Knee-jerk reaction

If South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency confirmed that a dangerous and violent organisation, which was well known around the world for its terrorist activities, was planning a massive attack on the country’s civilian population, what would it do?

Would it sit around and wait for the attack, hoping like hell that it wouldn’t materialise in spite of numerous previous attacks? Would it kowtow to anti-South African sentiment, and do nothing because it might harm its reputation? Or would it do whatever it could to take out the ringleaders so that the deadly attack wasn’t able to happen?

It’s a no brainer, right?

Any country that cares about its population would do what it had to in order to eliminate the threat. Israel is no different. Like any country, it has a responsibility to put its citizenry’s safety and security first.

That’s what Israel did to ensure that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – an organisation recognised as a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Israel – couldn’t pull off its planned attack. Israel confirmed the intelligence behind the planned attack, and did what it had to prevent it.

The planned PIJ attack was in response to Israel recently arresting PIJ senior leader Bassam al-Saadi.

Unlike many other countries, Israel did its utmost to ensure that it targeted only those kingpins involved in this planned attack, trying to make sure as few people as possible were harmed.

One of those killed was Taysir al-Jabari, a PIJ commander in charge of the rocket arsenal and the main co-ordinator with Hamas.

Predictably, PIJ wasn’t happy with this, and so it began a missile attack on Israel. It went into the heart of civilian areas in Gaza and began its attack, resulting in about 1 100 missiles launched.

Launching rockets from civilian areas towards civilian areas is, as I understand it, a double war crime as innocent lives – Palestinian and Israeli – are put in jeopardy. This clearly isn’t a concern for PIJ.

Israel spends an untold fortune to protect its population, hence its inimitable army and the Iron Dome that deflects the missiles detected in Israeli airspace. It’s not 100% fool proof, but it gets pretty close. This means, thank G-d, that those missiles will, as far as possible, not fulfil their target of killing and maiming as many Israeli civilians – Arab, Christian, or Jewish – as possible.

PIJ’s missiles are aimed at the most populated parts of the country and the organisation’s leaders don’t care who gets killed. It doesn’t matter to them if they are children, women, or even Palestinians.

However, those missiles from Gaza that didn’t make it across the border, about 200 of them, landed in Gaza and killed at least 16 Gazans, including four children.

So, when the South African government had its vicious knee-jerk reaction against Israel, which has become all too frequent, all it acknowledged was that Gazan children were among those killed in this battle and Israel was involved. In our government and ruling party’s eyes, this meant Israel was the aggressor and absolutely had to be wrong. Without checking the facts, it condemned Israel for targeting and killing children. Its logic is flawed. It blames everything on Israel, not once acknowledging PIJ’s part in it. I guess any organisation that the Western world sees as a terrorist group cannot do any wrong. Right?

And because Israelis weren’t killed, the Israelis were 100% in the wrong. In fact, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Dr Naledi Pandor makes Israel out to be a heinous, bloodthirsty country, worse than some of those our government holds so dear and invariably defends.

I don’t doubt that if Israelis had died in this conflict, the fact would have been ignored because somehow, the lives of those within the Jewish state aren’t acknowledged by the South African government. How long did it take for any kind of response from our government when South African Eli Kay was killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in November last year? Too long!

When there was a string of terrorist attacks earlier this year in Israel, 18 people were killed, where was the South African government’s condemnation and outrage? Or is condemnation and outrage only against Israel?

Some people say that the government and ruling party stepping up anti-Israel rhetoric is purely an electioneering tool to win the anti-Israel vote. This would be short sighted, albeit possible. However, surely the government looks ridiculous to the rest of the world when it shows such ignorance about the real situation?

But, I guess, as some political commentators said in our article about late president Nelson Mandela’s grandson getting an award in Iran, our government is cosying up to this tyrannical country that supports PIJ (see page 5). In fact, Iran provides millions of dollars for funding, training, and weapons for PIJ.

So, it would make sense that, if this is the case, South Africa would jump to its defence – even if it’s the aggressor.

Is it just a political game, and what does it mean for us in future?

I would love to suggest that it was time for Pandor to vacate her position, only I’m not hearing anyone in government defending Israel. I’m hearing silence outside of our community and our Christian brethren.

So, it was a relief to hear that at the international Anglican Church’s pivotal, once-a-decade conference of bishops, a decision was made that was balanced and fair about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. This is really great news! (See page 5).

May this herald better news and more wisdom regarding South Africa’s views of the Jewish state.

May it also bring on the dawn of a better understanding of what goes on in the Middle East.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor