Why is government singling out Israel?

NEWS making headlines is that the government has recalled its ambassador from Israel and, according to ENCA news, South Africa has asked the Israeli government to withdraw its soldiers from the Gaza border.

Can it be that any honest broker who viewed the scenes coming out of Gaza would call for such measures? Can it be that scenes of between 35000 to 40000 people storming a border fence are seen as a peaceful protest?

Can it be that burning tyres and burning kites thrown over the fence are termed innocuous? Can it be that remarks from the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, last week, that the protests “will be like a tiger running in all directions” are conveniently ignored?

Can it be that a protest, termed the #Greatreturnmarch, aimed at breaking down the border fence of a neighbouring country, is neither exposed nor discredited?

The answer to all the above is in the affirmative.

And, as such, the South African government has displayed a onesided bias that is both wicked and frightening.

Hamas states in its charter that the destruction of Israel and the murder of all Jews is paramount.

These protests, culminating in Monday and Tuesday’s “Nakba” protest had nothing to do with freeing Gaza or establishing a state for the Palestinian people living in Gaza.

Israel did just that in 2005, when it made the whole of the Gaza strip Judenfrei for the Gazans living there.

Instead of building on the infrastructure, worth billions and left to them by the Jews who were summarily relocated out of Gaza by the government of

Ariel Sharon, the Gazans voted in Hamas as their government.

Hamas has fired thousands of rockets, built underground tunnels into Israel, and committed many acts of terror against Israelis.

It is inconceivable that the government and our local media have chosen not to see this.

Minister of International Relations and Co-operation

Lindiwe Sisulu said she would like to consult the leadership of the Jewish community and has called on South African Jews to condemn the deaths on the Gazan border.

While I am desperately saddened by the deaths, and while I pray that another alternate means to combating violence will be found, I cannot and will not condemn them.

You see, minister, a year ago I visited the Gaza border. I walked through a tunnel built by Hamas. It was but metres away from a kibbutz. Had Hamas terrorists succeeded in coming through this tunnel, the men, women and children of this kibbutz might have suffered.

Just as Israel developed drones to intercept the thousands of rockets sent by Hamas, so too has the country developed a means of detecting and destroying tunnels built by Hamas.

Enter the#greatreturnmarch. Its explicit purpose is to break down the border fence of a sovereign country and invade it.

Maps of neighbouring Israeli villages and towns appear en masse on the Hamas Facebook page explaining to Gazans where to go once across the border.

And in terms of the final march on Nakba day, the message on Facebook reads: “The demonstrators are requested to please act in accordance with the demand to bring a knife or a gun, to hide them under their clothes and not use them except where there is need to capture soldiers or residents of Israel.”

So you see, minister, I believe, and I would imagine that any rightminded person would concur, that had any of these protesters broken through the fence there would have been carnage on the Israeli side.

But then perhaps you and the media would have been happy.

Dead Jews are kind of comforting – they make the whole exercise proportionate.

The #Greatreturnmarch has been a huge success for Hamas. Perhaps it would have preferred to break down the fence and invade Israel, but even it knew it had very little chance of that.

But it certainly won second prize. Once again, the world is crying “disproportionate”, “shocking”, “abominable”.

And our South African government, blind to reality, coupled with its now very recognisable partisanship, has taken the opportunity to withdraw its ambassador. This while the South African ambassador to

Syria still sits comfortably. Not a suggestion of a withdrawal, even after Bashar al-assad used chemical weapons on his own people, a real atrocity.

In December 2016, 40 people were murdered by security forces at a protest in the Democratic Republic of Congo,, where human rights abuses have been ongoing for years, yet there is never a suggestion of removing an ambassador.

My question to the South African government is: why single out Israel? The country was defending its citizens and borders. Israel has, since inception, been surrounded by deadly enemies, all determined to drive it into the sea.

As I write, news has flashed across my screen.

Salah Albardawill, a Hamas spokesperson, has confirmed in an interview to TV station Bladna al Alamiya that 50 of the 62 killed in the riots on Monday were Hamas operatives. Perhaps the South African government will now begin to understand just how lethal the dangers are that Israel faces.