I am extremely impressed that despite its many problems, South Africa has found the time and the willingness to con­front Israel and its allies over the Israeli herding of the populace of Gaza into areas where they are be­ing bombed to extinction, or being starved of WATER and food; plus deliberate destruction of essen­tial civilian facilities like schools, hospitals, and transit centres.

Yes, the Hamas attack against Israelis in early October 2023 was an insane act dictated by political immaturity. But to take advantage of the blindness of the Hamas leadership and kill so many men, women, and children, in addition to reducing Gaza’s homes, shops, and offices to rubble, and to do it deliberately without caring a fig about how the watching world would judge the Israeli people through their government’s actions is a gross act of defamation against the Israeli people.

For no one can hide the people walking away from their homes because Israel says they must leave.

Neither can anyone pretend that bombing houses and buildings en masse is only aimed at the Hamas leadership.

Nor can anyone pretend that depriving thousands of people of water, fuel and food is motivated by anything but their elimination from this life.

The USA and its allies are, by their duplicity, demonstrating to the world that they can condone genocide when the perpetrator is an ally of theirs. Sadly, one even has to ask: suppose Russia had been a client state of theirs (like Israel is) would they have cared a damn about the brutal destruction of Ukraine that we are simul­taneously witnessing? Is it not hypocritical in the extreme that Americans and Britons should be asked to pay for the defence of Ukraine against Russian brutality while Israel is provided with arms to carry out the same type of bru­tality against the people of Gaza?

South Africa has judged correct­ly that what is happening in Gaza is different from what the black people of South Africa suffered from the Boer regime, during the horrible days of apartheid. Now, South Africa is currently facing difficulties on all sides – financial, industrial, social and political. But despite these immense weaknesses, it has bravely decided to pitch its tent against one of the most pow­erful lobbies in the world, namely the Zionist lobby.

Attempts will be made to belittle South Africa’s efforts by claiming that it’s all being done to divert attention from her internal prob­lems. South Africa should ignore such claims, for were she to be on the other side of the argument, no-one would mention her internal problems. In relation to that, have the problems posed by the Trump issue (for instance) stopped America from supporting Israel consistently at the UN?

No; it is a good thing for South Africa – which became free, largely the greater part of the world com­munity would not swallow the hor­rendously racist ‘apartheid gospel’, and that it should lead the way to show the world today it may be the turn of the Palestinian people to suffer today, but that if the world silently condones Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians today, it could happen to any other group of people in the coming, unknown future.

It is good for South Africa to try and get the world to remember the immortal words uttered once against Nazist brutality: first, they came for the (so-and-so) but I didn’t care, because I was not a (so-and-so!) And then, finally, they came for me! But there was no-one left to notice.

Yep – what goes round comes round. And we should all applaud South Africa for reminding us that moral courage matters, and matters all the time, not only when America or Britain says so.