For it is the Bible in the Old Testament that instructs all God-fearing Christians that you must exact an eye for an eye, meaning, if you kill, be killed.
No wonder our Chief Justice, a devout Christian demonstrates such tendencies. Selective application of the law as you know is a very dangerous thing, Chief Justice and I need not remind you that selective Biblical texts are equally dangerous. People have fought wars over such selectiveness.
Leaning on selective Christian scripture, he says he has an obligation to live and pray for Israel. Not doing so, he presents as hating Israel. It is a bizarre logic that undermines the gravitas of his office.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng 'accepts' he is bound by policy, but that he is entitled to criticize the Republic of South Africa’s policy towards the Holy State of Israel. Let's hope he makes a credible effort to recover some credibility from this mess. He has proven to be a fine Chief Justice thus far, and on many fronts fears that his religious posture would pollute the sanctity of his role as Chief Justice did not materialize, till now.
One of my friends stated that the “Chief Justice of South Africa defends Israeli violation of International law and is clearly on the wrong side of history and Human Rights. Disgraceful and unprofessional conduct, if you ask me”. I cannot agree more.
It is, of course, true that section 15(1) of the Constitution read thus: Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion. From this constitutional provision, the Chief Justice did not in any way act in contradiction with our Constitution. This is of course as per the letter of the law in this section but what say you of the rest of the spirit of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights? Must these sections simply be dismissed for convenience sake?
In any event, what does it matter that we collectively make such a brouhaha here in South Africa, defend Palestine and attempt to condemn the actions of Israel, it matters not because the rest of the world doesn’t care about what happens to the Palestinian people. The EU doesn’t care and hence they will do very little, if anything, to stop the killings in West Bank and Gaza - to mention only two affected areas.
There is nothing stopping the Israeli government in their violation of International Law, in their persecutions of the people of Palestine, in their war crimes as founded by renowned international Justice Goldstone. Nothing will happen to stop Israel in these crimes against defenceless people.
When listening to a talk delivered by Gideon Levy as far back as 2015 in Washington DC at the invitation of the Jewish Lobby in the USA, a renowned and accomplished journalist for the Haaretz newspaper in Jerusalem for many years. He says, “we have to face reality and the reality is that there is no chance for a change from within the Israeli society. No way. But if this is the case then the only hope is from international intervention, and the only hope is from this place (meaning the USA), Washington, from the EU only from there because the Israeli society is by far today too brainwashed, life in Israel is by far too good, and Israel, let's face it, is a society which lives in denial, totally disconnected with reality. Would it be a private person, I would have to recommend medication or hospitalisation because people that lose disconnection with reality might be very dangerous, either to themselves or to society”. And the Israeli society according to Levy lost connection with reality.
He continues to ask “Is there any country that can live by the sword, show me any country or empire that have accomplish this in history? Believing that in the 21 st century you can defy international law, in such a way to also ignore the international institutions, and to rely only on the USA.”
He pleads with the delegates that change will have to take place here (USA) because in Israel it’s a lost cause. He informs us that there are three principles that enable Israelis to live with this brutal reality:
a. Many if not all Israelis deeply believe that we are the chosen people, and if we are the chosen people, we have the right to do whatever we want.
b. There has never been a situation where the occupation power, the occupier, presents itself as the victim, not only the victim but the only victim around.
c. The systematic dehumanisation of the Palestinians, which enable us Israelis to live in peace with everything.
No Israeli will treat a Palestinian as an equal says Levy. He joked that he once wrote that Palestinians are being treated like animals and he got so many protesting letters from animal rights groups, rightly so. “This set of believes that they are not human beings like us enable us, Israelis, to live in so much peace with those crimes for so many years.”
Levy concludes that there are very clear universal values and laws and Israel values these international laws and for most Israelis, international law is very important but just not for Israel. Israel is a special case.
Where is Israel heading? And things are getting worse and worse and therefore he has so little hope of change from within Israeli society. Finally, Levy says that there are very few of them in Israel that looks to the West, to the EU and America with great hope because we have lost hope in Israel.
So, to come back to our beloved Chief Justice, you keep on supporting the Holy State of Israel, Justice Mogoeng, but the reality is that few of the chosen people have given up hope for any salvation and makes a plea to outsiders such as yourself, to come to their aid instead of subscribing to biblical texts to perpetuate the suffering of the Palestinians. And also to help them the Israelis to free themselves from this brutal and ugly situation they’ve gotten themselves into.
A word of advice Justice, it was Napoleon that once said, when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that "to get power you need to display absolute pettiness; to exercise power you need to show true greatness." Such pettiness and such greatness are rarely found in one person.
Sadly, this is an unpalatable slippage on your part Chief Justice!
* Oscar van Heerden is a scholar of International Relations and author of Two Minutes to Midnight: Will Ramaphosa’s ANC Survive?
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.