At the mercy of bullies

Bullying is unacceptable on every level. Ganging up on someone if you don’t agree with them, don’t like them, or don’t approve of what they did, is never justifiable. Not at school. Not in government. Not in society. Not at events or on the street. Bullying shows a group of people not capable of standing up individually in an argument or discussion. Instead, they use dirty tactics that automatically put them in an intimidating and powerful position. It’s aggressive and downright nasty to use a balance of power that make one person or a smaller group of people more vulnerable.

Invariably, it’s a way of making a group of people, who may well have low self-esteem, feel superior, more powerful, and more popular than the person or people they are bullying.

In this case, I’m not talking about children in a school playground. I’m talking about so-called mature adults attacking select people they deem vulnerable because they had the guts to go to Israel to find out for themselves what’s going on there.

Sounds like a crime, right? Wrong! There’s no crime in going to Israel, just like there’s no crime in going anywhere in the world if you have a passport and the necessary visas. However, to the ANC, the EFF, and those in this country who hate us, going to Israel is forbidden. That is especially if it means those going could learn something that might help understand that Israel isn’t an apartheid state, nor is it a country full of genocidal maniacs.

If people are so certain that Israel is so bad, they should be encouraging people to see for themselves, not forbidding it. Surely if you forbid it, you’re worried that people may discover that the truth isn’t what you think it is? The truth, as we know, is that Israel is a country fighting for its survival. Israel has all sorts of people in it, some you’ll agree with and others you won’t. It’s a country with many opinions and people from all walks of life who live together. Just this week, politicians were arguing about what was happening in Gaza. That’s a democracy.

It’s a Jewish state. It’s also a country at war with terrorists, trying its best to ensure that terror organisations can never again infiltrate the country and massacre its people. We may all have our opinions about how this is being done and on the government’s decisions, that’s our choice. However, everyone should encourage people to go and see for themselves. Israel isn’t angelic. Israel is a fascinating and real country with its own problems, the biggest of which is the fact that it is surrounded by enemies who want very much for Israel not to be there.

Instead of encouraging people to visit, those who have turned Israel into a pariah state began a witch-hunt. They have victimised people who recently travelled there to find out the truth about Israel. Those who went on the fact-finding mission were clear on their return that there is no apartheid state, and they were able to unpack the lies about Israel.

However, the more they said about this and the more they stand by what they said, the more incensed the ANC, EFF, and our haters become because it doesn’t fit their aggressive anti-Israel narrative. This narrative is so cleverly couched online and on social media in the hugely successful anti-Israel public relations war. However, if they were to go and find out for themselves, they too would discover the truth behind the PR.

Instead, they set bullies on female politicians when they are at their most vulnerable. For example, when speaking in front of an audience of researchers and academics, which is stressful in itself, or walking on their own to their car outside Parliament in Cape Town. Really, these bullies are such cowards! Instead of matching like for like, they pick on people when they are at their weakest. They aren’t gunning for Minister Gayton McKenzie in a dark alley because they would come off second best. Instead, they surround and yell at women like this. How deplorable! I’m sure psychologists would have a field day in unpacking this behaviour.

If they are honestly so convinced of their narrative about Israel, why would they humiliate themselves by behaving like this? Why not do what those very same people they are attempting to demean did, and go and see for themselves?

Get your facts on the ground. Stop making Israel a place you forbid people from visiting, and open your eyes to both sides of what’s happening!

I believe the only way to form an opinion is to do my own research. Doing research isn’t seeking information that fits what you want to say, which seems to be a popular way of dealing with Israel these days. It’s opening yourself to various and varied information, making a real effort to find the truth of a situation, and looking at all sides. It’s important in doing research to speak to all sorts of people in the specific situation. So, if you’re looking at a war situation, accepting what’s said on social media isn’t doing research. Accepting “facts” from a terrorist organisation and refusing to hear the other sides isn’t research. Ultimately, there’s no better way to find out about salt mines than to go there yourself. Don’t trust what I tell you. Find out for yourself.

Instead, in South Africa, there’s a skewed logic of forbidding people to go on a fact-finding mission to Israel. And should they do so, to punish and humiliate them rather than listen to what they have discovered. For goodness’ sake, they went to find out the truth and they came back with real information, but nobody is willing to listen to them! Instead, they are lambasted. Go figure!

I’m so tired of all these armchair experts who continue to spew all this fake news that’s so readily available online without one second of their own research. It’s more than laziness; it fuels the fire of racism or antisemitism.

Strength to those who seek the truth!

Shabbat shalom

Peta Krost

Editor