When I read about events in the Middle-East I am reminded of Herod the biblical King of the Jews. Herod slaughtered countless new born babies to circumvent any challenge to his reign and to delay the inevitability of change thru the birth of the messiah. Comparatively, modern day Semitic leaders (Arab and Jew) habitually do their own citizens more harm than good. How else can one explain the Zionist or the Syrian regimes routine use of fighter planes to attack and bomb unprotected people?
Likewise, when politics transpires in the Middle East, innocent people a million a miles away also suffer. Since Israel decided that the world should apply sanctions on Iran, S-Africa cannot legally buy Iranian oil. Obviously the price of our petrol increases, with ordinary locals bearing the full cost.
In time, I am confident the media will disclose that, while the world was paying top dollars for oil, Israeli and American companies were secretly dealing with the Iranians. Example one, during the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargoes, Marc Rich an Israeli Zionist citizen with an US passport circumvented the embargo and bought oil from Iraq and Iran. Example two, despite the Iranian revolution, the rise of the Ayatollah’s in 1979 and the US clandestine war on Iran, Marc Rich remained a supplier of Iranian oil for decades. Example three, investigations of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi “Oil for Food” kickback scheme, suggested that Marc Rich was suspected of Iraqi oil deals involving over 4 million barrels. For decades he remained a fugitive from US justice though no attempt was made to arrest.
Marc Rich the Zionist billionaire fugitive was pardoned by US President Bill Clinton on 20th January 2001, hours before Clinton left the White House. Marc’s wife, Denise Rich had donated millions of dollars to the US Democratic Party and to Clinton during his term. Clinton explained that Israeli government officials including the then- Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barack had requested clemency for Marc Rich. In 2007 Marc Rich received an honorary doctorate from both Bar Ilan University and Ben Gurion University for his contributions to the State of Israel.
In all honesty, why was this fugitive, who consorted habitually with the Ayatollah’s of Iran and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, honoured by the US and Israel? Are embargoes just another mechanism with which to entrench economic monopolies over global resources? In time, I would not be alarmed to learn of secret meetings between Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Hafiz Assad of Syria, Muammer Gadhafi of Libya, the Americans and the Israelis. Perhaps we will learn how they collectively deliberated a strategy to slaughter ordinary people by planning oil wars in search of weapons of mass destruction. Why else are the Americans bombing villages in Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan? Persecution and murder is unjustifiable and evil regardless of religion, race, culture or history.
In my opinion what Jews, Christians and Muslims need to understand is that any genuine believer cannot hope to attain closeness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by arbitrarily despising others. Our primary collective antagonists are those who strategies and advocate conflict and those who worship at the altar of materialism at the expense of ordinary people who desire peace.
Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress