Voices
In environment of hate for Israel, OK for Herzlia to propagate one perspective
I’m referring to the despicable young attention seekers at Herzlia High who “took the knee” during the singing of Hatikvah to protest what they called “Israeli treatment of the Palestinians”.
Gary Selikow, Johannesburg
Does Israel not suffer enough in South Africa and the world from a tsunami of hate and support for the terrorist “Palestinian cause”?
Of course, the victims of Arab terror and the Arab drive for genocide against Israel’s Jews go unremarked. Israel has a right to exist, determine her own borders, and defend herself as she sees fit. It need apologise to no one for that.
Arabs have been attacking and killing Jews in Eretz Yisrael since before the 1920s, long before any occupation.
Until the Palestinians accept that Israel is here to stay, there can be no peace agreement. They want all their demands met, yet refuse even to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Why out of a massive landmass under Arab control, and a number of Arab states (today they number 22), is it regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish state, where they enjoy full civil and political rights?
Jewish statelessness led to the slaughter of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
In 1920, Jews were massacred by Arabs in Jerusalem, in 1921 in Jaffa, and in 1929 in Hebron. Thousands of Jews were murdered from 1936 to1939 in the Nazi inspired Arab Revolt. Since 1948, Arabs have launched wars against Israel to try to drive Jews into the sea. Since Yasser Arafat launched the latest war in 2000, after rejecting a peace deal, thousands of Jewish men, women and children have died in Israel by bomb, bullet, and knife.
As regards the complaint of the boys that the school curriculum only gives the Israeli side of the story and they want the “Palestinian side”, well the entire media in South Africa and the universities feed the public only the “Palestinian side”. So why shouldn’t Jewish schools be a place where there is a safe space to learn about Israel’s perspective?
It is reprehensible and vile for liberal, leftist Jews in the diaspora to threaten to withdraw their support for Israel if Israel defends herself with too much force.