Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has condemned the
destruction of Lebanon by Israel as being “out of
proportion”.
On a day in which the conflict there appeared to spill over to cause chaos at London's airports as police there moved to thwart a terrorist plot to bomb aircraft in mid-flight, the minister on Thursday told a group of high school students that much of the violence and conflict that the world was seeing today, centred around the Middle East.
“The South African stance is we do need an immediate ceasefire, because we know that that conflict is not going to be resolved by war, so why continue killing when you eventually you have to sit down and talk?”
She added it was because of the international community's “failure to address the question of Palestine”.
Referring to the current conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has entered a fifth week of air and ground attacks as it attempts to halt rocket attacks from the Hezbollah Shia militia group, the minister said: “Of course our screens today are focused on what's happening to Lebanon.”
The war there is affecting mainly innocent people, women and children in Lebanon and in Israel, “who have got nothing to do with the war”, she said.
“But we must always at the back of our minds remember that that situation has been created to a large extent by the international community's failure to address the question of Palestine.”
The conflict, she said, is rooted in the desperation of the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination and the solidarity that has arisen around them as Arabs react emotionally to the repression of a neighbouring community.
The solution lies in Palestinians “having the right to their own country, with its borders, of course living in peace and coexisting with Israel having its own borders and its own country”.
“That is what is at the heart of the problem in the Middle East. As the international community we have failed to address the problem.”
“And so the Palestinians continue to live in conditions where they don't have the right to self-determination like all of us, and we are all to blame, in my view, for that failure of addressing that question.”
“And our (the South African government's) view is that as long as that question is not addressed and resolved it will be very difficult to resolve anything in the Middle East, to get peace in the Middle East.”
Attempting to put forward a sociological explanation and put a human face on what some security analysts tended to dismiss away simply as “Islamic fundamentalism”, the minister preferred to de-racialise the issue.
“And unfortunately, if we don't have peace in the Middle East, we probably can't have peace in the world, because as long as those people in the Middle East feel the way they feel, see what they see happening to their lives, it will be very difficult to think that we can sit in our own corners and have peace.”
The minister went on to allude to problems of cause and effect when it comes to terrorism, saying that the explosive tensions in the region tend to escalate and spill over into other countries “in a different form”.
She mentioned the bombings some years ago of the United States embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in which hundreds, mostly Africans, died - and for which the US has recently held memorial services - and also the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001, which have all been widely blamed on al-Qaeda and its extremist agenda.
“That can happen in any country, unfortunately,” she told the students, mentioning also the current fears reported in the media today over terrorist attacks on aeroplanes departing from London, in which a number of people have been arrested by British police over a plot to bomb aeroplanes using hand luggage, leaving the British capital to move its state of public alert to “critical”.
“And that's the problem, that unless the international community seriously takes steps to resolve that conflict (over Palestine) it will always spill over in other ways.”
Terrorism can never be justified, said Dlamini Zuma, “it cannot be a means to any end”.
“We condemn terrorism in any form,” the foreign minister said, adding, “but at the same time we do feel that we have to address areas of conflict in the world that makes it possible to recruit those people who have to further their own means through terrorism.”
“We must remove from the world those tensions; we must remove the situations where people begin to feel that death is better than life.”
“We have an obligation to do that, as the world,” the foreign minister told the group of about 30 students aged between 14 and 18, her daughter among them, at a suburban school in Cape Town.
She also condemned the capturing of Israeli soldiers by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia, which prompted Israel's actions, and called for an immediate ceasefire to the conflict. -BuaNews
On a day in which the conflict there appeared to spill over to cause chaos at London's airports as police there moved to thwart a terrorist plot to bomb aircraft in mid-flight, the minister on Thursday told a group of high school students that much of the violence and conflict that the world was seeing today, centred around the Middle East.
“The South African stance is we do need an immediate ceasefire, because we know that that conflict is not going to be resolved by war, so why continue killing when you eventually you have to sit down and talk?”
She added it was because of the international community's “failure to address the question of Palestine”.
Referring to the current conflict in Lebanon, where Israel has entered a fifth week of air and ground attacks as it attempts to halt rocket attacks from the Hezbollah Shia militia group, the minister said: “Of course our screens today are focused on what's happening to Lebanon.”
The war there is affecting mainly innocent people, women and children in Lebanon and in Israel, “who have got nothing to do with the war”, she said.
“But we must always at the back of our minds remember that that situation has been created to a large extent by the international community's failure to address the question of Palestine.”
The conflict, she said, is rooted in the desperation of the Palestinians to exercise their right to self-determination and the solidarity that has arisen around them as Arabs react emotionally to the repression of a neighbouring community.
The solution lies in Palestinians “having the right to their own country, with its borders, of course living in peace and coexisting with Israel having its own borders and its own country”.
“That is what is at the heart of the problem in the Middle East. As the international community we have failed to address the problem.”
“And so the Palestinians continue to live in conditions where they don't have the right to self-determination like all of us, and we are all to blame, in my view, for that failure of addressing that question.”
“And our (the South African government's) view is that as long as that question is not addressed and resolved it will be very difficult to resolve anything in the Middle East, to get peace in the Middle East.”
Attempting to put forward a sociological explanation and put a human face on what some security analysts tended to dismiss away simply as “Islamic fundamentalism”, the minister preferred to de-racialise the issue.
“And unfortunately, if we don't have peace in the Middle East, we probably can't have peace in the world, because as long as those people in the Middle East feel the way they feel, see what they see happening to their lives, it will be very difficult to think that we can sit in our own corners and have peace.”
The minister went on to allude to problems of cause and effect when it comes to terrorism, saying that the explosive tensions in the region tend to escalate and spill over into other countries “in a different form”.
She mentioned the bombings some years ago of the United States embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in which hundreds, mostly Africans, died - and for which the US has recently held memorial services - and also the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001, which have all been widely blamed on al-Qaeda and its extremist agenda.
“That can happen in any country, unfortunately,” she told the students, mentioning also the current fears reported in the media today over terrorist attacks on aeroplanes departing from London, in which a number of people have been arrested by British police over a plot to bomb aeroplanes using hand luggage, leaving the British capital to move its state of public alert to “critical”.
“And that's the problem, that unless the international community seriously takes steps to resolve that conflict (over Palestine) it will always spill over in other ways.”
Terrorism can never be justified, said Dlamini Zuma, “it cannot be a means to any end”.
“We condemn terrorism in any form,” the foreign minister said, adding, “but at the same time we do feel that we have to address areas of conflict in the world that makes it possible to recruit those people who have to further their own means through terrorism.”
“We must remove from the world those tensions; we must remove the situations where people begin to feel that death is better than life.”
“We have an obligation to do that, as the world,” the foreign minister told the group of about 30 students aged between 14 and 18, her daughter among them, at a suburban school in Cape Town.
She also condemned the capturing of Israeli soldiers by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia, which prompted Israel's actions, and called for an immediate ceasefire to the conflict. -BuaNews
Advertisement
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
