The debate that refuses to die.
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Palestinians on Friday will mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, when Palestinians were expelled from their homes and villages. Nakba remains central to the Palestinian struggle for liberation and is reflected in the ongoing devastation in Gaza.
In reality, the Israeli regime’s strategy depends on perpetual brutality to sustain the occupation. The escalation promoted by Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir reflects political and strategic motivations tied to territorial ambitions and domestic power. On Ben-Gvir’s 50th birthday, his wife reportedly presented him with a cake decorated with a noose symbol, referencing the discriminatory and controversial Death Penalty Law recently passed in the Knesset. Critics viewed the gesture as emblematic of a broader culture of hostility toward Palestinians.
This cycle of systematic human rights violations, displacement and failed diplomacy cannot deliver lasting peace. Palestinians, especially in Gaza, remain vulnerable under occupation and blockade, yet their resilience endures. Breaking this systematic oppression requires Palestinians to generate political power beyond stalled negotiations or ineffective appeals to international law that have produced little tangible change.
Ultimately, resolving this decades-long conflict requires a negotiated one-state solution grounded in equality, justice and equal rights for all. Only through the recognition of Palestinians as the indigenous people of the land can lasting peace be achieved in the Holy Land. | Mohamed Saeed Pietermaritzburg
The responses of eminent jurists and “youth voices” on the reinstatement of capital punishment in Post, May 6-10, refer.
That jurists like Prof. Karthy Govender, Prof. Holness and Lawson Naidoo should invoke our revered Constitution, which unequivocally banned the death penalty, is predictable. Supporting the call for the death sentence would constitute a conflict of interest in their case. What surprises me is how some of us genuflect uncritically to the Constitution as if it were written by the gods.
I was also surprised by the response of Pundit Lokesh Maharajh, who says that judicial execution is against Hinduism. If I have read some of our holy books correctly, the use of force to destroy evil is a theme that runs through the Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata and the Ramayana. I have yet to delve into the multi-volumed Vedas.
There are basically two lines of argument offered by those who oppose judicial execution: that it is not a deterrent to violent crime, which is partly true, and that in South Africa poverty fuels crime, which is also partly true. Partly, because every country has its poor classes, something Plato observed more than 2 000 years ago.
It is also true that countries where hands are lopped off and murderers shot or hanged are safer to visit. Botswana, Saudi Arabia, China and India are good examples. Despite the frequent gun violence in the United States, I can still walk the streets of my favourite city, New York, well past midnight.
Put bluntly, capital punishment was banned in this country when a predominantly black government came into power because more criminals from the black community were hanged by the apartheid government. By the way, white people like murderess Daisy de Melker were also executed.
The argument that our Constitution favours restorative instead of punitive justice is flawed because we have seen paroled criminals repeat their crimes. The uncomfortable truth is that some criminals are beyond redemption. When I was in the Gauteng Department of Education in the mid-1990s, I had to deliver matric exam question papers to the Johannesburg Prison. Walking past the C-Max cell, what I witnessed was not human behaviour but something I had never seen in even the most violent movies.
Finally, to argue that we are a civilised nation implies that countries where capital punishment is practised must be uncivilised. We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves civilised. There is an old adage which goes: let the punishment fit the crime. | Harry Sewlall Sandton
A great example of the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black” is the struggling Democratic Party in the US, which lost the last election under Joe Biden, now protesting on Capitol Hill that the ruling Republican Party under President Donald Trump is squandering billions of precious dollars on a totally unnecessary war against Iran, while still requesting billions more to continue this senseless endeavour.
It is a fitting example because the Democrats were no better during their own administration, when they also spent billions supplying arms to Israel as part of what critics describe as a genocidal partnership in Gaza.
This should serve as a lesson to ruling political parties across the globe. Too often, governments squander the opportunity to improve their own countries by spending taxpayers’ money on foreign conflicts that do little to benefit their citizens, while simultaneously portraying themselves as enablers of oppression and tyranny.
The irony becomes obvious when such parties lose power and then attempt, from the opposition benches, to hold the new government accountable for the very kinds of actions they once defended. Their protests begin to sound hollow and opportunistic.
For today’s so-called Democrats to convincingly argue against the Republicans’ unwavering support for Israel in conflicts involving Palestine, Lebanon and Iran becomes increasingly futile. To many observers, it appears less like principled opposition and more like political theatre — the proverbial kettle mocking the pot for being black.
Any ruling political party that lacks genuine concern not only for its own country, but also for broader humanity, eventually loses credibility. In the end, both sides become indistinguishable – black kettles pointing accusing fingers at black pots – and, sadly but predictably, losing the plot entirely. | Ebrahim Essa Durban
DAILY NEWS