Al-Qalam 
[Source - The Jerusalem Post]
Wendy Kahn, the spokesperson for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies has lashed out at SA struggle hero Ronnie Kasrils’ for his unwavering support for Palestinians, but she remains embarrassingly silent on the bloodbath in Gaza, writes Iqbal Jassat.
Wendy Kahn’s emotional outbursts every time critics of Israel’s bloodbath in besieged Gaza speak out, is not only boringly repetitive but frankly speaking, misplaced.
As National Director of what many South Africans perceive to be – a mouthpiece of the Israeli regime – she certainly does a good job to keep the perception alive.
Her latest angry “whip-lashing” of Ronnie Kasrils – one of South Africa’s outstanding freedom struggle stalwarts, is a classic specimen of despair and frustration compounded by a sense of defeat.
Published in Politicsweb (November 28) and headed “Naked Jew-hatred behind Kasril’s feting of Hamas atrocities – SAJBD”, the rhetoric that follows confirms my assessment: boring, repetitive, emotional, and misplaced.
Apart from quoting Kasrils out of context and misrepresenting the event at which he spoke, Kahn then disparagingly questions Na’eem Jeenah’s credentials.
It demonstrates that she is clearly off the mark and has either, due to feigned ignorance or deliberately calculated to rubbish Kasrils by alleging that he has “celebrated” what she describes as a “Hamas murder spree”.
Fortunately, the Kasrils I know is a meticulous researcher and as an acclaimed MK leader during the ANC’s military campaigns against the apartheid regime, did no more than acknowledge the remarkable sophistication and prowess of Hamas, when it pulled off a major breakout from Gaza.
Far from “celebrating” what Kahn mischievously implies as the worst mass slaughter of Jewish men, women, and children since the Holocaust, Kasrils would be aware that attributing these crimes to Hamas has been part of the Netanyahu regime’s elaborate propaganda campaign.
In fact, investigations by Israeli media as well as others in Western Europe, have pinned the destruction of Oct 7 squarely on the Zionist army.
There hasn’t been any evidence of babies being “beheaded” by Hamas nor of women raped. Even Joe Biden had to walk back after realising that he had falsely repeated Netanyahu’s allegations.
Kahn’s angry retort does not have any basis apart from the fact that as SAJBD, she is expected to speak out in defence of Israel and to discredit its critics.
Not surprisingly she remains embarrassingly silent on the bloodbath in Gaza resulting from relentless, indiscriminate, and horrific bombardment by right-wing racists who head the war cabinet of a fascist regime.
An asymmetrical war on an open-air concentration camp of 2.3 million people, that over the last 6 weeks of slaughter has resulted in massacres of over 15 000 civilians.
Exactly the context of Kasrils’ talks to illustrate the resilience of Hamas as a legitimate Resistance movement.
Today, the world has come to understand the evil of Occupation – whether in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem and has responded by protesting Israel’s genocide.
Unfortunately for Kahn, unless she ventures out of her self-imposed cocoon, which apparently inhibits her ability to acknowledge and oppose Israeli policies of apartheid, military occupation, detention without trial, illegal settlements, home demolitions and denial of fundamental human rights, she will continue to raise false alarms.
*Iqbal Jassat is an Exec: Media Review Network, Johannesburg.
