If it’s Friday, it must (cynically) be Jew-bashing day

Allan Wolman

Why Friday? Well that leaves the weekend plus Monday before their letters editor will review letters and by that time the subject is completely out of the public’s mind and the letters that do appear in print seem out of context. Or am I imagining this?

The likes of Janet Smith, Shannon Ebrahim and the members of the Media Review Network are afforded an inordinate amount of space and frequency in the Independent publications, yet one struggles to remember when last the pro-Israel lobby was given one column-centimetre on those same pages.

Reading the offerings from these journalists and other bigots, the uninformed would believe that Jews descended on Palestine, dispossessed those hapless people of their land, possessions and dignity and colonised that country where the Palestinians have evolved into the world’s greatest victims.

Israel’s occupation has become a far bigger concern for these humanitarians than the killing of half a million Syrians who have now become a statistic rather than a tragedy.

But we also have the Jewish Voices for a Just Peace voicing a similar narrative. They know nothing of 70 years of Palestinian brutality and terrorism; they know nothing of inciting little children on Palestinian TV to hate and become murderers; and they know nothing of little girls having their throats slit in bed.

None of these atrocities seems to worry our sisters of conscience. Would it surprise anyone if they now come out in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ claim that the Jews have no historical connection to the Temple Mount – or even the land itself?

Rosebank, Johannesburg