It's Almost Supernatural

Kasrils Calls in the Cavalry

The beleaguered Minister Kasrils, reeling from his intellectual trouncing by Israeli historian Benny Morris in the Cape Times, has enlisted the help of his ideological soul mate (if not his ideological role model) Dr Viginia Tilley.

In an article, ‘Defending Israel only serves to highlight the yoke Palestinian people live under’ published in the Cape Times, Tilley launches a scathing attack on Morris accusing him of using history, anti Arab racism, an Iranian nuclear energy scare, Islamophobia, 1967, Hitler, terror, science, and the Bible to confuse and cripple action (on Palestine).

It’s the Morris explanation of Israeli-Arab history that really gets to Tilley. Morris is after all a highly respected international Middle Eastern historian who has made a mockery of Minister Kasrils’s knowledge of Israel and the Jewish peoples’ past. Tilley writes:

‘Certainly we must understand this history but when history is used only to entangle debate we must be wary.’

In other words when history does not agree with your ideological position, then you must chuck it out the window. That’s a very scholarly approach. I hope Tilley writes this in her personal capacity and not in the name of the Human Sciences Research Council where she works. Otherwise it would be highly embarrassing for her employer.

Tilley too seems to be a master of Kasrilsspeak. Perhaps there is a course that one can attend at the Human Sciences Research Council. I would love to learn that dark art of holding 2 contradictory positions at the same time and not realising the intellectual problem. So after deriding the use of Middle East history with her ‘surely few topics are as numbing to general readers as arguments about who-did-what-to-whom in Israel- Palestine in some past decade or even in antiquity’, Tilley set about pointing fingers at Israel from antiquity to the present day.

She uses 20% of her article to quote from the 1955 diary of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett as proof of early Zionist aggression. She also spends ample space to delegitimise the Jewish biblical narrative, claiming that even a 10 year old could do so. We Jews must be really stupid then! For 2000 years we have yearned to return to Jerusalem when it is the Palestinians that really are the true descendants of the biblical Hebrews! Perhaps she can get her other intellectual bedfellow, Steven Friedman, who is steeped in Reform Judaism to change our daily prayers, religious festivals, wedding ceremonies and funerals to conform to this obviously ‘historical truth’.

To be honest, Tilley’s piece is hackneyed. We have heard it all before. It’s just a more sophisticated version of Minister Kasrils claptrap. I wish Tilley would take her own advice and stop numbing us with her arguments about who-did-what-to-whom in Israel- Palestine in some past decade or even in antiquity.

In related news, check out Guide to the Perplexed for Joel Pollak’s reply to the insulting comments Minister Kasrils made about him on the Johannesburg based radio station Channel Islam International. Pollak was originally a signatory to Kasrils’s ‘not in my name’ campaign but later dissented.

Previously at IAS

• Morris vs Kasrils round 1
• Morris vs Kasrils round 2

SA Jewish Future Imperfect

SA Jewish Future Imperfect During South Africa’s turbulent transition years, Judge Dennis Davis (an high level member of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies) hosted a TV talk show called Future Imperfect which confronted head on, the challenges facing our democracy in the making.

He has a regular column in the South African Jewish Report (SAJR), which I guess is supposed to be styled on a similar but more Jewish focused structure. His column unfortunately has of late become less of a vehicle for framing different perspectives on pertinent Jewish issues and more of a tool to chastise the parochial nature of South African Jewry. (I actually happen to agree with a lot of what Davis writes, but believe his dogmatic style only serves to antagonize the vast majority of South African Jews and push them further into their intellectual Ghetto). And so somewhat embarrassingly it has been left to Lawrence Hart in the Canadian Jewish News to lay out the potential ‘futures imperfect’ facing Zionist Jews in South Africa

Hart’s article entitled ‘South Africa Damns Israel’ describes the extreme anti-Zionist atmosphere that permeates the ruling classes in the new South Africa. The virulently anti-Israel behavior of Kasrils, COSATU and co, needs no further elaboration for readers of this blog. We probably could even supply Hart with a quote or too. But what is interesting is his hard hitting conclusions.

‘Unfortunately, the hostile positions articulated by Kasrils and the current ANC government are not isolated. They are manifestations of a seemingly visceral anti-Israel bias in a country that is still home to some 80,000 Jews… How an embattled and dwindling Jewish population copes with such an increasingly prejudiced environment remains to be seen. Treading a fine line between measured protest and reluctant acquiescence would seem to be the key to survival for those who are committed to staying put. The alternative, of course, is to emigrate. These have always been the only viable choices for Jewish South Africans, regardless of the differing political agendas that have plagued them during both the apartheid years and, perhaps even more strikingly, since then.’

It’s a damning but apt indictment of the behavior (both past and present) of the South African Jewish leadership. ‘Treading a fine line between measured protest and reluctant acquiescence’ is nothing to proud of. Yes we have impressive Jewish institutions and an extremely vibrant Jewish life here, but at what moral cost?

Kasrils Engaging in Hate Speech? Denial to Follow

South African Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils has allegedly called on Palestinians to unite and to turn their guns towards Israel.

Writing in the Cape Times on Monday, Israeli ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch said

Sadly, Ronnie Kasrils, the South African Minister of Intelligence, who recently visited the Palestinian Authority was quoted by the Palestinian media as having encouraged rival parties in Gaza to stop their infighting and direct their weapons toward their enemy. This is tantamount to incitement to the murder of more Israelis.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and the South African Human Rights Commission has vigorously defended Kasrils from allegations that he has engaged in hate speech. They argued that “the crucial element of incitement to cause harm must be present for any speech to be regarded as hate speech. Incitement means calling on people to engage in harmful actions; the call to action must be unambiguous.”

Well, if the Palestinian media reports are correct (and no doubt Kasrils will deny them) then there is now the crucial element of incitement to cause harm.

The Kasrils denial will come fast and furiously just like they have in the past (see Iran nuclear praise and Hamas invite). He relies heavily on the untrustworthy character of the media in the nations that he supports, allowing him to then easily deny anything that he ever says.

Update at 28/06/2007
It's only fair to point you to Kasrils's rebuttal of the ambassador's accusation. It has been posted in our comments section here.

Ronnie Kasrils vs Benny Morris Round 2: Kasrils Seethes

Last week South African Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils predictably responded to the article by Israeli New Historian Benny Morris and the letter from South African academic Professor Milton Shain. (See Morris vs Kasrils: Round 1)

Kasrils’s response, in the Cape Times, can be found here.

Kasrils’s reply is drenched with his special brand of Kasrilsspeak. He tries to portray a false picture of the moral and political world-views of Israel’s founding fathers in an attempt to make all other modes of thought on the conflict impossible.

You may remember that Morris challenged Kasrils to prove his claim that although the Zionists accepted the 1947 UN partition, they never intended to honour it. Morris said

Kasrils writes of 1947 that "the Zionists accepted (the UN partition resolution)... but never intended to honour this decision". How does he know this? The fact is that the, Zionist leadership accepted the decision and the Arab states and the Palestinian Arab leadership, very publicly rejected it and launched a war to nip Israel’s emergence in the bud.

The response from Kasrils? A splindly out-of-context Ben Gurion quote from 1938, 11 years prior to the 1947 partition being discussed!

Certainly, David Ben-Gurion was far more frank than Morris, the Zionist apologist, when he stated in 1938: "After we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine."

The quote was made in reference to the Peel Commission recommendations of 1937 which would have created an Israeli state in less than half of the land that was awarded in 1947. Ben Gurion always favoured a two state style solution. In a conversation with his son Omri he stated "all our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs in Palestine."

Kasrils searches for a more contextual quote and vainly brings in the following

And he said of the Arabs after the 1948-49 war: "They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country.

So what does that prove? That Ben Gurion thought that the Arabs saw them as foreign invaders! What a paradigm shifting revelation!

The fact is that Kasrils cannot prove his assertion. And Morris knows this because he spent years writing on this period, himself trying to prove that the ‘transfer’ idea was a mainstream Zionist strategy during the 30s (but not 40s). Morris knows that there is no evidence to back the claim that Israel never intended to honour the 1947 partition and he therefore challenged Kasrils

I challenge Kasrils to produce any documentation from the relevant period (November-December 1947) to the contrary.

The response from Kasrils?

Morris cynically challenges me to produce documentation to prove my assertion that the Zionists did not intend honouring the 1947 UN Partition Plan, because he is well-acquainted with Israeli archives and is aware that these particularly sensitive classified records have never seen the light of day.

The line of demonology works like this: (1) The Jewish Agency accepted the 1947 partition. Despite the lack of any supporting evidence we are to assume that they never intended to honour it, because they were Zionists. (2) The reason for the lack of supporting evidence is that it has been covered up by the Israelis. (This despite the fact that Israeli archives are openly available for researchers to study whilst Arab official archives have been totally inaccessible to researchers! ) Therefore, it follows that whenever it comes to Israel or “the Zionists” you must always assume the worst of intentions irrespective of what the facts say because when the facts defend Israel they have been distorted or covered.

The whole irony is that Kasrils once worshipped Benny Morris and even lovingly referenced him in an article he published earlier this year in the ANC Umrabulo journal. Kasrils wrote

The Zionists, and orthodox Israeli historians, claim the refugees went of their own accord. Israel's so-called "revisionist" historians such as Benny Morris ("Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem"), Ilan Pappe ("Arab-Israeli Conflict"), Avi Shlaim ("The Iron Wall"), Tom Segev ("The First Israelis") and Simha Flapan ("The Birth of Israel") have revealed the brutal truth, concealed from the Western public for decades - and put an end to the myths of the 1948- 49 war.

So in the space of a couple of months Morris has been downgraded from a reliable historian exposing brutal truths, to just another “Zionist apologist”!

But Kasrils is famous for quickly changing his tune (or twisting as I like to call it). In 1995 he was reported as saying

‘I think one cant easily push aside the effects of the Holocaust on the Jews and on Israel and I think when I look back, some of my criticism of Israeli foreign policy, of the wars that were fought were too one-sided. When I look back now I think I too easily adopted a position in which Israel was totally wrong and the neighbouring states and the people they went to war with were correct. It was certainly not clear-cut and the 1967 War, the Six Day War, you know, is a case in point.’

As for his reply to Milton Shain, Kasrils once again targets Judaism as a religion, writing the Biblical narrative off as a fallacy and mythology.

Cabinet ministers are supposed to have the interests of all South Africans at heart. It is unacceptable for them to publicly challenge the authenticity of specific religions.

Leon Slams ANC over Its Support for Hamas

Tony Leon, former head of the Official Opposition in parliament (and now Democratic Alliance (DA) spokesperson on foreign affairs) has slammed the South African Department of Foreign Affairs for ‘supporting the Hamas insurgents over the legitimate Fatah-led national unity government in Palestine’.

Last week South Africa used its United Nations Security Council seat to thwart a draft proposal condemning the violence in the Gaza Strip and voicing the Security Council’s support for President Abbas and the new Palestinian emergency government headed by Salam Fayad (South Africa chooses Hamas). South Africa together with Russia, Qatar and Indonesia objected to any efforts aimed at isolating the Hamas as a terrorist organization. Moreover South African ambassador to the United Nations Security Council, Dumisani Khumalo questioned the legitimacy of the Palestinian emergency government and blamed the international community, especially the U.S., Israel and the Quartet for the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Leon described this latest pro-Hamas behavior

‘as another example of the twisted logic that the (South African) Department of Foreign Affairs uses in the Middle East, where insurgents and terrorists are friends and allies of a government that purports to espouse the importance of democracy and human rights abroad.”

He also lambasted the government for betraying its own value:

‘For South Africa to be walking again on the wrong side of the Security Council road, and to support and comfort those practising violence and those thwarting democracy in the cauldron of Palestine, is a patent contradiction of stated government policy and a usurpation of common sense .’

I have long argued that South Africa, given its now enlarged international stature (UNSC seat) and the increasingly polarized nature of geopolitics could no longer get away with straddling the diplomatic fence. Their now outright support for Hamas in opposition to the foreign policy positions of most democratic nations and even major Arab governments has made it clear where we stand. Sadly, South Africa has chosen to be part of the broader Islamist-Far Leftist totalitarian camp.

The New and ‘Improved’ United Nations ‘Human Rights’ Council

This week the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a ‘reform’ package purportedly aimed at strengthening the organisation’s ability to combat human rights abuses around the world. The outcome however, was a return to the discriminatory practices of old. Israel’s actions have once again become a permanent item of the UNHRC’s annual agenda. At the same time they have removed Cuba and Belarus from the list of special mandates. It would seem that the more things are reformed at the United Nations the more they stay the same.

In other developments at the UNHRC this week, the council adopted 2 more resolutions condemning Israel raising its total condemnations of Israel to 11. Israel is the only country to be condemned by a UNHRC resolution. In response, highlighting the UNHRC’s sickening hypocrisy, UNWATCH Executive Director Hillel Neuer argued that

“After a week of slaughter by Palestinian gunmen that claimed some 100 lives—with Hamas and Fatah gunmen shooting hospital patients, throwing handcuffed men off of rooftops, and executing victims in mosques, universities and before their children’s eyes—and the firing of rockets into Israeli cities, it is all too typical of the Human Rights Council to slam Israel” (www.unwatch.org)

Deputy U.S. permanent representative at the United Nations, Alejandro Wolff, went even further accusing the council of "a pathological obsession with Israel".

South Africa is a major proponent of the UNHRC. South Africa has on numerous occasions argued that it should be strengthened at the expense of the ‘undemocratic’ Security Council. So adamant are our diplomats in this regard that they have even refused to condemn Burma’s human rights abuses at the Security Council, arguing that the issue belonged in the UNHRC. And yet South Africa voted for this latest ‘reform’ package.

This is shocking, but not surprising. South Africa’s voting record at the UNHRC has been even worse than its much criticised voting record in the Security Council. Human Rights Watchdog, UNWATCH, in their latest report ranked South Africa as having one of the most undemocratic voting records of any member of the council, including Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Cuba. This is a disgrace for a country that purports to champion of human rights.

Previously at IAS

• South Africa sets its UN voting record straight
• South Africa voting hall of shame continues
• South Africa backs UNSC move to condemn Israel
• South Africa supports one sided resolution condemning Israel after Gaza offensive
• UNSC convenes first session; Condemns Israel

Bias...What Bias?

This Sunday, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) talk show “In the Public Interest” debated the local coverage of the Israel Palestinian conflict with studio guests David Monyae, Ferial Haffegee and Professor Hussein Solomon.

The show provided a strong example of how SABC news and current affairs presenters take sides in the debate, even going to the lengths of answering their own questions before allowing their guests to answer.

Instead of probing the thoughts of the studio guests with challenging questions, the SABC presenter, obviously following orders (she read the question word-for-word from her notes), asked, and I quote

“Do you think there is little reporting of the difficulties that Palestinians face in their daily lives? And if uh, if, if Tel Aviv is bombed and 4 Israelis die in an attack then that makes international headlines and yet, you know, if Israel pounds Gaza and leaves 80 dead then you hardly hear about it except from smaller and more concentrated media.”

You hardly hear about it? Come on! What a grotesque inversion of reality. But it is no surprise.

The presenter then asked the studio guests if it is possible to get fair reporting on the conflict. If I was a guest I would have responded that it is possible but not at the SABC.

I would have reminded the SABC presenter that only last year the SABC head of news and current affairs Dr. Snuki Zikalaka admitted that he had a blacklist of journalists and commenters that were no longer acceptable to the SABC. Among the commenters and reporters on the list was Jewish reporter, Paula Slier. Zikalala allegedly said that he cannot have a “white Jewish girl” reporting on the Middle East. Zikalala defended his position saying, “from the movement I come from, we support the Palestinians… you can’t undermine the Palestinian struggle, you can’t. For me it’s a principle issue.”

Benny Morris vs. Minister Kasrils

To my great joy Israeli historian Benny Morris has taken up the mantle and publicly challenged South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils with a stinging article in today’s Cape Times: Kasrils paints a skewed picture of what really happened in the 6 Day War.

The irony is that Kasrils has relied heavily on selective and out-of-context quotes from Benny Morris’ work to support his anti-Israel crusade. Once again, Kasrils is left with humus on his face.

Israel did not, as Kasrils has it, withdraw from Sinai in 1977 - it withdrew in 1982. The quote from Herzl’s diary is not from 1897, it’s from 1895. And so on. Kasrils, surprisingly for an intelligence expert, really isn’t very good with details. Kasrils writes of 1947 that "the Zionists accepted (the UN partition resolution)... but never intended to honour this decision". How does he know this? The fact is that the, Zionist leadership accepted the decision and the Arab states and the Palestinian Arab leadership, very publicly rejected it and launched a war to nip Israel’s emergence in the bud. I challenge Kasrils to produce any documentation from the relevant period (November-December 1947) to the contrary. Kasrils writes that the Zionist movement "unjustly stole a land that belonged to another people". That’s a matter of opinion. The Jews have regarded the Land of Israel as theirs for 3 000 years. Most of the world acknowledged and accepted this. The Arabs, a people that emerged from Arabia 1 400 years ago, conquered and settled in that land (which they call Falastin, following an earlier conqueror’s designation of it as "Palaestina") and usurped the title deed. They certainly have no better claim to it than the Jews.

To read the full article click here.

As Mike once said, Benny Morris is an enigma. His book "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" has become the Bible for anti-Zionists the world over. In Israel he has been condemned as a so called "New Historian." But since the second Palestinian intifada Morris has become much more critical of Palestinian leaders, blaming them for the failure to reach an end of conflict settlement in 2000. Morris argues that Palestinian propagandists (like Kasrils) highlight only the parts of his work which cast Israel in a bad light whilst ignoring the parts which explain Israeli actions or detail Palestinian/Arab crimes.

For the first time, I can’t wait to see Kasrils take the bait and respond to the excellent Morris article. Kasrils seems to have immediate right of reply to any local articles on Israel so I am sure our minister won’t disappoint.

In related discourse, Kasrils will also surely respond to this clever letter to the Business Day written by University of Cape Town professor Milton Shain: Why so Naïve?

IAS Search - Kasrils

Which Elected Government Will South Africa Recognise?

Rhetoric:

Sad reality:

Left image: Television footage shows Fatah members being escorted out of the Preventive Security headquarters by Hamas gunmen in Gaza City June 14, 2007. Stripped to the waist, the Fatah defenders, their hands raised in surrender, were herded out of the compound by their Hamas captors. Medical workers said five people were killed in the battle and pavements were stained with blood. Hamas fighters on Thursday captured one of the last Gaza City bastions of forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Green Islamist flags fluttered from the rooftop of the Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City -- a powerful symbol to residents that Hamas had taken control after five days of bloodshed in which more than 80 people have been killed. REUTERS/Al-Aqsa TV via Reuters TV (GAZA). Right Image: A Fatah movement militant set the offices of a Hamas-affiliated charity on fire in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, June 15, 2007. Gaza is now under the control of Hamas, an Islamic movement with close ties to Syria and Iran. The West Bank, home to most of the Palestinian population, is dominated by the more moderate Fatah, which has ties to Israel and the West. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

A Palestinian Hamas gunman stands over pictures of Abbas and Yasser Arafat inside Abbas' personal office after it was taken over by Hamas in fighting in Gaza City. Photo: AP

(h/t: Anthony)

Chief Rabbi Goldstein: Israel is the Victim

South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein has written a powerful and savvy article in this week's Sunday Times: Look again: Israel is the victim, not the root of all evil

Rabbi Goldstein asks readers to stop and think before blaming Israel for all the problems in the Middle East.

In today’s world, any attempt to explain the Arab- Israeli conflict in terms other than “Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land” and the “denial of Palestinian nationalist aspiration” is often regarded like a declaration that the earth is flat and the centre of the universe. But what if this view is wrong? What if, in terms of understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are living in pre-Copernican times? What if the Jewish state that is considered to be the root of all evil in the Middle East were instead the victim? What if the apartheid of the Middle East is really one directed against the Jews? And what if Israel is the ANC of the Middle East? ... For the 19 years that Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip, the Arab world had the opportunity of establishing another Palestinian state in those territories, and chose not to. Why not? If the conflict is about Palestinian statehood, then why was there no talk whatever of a Palestinian state for all those 19 years?

Make sure to read the full article.