The Palestinian ambassador to South Africa declared last week before parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs that Hamas was mostly to blame for the recent crisis in Gaza.
In a surprisingly frank admission Ambassador Halimeh accused Hamas of ‘betraying the Palestinian cause by spreading disunity among Palestinians and giving Israel an excuse to go to war’. He cited Hamas’ violent coup in Gaza as the cause of internal Palestinian discord and described Hamas’ refusal to extend the recent truce with Israel as ‘a strategic mistake’ and complained that ‘the Palestinian people in Gaza are paying the price for it’.
Some of the South African Parliamentary committee members were not exactly thrilled by this honest submission. Job Sithole, the committee chairman and an African National Congress lawmaker, retorted that Hamas had won a democratic election to rule the territory. Other members of parliament accused Halimeh of speaking only for the Fatah faction and not for the Palestinian Authority as a whole, which the ambassador denied.
In another statement that can only have irked these anti-Israel parliamentarians even more, the Palestinian ambassador told the committee that the one-state solution to the Middle East crisis, although attractive to Palestinians, is simply not possible. "After 60 years we realise that it is not going to work," Halimeh said.
Israel’s new ambassador to South Africa, Dov Segev-Steinberg, also made a submission. He accused South Africa of having a ‘one-sided’ approach towards the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and argued that if it adopted a ‘more balanced attitude’, the country could help in bringing peace to the Middle East.
But all of this seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
The committee came out strongly against Israel and called for a review of diplomatic ties between the two countries. ANC MP Mewa Ramgobin expressed the view that ‘South Africa cannot say trade, trade and more trade with Israel while this holocaust goes on in Palestine. We need to review our own stance in continuing to sell arms to Israel. We need to review our diplomatic ties’.
So now it would seem that South Africa’s political representatives see themselves as more Palestinian than the Palestinians. Whose interests do they think they are really representing? Certainly not South Africas.
I see nothing at all wrong with the fine upstanding people of SA hosting any and all Hamas terrorists fleeing their great victory in Gaza. If SA becomes another Sudan or Somalia, then let freedom ring.
Posted by: Empress Trudy | January 22, 2009 at 03:47
ET
A very wise person said to me about 5 years ago that SA was then where Algeria was around 20 years years before.
Posted by: Brett | January 22, 2009 at 09:55
the Palestinian ambassador to SA is more critical of the Palestinians than uh many so-called Jews, the SA media and the ANC. Go figure.
ET I know how you feel, but schadenfreude should be avoided I think - still I know exactly how you feel. I feel the same way sometimes about the Jew-hating Europeans. Still not all Jews in SA can leave the country at the drop of a hat, especially the elderly. We should not wish them to live in an environment that Jews are experiencing in France and now the UK, since just like French Jews it is not so easy to just pack your bags and leave, especially if you are older than 35 with a family etc.
The answer is not ultimately to feel schadenfreude, but to educate (as Mike and Steve try to do, and I often think they are too soft on our critics!) even though it feels like trying to stop the waves crashing on the shore. I am not naive in this regard trust me (Mike and Steve think I'm a cynic), it's just about transcending the hate directed our way. For our own sakes.
Posted by: Lawrence | January 22, 2009 at 13:23
doesn,t our Government know what,s happening in Zimbabwe or is it too close too home and rather embarassing specially when Morgan Tsvangirai won more than 55% of his country ,s vote in supposedly free from intimidation and downright harassment ,elections.What do Muslims
care about democracy when Hamas kiled many Fatah members in Gaza ,and then devastated the economy and infrastructure of a territory they were called upon to rule?Hypocrisy by our ministers in Parliament ,stinks .
Posted by: Samuel | January 23, 2009 at 14:07
it's an age-old tactic, Samuel - divert attention from the numerous disasters on the home-front by attacking the Jews, in this case the Jew nation. Nothing new under the sun. It's been going on for centuries.
The ANC gets to divert attention from its years of misrule and corruption by vilifying and demonising the Jew nation, not just in SA btw but around the world governments and media do this.
As an aside, I just thought I would mention that Obama the messiah's first phone call to an international leader was to Mahmoud "Allah loves the martyr" Abbas, Holocaust denying terrorist supporter who has never accepted Israel's existence, and helped to finance the Black September Munich Massacre in 1972, you know our "partner for peace" - this sends a disturbing message, the alarm bells are ringing. His FIRST call. I'm sure 78% of American Jews are happy.
Posted by: Lawrence | January 23, 2009 at 14:45
This raises a very interesting point indeed.
Apologists for the governments pro-Palestinian policies often say "you cant blame the ANC for supporting the Palestinians because the Palestinians supported them during Apartheid".
But it was the PLO/Fatah with whome they had this relationship then.
Prior to 1990 when the ANC was unbanned there was certainly no realtionship between the ANC and Hamas (probabely not even before 1994).
So why are they suporting Hamas against Fatah-this automatically rules out them doing so as a debt to those who helkped them, i.e to their old struggle buddies.
That leaves only pure ahtred of Israel and support for whoever hates Israel the most and is most violent towards Israelis.
Posted by: Gary | January 23, 2009 at 15:36
I just thought I would post this up, bring it to people's attention, on just how bad poverty is in Israel, over 17 000 people lost their jobs in December, in a tiny country like Israel, that is big, over 1.6 million Israelis live below the poverty line - I find it difficult to believe and I live in Eretz Yisrael remember.
Read the horrifying facts below
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232643736230&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
I also want to add something, this ecomominc crisis in Israel and the poverty there is made worse by Judenhass motivated boycotts and disinvestments, something the likes of Nathan Geffen explicitly support, but he has nothing against the Jews don't you know? This is just one reason why I do not care for civil discourse and politeness directed to the likes of him...
Posted by: Lawrence | January 25, 2009 at 19:21
Good point, Lawrence, the likes of Ronnie Kasrils, Steven Friedman, Doron Isaacs, Natahn Geffen and Jonathan Berger are causing Jewish children to starve.
It is actually criminal to try to accomodate them, given this reality.
Posted by: Gary | January 25, 2009 at 19:29
In Genesis 12:3, God promises, "I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you…"
The Hebrew word "bless" is the same both times, but the Hebrew for "curse" is two different words.
This difference shows exactly what opens one up to God's curse.
God's "curse," aw'rar, means to strongly curse, to denounce, to loathe, to declare hateful. The word
is first used when God cursed Satan for deceiving Eve (Gen. 3:14). Next is when God cursed the
ground as part of Adam's punishment (3:17). Third, the curse that resulted from Cain murdering his
brother (4:11). Then Genesis 12:3, where God declares He will "curse" those who
"curse/despise" [see below] His people, the children of Abraham. Genesis 27:29 repeats this as God
includes those who "curse/despise" the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. Hundreds of years
later this is reaffirmed when God warns the prophet Balaam not to curse His people because they are
blessed (Num. 22:12). Balaam then, in the presence of their enemy, proclaims this divine protection
over the people of Israel (24:9).
Besides hatred towards Israel, another reason for a curse coming on peoples and societies is
humanism, the worship of mankind. "Thus says LORD, 'cursed is the man that trusts in man, and
makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from LORD'" (Jer. 17:5).
God feels so strongly about certain issues that He listed twelve things that bring a curse - even upon
His blessed people (Deut. 27:14-26): idolatry, dishonoring parents, moving a neighbor's borders,
deceiving/ harming the helpless, perverting justice for the powerless, a man having sex with his
father's wife, having sex with animals, incest, a man having sex with his mother-in-law, violence
toward a neighbor, taking payment to kill the innocent, and any person not in agreement with these
laws.
South Africa must be careful what they believe and who they support.
Posted by: Carl Muller | January 28, 2009 at 16:44