"I understand the need for Mr Kluth to portray Hamas as the devil, but the "current spiral of hate" he mentions is now exhibited by Israel's army rather than Hamas. As Palestinian journalists report they have "never seen such atrocities," with Israel's use of white phosphorus and an unidentified substance that burns "to the bone" [5] and continuous bombing and shelling of all of Gaza including the South which was supposed to be safe, Gaza is Dante's inferno."
October 30, 2023
To :
Paul Samyn, Editor, Winnipeg Free Press
Dear Mr Samyn,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, (https://www.CJPME.org), Saskatoon Chapter, to file serious complaints regarding the OpEd by Andreas Kluth, published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 30. This opinion piece has misleading and inaccurate content, presents opinion as fact, potentially foments fear and hate, and seriously lacks essential context.
Focused primarily on Hamas and the hostages, Mr Kluth would have us believe "all humanity" is already touched by Hamas terror and hints at a "new genre of terror-porn" to come, with hostage-taking all over the world by Hamas and its "imitators". "We are all at risk."
Considering the potential for the conflict to spread, he claims "the hostage situation has become one, if not the, determining factor", laying blame solely on Hamas, while ignoring the role Israel's genocidal [1],disproportionate reaction to the Hamas invasion of Israel plays.
Mr Kluth considers innocent Palestinians to have become "hostages of a sort " of Hamas on Oct 7. He ignores that Hamas has cited the occupation of Palestine and the blockade as reasons for their attack.[2] Moreover, the entire population of Gaza has been locked into an illegal land, sea, and air blockade since 2007, creating what is often referred to as the largest open air prison on earth -- its population effectively held "captive" not by Hamas, as Mr Kluth claims, but by Israel, which after Oct. 7 turned off the water and access to all other essential life support. This is not, he writes, "intended by Israel to be collective punishment", it only "looks and feels like it to Gazans."
In fact, not just to Gazans: over the last 25 years the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, ICRC and various human rights organizations have criticized Israel, the occupying power, for its recurrent use of collective punishment against the protected Palestinian people, including the closure of Gaza ."The more that it employs unjust and illegal measures, -such as collective punishment- to sustain its alien rule, the greater the defiance that it sows." [3]
The author states: "Gazans are in effect trapped, with nowhere to go." Absolutely correct, but he fails to add context: most Gazans except those with work permits, have not been able to go anywhere for 16 years, including patients, even children, needing specialty medical care.
Two-thirds of Gaza's population are refugees -or their descendants- of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 war. Under International laws and Conventions everyone has the right to return to their home and country after a war. Gaza's refugee population would have somewhere to go if Israel were to abide by International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva conventions and honoured UN General Assembly resolution 194, which it never has.
"So much for all that", says Mr Kluth, referring to International Law and the war crime of taking hostages. If with this comment he means to imply that international law is not applied, I wholeheartedly agree,
Israel has been violating International Laws and Conventions since its creation and has never been held accountable. Israel's illegal colonial settlements, illegal acquisition of land through war, illegal transfer of population and disproportionate use of force are but a few examples.
After telling us what is in the heads of the "world's most ruthless leaders" and that "armies of democratic nations...shy away from kidnapping" ( Israel's common practice in the occupied West Bank from where even children are illegally transferred to Israeli prisons) [4] ,Mr Kluth makes his most egregious statement: October 7th, Mr Kluth declares, cannot be compared to 9/11 because "traumatic as it was, (it) didn't become a hostage crisis. Nor does Oct. 7 really compare to ... even the grisliest acts of the Islamic State" because it "so greatly exceeds those atrocities in scale".
Besides belittling America's 9/11, he discounts the widespread terror inflicted by the IS including the Yazidi genocide by ISIL, when thousands of Yazidi women and girls were forced into sexual slavery with 4200-18,000 kidnapped or held captive, and 5000 civilians killed.
The hyperbole employed in this piece, whether intended or not, serves to put all blame for present and future hostage crises on Hamas, seemingly justifying the war crimes Israel is committing in Gaza.
I understand the need for Mr Kluth to portray Hamas as the devil, but the "current spiral of hate" he mentions is now exhibited by Israel's army rather than Hamas. As Palestinian journalists report they have "never seen such atrocities," with Israel's use of white phosphorus and an unidentified substance that burns "to the bone" [5] and continuous bombing and shelling of all of Gaza including the South which was supposed to be safe, Gaza is Dante's inferno.
In my opinion, Andreas Kluth's piece should never have even been considered for printing.
Renée Nunan-Rappard