LETTER: ANC again fails test of humanity in not condemning barbarity of Hamas

It was sickening to hear deputy public enterprises minister Obed Bapela being interviewed by Stephen Grootes on October 9, as he ducked and dived to avoid expressing regrets at the senseless massacre of Israeli civilians.

His ignorance of the history of the conflict was manifest when he blamed Israel for contemptuously disregarding the “agreement” of 1967 creating a Palestinian state. I have no idea what agreement he was referring to, when the official response from the Arab side was the infamous Khartoum Resolution in September 1967 declaring superciliously the “three nos” — no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel, and no recognition of Israel.

Palestinian refusal to seize any opportunities to create a Palestinian state has been the root cause of Palestinian statelessness. In 1936, following the Peel report, Palestinians were offered more than 80% of the land currently controlled by Israel. The Jews accepted, the Arabs rejected. In 1947 the UN offered the Palestinians nearly 50% of the land, which included most of Galilee and the most fertile areas, and again they rejected the opportunity of statehood.

Instead they choose war. A war fought with five Arab armies that they envisioned would end the Jewish presence in “Palestine”. In 2000, under then-US president Bill Clinton’s presidency, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak’s offer of Palestinian statehood with East Jerusalem as its capital and 95% of the West Bank. A few years later, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert improved the offer to compensate land exchanges from Israeli territory and East Jerusalem, only to suffer the same rejections from the Palestinian leadership.

I state unequivocally that no people have been offered more opportunities to have a state of their own than the Palestinians, which is what prompted former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban to say: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Contrast the condemnation by SA of Israel when one three-year-old, Mohammed Tamimi, was allegedly killed by the Israeli army, calling for a day to be named after Tamimi during Child Protection week, to the utter disregard for the hundreds of Israeli children that have either been killed, tortured or kidnapped by Hamas.

ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri unashamedly blamed Israel for the recent violence, saying the inhuman actions of the Hamas militants were “unsurprising”. She justified the ANC stance as follows: “The ANC stands with the people of occupied Palestine as it is clear that the degenerating security situation is directly linked to the unlawful Israeli occupation.”

Contrast this to the reality that in 2005, Israel withdrew every soldier from Gaza and left it with a functioning infrastructure, including a hospital that Israel erected. What happened next was a catastrophe for the citizens of Gaza, Israel and the region. In the only elections they have ever held, Gazans elected Hamas into power. Hamas, a genocidal, maniacal organisation obsessed only with the complete and utter destruction of Israel and the killing of every Jew. (See article 7 of its charter.)

On the other hand, Israel has provided Gazans with life-sustaining water, electricity and food. It also allows huge amounts of cash and money to be distributed and sent to Gazans. Understandably, it tries to restrict what passes through its border crossings to Gaza to prevent material that can be used to make bombs and missiles and dig tunnels. The fact that tens of thousands of missiles have been able to be imported through the border crossings and fabricated locally speaks of the leniency of Israel’s controls.

As with the continuous failure of the ANC or the SA government to condemn Russia for its gratuitous and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, SA politicians have once again failed the test of common decency and humanity by failing to condemn the barbarity of Hamas and not regarding the deaths or kidnappings of Israelis as being worthy of any comment or concern.

Ben Levitas
Oranjezicht

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