From a small village in South Africa to Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a foreign student’s perspective of taking cover from Iranian missiles.

By Kenneth Mokgatlhe

On Saturday night, the autocratic and warmonger Iranian government under Ayatollah Khamenei launched more than 300 missiles against Israel. As a South African studying in Israel – at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev – I experienced the attack first-hand and can say it was the most horrifying night of my life. Following security guidelines provided by the Israeli authorities who had been expecting this insane attack by Iran, my fellow students and I, all had to take cover by running to the relatively safety of bomb shelters. We remained there until the early morning of Sunday. In this first-ever direct attack by Iran on Israeli soil, a young girl from the Bedouin community which is not far from us in Israel’s south is reported to have been injured.

I grew up in a Christian environment in a village in South Africa, and during Christmas last year, I visited the Old City of Jerusalem and Nazareth. The streets were mostly deserted as could be expected due to the Israel-Hamas war. I was struck to see Israel’s victims of the conflict, the mass of people who fled their homes near the Lebanon-Israel border where Hezbollah is continuing to wreak havoc by firing rockets daily into the north of Israel. 

I know that many people who have been influenced to hate Israel do not even know that the Jewish state is as small as our South Africa’s ‘Kruger National Park’ and is smaller than any of the provinces that make up South Africa. By further country comparison, Israel has a small population of only 9 million and hardly any significant mineral resources. Despite this, proud and resilient Israelis have transformed a desert into a place of wonder, sprouting innovative ideas no less than abundant crops.  I should know – I’m living in Beer Sheva, Israel capital of the desert.

Israel is the only Jewish-majority state in the world. It is a democracy in the sense that you can do whatever you want to do as long as it does not go against the fundamental liberties of others. You can choose to be religious or secular, whether to wear a dress or pants. It’s your choice, unlike what is the case among many of Israel’s neighbors.

For those who only ‘experience’ the conflict on television or in newspapers, war is something that is happening elsewhere. For most the people caught up in it, it is not of their choosing. They are tragically dragged into it. The reality of war is that people die, are injured, are displaced, lose livelihoods and multitudes face famine.

Death comes to easy to too many. There is never a winner in war, hence the need for diplomacy and dialogue to establish peace, security, and stability.

Where is the serious conversation? The world is not talking about how Iranian proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the South have been threatening the existence of Israel for so many years. Having been continually dragged into war in the past by its neighbors, Israelis have had to developed super-advanced military technology to defend their country against these threats. To this end has been the development of its air defense systems such as the Iron Dome, David Sling and Arrow 3.

As a people I have discovered who lovingly embrace life, Israelis have to invest a lot of its time and treasure in protecting life.

Coming from a country once respected for its choice for peace over war, I was greatly disappointed to see some of my fellow South Africans on social media, not only supporting but also calling for more attacks by Iran against Israel. My disappointment was amplified because I know that the citizens from both Iran and Israel are essentially peace-loving people who have no desire nor necessity to go to war. Sharing no borders, there is no quarrel between the people of Iran nor the people of Israel. It was also sad on a more personal level because I know a fellow South African from the same village as me in the North West Province who is studying in Iran – me in Israel; she in Iran. Here we are set on pursuing our education in foreign lands and we find ourselves in two countries unexpectedly in war against each other! I had to take cover; will she soon have to do the same?

Last week, the Argentine court ruled that Iran was the mastermind of the gruesome attacks on the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center back in 1990 and 1994 respectively in Buenos Aires. People tend to have a selective memory where they only choose to remember the Israeli attack on a building adjoining the Iranian consulate in Syria while refusing to acknowledge the longstanding pain and suffering that Iran is and has been inflicting on the Jewish people both in the Diaspora and in its national homeland.

People should resist formulating their views and perspectives by confining their source material to voices spewing hate. We should take charge of what we feed our minds by fostering a reading culture and discovering fresh insights that will help us avoid being the subjects of cheap propaganda by those driven by narrow personal agendas.

Peace and stability in the Middle East are prerequisites to global security and development. This cannot be achieved by alienating or hating Israel. Genuine peace will require us to be objective, impartial, and factual. We need to be solution-driven rather than calling for expansion of violence which places more people in danger; civilians who are generally peace-lovers. It is incumbent upon us all to call for peace in the Middle East, a peace necessitating a political rather than a military outcome, and that requires sober-minded leaders to come together and confront this long-decade impasse. 

Today the Middle East demands mature leadership not the rabble rousers and sable rattlers.

About the writer:

Kenneth Mokgatlhe is a political writer and columnist studying Master’s at Ben Gurion University in Israel.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Public hangings, stoning and beheadings are carried out by South Africa’s closest friends without a moral murmur.

By Allan Wolman

WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES

South Africa maintains a very warm and close relationship with Iran. Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor recently concluded discussions on “mutual bilateral interests” with President Ebrahim Raisi during her visit to Tehran in late October of last year. Pandor also co-chairs the SA-Iran Joint Commission of Cooperation with her counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

It is widely acknowledged that Iran supports and sponsors terrorism around the world including organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The South African Constitution of 1996 upholds the nation’s commitment to human rights and dignity, guaranteeing the right to life and protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. Furthermore, by abolishing the death penalty, South Africa joined a global movement towards more humane and progressive justice systems, serving as a moral example for others to terminate such draconian practices. Both President Ramaphosa and Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor’s commitment to human rights and the abolition of capital punishment suggests that both would ardently support the country’s stance against the death penalty.

While Iran dominated world headlines these past days, here are some facts that South African media does not report on, nor does the ANC seem to be concerned about human rights when it applies to close friends.

Capital punishment is included in the Iranian legal code, where various methods of execution are practiced, including hanging, firing squad, and stoning to death. Most common is by hanging, but also includes, firing squad and, stoning to death.

The conservative politician, Mohammad-Javad Ardeshir Larijani, a top adviser to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei interviewed last year, said that stoning for adultery, is a good Islamic law protecting “family values,” adding that “Stoning is a very important restraining law to protect the marriage contract of families.”

The execution procedure by “Stoning”, involves burying the condemned person up to their chest and then hurling stones at them until they are dead. The stones used are not so large as to kill immediately, but large enough to cause significant pain and injury over a prolonged period.

This monstrous method of execution and systemic oppression faced by women in certain cultural contexts, was brought to life in the internationally acclaimed 2008 Iranian film “The Stoning of Soraya M”  which tells the true story in graphic detail of the stoning to death of Soraya Manutchehri in a small village in southwestern Iran in August 1986. Falsely accused of adultery by her husband who sought to marry a younger woman, the accusation stemmed from Soraya’s refusal to grant him a divorce. Despite Soraya’s innocence, she was subjected to a sham trial in a misogynistic society that favoured her husband’s word. This led to her stoning to death.

Like Iran, Saudi Arabia also has capital punishment within its legal system. President Ramaphosa concluded his State Visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on 16 October 2022, cementing continued bilateral cooperation and consolidated their strategic partnership.

Saudi Arabia’s primary method of execution is public beheading by sword, which is typically carried out in a public square after Friday prayers. However, other methods of execution include firing squad and occasionally, death by stoning. The mass execution of 81 people on 12 March 2022 hardly made world headlines. Human Rights Watch wrote:

“Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of 81 men this weekend was a brutal show of its autocratic rule, and a justice system that puts the fairness of their trials and sentencing into serious doubt.”

It remains unclear whether any of those executed were underage at the time of their alleged offenses.

South Africa has ties with Afghanistan via its embassy in Pakistan. The Taliban has only this month announced that they will resume the public stoning to death of women.

Several other Middle Eastern countries that South Africa maintains strong diplomatic ties, still have capital punishment as a legal penalty for certain crimes. Amongst those are countries whose method of execution is public beheading and public stoning.

It is indeed noteworthy that both the Palestinian Authority (in the West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza), whose cause South Africa and in particular Pandor champions, have laws allowing for the death penalty to be imposed for crimes, such as murder, and collaboration with Israel.

How does Minister Pandor balance South Africa’s constitutional commitments to the right to life and protection from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment when engaging with Teheran? This is the same minister known for her strong views on human rights, particularly in ‘select’ countries of the Middle East.

Who can forget this this same minister together with her president, grandstanding at the Peace Palace in The Hague hardly bothered with stoning and beheading during “discussions of mutual interest.”

Proud of constitutionally abolishing the death penalty, South Africa’s biggest buddies are the biggest killers of its own people.

And it says nothing!

About the writer:

Allan Wolman in 1967 joined 1200 young South Africans to volunteer to work on agricultural settlements in Israel during the Six Day War. After spending a year in Israel, he returned to South Africa where he met and married Jocelyn Lipschitz and would run  one of the oldest travel agencies in Johannesburg – Rosebank Travel. He would also literally ‘run’ three times in the “Comrades”, one of the most grueling marathons in the world as well as participate in the “Argus” (Cape Town’s famed international annual cycling race) an impressive eight times. Allan and Jocelyn immigrated to Israel five years ago.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).