On Tuesday this week Ronnie Kasrils spoke at Wits University in Johannesburg as a guest of the Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee (WPSC). I was hoping to attend but couldn’t make it so I don’t have a detailed report but here's a report from the Citizen.
By KENNEDY MUDZULI SOLIDARITY movements should put pressure on governments worldwide to impose sanctions on Israel, the way they did with South Africa, to ensure that country liberates itself from racial paradigms, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said yeserday. He told students at the University of the Witwatersrand yesterday the situation in the Holy Land was similar to that in South Africa during the apartheid era. He said it could be resolved through boycott and isolation as foreign governments had done successfully with apartheid South Africa. Kasrils, a former Wits student and founder of the Not In My Name South African He said: "South Africans have seen it all - from what can be achieved through violence towards a democratic nation to how crucial negotiations are to bring about democracy and justice for all. "As far as Palestine is concerned, South Africans should stand for a solution that guarantees peace for the people of Palestine without prescribing whether or not they adopt a proposal by the Zionists that the country be an exclusively Jewish state." Muslims, Christians and other religions in that country want it to accommodate all religions and races, a view supported by the WPSC. WPSC members told The Citizen they wanted the "apartheid-riddled holy land" to be like South Africa and accommodate all its citizens "regardless of religion, race, gender and sexual orientation". Academic, consumer and cultural boycotts of Israeli institutions, organisations and products were proposed at the rally Kasrils, a South African of Jewish Lithuanian descent, added that South Africans could assist through acts of solidarity. He hoped this would assist to bring about peace in that country as it had done in South Africa. |
I believe that many PSC students are probably acting out of sincere - though misinformed and misdirected - concern.
The naive PSC students probably believe their own propaganda but I am confident that Kasrils knows that there already is a country in the Middle East that accommodates all religions and races and it is called Israel. Israel is a secular democracy with a Jewish majority and a substantial Muslim minority where all races and all religions are accommodated as equal citizens.
Twenty percent of Israel’s citizens are Muslim. They have the right to vote, they can form political parties and are elected to the Israeli Knesset. An Israeli Arab sits in the Israeli Supreme Court. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with female Muslim judges. I could go on and on and on.
For more, browse through the IAS apartheid section.
Predictably, Kasrils likened the ANC freedom fighters to Palestinian terrorists. It’s important that students know how to challenge these feeble attempts at revising the past and distorting the present.
You can start by reading this post on comparing the ANC to Hamas and then this post comparing the ANC’s freedom charter to the hateful PLO charter.
A peaceful settlement will require an end to the hateful attitudes and speech that Kasrils both employs and helps create.
UPDATE
Wits student site Vuvuzela also has a report of the Kasrils talk: Learn facts about the Jewish state, says Kasrils.
Kasrils is called minister of intelligence but has no intelligence. The words that fall out of his mouth are not worth the polluted air they land on.
If Kasrils was alive at the time of the holocaust or resident in nazi Germany does he believe he would have escaped murderalong with the other 6 million jews who died simply because they were jewish.
Kasrils should emigrate to palestine and join the hamas government
Posted by: Don Peterson | October 06, 2006 at 14:36
Now thats an idea I would certainly support.
Posted by: mike | October 06, 2006 at 17:09
The PA is always looking for extra help with internal repression of dissidents. Ronnie must have picked up a thing or two during his training in the Soviet Union. Hereby put forward his nomination for Minister of internal security in the new PA unity government.
Posted by: mike | October 06, 2006 at 18:00
No no...as a clever letter writer once observed...he would be minister of de-fence!
Posted by: Steve | October 08, 2006 at 21:16
Hey guys, this is exactly the response Kasrils wants. He does it for sensationalism. It is his only way of ever getting recognition. He wants to provoke a response and you are playing into his hands.
Anonymous
Posted by: | October 11, 2006 at 08:18
Anonymous I think you are wrong. Kasrils is a minister in the SA government. He is certainly not starved of attention.
What you advocate is just ignoring him in the hope he will go away. The Jews of Europe adopted the same approach to Hitler and look at the result. The only way to fight anti-Semitism is to speak out and expose its lies and falsehoods.
Posted by: mike | October 11, 2006 at 10:37