It is a genocide, a right of reply to Sara Gon: Hassen Lorgat
Key topics:
Gon’s critique undermines press freedom and journalistic integrity
Gaza genocide claims backed by UN experts and rights groups
Debate over Holocaust comparisons and silencing pro-Palestinian voices
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By Hassen Lorgat*
In a valuable input, I fear Sara has gon (e) too far in her piece Newell and the SABC: Silencing dissent, weakening journalism. Her arguments in favour of press freedom and editorial integrity whilst at first glance appears laudable are truly sectarian on a second reading. It can be defined as progressive except when it comes to Palestinians. Is it not Palestinian students and their allies in Europe and North America who are banned from advocating for boycotts and other peaceful actions ? It could be argued that by labelling Dr Mamphele Ramphele’s views as libel, Gon reaches a new threatening low,
Furthermore, Ms Gon claims that Juliet Newell was “removed” and “deplatformed” which undermines Editorial standards of the sabc and that of the BCCSA. This is happening at a time when quality journalism is sorely needed. She also said that Newell, challenged Dr Mamphela Ramphele’s assertions that the “war in Gaza” was akin to the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is a “special: and specific historical event" she asserts:. It is used only for Jewish people. It Cannot be compared. It involved the “systematic extermination of six million Jews and millions of others by Nazi Germany.” Equating it to Gaza “ cheapen(s [both] the memory of the Holocaust, the reality of Palestinian suffering and the genocidal foundation for Hamas’s existence.” Finally she argues when the holocaust is inverted, it is inaccurate and used against the Israeli regime, its purpose either anti semitic or against Jews and not in good faith.
Her other concerns is about Israel's Gaza campaign being compared to Nazi concentration camps; her condemnation of SABC for using legal excuses to censor content, evading journalistic codes like the BCCSA and thereby using a “political move” that silences journalists. Ms Gon believes that Israel will end the war on Gaza, if and when all captives are released. (There is no talk of the Israeli imprisonment of Palestinian children. I believe these may be more than the captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
Some scrutiny
Ms Newell and others should have been trained to respect all victims especially in a time of a genocide against Palestinians. I blame firstly the SABC management for their non investment in training and education of their staff. Newell was interviewing a person who has suffered sexism and racism in South Africa and was speaking in solidarity about the killing and annihilation of Palestinians. This was not a victims contest as I will explain, and she should have known that and respected it,
What is happening in Gaza and increasingly the West Bank is GENOCIDE. Here is a short primer of many genocide scholars have been saying. Recently they were joined by their association, their organisation, the International Association of Genocide Scholars who passed this resolution where they state clearly that what the Israeli government has done since October 2023, constitute “crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) of Gaza…’Read the resolution here:
Palestinian human rights organisations, including Israeli experts and human rights organisations have all called Israeli actions genocide.These are:Al-Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). Two Israeli Human rights bodies, B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories): and Israeli Physicians for Human Rights have taken 22 months to come to this conclusion. Btselem has uploaded this video called OUR GENOCIDE which speaks in hebrew, so that no one can say they did not know. Watch it here: https://vimeo.com/1104884095?fl=pl&fe=sh Other international bodies like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Médecins Sans Frontières took this view a while ago.
Free speech like human rights must be indivisible. Thus, our concern for free speech must come with a condemnation of Israel’s killings of journalists (now said more than 270 Palestinians and others reporting mostly from Gaza). It also means that we, including Ms Gon, must speak out when human rights organisations that pursue legal means to obtain justice for Palestinians are vilified and repressed. Groups like Al Haq, Al Mazen and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have just suffered this fate Marco Rubio, issued on 4 September Executive Order 14203 wherein the secretary of state explained that he was: “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.” He added that these “entities have directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”
It appears that Palestinians who pursue non violent resistance are outlawed as much as those who advocate for armed resistance.
Gon, the researcher, is fully aware that in late December 2023, in its 84-page filing, before the International Court of Justice South Africa instituting proceedings against Israel. In the case, South Africa alleged that the Israeli regime allegedly violated the Genocide Convention during its military operations in Gaza. Israel’s conduct is "genocidal in character" because its actions were intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and ethnic group. This was the time that all media houses had to do inservice training or retraining with their staff and workers. We know that this did not happen.
But let me move on and remind Ms Gon, of all the UN Special Rapporteurs starting with Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory. Her report titled "Anatomy of a Genocide" (April 2024), is a must read for everyone wherein she concludes: that there are "reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of... acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met."
Almost a year later, during May 2025, a group of UN experts including the aforementioned, Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD): Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences issued a joint statement calling for direct intervention to stop the killings. They wrote: “While States debate terminology - is it or is it not genocide? - Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity,”
“No one is spared - not the children, persons with disabilities, nursing mothers, journalists, health professionals, aid workers, or hostages. Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians, many daily - peaking on 18 March 2025 with 600 casualties in 24 hours, 400 of whom were children.”
I know that it is easy to pick and choose which UN resolutions Israel likes…going way back to the late 1940s…
Considering this, eliminating ordinary people including intellectuals gives us some perspective of the right to life, platforming and so on.
Deplatformed?
So, Newell was not deplatformed, she played whataboutism. The discussion was what must be done about those being killed and she said do not compare them…thus sidetracking the need for solidarity with those currently being killed with high tech, remote efficiency on a mass scale. If Newell failed, it is not what she said but choosing not do deal with the contemporary genocide - something Gon cannot get herself to admit is taking place in Palestine.
This is the nub of the issue: it is not whether the holocaust as concept is used inappropriately or note, but what Israel is committing a genocide or not. Those in South Afria who say there is no holocaust are saying in effect that there is no genocide, thus conflating the two concepts.
Whilst we are at it, the concept holocaust predates the industrial scale murder of six Jewish people, the murder of Roma and Sinti; the slaughter of people with disabilities, Soviet Prisoners of War... gay people, socialists, communists - who were vilified, imprisoned in concentration camps - resulting their slow death in their prisons.
I pointed out elsewhere that colonialist Winston Churchill first used the concept holocaust in 1929 when he referred to Armenian genocide. This is what he said: Churchill described “massacring uncounted thousands of helpless Armenians, men, women, and children together, whole districts blotted out in one administrative holocaust—these were beyond human redress.”
Hostages
Before I sign off with the mistaken belief that Netanyahu is after the release of hostages and this will bring peace. What is clear is that Gon is out of touch even with the Israeli victims' families as they demand a ceasefire and negotiations. According to the Times of Israel, the families of the hostages took part in nationwide protests throughout Israel to mark the 700 days since Oct 7, 2023 demanding a deal to secure the remaining captives’ release. The paper believes that between 20 and 22 captives may be alive, adding that they proceed with the proposed deal which Hamas has accepted and argued “against expanding the war as it would put the captives at even greater risk.”
Beyond all the nice-sounding words about ethical journalism, it is the authenticity and sincerity of Dr Ramphele that shone through: there will be more genocides and we must put an end to this genocide that is in progress.
Israeli historians of the Holocaust Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman in their Haaretz piece "There's No Auschwitz in Gaza. But It's Still Genocide". Like the UN scholars quoted above, they take the view that this may not be a holocaust - meaning no gas chambers, concentration camps and so on - they take the view like Gon that the holocaust is unique - a view I do not share for different reasons as I have outlined above - but they are adamant that what is happening in Gaza is a GENOCIDE.
Can Sarah Gon or Juliet Newell say that?
*Hassen Lorgat is a member of the Peoples Media Consortium, and writes in his personal capacity