To exonerate and justify such actions is to stand at one with savages
11 October 2023 - 16:19
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Pro-Palestinian protesters gather in support of the Palestinian in Manila, Philippines. Picture: JES AZNAR
I and my fellow Jews throughout the world woke on Saturday morning, October 7 — the Sabbath and holy festival of Shemini Atzeret — to what Israel’s ambassador to the US termed Israel’s 9/11.
This time though, it was not buildings of innocent civilians that were targeted, but villages and towns of just-waking families. Within a few hours the carnage became apparent. And it was carnage, the likes of which the world has not seen since the holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda.
This was brutality typical of Isis. A pogrom of old. Jews were herded out of their homes, raped and massacred in cold blood, their murders filmed and posted on social media. Men, women, children and the elderly — unarmed civilians whose crime was simply being Jewish.
Young people at a peace concert, raped and slaughtered, bodies mutilated, others kidnapped and taken hostage into Gaza. At the same time rockets in their scores aimed at Israeli cities, aimed solely at civilians, raining down.
As I write this letter two days later, all of those with any semblance of morality reel not only at Israel’s death toll — now over 1,200, with well over 2,000 injured and between 100 and 150 people taken hostage — but at the unthinkable level of cruelty and depravity of the Hamas murderers.
More than 4,000 rockets have to date been fired at the Israeli civilian population. Hamas has declared war on Israel. Not with conventional warfare but with extreme brutality and barbarism, with the savage acts of an evil people. A people filled so with hatred that they have lost every semblance of humanity.
There are those few, especially in SA, who would exonerate the actions of these murderers. But to exonerate and justify such actions is to stand at one with savages. Period.
Monessa Shapiro Glenhazel
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Hamas’ unthinkable cruelty
To exonerate and justify such actions is to stand at one with savages
I and my fellow Jews throughout the world woke on Saturday morning, October 7 — the Sabbath and holy festival of Shemini Atzeret — to what Israel’s ambassador to the US termed Israel’s 9/11.
This time though, it was not buildings of innocent civilians that were targeted, but villages and towns of just-waking families. Within a few hours the carnage became apparent. And it was carnage, the likes of which the world has not seen since the holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda.
This was brutality typical of Isis. A pogrom of old. Jews were herded out of their homes, raped and massacred in cold blood, their murders filmed and posted on social media. Men, women, children and the elderly — unarmed civilians whose crime was simply being Jewish.
Young people at a peace concert, raped and slaughtered, bodies mutilated, others kidnapped and taken hostage into Gaza. At the same time rockets in their scores aimed at Israeli cities, aimed solely at civilians, raining down.
As I write this letter two days later, all of those with any semblance of morality reel not only at Israel’s death toll — now over 1,200, with well over 2,000 injured and between 100 and 150 people taken hostage — but at the unthinkable level of cruelty and depravity of the Hamas murderers.
More than 4,000 rockets have to date been fired at the Israeli civilian population. Hamas has declared war on Israel. Not with conventional warfare but with extreme brutality and barbarism, with the savage acts of an evil people. A people filled so with hatred that they have lost every semblance of humanity.
There are those few, especially in SA, who would exonerate the actions of these murderers. But to exonerate and justify such actions is to stand at one with savages. Period.
Monessa Shapiro
Glenhazel
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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