Faith, Power and the Cost of Silence

Letters to the editor

How would Jesus respond today?

Recent public statements by Mariam Adelson and Alan Dershowitz, two prominent Zionist figures, regarding efforts to secure a further term in office for US President Donald Trump raise troubling moral and political questions.

These are not ordinary individuals. When they speak and act, their influence is substantial. Ms Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate, reportedly donated over $100 million to Mr Trump’s first election campaign, linked to the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Further donations reportedly followed in support of recognising Israel’s control over the Golan Heights, territory seized from Syria.

With a personal fortune estimated at tens of billions of dollars, funding political ambitions is hardly a sacrifice. Yet the source of that wealth – casinos – has contributed to addiction, financial ruin and despair for countless ordinary Americans. Gambling is explicitly forbidden in the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an, yet this appears not to trouble a president who publicly identifies as Christian.

What kind of leadership claims moral authority while openly benefiting from practices condemned by the very religious traditions it claims to uphold?

Similarly, Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, is widely known for his defence of Jeffrey Epstein and for helping secure a non-prosecution agreement in 2006, which enabled Epstein to continue abusing young victims for years. That such figures present themselves as moral and political guides should concern anyone who values justice.

Trump’s political legacy also raises serious contradictions. While proclaiming “America First”, billions of dollars in US taxpayer funds have been directed to Israel’s military actions, even as millions of Americans struggle with unemployment, hunger and hopelessness. The slogan rings hollow when domestic suffering is ignored.

This brings us to a deeper question: How would Jesus Christ respond to a world where defenders of exploitation, gambling, and abuse claim righteousness and speak on behalf of “the people”?Would Jesus have supported the killing of Palestinian children in Bethlehem and across the Holy Land? Would He have stood alongside Benjamin Netanyahu or Trump? Would He have endorsed Zionism as it is practised today?

These are not rhetorical questions. They go to the heart of faith, morality and political accountability. | Cllr Yagyah Adams Cape Muslim Congress

The brink of global catastrophe

Global events are dominating the headlines, as humanity rushes headlong into an epic confrontation that could reduce our planet to radioactive rubble.

Powerful nations are assembling and deploying weaponry that defies comprehension – tools of total destruction capable of annihilating the human race.

The Asian subcontinent is on hair-trigger alert, with nuclear missiles poised on launch pads. The Korean peninsula bristles with armaments that could be fired in minutes. The South China Sea is awash with warships capable of triggering catastrophic conflict. Meanwhile, the Middle East simmers with tension; one miscalculation could ignite a regional inferno, sending oil prices soaring and threatening global stability.

Peace today rests on a knife-edge. History shows that in war, acts that would normally be abhorrent become acceptable, and human life is reduced to debris – incinerated or buried. Aggression destroys human values, breeds hatred, and decimates ecosystems. Millions of humans and countless animals, plants, and insects face the loss of their habitats, while entire economies and cities are laid to waste.

Modern nuclear weapons are thousands of times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The combined arsenals of the US and Russia reportedly hold the destructive potential of five tons of dynamite per person on earth. Institutions like the UN, despite their lofty ideals, have often failed to ensure global peace, acting more as debating forums than as effective guardians of humanity.

The consequences of conflict are grim: innocent civilians perish, societies collapse, and poverty and despair deepen. The “Doomsday Clock,” a metaphor for our proximity to global annihilation, warns that we are perilously close to midnight. 

Without reason, dialogue, and moral leadership, 2026 risks becoming the year humanity’s folly extinguishes its dreams of peace and prosperity. | Farouk Araie Johannesburg

An endless loop of violence

The 8-track audio cassette, introduced in the mid-1960s and rendered obsolete within two decades, was a curious invention. It required no stopping or rewinding; it simply played on, endlessly – until the tape finally snapped.

Without revisiting the specific details of the latest “massacre” in Australia, one is compelled to ask what the world truly expects, given the continuous cycle of violence, assassination, retaliation and revenge that has characterised global politics for decades.

Since the creation of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent decades of occupation, detention, torture and mass civilian suffering endured by Palestinians, the cycle has remained unbroken – with consequences that now reverberate far beyond the Middle East.

Like an 8-track cassette, the violence never really stops. One track fades, only for another to begin, repeating the same grim refrain. Overwhelming military force dominates one channel, punctuated intermittently by weaker, desperate responses – small by comparison, yet loud enough to provoke global outrage, condemnation and reflexive accusations of anti-Semitism.

In such a climate, how are Jewish communities anywhere in the world expected to peacefully observe holy days without retreating behind layers of security and fear? The cycle ensures that no one is spared its consequences.

Yet there is hope. This cassette has no life of its own. It plays only because it is placed in a machine – and that machine has an owner. The owner holds the switch. The power can be turned off. The cassette can be removed. Or the plug can simply be pulled. | Ebrahim Essa Durban

DAILY NEWS