It's Almost Supernatural

Smoking Socks Award: Neutral Humanist slams Israel supporters

Here's our latest smoking socks award winner from a neutral “humanist” praising the Sunday Independent for their bravery in speaking truth to power!

The letter writer makes a strange case justifying his right to be anti-Semitic. The Sunday Independant love it - in fact, it’s a fantastic follow-up to their previous smoking socks award for a letter they had the “courage” to publish entitled “Holocaust figure of 6 million is made up”.

Coverage of ME conflict is courageous I HAVE followed with great interest the raging debate in the Sunday Independent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The paper must be commended for admirably fulfilling its function of being the vital conduit of democratic freedom of expression. It is one of the few newspapers or electronic media not cowed into suppressing such topics, by the bullying from lobby groups with undemocratic motives. As a humanist I won’t align with either camp. Whether it is a Palestinian bomb killing families in a supermarket, or an Israeli war crime using white phosphorus in a military assault on a civilian area, I am equally saddened by mankind’s inhumanity. I am perplexed by the Israeli supporters’ aversion to criticism which they demonise as anti-Semitic. It seems to me that some Israelis are exploiting the world’s sympathy for their awful historic Holocaust. The major world powers are loath to countenance the slightest criticism of any Israeli wrongdoing or atrocity. If I am sickened by an American outrage like torture in Guantanamo, I can be anti-American. I can be similarly anti-Arab if I detest some of their unsavoury practices, and anti-British if I abhor their slavish lap-dog pandering to American war-mongering. When I am disgusted by the mighty Israeli war machine reducing Beirut’s civilian areas to rubble in weeks of bombardment because two of their soldiers were captured, or see images of their bulldozers flattening homes in Jerusalem’s Arab ghetto, surely I could be justifiably “anti-Semitic.” When the media suppresses such thorny comments, it actually helps to prolong the terrible strife. Hopefully, the more such topics are fully debated, hot heads on both sides might be embarrassed into genuine peace efforts which will give their families the security that can never be achieved on the battlefield.

The letter was so good, it was accompanied with an image that took up the same space that the letter was awarded.

No official organ of the South African Jewish community regards criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Yes, there are individual reactionaries who behave in this manner, but the same can be said of the Muslim community and the charge of Islamophobia - specifically omitted by this letter writer.

The problem is that very often, the criticism is anti-Semitic, often mocking our tragic past by painting us as the new Nazis, provoking a legitimate response which is then used by other "humanists" to allege that we regard any criticism as anti-Semitic. We can't win!

The Smoking Socks Award: Holocaust figure of 6 million is a lie

I’ve stayed away from the letters pages of our Sunday newspapers for a while now and I think I’m better off for it. This week, however, I made the mistake of paging through the Sunday Independant and I came upon this piece of drek of a letter from AK Mia: Holocaust figure of six million is made up.

Worldwide it is accepted by all and sundry that more non-Jews than Jews perished from Nazi pogroms against non-Aryans in Europe. No accurate or reliable figures are available on the exact toll of deaths from Nazi atrocities but after years of trial and error the miraculous figure of 6 million Jewish dead (a figure sacrosanct to Jewish people and the West) was rammed down the world's throat and, as if this was not enough, it is now considered blasphemous vis-a-vis Jews and even criminal in many European quarters ( France, Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands ) and Israel - all places where freedom of speech/expression is entrenched into law to raise even the most innocuous question on the authenticity of the miraculous figure. Does the spectre of a university lecturer in France being axed from his post for daring to offer an alternative view on 9/11 that it was a joint US/Israeli operation and not a Muslim one - as conventional wisdom will have us believe - now introduce a new technique in the battle to win over minds and hearts by disseminating only the material we want the world to hear and read about and shutting up all dissenting voices by any means fair or foul? And this not in a banana republic or Third World countries with tin-pot rulers. Small wonder that this new tactic is directed at saving face for Americans and Jews. AK Mia

Here’s a sterling response from Don Krausz, chairman of the Association of Holocaust Survivors in Johannesburg:

A.K.Mia’s letter of 8-3-09 headed “Holocaust figure of six million dead is made up” refers.

Why does he not deny the Holocaust in totality? Because when we Jews were either taken to the gas chambers or shot in situ by the Germans and their collaborators, a few hundred thousand survived. It was not the figure of Six Million that was miraculous as Mia states, but that there were any survivors at all. Those survivors tended to return to their previous homes in the usually forlorn hope that members of their family would do the same. When hardly anyone else came back they were left with the question: WHERE ARE THOSE PEOPLE?

How does one arrive at Six Million? The vast majority of victims came from Europe. There they would have had to participate in periodic census takings, listing their religion. A village that had housed a Jewish population of, say, 60%, would be without Jews next time the census came around. Where were all the Jews? The locals would be able to direct the census officials to nearby mass graves.

How would one corroborate the statements of the villagers? Germans are very methodical people and would provide headquarters with the statistics of those murdered. That documentation is open for inspection to this day.

I am sure that the above cannot be too complicated for A.K.Mia to understand.

Why would countries such as France, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands and Israel legislate that denial of the Holocaust or aspects thereof was a criminal offence?

Because the perpetrators were recognised as criminals and those that supported the atrocities by denying them or aspects thereof ipso facto had to be of a criminal disposition as well.

The Holocaust is recognised the world over for the atrocity that it was. Why should the A.K.Mias of this world express doubts about it? The answer may lie in the previous paragraph.

When a university lecturer in France loses his job for opining that 9/11 was a joint US/Israeli operation and Mia quotes this individual in support of his fantasies then I begin to understand the legislation against such hate-driven lies.

Don Krausz – chairman. Association of Holocaust Survivors in Johannesburg.

The Smoking Socks Award: CSO compared to Jewish Kapos

The scratching pens of deranged Israel-haters have been so hard at work over the past few weeks that I haven’t had the stomach to look through the list and select the worst of the worst. Last week, however, a prime candidate for a Smoking Socks Award surfaced from the Jewish Report.

I don’t really care for the concerns of individuals when they invoke the Nazi comparisons, and this is what one Jewish letter writer did when he described the Jewish communal security organisation (CSO) as a bunch of Kapos. It’s an extremely inflammatory comparison and one that precludes the letter writer from having his views taken seriously. For readers that might not know what the term Kapo means, it was used to refer to Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust, who were forced to carry out the will of the Nazi camp commandants and guards.

Here's an excerpt from the letter entitled, Taking a dim view of the CSO presence at the PSC rally

I was at the protest and could not believe the way the CSO security personnel were manhandling some of the Jewish people who were there. The Jewish activists, who came there that day, did not arrive at the scene desiring CSO protection. There were several Jewish men who wanted to challenge these inciting, racist, Jew-hating, antagonising protesters. Both Jewish camps (the bystanders and the activists) did not want, nor desire protection from the CSO whose post-adolescent pre-mortgage paying members behaved like Jewish Kapos from the Second World War. These Jewish Kapos from the CSO, who have no jurisdiction over a public road, prevented several Jews from confronting the Muslim and other demonstrators that day. The consequence was that the CSO inadvertently protected these sworn enemies of the Jews. Deterrence lost. Wake up! They forfeited their right to freedom of speech and assembly years ago when their speech, actions and ideology became both hateful and dangerous to their fellow south-Africans.

We, correctly, reacted with disgust when COSATU and the PSC marched into our neighbourhood with a swastika implying that we are as bad as the Nazis were. We should react with the same contempt when fellow Jews belittle the suffering endured during the Holocaust with similar comparisons.

The Smoking Socks Award - who's a 'terrorist'?

I haven't trawled the letters pages of our media for some time now but this morning's Mail & Guardian sports a pearler, which IAS readers will know is exactly the sentiment shared by their editorial staff.

Who’s a ‘terrorist’? One feels for the people of India. Still, one can’t help but feel that the word “terrorist” Is far too easily employed in the media. Other more neutral words would be more prudently used in these kinds of situations. In last week’s editorial you wrote eloquently about being circumspect regarding the words politicians use. The subtext of the word “terrorism” when the targets are from the West is that the local people are inherently less valuable than Americans, Britons, Israelis and Australians. The media uses “militants” when local people are killed but when the victims are Westerners the actions are labelled “terrorism”. — Craig

Does anyone believe Craig really does "feel" for the people of India? Hands up. No? That's what I thought. I find it incredibly annoying when lefties invert this situation, complaining about reality even though it's spun in a way that they support. The overwhelming policy in local and international media outlets has been to use the word 'militants' when describing attacks against Americans, Israelis et al. I have seen the word 'terrorism', however, used with increasing frequency to describe the attacks in India. If anything, the exact reverse of what Craig whinges about applies. 

Do you think Craig ever reads the newspapers? Hands up. No? That's what I thought.

Smoking Socks Award: Kalvari Inverts Reality

The Smoking Socks award is presented to a letter writer in a South African paper whose funky smelling socks have induced him/her into a bout of prejudiced stupidity.

This week's smoking socks award goes to the the self righteous Damon Kalvari for his letter to this week’s Jewish Report which sports an off the charts insanity-to-credibility ratio.

In his pathetic letter, Kalvari argues that the SABC was fully justified in axing journalist Paula Slier.

Well done Damon...you must be very proud.

Kalvari is no stranger to IAS. The last time we mentioned him he even dropped a comment defending his puppety attack on the film Obsession.

Kalvari writes

'I suspect the SABC’s axing of Paula Slier’s Ramallah reports to be more a case of quality control than anti-Semitism. Incorrectly reporting Arafat’s death would be considered a very serious error, and I think the SABC was justified. A journalist “on the ground”, close to a story shouldn’t be relying on other news services, especially Sky, not the most credible of news providers in my opinion. I suspect Paula Slier was just watching the TV news, and doing her reporting second-hand. A dead-giveaway is the perfect audio, with no background noise, and no sound-bytes either.’

The SABC didn't just blacklist Paula Slier. Does Kalvari side with the SABC's decision to blacklist journalists that were critical of President Mbeki or of the South African government's stance on Zimbabwe?

It's worth noting that Kalvari is actually employed by the SABC he so fiercely defends. He is the content producer for 5FM’s Gareth Cliff show. (He previously worked at Talk-Radio 702.)

Kalvari pretends that its only Paula’s Ramallah reports that were axed when Zikalala actually banned all of her reports. In fact, as Paula revealed to us, she has had problems with Zikalala since she was first employed at the SABC because he feared that he would not get the slants on the reports that he wanted.

Kalvari deliberately smears Paula’s character in what can only be a bid to pander to his bosses at the SABC. His claim that she was ‘just watching the TV news, and doing her reporting second hand” is slanderous and reveals a spiteful, jealous and nasty nature.

Paula was in fact outside the Muqata when she reported on Arafat’s death and despite Kalvari's impertinent analysis, her presence there is indeed confirmed by the live reports that she delivered for 702 over the subsequent two days.

With his assertion that Sky is not a credible source of information, Kalvari reveals a bug-eyed nuts anti-Western bias. It's interesting that he doesn't mention anything about al-Jazeera. Both Sky and al-Jazeera reported on Arafat's death prior to Paula's report.

But these personal attacks are just subterfuge. Zikalala’s own testimony before the commission of enquiry into the SABC blacklist proves that his decision to ban Slier had nothing to do with quality and were purely politically motivated. “From the movement where I come from we support PLO” and the conflict is a “Jewish war”. He described her support for a two state solution as “very, very negative towards us.”

How on earth does Kalvari side with Zikalala on this issue? Do his negative attitudes towards Israel cloud his thinking on every related issue?

Damon Kalvari, while we present you with this award, at the same time we also remove from you any credibility that you may have once possessed.

Smoking Socks Award: The Red Ronnie Rage

The Smoking Socks award is presented to a letter writer in a South African paper whose funky smelling socks have induced him/her into a bout of prejudiced stupidity.

The tide of erratic abuse in the letters section of our newspapers reached such extreme levels during the Lebanon war that we stopped scanning the letters for smoking socks awards. But the sequence of letters following an article by Kasrils in the Cape Times in which he presumably acquiesced to government demands to support a two state solution (for pragmatic reasons) has been particularly entertaining.

Ronnie's childish demeanour (boosted by his high profile status) ensures that he always has the last say and for this he gets our latest Smoking Socks award. In his latest red rant he accuses a previous letter writer of the wrongs that he himself is guilty of.

(Three other examples of Ronnie having the last say in order to bully those that dare to criticise him are here, here and here. Note the vicious bullying tone of his vengeful responses.)

Well done Ronnie...you deserve it.

David Hersch's letter ("Kasrils is a caricaturist", September 27) is an example of the cheap and lazy ad hominem school of debate. The substance of the issue is blithely ignored as the player and not the ball is maliciously kicked. I gave a substantive example to illustrate my point, which is the antithesis of Hersch's diatribe. But then when did the SA Zionist Federation ever show tolerance of any critical statement concerning Israel? RONNIE KASRILS, MP CAPE TOWN

Ronnie's previous letter personally insulted the South African ambassador to Israel - Ronnie played the man and not the ball when he wrote "ISRAELI Ambassador, Ilan Baruch, shows he cannot follow a debate" and "It appears that anything other than black or white is difficult for the ambassador to grasp".

Ronnie's response to the ambassador was anything but a substantive reply to the ambassador's previous article - read it for yourself.

For the record, I thought the David Hersch letter was pretty good. In the name of good faith and transparent comment I provide it in full below.

RONNIE kasrils is an imaginative advocate of unconvincing and failed world-movements, a bundle of prejudices, intuitions, ignorance, halfsciences and distorted history. He takes an aspect of truth, detaches it from its circumstances, inflates it, twists and remodels it, until its old likeness and its new likeness together are unrecognisable. These pseudo insights are his triumph. He is a caricaturist rather than a serious commentator on the Middle East. It is noted that kasrils this time signed the letter to the Cape Times (September 25) in his official capacity. It is time for the minister to genuinely choose whether he writes as a minister of the South African government or truly in his personal capacity. If he chooses the former, he is in conflict with the government's stated policy on the Middle East and therefore prompts the question: Can a cabinet minister have a personal role that conflicts with his government? In reality it is Kasrils who is unable to distinguish between black and white, and continues to confuse his official and personal role. Kasrils's glib accusation that the Israeli ambassador failed to understand the debate is merely a projection by Kasrils of his own inability to objectively and constructively engage in a debate on the Middle East. DAVID HERSCH, CHAIRMAN, WESTERN PROVINCE ZIONIST COUNCIL NATIONAL VICE CHAIRMAN, SA ZIONIST FEDERATION

So is Kasrils projecting his own faults like Hersch alleges?

• Personal insults instead of tackling the substantive issues? Check.
• Ignoring the substance (his conflict with the government's stated policy) and replying with ad-hominem attacks? Check
• Intolerance of any critical statements directed towards him. Check.

Smoking Socks Award

The Smoking Socks award is awarded to a letter writer in a South African paper whose funky smelling socks have induced him/her into a bout of prejudiced stupidity.

The smoking socks award goes to a writer from Newlands for his letter in this week’s Mail and Guardian in support of the horrendous McGreal article on the parallels between Israel and Apartheid South Africa.

The writer once again uses the conflict in the Middle East as a stick to beat South African Jews. He calls on South African Jews to recognise that ‘Palestinians are indeed the victims of the victims.’ (A phrase he borrowed from the much discredited professor Edward Said). Most South African Jews, he claims, have never met a Palestinian and thus advises them to see Paradise Now which brings home how ‘the daily humiliation of Palestinians under occupation reproduce the cycle of violence.’

Chris McGreal’s comparison of Israel and apartheid South Africa (March 3) raised numerous issues for South African and Israeli Jews, including the role of histories of victimhood in reproducing repressive political ideologies. Israel and apartheid South Africa share histories of victimhood and collective suffering that resulted in the former victims establishing repressive political regimes. Both the Holocaust and the British concentration camps contributed towards exclusivist ethno-nationalism, which made Palestinians and black South Africans become “victims of the victims”, to borrow from the late Edward Said. The challenge McGreal’s article presents for South African Jews is to see that Palestinians are indeed the “victims of the victims”. Since most South African Jews have never met a Palestinian, I advise them to see Paradise Now, which brings home how the daily humiliations of Palestinians under occupation reproduce the cycle of violence.

Why is it that only South African Jews are forced to condemn the activities of their co-religionists? Why are Muslim South African’s not forced to condemn Palestinian suicide bombings or members of the Russian orthodox church in South Africa not called on to denounce the actions of the Russian army in Chechnya? This hypocrisy is infuriating.

Furthermore his monolithic view of South African Jews and (Palestinians for that matter) is extremely naïve. South African Jews hold diverse opinions on all issues including Israel. Many Jews even bad Zionist ones like myself chose to see Paradise Now long before the writer's letter. The letter writer will perhaps also be shocked to know that I have met numerous Palestinians as well. I wonder how many Palestinians the letter writer has in fact met? I would not be surprised if Edward Said’s book is his only source for information on the conflict. And he was not even Palestinian.

My discussions with them and my viewing of the film have led me to believe that yes Palestinians are victims. But not of Israel and Jews but of their own leaders. Palestinian rejectionism is the cause of their plight. 1947 … 1967… 2000 how many times could they have had an independent state. Add to that the treatment of Palestinian refugees in Arab states. But what would the letter writer know of that.

The letter writer would perhaps also be shocked to learn that during the years of direct Israeli military administration of the territories (what he calls the ‘occupation’), the standard of living of ordinary Palestinians was far better than under Ottoman, British, Jordan, Egyptian and even Palestinian rule. More schools, hospitals and university for Palestinians were built during 1967 to 1993 (Israeli) than any other time in history.

To the letter writer: your prejudice, ignorance and socks make for a horrible cocktail of Middle East commentary. Congratulations on our award. It's quite a feat considering the hostility of the South African media.

View previous Smoking Socks Award winners here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.