'It's OK when they are the ones oppressing'
Photo: AFP
South African hypocrisy
Op-ed: Pretoria criticizes Israeli 'oppression' of Palestinians in West Bank, but justifies massacre of 34 miners
Last week South African police officers killed 34 striking miners. They were shot to death without the High Court of Justice and without B'Tselem. The local press responded with shock, but the government – not so much. It expressed deep regret, but claimed there was no other choice. The post-Apartheid
regime justifies the use of live fire to settle labor disputes.
Hypocrisy
Gerald M. Steinberg
Op-ed: Instead of criticizing ‘Israeli apartheid,’ rights group should focus on Syria, Saudi Arabia
Yes, this is the same regime that hosted the notorious Durban Conference and has been one of the staunchest critics of Israel's conduct in the West Bank. It has recently decided to label goods produced in the West Bank as originating from the ''Israeli Occupied Territories." The announcement was lauded by Israel's Left.
All of our legitimate measures to protect ourselves from the Palestinian enemy remind the current South African leadership of the oppressive white regime of the past century. After Israeli commandoes raided the Gaza-bound 'Marmara' ship, the South African ambassador in Tel Aviv was temporality recalled to Pretoria to protest the death of nine people in the incident. A day before the massacre of the miners, South Africa's deputy international relations minister said that he ''discourages'' South Africans from visiting Israel because the Jewish state "is an occupier country which is oppressing Palestine."
But it is okay for the South Africans themselves to oppress. “This is not the time for blaming or finger pointing," South Africa's National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said following the terrible massacre at the platinum mine. The government's official website refers to the incident as a "tragedy." It is not hard to imagine what the South African government's website would have said had Israeli forces shot dead 34 Palestinian workers.
