KENNETH MOKGATLHE | Middle East needs peace and that can't be achieved by alienating Israel

On Saturday night, the autocratic and warmonger government of Iran under Ayatollah Khamenei launched more than 300 missiles against Israel.

As a South African studying in Israel, I experienced the attack firsthand and can say it was the most horrifying night of my life. Following security guidelines provided by the Israeli authorities, who had been expecting this insane attack by Iran, my fellow students and I all had to take cover by running to the relative safety of bomb shelters.

We remained there until the early morning of Sunday. In this first-ever direct attack by Iran on Israeli soil, a young girl from the Bedouin community, which is not far from us in Israel’s south, is reported to have been injured.

As someone who grew up in a Christian environment in a village in SA, during Christmas last year I visited the Old City of Jerusalem and Nazareth. The streets were empty as could be expected due to the Israel-Palestine war. I was struck to see the victims of conflict in Israel, the many hundreds of people who fled their homes near the Lebanon-Israel borders where Hezbollah is continuing to wreak havoc by firing rockets daily into the north of Israel. 

I know that many people who have been told to hate Israel do not even know that Israel is as small as Kruger National Park and that all the provinces in SA are bigger than it. It has a population of only 9-million people. It does not have mineral resources. Israel is the only Jewish-majority state in the world.

It is a democracy in the sense that you can do whatever you want to do as long as it does not go against the fundamental liberties of others. It is you who chooses whether to be religious or secular, whether to wear a dress or pants.

For those who only see the conflict on television or in newspapers, war is not something anyone desires. Nations are dragged into wars that they did not choose. In a war, people die, others are injured and still others are displaced. Many lose their livelihoods as the economy suffers and no one produces food, leading to famine and death. There will never be a winner in a war, which means that diplomacy and dialogue remain the best ways to establish peace, security, and stability.

The world is not talking about how Iranian proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the south have been threatening the existence of Israel for so many years.

Coming from a country so respected for its love for peace over war, I was greatly disappointed to see some of my fellow South Africans supporting and calling for more attacks against Israel by Iran on social media.

I was disappointed because I know that the citizens from both Iran and Israel are essentially peace-loving people who do not desire or need a war. It was also sad for me because I know a South African from the same village in the North West who is doing her studies in Iran. We are South Africans who came to pursue our future in the foreign world. Yet, we are seeing people calling for the two countries to engage in bloody warfare.

Last week, the Argentine court ruled that Iran was the mastermind of the gruesome attacks on the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community centre in 1990 and 1994 respectively in Buenos Aires. People tend to have a selective memory where they only choose to remember the Israeli attack on a building adjoining the Iranian consulate in Syria while refusing to acknowledge the pain and suffering that Iran is inflicting on Israel.  

Peace and stability in the Middle East are prerequisites to global security and development. This cannot be achieved by alienating or hating Israel.

• Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher. He is based at the Israel's Ben Gurion University of the Negev.