Voices
Remembering Palestinian and Jewish civilians killed
South African Jewish Voices for a Just Peace (JVJP) hosted an event with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu this week Thursday in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town, to commemorate the civilian lives lost and destroyed during the Israel-Palestine conflict this July and August.
Leonard Shapiro, Rina King, Jessica Sherman
The Archbishop unveiled a plaque in memory of all the civilians killed – Israelis, Palestinians and foreign nationals.
Remembering the lives lost is particularly important as the situation in Israel-Palestine remains difficult. Israel announced a massive land-grab in the West Bank while Gaza still lives under a crippling land, air and sea blockade. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in the ruins of Gaza with no electricity, water or sewerage infrastructure, while life in Israel goes back to normal.
JVJP is a group of Jewish South Africans who recognise that the South African Jewish community is not homogenous in its thinking and that there are many different views on Israel.
Many Jews in our country are deeply troubled by the actions of Israel and the human rights abuses which are inflicted on Palestinians. Many Jews are afraid to speak about these abuses for fear of being ostracised. As such, JVJP aims to facilitate respectful dialogue and discussion among South African Jews.
Cape Town
nat cheiman
October 22, 2014 at 3:48 pm
‘You are certainly joking. As long as hamas has a charter calling for the annihilation of Israel and jews, there is nothing to discuss.
\nGaza is rubble because the Palestinians don’t want to listen.
\nIf you truly feel sorry for them then I suggest you go and live there. As for me, I would like to see these muslims go and live in Jordan or on the moon or Mars.
\nThey are a nuisance and obstacle to peace. ‘
Myron Robinson
October 23, 2014 at 11:46 am
‘I suppose Human Rights abuses committed by Hamas do not count. If Hamas put down their weapons that would be the end of violence. While every death is a tragedy do JVVP expect Israel to do nothing whilst it is destroyed. \”Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in the ruins of Gaza with no electricity, water or sewerage infrastructure, while life in Israel goes back to normal.\” 1stly this is due to the actions of Hamas, secondly had Hamas not built tunnels or for that matter attacked Israel & channelled the Tunnel funds into upgrading facilities, Gaza would be economically better off than any other 3rd World Country. Why do the JVVP not put their skilled resources into upgrading the terrible conditions that most SA live in instead of biting the hand that Protects them. Condemn Israel by all means when it transgresses but yet again your condemnation of Hamas & the PA is deafening by your silence. You are both Naïve & ignorant.’
Gary Selikow
October 28, 2014 at 5:00 pm
‘In their plaque which they unveiled together with the perfidious Desmond Tutu they made it very clear there disdain for Israeli civilian casualties by juxtaposing ”2 139 Palestinians were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military – 70 percent were civilians. 3 Israelis and one foreign national were killed in Israel by the Palestinian militia.\”Not their reference to the bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists with the romantic appellation of \”millitia’\”On their face book page when asked if they would condemn atrocities by Hamas in response to the recent terror attack in Jerusalem which killed a three month old baby they replied that ‘the Palestinians have a right and duty to resist Israeli colonialism and Aprtheid by any mean neccesary’
In the last 14 years Thousands of Israeli Jewish men, women and children have died from bombs, bullets or knife attacks, and thousands of others have been maimed, blinded, orphaned, widowed and terrorized.
In 2003 on the Eve of the Jewish New Year, seven month old Shaked Abraham was shot dead in her crib by an Arab murderer who forced his way into her parent’s house as the family was celebrating the New Year.
A ten-month-old Jewish baby, Shalhevet Pass, was shot in her father’s arms by an Arab sniper in 2001.
The following year, a five-year-old girl, Danielle Shefi, was shot to death at point blank range by an Arab killer, while cowering under her parents’ bed.
That same year, two boys, four- and five-years old, Matan and Noam Ohayon where shot dead together with their mother as she read them a bedtime story, in a kibbutz, by Arab terrorists.
In the summer of 2005 pregnant Jewish women Tali Hatuel and her four terrified little daughters were executed at point blank range by terrorists of the Popular Resistance Committees, one after the other after Tali’s car had been spun off the road by gunfire.
Then there are the thousands of suicide bombing perpetrated by Arab terrorists in malls, restaurants, schools, buses and everywhere else where Jewish men, women and children in Israel gathered.Victims were killed, burned, maimed and shards of metal infected with rat poison lodged into their bodies.
Unlike a traditional war zone, the victims are often riding, sitting in schools or enjoying a meal.
So since 2000 far 132 Jewish children have been killed, 11 of them less than a year old, 9 pregnant women have been murdered, 886 children have lost one parent and 32 have lost both. The youngest victim of terror was just one day old.
There has been no condemnation of these atrocities by the United Nation or it’s commissars such as Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu and Richard Goldstone.
At the Dolphinarium Disco on June 1, 2001, 21 Israeli teenagers were killed and 132 wounded, many maimed for life, after a suicide bomber blew himself up in their midst
Hamas claimed responsibility and celebrated the attack.
Shaina Dorfman whose grandfather was a rabbi and was burned by the Nazis in Russia, lost her only daughter in an attack on a night club in Tel Aviv but believes in the Jewish saying, Yiyhe Beseder \”Everything will turn out alright’
In Netanya in March 2001, in the single greatest massacre of Jews after World War II, 37 Jewish men, women and children died after a Hamas bomber detonated himself during a seder or celebration of the Jewish passover (Pesach)dont forget the Fogel family stabbed to death in 2011 including a four year old boy and three month old girl.This is what JVJP supportsLet us react to them with this in mind. Can we be tolerant of those who condone the killing of Jewish children?I cannot and will not keep company with those who make common cause with modern-day Arab Nazis who shoot a pregnant Jewish woman at point blank range before executing her four terrified small daughters.
I shall always shun those who show any acceptance of the perpetrators of such atrocities and will continue to condemmn those whose twisted ideas suggest any equivocation of Israel’s self-defence with brutal Arab terror.Their idea of a ”Júst Peace” is not doubt the physical elimination of every Jewish man, woman and child in Israel.’
Gary Selikow
October 29, 2014 at 4:10 pm
‘JVJP=Jewish Voices for a Judnreihn Palestine’