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Jews & Joburg vow to remove trees
ANT KATZ
SA Jewry and Israeli interests in the country were taken somewhat by surprise when South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP), with the assistance of the Media Review Network (MRN) and Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (Israel) in SA, slipped in four Palestinian visitors for a week of events to create awareness about the alleged planting of a forest over a Palestinian village in 1948.
The four visited Johannesburg and Cape Town and, most notably, held what has been deemed an illegal gathering and tree-planting last week at a Johannesburg Park which occurred in the haze of confusion created by the “changing of the guard” at the Johannesburg Metro Council.
The group were protesting what is commonly known as “The South African Forest” in Israel, purportedly planted over the ruins of what had been Lubya, a Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 War of Independence.
RIGHT: “Israeli Settler Colonialism: From Lubya to Al Araqib” – an exhibition held at the District 6 Museum Main Hall in Cape Town on Monday – PICTURE: FACEBOOK
The four visitors were only identified by SAJFP as representatives of the civil society groups: ADRID, Badil, Zochrot and Adalah.
On Monday August 29, the group held a “Voices of Civil Society in Palestine” public discussion at the Market Theatre Complex in Johannesburg.
Then, much to the chagrin of Johannesburg Jewry, the group ignored a declined application for permission from Johannesburg City Parks Department to plant a symbolic “Palestinian Forest” last week Thursday in the heart of Jewish Johannesburg, in the Jewish-donated Weinberg Family Park. This park is just a stone’s throw from Chabad House, the Waverley Shul and many other Jewish institutions.
They had been given tentative permission subject to final approval once the application had been put in writing. The written application was apparently never made and so when Ward 72 Councillor Steven Kruger approached City Parks with literally hundreds of letters of complaint from the surrounding community, permission was officially denied.
However, on the day, with many of the Metro’s councillors and department heads involved in training, just as City Parks’ marketing manager Jenny Moodley was being interviewed on LotusFM explaining why permission to plant the trees had been declined, a City Parks truck pulled up to the park – where workers had dug holes the previous day – and placed a tree in each hole.
READ: CITY PARKS BLOCK BDS EVENT IN HEART OF JOBURG
When the Metro later discovered what had happened, Jewish Report received assurances from the Parks Department, several city councillors and a senior MPC that the trees were illegally planted and would be removed.
BDS-SA spokesman Kwara Kekana issued a statement saying that the organisation “has just been informed by our comrades from the SAJFP that Johannesburg City Parks has withdrawn its permission to the SAJFP for a Palestine solidarity event (on Thursday 1 September)”
Then, in Cape Town on Monday, SAJFP held an “Israeli Settler Colonialism: From Lubya to Al Araqib” exhibition at the District 6 Museum Main Hall.
On Wednesday (as Jewish Report was going to print) they addressed the Parliamentary subcommittee on foreign affairs. (Read more about that, too, on our website.)
Charles Abelsohn
Sep 10, 2016 at 6:48 pm
‘It is getting boring. Another reference to Lubya, following faithfully in the anti-Israel tradition with inaccuracies, distortions, absence of context and ignoring of cause and effect. In 1948, Israel, with its 600,000 Jews, was invaded by five well-armed Arab armies as well as the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) representing tens of millions of Arabs who planned to finish off the work left undone by Hitler.
\”This will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars,\” said Azzam Pasha, Secretary of the Arab League. Note the date of his statement – October 1947.
Three months prior to Israel`s Independence, during February 1948, local Lubya militiamen and ALA members captured strategic roads in the vicinity of Lubya which led to the foreign ALA going on the offensive in the north eastern Galilee. The ALA ranks included Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinian Arabs, Iraqis, Transjordanians, Muslim Brothers from Egypt, Circassians and even a few Yugoslavs, Germans, Turks and British soldiers. The ALA established itself in Lubya.
With Lubya laying strategically perched on the narrow road to Tiberius and the north, the inhabitants of Lubya together with the ALA set up roadblocks and ambushing anyone trying to pass. Its action imposed a siege on Tiberius – nothing could get in or out rendering the situation untenable in a sector where Israel had too few fighters. Lubya together with the ALA was no less than an existential threat to the north and Israel`s hold of the Galilee.
Israeli forces captured nearby Nazareth (then 14,000 inhabitants) and agreed with its Arab inhabitants who surrendered that no harm would befall them. Most, if not all, Arabs remained. Nazareth is now the biggest Arab town in Israel (125,000 inhabitants). Right
nearby is a town called Tur’an, which is still there and thriving with a population that has swelled about 800% since 1948.
In the triangle between the Golani Junction, Lubya and Sejera, 100 Israeli soldiers of Golani were killed in the various 1948 actions. The actions of a very few South African Jews are a disgrace to their memory.
The inhabitants of Lubya, many recent arrivals from Algeria and Morocco, had the option, like Nazareth and Tur`an, to come to an agreement with the Israeli army and remain, but preferred fight and then flight rather than accepting the UN Resolution, and even hosted the invading Arab Liberation Army. There are choices in life. Nazareth, Tur`an and countless other Arab towns and villages in Israel made theirs, stayed put, and today 1,600,000 Israeli Arabs benefit from Israel`s democracy. Lubya made its unfortunate choice. What`s done in a war where Lubya inhabitants started the aggression cannot be undone.
‘
nat cheiman
Sep 11, 2016 at 5:18 pm
‘Rather than remove the trees, have a ceremony to consecrate the trees for the 6 million Jews that were killed by the nazis.
‘
Jonni
Sep 12, 2016 at 6:16 am
‘The hate mongering and distortions of the truth are more tragic when purveyed by alienated , uneducated Jews who would appear to follow the same agenda as Chamberlain did before the outbreak of WW2.
Let them rather plant trees in Syria where human rights abuses occur as we speak. Let them rather plant trees in Saudi Arabia where human rights do not exist.
Let them rather plant trees in London to protest the English treatment of the oppressed Irish. Let them rather plant trees where Robbie Mugabe has been responsible for exterminating thousands of his citizens.
Let them rather plant trees to expose the human rights abuses that prevailed at ANC military camps such as Camp Quatro. ( Ask lance corporal Ronald Kasrils about that one )
Let them rather plant trees as a SIGN OF LIFE
​’