Posted:
05 Oct 2015 06:02 AM PDT
Prof.
Grant Guilford,Vice-Chancellor,Victoria University
Wellington, New Zealand.
Dear
Vice-Chancellor Grant,
I
wish to pay my respects to the Victoria
University academics who protested the mendacious talk last week by Israeli
soldiers, Raphael Wein and Naftali Gross, who had taken part in the 2014
monstrous Israeli war crime, Operation Protective Edge against Palestinian
families sealed in by land, sea and air.
It
is outrageous that Victoria University condoned what its decent academics
censured as “an exercise in propaganda and apologetics for military violence .
. .This meeting gives a platform to [Israeli Defence Force] soldiers for them
to celebrate the very conflict that led to such massive Palestinian loss of
life” and the mass homelessness, trauma, maiming, unemployment and the grief
and suffering that in now daily life in Gaza.
Prof.
Grant, I am keen to know how you would justify your allowing the Israeli
apologetics event to little 3 year old Hamza Almadani, whose home, while he and his family slept,
was hit with an illegal white phosphorus missile fired by military colleagues
of Wein and Gross on 25 July 2014.
Or
if face to face with Safa, Nabil, Badruddin, Rumba, Mustafa, Yamen, Amal,
Achmed, Hussama and Sharif I am curious to know how would you
explain the blessing, per se, you gave to the Israeli military that does not
see them as human beings and thus can blithely execute the open-fire policy, Dahiya Doctrine and Hannibal Directive
against them.
You
can’t use the argument for free speech for surely it does not apply to
Orwellian newspeak, ‘propaganda and apologetics’ for war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
Raphael
Wein, a foreign fighter from Australia,
spoke fluent disinformation. Regarding ‘rockets showering down upon the
land and 80 percent of the country under attack’, I suggest you listen to American Jewish intellectual, Norman
Finkelstein who thoroughly dismisses the dangers to Israel of the
Palestinian resistance rockets,
“How
could only one Israeli house have been destroyed and 11 others hit or damaged
by a mega barrage of rockets?[17] The obvious, and most plausible, answer is, most
of these so-called rockets must have amounted to little more than enhanced
fireworks.” (Finkelstein)
And
as for “attacks out of the numerous tunnels dug under the Gaza border and into
Israeli towns”, Wein belies “compelling evidence, including statements by a
senior Israeli army source and an Israeli military analyst, that Hamas fighters
exiting the tunnels targeted Israeli soldiers, not civilians” (Finkelstein)
For
facts on the quantitative difference between these “fireworks” and Israel’s mighty military arsenal, I suggest you
also read Israeli activist, Dr Jeff Halper’s new book, War against the People: Israel, The Palestinians and Global
Pacification,
“For
the seventh year running, it [Israel] has been named the “most militarized
nation in the world” by the 2014 Global Militarisation Index” and “Israel has
more military aircraft than any European country and more land-based weapons
(tanks, armored vehicles, anti-tank platforms, mobile rocket throwers,
self-propelled guns, crew-served mortar weapons and towed artillery pieces)
than any European country except Greece.”
Inevitably,
despite the disproportionate imbalance, Wein dutifully parroted the
Israeli blah-blah of self-defence: “We are not fighting a war in foreign lands,
we are not fighting halfway across the world, we are defending ourselves. We
are here defending our borders, our towns and our families.”
Well,
Israel’s high-tech army, navy, airforce are fighting in a foreign land,
Palestine, against poorly armed freedom fighters who have a right to resist the
brutal zionist occupation, colonisation and annihilation of their people, their
land and their culture.
And
as for Naftali Gross’s Hebron
fairytale, the dirty truth of Israeli violence in Al Khalil was sanitised by
calculated understatement and omission. Gross described how “They would
enter houses whilst children and women were sleeping, and he would have to calm
down the family while his patrol bound the wrists and covered the eyes of those
they wished to arrest”.. no sense here of the terrifying SS-like jackboot havoc
as reported by Gerard Horton, a lawyer and co-founder of Military Court
Watch. Omitted was the fact that Al Khalil, a Palestinian town on Palestinian
land, is terrorised by 600 vicious Jewish zealots that are protected by 2000
military the likes of Gross.
Furthermore,
Wein and Gross, are not ordinary civilian holiday-makers as claimed, they are
military personnel (reservists). All Israeli citizens, bar few exceptions,
after completing their compulsory military service are assigned to reserve duty
until exempted at 40 years of age.
And
these two soldier-students are on duty as atrocity apologists along with
thousands of “paid individuals, often university students, who
are hired by the office of the prime minister of Israel
to respond quickly and fiercely to anyone daring to criticise the state of Israel and its
actions.” (Kuttab)
In
realistic contrast to Wein’s false assertion “that Israel never stops believing in
peace” is Israeli dissident, Miko
Peled’s assertion,
“Zionism
has created a state that wants nothing to do with peace or reconciliation.
The problem is not Benjamin Netanyahu and Lieberman… The problem is
that the basic premise on which the Jewish state was founded, Zionism, is
flawed.”
One
has to wonder, in these days of fiscal cuts, how much of their human decency,
values, intellectual integrity and reputation some universities (executives,
councils and staff} will cull for zionist funds.
To
Victoria University’s 23 remonstrating academics
out of 2000 staff, and the 60 plus protestors who disrupted Wein and Gross’s
hasbara and lies, I salute you.
Sincerely
Dr
Vacy Vlazna
Coordinator
Justice
for Palestine
Matters
Sydney, Australia
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