South Africa has raised the voice of Humanism; it is the first and only country to do so. Countries like China , Russia must join South Africa in its Case against Israeli Genocide. India wants to suck up to the US led Axis. India has lost its moral voice .
"If the ICJ rules at this stage anything less than that there is a plausible case for genocide, Israel and the Biden administration will seize on the verdict to mischaracterise Israel’s assault on Gaza as receiving a clean bill of health from the World Court."
This is what worries me the most--that the court could take away the stigma of Israel being painted as a state that commits genocide openly. Israel could be slapped on the wrist for not providing humanitarian aid to their "subjects" in a timely manner (after the Gazans all die from lack of clean water and disease as well as injuries from the bombing), but it'll live that down and within a few years be back in everyone's good graces. This is wrong on so many levels. Here's hoping the justices have consciences.
Excellent piece. I do have one point, a point which applies to much commentary to do with Israel. Your article states:
“The peoples of Israel and South Africa still carry the wounds of the crimes of systematic European racism: in Israel’s case, the Holocaust in which the Nazis and their collaborators exterminated six million Jews; and in South Africa’s, the white apartheid regime that was imposed on the black population for decades by a colonising white minority.”
Although this is carefully stated, it gives the impression that Nazi policies involving genocide and mass murder concerned only the Jewish people. This is completely untrue.
The Nazis also targeted the Romani and Sinti people of Europe (the so-called Gypsies) for extermination. Records are very poor, but it is believed that they killed a higher proportion of the prewar European population of Gypsies than of the Jews. Other ethnic groups were targeted including blacks. Although not targeted on an ethnic basis, homosexuals, socialists, communists, disabled people, trade unionists etc were all subjected to Nazi extermination policies.
But the single largest ethnic group that the Nazis targeted for elimination by far was the Slavs - Poles, Ukrainians, Russians etc. According to Hitler’s deranged racial theories, Slavs, like Jews, were ‘Untermenschen’ or ‘subhumans’. The Nazis planned to attack the USSR and create ‘Lebensraum’ or ‘living space’ for ‘Aryan’ German settlers who would move to the east into the newly cleared land.
And how was the land to be cleared? By the mass murder of these Slavs by whatever means necessary, and by the deportation of the remainder to Siberia after the war. In the event, in the course of Operation Barbarossa, Germany succeeded in killing around 27 million citizens of the USSR. Large numbers of Poles were also killed. Some of these died in battle, but the vast majority did not. See:
You are so correct about this, DR. Campbell. The Holocaust Industry, as Norman Finkelstein has so eloquently put it, means the Western World can absolve itself from all of the historical Holocausts it has committed, and sit back and point the finger at the Nazis, while drowning their amnesia about the crimes the Nazis committed against Poles, Gypsies, Communists and Russians with litanies of Holier than Thous. The 6 million figure is also pure mythology. It was bandied about first by Herzl's people in the 1890's, then repeated over 200 times in US newspapers between 1902 and 1942. The figure was always going to rest on 6 million. Also, salient is that I knew a South African born former member of the Israeli Air Force - he and his brother hi-jacked their South African plane when fulfilling their conscription in 1948, flew it to Israel and became 'Heroes of Israel'. My friend left in 1953 because he recognized the Apartheid state he was living in. He also once told me that if anyone quotes the Holocaust word to defend Israel tell them to get a brain, get a life and cease their insanity. 'The Holocaust', he said, 'has nothing to do with what Israel is doing to Palestinians. In fact, it's the same, in other words, they are the new Nazis'. And people may not be aware of a letter signed by, among many prominent US Jews, Einstein and Arendt, published in The New York Times in 1948, urging people not to fall for Menachim Begin's lies, stating quite specifically that Begin was essentially a Nazi.
I think that there is very strong evidence that millions of Jews were deliberately murdered by the Nazis. I don’t have the expertise to debate the precise number and it seems likely from what I read that there will always be some degree of uncertainty given the way the Nazis attempted to cover their tracks. But that doesn’t change the fact that they exterminated large numbers of Jews on the basis of their insane racial theories.
And yes, you are right, Menachem Begin, Israeli PM from 1977-1983 was a leader of the terrorist group Irgun which targeted the British in Mandatory Palestine. Begin was not the only Israeli PM who was a terrorist. Yitzhak Shamir (Israeli PM 1983-84 and 1986-1992) was the leader of the Stern Gang (or Lehi), a self-declared terrorist organisation which also operated in Mandatory Palestine, and was responsible for numerous horrendous terrorist attacks against both Palestinian Arab and British targets.
Too bad no one supporting SA really cares enough about the Gazan civilians to urge that implacable and irresistible pressure be put on Hamas through Qatar and Iran and public demonstrations to surrender. That should bring about a ceasefire very quickly. I have yet to see a sign at any pro Gazan rally so doing. Only signs and chanting which would encourage more destruction of Gaza and Gazans (from the river to the sea etc). I can't imagine that any writer of comments to this column who isn't living in Gaza or the West Bank, would tolerate in his/her own country a government that triggered a war that was intended to cause maximal damage to its own citizens, and their property who wouldn't have urged it's government by this time, probably long before, to surrender to avoid further destruction, particularly if they sincerely believed that the enemy attacked intended to wipe them off the map (ie genocide). Apparently if you are evil enough ie Hamas, you escape all norms of critical thinking. Your columns on this issue attract in spades what are called "useful idiots", aptly derisive.
Your reply simply is another version of the Israeli Mantra that Hamas started this war. You have total amnesia about the horrific conditions imposed on Gaza after it won the 2005/5 Election, nor do you want to hold Israel responsible for the unabashed policy of Ethnic Cleansing begun in 1948, Deir Yassin and the other 417 villages where the Palestinians were raped and murdered. In other words, you come across as either a sheep or an Israeli Troll.
The laying of further foundations? Once this has been waved through, the required slaughter of millions more, for profit, and to relieve the pressures of climate change for the rich will have a precedent.
Always be careful not to confuse any orthodox religion 'as such' with established religious institutions 'as are' as well as those who claim to speak for a particular tradition. It is a staple of many commentators to attribute wars and divisions as religious per se in nature: nothing could be further from the truth; religion has always been hijacked and politics has always enlisted impious clergy to further their ends. The heart of religion is a committment to self-transcendence, community social justice and compassion. Departures are aberrations and represent misunderstanding and worldliness vis-a-vis religion.
An excellent article detailing the many human and institutional moral 'falls' that are possible in an Africa-siding decision. Yet, we know that justice must not fail: we are talking about the mass extermination of sentient human beings. It will require extraordinary courage by the judges to the principle, albeit it may not make a dent in the drivenness of the Western powers. All Western words and postures have been exposed as theatre, as lies. Where now Western values?
Racism? Supremacy. Even Miko The General's Son Piled states that in Israel (and most Jews globally) see themselves as superior, with DNA way above the norm in terms of VALUE.
So, racism from another fucking mother.
But, we know the origins of this all comes down to fucking fear. Fear thy shadow.
There have been SO many others ….
👏👏👏
South Africa has raised the voice of Humanism; it is the first and only country to do so. Countries like China , Russia must join South Africa in its Case against Israeli Genocide. India wants to suck up to the US led Axis. India has lost its moral voice .
Indeed, as so many have said in these comments, this is an excellent article!
I'm ashamed of the western governments at the moment, with their lies and violence instead of justice.
"If the ICJ rules at this stage anything less than that there is a plausible case for genocide, Israel and the Biden administration will seize on the verdict to mischaracterise Israel’s assault on Gaza as receiving a clean bill of health from the World Court."
This is what worries me the most--that the court could take away the stigma of Israel being painted as a state that commits genocide openly. Israel could be slapped on the wrist for not providing humanitarian aid to their "subjects" in a timely manner (after the Gazans all die from lack of clean water and disease as well as injuries from the bombing), but it'll live that down and within a few years be back in everyone's good graces. This is wrong on so many levels. Here's hoping the justices have consciences.
Excellent piece. I do have one point, a point which applies to much commentary to do with Israel. Your article states:
“The peoples of Israel and South Africa still carry the wounds of the crimes of systematic European racism: in Israel’s case, the Holocaust in which the Nazis and their collaborators exterminated six million Jews; and in South Africa’s, the white apartheid regime that was imposed on the black population for decades by a colonising white minority.”
Although this is carefully stated, it gives the impression that Nazi policies involving genocide and mass murder concerned only the Jewish people. This is completely untrue.
The Nazis also targeted the Romani and Sinti people of Europe (the so-called Gypsies) for extermination. Records are very poor, but it is believed that they killed a higher proportion of the prewar European population of Gypsies than of the Jews. Other ethnic groups were targeted including blacks. Although not targeted on an ethnic basis, homosexuals, socialists, communists, disabled people, trade unionists etc were all subjected to Nazi extermination policies.
But the single largest ethnic group that the Nazis targeted for elimination by far was the Slavs - Poles, Ukrainians, Russians etc. According to Hitler’s deranged racial theories, Slavs, like Jews, were ‘Untermenschen’ or ‘subhumans’. The Nazis planned to attack the USSR and create ‘Lebensraum’ or ‘living space’ for ‘Aryan’ German settlers who would move to the east into the newly cleared land.
And how was the land to be cleared? By the mass murder of these Slavs by whatever means necessary, and by the deportation of the remainder to Siberia after the war. In the event, in the course of Operation Barbarossa, Germany succeeded in killing around 27 million citizens of the USSR. Large numbers of Poles were also killed. Some of these died in battle, but the vast majority did not. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfti1#Civilian_losses
Your comment is excellent.
You are so correct about this, DR. Campbell. The Holocaust Industry, as Norman Finkelstein has so eloquently put it, means the Western World can absolve itself from all of the historical Holocausts it has committed, and sit back and point the finger at the Nazis, while drowning their amnesia about the crimes the Nazis committed against Poles, Gypsies, Communists and Russians with litanies of Holier than Thous. The 6 million figure is also pure mythology. It was bandied about first by Herzl's people in the 1890's, then repeated over 200 times in US newspapers between 1902 and 1942. The figure was always going to rest on 6 million. Also, salient is that I knew a South African born former member of the Israeli Air Force - he and his brother hi-jacked their South African plane when fulfilling their conscription in 1948, flew it to Israel and became 'Heroes of Israel'. My friend left in 1953 because he recognized the Apartheid state he was living in. He also once told me that if anyone quotes the Holocaust word to defend Israel tell them to get a brain, get a life and cease their insanity. 'The Holocaust', he said, 'has nothing to do with what Israel is doing to Palestinians. In fact, it's the same, in other words, they are the new Nazis'. And people may not be aware of a letter signed by, among many prominent US Jews, Einstein and Arendt, published in The New York Times in 1948, urging people not to fall for Menachim Begin's lies, stating quite specifically that Begin was essentially a Nazi.
I think that there is very strong evidence that millions of Jews were deliberately murdered by the Nazis. I don’t have the expertise to debate the precise number and it seems likely from what I read that there will always be some degree of uncertainty given the way the Nazis attempted to cover their tracks. But that doesn’t change the fact that they exterminated large numbers of Jews on the basis of their insane racial theories.
And yes, you are right, Menachem Begin, Israeli PM from 1977-1983 was a leader of the terrorist group Irgun which targeted the British in Mandatory Palestine. Begin was not the only Israeli PM who was a terrorist. Yitzhak Shamir (Israeli PM 1983-84 and 1986-1992) was the leader of the Stern Gang (or Lehi), a self-declared terrorist organisation which also operated in Mandatory Palestine, and was responsible for numerous horrendous terrorist attacks against both Palestinian Arab and British targets.
That many Jews died is not debatable: that Nazi racial theories were insane is also not debatable, just as the contemporary description by Israeli Cabinet Ministers referring to Gazans as Human Animals is not debatable. However, the 6 million figure was a recurring figure from the 1890's onwards: https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=529e2825dfd24ee8JmltdHM9MTcwNTM2MzIwMCZpZ3VpZD0zOWFlYTllOC1jN2NiLTZhN2MtMzYxMy1iYTZiYzY1YTZiOTkmaW5zaWQ9NTE0Mw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=39aea9e8-c7cb-6a7c-3613-ba6bc65a6b99&psq=200+times+the+figure+6+million+jews+will+die+punblished+in+US+newspapers&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly82bWlsbGlvbmZhaXJ5dGFsZS53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29tL21vcmUtcHJvb2Ytc2l4LW1pbGxpb24taXMtYS1saWUv&ntb=1
Thank you Jonathan.
Once again, they cry out in pain as they strike you.
Too bad no one supporting SA really cares enough about the Gazan civilians to urge that implacable and irresistible pressure be put on Hamas through Qatar and Iran and public demonstrations to surrender. That should bring about a ceasefire very quickly. I have yet to see a sign at any pro Gazan rally so doing. Only signs and chanting which would encourage more destruction of Gaza and Gazans (from the river to the sea etc). I can't imagine that any writer of comments to this column who isn't living in Gaza or the West Bank, would tolerate in his/her own country a government that triggered a war that was intended to cause maximal damage to its own citizens, and their property who wouldn't have urged it's government by this time, probably long before, to surrender to avoid further destruction, particularly if they sincerely believed that the enemy attacked intended to wipe them off the map (ie genocide). Apparently if you are evil enough ie Hamas, you escape all norms of critical thinking. Your columns on this issue attract in spades what are called "useful idiots", aptly derisive.
Your reply simply is another version of the Israeli Mantra that Hamas started this war. You have total amnesia about the horrific conditions imposed on Gaza after it won the 2005/5 Election, nor do you want to hold Israel responsible for the unabashed policy of Ethnic Cleansing begun in 1948, Deir Yassin and the other 417 villages where the Palestinians were raped and murdered. In other words, you come across as either a sheep or an Israeli Troll.
They are bombing civilians. Civilians don’t have to surrender a battle they’re not engaged in.
100,000 killed or injured.
The laying of further foundations? Once this has been waved through, the required slaughter of millions more, for profit, and to relieve the pressures of climate change for the rich will have a precedent.
Always be careful not to confuse any orthodox religion 'as such' with established religious institutions 'as are' as well as those who claim to speak for a particular tradition. It is a staple of many commentators to attribute wars and divisions as religious per se in nature: nothing could be further from the truth; religion has always been hijacked and politics has always enlisted impious clergy to further their ends. The heart of religion is a committment to self-transcendence, community social justice and compassion. Departures are aberrations and represent misunderstanding and worldliness vis-a-vis religion.
An excellent article detailing the many human and institutional moral 'falls' that are possible in an Africa-siding decision. Yet, we know that justice must not fail: we are talking about the mass extermination of sentient human beings. It will require extraordinary courage by the judges to the principle, albeit it may not make a dent in the drivenness of the Western powers. All Western words and postures have been exposed as theatre, as lies. Where now Western values?
I am firmly convinced that US/CIA/Zionists are the biggest warmongers and terrorists in the world.
Russia Iran
Racism? Supremacy. Even Miko The General's Son Piled states that in Israel (and most Jews globally) see themselves as superior, with DNA way above the norm in terms of VALUE.
So, racism from another fucking mother.
But, we know the origins of this all comes down to fucking fear. Fear thy shadow.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/academics-have-allowed-anal-probes
And ordinary people aren't helpless. We can take to the streets, we can write, and we can boycott Israeli companies. And I think we'll continue to do so, and find even more effective and creative ways to put pressure on Israel.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/10/only-outside-pressure-can-stop-israels-war-crimes