Wrong, rabbi, Israel’s apartheid is clear for all to see

In response to chief rabbi Warren Goldstein, “Dear Mr President, there’s no apartheid in Israel” (May 23), this apartheid is described in great detail by Israeli academic Uri Davis in his book Israel: An Apartheid State.

Davis provides a critical insight into how it was possible for Jewish people, the victims of Nazi genocide in World War 2, to subject the Palestinians to such criminal policies as mass deportation, population transfers and ethnic cleansing, prolonged military government and economic, social, cultural, civil and political strangulation.

Israel meets the definition of an apartheid state in its occupied territories and within its own borders. Palestinians endured an ethnic cleansing of their homeland during the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”. At least 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and at least 70 massacres occurred. Those who remained were held under martial law and had their land stolen from them through the Absentees’ Property Law.

Israeli selection committees systematically segregate Palestinians, and the integration of Zionist organisations such as the World Zionist Organisation, Jewish National Fund and Jewish Agency into the Israeli state helps to create even more discriminatory practices. Within the occupied territories, Palestinians are subject to imprisonment without charge, collective punishment, police brutality and house searches without warrants, and are under constant surveillance from watchtowers protruding from the wall.

Israel has imposed a blockade described as illegal under international law in an Amnesty International report. The citizens of Gaza lack food, clean water, electricity, adequate medical services and freedom of movement, according to the UN Relief & Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees because of this blockade.

Illegal policies enacted by Israel in the occupied territories include the expansion of settlements, population transfers, denial of the right to return, torture and land confiscation, and a military system that denies freedom of movement and upholds various discriminatory laws that align with the UN definition of apartheid.

Riyaad Dhai, Durban

With democracies like these …

Rabbi Warren Goldstein writes that Hamas “is designated a terrorist organisation by most democracies in the world”. The same “democracies” that denounced the ANC as a terrorist organisation?

He goes on to urge President Cyril Ramaphosa to “align with fellow democracies”, including India. Is he aware that Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is essentially a fascist party inspired, through its close association with the extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, by the ideology of Nazism? Is he aware that Hitler is much admired in many quarters in India? Small wonder the recent passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act by India’s government has drawn comparison with similar legislative measures passed by the Nazis. The Palestinians are fighting for the return of their land, and deserve the support of all fair-minded people.

Abdul Cariem, Crawford

Use common sense, Peter Bruce

Dear Peter Bruce. I have up to now viewed you as an intelligent and balanced commentator on public and political matters. But please, use your common sense before you press ahead with any further misleading and nonsensical bashing of the DA in your Sunday Times column. It is obvious to any member of the voting public that there has to be an alternative party to the ANC and its failed policies that have brought SA to its knees. The only proven successful one is the DA.

This is proved by the following facts: the top five best-run municipalities in SA are all governed by the DA; the best-run major city is governed by the DA; and the bestrun province is governed by the DA. These facts have been published by an independent audit and ranking body.

Errol Hicks, Hillcrest

Is Trivia Tom a chauvinist?

I am a quizmaster who has been running quizzes for a number of years, and appreciate Trivia Tom’s weekly quiz papers as another source of questions.

In the Brain Test on May 23, Trivia Tom either has failed to authenticate an answer to a question, or he is possibly a male chauvinist. Question 18 asks who is the player to have first scored 200 runs in a one-day international (ODI). The answer given is Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 200 in a match in India against SA in 2010.

I asked the same question in a quiz I ran a month or so after Tendulkar’s achievement. Like Trivia Tom, every participating team incorrectly answered that it was Tendulkar.

Tendulkar is certainly the first man to have scored 200 runs in an ODI, but the first player to have done so was Belinda Clark, captain of the Australian Women’s World Cup side playing in India against the Netherlands in 1997. Clark scored 229 not out towards the Australian total of 412/3. Godfrey Donaldson, Jeffreys Bay

Sports coverage critical for SA

I have to write in support of Nigel Bands’s letter, “Dismal sports coverage” (May 23).

Sports reporting in today’s SA is critical in that it reminds readers of the heroes that exist among us in the sporting fraternity.

How much better it is for us to read of South African sporting achievement on the back pages than it is for us to be reminded of the failures, crimes and mediocrity of our government in the front pages. Our sportspeople are the glue that holds society together and keeps our flickering flame of optimism alive.

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