Nicholas Woode-Smith analyses Neil Horne’s response to an article defending Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas.
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By Nicholas Woode-Smith
Neil Horne’s ad hominem strewn response to my article rebutting Dr Soni and the vitriol of his emotional outrage belies the flimsiness of his arguments.
Firstly, I must admit that Horne is correct that Dr Soni’s IOL article linked in my piece does not contain any mention of Al Alhi or white phosphorus. That’s because I was responding to her piece published in the South African Journal of Bioethics & Law. The articles are almost identical, but the IOL version has a few sections omitted. This is an oversight that I will grant Horne. But my points still stand.
Horne’s response (weirdly titled as a right of reply, despite my original piece being a response to Dr Soni) is peppered with emotional rhetoric and jabs at my status as a fiction author. A fact that many pro-Palestine advocates seem to think makes me incapable of also being a political analyst. As if George Orwell writing 1984 and Animal Farm made him incapable of simultaneously being a journalist. I know that if I was to write such a personal and irrelevant jab in one of my pieces, my editor would have rightly slapped me on the wrist.
Read more: Right of reply: Woode-Smith misses the mark on Dr Soni, Israel-Palestine
I also find it quite offensive that Horne asserts that I expressed insincere compassion for innocent Gazans. These are only two examples of many personal attacks, inappropriate assumptions and unprofessional rants that Horne makes throughout his piece.
Addressing his apparent rebuttal, the crux of my article was that the deaths of civilians does not prove intent. Horne tries to quote Israeli leaders to prove intent. But you cannot responsibly take the emotionally charged words of leaders of a people who had just been butchered and raped on a mass scale as overwhelming evidence of intent.
Especially considering that the quotes do not actually ever state that they are targeting civilians. They only express anger at the polity of Gaza (which if it was any other nation, most pundits would have no issue with), and make the usual politically innocuous promises that they will take action.
Additionally, Horne repeats the same age-old fallacy that Gaza has been under blockade by Israel. Why is Egypt never acknowledged by anti-Israel activists here? Egypt could allow complete and free trade and movement for Gazans. But they don’t. Also, the porous nature of South Africa’s border is not intentional. And I suspect that if Lesotho and Eswatini were constantly attacking South Africa, then there’d be more efforts to secure said borders.
Read more: Woode-Smith: Dr Soni is lying about Israel-Palestine
The essence of Horne’s assertions all boils down to the fact that he does not believe that Israel has the right to defend itself or retaliate against a terrorist-dominated polity that ruling group committed mass rape and slaughter.
It doesn’t matter if Israel dropped a 1kg bomb or a 2000 pounder. What matters is that the target was Hamas, and that they gave ample time for civilians to get out of the way. It is not Israel’s responsibility to ensure that Gazans have a nice time afterwards. Should Ukraine be concerned that every time they kill a Russian invader, they are stripping a Russian family of its breadwinner, son or brother? No. War is brutal. War is chaos. It isn’t nice. It isn’t fair. What matters is the casus belli. The justification for war.
And October 7th, on top of decades of insurgency, incompetent attempts at genocide against the Jewish people, and countless rocket attacks, is more than reasonable justification for Israel’s actions.
If South Africa had been invaded in the same manner as Israel on October 7th, if Horne had lost family to terrorists and rapists, and if a neighbouring country wished for the eradication of South Africans to claim their land, would he be singing the same tune?
No. No reasonable country deserves to be a country if it does not stand up to defend and avenge its people. Israel had no choice but to act in this manner. Hamas had a choice. And has a choice. It could have sought peace. It could have ended this useless, decades long struggle based on historical fallacies and religious hatred.
Read more: SA’s silence on October 7th sexual violence reflects our own rape culture: Woode-Smith
But it didn’t. It chose to throw its people into a thresher, and martyr them in an effort to kill Jews. So, to usher in the “Day of Judgement”, as their charter states.
Like Soni, Horne fails to provide an acceptable standard of evidence to prove that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians and medical workers. Rather, he rejects the entire notion that Israel should exist, deeming it a “colonial” project.
I believe that Jews need a homeland to protect them from another Holocaust, pogroms, exterminations and deportations. That if every other religion is allowed their own protector state, then the Jews are also deserving. And that that land is Israel. And the sooner people accept that fact, the sooner we can discuss peace.
Read more:
Israel is not committing genocide, Dr. Soni: Woode-Smith
SA urges ICJ to halt Israel’s ‘destruction of Gaza’ in genocide case
🔒 In-depth: The history of the Israel-Palestine conflict explained
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