In his column (Contretemps, April 12) Richard Calland concludes: “Finally, let us now be honest. Who on the left did not feel a sense of Schadenfreude at the sight of the World Trade Centre towers crashing to the ground? It is the same instinct that now leads us to quietly celebrate the news of an Israeli casualty.”
At least Calland’s honesty reveals what he truly is: an anti-Semite who confesses to the malicious enjoyment of the murder of Jewish Israelis.
When he heard the news of the Passover massacre in Netanya, one imagines that Calland quietly opened a prized bottle of wine to celebrate. Indeed, why would he not do so? For, as the rest of his article makes clear, he views the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East as solely the fault of the “terrorist” Jewish state.
The column would have made for good copy in the pages of Der Sturmer. A pity therefore that it (dis)graces the pages of your newspaper and claims to represent the sentiments of all on the left. Gavin Rome, Norwood
However much one might deplore Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a butcher, or be persuaded of the notion of Israeli “evil” versus Palestinian “good” in the intractable conflict of the Middle East, no person with any shred of humanity could have written as Calland did of an “honest” and “instinctive” sense of Schadenfreude at the murder of 3 000 civilians in the attack on the World Trade Centre, or the “quiet celebration” of Israeli casualties. Are Israeli children torn limb from limb by human bombs a source of celebration for you, Calland? Which relative of your own would you be prepared to sacrifice to the “justifiable” terror of Islamist zealots and hate-mongers?
I cannot think of anyone on the left (at least, no one whose politics spring from genuine human feeling) who would wish to be lumped into Calland’s category, hopefully, of one. David Farrell, Cape Town
Calland’s column is called Contretemps, but he has again shown a tendency to go with the flow of propaganda rather than addressing the Middle East issue seriously and with originality.
Many of the “facts” he cites are overblown, and his accusation that Sharon wants to “drive the Palestinians into the sea” is an Orwellian reversal of the well-known and oft-propounded war goal of Arab armies. His condemnation of Israel to pariah status is intellectually vacuous and ignores the many differences between the struggle in Israel/Palestine and the fight against apartheid.
At least Calland has the honesty to admit he finds a sense of joy when he hears of Israelis dying. I wonder what interest his point of view can serve other than providing more cheap propaganda fodder for militancy.
I am a leftist. But no, Mr Calland, I did not share the elation you describe when watching the World Trade Centre collapse on thousands of people. And I do not agree that the Palestinian struggle “is the first great struggle for liberation and justice of the 21st century”. If it were, I would be firmly on the Palestinian side. But the Palestinian cause has almost everywhere been associated with autocracy and mass reactionary populism, and whatever else one might want to say about Sharon, he is a democratically elected leader.
In fact, Calland and Sharon are both making a similar mistake. When raids against the Palestinians are “complete”, the Palestinian people and their cause will still have to be engaged with. And when Calland has run out of ink repeating anti-Sharon cliches, the fears and desires of the Israeli people will still have to be acknowledged. Until then, he will be little more than “a propagandist unleashed”. Joel Pollak, Cape Town
The contemptible and vituperative invective that spews from Calland culminates in his final odious sentiments. How can any sane reader of politics view with anything other than abhorrence someone who delights in the atrocities perpetrated against the innocent? Such journalism relies for information on corrupt propaganda and employs falsified emotional blackmail merely to sensationalise the point.
The irony of the subheading “Contretemps” below his photo should not escape the perceptive reader. Perhaps it refers to the error on the part of the paper in publishing so despicable a viewpoint, and the subsequent attempt by the editorial board to apologise in advance to sensitive and intelligent readers. Bev Goldman, South African Zionist Federation
I am writing to express my disgust at the poisonous statements at the end of Calland’s article. After reading such sick remarks I find it impossible to regard anything written by this person with any respect, and I am surprised and saddened that your paper could tolerate such excess. Eleanor Goldin
Calland’s punt of the Palestinian issue as the great moral cause of the age is warped and ignorant. Extreme racism has always accompanied the Arab attempt to ethnically cleanse and exterminate the Jewish renaissance in their ancient homeland.
Instead of criticising Israel’s attack on the Palestinian TV station, Calland should condemn the most vile racist incitement it spews in sharp contravention of the Oslo Peace Accords.
Palestinian leaders admit in the Arabic press that the intifada was deliberately planned, so why does Calland still blame Sharon’s visit to the most holy site in Judaism that long predates the founding of Islam?
An obsessive focus on Israel diverts attention from tyrannous Arab regimes that suppress indigenous peoples such as the Kurds, Copts, Maronites, Berbers and south Sudanese. Justice would be best served if Arabs honestly confronted their own multiple sins, which obstruct coexistence with other religions and peoples. David Joffe, Greenside
The editor replies: Calland was not endorsing the Schadenfreude at American or Israeli deaths to which he referred in his column last week. He was in no sense approving of it. He was, rather, describing a feeling, among other things, of revulsion, that affects many at United States and Israeli behaviour. He was also seeking to show what events and developments give rise to feelings of that kind. Calland does not deserve to be accused of anti-Semitism or callousness for doing so.
Likewise, there is a distinction to be drawn between anti-Semitism and opposition to the Israeli state’s current behaviour towards Palestinians. Those who fail to acknowledge that distinction do themselves, their cause and the state of Israel no service. Calland is guilty if guilty is the right word only of opposition to Israel’s behaviour in recent years. That is a perfectly respectable even if some think mistaken point of view.