Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has declared that not a single Jew will be allowed in any Palestinian state – period. A declaration wherein he has also reiterated that not a single Jewish soldier incorporated within any international peacekeeping force will be allowed to enter Palestine either.This has nothing to do with peace, this is purely ethnic cleansing based upon racial discrimination.

Activists rightly find the principle of ethnic cleansing to be both repulsive and racist. The exception clearly being when the victims of ethnic cleansing are the Jews.

The world has embraced the creation of a Palestinian state, while being largely ignorant of it's prerequisite, which involves the removal of many thousands of Jews from land wherein they have their own 3,000 year heritage. Indeed, rather than the peaceful coexistence of two peoples a Palestinian state is predicated upon totally ridding the land of Jews. Why should this be?

Where are the condemnations of Palestinian apartheid, where are the boycotts against the forcible expulsion of Jews from their ancient homeland? If what is being genuinely sought is a 'two state solution' with Israel and 'Palestine' living in peaceful coexistence side by side, why the Palestinian insistence that the territory they receive be ethnically cleansed of Jews? The notion that an Arab state with such a platform of hatred could possibly live at peace with Israel is utterly ridiculous. Gaza has been cleansed of Jews and has shown itself to be a precursor to what will happen in any land ceded by Israel.

If Jews were allowed to remain in a future state of Palestine, with a guarantee of the same rights that Israel gives to Arabs within it's own borders, there would be no need to remove the so called 'settlements' or any necessity to halt peace talks over Israeli construction building in Jerusalem.

Indeed, if the true priority of the Arab world is nationhood for the Palestinian people, instead of just ridding themselves of the Jews, then a negotiated settlement could rapidly arise. If the 14% of Jewish 'settlers' living among 2.2 million Palestinians are an obstacle to peace, why are 1.4 million Arab citizens in Israel no risk to the 6 million Israelis? While the evacuation of Israeli Arab villages is seen as a violation of human rights, how can the evacuation of Jewish 'settlements' in the West Bank be any different?

We must wait and see if the world has been duped into believing that a peaceful coexistence is being sought by the Palestinians or the implementation of the unchanged Fatah charter of 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas which declares "…this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated…".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/zapiro-in-public-spat-with-zionist-1.1435520#.USR75h1BN8e

My response to this misreported article – ”Zapiro in public spat with Zionist”:

It certainly would have been professional and correct if the SAPA journalist had correctly reported the confrontation between Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) and myself at the Cape Town Press Club today, Tuesday 4 Dec 2012, and had interviewed me afterwards as he/she had done with Shapiro in an attempt to balance the story. I did not leave immediately and was available.

If the reportage was more accurate it would also have been better, but then sometimes bad reportage is better than no reportage and in this I achieved my aim of bringing this issue to the general public’s attention.

Shapiro had delivered an address to the Cape Town Press Club which showed and discussed some of his cartoons, all pertaining to the South African situation. I commended him on this. This leads to the debate of how far a cartoonist can and should go and under what circumstances and whether there are red-lines. In the case of Israel, Shapiro’s personal and misguided agenda is clearly shown and it is the public’s right to question and confront him. Please see the attached document.

Just as I was about to speak, Shapiro commented about a comparison of his anti-Israel cartoons with cartoons from the Nazi era that was the subject of a discussion at a recent Cape Town Jewish Board of Deputies conference. Shapiro referred to the compiler of this study as a “rabid Zionist” and used the word Zionist throughout as if it were an expletive, a swear word. This is the approach of Israel’s enemies.

I immediately said I had brought some copies along which I handed out to the various tables at the lunch for them to see for themselves. I have no recollection of saying “You are an anti-Zionist, aren't you?”.

On a previous occasion a few years ago I debated Shapiro where I stated that I objected in the strongest terms possible his depiction of an Israeli Prime Minister, Arik Sharon at the time, in a Nazi uniform. This cartoon is in the attached document.

Of course when one is speaking from the floor, there is not enough time to make all one’s points and the truth is, as I pointed out, that Shapiro held the microphone and there was no way I could answer his allegations.

In reply he accused Israel of ethnic cleansing during the 1948 War of Independence and it is to this comment that I interjected that it was not true and not as reported in the article reproduced below. Of course the truth is that the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the Arab countries and Israel’s population is 20% Arab. That is not ethnic cleansing by any definition and it was never Israel’s intention nor policy, but it certainly has been the Arab countries’ policy. The Arabs that fled Israel in 1948 make up the so-called Palestinian refugees and that is a discussion on its own. Glib sound-bytes have to be questioned and challenged.

Shapiro also questioned how Jews could take over an area that was Arab. The truth is the region had not been under Arab rule for centuries, but under Turkish rule. Turks were far more tolerant and fair with Jews then most Arabs ever were. They gave refuge to Jews and others fleeing Christian terror in Europe for centuries. In the mid 1800's they gave formal legal protection to Jews (something Arabs refuse do even today) and encouraged Jewish immigration. They strongly approved of Zionism because the whole region was a depopulated wasteland and hoped to bring prosperity to a crumbling Ottoman Empire. This is of course a debate for another time, but Shapiro is adept at throwing out unsubstantiated sound-bytes clearly sourced from Israel’s enemies.

As for my comment about his sending his children to Herzlia, the Cape Town Jewish school, he completely, conveniently and deliberately misinterpreted what I asked. My question to Shapiro had nothing to do with his children per se, but was rather with him and a concern of mine how he could take advantage of a school that supports Israel and is funded by communal money, the majority of whom are Zionists? Given his well known antipathy to the Jewish state, was this merely a matter of moral turpitude or an act of gross hypocrisy on his part?

Of course it should be pointed out that Herzlia School is named after Theodore Herzl who Zapiro vilifies. The question goes to Shapiro's decision making as a parent. If he is so opposed to Zionism, why does he elect to have a Zionist education for his children?

The Herzlia curriculum is Zionist but the children also have daily prayers where the standard Shacharit (morning prayer) is recited with all its appeals for a Jewish return to Israel (and the speedy rebuilding of the temple).

In commenting about the development and eventual establishment of the State of Israel, Shapiro either deliberately ignores history and facts, or shows his abysmal ignorance. He regurgitates the shallow propaganda mantras of Israel’s enemies.

Look at the attached Tutu cartoon which he produced at the time when I wrote and published the petition demanding of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre that it remove Desmond Tutu as a patron. Shapiro, who is Jewish, obviously regards Desmond Tutu as his hero and infallible.

How can Shapiro never fail to defend Tutu who, commenting on the Holocaust, claimed the gas chambers made for a neater death, I repeat a neater death, than the relocation of South African blacks during Apartheid. I can be sure that the six million Jews who died in the Nazi gas chambers and elsewhere, amongst whom were my father’s mother and entire family, would have been delighted to have been merely relocated than be murdered by Tutu’s “neater death”. This is only one of many examples of Tutu anti-Semitisms.

Has Zapiro ever commented on the Islamist terror that is being waged throughout Africa and around the world? Has he ever produced a cartoon about the appalling Islamists in Pakistan, about the Palestinians and the increasing Arab Winter of Discontent? Spring? What Spring? If he has, I haven’t seen them.

Shapiro has the resources and vast newspaper distribution which renders him almost untouchable. Wileding a microphone and dominating through this the conversation at the Press Club and limiting it, continues his virtual monopoly and limits a questioner. However, he noted when commenting on the cartoon study attached, that he is powerless against the Internet. That brings a bit of balance. So, whilst he holds the microphone and the newspapers, the Internet and social media are not his at all and in this I now hold the pen.

The subject is huge and needs time to debate and discuss properly. I therefore challenge Jonathan Shapiro to a public debate where we will both have equal time to make our respective cases.

DAVID HERSCH
SAIPAC
The South African Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Cape Town