Sparks Smears Israel at International Investment Conference

With Israel bashing having become the celebrated sport of our media I often wonder just how far and deep this anti Israel sentiment has pervaded the rest of our society. A recent Stanlib International Investment Conference provided some uncomfortable answers.

What follows is the sad tale of a lecture at an International Investment conference that turned into an expression of prejudice, ignorance, and gross double standards.

Stanlib is a combination of two of the strongest financial services brands in the South African financial services industry – Standard Bank and Liberty Life.

Stanlib recently held their 2006 International Investment Conference. The Johannesburg leg of the conference took place at the Sandton Convention Centre on August 24. The Conference agenda, available here, read like any typical investment conference agenda.

One session however veered way off target and turned into an anti-Israel smear job. The session was entitled “Is it a threat? Global Politics – Best and Worst Case Scenarios for South Africa.” It’s a seemingly legitimate topic for an international investment conference –what goes on in the Middle East does have significant consequences for investors in South Africa. There was just one problem – Allister Sparks.

At this point I must point out that I did not attend the conference. Whatever I say is based on a presentation pack that I have in my possession which was handed out to all of the delegates at the conference. The pack contains the slides from all of the sessions. I base this review on an examination of the slides from the presentation pack coupled with my prior knowledge of the views held by Allister Sparks – who has been the subject of numerous critiques on this blog.

I am giving Stanlib the benefit of the doubt in this matter. Sparks is after all widely regarded as a leading South African political analyst. Stanlib would have expected Sparks to stick to the topic – that is, “Best and Worse Case Scenarios for South Africa.” I don’t think that one’s ability to discuss potential investment scenarios should be prejudiced by inverse-morality positions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Sparks opened his presentation with a brief account of the Middle East and oil which seemed to subtly conclude that the US targeted Iraq in order to satiate their excess demand for oil.

The remaining 12 slides all focused on Israel.

First Sparks presented three slides showing questionable maps which were sourced from a Palestinian group called the Palestinian Mapping Centre. The first slide showed two maps with a West Bank that contains an almost horizontal southern border – something I have never seen on any map before.

The maps were designed to try and convince the audience that Israel is carving the West Bank up into a series of “Apartheid style” Bantustans. The final map goes so far as to project a fictitious eastern belt onto the Israeli security barrier. In reality this eastern belt does not exist nor is there any planned route for its future existence. It’s a complete invention by Sparks (or perhaps by the Palestine Mapping Centre) designed to create the illusion of disparate West Bank “Bantustans”. This point is significant - Sparks needs to use imaginary sections of the barrier because the current route simply does not support his Bantustan thesis.

In fact, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last year commented on maps like the ones used by Sparks which allege that the Palestinians will be encircled by all sides.

“By contrast, official Palestine Liberation Organization maps, until recently, claimed that Sharon would build fences to encircle the Palestinians from all sides, taking approximately 50 percent of the West Bank and creating “bantustans” that would sharply undermine the idea of a two-state solution. Last week’s cabinet move seems to nullify, once and for all, that possibility.”

Sparks’ most recent article for the Independent group of newspapers also argued that Israel is turning the West Bank into a series of Bantustans. The argument doesn’t hold. Under Apartheid white South Africans created Bantustans to pen black people into reservoirs of labour. It was a racial separation.

Israel is not trying to create a reservoir of Palestinian labourers, on the contrary Israel is trying to reduce its number of Palestinian labourers.

The separation that Israel pursues via the two state solution is not a racial separation. It is a national separation of two separate peoples competing for the same land based upon compromise and the relinquishing of the dreams of total victory. The lines of division will be based upon separating areas with a Jewish majority from areas with a Palestinian majority, allowing two states for two peoples.

The last 5 slides supposedly show what the Arab media has been saying about this conflict. I think this was just a thinly disguised form of racism on the part of Sparks. Stanlib decided to censor these slides- Sparks was not allowed to display them during the presentation. But the damage was already done because these slides were already included in the presentation pack.

One of these censored-but-not-censored slides shows the graphical image of a dead Arab baby.

And so I am forced to conclude that anti-Israel sentiment has indeed made deep and dark penetrations into general South African society. How else can one explain the need to devote an hour to this at an International Investors conference?

I hope that STANLIB have learned that Sparks can no longer be trusted to speak at future events.

Update:
STANLIB have sent a letter to all delegates distancing themselves from interpretations of them having any "ideological prejudice with regard to the conflict in the Middle East in general or the Jewish community."

Their letter indicates that they were aware of the content of the presentation prior to the lecture but they viewed the contents as a "dispassionate analysis" of the situation in the Middle East. Whilst falling short of an apology their letters admits that they were naive.

Read the letter here.

Comments

[Derikboy]

Hmmm, you should've told me about this. I would've attended in your stead.

The pack is no longer available either, perhaps it caused a bit of a stir with others as well.

[Lawrence]

can't believe I ever admired Sparks in the past, back when he authored "The Mind of South Africa", but there you go, the Jew-hate meme has infested the political Left to such a degree that it still leaves me almost speechless and gobsmacked. When Albert Camus wrote "The Plague", it was a metaphor for the plague of Nazism that had swept through Europe, his book and its central metaphor applies AS MUCH these days to the Western Left.

Changing the subject, Here is an excellent article
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1316
by the always excellent Melanie Phillips on the Jew-hate lies and sins of omission of the western media on the Lebanon war and its disastrous consequences for the West and Jewry which even those of us who are more than aware of all the anti-Israel bias in the media often don't recognise properly or deeply enough. Melanie Phillips is one of the best in the UK for documenting the endless distortions and hateful bias of the British media on Israel. She used to work for the Guardian but left them because of their endless Jew-hatred. Julie Burchill left the Guardian for the same reasons.

Anyhow read the whole article, it hits the nail on the head.

oh yeah I am typing this from Israel, arrived the other day.

[Steve]

Thanks Lawrence. Meanie Phillips is brilliant and the article your referring to is definitely a must read. I remember an excellent article by Julie Burchill which she wrote just before she left. A simple search should find it.

The reasons Sparks is so revered is largely because of his fine work under Apartheid. But today he has been unable to adapt to a free South Africa. He needs an evil empire and because it is no longer SA it has left a void which he has filled with an imaginery devil.

Enjoy Israel!