It's Almost Supernatural

The Herald: Bush = Hitler

Mandla Seleone, columnist in the Port Elizabeth newspaper The Herald, suffers from the fevered mental illness called Bush Derangement Syndrome: Bush policy not unlike that of Adolf Hitler.

Seething over Bush’s comparison of Ahmadinejad to Hitler, Mandla turns the comparison upside down (which is the position his logic appears to hold) and says that Bush is just like Adolf Hitler.

I won’t waste my time fisking this article. If someone already believes that Bush is comparable to Hitler then no amount of reasoning will ever convince him otherwise.

Now take a deep breath as you enter the inverse reality world of juvenile style opinion of Mandla Seleone.

The second reason I have found the parallels being drawn between Ahmadinejad and Hitler interesting, is that the whole thing is full of unintended irony. Hitler, let us remember, wrote a book titled Mein Kampf. In this book, he wrote that man was a fighting animal. Since the nation was the aggregate of individuals, it followed that the nation was a fighting unit. He wrote that any living organism that stopped fighting for its existence was doomed to extinction. Therefore the Germans had to continue fighting for their existence: "the race must fight; a race that rests must perish". It seems to me that the parallels between Hitler and Bush are more apparent than those between Ahmadinejad and Hitler. Bush clearly sees Americans as a fighting machine. The regime change that is so characteristic of his foreign policy is a blatant commitment to dominate the world. So, as I see it, someone really ought to advise Bush to stand in front of a mirror with a portrait of Hitler for a long time and really ponder what he sees! Safety and security in the world might depend on that.

I can picture Mandla sporting an ostentatious “Bush=Hitler” T shirt, marching the streets with other like minded blinkered fools. “Stop the war” they scream. “War will not make us safe” they argue, deploring its continued use as a means of achieving political ends.

Unless of course, one is talking about the Intifada, which they claim remains a legitimate uprising despite its violent nature. The American use of defensive force must stop, but the Palestinian Intifada must continue until it achieves its political ends.

And yes, it’s fairly obvious that Mandla supports the Palestinian intifada at least insofar as one of his older columns suggests: The Jewish question, according to Marx

This article reveals a lot about Mandla (particularly his disdain for Jews).

First, his logic is almost impossibly childish. Does anyone really buy into the juvenile reasoning that a person born as a Jew cannot be anti-Jewish?

While Jews persist in the view that they are unique and that they are God’s chosen few, Marx argues that they cannot hope for acceptance by the rest of humanity. Marx, as we shall remember, was himself a Jew. Therefore it was not easy to throw the traditional non-argument of anti-semitism at him. He debates, in my view, a crucial question about which we tend to be reticent in our dealings with our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Second, his understanding of Zionism is severely limited – it’s a complete cut and paste from other anti-Jewish Jews.

In his (Uri Davis) book, Israel: An Apartheid State, he argues that at the heart of Zionism lies the view that there is a fundamental racial incompatibility between Jews and non-Jews. Zionism asserts that by definition the Jew cannot be an equal and free citizen in a non-Jewish polity and that it is unreasonable to expect the Jew to believe otherwise. Therefore, Jewish society must be segregated outside the body of gentile society and “hence the evacuation and, if necessary, annihilation” that defines the Middle East crisis.

Third, not only does he believe that “Bush = Hitler!!!” but he also believes that the Israelis are a carbon copy of the Nazis.

What irony! The Jews have suffered under the racism of the nazis, who believed in the purity and superiority of the Aryan “race”. They pursue with religious tenacity to date any person who can be linked, however remotely, to the Holocaust. (Ed: Do I detect morgue contempt from Mandla regarding the notion of Jews hunting down Nazis?) But they feel no discomfort about the similarities of what they are doing in Palestine – ethnic cleansing – and what the nazis did to them, and for which they still pursue them more than 50 years after.

Fourth, he views the Middle East conflict as a simple conflict between the evil! ghastly! Jewish invaders and the poor Palestinians. Everything is black and white in Mandla’s world. There are no two narratives – only the Palestinian narrative.

And, what is worse, the Palestinians are being exterminated on land that is indisputably theirs. Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians in cold blood even as they obey their orders.

Fifth he views the Jews, Israel, and the US as one political and religious unit. They are all the same to him. Why else would he conclude an article entitled “The Jewish Question, according to Marx” like this

The US certainly deserves the President they have. I don’t know what sins the world has committed in order for God to visit us with Bush, for he is truly an affliction.

It really is laughable how not even the topic of the ghastly! dreaded! Jews can keep him from launching into a fit of Bush Derangement.

Email The Herald here: [email protected] ; [email protected]

Update
This letter in the Herald provides a good response to the Seleone article: Bush in no Hitler; no warmonger. You can view the text of the letter in the comments.

Update
Links now work.

Jihad comes to Africa

In his latest choreographed performance from his clandestine cave arch terrorist Osama Bin Ladin called on his ‘holy’ Muslim foot soldiers (I prefer the term Islamic Lemmings) to go forth to the Sudan and wage war against ‘crusader thieves’. Why? What in Allah’s name did the poor people of the Sudan do to deserve the safe fate as the great Satan (America) and their Zionist side kick (Israel). I mean really they don’t commit genocide against the innocent Palestinians, invade sovereign Arab states to steal their oil or (god forbid) give women equal rights. In fact they are an Islamic republic governed by Sharia law. Osama would know he used Sudan as a terrorist base for years.

So perhaps this Jihad is not retaliatory maybe its pre-emptive: He has decided to take a leaf out of George W’s book. I mean the technologically advanced people of the Sudan certainly pose a threat to his grand plan to establish a medieval Islamic Caliphate across the entire world. It’s ridiculous. The Sudan is one of the most impoverish, war ravaged and backward countries on earth. Only international aid keeps at bay their absolute annihilation from starvation and disease. It just makes no sense.

I think it may be his greatest strategic military blunder so far. It may turn out to be the equivalent of Hitler declaring war on the Soviet Union in World War 2. If I was going to establish a medieval Islamic Caliphate across the entire world, the first thing I would do is secure the heartland and then extend outwards. He has no real base in the Arab world and is already fighting a war on numerous fronts. He is fighting in the West, Russia, Israel, India and in South East Asia. Now he wants to take on Africa as well. Talk about overstretch!

I thought Third World solidarity was an important component in his strategy for world domination. Osama and his allies liked to portray themselves as liberators fighting Western imperialism. This had won them many supporters in the Third World. But now he is turning on his potential allies. He is now declaring war on black Africa.

And Africa must rise to face the challenge. South Africa must show the way. We can no longer sit on the fence secretly cheering every blow he inflicts on the West. We should immediately send troops to defend the innocent in Sudan from further potential slaughter.

Osama has now made it clear that this war is not about radical Islam verses the West but radical Islam verses the rest. Whether we like it or not our fate is now is bound up with that of America and even Israel.

I Believe the Children are the Future

...teach them well and let them lead the way.

A Palestinian boy holds a gun in front of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militants as they take part in a protest at the West Bank city of Hebron Saturday April 22, 2006. Gunmen from the ruling militant Hamas party and its Fatah rivals battled each other with bullets, hand grenades and firebombs in Gaza City on Saturday after Hamas' political chief, Khaled Mashaal, accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of treachery. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Creepy Communication

...between Bin Laden and his friends at Hamas and Fatah. What could the dreaded open palms signal?

Or is it just a case of the usual denial of responsibility for anything? "Who us? No Never..."

South African Immoral Equivalence

On the backdrop of my previous posts asking whether President Mbeki can make a serious contribution to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, this item further shows how South Africa may only further polarise the two sides.

The Jerusalem Post details why the South African condemnation of Monday's suicide bomb stood out from the others that poured in from around the world.

The South African Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that it condemned the bombing "in the strongest possible terms." At the same time, the statement read, "The suicide bombing, which follows the bombing of Gaza last week that left dead more than 15 Palestinians, including a baby and a number of innocent children, are all acts that are counterproductive to peace." Then, implying that Israel engages in terrorism, the statement continued, "We stand firm in our belief that no cause can justify the resort to terror against innocent civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, as acts of terror cannot deliver the much cherished peace and security sought by Palestinians and Israelis alike."

Turkey, which like South Africa still maintains relations with Hamas took a much more constructive approach. They criticized the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority for refusing to denounce the attack.

South Africa has once again demonstrated its inability to understand the practical realities of the Middle East. The South African insistence on drawing moral equivalencies between operations where every civilian casualty is regarded as a failure with operations where civilian casualties are the objective will further confide South Africa to the radical margins of foreign diplomacy. A diplomacy where Bush is bashed, Israel slated - and Iran and Hamas feted.

The Fox Guarding the Hens at UN

Political satire is my favourite form of humour. Even during the darkest days of Apartheid Evita (Peter Dirk Uys) kept us laughing at ourselves. His brilliant spoofs of Apartheid’s demigods helped discredit the like of P.W. Botha in the eyes of many white South Africans. This certainly contributed to the peaceful transition to majority rule.

Similarly the Canadian Conservative columnists Mark Steyn has mentioned that the humour of Ronald Regan played no small part in bringing down the Evil Empire during the Cold War. Thus he argues that poking political fun at radical Islamists is instrumental in winning the war on terror. If this is true, Mark is one of the West’s WMD' is this regard.

But even more than Mark Steyn, the United Nations provides the free world with the greatest theatre for political satire in our age. This week Iran, was elected as the vice chair of the UN subcommittee committee on nuclear disarmament. (No, this is not a joke. I repeat this is not a joke!)

The disarmament commission was established 50 years ago with the mandate to promote disarmament and to review international treaties dealing with nuclear energy. Iran, a country that is before the UN Security Council for surreptitiously constituting a nuclear program contrary to signed agreements, is now responsible for ensuring that this committee promotes nuclear disarmament.

Unperturbed by this irreconcilable hypocrisy, Iran’s representative got straight to work. During Iran’s first meeting in the vice chair, it managed to pass a resolution stating that ‘Israel’s nuclear stockpile is the major source of concern with regards to global peace and security.’

Thankfully, like most other UN committees, the nuclear disarmament commission is only a talk shop. It has no authority to enforce its decisions. A ridiculous situation in and of itself. It’s like Pinkie and the Brain for adults: these insignificant people sitting around a table with grand ideas of taking over the world. All bark but only baby teeth to bite.

My favourite aspect of this latest UN performance has been the stinging reviews it received from some of its usual critics in the U.S. House and Senate.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who heads the House subcommittee on the Middle East issued a statement in which she compared the decision to ‘appointing a serial killer to serve as a juror in a murder trial.’

Republican Senator Norm Coleman put it best by explaining that ‘Having the Iranians serve on this commission is like asking the fox to guard the hens.’

In addition to providing us with entertainment, this fiasco serves to further discredit this discredited body in the eyes of every rational person. As this comedy continues, more and more people will come to realise like they did with Apartheid and Communism, that the UN needs dramatic reform or should be dismantled all together.

Dirty Backyards

South African president Thabo Mbeki will soon be jetting off to the Middle East in an attempt to work a miracle and bring peace to the Middle East.

Meanwhile back in Africa, elections in the Congo look unstable with civil war a strong possibility especially if there is no resolution to convince the opposition to participate in the elections. The situation in Zimbabwe continues unabated. The shaky peace deal between Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan looks like it may fall apart, and the genocide continues in Darfur with no breakthrough looking possible between Khartoum and the Darfur rebels. Chad is now accusing Sudan of instigating the Chadian rebel attack in Adre and has said that they are now in “a state of war with Sudan”. In a statement made this week Chad called on its citizens to mobilise themselves against Sudanese aggression.

I’m a firm believer in the “tidy up your own backyard before telling others how to tidy their’s principle” but in answering Mahmoud Abbas’ invite to visit the Middle East and help find peace Thabo Mbeki clearly believes that he has something to offer.

Ehud Olmert has already said that he will not meet any foreign officials who meet with Hamas. Does Mbeki expect to make a difference by meeting (again) with the Palestinians and not meeting with Israelis?

South African commentator on the Middle East Peter Fabricius agrees. Writing in The Mercury, he argues that South Africa should rather devote its already over-stretched resources to tackle the problems on its own doorstep – like Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Read it here.

Out of Step

In addition to eating (which I have done incessantly since Wednesday night), I have used the Pesach/Easter long weekend to catch up on my reading. And I finally finished Jack Bloom’s Out of Step. We previously reported on the dreadful review this book received in the Star. ‘Better used for firewood’ was certainly not the only but perhaps the most telling criticism levelled against this controversial political treatise. I hope to give Mr Bloom a fairer hearing.

Mr Bloom begins by explaining that ‘this was not an easy book to write. It does not say easy things. But they do need to be said.’ And I concur with his self-analysis. Out of Step deals honestly with Jack Bloom’s often difficult life story. It recounts his unglamorous upbringing in working class Doornfontein; his lonely school career at the rough and tough Athlone Boys and his struggle with army service in the Apartheid era South African Defence Force. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Jack’s university days at the University of the Witwatersrand and his intellectual rebellion against the Leftist indoctrination of the Social Science Faculty.

Despite these alien and often hostile environments, Mr Bloom has always managed to achieve success. The anecdote that perhaps best captures this is that Jack (a self-confessed capitalist) was the top student in his Marxist exegesis course despite the fact that his class mates included some high profile Leftists like Firoz Cachalia. He attributes this to the fact that his class mates ‘where too busy making revolution happen while he was applying himself to studying the theory.’

After university, Jack became involved with the Progressive Party. I am sure his difficult childhood must have played a large role in his decision to dedicate his life to fighting political bullies. For as opposed to the playing field, in the arena of ideas he certainly has an advantage. His political career has led him to becoming a senior Democratic Alliance member in the Gauteng Legislature.

In 2001, Jack attended the Durban United Nations Racism Conference. He describes it as his Dryfus affair. The Nazi like anti-Semitism directed towards the Jewish State that he witnessed there, has spurred him to devote much of his time to fighting anti-Israel bias in South Africa. The book goes into great detail about the numerous battles Mr Bloom has fought with the likes of Firaz Osman of the Media Review Network (a hostile anti-Israel think tank), Aziz Pahad (SA deputy Foreign Minister) and John Battersby (former editor of the Sunday Independent) on the pages of all of South Africa’s newspapers.

In this second half of the book Jack gives his political opinions on all topics from evolution to the War on Terror. His conservative views would make him a valuable replacement for the beleaguered Karl Rove in the Bush White House. At times I felt as if I was reading the in-depth guide to the Republican manifesto. It is unfortunate that Jack decided to cover so many political issues rather than focus entirely on his central topic -what he calls the 4th World War between the West and radical Islam.

Nevertheless, Mr Bloom does make some interesting points (certainly controversial/unpopular) about the current international crisis. He does not hold back in exposing the violent and oppressive history of Islamic Imperialism. He even goes as far as criticising some of the racist practices that the common interpretations of Sharia law sanction. This is extremely brave in the wake of the violent Muslim responses to criticism of their faith.

In addition to an extremely well researched analysis of the threat radical Islam poses to the West, this book also looks at some novel solutions. Mr Bloom believes that a type of reformation of Islam is needed if we are all to co-exist peacefully. He believes salvation lies in the ‘liberal’ minority interpretation of Islamic scholars such as Sheik Palatzi of Italy. He cites the Vatican’s change of Catholic dogma with regard to Jews after the Holocaust as a precedent for religious reform.

Jack Bloom is certainly no political conformist. He is clearly out of step with the political views of most South Africans and even many members of his own party. But he is not the type of person to shy away from his beliefs just because they may be controversial. He is refreshing in a society steeped in political correctness and certainly broadens the debate. I will try to entice him to write an article for IAS in the near future.

Nuclear Nightmare

Will South Africa ever take a moral stand and publicly condemn vitriolic statements made by Iran and Hamas? I doubt it.

Ahmadinejad: Israel is a rotten, dried tree, that will be annihilated by one storm
Mashal: We'll never recognise Israel. The only solution is Jihad.

The Telegraph writes that Ahmadinejad's reference to the "one storm" could be seen as code for nuclear armageddon.

When you are threatened with annihilation you have to ensure that if you err, you err on the side of the hawks. Leaders are responsible for what they say. And when threats reach these alarming levels words can bring their people as much harm as actions can. Threatening another nation with destruction can trigger the same ramifications as firing the first missiles can.

The err on the side of the hawks principle applies even more when the man making these threats evinces a dangerous dimension of religious messianism.

In November last year Ahamdinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues claimed that he saw a glow of light surrounding the presidents head as he addressed world leaders at the UN. He spoke of how the world leaders were entranced by the hand of God as he spoke.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad is devoted to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam. It is widely believed that Ahmadinejad's government has signed a pledge to work for the return of the Hidden Imam, known as the Twelth Mahdi among Iran's dominant Shia sect.

This Twelth Mahdi apparently went into hiding at the age of five - and of course, s/he will return one day. His return however will be preceded by utter chaos, war, and bloodshed. Ahmadinejad believes that these events are close at hand and can be influenced by individuals.

It's a clear case of the self fulfilled prophecy. If you believe there will be chaos before the Mahdi returns then all you need to do is take it upon yourself to create that chaos.

How should Israel and her friends react? Consider your child at school. Imagine he schools in an area known for yobbish children where school shootings have previously occurred. Imagine that a bully at the school threatens to kill your child. Now imagine that the child carries a gun to school and the teachers allow it. Would you sit back and watch the events unfold hoping that everything will just be okay?

Cartoon by Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons.

Update

Local cartoonist Zapiro doesn't seem to understand the serious reality of a messimanical regime that threatens to annihilate other nations coupled with their so-far-succesful attempts at going nuclear.

See the discussion over this dreadful Zapiro cartoon at Fodder.  

I think it's pretty darn childish to pretend that there is absolutely zero cause for concern over Iran.

If they are eventually targetted then it will be because of the aggressive rhetoric of their leaders - not because George W Bush is a war hungry ignoramus.

But this malformed view on global politics is nothing new to regular Zapiro readers. When Israel voted for Sharon he mocked them with this cartoon, claiming that they were voting for war. When the Palestinians voted for Hamas he was...silent. But what do you expect from a cartoonist who thinks nothing of comparing Israelis to Nazis? (Granted he did later express regret at the Nazi cartoon. But it only proves that he is often inclined to act on impulse rather than thought.)

Sign Up for Martyrdom in Iran

An exhibition for Hamas in Iran allowed volunteers to sign up to become suicide bombers in Israel. President Mbeki has recently signalled unconditional support for both Iran and Hamas <sarcasm>so it would have been nice if he could have attended this exhibition</sarcasm>.

Mohammad (L) and Ganan Najarhai read a booklet about female suicide bombers as they sign up to volunteer as suicide bombers in support of the Palestinian people during an exhibition about Hamas at the former U.S. embassy in Tehran, April 17, 2006. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl