Set on being in the spotlight, South Africa should instead be seen in a dim light opting to exploit troubles abroad while ignoring them closer to home.
By David E. Kaplan
How should one read South Africa’s moral mindset when it champions the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and yet on its doorstep ignores jihadi attacks on its north-eastern border of Mozambique where more than 67,000 people have fled attacks in recent weeks?
“What is particularly of concern to UNICEF is that the majority of these displaced people are women and children, more than two-thirds of the total when combined,” said Guy Taylor, UNICEF’s (United Nations Children’s Fund) Mozambique spokesperson.
Northern Exposure. Tens of thousands flee new wave of jihadist attacks in Mozambique, a country on South Africa’s northern border.
What’s more, “the insurgency isn’t ending anytime soon,” says Jasmine Opperman, a Security Consultant specializing in Extremism and Political Violence in southern Africa. “This is about organised chaos to create fear, to recruit and spread an Islamic extremism narrative.”
Nary a murmur on this issue on its doorstep, but a half a world away, South Africa launches – basking in splendid media spotlight – a legal assault on Israel at the UN’s highest court at The Hague.
We should not be surprised.
For a variety of reasons all comfortably closeted in self-interest, South Africa choses to be in the terrorist camp as evidenced by revelations that South Africa today is now “a nerve centre for jihadist financing.”
Aiming to Displease. Analysts and counter-terrorism experts have described South Africa as a nerve centre for jihadist financing in Africa.
“South Africa is open hunting ground,” the Pretoria-based counter-terrorism expert Jasmine Opperman told Agence France-Presse.
Islamist financiers gather money in the country and transfer it into “the hands of terrorism,” she said, adding it was internationally recognised “that we are now a hub.”
Opperman’s assessment is widely shared by analysts across Africa, Europe and the United States.
Red flags were first raised in 2023 when the US government levied sanctions on several South Africans it accused of belonging to an Islamic State (IS) cell. According to Washington, money was being transmitted out of South Africa to IS branches across Africa. According to the US treasury in November, IS was being provided from South Africa with “technical, financial, or material support.”
Hand It to Terror. Pretoria-based counter-terrorism expert Jasmine Opperman says Islamist financiers gather money in South Africa and transfer it into “the hands of terrorism.”
In March last year, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global illicit cash flow watchdog that aims to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing, placed South Africa on its “grey list” finding that South Africa today is “a fertile ground” for Islamists to raise funds.
The Money Trail. Intelligence evidence suggests that Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab used South Africa to move funds after the 2013 attack on Westgate mall in Kenya’s capital by Islamists terrorists. (Photo: Kenyan Presidential Press Service/Getty Images)
“South Africa’s role in international terrorism dates back more than a decade,” says Ryan Cummings an analyst with the Cape Town based Signal Risk security advisory firm. He cited intelligence evidence that suggested Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab used South Africa to move funds after the 2013 attack on the Westgate mall in Kenya’s capital.
Desperate for Answers. Poster of the most wanted Al-Shabaab leaders at the US Embassy in Nairobi, November 2022 (Photo: Simon MAINA / AFP)
There are also reports, said Cummings of “an increase of funds… flowing from South Africa” to Mozambique and an ISIS affiliate in the DR Congo.
Christians on the Run. Where is South Africa’s concern as Christians call for peace amidst attacks by jihadist insurgents in the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado that are forcing priests, nuns and other Church workers to flee to cities already overwhelmed by internally displaced people (IDPs).
TERRORISM IS ‘BANKING’ ON SOUTH AFRICA
Is it any further surprise that banks in South Africa may be – unwittingly or not – facilitating payments to Hamas and affiliated organizations. Uncovered in a recent Jerusalem Postinvestigative report , there appears to be a network of several South African organizations deeply involved in Hamas funding. According to the researched report, three of the country’s main banks, Nedbank, Standard Bank, and Absa, were accused of enabling funding for Hamas activities through the Al-Quds Foundation, an international group sanctioned by the US and outlawed by Israel. Through the cunning guise of charity, the Al-Quds International Foundation was established in Beirut in 2021 by members of Hamas to raise funds for their terror organization.
Sign of the Times. This sign displayed to greet South Africa’s returning from The Hague Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola at OR Tambo International airport, Johannesburg on January 14, 2024, depicts the ANC’s government commitment to be party to the end of Jewish life in Israel. (Photo: Alet Pretorius/Reuters)
So grave is this development, especially since the massacre of October 7, the taking and still holding of hostages and the war that has followed, South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, has written to the CEOs of these banks appealing for them:
“To come and see me to provide assurance and proof that these allegations are without merit.”
Rabbi’s Rebuke. South Africa’s chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein pledges to hold banks accountable for funding Hamas. (Photo: screenshot)
In muscular mode – “This is not 1938. It is 2024” – the Chief Rabbi says that failing their cooperation, he has warned the banks that “there are numerous local criminal and international anti-terror laws here that they may be contravening. I will personally pursue this case on every forum to hold them accountable.”
If South Africa can lay false charges of genocide against the Jewish state at the Hague, it should not be surprised if it too finds itself facing real charges on complicity in international terrorism resulting in mass murder and massacre of Jews.
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)
Never expecting anything from Hamas, I did expect more from the heads of state and of leading humanitarian organizations.
By Harris Zvi Green
March 1, 2024
My dearest friends,
We are now one hundred and forty-seven days into this bloody war. The past five months have been challenging. Having close family members risk their lives in defense of our country, listening to the hair-raising accounts of their experiences and being confronted by a tsunami of antisemitic hatred, has taken its toll.
Experiencing the arrival of a great-grandchild and the wedding of a grandson during this time were especially gratifying, but also uniquely difficult. How does one celebrate when our young men and women are putting their lives at risk to defend us and 134 of our fellow citizens remain in hostage? How does one comfort the bereaved and celebrate special events in the same breath? There are so many conflicts in our everyday lives.
My faith in universal values has become eroded. I believed these values represented principles that transcended cultural, religious and international boundaries. I got it badly wrong. What was once considered good is no longer virtuous. Bad is no longer evil. Truth is no longer absolute. It’s become contextual. Even flexible. There’s no accountability. These so-called “universal values” haven’t stood the test of time.
The atrocities of October 7 have been rebranded. They’ve been rationalized. When they aren’t plausible, the atrocities are either regarded as unverifiable or simply denied. Given the unimaginable and primitive acts of savagery of October 7, I can understand that.
Is it because the Victims were Jews?A protest to bring attention the world wants to ignore. The U.N. agency dedicated to gender equality has been sharply criticized for waiting so long to express alarm over the sexual violence perpetrated during the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Whatever way I look at it, murder is murder. Brutal mutilation of dead bodies is savage. It’s not an integral part of a national struggle or the exercising of a right to self-determination. Rape is rape. It’s not resistance.
I question my identity. Once upon a time, I defined myself as a liberal. Live and let live. I believed democracy, mutual tolerance and respect were liberal values. Again, I got it badly wrong. Today, people who define themselves as liberals tend to display intolerance and even contempt for anything that doesn’t gel with their view of the world. Perhaps liberalism should be defined as the right to call yourself whatever you like rather than being an absolute value in itself.
It’s like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. Does that make North Korea a democracy? Wikipedia describes North Korea as a totalitarian dictatorship. I don’t understand how one can confuse a democratic country with a totalitarian dictatorship. Maybe it’s my poor English.
I never expected anything from Hamas. I do, however, expect much more from heads of state, from the executives of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations, from religious leaders of all faiths and from the presidents of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions.
Israeli activists horrified the world ignored October 7 sexual violence against women
One hundred and thirty-four hostages remain in captivity. This number includes the bodies of 33 soldiers and civilians. As far as Hamas is concerned, even dead bodies are a legitimate bargaining tool.
The same heads of state, the same humanitarian organizations, the same religious leaders and the same academic institutions continue pressuring Israel to provide even more humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Nobody wants innocent people to starve to death. But what do these hypocrites in positions of power and influence have to say about the illegal abduction of innocent hostages, including octogenarians, women, children and even dead bodies? Very little. What are they doing about it? To be precise: nothing.
Humanitarian values cut both ways. I’m sure true liberals will concur.
Embarrassed by UNRWA’s complicity in the October 7 massacre, UNRWA’s donor countries put their contributions on hold pending further investigation. Asmund Aukrust, a Norwegian politician, immediately retaliated by nominating UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The New Arab, a London-based news outlet owned by a Qatari company, is supporting this absurd attempt to sanitize UNRWA. In their promotion piece, they justify this initiative by praising UNRWA for their “crucial humanitarian support in one of today’s most devastating humanitarian contexts.” Yet another attempt to rewrite history and legitimize the continued funding of terror.
Incongruous and Ig’noble. While over a dozen countries, including major donors such as the United States, Germany, Britain and Sweden, have suspended funding to UNRWA over accusations of employees involved in the October 7 atrocities, Norwegian politician, Asmund Aukrust, has nominated the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Can any self-respecting human being rationalize awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an organization complicit in the October 7 massacre? It’s an affront to mankind and an insult to human intelligence.
UNRWA’s very existence perpetuates the conflict. The idea of rewarding UNRWA and its incompetent Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, is outrageous.
Last week I referred to the racist statement made by a South African member of parliament who said:
“If the city of Cape Town is handed over to the Zionists, there will be a bloodbath. We will not allow you to make it a Jewish state.”
I received a comment telling me not to confuse anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Imagine the outcry if an Israeli politician said, “if the city of Jerusalem is handed over to the Jihadis, there will be a bloodbath. We will not allow you to make it an Islamic state”. This politician would be accused of being Islamophobic and ostracized by his colleagues.
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers. May the hostages soon be reunited with their families. May you all be blessed with good health to see smiles on the faces of your loved ones for many years to come.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green.
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Aged 77, he made Aliyah 53 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. He is married to Phyllis. They have 3 married children ,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Harris Zvi Green is a founder member of Truth be Told, an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of 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).
South Africans honour their fallen in Israel while lamenting how far South Africa has morally fallen
By David E. Kaplan
It was a strange feeling.
Some 150 South Africans – roughly half living in Israel the other visiting from South Africa on a Jewish National Fund South Africa -organised solidarity mission. They were joined as well by forty young South Africans on youth movement programmes. The same thought was on everyone’s mournful minds – here we were in the heart of the JNF-KKL Lavi Forest honouring South Africa’s fallen either in acts of war or terror, including the present war in Gaza, and the South African government could not care a damn!
Showing Solidarity. Flanked by the flags of South Africa, the JNF-KKL and Israel, Michael Kransdorff, JNF SA’s national chairman speaks beside the memorial board to South Africa’s fallen at the KKL-JNF ceremony at Lavi Forest on February 20, 2024. (Courtesy JNF SA)
Correction, they do care – it reserves its concern for the killers of those fallen Jews!
Even though former South Africans had been murdered the day of the massacre on October 7 2023 while others were kidnapped and held captive in Gaza, “It took weeks for them [ANC government] to condemn the single biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” said Michael Kransdorff, Chairman of the JNF and Vice Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation, the two organisations that organized the high-powered Jewish leadership mission to Israel. “Rather than use their influence with Hamas and the Iranian regime to bring home the hostages, and to end the conflict, they have chosen to side with Hamas and the Iranian regime, and attack Israel in its defensive war to protect its home front and return the hostages.”
Lives Cut Short. South Africans – comprising immigrants, community leaders visiting on a solidarity mission and youngsters on programmes in Israel – gather to honour South Africans who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel or in acts of terrorism. The stone memorial cleft in half in the background, expresses profoundly the lives of those that were cut short through war and terror. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Can South Africa’s President Ramaphosa answer one question:
Would the late Mandela have behaved this way?
Although critical of “the occupation”, Mandela fully supported Israel’s right to exist. We know this because during a visit to Israel in 1999, Mandela said:
“I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognise Israel within secure borders.”
An advocate of the two-state solution, Mandela would not have countenanced South Africa’s present foreign minister, Naledi Pandor,recently joining in the chant – “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which in effect calls for the elimination of Jews in its biblical homeland, something Hamas attempted on October 7.
Picking up on this theme, Kransdorff continued:
“We, as the Jewish community are deeply disappointed with the [South African] government and think that it missed a major opportunity to play a positive role in the world, in the spirit of Mandela. Instead, it chose to support Hamas and side with terror.”
The Shoah cast a shadow over the Lavi Forest memorial ceremony incapsulated in the poignant words of former SAZF chairman, Avrom Krengel when he said:
“…Only when you visit these magnificent kibbutzim and settlements, places that flourished, do you realise that for one day, a ‘Holocaust’ came to Israel. It’s a reminder of the Eastern Front of 1941 of what befell our ancestors in Lithuania and Ukraine when the Nazis went from town to town and murdered every single Jew they could find. And on the 7 October that is what Hamas did.”
History of Heroism. Following announcing the recent names added to the memorial board, an emotional chairman of Telfed, Maish Isaacson continued, “We pay tribute here today to our heroes who lost their lives with courage.” (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Looking towards the memorial board where nearly 90 South African have fallen – since Avraham Katz fell in July 1 1938 in the defence of kibbutz Hanita on the border with Lebanon, now still under attack in 2024 – Krengel turned back to face the gathering and continued:
“But unlike the mass murder of 1941 that continued every single day for another five years, and saw the death of six million Jews, this time we have a state and we have an army and while we were caught by surprise for one day, we fight back; we fight back in a ferocious manner; we fight back to protect the people of Israel and the Jewish people. That is what the world actually hates about us now. We don’t go meekly and quietly to our deaths. We protect Jewish life. We take the fight to our enemies wherever they are, no matter how deep they are in every single tunnel. And that is the privilege of our generation that we have a State of Israel that is committed to the protection of every Jew in the world. We have not had that for 2000 years and we have not been able to protect ourselves until now.”
Revival of Evil. Referring to the horrors of 1941 for the Jews of Eastern Europe, once again “a Holocaust came to Israel,” said SAZF Honorary President Avrom Krengel.
With wind whistling through the trees and a hint of rain, I listened to one speaker after another, in particular the families of the fallen and former hostage Aviva Segal, who was born in South Africa and came to Israel with her family at the age of nine. And while she related the horrifying and terrifying details being held as a hostage for 51 days by Hamas while her American-born husband Keith, still remains a hostage in Gaza. I reflected on the words of PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shatayyeh, who this week has resigned by but only a week earlier had said at the Munich Security Conference – and ‘Munich’ of all places – that:
“One should not continue focusing on October 7”
No End to Horror. Former hostage Aviva Segal relates tearfully of her ordeal as a hostage in Gaza for 51 days and says the “horror continues every minute of every day” as she longs anxiously for her husband Keith still held in captivity. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Really; after the worst massacre of Jews in one day since the Holocaust and which Israel needs to prevent ever happening again and this is the sentiment of the Palestinian leadership that Israel is expected to reach a rapprochement.
Back in November, senior Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub was one of the first Palestinian Authority officials to speak publicly about the October 7 attacks, and he openly justified the mass slaughter and kidnapping of Israelis.
Rajour, at a press conference in Kuwait drew no distinction between Hamas and his own Palestinian Authority when he characterized the massacre of Jews on October 7 attack as part of “the defensive war OUR people are waging.” In fact, his choice of words embraces the massacre!
This is what and who South Africa choses to champion in the courts of law and world opinion.
Killed in Action. One of the sad new names added to the SA memorial board, Clive Chitiz speaks of his son Yaron who was killed in battle in Gaza. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
And while on the question of law, one only has to compare the founding documents of Hamas and South Africa to know they set out on diametrically opposite ideological paths. South Africa’s constitution – considered the birth certificate and soul of the “Rainbow Nation” – marked the way for a new democratic order. Considered one of the most advanced constitutions in the world, it established a constitutional democracy in which a finely crafted Bill of Rights enjoys pride of place.
In contrast, the Hamas charter warns about “transgressors…smitten with vileness” in general but Jews in particular.
Up front as a priority, it thunders:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will OBLITERATE it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
This is the narrative that South Africa by its support now stakes its reputation on.
While South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s had its fair share of supporters for the Nazis – many of whom emerged as future leaders in a post-WWII Apartheid South Africa – its leaders of today have no problem supporting the spiritual heirs of Nazi Germany.
Victims of Terrorism. South African Israelis, Larry and Marlin Butchins stand before the memorial board, where Marlin points out the names of her family members – her mother Sylvia Bernstein (aged 73) and sister Gail Belkin (aged 48) -who were killed together in a suicide terrorist bombing of Dizengoff Center in March 6, 1996.
I take comfort that the day following the ceremony for the South African fallen, I received an email from esteemed South African author and journalist, Henning van Aswegen, who wrote the following:
“Realise please that South Africa’s Corrupt Antisemitic ANC government does not speak for the people of South Africa, only for a portion thereof. There is massive support for Israel and its people here and we are cheering on the IDF every day in its righteous response to Hamas’ terrorism.”
With the support and understanding of true friends may the day dawn when no more names of fallen will be added to memorial boards.
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).
“Friends, what Hamas started in Gaza on October 7, will not end in Gaza or in Jerusalem”
By Harris Zvi Green
February 23, 2024
My dearest friends,
Martin Luther King said:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”
The inflammatory antisemitic rhetoric in the context of the Israel-Hamas conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous. It’s unthinkable that this spike in antisemitism is occurring in the wake of the October 7 massacre. I would have imagined that the wanton killing and the perverted rapes would have provided an ideal opportunity for fair-minded people to speak out against these universally accepted evils. Sadly, that’s not been the case.
Most of the players on the international stage are doing their utmost to steer clear of any challenge or controversy that might put their leadership abilities to the test. They prefer comfort and convenience.
Today’s so-called leaders are conspicuous by their silence and their apathy. By Martin Luther King’s standards, they are not leaders.
I was deeply moved by the recent YouTube clip put out by South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Warren Goldstein, following his diplomatic mission to Israel. Throughout the crisis, his courage has been an inspiration to all of us. The Rabbi has displayed the qualities of a leader during this stressful period of challenge and controversy. I’m sure Martin Luther King would concur.
Let’s return to the recent spike in antisemitic violence. These were inspired in different locations around the world immediately after the October 7 massacre. Demonizing Israel to justify the Hamas atrocities of October 7 was, and remains, a tactical priority. Mass marches in European cities supporting the Hamas cause began immediately after the massacre. The notorious “gas the Jews” demonstration at the Sydney Opera House took place on October 9.
Sydney’s Sad Symphony. Only two days after Hamas massacres Jews in Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023 and chanted “Gas the Jews”. Originally planned to be illuminated in the colors of the Israeli flag, instead the police advised the Jewish community to stay away from Sydney’s iconic Opera House. (AP/Rick Rycroft)
It never stopped there.
The number of reported antisemitic attacks in the UK in 2023 was more than double those reported in 2022. Following an arson attack on his constituency office, a member of the British House of Commons and a supporter of Israel, announced he would not seek re-election.
Brazil’s President, Lula da Silva, compared Israel’s war against Hamas to Adolf Hitler and the extermination of Jews by the Nazis in World War II.
Lula’s Lunacy. Inciting antisemitism, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says Israel like “Hitler” committing “genocide” in Gaza (Ricardo STUCKERT / Brazilian Presidency / AFP)
A member of South Africa’s Parliament, Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam, ranted:
“If the city of Cape Town is handed over to the Zionists, there will be a bloodbath. We will not allow you to make it a Jewish state”
Who elects racists like this to represent them in parliament? If this doesn’t constitute hate speech, what does? The number of Jews in South Africa has dropped from 120,000 in 1970 to less than 50,000. This number continues to plummet in the wake of South Africa’s growing hostility towards Israel.
South African MP Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam: “If the City of Cape Town Is Handed Over to the Zionists, there Will Be a Bloodbath; We Will Not Allow You to Make It a Jewish State.”
Friends, what Hamas started in Gaza on October 7, will not end in Gaza or in Jerusalem.
Israel has and will always serve as a magnet for world Jewry. In 1947, 4.5% of world Jewry resided in the Land of Israel. Fast forward 77 years. Today 45.3% of world Jewry resides in Israel. It’s estimated that in around 8 years from now, more than half of world Jewry will reside in Israel.
Given what’s going on in the world today, the demographics of the Jewish world will continue to change dramatically. More than 7,000 people immigrated to Israel since October 7. There’s been a significant increase in immigration applications from France, Canada, the US and the UK. Once flourishing communities will dwindle and age. The diaspora’s loss will be Israel’s gain.
The international community is systematically engaged in demonizing Israel. The most ridiculous conspiracy theories are gaining momentum. The victim of the October 7 massacre has become the criminal. The criminal has become the victim.
The UN is doing its utmost to protect the Hamas leadership and what’s left of its terror tunnel network and stockpile of armaments. A ceasefire in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces will not bring peace to the region. It will, however, guarantee another round of hostilities. More war, more bloodshed.
Towns and villages along Israel’s southern and northern borders remain deserted. Around 200,000 people have been displaced from their homes. Places of work have been closed for almost five months. Security in these areas must be restored so these people can safely return to their homes and resume their livelihoods.
Israel’s Empty North. Without security, Israel’s northern citizens can’t return to their homes. An Israeli soldier near the Israel-Lebanese border patrols a path in abandoned Kibbutz Manara devastated by constant shelling from Hezbollah in Lebanon. (Photo: Amnon Gutman/Bloomberg)
Of course, the UN should be focusing its efforts on implementing Resolution 1701 adopted in 2006 which requires the disarmament of Hezbollah in South Lebanon. Failure to achieve this will increase the level of tension and make full-scale war inevitable.
The Secretary-General of the UN needs to be reminded that what’s happening in Gaza, isn’t happening in a vacuum. What might happen in Lebanon, could make Gaza look like child’s play.
The plight of the hostages continues to plague us. One hundred and thirty-four hostages have been held in captivity for the past 140 days in the most inhumane conditions. Amongst them is 1 year old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother, Ariel. At the time of his abduction, Kfir was 9 months old. He is now 14 months old. Who’s taking care of him?
Does the World Care? Flash of orange as Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, are violently abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. (Screenshot)
Please spare a thought for Kfir and his fellow hostages.
Unfortunately, neither the UN nor the Red Cross are willing to take responsibility for their welfare. The calls for their immediate and unconditional release are no more than lip service.
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers. May the hostages soon be reunited with their families.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green.
“Zionism is an essential part of who we are, our identity, our soul…our bond with Israel is unbreakable,” South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein gives an emotional account of his trip of solidarity to Israel.
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Aged 77, he made Aliyah 53 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. He is married to Phyllis. They have 3 married children ,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Harris Zvi Green is a founder member of Truth be Told, an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of 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).
Who should adjudicate the crimes committed by UNRWA and its complicity in the October 7 massacre?
By Harris Zvi Green
February 16, 2024
My dearest friends,
Lyndon B. Johnson said:
“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
The speed with which our headlines changed during the past week, clearly demonstrated this.
The best news by far was the release of two of the hostages who had been held in captivity by Hamas for 129 days. Another 134 hostages remain in Gaza. Contrary to the requirements of the Geneva Convention, they haven’t been visited by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Nor did the medicines provided for them reach their destination.
The Red Cross doesn’t care. Qatar, who brokered the shipment, doesn’t care. South Africa doesn’t care. The UN doesn’t care. Hamas certainly doesn’t care.
Any references made to the unfortunate plight of the hostages by the international community and the media are no more than lip-service. The awful truth is that nobody cares.
Since its inception in 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been an integral part of the Arab terror machine. Some weeks ago, entrances from UNRWA schools to the Hamas subterranean network of terror tunnels were discovered. The involvement of UNRWA personnel in the October 7 massacre is now an established fact.
Exposing Tunnels, Exposes UNRWA. A soldier stands in a Hamas tunnel underneath a UNRWA school in Gaza City, February 8, 2024. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Earlier this week, a state-of-the-art Hamas data center, equipped with sophisticated computer servers, was discovered under the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza. As if this wasn’t enough, it transpires this data center was powered by electricity from the UNRWA building.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, claims his organization had no knowledge regarding the goings-on under its facilities. Lazzarini is either a liar or totally incompetent. Probably both.
‘We did not know’. UNRWA head pleads ignorance after Hamas data center found under agency’s HQ.
On September 5, 2014, almost 10 years ago, I launched a Facebook group called Investigate UNRWA Now. My action was motivated by the brazen use of UNRWA facilities as missile storage units and safe havens for terror groups.
At around that time, I initiated an internet petition calling on the Secretary General of the UN to conduct a transparent investigation into this and to bring the guilty UNRWA officials to justice. 1,593 people signed this petition.
UN’worthy to Head. Despite overwhelming evidence, UNRWA head says his agency knew nothing about terrorist Hamas data center directly under its Gaza City HQ.(AP/Bilal Hussein)
I’m a pensioner. I’ve never been an employee of UNRWA. I spent my entire working life working hard to make a decent living and raising a family. So, how is it, that, for the past 10 years, I’ve known about UNRWA’s complicity in supporting Palestinian terror, while UNRWA’s Commissioner-General claims he’s not aware of any such complicity?
Lazzarini has brought UNRWA into disrepute. UNRWA’s mandate is to provide humanitarian services to the people of Gaza. In reality, UNRWA is a conduit for transferring funds to fuel the Hamas terror machine.
Let’s not forget that much of UNRWA’s funding is provided by the US and the EU. Lazzarini’s incompetence does not excuse these countries from adequately verifying how their taxpayer’s money is being spent.
The required course of action is clear. UNRWA must be dismantled and Lazzarini must be fired and charged at the International Criminal Court for his criminal incompetence which resulted in acts of genocide against Israel.
Earlier this week, I listened to an interesting webinar delivered by a former High Court judge in South Africa. The judge presented his views and interpretations of the rulings of the International Court of Justice against Israel. His explanations related to the legal considerations of the rulings. They also exposed the weaknesses of International Law when it comes to fairly adjudicating charges of genocide and war crimes.
In this respect, the comments made by the dissenting judge from Uganda that the conflict is political and should, therefore, be referred to the Security Council, are worthy of note.
There are differences between law and justice. Law is a system of rules and regulations established by governments to maintain social order and protect the rights of their citizens. Justice, on the other hand, embodies the principles of fairness, impartiality and the treatment of people based on rights, merits and equality.
I expect the rulings of the ICJ to reflect justice. The question is, can they?
Jurisdiction of the ICJ is partial. It is limited to states. The ICJ does not have jurisdiction over acts of genocide committed by Hamas and other Palestinian groups. How, then, can the ICJ adequately adjudicate the charges brought by South Africa, on behalf of Hamas, against Israel?
The Hamas Charter is clearly genocidal. By not classifying Hamas a terrorist organization, the UN has negatively impacted its own credibility to address one of the worst terror attacks in history.
Motivating Murder. A close read of Hamas’s founding documents clearly shows its genocidal intentions.
Does the ICJ have jurisdiction over countries who provide military know-how and arms to Hamas? At the end of the day, Hamas is a proxy acting on behalf of those countries. It’s like hiring a “hit man” to take the “rap”. It’s the oldest alibi in town.
The ICJ is an organ of the UN and therefore has no jurisdiction over the UN and its agencies. Who, then, should adjudicate the crimes committed by UNRWA and its complicity in the October 7 massacre?
If justice is to be done, the issues must be judged in their entirety without providing impunity to the political forces who control the purse strings.
The international community is doing its utmost to tie our hands behind our backs, but we will prevail. We have no choice.
Killers Let Loose. Hamas’s deliberate attack on Israelis and the atrocities it committed fall firmly under the category defined by international law as war crimes and crimes against humanity, and amount to genocide. (Photo: Hani Al Shaer/Anadolu Agency)
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers. Their bravery was certainly put to the test in the operation that secured the release of the two hostages earlier this week. May the remaining hostages soon be reunited with their families.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Aged 77, he made Aliyah 53 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. He is married to Phyllis. They have 3 married children ,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Harris Zvi Green is a founder member of Truth be Told, an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of 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).
Stolen from Israel, our precious hostages lie isolated in a hostile dark. Despite their disconnect, millions who knew them not, know them today as family. Such is the sentiment expressed in this poem by Fonda Dubb of Eilat. (David Kaplan Lay of the Land editor)
By Fonda Dubb
We feel your pain We feel your suffering Our souls are connected with yours You are not alone
Your strength is from the Lord Your Creator You are not alone
We grieve with you and grieve for you Your longing to be home You will never be forgotten You are not alone
We cry for you We do not know you You are “people ” some of us have never met Yet my heart sings a song of love and tears Longing for you to come home To be freed from your chains of bondage And united again together with your family and friends
How brave you are!! We simple mortals cannot feel nor see your pain But cry in unison That soon you will be free to roam in our beloved land again While I who do not know you shed tears of sorrow and love To come back again You are not alone
I feel you belong to me I pray that almighty G-d will protect you all And give you strength to live each day in a noble way Knowing You are not Alone
Hashem anoints your head with precious oils And heals you in a calming way With thoughts of coloured butterflies Of white, blue, yellow and red that come gently down to rest upon your shoulders So you can rest at night to give you peace of mind You are not alone
I shed a final tear with hope, love and prayer to restore your mind Knowing You are not alone
We live in a world that cares And cries for you with might We blow you kisses We send you hugs To hold you and secure you tight So you are not alone at night And to feel our tears That are not in vain that splash upon our pillows at night To protect you all the day and night With a gentle smile We send a glow of light to spread our message to tell you Spread out on a golden sheet Our love for will never waver YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Wherever you are in Israel, from the cities to the smallest town, the faces of the hostages stare back, appealing ….. Seen here is a woman looking at a board displaying pictures of hostages, in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 5. (Photo: Reuters/Susana Vera)
About the poet:
Fonda Dubb, a former South African who in her own daring way challenged the apartheid regime by teaching dance and cooking in “Black areas” in the Eastern Cape and Northern Transvaal. Fonda Dubb, today, resides in Eilat, Israel (see article: The Right Moves). Her lifelong concern for others has led to her receiving numerous awards, most notably in 2012 the ‘Woman of the Year Miller Prize’ for volunteerism from the Mayor of Eilat. In recent times, Fonda has taken to writing poetry drawing from her experiences both in South Africa and 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).
The war against Hamas rekindles memories for the writer as a young Israeli soldier stationed in the Gaza Strip in 1959.
By Lennie Lurie
Israel partnering with Britain and France in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, was fought to put an end to terror incursions into Israel and to remove the Egyptian blockade of Eilat. It marked the final transformation of the IDF into a professional army capable of large-scale operations and Israel gained a breathing space of about ten years.
It was during this “breathing space” that in January 1959, after matriculating in Cape Town, I volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Nahal Parachute Brigade for 15 months. The South African Zionist Federation had previously arranged this unique course with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Smiling “Spy”. The writer, Lennie Lurie, in his IDF uniform in 1959.
A group of 21 young South Africans, including one woman, began the tough and grueling IDF basic training course which, after almost 4 months, had me proudly wearing the IDF infantry badge on my beret and the Nahal insignia on my uniform.
This was followed by our group as part of my Nahal military service working on Kibbutz Urim in Israel’s south for six months. One of around a dozen small communities in the area along the Gaza periphery – most of them were established in the 1940s – Urim is located only 6 miles from the Gaza border. Many of the founding members of Kibbutz Urim were Holocaust survivors who arrived from Europe following World War II.
Miraculously Spared. Somehow the community of kibbutz Urim escaped death and destruction on the 7th October, unlike several of its neighboring villages and towns.
I then volunteered for the six-month IDF Advanced Training course which included parachuting.
Towards the end of this Advanced Training period, we undertook an exercise called ‘The Lines’, whereby at dawn a single soldier was positioned about 500 meters from a trench where he had to crawl to. The trench overlooked a camp of the Canadian United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF) in the Gaza Strip. The soldier’s task was to monitor all vehicles entering and departing the camp which could determine the most optimum time to attack Egyptian forces in Gaza – should the need ever arise. At sunset, the solitary soldier would crawl back to an arranged spot and taken back to base.
It was a cold and wet winter and crouching in a trench with 20cms of water in it for 11 hours was extremely uncomfortable. All my observations and recordings needed to be compared and correlated to ensure their accuracy. On my third morning in that trench, I found a plastic bag, which, to my amazement, contained three packets of Lucky Strike cigarettes and three cans of English beer with this handwritten message:
“You poor bastard! We see you in your position every day. Maybe these cigarettes and beers will make you feel better?”
It was signed:
“Canadian UNEF Soldiers
P.S. If you can, get us a bottle of Israeli wine...”
Down to Earth. The writer after a parachute jump with his attached reserve chute.
I was shocked to realise that my presence was known to the Canadians but that evening I bought two bottles of Israeli wine at the army canteen which I left in my “spying” trench the following morning. I included a note which, for some inexplicable reason, I wrote in a different handwriting style to my own that read:
“Thanks for the cigarettes and beer. Enjoy the wine”.
The following morning, I noted that the wine bottles had gone.
A few days later I was transferred to ambush duties. Shortly thereafter, early one morning, our entire company was ordered to line up on the parade ground. We suspected that some emergency had arisen. One by one, every soldier was called into a hut for a few minutes emerging afterwards to stand elsewhere from the group.
Finally, it was my turn to enter the hut and I found myself facing three offices.
“Lurie, are you a spy? What is the meaning of this coded message?” the colonel demanded, showing me my handwritten note:
“Thanks for the cigarettes and beer. Enjoy the wine.’
I was petrified with shock. How on earth did my note get into the IDF’s hands?
I then showed him a letter I was writing to my family which I had in my shirt pocket, pointing out the complete differences in handwriting styles.
The officers went into a huddle scrutinizing my letter. Finally, they allowed me to leave which I managed on wobbly legs. I rejoined the other soldiers on the parade ground forever wondering whether the IDF had ever managed to catch their ‘spy’!
EPILOGUE
Kibbutz Urim, situated between Kibbutz Re’im – the music festival site of one of the Hamas terrorists’ worst massacre of Israelis on that fateful Shabbat and Simchat Torah of the 7th October, 2023 – and the town of Ofakim, where groups of Hamas terrorists rampaged and held resident’s hostage in their homes for hours, somehow was spared from death and destruction.
Massacre on the Road. Image shows charred and damaged cars along a desert road after an attack by Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel on Saturday, October 7, 2023. While many kibbutzim were attacked, Urim miraculously remained untouched.
While some three thousand Hamas terrorists carried out the worst terror attack the State of Israel has ever seen, none of them had managed to infiltrate Kibbutz Urim. Hunkered down in a communal bomb shelter, the kibbutz members heard rockets flying overhead and rounds of gunfire, while being updated on what was happening all around them by friends from nearby communities.
Having a Field Day. The writer, Lennie Lurie, working on Kibbutz Urim during his voluntary IDF service
“We had a few close calls,” a kibbutz member remarked, “A number of terrorists were killed on the road leading to our kibbutz, and four more were captured right outside our back gate. It was a total roller coaster. The story was unfolding around us throughout the day. The terrorists literally skipped over us, they went to Kibbutz Re’im, they went to Ofakim, it’s a complete miracle they missed us out. We can count more miracles here on Kibbutz Urim than tragedies here!” Kibbutz Urim is far enough away to have been spared over the years rounds of mortar fire from the Gaza Strip and close enough so that larger rockets fired by the militant groups there pass right overhead.
The kibbutz members stayed inside the shelter for more than 24 hours.
One member of Kibbutz Urim, who was spending the weekend on kibbutz Be’eri, is now missing, most likely among the hostages in Gaza!
About the writer:
A B.Sc. graduate in Economics and Geology from the University of Cape Town (UCT), Lennie may be the only volunteer from abroad who was granted permission to leave his group on kibbutz during the 1967 Six Day War to rejoin his paratroop brigade that he had served with years before following his matriculation in Cape Town. In Israel, Lennie has worked as an Export Manager for some of the country’s major food manufacturers and chemical companies as well as an independent consultant in Export Marketing guiding many small Israeli businesses to sell their products and services in the world-wide market. As a result of a work accident in 1995, Lennie made a career change and became an independent English teacher working mainly with hi-tech companies and associated with universities and colleges in the north of 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).
Facilitating an ever-increasing Palestinian refugee population, UNWRA ensures its existence by exacerbating a crisis it was created to resolve.
By Craig Snoyman
On Friday 14 May 1948, David Ben Gurion declared that there would be an independent Jewish state. At midnight and as soon as the world had its first Jewish state for 2000 years, that state was at war with its neighbouring Arab states.
When the fog of war lifted, hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees had fled the Jewish state and hundreds of thousands of Jews had been expelled from Arab countries. The approaches to dealing with the refugees were dealt with very differently by the opposing parties. The cash-strapped fledgling state agreed to absorb all the Jewish refugees. The Arab countries placed the refugees that had fled Israel, into refugee camps with the promise that they could return to their homes once Israel was destroyed. These refugees were not allowed to integrate into the economies they found themselves.
Terror Tunnels and UN Aid. The discovery in December 2023 of UN and USAID sacks being used by Hamas to construct terror tunnels in Gaza raised questions about the security of humanitarian aid falling into the hands of the terror group.
To deal with the Arab refugee crisis, a new organisation was born. The United Nations established a relief organisation called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, commonly referred to as UNRWA. While the UN already had a refugee assistance body, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it was deemed necessary to create a special temporary body to deal with the Arab refugee crisis – “The Catastrophe” or “Nakba”, as the Arab countries called it.
According to UNHCR, a person is no longer a refugee if he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality”. Furthermore, according to UNRWA, a Palestine refugee is a “person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict…as well as their descendants”. Each descendant of the original refugees from the war is automatically registered as a refugee. Palestinians remain refugees in perpetuity. UNRWA boasts that:
“When the Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5.9 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.”
Under UNRWA stewardship, there has been no resolution of the refugee crisis and the number of Palestinian refugees has increased exponentially. Each Palestinian refugee can claim the right to relocate to the State of Israel (‘the right of return’). UNRWA, like Israel’s neighbouring Arab countries, has obstructed the resettlement of the refugees in the areas where they reside or allow for relocation in in other countries.
The humanitarian agency providing education, health care and social services to needy Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, UNRWA employs at least 30,000 personnel and has an annual budget of $1.2 billion. For as long as there are Palestinian refugees, UNRWA will, like Audrey the man-eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors, demand that the world “Feed me, Feed me”. By ever increasing the number of refugees, UNWRA ensures its existence by inhibiting resolution of the crisis that it was created to resolve.
Following generations of Palestinians having received an UNRWA education, respected polls over many years have consistently revealed disturbing attitudes of those who passed through the educational system. At least four generations have been taught that Israel has stolen their land, there is no such entity as Israel, that they will return to the homes of their grandparents or great-grandparents, and the Jews will be thrown into the sea or return to Europe. Under the Palestinian right of return, the Jews that remain will be a minority in their own country.
Israel does not Exist. A map at an UNWRA school for Grade 5 is titled “Physical Map of Palestine”
So many of the textbooks are so antisemitic that certain countries recently refused to continue sponsoring UNRWA. Maps in these textbooks deny the existence of Israel referring to it as Palestine. Each UNRWA school allows for students to be recruited to the Islamic Bloc, Hamas’s student group. UNRWA teachers have for many years been voted into senior Hamas positions, without sanction. Is it any surprise that 85% of the Gazan population expressed support for Hamas following the 7 October massacre and calls for the elimination of Israel, remain ever-present. By contrast, denazification education in post-WWII Germany resulted in patent antisemitism disappearing within one generation.
Over the years, complaints had been addressed to UNRWA, mostly by Israel, that Hamas:
– was constructing terror tunnels under its schools
– storing weapons in or near the Agency’s facilities, including schools
– its antisemitic academic syllabus and
– employment of active Hamas terrorists.
UNRWA has refrained from openly condemning Hamas or holding it directly responsible for any misconduct. UNRWA has avoided alienating Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Much like anything else in Gaza, nothing can be done without Hamas’s approval. However, by being an organ of the United Nations, UNRWA is clothed with legitimacy and swats away such complaints with impunity.
Health Hazard Hospitals. From inpatient wards to the hospital basements, Hamas turned Gaza hospitals into terror centers.
In 2014, it was an open secret that Hamas had a control centre under Al-Shifa hospital. This was denied by UNRWA and more vigorously by the doctors working in the Hospital. On a recent visit to South Africa to highlight Israeli “atrocities” in Gaza, Dr Madds Gilbert, addressed audiences stating that in the 20 years he had been working in hospitals in Gaza, he emphatically denied ever seeing any sign of Hamas activity in the hospitals. The facts that have been exposed by Israel since entering these ‘hospitals’ – revealing Hamas’ use of them for purposes of terror – reveal Dr Gilbert was at ease lying to gullible audiences throughout South Africa.
Doctor Denies. Contrary to the clear evidence revealed by the IDF, Dr. Mads Gilbert tells South African audiences during a visit in November 2023 that in 20 years of working in Gaza, he had never seen any Hamas activity in hospitals. (Photo: Norah Tape, The Palestine Chronicle)
Since the invasion of Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force has revealed Hamas tunnels under virtually every UNRWA school and posted videos showing that every single hospital in Gaza served as a Hamas command post, with tunnels underneath them. One hospital head confessed that he and at least 16 staff members were also members of Hamas. The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabaliya, revealed in a Shin Bet interrogation that his northern Gaza hospital was turned into a military facility under Hamas’s control and that at one point, it had housed a kidnapped soldier.
Docter Divulges. Director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya, Ahmed Kahlot, reveals during interrogation that his hospital was used as a military facility by Hamas. (Photo Shin Bet)
Also discovered was that UNRWA properties have been found to have stored rockets and munitions and that UN material had been used in the construction of terror tunnels. While it would appear that Hamas terrorists have had free access to UNRWA supplies, both pre-and post-discovery, UNRWA has remained silent.
Hillel Neuer of Human Rights Watch recently disclosed that UNRWA employees had their own private media communication channel. Immediately following October 7, over 2500 Hamas-supporting UNRWA teachers openly celebrated the massacre.
The war has stripped away UNRWA’s façade and exposed its complicity with Gaza’s terrorist groups who are out to destroy Israel.
Its initial mission long obsolete and fostering anti-Israeli sentiment and Jew-hatred, UNWRA now needs to be dismantled.
The battle in the area of Gazan hospital where weapons were later found in the hospital as expected.
About the writer:
Craig Snoymanis a practising advocate in South Africa.
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).
While a bitterly cold front hampers our brave soldiers, a frosty front from UN organs towards Israel undermines Gaza solution.
By Harris Zvi Green
February 2, 2024
My dearest friends,
This week has been a particularly wet one. Israel is usually at its happiest when it rains. The level of Israel’s largest natural water resource, Lake Kinneret, remains the most accurate reflection of our national mood. On this front, we’re doing well.
This year, our main concern regarding the weather, is its effect on the wellbeing of our soldiers. Ori sent us some photographs of his activities along the Lebanese border. Cold, wet, misty and muddy is the way to best describe them. Makes me realize how fortunate I am to be able to curl up under my warm blankets while our soldiers protect our borders with such dedication and under such difficult conditions.
Out in the Cold. Israeli military reservists are serving in the winter snows of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights where they are defending the country from possible attack by Hezbollah terrorists. (Photo February 1, 2023 by Eitan Elhadez-Barak/TPS)
We spent last Friday glued to our television sets trying to understand the initial rulings of the International Court of Justice. What upset me most, was that Hamas wasn’t there to answer for their war crimes before, on and after October 7. This travesty of justice completely undermines the attempt to legally adjudicate the conflict.
The judges at the ICJdid not issue an interim order demanding an immediate cessation of the hostilities. I guess this means the court is of the opinion that Israel enjoys the right to self-defense including the elimination of Hamas and its military infrastructure. The court is also of the opinion that Israel has not committed acts of genocide.
The ICJ judges called for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. Who, I ask, is expected to deliver on that? The judges didn’t even suggest a candidate for the job. Yet another example of lip service being paid to an issue nobody wants to take ownership of.
The judges also insisted that more humanitarian aid be provided to Gaza. This responsibility has been assigned to Israel. Surely humanitarian aid to Gaza should be contingent on the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. What can be more humanitarian than releasing innocent hostages? But the judges chose to remain silent on this.
The most ridiculous ruling made by the judges was the one which speculated that Israel might, in the future, commit acts of genocide. I’m not a lawyer, but I believe judges should adjudicate the facts and not engage in speculation.
The South African government laid on a hero’s welcome home for their legal team. Supported by Al Jazeera, they claim to have won a resounding victory. But South Africa clearly failed to achieve her prime goal of stopping the war.
Anti-Israel at Airport. Despite not succeeding in their main claims at the ICJ in The Hague, South Africa’s legal team is welcomed on their return at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport like heroes.
South Africa did, however, achieve her more realistic goal of dragging Israel through a long and messy legal battle at the ICJ on charges of genocide. This charade of trying to demonize Israel is likely to continue for the next few years.
The institutions representing the international community have clearly failed to define how a country, aspiring to uphold the rules of war, should conduct itself against a terror entity with no accountability.
Justice will not be forthcoming from the ICJ. Those guilty of genocide aren’t on trial. All we’ll get from this legal charade is another blood libel against Jews and an emboldened Hamas.
Release of Hostages, No Ceasefire. Not to the liking of South Africa or Hamas, the judges at the ICJ in The Hague did not rule for a ceasefire in Gaza, were not of the opinion that Israel was committing genocide and called for the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages.(Photo: Patrick Post / AP)
The revelation that UNRWA staff members were amongst the Hamas militants who perpetrated the October 7 massacre came as no surprise to anybody in Israel.
For the past 75 years, UNRWA schools have served as the breeding ground for indoctrination and brainwashing the children of Gaza. A quick glance through any UNRWA sponsored text book confirms this. If the UN is committed to finding a lasting peace in the Middle East, UNRWA must be dismantled. It’s role in financing terror and perpetuating the conflict has been proven beyond any shadow of doubt.
It’s also been revealed that 1,200 UNRWA employees are active members of Hamas and other terror groups and around 50% of UNRWA’s employees in the Gaza Strip have close family links to these organizations. This revelation has forced some of UNRWA’s major donors, including the US and the EU, to put their financial contributions on hold, pending further investigation.
Burning Issues. The massacre of 1400 Israelis on 7 October 2023 did not happen in a vacuum. From birth, Hamas terrorists are indoctrinated with hate, antisemitism and training to kill. Seen here is an illustration from a PA textbook of a girl smiling as “heretics” are burned. (Source: IMPACT-se)
I find it difficult to believe that the higher echelons of the UN are not fully aware of this abuse of power to develop and finance the Hamas terror infrastructure. This revelation should be embarrassing for them. But fear not. Their spin-doctors will find the right story to excuse their actions and enable them to continue promoting their warped agendas. Don’t expect anybody to take responsibility or to resign their positions.
The CIA World Factbook provides a ton of information. So, for those who like trivia, life expectancy at birth in Egypt in 2023 was 72.5 years. In Syria, it was 74.6. In neighbouring Jordan, it was 75.0. In wealthy Saudi Arabia, it was 76.9 years. In Gaza, life expectancy at birth was 74.8 years. Pretty much par for the course. These numbers beg the question as to whether there’s any foundation to the claim that Gaza is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis. Sounds to me like the world is in crisis.
At this time, the plight of the 136 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas remains unclear. We are told that 108 hostages, amongst them elderly people, women and children, are alive. The remaining 28 were murdered by Hamas.
My condolences to those mourning their nearest and dearest. My wishes to the injured for a complete and speedy recovery. May God protect our brave soldiers. May the hostages soon be reunited with their families.
Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and better times ahead.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Harris Zvi Green.
About the writer:
Harris Zvi Green was born in Cape Town, South Africa. Aged 77, he made Aliyah 53 years ago. An accountant by profession, he served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of Israel based hi-tech companies. He is married to Phyllis. They have 3 married children ,13 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Harris Zvi Green is a founder member of Truth be Told, an organization engaged in public diplomacy on behalf of 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).
Failing to establish a case of genocide against Israel, South Africa also failed to follow the laudable values of its first President, Nelson Mandela
By Emeritus Professor, Raymond Wacks
An earlier, shortened, version of this article appeared The Jewish Chronicle last week. We are grateful for permission to publish the expanded essay here.
The world has watched the apocalyptic scenes of medieval privation and devastation in Gaza in horror. Whether by accident or design, Hamas has shattered the lives of the people they were elected to serve. The scale of death and injury is a damning indictment of the callous indifference and cruelty of the jihadists whose well-heeled leaders are safely ensconced far from the turmoil in five-star hotels or luxuriating in lavish spas. Provoking Israel by their depravity of 7 October – murder, rape, torture, abduction, arson, and pillaging – the butchers have reaped a whirlwind whose calamitous consequences will endure for decades.
SA v Israel. The principal judicial organ of the UN, the International Court of Justice in The Hague was the setting for South Africa to pursue Israel at the behest of Hamas by falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
Gazans obviously deserve better, and it is incomprehensible that their voices have not been raised against the terrorists for triggering their disastrous predicament. Exhorting them to surrender and release the surviving hostages would bring an end to their torment.
Amid this seemingly intractable chaos, it fell to South Africa to assume the role of conscientious accuser. Although its application to the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention failed to secure a ceasefire as a ‘provisional measure of protection’, the court ordered Israel to observe several requirements to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, including the killing of Palestinians, causing serious bodily or mental harm to civilians, and ending the imposition of measures intended to prevent births. Israel is also directed to take immediate steps to permit the provision of humanitarian assistance to residents in Gaza.
It is important to note that the ruling is both interim and unenforceable by the court. And while it explicitly avoids deciding on the merits, the judgment does constitute an uncomfortable rebuke to Israel in respect of its military execution of self-defence.
The decision is, I believe, unsatisfactory in a number of respects; I shall mention only six of its most conspicuous shortcomings.
First, the court passes lightly over Israel’s defence. It is extraordinary that the judges fail to acknowledge the critical fact that Israel is fighting an enemy that is demonstrably committed to the Jewish state’s annihilation. The 2017 revised (more ‘moderate’) Hamas Charter is explicit in its ambition to continue its resistance until Israel is obliterated:
Palestine symbolizes the resistance that shall continue until liberation is accomplished, until the return is fulfilled and until a fully sovereign state is established with Jerusalem as its capital … [Palestine] was seized by a racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project …
A pronouncement that requires little clarification.
‘Aim’ing to Annihilate. Passing lightly over Israel’s defence, the judges failed to acknowledge the critical fact that Israel is fighting an enemy that is committed to the Jewish state’s annihilation. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images)
Second, it surprisingly overlooks the terrible reality that Israel’s cold-blooded foe hides its fighters, weapons, and hostages in a subterranean city, and operates amongst civilians in schools, mosques, and hospitals. It also continues to fire rockets into Israel. Imposing a ceasefire on Israel, as requested by the applicant, would simply allow Hamas to regroup. Moreover, as Justice Sebutinde recognises in her carefully reasoned dissent, that the litigation is “complicated by the fact that in the context of an ongoing war with Hamas, which is not a party to these proceedings, it would be unrealistic to put limitations upon one of the belligerent parties but not the other. Israel would justifiably assert its right to defend itself from Hamas, which would most probably aggravate the situation in Gaza … It is difficult to envisage how one of the belligerent parties can be expected to unilaterally “prevent the destruction of evidence” while leaving the other one free to carry on unabated.”
In Word and Deed. How does South Africa feel about the preamble to the Hamas Covenant that reads that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Third, the court uncritically concurs with the applicant’s assertion that various bellicose statements, uttered in the aftermath of the gruesome 7 October attacks, demonstrate the requisite intention by Israel to commit genocide. A moment’s thought would explain why, following the barbaric, sadistic onslaught, which left at least 1,200 dead, many wounded, and some 250 taken hostage, certain Israeli political and military leaders rashly unleashed clamorous calls to arms, promising vengeance and retaliation for the unspeakable suffering that was visited upon so many innocent citizens and foreign visitors. To treat such injudicious remarks – made in the heat of a national tragedy – as evidence of a state’s intention to commit genocide is both disingenuous and highly tendentious, especially as they included comments made by individuals with no direct role in Israel’s military decision-making on the ground. They were, in any event, directed at the terrorists, not the Palestinians or Gazans in general.
Fourth, the court ought to have considered whether the Genocide Convention is, in fact, the appropriate legal basis for the litigation. As both the ad hoc Israeli judge, Aharon Barak and Julia Sebutinde point out in their dissenting judgments, the framework of international humanitarian law (IHL) affords a more congenial authority under which the application should have been mounted. In the words of the latter:
What distinguishes the crime of genocide from other grave violations of international human rights law is the existence of the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’. Accordingly, the acts complained of by South Africa … can only be capable of falling within the scope of the said Convention if a genocidal intent is present, otherwise such acts simply constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law and not genocide as such.
IHL provides that harm to innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure should not be excessive as compared with the anticipated military advantage. The loss of innocent lives is not unlawful providing it complies with the rules and principles of this law. Similarly, the German judge, Georg Nolte, though he concurred with the majority, did not regard the test of genocide as having been met:
I am not persuaded that South Africa has plausibly shown that the military operation undertaken by Israel, as such, is being pursued with genocidal intent. The evidence provided by South Africa regarding the Israeli military operation differs fundamentally from that contained in the reports by the United Nations fact-finding mission on Myanmar’s so-called ‘clearance operation’ in 2016 and 2017 which led the Court to adopt its Order of 23 January 2020 in The Gambia v Myanmar.
Fifth, the court abjures finding of facts, yet unhesitatingly cites a plethora of evidence from various agencies of the United Nations whose neutrality is, at the very least, questionable. They include the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Human Rights Council, and the Commissioner-General of (the recently discredited) UNRWA.
UN’reliable Submissions. The writer questions the ICJ relying on South Africa’s ‘evidence’ from highly questionable UN agencies such as UNRWA where at least 12 of its employees were found to have had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Sixth, the judges fail to enquire whether South Africa’s application might be tainted by its cordiality towards Hamas. The country, it seems, wishes to be seen as the conscience of the world. To this end, it predictably invokes the memory of Nelson Mandela to shore up its crumbling legitimacy. One might have thought that the moral standing of the ANC government, mortally wounded by years of corruption and broken promises, had reached rock bottom. Yet its shameless embrace of the Hamas murderers and rapists condemns it to infamy from which it may never recover. A mere ten days after 7 October, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, held a telephone call with the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, to express the country’s ‘solidarity and support’ for the Palestinian people. This was followed by a delegation of three Hamas officials to Pretoria. She also visited Iran on 22 October 2023.
This affability with the Islamic Republic could, as Justice Sebutinde justly remarked, actually be put to constructive use:
It was brought to the attention of the Court that South Africa, and in particular certain organs of government, have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a cordial relationship with the leadership of Hamas. If that is the case, then one would encourage South Africa as a party to these proceedings and to the Genocide Convention, to use whatever influence they might wield, to try and persuade Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release the remaining hostages, as a good will gesture.
Judge Julia. In her dissenting view, Uganda’s representative to the International Court of Justice Julia Sebutinde, argued that the core of the dispute was fundamentally political, not legal, and asserted that South Africa failed to establish and clear indication of genocidal intent by Israel. (Photo credit: ICJ)
Is it unreasonable to detect a thinly disguised strain of antisemitism in South Africa’s opportunistic campaign? While strongly castigating Israel, the social justice warriors of Pretoria barely mention the malevolence of Hamas and other Iranian proxies. Could it be that in this conflict, Jewish lives are regarded as somehow less worthy? Or is it simply that the ANC’s desire to burnish its radical pro-Palestinian (and even pro-Iranian) credentials, blinds it to the suffering of the victims of these crimes – particularly as it faces a general election this year?
Among the ironies at play in this sorry charade is the fact that many South African Jews were in the vanguard of the struggle against the grotesque injustice of apartheid. They were tortured, imprisoned, and vilified by the apartheid state. In his memoir, Mandela reflects:
I have found [South African] Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice.
He might have added that several had relatives who were victims of a real genocide at the hands of the Nazis.
Unlike most of his successors, Mandela was, in many ways, a paragon of humility and modesty. I was fortunate enough to spend an hour with the great man soon after his release from almost three decades of incarceration. These virtues were palpable; the nearly total absence of ego and bitterness was genuinely unsettling. This, unhappily, is a far cry from the tone of pious hubris of the South African submission to the ICJ, quick to assign all blame to Israel for defending itself against the sadistic barbarity of terrorists (exultantly recorded and celebrated by them). South Africa’s application – and the court’s judgment – is silent on the scourge of antisemitism and the existential threats to Israel from its neighbours since its very establishment in 1948.
The sad state of South Africa must, in large part, be attributable to the governance of the ANC. The level of violence (27,000 deaths in a single year), corruption, unemployment, poverty, and falling life expectancy, speak for themselves. Solemn undertakings to provide basic utilities – water, electricity, housing – have not been met. None of this is easy to achieve, but ought not the focus of the administration be directed toward improving the plight of its people rather than posturing on the world stage and cosying up to authoritarian regimes and terrorists?
In fairness, I do wonder whether my revulsion at South Africa’s allegation of Israeli genocide is principally based on the fact that it has been brought by a country whose motives seem, at best, impure. Is it the moral turpitude of the ANC that troubles me so deeply? Suppose that, say, Sweden, Switzerland, or Spain had launched the application. Would that diminish my indignation? It would not, of course, alter the spurious nature of the case – the notion that Israel is engaged in genocide is both odious and absurd – but it might conceivably subdue my disenchantment, as someone who contributed to the struggle against apartheid and yearned for a South Africa founded on the values of justice and decency.
Sadly, the leaders of post-apartheid South Africa have not yet succeeded in following the laudable example of its first President. That they have the temerity to side with savagery, renders it morally unfit to stand before the World Court – and the world – to denounce a country engaged in defending itself against an abhorrent, heartless adversary.
About the writer:
Raymond Wacks, Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory, is the author of sixteen books, and editor of ten. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His books include Personal Information: Privacy and the Law; Privacy and Media Freedom; Privacy: A Very Short Introduction; Law: A Very Short Introduction; and Justice: A Beginner’s Guide. Among his most recent publications are Protecting Personal Information: The Right to Privacy Reconsidered, COVID-19 and Public Policy in the Digital Age, and National Security in the New World Order: Government and the Technology of Information (with Andrea Monti). The sixth edition of his Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory appeared in 2021, as did The Rule of Law Under Fire? His latest book, Animal Lives Matter: The Continuing Quest for Justice, is to be published next week.
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).
