Voices
The real Israel-Gaza tragedy lies in Hamas manipulating its own people
I reply to the editor’s note in the May 18 issue of SA Jewish Report about the ANC’s response to the recent events on Israel’s border with Gaza.
Miriam Maltz, Durban
Even knowing the ANC government’s bias against Israel, I could hardly believe its “official” version of these events.Of course, this version will be believed by many because it is widely disseminated in the media. But it is not factual.
The recent border demonstrations in Gaza were not intended to be “peaceful”. They were organised by Hamas with several aims. The first was to divert the Palestinians’ anger against the Hamas government’s gross mismanagement of the economy and its policy of diverting funds for terrorist campaigns against Israel, instead of concerning itself with the welfare of its own people.
Secondly, the aim was, as always, to focus world opinion to support the Palestinians’ plight.
The demonstrations were not spontaneous; Hamas hired the buses to bring Palestinians to the border and paid them for participating.The avowed intent of Hamas was to overrun the border and inflict damage on Israel – specifically, kill and/or kidnap Israelis. Sending fire-kites over the border to burn fields and planting explosives are hardly examples of a peaceful demonstration.
Of the Palestinians killed, Hamas confirmed that more than 50 were its members and Islamic Jihad said three others were its members.
The irony of Palestinians callously being used by Hamas to garner world sympathy is tragic, but it’s a familiar strategy by Hamas.
What country, when faced with a mass incursion at its border, would stand idly by without live ammunition? The violence was not initiated by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). And how could the IDF defend its borders without live ammunition?
The real tragedy of recent events is the death of people who’ve been manipulated and made into victims by their own corrupt government.
The sympathy that the ANC feels for the Palestinians is comprehensible in light of past events in South Africa. But the ANC also has a moral obligation to get its facts right and not to uncritically adopt the anti-Semitic slander propagated by the BDS.
The false information in local newspapers make it essential for the Jewish community, whatever its members’ views, to obtain other news sources. Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post and Algemeiner Journal are all available free online and provide another perspective on events.