Fond memories

To the editor,

I appreciate the writing of your regular columnist, Rev Donald Phillipps, who writes under the general heading 'Unsung Methodists'.

His column in last December's edition gave me many minutes of pleasant nostalgia. I am of the age where I can fondly recall the weekly radio broadcasting of Church services. In particular I well remember the Sunday evening broadcasts of the 1960s when (having acquired my very first transistor radio!) I could listen to the broadcast service regardless of what the rest of the household preferred.

I have been musing, that in these Covid-19 days, how very pleasant it would be for me (and others of the same age and similar limited IT skills) to be able to listen and worship, albeit in a passive way. Pleasant though the thought may be, I accept that radio broadcasting of church services is unlikely to resume. Pity.

Notes of nostalgia warm me. Thank you Donald and Touchstone, for the memories.

Heather Kelly, Invercargill.

With Thanks

I would like to express my gratitude and thanks to all who sent emails, cards and letters, and made phone calls, following the death of my wife Nola on 28 November, 2021. Your sympathy and comments were greatly appreciated during this grief-stricken time. Please regard this as a personal response. With aroha to you all. Frank Hanson.

Frank Hanson, Lower Hutt, Wellington

Israel not an apartheid state

To the editor,

I know ‘apartheid” when I see it. Authoritative viewpoints as late as Jacques De Maio’s of 2017 are hardly “outdated” (Brian Turner, Touchstone December). Whereas Archbishop Tutu’s, dating back before 2008, may well be. Sadly the Archbishop’s anti-colonialist ideology allowed him to swallow wholesale the false Palestinian narrative his PA hosts fed him. B’Tselem (not “B’Tselm”) and Human Rights Watch are ideologically anti-Zionist who unquestioningly swallow the PA’s Marxist, Moscow-originated, anti-colonialist narrative. Yet the great majority of today’s Palestinians, like Arafat and Erekat, who poured through the Mandate’s borders, porous to all except Jews seeking to escape from pogroms, are just as much “settlers”. The truth is, the many Jewish families who never left are as “indigenous” as the “Arabs” who may trace their ancestry back to Canaan. Archaeologically, genealogically and historically, Israel is the Jews’ “homeland”. Under international law and post-WW1 treaties, Israel holds the best claim to all its sovereignty.

The Israel I lived in is not an apartheid state. Because, though I travelled on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets, bombs and stones, I shared bus seats with Arabs. I saw Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families next to ultra-Orthodox Jews. I knew Arabs who attended Israeli schools, and received likely the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and are represented in Israel’s Parliament and government. I followed street signs in Arabic, an official language in Israel. My kibbutz went out of its way to employ Arab Israelis. None of this was true for black South Africans under apartheid. Many countries are more deserving of the apartheid label – like Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Israeli checkpoints are a nightmare. But they’re there because Palestinians are sent to stab and kill Israeli civilians, as in Jerusalem on December 7. The Oslo peace process failed because Palestinian leaders, with forked tongues, talk peace in English, but in Arabic inflame deadly “resistance” to expel Israelis “From the River to the Sea”, as in 1948 Jordanian forces expelled them from ancient Jerusalem. Arafat rejected all peace plans which gave Palestinians 97 percent of their demands, and more through proposed land swaps, because an Israeli state would continue. That is anathema to Islamist ideology which sees the only Jews remaining being those who would live again under Islam’s medieval, humiliating dhimmi regime.

Israel has its discriminations – as do we – but this doesn’t make it an “apartheid state” - any more than does our Pākeha racism. Should opponents cease applying their ideological double standards to Israel and accept that there we have a tragic, “bloody national conflict”, with right and wrong on both sides, only then may we pursue a respectful dialogue.

Gary Clover, Richmond, Nelson