Parliamentary debate on the Palestine-Israeli issue: Address by Minister of Safety and Security Ronnie Kasrils, MP
6 June 2007
Free Palestine: End Israeli Occupation
Madam Speaker, Honourable members, this speech is dedicated to the memory of David Rabkin, South African freedom fighter, who died in Angola. Forty years ago this week Israel's military unleashed lighting attacks against Egypt, Jordan and Syria, alleging provocations as justification for its strikes. Within six-days the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights had been captured.
Apart from the Sinai from which Israel withdrew in 1977; the other areas remain under Israeli military occupation and control to this day. Whilst some justify Israel's actions on the grounds of pre-emptive self-defence, the obverse was the truth. From the horses' mouth we learn who the aggressor was:
Israel's military Chief of Staff, Yitzhak Rabin stated: "I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 [1967] would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."
Menachem Begin, later Israel's Prime Minister, reminisced that the Egyptian army deployment in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was about to attack Israel. "We must be honest," he explained. "We decided to attack him."
General Moshe Dayan explained that "many of the fire-fights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel." He said that the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights…did so less for the security than for the farmland"
These are clearly statements of an aggressor. Nevertheless, some claim that Israel is justified and obligated, from its birth as a state in 1948 in fact, to defend its land and people by force whenever necessary. But where is the morality in this? Fortress Israel, a militarist aggressive state, defends a stolen land that belonged to another people.
Moshe Dayan unabashedly explained:
"Before, the Palestinians very eyes we possess the land and villages where they and their ancestors, have lived. We are the generation of colonisers, and without the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home."
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, stated in the 1950s:
"Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them. Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, its true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis but was that their fault? They only see one thing; we came here and stole their country."
Such statements contextualise Israel's position and show it has not been interested in real peace terms. In 1897 the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, stated that once in power the aim would be to: "Spirit the penniless population the Palestinians across the borders."
Therein lays the fundamental cause of the conflict, lest anyone remains unclear. It stems from the Zionist world view, its belief in a perpetual anti-Semitism that requires that Jewish people around the world; a faith group – should have a national home of their own. The biblical narrative was evoked to proclaim Palestine as the Promised Land reserved exclusively for God's "chosen people" and their civilising mission. It sounds all too familiar as a vision the Voortrekkers had in this country. It gives rise to racism, apartheid and a total onslaught on those who stand in your way, whether blacks or Arabs or red Indians. Many Jews do not agree with this Zionist world view, and declare that being anti-Zionism and critical of Israel does not equate with anti-Semitism.
Far from being a land without people, as Zionist propaganda falsely proclaimed, to attract and justify colonial settlement, the fact was that an indigenous people, the Palestinians lived there, developed agriculture and towns since the Canaanite Kingdom over 5 500 years ago. Indeed a delegation of sceptical Vienna rabbis travelled to the Holy Land in 1898 to assess the Zionist vision and cabled home: "The Bride is indeed beautiful but already married."
This did not deter the Zionists who plotted to abduct the bride and murder or expel the groom by whatever means necessary; and then defend what they had stolen at all costs by creating a supremacist Fortress State. That exactly sums up the bloody and tragic history that befell the Palestinian people, and their Arab neighbours, at the hands of a rapacious, expansionist Zionist project that has been the source of war and untold suffering in the near East for the past sixty-years and is the root cause of the conflict that threatens the entire region and beyond.
With the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan of November, 1947; a Jewish homeland was accorded 56% of the territory although they owned seven percent and were one-third of the population (most of who had recently arrived as Holocaust refugees from Europe). The Palestinian majority were given 44% and were never consulted nor had they anything to do with the abominable suffering of the European Jews. The Zionists accepted partition with alacrity but never intended to honour the decision.
According to the Zionist's strategy, which has become public record with the declassification of documents, the intention was to roll-out a systematic reign of terror, massacres, dispossession and expulsion. This drove out the Palestinian population in a horrific episode of ethnic cleansing that saw over 750 000 or two-thirds of the indigenous people at that time becoming penniless refugees, as Herzl had promised. By the 1949 Armistice the Israeli state had expanded to 78% of the territory.
That was almost sixty years ago. The result of Israel's war of aggression of forty-years ago this week, an extension of 1948, saw Israeli military occupation of the remaining 22% of the land. The people within the West Bank and Gaza are literally imprisoned under the most unjust conditions suffering hardships and methods of control that are far worse than anything our people faced during the most dreadful days of apartheid.
In fact any South African, visiting what amount to enclosed prison-ghettoes imposed by a Jewish people that tragically suffered the Nazi Holocaust will find similarity with Apartheid immediately coming to mind and even more shocking comparisons with some of the methods of collective punishment and control devised under tyrannies elsewhere. An Israeli cabinet Minister, Aharon Cizling, stated in 1948, after the Deir Yassin Massacre: "Now we too have behaved like Nazis and my whole being is shaken."
If anyone has any doubt what the 1948 and 1967 wars were about, listen to Ben Gurion who stated in 1938: "after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine."
And mark these words of Moshe Dayan:
"Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognised in the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947 [56% of the land]. Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949 [78% of the land]. Now the Six Day Generation [of 1967] has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights. This is not the end."
Indeed the saga of agony for the Palestinians continues, inevitably creating insecurity for Israelis as well; because as we know from our own South African experience, injustice and repression generates resistance. It is no good blaming the victims when they hit back. The Palestinian people's fate clearly reflects that of South Africa's indigenous majority during the colonial wars of dispossession of land and property, and the harsh discrimination and suffering of the apartheid period classified as a crime against humanity and violation of international humanitarian law. Israel is as guilty as the Apartheid regime. Israel's conquest and occupation, with the latest land grab caused by its monstrous Apartheid Wall and continued construction of the illegal settlements has reduced the West Bank into several disconnected pockets amounting to 12% of former Palestine. No wonder that Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Tutu and others compare the situation to Apartheid and the infamous Bantustans – which gave 13% of land for South Africa’s indigenous people.
This people's Parliament should be unanimous in calling for Israel's immediate withdrawal from the occupied territories, lifting the physical, economic and financial blockade and siege of Gaza and the West Bank removing the physical impediments to the freedom of movement of Palestinians including the Wall and over 500 check-points dismantling the illegal settlements – releasing 10 000 political prisoners (113 women and children amongst them) - negotiating a just solution with the elected representatives of the Palestinian people and implementing the UN Resolutions, including Resolution 194 of 1948, concerning the Right of Return of the Refugees.
These are necessary steps to create lasting peace, justice and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike, reinforced by international guarantees, so they may live in harmony. Since 1988, when Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) agreed to accept 22% of historic Palestine in the interests of peace they show they have been ready for negotiations.
Let us unanimously extend our solidarity and support to the forty-two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, including the Speakers of the West Bank and Gaza, who together with ten Ministers have been summarily detained without trial, most for nearly a year, by the Israeli security forces. This is a shocking illustration of Israel's disrespect for Parliamentary democracy, the law and basic human rights so reminiscent of what we suffered under apartheid. We call for their immediate and unconditional release; and all prisoners held by both sides.
In support of these demands let us join with the people of our country, and the international Community, in the solidarity marches, rallies and demonstrations this week, the 40th Anniversary of Israel’s unjust occupation. And we make it clear to our Jewish community; these peaceful and disciplined actions are aimed solely at that government. The struggle for freedom and justice is against a system and not a people.
Let me conclude with the words of President Mandela, who declared in 1998 during the visit to South Africa by Chairman Yasser Arafat:
"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."
1 David Hirst: The Gun and the Olive Branch
2 Naom Chomsky: The Fateful Triangle
3 New York Times, May 11, 1977
4 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi: Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel
5 Nathan Goldman: The Jewish Paradox
6 The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Vol 1, p 86
7 Avi Shlaim: The Iron Wall
8 Tom Seger: The First Israelis
9 London Times, June 25, 1969
10 Speech by Nelson Mandela at the Banquet in Honour of President Yasser Arafat of Palestine on 11 August 1998
Issued by: Secretariat for Safety and Security
6 June 2007
As this speech made it as an article in the Cape Times, I decided to write a letter which of course was not published, It is funny how RonKasrils gets upset when some of his hectic hate speech articles are never published.
So many people write to newspapers and they are definitely not going to publish everything, it seems as if Ronnie Kasrils thinks he is above the law and if he writes something it is of utmost importance.
All I see is the roots of propaganda. here is the letter I wrote to the Cape Times
which includes comments regarding Ronnie Kasrils and COSATU asking for a boycott on Israeli goods
I find that there is always a one sided view towards Israel, the ANC when they want something no matter what the cost they get it. Look at the World Cup no matter what disastrous effects it might have for South Africa afterwards that they do not care as long as it happens and they get the thanks in the end.
The same is the way they take sides in the Arab-Israeli Conflict spearheaded by (the self hating Jew) Minister Ronnie Kasrils.
After seeing all the quotes that Mr Kasrils brings to the article, it just makes your blood boil. Mr Kasrils bases his argument on mere baseless quotes that make Israel look bad. Why is Israel is always blamed? Why are the militants or the arab armies who start the problems ever blamed?
Can it not be because of the militants that the palestinians are suffering? Could it be because of false promises the arab nations gave to the "palestinians" before they were going to "annihilate” Israel?
Do you for one minute think that Syria, Jordan or Egypt would have given them a state if those places were not in Israel's rule?
I find that the majority of people are misinformed about what is really happening in Israel. As the majority of people in South Africa can't even afford a ticket to the Middle East and therefore believe the distortion of the truth which gets printed on paper or in the news.
High concentrations of Egyptian Soldiers were mobilising in the Sinai - a desert, come on how ever many quotes Mr Kasrils gives, What in the world were soldiers mobilising in a desert for? to have a party? No matter what anyone says there was a risk that they were going to attack and Jordan and Syria were going to enter the war, just then self defence came onto the scene and all the promises that the arab nations gave to the "palestinians" went up in smoke and Israel captured the territory and therefore was at Israel's disposal to give it back or keep it so on and so forth.
It is only because Israel is Sympathetic to the palestinians wanting a state of their own, that they bend over backwards in order to try get them a state, but lately the back stabbing is getting out of control.
Mr Kasrils talks about human rights for the palestinians, I say why you blaming Israel for the situation and not the militants?
There are more peaceful ways to finding a solution, homemade rockets, car bombs, road side bombs, suicide attacks are not peaceful measures? Incidentally, only after 6 months of rocket barrages did Israel decide to retaliate, it seems Israel is the only partner looking for peace, Peace does not even enter the minds of Hamas as per their Charter of 1988, look for yourselves.
Mr Kasrils is totally distorting the truth and trying his hardest to put the blame on Israel, when in my eyes it is the palestinians that are too scared to approach the militants and try stop them from trying to throw a spanner in the works.
Mr Kasrils also speaks of the experiences of Apartheid, now what is he trying to get at there? He was not even in this country during apartheid, he was sipping vodka with his comrades in the Soviet Union, while the real victims of apartheid stayed in the country, so what he read in the newspaper about what was going on and then has the audacity to compare apartheid to Israel which undermines the true victims’ experiences of apartheid, is that not so?
He has so elegantly shown the wonderful statistics which actually mean nothing, the bottom line is that Israel was attacked a day after independence by 5 arab nations, which of course led them to a disastrous defeat, again in 67 and again in 1973 which was the ultimate back stabbing tactic the arabs have ever used, attacking on the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. Most soldiers were praying in synagogues and by the time the army had mobilised, Syrian Army was next to the Sea of Galilee and the Egyptians were almost at Eilat and the Jordanians were getting ready to cross the Jordan river, a month later Syria was back in Syria and lost a village called Kunetra which in fact Israel donated to the UN and they have set up camp next to it, Egypt was pushed right back into Egypt and Israel still held onto the Sinai peninsula, so on and so forth.
The way I see it, is that the majority of anti-Israelis get their views from the distortion of the truth and they do not know the full story.
Is it not absurd to base your hatred because of a few articles you read and then say "oh this politician must be telling the truth, he would never lie to us?"
Does anyone know what Zionism is? Zionism is the love for Zion or Jerusalem, it is pure patriotism, nothing other than that. It is because of certain leaders using the word in the wrong context that it has lost its real meaning.
If the arab nations had not attacked Israel, maybe the palestinians could have been celebrating their 59th year of independence, but Israel is getting blamed for a path which the Arabs took and which was to their detriment, and this is all Israel's fault as Mr Kasrils is putting it.
The bottom line of his article is really, if Israel did not exist the world would be a better place, sounds like the same hatred which comes from another peace loving leader President Ahmadinejad.
With all these resolutions that the government want to pass and all the boycotts that COSATU want to impose, they forget the $290 million in exports (not including diamonds) to Israel that they are going to have to cut off, and don't forget the $230 million worth of imports from Israel, oh and by the way most arms and ammunition used by fidelity guards, police, SANDF are Israeli made.
This government changes its views so often, I do not know if they know what is really going on, and sometimes they forget the hand that feeds them.
Number of Visitors
A couple of points:
Yes, I have been to Israel, in fact I lived there for a year and speak Hebrew - though it's getting rusty. I arrived in Israel more or less a Zionist, but quickly changed my mind when I realised Israel was just like apartheid South Africa. Quite frankly, I am fairly confident that I know what I am talking about.
But go ahead and call me anti-semitic if that's the only way you can confront my arguments. That is a typical Zionist tactic: discredit your critics by calling them anti-semitic, debate semantics (is it really occupation?), or point to how bad other states in the Middle East are.
As for Israel targetting civilians, this is widely reported in media such as The Guardian and BBC, though I am sure you will just denounce these as pro-Palestinian anti-semites. I am sure you are aware that Israel has also murdered a number of peace activists, such as Rachel Corrie.
I didn't leave South Africa because I was 'scared of the blacks', in fact I joined the ANC in 1992 and I have been fighting for broad-based Black empowerment ever since.
You say:
"I am under the impression that Israel captured Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights fair and square so where is the occupation? It is Israel's property, and in my eyes up to the government and referendums to do with it as they please, is this not right?"
Uh, no. I don't accept that conquest gives Israel a right to land in the Middle East, and neither does the UN, so saying Israel won the land 'fair and square' is pretty pointless. If I come and beat you up and take your house because I have a bigger gun than you, does it become my house because I won it 'fair and square'? If so, where do you live?
The fact that other states in the Middle East are as bad as Israel is not a justification of Israeli tyranny. Being an enemy of Israel doesn't make me an friend of Syria - I am an enemy of both, if you can understand the complexity of that nuance.
Quite frankly, I think we could do without Israeli arms, and Win XP.
The reason I compare Israel to apartheid has a lot to do with people like you - the kind of language you use is identical to that of pro-apartheid whites in the 1980s and early 1990s. You say "Israel has bent over backwards for the palestinians and the thanks in return are suicide attacks, home made rockets, road side bombs and the list goes on and on." That's exactly what white South Africans used to say about black people. They also used to point to the rest of Africa - the way you point to other Middle Eastern countries - as a reason for continuing apartheid.
And Its Almost Supernatural is another blog full of Zionist rubbish.
And by the way, if you are going to steal an entire post from my blog, please at least have the decency to link back to it.