As a journalist with more than 45 years of experience, I have always believed that there are at least two sides to every story. I have also always never rushed into condemning anybody for wrongdoing because I believe that we all make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are unavoidable, and sometimes they are forgivable.
At the same time, I have never believed in objectivity, because it is sometimes a convenient excuse to camouflage wrongdoing by powerful people. I am proud to have been an anti-apartheid activist while not sacrificing my commitment to treat everyone fairly in my reporting.
It is against this background that I have been observing the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza for the past almost two years.
I have been wracking my brain and studying all the evidence and, try as I might, I cannot find the other side of the story that justifies the ongoing genocide and destruction currently happening under the illegal Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip in Palestine.
All I see is the indiscriminate but intentional killing of babies and young children, women and men, combined with the silencing of journalists who are supposed to inform the world about what is happening in one of the major trouble spots in the world.
The Israeli government and army say their actions are in response to what the resistance group, Hamas, (and Israeli supporters would prefer the word ‘terrorist’, just like the Nationalist Party used to call the ANC terrorists) is alleged to have done on 7 October 2023, when the resistance group launched a military attack on Israel, killing hundreds, and captured more than 250 hostages, some who had attended a music festival.
Outrageous as the Hamas attack was, the Israeli government and army want people to forget about the illegal occupation of the Palestinian land and the way they have subjected Palestinians to killings and bombings for decades before 7 October 2023. They also want people to forget about the hundreds of Palestinian hostages they have detained over many years.
If they are successful, the Israeli government and military will erase a long history of their illegal occupation of a land that never belonged to them, but which they claim to be the “promised land”.
The Israeli authorities also believe that Hamas is a bunch of bad people, which is their right, but this does not explain their actions against hundreds if not thousands of innocent men, women and children whose only loyalty is to the land of Palestine, irrespective of who is in charge.
But the facts and optics matter. The reality is that even if Israel’s actions against the people of Palestine in response to the Hamas’s action on 7 October 2023 were vaguely justifiable in the beginning, it has become a clear genocide aimed at eradicating Gaza and killing all its people, clearing the way for Israel and American billionaires to turn it into a luxury beach strip where they intend to make billions more dollars for the benefit of a few. No lesser a person than American president Donald Trump has made his intentions clear in this regard.
Despite all the clear evidence, there are many people in the world who do not see what is happening in front of their eyes. They continue to insist that what Isreal is doing is to legitimately defend itself and its people.
How do you use cutting-edge weapons technology, enough to fight another World War, to defend yourself against people who have no resources to fight back? How and why do you destroy all the infrastructure and then try to starve an entire population by refusing to allow humanitarian aid for those who have been dispossessed of their land?
South Africa was the first country to stand up for the people of Gaza and Palestine when it took Israel to the International Court of Justice for committing genocide. A few other countries, but still not enough, are now finally beginning to speak up against Israel while some, like Great Britain, are prosecuting people for showing support for the suffering Palestinians. How cruel is that?
What the world should be seeing is a warmongering excuse for a nation reacting to their supposed enemies in the only way they know: with unbridled violence.
It does not matter that the people they are killing does not have the resources to defend themselves and are mainly homeless and starving. It does not matter that many of those who were killed in the past few months have been ruthlessly shot down as they queued for much-needed humanitarian relief. It does not matter that they are deliberately silencing journalists who have bravely shone a light on the atrocities being committed in the region.
What Isreal is doing in Gaza is wrong. Like apartheid was wrong. Like the holocaust was wrong.
It is ironic that the same people who suffered from genocide under the Germans during the Holocaust after now subjecting others to the same fate in Palestine. ‘Never and never’ again clearly applies only to some people and not to others.
In a perfect world, everyone should be held accountable for their actions. The Israeli government should be held accountable for committing a genocide against the Palestinian people. Their leaders should be convicted of war crimes and jailed, and the people of Israel should ponder about how they voted into power people who could be so vile and murderous.
The governments who supported the Israeli government and made it possible for them to act with impunity, should be tried as accomplices at the International Court of Justice, and this should include the media who refused to report on the Palestinian story as it has really unfolded and pandered to the strong financial interest of the Israeli government’s supporters throughout the world.
Nelson Mandela, speaking at the Johannesburg Press Club in 2001, said, “There can be no greater cause in the world today than peace. Nothing is going to stop the peace process in this country”.
Mandela was speaking about South Africa where extremists were trying to derail the peace process, but he could have been speaking about the situation in Palestine. Mandela also famously said that the freedom of South Africans will not be complete without the freedom of Palestinians. The evidence suggests that ordinary Palestinians want peace, and ordinary Israelis probably want the same, but the Israeli government and army want war until all of Gaza and maybe Palestine has been turned to rubble.
Those of us with a conscience cannot allow this to happen in our lifetime and under our watch. We all need to stand up against the Israeli government and army and for the people of Palestine. History will judge us if we don’t.
(Written especially for this website on Tuesday, 12 August 2025)
