The folly and failures of the endless attempts to exterminate Jews and the Jewish state.
By Neville Berman
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. Volumes have been written about what happened that morning. What this article is about, is finding out why Israel is now accused of genocide, and why hundreds of thousands of people across the world are demonstrating against Israel. The answer to the first question in one word is “money” and the answer to the second question is “antisemitism”. Read on for a more detailed explanation.
Once Israel was attacked, it exercised its right to self defence. It acted beyond all internationally accepted rules of warfare. In order to save civilian lives in Gaza, Israel introduced multiple warnings and even phone calls to hundreds of thousands of civilians to move to safe areas where they would not be attacked. By doing this, Israel achieved a ratio of combatants and civilians killed that is unmatched by any other army in the world that has engaged in urban warfare. In many cases Israeli soldiers were killed because the army wanted to avoid civilian casualties. Clearly the intention was never to commit genocide.
One of the six founding organs of the United Nations that was established in 1945 is the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The mandate of the ICJ is to adjudicate disputes between countries. The ICJ has no mandate to prosecute organizations that are not countries. This is the perfect “get out of jail free card” for terrorist entities to engage in the most grotesque crimes against humanity without being prosecuted by the ICJ. To remedy this absurd situation, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in July 2002. The ICC deals with individuals responsible for committing crimes against humanity. It has a staff of 900 employees, and its budget for 2025 is 195 million Euros. Despite all the atrocities in the world, the ICC has only convicted 15 people of crimes against humanity during the 23 years of its existence. This includes the latest conviction of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al Rahman of 27 crimes against humanity in Darfur, Sudan.
In order to bring an action to the ICJ, a country has to be a party to the dispute. There is one exception to this rule. Genocide is considered such a serious crime, that even if a country is not a party to the dispute, it can bring a charge of genocide against another country. This is how South Africa managed to bring a charge of genocide against Israel at the ICJ. After hearing the evidence presented, the ICJ ruled that it was plausible that South Africa had the right to bring such a case, but did not find that Israel had committed genocide. The whole purpose of South Africa was clearly to demonize Israel. They succeeded beyond all expectations.
After the trial ended, the BBC ran a program that totally turned the findings of the court on its head. The BBC claimed that the ICJ found that it was plausible that Israel had committed genocide. The presiding head Judge of the ICJ immediately condemned the BBC for wrongly reporting its findings. Nevertheless, the damage was already done.
Every antisemite in the world suddenly felt justified in their beliefs. Their hidden hatred of Jews could now be openly displayed. The latest blood libel against the Jews soon turned into a tsunami of protests across the world. They all carried the same message. Israel was committing genocide. The irony of the situation is that the term genocide was coined in 1944 by a Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, in response to the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust. Accusing Israel of committing genocide, is the ultimate injustice and insult to holocaust survivors and all Jews.
The African National Congress (ANC) has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. By 2023, the ANC had accumulated debts of over 500 million Rand, and was unable to finance its election campaign for the next elections due in May 2024. This situation would obviously result in the real possibility that the ANC would lose the election. Something needed to be done to remedy its dire situation.
Naledi Pandor was the South African Minister of International Relations from 2019 to 2024. During her university years, she converted to Islam. Towards the end of 2023, she visited Iran. In January 2024, Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, announced that the ANC had paid off all its debts without offering any explanation as to where the money came from. An American think tank discovered that a few days after the South African government brought a case of genocide against Israel, the money to pay off its debt suddenly appeared in the ANC’s coffers. News 24, South Africa’s largest online publication ran a story headlined:
“IRAN BEHIND SA’S ICJ CASE”
What can be said for certain is that the South African government has never explained where the huge cash injection actually came from, and that South Africa has become one of the most anti Israel governments in the world.
The claim that Iran financed the government of South Africa and in return South Africa brought a case of genocide against Israel is extremely credible, but difficult to prove. Both Iran and South Africa have become experts at lying and obstructing the truth from public scrutiny. No response has been forthcoming from either the South African government or Iran as to how the ANC’s debts were paid off.
There are many things that Israel is good at, and there are some things that Israel is not good at. The two major things that Israel is definitely not good at is public relations and committing genocide. Most people agree that Israel has a right to defend itself. What makes people really angry is the fact that Israel keeps winning. They claim Israel is too powerful. Jews are too rich. Jews are communists, Jews are capitalists. Jews are crooks. Jews are the cause of all the problems in the world. The Jews kill babies to make matza for Passover. The Jews caused the plague. Jews control the world. The Jews killed Christ. The Pope is Jewish. You name it, the Jews have been blamed for it.
The Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Spaniards, Portuguese, the British, the French, the Ottomans, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the Baltic States, the Russians, and the Nazis, all tried to kill the Jews. Most countries occupied by the Nazis in Europe were complicit in rounding up their Jews for mass extermination. Even neutral Switzerland turned away hundreds of Jews seeking to escape the Holocaust. Empires have come and gone. The Jews are still around.
In a moment of contrition, the world tried to cleanse its guilty conscience, and approved the UN Partition Plan of Palestine in 1947. Once the State of Israel was declared in May 1948, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Jordanians, the Iraqis, all had a go at eliminating Israel. The United States of America refused to supply Israel with a single bullet for 19 years. Despite all the odds, Israel survived. In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan tried again. This time they were defeated decisively and Israel took control over all of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, all of Judea and Samaria and the Sinai. Then came the surprise attack by Egypt in 1973 followed by intifadas and suicide bombings. Nothing defeated Israel. The latest attempt by Iran to build proxy armies to annihilate Israel has also failed. With every attack, Israeli resilience has strengthened. The latest rush to support the creation of a Palestinian State is a fool’s errand. The truth is simple. Israel is the eternal homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem is its capital and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Israel will continue to innovate and prosper. I am not sure one can say the same about Europe.
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
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