Phantoms and forgeries: The cover-ups of Cape Town’s planning officers dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

I don't. I feel that the only thing that can stop Israel may be beginning to happen. Please don't project your self-victimization on me.

When the @CityofCT Planning By-Law Amendments were published we picked up a number of issues: the redensification of the most over populated areas, the free development bonus to developers in the CBD, the absence of a definition of “affordable” etc. We did not pick up this small, but deeply cynical and unethical (probably illegal) amendment about terms-of-office limitations for Planning Tribunal members. I regret that. Though objecting to it would’ve made no difference - @Our_DA used their majority to ignore all objections. We must remember that the DA in Cape Town never wanted to implement SPLUMA. The “old guard” wanted Mayor @PatriciaDeLille to challenge SPLUMA all the way to the Constitutional Court. So the comment that SPLUMA is national legislation “overreach” means nothing has changed in over a decade. Members for life — The capture of Cape Town’s planning tribunal dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

A tribunal that approves billion-rand developments. Missing records. Withheld legal opinions. Little accountability. Every Capetonian should read this DM investigation. Who does the Municipal Planning Tribunal answer to? @KevBloom dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

The allegation is serious: a City of Cape Town planning tribunal making billion-rand decisions while withholding key information from public scrutiny. Transparency and accountability are not optional in a democracy. dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

Who really controls what gets built in Cape Town? This investigation raises serious questions about a powerful planning tribunal that approves developments worth billions, and whether safeguards meant to prevent undue influence have been quietly bypassed. Worth a read. @KevBloom

Members for life — The capture of Cape Town’s planning tribunal dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

Redi didn't mention the word 'Jew' once, just described the abuse she'd received from Saltzman. Like she described the abuse she overheard from the Chief Rabbi. But the response is to stick fingers in ears and yell 'antisemite' What a sad community we have become.

Dear Mark. I assume you are a Saltzman, founders of Dischem. I do not know who your mother is. I have taken NO MONEY from her. The @Dischem Foundation supported good causes led by my previous employer @Radio702 . They also sponsored the Brain of 702. It was a partnership with a commercial radio station. Did your mother want our souls in return?Did your family think that was money coming to me personally? What money did your mother give ME, Redi? And when did I meet with her? Is this what you discuss at family dinners? I am a big customer at Dischem and I assumed like any moral corporate citizen, the Foundation was set up for good deeds, not as a form of blackmail. Perhaps @Dischem foundation should have made it clear to 702 management all those years that it supported good courses in return for MY obedience and silence on Israel's atrocities and war crimes. I'd have told them to go fuck themselves. And unless you and your mother can prove here, publicly, that I, Redihentse Tlhabi, took money from her, then you can also go fuck yourselves. And why is everything about money?

Not the Podbros. Not Rob Hersov. Not that Sizwe fellow. Just good ol gumshoe journalism by Rebecca Davis and the slayers at Daily Maverick. You’re welcome.

The right thing would be to give Rebecca Davis credit for the work she has put in over the past 8 months. South Africa needs a strong, independent media and giving credit where it due is really important. Thank you.

South African Jewish Board of Deputies wants the world to know that Jews who oppose apartheid are a minority. This isn't new, as during apartheid they also went through great pains to let the world know that Jews who oppose apartheid are a minority. We get it. You like apartheid.

JM Coetzee was invited to the 2016 Palestine Festival of Literature. He spoke on the closing night in Ramallah. youtube.com/watch?v=uDUnimxS…

KEVIN BLOOM: Complicity and collective guilt — JM Coetzee shuns Jerusalem literary festival dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

Et si l’Europe, en colonisant le monde, s’était aussi abîmée elle-même ? Et si le travail de décolonisation commençait d’abord à l’intérieur, dans notre regard, dans nos mots, dans nos habitudes de pensée ? Voilà les questions que pose Aimé Césaire dans son Discours sur le colonialisme. En transformant les peuples en objets, les terres en butin, l’Europe s’est ensauvagée. Première leçon de ce texte : une civilisation se juge à la manière dont elle traite ceux qu’elle pourrait vouloir écraser. Deuxième leçon : la langue est un champ de bataille. Césaire s’attaque aux mots qui anesthésient, comme ces « missions civilisatrices » qui, en réalité, sont une entreprise méthodique de déshumanisation. Il nous impose une discipline de fer : nommer avec justesse. Car mal nommer l’inacceptable, c’est lui permettre de s’accomplir sous le couvert de la respectabilité. Troisième leçon : l’universel n’est pas un masque à géométrie variable. Il n’existe pas de droits de l’homme qui s’arrêtent aux frontières ou à la couleur de peau. Accepter que certains soient « moins humains » que d’autres, c’est permettre la destruction de l’édifice entier de notre dignité. La quatrième leçon, enfin, c’est que l’indifférence est une complicité. Le colonialisme prospère dans l’habitude et le confort des consciences qui s’accommodent de la souffrance lointaine. Dès que la vie de l’autre devient une statistique ou un « dossier », nous préparons le lit des barbaries futures. Lire Césaire aujourd’hui est un acte de vigilance absolue : c’est refuser la chosification sous toutes ses formes, qu’elles soient économiques ou sécuritaires, et tenir l’humanité entière pour seule mesure afin de ne plus jamais laisser la force devenir la loi.

The Israeli historian Omer Bartov argues in his new book that a “state ideology” of Zionism has led to what he calls genocide in Gaza. newyorker.com/culture/the-ne…

“Zionism is unreformable” - @bartov_omer

This piece on Gaza by Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture has already been widely circulated, and is almost unbearable to read. The very first paragraph lays out in inarguable terms why Gaza was, and is, a genocide. lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n07/…