The 'apartheid' label against Israel is in no small part responsible for paving a pathway of dehumanisation and delegitimisation of the Jewish state, climaxing in the barbaric atrocities of 7 October, argues Dan Diker.
As we approach the first anniversary of the savage Iran-backed Hamas 7 October atrocities that included mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of children, women and men, it is no exaggeration to say that both the world and Israel have forever changed.
Israel, the small Jewish-majority nation-state, has learned what is arguably the most painful and bloody lesson in its 76-year history.
Having defeated previous enemy states in five wars, it can no longer treat terror groups like Hamas as a mere annoyance, but rather as existential threats. Israel and the world at large have been well aware of the Iranian regime's nuclear capability, genocidal declarations and intentions to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
Attacks on six fronts
However, 7 October and the subsequent jihad that Iran and its terror proxies from Hamas and Hezbollah to Syria and the Houthis in Yemen have prosecuted have underscored the existential threat to Israel.
Prior to 7 October, Israel could not have imagined it would suffer ballistic missiles and killer drone attacks on six fronts, including the Iranian regime itself, that attacked Israel directly for the first time on 14 April 2024.
Israel also learned that even in the last 11 months of strategic and even existential danger, some of its closest allies in the West were still prone to applying massive political pressure to restrain Israel from achieving victory in service of domestic political needs.
The message has become crystal clear that Israel has and will always have to defend itself by itself.
The elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vindicated this lesson learned.
READ | 'Measure of justice' or 'Crime': World leaders react to death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
The resulting expressions of joy across the Arab world at the killing of Nasrallah, in Lebanon, Syria, and in other Middle Eastern countries serves as an affirmation of Israel's more necessarily aggressive action to defend its people from nothing less than a nuclearising genocidal regime in Tehran and its terror proxy "tentacles" that equally threaten Arab countries across the region.
Israel has also learned painful lessons about the malign antisemitic and self-destructive behaviour of international institutions led by the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.
In this regard, Israel has taken note of South Africa's intolerable and inexcusable moral turpitude in petitioning the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of the very genocidal crimes and murder that its Iranian, Hamas, and Hezbollah enemies have perpetrated against it as well as against other Iran regime adversaries in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries.
SA's role
Israel has become even more sceptical about the South African government's malign behaviour and evolving role as a diplomatic proxy of the Iranian regime. Hamas' strong presence in South Africa has metastasised into a massive campaign supporting Hamas, shrouded in massive financial corruption by the ANC, whose financing by Iran and other actors has enabled the party to survive.
The SA BDS-fuelled "apartheid" label against Israel is in no small part responsible for paving a pathway of dehumanisation and delegitimisation of the Jewish state, climaxing in the barbaric atrocities of 7 October. Had the South African government exhibited a modicum of moral clarity and intellectual integrity, it would have called out Iran's imperialist policies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and on the African continent itself.
READ | ANALYSIS | Iran's strikes on Israel latest sign conflict in Middle East is spiraling
Perhaps most importantly, Israel underestimated the penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the upper echelons of the ANC, which the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs has documented recently in a series of research reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent UN speech emphasised the blessing and the curse put before the peoples of the Middle East that Moses, the Biblical Prophet, placed before the children of Israel as they first entered the land of Israel 3 600 years ago. Today's curse of Iran and Hezbollah is being eliminated from the Middle East, and the blessing of a more stable and prosperous region can be ushered in by the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
New beginnings
The publication of this article coincides with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, symbolising new beginnings and recalling the creation of the world. There is no renewal or creation for 101 hostages who remain in the hell of Hamas captivity in the terror tunnels of Gaza.
The nation of Israel remains hopeful for their return. The hour is critical and challenges are great. The ultimate renewal for Israel and the Middle East will only come with the defeat of the murderous and totalitarian Iranian regime, rejected by the vast majority of its battered and oppressed yet defiant public. They, like the people of Israel merely seek liberty, peace and prosperity.
But visions for freedom, safety, security and stability must be based on the truth. After many decades of false hopes for political and territorial compromise with the Palestinian Authority and even Hamas, the Israeli public has internalised the ideological and religiously driven jihad against Israel that Hamas executed on 7 October 2023 and that Iran and Hezbollah nearly carried out simultaneously.
The question remains whether the leading powers of the free world will recognise the ideologically and religiously fuelled terrorist threat to Western civilisation.
- Dr Dan Diker is President and Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24.
