock bottom, John Matshikiza shows us that they are still digging. Last week they ran a hateful article by Gerald Kaufmann calling for sanctions on Israel. This week they have gone with two dastardly articles: an article by Noam Chomsky (whose works include a forward in a book by Holocaust denier Faurisson) and then this most childish op-ed piece by John Matshikiza...

Some quotes that capture the essence of Mitshikiza's invective:

Israel's continued defiance of world opinion with regard to the hideous, inhuman wall that that country's government is insisting on building to keep the darkies out of the Promised Land. The Wall of Israel suggests that Jews are more beautiful than Arabs and everybody else.

How very mature of him?

Matshikiza is so obsessed with the idea that the Israeli security barrier is about race that he repeatedly embarrasses himself with the most mendacious of accusations. All reasonable people understand that the barrier was built to protect Israeli citizens (irrespective of their colour) from terrorist attacks. Legitimate complaints have been voiced regarding the route of the barrier, but Matshikiza’s myopic vision allows him to see only white people keeping “darkies out of the promised land.”

Only the most ill-informed or bigoted commentator would assert that the primary motivation behind the construction of the barrier is that of separating white people from darker skinned people. Matshikiza would be most surprised to learn that most Israelis are just as dark as their Palestinian counterparts and that the barrier protects Jewish and Arab Israelis who also fall victim to terror attacks.

In trying to juxtapose the good news of Mandela’s birthday with some of the bad news shown on his “idiot box” Matshikiza refers to Israel’s non violent attempt at protecting its citizens. One would imagine that in his reflections on the man partially responsible for freeing SA , Matshikiza would have focused on a local comparison for more relevance. But no, Matshikiza aims his puerile invective at Israel. Why not mention how things are not so well at home, in the light of recent horrific local crimes?

Of greatest concern, however, is that Matshikiza steps over the line of Israeli criticism and into the realm of anti-Semitism. His criticism is not of Israeli citizens, but of Jews in general. Matshikiza says that the ‘wall’ suggests that “Jews (not Israelis) are more beautiful than Arabs and everybody else.” This is a comment that could have come straight from the infamous Czarist forgery – “The protocols of the Elders of Zion”. Matshikiza has clearly been indoctrinated into the dangerously anti-Semitic notion of Jews viewing themselves as elitist.

The M&G has shown an utter disregard for journalistic integrity by running an article by a man who knows absolutely nothing about the topic. M&G knows the true facts behind the security barrier, and they understand the reality of Israeli demographics. The only reason then that the paper could have decided to run Matshikiza’s article is to isolate Jews in South Africa, attempting to further polarise the two sides in this conflict.

Please write to the M&G ([email protected]) and let them know that this sub standard form of hateful journalism is not acceptable.

Happy birthday, Rolihlahla
John Matshikiza

Apologies for the poor quality of the text

Locked in a hotel room in a foreign country once again (okay, Swasiland) and, in between bouts of work (which is why I am here, I can rest assure you) one is transfixed during down time (which can be at any time ofthe day or night, the movie industry being what it is) by the horrors of the television. Okay, I suppose you shouldn`t blame the medium for the message. It is not the fault ofthe television set itself that it ends up projecting so much bad news, not to mention spontaneous and miscellaneous rubbish. It`s just that, alone in a room with the idiot box, there is no other outlet for your ire and despondency at seeing how the world is run — as represented by the images spewed out by the self same television. That`s its job. And äs I have said many times before, i-job-i-job. You do it. I do it. But that doesn`t change the fact that you still feel like assassinating the television set. What a week. That grand figure, Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela, celebrated his 86th birthday quietly (or as quietly as you can when one of your ex-wives shows up and insists on helping you cutthe cake) at his birthplace and retreat at Qunu. The whole world (at least that tiny but growing section ofthe world that has access to a television set) celebrated with him, since you can`t keep even a quiet, dignified event like ttiis secret from the prying eye ofthe television for very long. Everywhere else (and you can be sure the cameras were there too) the world was going mad. Not mad in celebration of a great, never-to-be repeated birthday. Just mad. Let`s Start (and in fact let`s end) with the once mythical, bom-again state of Israel, out ofthe Bible. The world (or rather the world as we human beings have chosen to shape it in our own image) needs to be kicked into shape by some Greater Power if the anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest icons of our age can be accompanied by Israel`s continued defiance of world opinion with regard to the hideous, inhuman wall that that country`s government is insisting on building to keep the darkies out of the Promised Land. When will they (meaning people) ever learn? The Berlin Wall didn't prove anything, and the whole world celebrated its destruction in 1989. Yet, while the remains ofthe Berlin Wall are commemorated, commercialised, museumised, re-examined and deconstructed äs performance art among a new generation of German and non-German artists struggling (richly, we should add) to be released from the stigma ofthe Holocaust that their great-grandparents were persuaded to put into action, the Israeli govemment plunges ahead with yet another human folly — a wall stretching round the boundaries of Israel, just like the Great Wall of China was supposed to keep out the Barbarians. Let me say one thing. The Great Wall of China is now a world heritage site. The Great Wall of Israel is unlikely to ever be a place of pilgrimage and wonder to anybody. Just judging from the images on the selfsame television that I have been talking about, it is hard to see to whom it will ever be anything more than an eyesore on the landscape. Who, in God`s Bible, has the right to desecrate the beauty of God`s earth? But more than that. Who has the right to divide the beauty of God`s creation? The Wall of Israel suggests that jews are more beautiful than Arabs and everybody else, and have the right to remove themselves behind a wall ofserenity and exclusion that might have donejustice to the images created by Omar Khayyam and whoever wrote the Arabian Nights. The walled, perfumed garden where intruders with their lewd intent could be excluded. Facetious? Frivolous? We all live behind walls anyway. Walls (visible or invisible) ofcolour, class, gender and history. Why be so brash, in the 2Ist Century, as to bring this into our front gardens, so to speak, and create another Babel, another Berlin Wall — soon to be demolished in any case? And the folly of human history goes on. The latest is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is now calling on all Jews in France to return immediately for settlement in this same walled Israel to avoid further racist attacks in France. (He has made the same call to South African Jews in the recent past — apparently without much success, but who knows?) The French, to their credit, are treating Indignation at this blatant intervention in the affairs of their own citizens — many of whom are Jews, many ofwhom are Arabs, many of whom are darker-skinned people from the African diaspora and all ofwhom, along with the changing human profile (äs Duke Ellington would have put it) form the profile of modern France, modern Europe, and the modern world. The building of walls holds us hostage to dark ages of the past. It suggests that the old adages of "east is east and west is west", "black is black and white is white" and all that other lethai nonsense is east in stone. And this is the birthday present that we, through the television, offer to Nelson Mandela, in an age when we try to outdo ourselves in ceiebratinghis image oftransformation, unification and reconciliation. May God, whatever that is (for it is ourselves)help us all. Happy birthday, Rolihlahla. We, the people ofthe world, sure do love you.

Comments

[zulubaby]

Disgusting racism. Is this what passes for journalism in South Africa?

[Vaz Lube]

Unfortunately, yes.

The editorial cartoons in newspapers are also disgusting.

[Steve]

Here are some editorial cartoons in SA.

http://supernatural.blogs.com/photos/business_day/

[finya]

They need to get little bit drugs [url=http://journals.aol.com/pharmateka/provigil/]Provigil[/url] withto my papa today.
[url=http://journals.aol.com/pharmateka/provigil/]Provigil[/url] is only bolding prescriptions on the market