Anti-Israel protesters march through the streets of the township of Lenasia in Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ihsaan Haffejee

According to the Talmud, Rabban Gamliel banned any student whose deeds were not in keeping with their values (Brachot 28a). This left him with an exceptionally small crop of students. One rabbi says that when his decree was lifted, 700 benches had to be added to accommodate the many more students who could then attend.

While hypocrisy is as old as time itself, sometimes it is so flagrant, glaring, and infuriating that we can’t help but take note.

South Africa has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. It has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide and demanding that the court intervene to help Gaza’s citizens.

In its original petition to the ICJ, submitted in December of 2023, South Africa declared the situation in Gaza to be “a moral failure causing intolerable suffering” (par. 44). It accused Israel of not only killing and injuring large numbers of Palestinians, but also depriving them of food and water, medical care, shelter, clothing, hygiene, and sanitation (par. 43). It accused Israeli leaders of making statements that demonstrated genocidal intent, such as then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, “Israel would impose a complete siege on Gaza.” (par. 101). Although Gallant’s words were purposefully misinterpreted, South Afrtica tried to claim that Israel wanted to deliberately starve the people of Gaza.

You might be surprised, then, to find out how South Africa recently treated destitute migrants who unlawfully entered shuttered mines in an attempt to extract left-behind minerals they could sell to meet their basic needs.

The South African government was so enraged by this, that it forbid any food, water, or other humanitarian assistance from reaching them in an effort to starve them out.

One government minister explained that the miners are criminals, and therefore don’t deserve anything. At one mine, more than 100 people died of starvation and dehydration underground.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions said that at one site, 101 survivors emerged resembling “walking ghosts” after enduring weeks without supplies. It called the episode one of the most horrific displays of state willful negligence in recent history. It further condemned government officials’ statements that they would “smoke out” the miners, saying this amounted to state-sanctioned murder.

And let’s remember that these people went down the mineshafts illegally only in a desperate effort to survive. They had committed no violence against South Africa and posed no threat to the country.But just the fact that they were breaking laws out of economic necessity was enough for South Africa to treat them this way.

Sadly, this is typical of many human rights campaigns. Rights are only important when they can be used to condemn whatever group activists are interested in attacking. Worse or similar violations elsewhere mean nothing, and the people lobbing furious condemnation at others for violating rights would trample those same rights in an instant if they believed that was needed for their own well-being or security.

Even as the cease-fire brings us images of throngs of healthy, jubilant Gaza citizens parading through the streets declaring victory, making the genocide charge even more obviously false, it would be naïve to expect South Africa or its allies to change their minds. A country that starves common criminals at home while self-righteously accusing Israel of not allowing enough food to enter Gaza is not interested in human rights, but rather is pursuing its own political agenda. We can only hope that ostensibly legal forums such as the International Court of Justice will see through South Africa’s political opportunism and issuing a ruling based on law.

But most tragic is that by spuriously and hypocritically accusing Israel of genocide, South Africa has further exposed the political bias and double standards that unfortunately are so often at the root of human rights advocacy. This reduces human rights from lofty ideals for a better future, to a weapon that can be cynically exploited for political gain. What a shame.

Shlomo Levin is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah, and he writes about legal developments related to human rights issues of interest to the Jewish community. You can find him at https://hrhaggadah.com/.

The post Condemn Israel, Starve Miners: South African Hypocrisy Makes a Mockery of Human Rights first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A man looks at pictures and memorabilia related to fallen soldiers, hostages, and people killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, at a public square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem

On January 20, the BBC News website published a filmed report on its Middle East page, under the headline “Moment freed Palestinian prisoners reunite with family and friends”:

Ninety Palestinians were released from Israeli jails as part of the first phase in a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Footage shows the prisoners, mostly woman and children, greeted by cheers upon arrival as people gathered to welcome them in the occupied West Bank.

In exchange for these prisoners, three hostages were released from Gaza to Israel.

That 59-second-long filmed report does not include any commentary or subtitles beyond “Palestinian prisoners freed” and “West Bank” in its opening frame.

It does show the same released prisoner twice — between 00:18 and 00:22 and between 00:45 and 00:54 — without any context provided to viewers:

Also on January 20, listeners to the BBC World Service radio station and BBC Radio 4 heard a report on that story from Jon Donnison.

In the version aired on Newshour, presenter Tim Franks told listeners (from 15:41 here) that: [emphasis in italics in the original]

Franks: “Hours after the release of those three Israeli hostages, ninety Palestinian prisoners — women and teenage boys — were freed from Israeli jails. Thirty prisoners for each hostage. Our correspondent Jon Donnison watched that detainee release take place in the West Bank.”

At 17:17 Donnison described one of those released — the same woman who appeared in the BBC’s filmed report — as follows:

Donnison: “Among them was 62-year-old Khalida Jarrar — a politician from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] — jailed after the October 7th attack. She said it was a bittersweet moment.”

Listeners then heard a voice-over translation of comments made by Jarrar — but Donnison did not bother to inform listeners around the world that the PFLP is an internationally-designated terrorist organization, which took part in the October 7 massacre.

Neither did he bother to clarify that Khalida Jarrar was arrested in 2015 and charged with being a member of the PFLP and inciting people to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Jarrar confessed to those charges and under the terms of a plea bargain, was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment.

After her release, Jarrar became one of the heads of the PFLP in Judea & Samaria, and she was re-arrested in October 2019 following the terror attack perpetrated by that terrorist organization in which 17-year-old Rina Shnerb was murdered.

Once again, Jarrar confessed to the charges and was sentenced to 24 months in prison. While serving that sentence, Jarrar chose to once again run for political office on behalf of the PFLP terrorist organization. She was released in September 2021.

As was noted here in 2019, the BBC elected to ignore the arrests of PFLP operatives in connection with that terror attack.

Readers may also recall that in 2014, Jon Donnison portrayed a PFLP “fighter commander” as a “charity worker.”

The BBC’s failure to adequately explain the terror links of Palestinian prisoners is of course by no means new: audiences saw the same style of reporting in November 2023 and indeed long before that.

Nevertheless, BBC audiences obviously cannot properly understand the story that the corporation purports to report in these two items — or similar future ones —  if they are not provided with an accurate and impartial portrayal of the reasons why those now being released from prison by Israel were detained in the first place and the terrorist organizations to which they are linked.

Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The Media Hides the Murders and Crimes of Palestinian ‘Prisoners’ Released in Hostage Swap first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Troops from the IDF’s 98th Division operating in Jabalia, the northern Gaza Strip, May 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.

Part one of this article appeared here.

Indoctrination

All that happened in Germany and Japan to get rid of the Nazis and Japan’s militaristic government, brings us to de-Hamasification in Gaza — and for that matter deradicalization, in the Palestinian Authority.

The work must start with infants, children, teenagers, and young adults both in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, values its control over all the young, as does any culture of indoctrination because it needs a large ever-renewable pool of morally pliable recruits.

This was particularly valuable to Stalin’s commissars, Mao’s revolutionaries, Nazi Germany, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Schools, youth clubs, summer camps and other institutions of child-rearing become instruments of hate. Textbooks signal what children are supposed to think. Other vectors of the genocide-pathology include children’s television, social media, and children’s songs and rhymes.

All of it is shaped and engineered to produce generations who see a specific enemy of the state as subhuman or demonic and requiring elimination. Again, Stanton’s model applies: In textbooks, provided by the Palestinian Authority in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the young are already being prepared for genocide’s first four steps. The Palestinian textbooks are worse than ever with ever more demonization, delegitimization, and glorification of terror.

Incentivization

Then, our attention must turn to civil society. All systems of genocide create a culture of compliance. Personal space, freedom, and autonomy are eliminated. Through coercion, direction, intimidation, and harsh systems of reward and punishment, messages of hate became ordinary thoughts and actions that are criminal and immoral. This is Stanton’s fifth, sixth and seventh stages.

In the case of Gaza, the ideology of Hamas has been enabled by UNRWA (UN Relief and Work Agency) schools, summer camps, and a wide variety of social programs, including some tied to health care institutions.

UNRWA is staffed by Hamas’ sympathizers and enforcers, who amplify hate. UNRWA schools adhere to jihadist indoctrination, employ Hamas members as commissars to enforce ideological conformity, and create each year a large cadre of students willing to sacrifice themselves in order to kill more Jews.

As with Nazi Germany, Hamas has many willing executioners — as we saw on October 7 and again on January 20 when a mob of many hundreds of Gazans stormed the three young female hostages just before they were turned over to the IDF.

The reward-and-punishment system enforced in Gaza and the West Bank includes stipends given to terrorists or their surviving families for attacks — stipends paid for through international aid to Palestinian organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority.

All those organizations and nations that are willing or unwitting parties to such “pay-to-slay” programs — Qatar, the United Nations, Canada, the United States, and several European nations and organizations — must confront the epidemiological implications. They are actually hurting the people they aim to help.

Confronting the Foundations

As with the de-Nazification of Germany after World War II, willing parties must take over Gaza’s legal, educational, political, religious, and cultural institutions, or reestablish them under new values and directions and with new governance.

Schools in particular will require substantial reform, with new textbooks and curricula free from Palestinian Authority control or oversight, rigorous programs focused on dignity and respect for the other in line with Muslim teachings focused on charity, kindness and self-improvement as well as respect for the other. De-Hamasification should have already started. Valuable time has already been lost. To regain momentum, de-Hamasification must use the one lever that the international community has over Hamas: Delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Right now, convoys of food, water and other necessary supplies have the perverse effect of resupplying not just Hamas but sustaining its ideological grip over Gaza and causing still more harm to the public.

Going forward, all relief aid that goes into Gaza must be linked to programs to change attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors. That will require new humanitarian organizations who pledge to end indoctrination and incitement as a part of their public health mission.

If humanitarian aid is not used as a vehicle for de-Hamasification, it will become the currency of Hamas, and the result will be no surprise: Healthier, stronger terrorists and more misery for the people of Gaza as well as Israel.

Consider that the just-announced ceasefire and hostage-release has allowed Hamas to reassert its control over all of Gaza, and that dozens of Palestinians who resisted Hamas’ rule in the past few months are now marked for summary execution.

Again, the pattern is the same: Whenever Hamas is in control, more Palestinians die. This is now an ironclad epidemiological pattern. To ignore the pattern is professional malfeasance by organizations pledged to public health and humanitarian outcomes.

De-Hamasification: Wasatia as the model

Any program of de-Hamasification must be undertaken with special awareness of the character of the traditional, conservative, and religious nature of Palestinian society. It would be foolish to expect a society that is deeply religious and traditional to embrace any of the conventions of a liberal Western secular nation like Germany or see it as a model.

In fact, the most difficult part of de-Hamasification will be to decouple Islamic theology from Islamist norms of Hamas and its leadership. But it is possible. For leadership and guidance to promote basic tolerance and moderation, within the texts and the traditions of Islam, we must consult with moderate Islamic theologians and philosophers.

One good example is Wasatia, the movement founded by Professor Mohammad Dajani. The Abraham Accords can serve as the political, legal, and institutional framework for promoting de-Hamasification in Gaza and doing the same in the Palestinian Authority. And the US’ own work in de-Baathification of Iraq may prove instructive.

Some Islamic nations, notably Saudi Arabia, have long sponsored and run counter-indoctrination programs of their own to reverse the effects of exposure to the toxic messages of radical Islamist ideologies. These programs have a solid record of restoring individuals to society. But Saudi efforts are not consistent; the nation’s textbooks continue to promote intolerance and bigotry, especially towards Shia and Sufi Islamic traditions, as well as Christianity and Judaism.

Other models exist. The Carter Center in Atlanta has researched how to counter the indoctrination efforts of ISIS during its rise and years of control over schools in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

ISIS, like Hamas, concentrated efforts on promoting its genocidal ideology in school curriculum. This curriculum, in place for three years, was doctrinal — emphasizing Salafist and Jihadist principles. The effort to remove ISIS ideology in Arab and Muslim nations is ongoing but clearly is working — and we must include those nations and organizations in the effort to de-Hamasify Gaza. Their expertise will be critical.

There will be inevitable efforts to revive Hamas in fresh garb. This must be resisted at every step. It must be stopped not only because of the danger Hamasism represents to Israel, but what it means to Palestinians. Every genocidal regime has been ruined by its own militancy and forced to confront the sources of its pain. This may happen in Gaza one day; but it will only happen if Gaza’s Palestinians are enabled to break free from the industrial level of ideological contamination that Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority and Iran’s mullahs, who fund Hamas, have been emitting for decades.

Elihu D Richter is a retired head of the Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Hebrew University School of Public Health and is the founder of the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention.

The post The World Needs to Adopt a Real Humanitarian Goal: Removing Hamas From Gaza (PART TWO) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.