The world is aghast at Israel’s genocide in Gaza as it witnesses massacres and savage killings of Palestinians — in real time, around the clock. Yet it seems the only person not affected by the shock and horror of Israel’s relentless carpet bombings, drone attacks and scorched-earth tactics is Peter Bruce (“Now is not the time for toxic politics”, July 20).
That he advocates resetting relations with Israel displays an utter disregard for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the occupied West Bank caused by the Netanyahu regime’s deliberate policy of starvation, ethnic-cleansing and systematic extermination.
Bruce feeds a narrative implying that to reset relations with the Trump administration, all South Africa has to do make its “troubles go away” is to restore ties with Israel. He ironically resorts to arguments that may themselves best be described as toxic.
He does so in the context of a warning issued by the minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, about the risk of a coup. And a statement by President Cyril Ramaphosa that the DA was positioning itself as a right-wing nexus that seeks to use a foreign state to effect changes to democratically developed national policies.
The crucial front page story in the Sowetan, “Report links DA MP to anti-SA narrative”, was based on a report from the National Security Council and in keeping with sound media ethics, the Sowetan apparently sought a comment from the DA MP Emma Powell.
Bruce claims that Powell declined to comment and bizarrely proceeds to extricate her from her predicament: “I can explain. There is no coup.”
Nevertheless, despite his best efforts, Bruce fails to clear the air on the real purpose of Powell’s mission to the US. Was it to badmouth the ANC-led GNU? Was it to urge the US to pile on pressure to have South Africa withdraw its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice? Is the Bruce piece reflective of Powell’s mission and goals to condition relations with the US by having a “reset” of relations with Israel?
Surely as tanks are rolling out into areas of Deir al-Balah in Gaza packed with displaced Palestinians facing starvation, zero medical aid and no water, one expects calls for more sustained isolation of Israel.
Bruce cannot claim to be unaware of the horrendous slaughter under way in Gaza.
— Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network
Damn one, damn all
Kganki Matabane, the CEO of the Black Business Council, makes it very clear (“Fury at B20 role for state capture firms”, Business Times July 20) that the involvement of Bain & Co and McKinsey in the work of the B20 (the business arm of the G20) should be condemned.
During the Zondo commission, both these companies were found to have been involved in corrupt activities. He comments “that any person who uses McKinsey and Bain is promoting and sponsoring corruption which means they are also corrupt. You can’t talk about dealing with corruption while you continue to associate with the corrupt.”
In the same edition, Dawie Roodt makes the comment that to protect and grow our economy and improve foreign confidence in South Africa the government will have to “ruthlessly implement the recommendations of the Zondo commission, which he does not see happening ‘because then you’re going to lock up your buddies’”.
To comply with Matabane’s forceful recommendations to the president, all parties implicated in state capture should be excluded from the work of the B20, foreign companies, local companies and individuals. We cannot be selective in how we handle the corrupt.
— Grant Momplé, Paarl
AI split my infinitive
I found the article by Gugulethu Mashinini (“UCT scraps flawed AI detectors”, Sunday Times, July 20) informative and thought-provoking.
As a retired educator who enjoys creative writing and who has had some work published, it got me thinking about aspiring creative writers who might ask AI to write them a piece on a specific theme, for example, and pass off the result as their own. This would be clearly plagiarism, and therefore unacceptable.
But what if a writer asks AI to edit a piece of original work, to improve on it and make it more readable? Would an AI detecting tool flag the resultant writing? I’ve heard of cases of original creative writing being wrongly labelled by AI detectors as plagiarised.
If it is acceptable for a creative writer to use human editors and meta readers to improve their original writing, they should be well within their rights to use AI to brainstorm for ideas and improve writing that is, in the first place, largely their own.
— Raj Isaac, Umdloti
Utterly selfless politics
“For the sake of the country” must be a big headache for the DA. It has been forced so many times to reverse what it vowed never to do, all “for the sake of the country”.
First it concocted the moonshot pact. And when the partners did not gross enough votes the DA went against its vow never to work with the ANC. This was to prevent the ANC from getting into a coalition with the MK Party or EFF, a combination the DA regards as disastrous for the country. It even accepted fewer ministries than it was due “for the sake of the country”.
Luckily it succeeded in averting a VAT increase “for the sake of the country”.
Then came the resolve not to vote for the budget of ministers implicated in wrongdoing. The irony is that the president himself is implicated in the Phala Phala saga, which means his budget too would have had to be boycotted until he was removed.
When the president removed one implicated minister and did something about another, the DA voted in favour of the Appropriation Bill, again “for the sake of the country” — to avoid paralysing the day-to-day functioning of the state. This being based on the belief that the president will remove the other ministers with further pressure.
One wonders what would have happened had the DA taken a hardegat position and insisted on not voting on the budgets of the tainted ministers. Would the president have yielded (for the sake of the country) so that day-to-day functioning of the state was not interrupted? Or would he have adopted a hardegat attitude for the sake of ANC pride/ego and “unity”.
— Kenosi Mosalakae, Houghton
For opinion and analysis consideration, e-mail Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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