Addressing Essa’s twisted analogy of ‘Israeli apartheid’

THE Opinion Piece “Israel tries to dodge the bullet” by Azad Essa (The Star, March 22) needs to be addressed. Less than a week later Essa is given centre stage to pen his twisted analogy of “Israel the apartheid state”.

It’s not surprising that he turns in the first instance to those rabid anti-Zionist/ anti-Israel protagonists, Denis Goldberg and Ronnie Kasrils, and attempts to justify his preconceived ideas by quoting them as follows: “The occupation makes apartheid look like a picnic” and “we never had jets attacking our townships”. They conveniently forget our townships weren’t launching thousands of missiles with the intention to maim and kill innocent civilians and weren’t sending suicide bombers into cafes, discos, restaurants and buses to carry out murderous attacks, weren’t digging tunnels with the aim of slaughtering women and children. By the way, asking what these two illustrious gentlemen think of anything pertaining to Israel, is like asking a Nazi to participate at a Jewish circumcision.

Essa then stokes up what he believes is a forum of “fairness and righteousness” and where the question of Israel apartheid will be finally vindicated - The UN. But before we go there, I need to remind the writer that just before he stepped down, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said the organisation had a disproportionate volume of resolutions against Israel, which he said “foiled the ability of the UN to fulfil its role effectively”.

When he addressed the UN Security Council Ban said: “Decades of political manoeuvring have created a disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel”. Over the past decade the UN passed 223 resolutions conde mning Israel, while only eight resolutions condemned the Syrian regime as it has massacred its citizens over the past six years.

Essa now lays out what he concludes to be an absolute and final judgment, where once and for all Israel is justly condemned of being an apartheid state. He states “In a bid to ascertain if the apartheid analogy was fair, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) conducted a detailed analysis of Israeli legislation, policies and practices”. Allow me to advise that ESCWA comprises 18 Arab countries in Western Asia: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The report found Israel guilty of operating an apartheid regime.

So it’s a UN body ,where justice and fairness to the Israeli state is never shown, tasked with deciding without bias and hatred, and in a just and fair manner, the case against Israel.

This is like asking Islamic State to fairly decide if the historical religious buildings at Palmyra should be preserved. But it’s in his belief, and this is important, that this ESCWA approach was fair and just, that Essa finally lays bare for all to see his innate bias and hatred towards the State of Israel.

The writer claims the report caused a backlash which forced the UN to remove it from its website and that the new UN secretary-general distanced himself from the report. And he blames the US for threatening to cut funding to the UN for this. Why not? Jews have for centuries fought alone against prejudice, where all sorts of libel and lies were thrown at them. It’s comforting that Israel has allies to support it and is continuing to make friends in the most unlikely places.

Finally, Essa claims there has been a fierce attempt to bury the report but that the “facts” are out there. Your facts, Mr Essa. Not ours. Rod Waner

‘Essa finally lays bare for all to see his innate bias’