The true human rights abuser

There is something surreal about Israel being under attack and seeing visuals of the horrific destruction in the Jewish State, knowing it is our people being bombarded by the Iranian regime. 

My family and friends are in and out of their safe rooms and shelters. Every time I know the sirens are going off, I go cold with fear, frustrated at being helpless and so far away. 

Yet here in South Africa, life goes on seemingly as usual. And to get a sense of what’s happening, you need to keep in contact with loved ones in Israel or stay close to the news on your devices or television screens. 

The only problem with the latter is that you get two very different, generally divergent, pictures, depending on what you follow. For example, when Hezbollah joined the war from Lebanon and began firing missiles into Israel, most media houses blamed Israel for firing first, which was blatantly untrue. I guess the narrative fits better if Israel is once again seen as the evil aggressor. 

It has seemed so easy for many in the world to join the South African government in lambasting Israel for committing so-called “genocide” against Palestinians or Gazans. However, doesn’t anyone think it strange that this accusation first emerged within days of the Israel Defense Forces going into Gaza? More than that, it isn’t the first time Israel has been accused of “genocide”. In fact, this accusation, much like Israel being called an apartheid state, has been thrown about by our haters and their supporters for many years. In the case of the “apartheid state” label, it’s been 25 years – since the United Nations racism conference in Durban (see page 4). 

So, considering the war in Gaza, it is true thousands of Gazans – including children – did get killed in the crossfire. This was made easier by Hamas, which purposely dug its underground tunnels under schools, hospitals, and places where ordinary people congregate. Hamas uses people as cannon fodder to achieve its aim of getting the world to hate Israel and Jews as much as it does. As many as 60 000 people, including at least 17 000 Hamas operatives, were killed in the war with Hamas. 

And the point is that people believe they can take a moral stand when civilians get killed in a war. Okay, so let’s move on to the war right now against Iran. Here, it seems people feel they can again take a moral stand against Israel, but I don’t get why. 

Yes, many believe US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke international laws by starting this war. That isn’t a moral issue, but political. 

However, in terms of morality, Israel and the US have taken on a megalomaniacal regime that for 36 long years was under the rule of recently assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Before becoming Iran’s supreme leader, he had been president of the country for eight years. His rule included severe violations of international human rights law, and some amounting to crimes against humanity. 

Under Khamenei, any dissent or public protest was outlawed. Tens of thousands of civilians have been arbitrarily detained. There’s no freedom of expression or association. Women and girls, LGBTQI people, and ethnic and religious minorities have faced inhumane treatment, with an intense crackdown on women who don’t abide fully by veiling laws. 

So, where are the people who took a moral standpoint against Israel over Gaza? Why are they not fighting for the innocent lives taken by the Iranian regime? In just 48 hours from 8 January, the Iranian regime murdered more than 30 000 Iranian civilians on the streets. Around 220 000 civilians were detained without trial. They are in detention centres around Iran, and their families are prevented from knowing where they are. Their crimes are wanting their human rights to be respected and for a new government to come in. 

As Dr Iraj Abedian, the Iranian-born former chief Standard Bank economist and former professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, makes clear, the crimes the Iranian regime has committed, and will continue to commit if allowed, are truly crimes against humanity. 

However, as we sit, the South African government has yet to condemn what the Iranian regime has done. Instead, in an interview this week with Zane Dangor, the department of international relations and cooperation director general, he spoke of South Africa wanting an independent investigation into the protests because there was a report that protesters may have had weapons. Sure! 

So much for being so committed to human rights that our government took Israel to the International Court of Justice for “genocide” in December 2023 and has still not let up on that. 

You would imagine that if our government and its followers are so clear on right and wrong that they would be fighting tooth and nail to protect and help innocent Iranians. Only, they haven’t even attempted to help them. 

Instead, all over South Africa this week there were memorial services for the Iranian supreme leader, Khamenei, who was killed when Israel and the US took on the Islamic regime in Iran. Apparently, many tears are being shed for the loss of this man who held his own people hostage and who saw Iran’s resources as bounty to use to promote ideology. 

So many of these same people condemned Israel and Jews for “genocide”. 

As for our government, it is running out of time to recognise the truth about the Iranian regime that it has aligned itself with. As Abedian says, “Silence is complicity in a massacre.” 

Those who denigrate Israel for human rights abuses should seriously consider their commitment to the Iranian regime rather than the Iranian people. Let’s not so easily champion this devastating regime. 

May our loved ones, friends, and family in Israel be safe and the war come to a peaceful end soon. 

Shabbat Shalom! 

Peta Krost 

Editor