It's Almost Supernatural

Smirking Chimp Award

If you, like me, read the letters pages in South African newspapers you will no doubt agree that most South Africans haven't the slightest clue about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

So here's a new initiative I will start - "The Smirking Chimp Award" for the shtooopidest letter in SA papers each week. I'm going to share some of the more hilarious letters for you, showcasing one letter a week where the author totally embarrasses his or herself. I'll be nice though, and won't include the idiot letter writer's name.

So for the first winner of the Smirking Chimp award on It's Almost Supernatural, here is a writer to the Citizen newspaper from Doornfontein. The letter appeared in the Citizen last week.

THE whole world including the US accepts Jewish settlements in occupied Gaza and the West Bank are illegal notwithstanding justifications offered - land captured in war, biblical promises to Jews, and the most vacuous of all, the taking over of land without a people. The Palestinians have been in Palestine for three thousand years. The defiant then emotional pleading placards of settlers in Gaza forced to leave their ill gotten gains with handsome compensation for something which was never theirs in the first place must be akin to compensating a mugger by paying him to give up what he stole. There is nothing special about the sorry-for-myself outpouringings ofthe Gaza settlers. The statement by South African born Jew Michael Goldschmidt married to an Israeli woman on having to leave his illegal home "How could they do this to us" at least acknowledged the illegality of his commandeering of Palestinian land by drawing an analogy with the position of the farmers in Zimbabwe. Those farmers will understand given that their land grab of black Zimbabwean land has a history almost identical to what happened to Palestinian lands. Perhaps the Palestinians need a Robert Mugabe to help them recover their lands taken from them illegally and with the connivance of the West and especially the US.

The citizen had a few close runners up, with many writers complaining that Israel has bulldozed the settler housing rather than giving the houses to the Palestinians. Give me a break, even the PA requested that Israel bulldoze the homes because they are not suited to the huge Palestinian families that live in Gaza. They need high rise flats to cope with their dense population. Fancy small houses will not do.

Update
I've received some responses suggesting that I should find a better name for this weekly award. If you have any suggestions that mail them onto me.

President Mbeki's Letter to Sharon

Here's the letter that President Mbeki sent to Sharon during the disengagement. When you read the letter, if you concentrate really well, you will hear the moans and groans from the Media Review Network.

“I write to express our sincere best wishes to you for the success of the historic process the Government and people of the State of Israel have started to close down the Jewish settlements in Gaza. We are acutely conscious of and sensitive to the pain that will have to be borne by the Israeli families to which Gaza had become home. We are certain that the Israeli Government and people will do everything possible to minimise the impact of the trauma that attends all operations that result in the sudden resettlement of people, everywhere in the world. However, we are also fully cognisant of the absolute imperative to carry out the Gaza pullout, in the interest of peace and stability in Israel, Palestine, the Middle East and the world. We trust that, in time, even those who will lose their homes in Gaza will come to realize that their sacrifice serves both their own interests and the interests of the entire Middle East region and the rest of humanity. Their sacrifice, painful as it undoubtedly is, opens the way to the implementation of the critically important Israel-Palestine Road Map to peace, cooperation and friendship. It must surely strike a mighty blow for an end to the violence that has claimed too many Israeli and Palestinian lives. We salute your courage and assure you of our support as you dismantle the Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, and thus make an unprecedented contribution towards the just solution of the protracted and deadly Israel-Palestine conflict. Honourable Prime Minister, please accept the assurance of our highest consideration.”

Hardly makes up for South Africa's decision to present evidence against Israel's security barrier at the ICJ, but hey, thanks Pres.

A Matter of Principle

A very shortsighted law:

The Israeli terror law only recognizes victims of hostile acts perpetrated by "enemy forces" as terror victims. In the recent Shfaram attack the murderer was a Jewish soldier, and therefore is not considered a member of enemy forces. The victims, by the compensation law, are not regarded as victims of terror.

The act was an act of terror, but in the context of the compensation law the victims cannot be considered victims of terror. The application of the law concerns the perpetrator of the terrorist act not the victims.

Head Heeb explains in his comments

I wouldn't call it stupidity so much as lack of forethought. When the law was written, the possibility of Jewish political terrorism against Israeli Arabs wasn't really on the radar screen, so terrorism was defined as an act committed by an enemy of the state. Now that terrorism from within the state in opposition to state policy has entered the political landscape, it's necessary to change the definition. The law doesn't say that "Arab victims of terror aren't victims of terror." Arab citizens of Israel who are killed or injured by Palestinian terrorists are considered terror victims and entitled to payment under the law. The law does need to be changed, but it doesn't segregate victims based on race - it segregates them based on the motivation of the perpetrator.

The Shfaram terror victims will receive a one-time compensation payment based on the allowance they would have received had they been recognized as terror victims. The compensation is therefore not really a problem - the problem is the principle. The message conveyed to the public is inappropriate.

Update:
I have received a couple of mails from some angry readers who misinterpreted this post. I'll repeat what I said earlier. The law lacked forethought and must be changed. It is unacceptable.

It's Apartheid Stooopid!

Real Apartheid: Apartheid was the racial separation and discrimination, institutionalised by law in every aspect of everyday life, imposed by South Africa’s white minority and derived from belief in white racial superiority.

Apartheid as a political weapon: The common practice of whipping up anti-Israel rage by comparing the State of Israel to the Apartheid State of South Africa. This practice cheapens the word ‘apartheid’, reducing it to just another swear word in order to challenge the legitimacy of Israel.

Yusuf Abramjee is group head of news and programming for Primedia Broadcasting, owners of influential South African radio stations - Talk Radio 702, 94.7 Highveld Stereo, and 567 Cape Talk.

Abramjee wrote a biting “Israel is apartheid!” article in the Pretoria News last week (subscribers only). The attack was based on his 5 day visit to Israel to cover the Gaza disengagement.

At the airport in Tel Aviv a young security woman looked at me and called me aside. She then asked aseries of questions. What is the origin of your surname? Why are you here? Who are you meeting? Where are you staying? After about 15 minutes my luggage was scanned and I was allowed to go. But little did I realise that my real interrogation was to takes place when I left the country. My visit to Ramallah some 20 minutes from Jerusalem was an experience. The checkpoints make younervous. Young soldiers armed with rifles demand to see your passport. Alongside scores of Palestinians wait patiently in queues to enter Israeli territory. Their identity cards are checked Metres away is the new concrete wall or security fence. … But I am still not convinced. These are symbols of division and the restriction of movement in this fashion can never be condoned. It is apartheid and should be condemned in the strongest terms.

The barrier exists to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons into Israel. Surely Abaramjee would not write a scathing attack on South African border patrols who demand to see the passports of people crossing from Mozambique into South Africa. The Palestinians are citizens of the PA, not Israel. So why then does Abramjee subject Israel to a separate set of rules by complaining that Israel insists on checking the ID cards of Palestinians wishing to cross into Israel?

Palestinians are not oppressed on racial grounds as Arabs. They are competitors in a national/religious conflict for land. There are enough real issues to focus on; there is no need to fabricate issues. The fabricated issues make everything worse because they outrage supporters of Israel diverting their attention from the serious issues that need to be resolved.

Abramjee may have questioned intensely, but that hardly equates with Apartheid. Anyone who visits Israel, Jews included, are intensely questioned. Abramjee should know better.

Screw Negotiations, We Want Jihad!

MEMRI TV has a clip of an interview with the Palestinian Clerics Association Deputy Director. Lots of people don't like MEMRI because MEMRI translates what radicals say on Arab television.

Palestinian Clerics Association Deputy Director on Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV: "We Will Enter Palestine as Conquerors, Not Through Negotiations But Through Jihad"; According to Prophetic Tradition, All Palestine Will Be Liberated and The Zionist Entity Wiped Out.

Of course I realise that Jews are not immune from extremists of their own, but I don't recall a respected Rabbi appearing on TV spreading this sort of hate.

This guy doesn't say that Islam is a religion of peace. There must be some killing before we can all live happily ever after.

Sheikh Muhammad Ali: "The Prophet Muhammad foretold in a hadith that 'Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews, and the stone and tree would say: 'Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew' – of course he was referring to the occupying Zionist Jew – 'there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him', except for the Gharqad tree.'" [...] "Allah willing, we will enter [Palestine] as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through Jihad and resistance, because the hadith goes: 'And the Muslims would kill the Jews' – there is killing involved."

Yep, this is the sort of trash that indoctrinates young Arabs across the Middle East. Openly available on Al Manar and many other Arab TV stations.

The moderator tries to impress the Sheikh making a nice summary of what the Sheikh said. But he fails to impress. The Sheikh will have to plot against the moderator, because the moderator has been planting the wrong tree.

Moderator: [Boring summary]... Sheikh Muhammad Ali: "How peculiar it is that the Zionists believe this, while many leaders, regimes and Arabs do not believe this. This is very sad, strange, and puzzling. Of course, I mean the Muslims and Arabs that are misinformed. The Jews acknowledge this because they find it in their forged Torah, in their Talmud." [...] "Today, the Jews plant this tree in large numbers in Palestine, because they acknowledge this." Moderator: "The Ghardaq tree?" Sheikh Muhammad Ali: "Not Ghardaq, Gharqad. [-weird silence as the Sheik begins to plot against the moderator for his sinful error...]

Recommended Reading Today

First off, a dispatch from Michael Oren, author of one of my favourite Middle East books - the Six Day War. Oren is an Israeli citizen and was recently called up for reserve duty, joining the troops for the Gaza disengagement. Here's a short excerpt, but be sure to read the whole thing, for it is good: A Soldiers Story.

The disengagement from Gaza, originally scheduled to take three weeks, was completed in almost as many days. A few injuries were incurred, none of them serious, and no Israelis were killed. Only two of the troops refused to carry out orders, and in one case, a unit of religious soldiers stood and watched as their rabbi was evacuated. While the settlers' overall restraint should be recognized, the bulk of the credit can only go to the IDF. Never before has an army relocated so many fellow-citizens against their will and in the face of continuing terror attacks with so extraordinary a display of courage, discipline and compassion.

Next up on my recommended list, an analysis from the astute Dennis Ross. With all the advice he has been giving on late, you kind of wonder whether he is sending a signal to Bush that he would be happy to again take up the US Envoy mantle: The Roadmap after Gaza.

Fourth, the administration must build a bridge to the future. The two sides have very different expectations on what will happen after disengagement: Sharon wants a pause to absorb the emotional trauma and Abbas wants next steps. Each needs an explanation for what is next. The administration should declare that it will take the moribund roadmap and negotiate a common understanding on every Israeli and Palestinian obligation. It won't be easy and will take time. It will take the kind of mediation that the Administration has avoided until now. But Gaza disengagement creates an opening, and it will close for Sharon and Abbas unless the Administration recognizes where we are and what is now necessary.

Lastly, I recommend a piece found at JewishWorldReview.com. It's a biting attack on the editorials found in the New York Times. Trying Times.

Warped Zapiro Logic

In predictable fashion the Mail & Guardian cartoonist, Zapiro, has joined the crowd of inveterate schemers that have made a mockery of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The warped logic says that Israel's moves are worthless because she has not withdrawn from the West Bank.

It takes all the illogic that stems directly from blind hatred to think that Israel should relinquish all her assets before moving to the negotiating table. Israel cannot give up the West Bank without an end of conflict peace deal. When negotiations take place both sides will make compromises in order to extract concessions from the other side. To suggest that Israel should make all of their concessions without getting anything in return from the Palestinians is to confine yourself to the marginalised confines of political discourse. Just like the Business Day cartoonist did.

Comments to [email protected]

Update
Cool, the Honest Reporting weblog - Media Backspin - carried this item. Thanks ;)

The Ever Disgraceful Mail and Guardian

The Mail & Guardian's latest coverage of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza reflects the level of bias and slant that you should continue to expect from them.

Two full pages were devoted to the disengagement, with what the editorial staff would say was perfect balance - analysis by Daoud Kuttab, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Ramallah's Al Quds University; center spread by Chris McGreal (who has previously written that Israeli soldiers deliberately target Palestinian children) headed "Gaza: End of the dream"; and comment by far left-wing London-based Israeli journalist Daphna Baram; and the whole perfectly linked together by the editorial "Gaza: No guarantee" and Zapiro's cartoon again debasing PM Sharon in the most insulting way.

Kuttab's analysis compares Palestinian per capita income in Gaza ($700) with that of the Israelis ($16 000) and accuses the US and the Quartet of failing to dictate to Israel how she should work towards fulfilling the Road Map.

McGreal says while Sharon has acknowledged the death of his dream of a greater Israel, he has paid lip service to the Road Map and assured the people that "the big (West Bank) settlement blocs ... will remain in Israeli hands".

Baram's comments focus on demography and the desire to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel as a liberal rather than a racist aspiration. She mentions too the fact that "new laws make it practically impossible for non-Israeli spouses of Palestinians to become Israeli citizens". No mention however of the fact that the second intifada compelled Israel to enact this temporary law. She also accuses Israel of "ethnically cleansing the Arabs".

The editorial acknowledges Israel's move from Gaza as a bold one, but stresses that unless the West Bank and East Jerusalem are also given to the Palestinians, there will be no chance for durable peace or a two-state solution. The editor is incapable of seeing phased moves towards a peace process; rather Israel should just relinquish everything all at once. The editorial goes on "given enough time and resolve, Israel obduracy can be broken throughout the occupied territories ... Sooner or later Israelis will have to confront the reality that a minimum condition for peace is the whole-scale evacuation of the West Bank to create conditions for a viable Palestinian state. The fact is that Israel had no business settling on conquered lands, in defiance of the Geneva Convention."

Actually, the Geneva Convention only applies if there had been a sovereign power that was ousted. Prior to 1967 the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Only Great Britain and Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank. There was no sovereign power ruling the land. Israel had every right then to occupy the territory and even settle it until its final disposition is determined by negotiations.

It's Hard to Say Goodbye

An Israeli policeman hugs a Jewish settler to comfort him as he protests against his forced removal by Israeli troops from his home on August 18, 2005 in the now illegal Shiryat Hayam settlement in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Israeli security forces poured into Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip to begin the forcible removal of settler protesters who ignored orders to leave the area ahead of the withdrawal deadline. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)

Amateurs in the Press

The Star newspaper in South Africa, generally balanced, has every right to review any books. It has every right to publish articles with a pro-Palestinian slant. But Lauren Mannering's book review in today's paper crossed the red lines. (The review is not on their website.)

The book reviewed is The Other Side of Israel. It is written by a British Jew, Susan Nathan, who has spent many years living with a Palestinian family in an Arab town in Israel.

Nathan seems to come from a predetermined mindset that views all of the land between the Jordan and the Meditteranean as Greater Palestine - referring to all the land as ONE country.

...concrete walls and razor wire fences that have been erected around the occupied Palestinian towns of the West Bank and Gaza to separate them from the rest of the country.

The reviewer of an unquestionably one sided book is also unquestionably one sided. How else can you explain this quote "In 1948 2500 Palestinians were expelled from this same site [Lubia]" without any attempt to place it in the context of the 1948 war launched against Israel by several invading Arab armies?

Much has been written about the causes of the refugee problem, but Mannering doesn't even mention that both narratives are disputed. Only in the last line of the review, after the book has already been praised as excellently researched, does Mannering allow that "Nathan's views may be biased by personal experience".

But enough of the actual book. Mannering pays great praise to this book. She is entitled to do that. The book may be deserving of praise. However, while the premise of any argument may or may not be true, it is certainly not bolstered by 'hearsay' misinformation. And this is what Mannering resorts to, turning her review into a transparent charade of anti-Israel propaganda. In an incredible display of openly antagonistic journalism Mannering concludes

Inevitably it will meet resistance from those who just wish the Palestinians would go away thus removing all uncomfortable reminders of the wrongs done to them. One such person was surely the Israeli speaker who gave a talk during one of my Honours seminars in 2003 in which he discussed media coverage of the conflict. He played on our sympathies about the persecution of the Jews throughout history and how recent coverage had the audacity to show the Palestinians as equal victims and not just suicide bombers. To him it was thus biased and bordering on anti semitism. He lambasted talk radio in this country saying it served as a medium for hate speech because anyone could simply phone in even if they were uninformed and uneducated. He was in effect advocating a controlled media.

WTF?