In a bid to help educate the Muslim community on the true nature of the Israel-Palestine issue,  Cape Town activist Omar Hoosen recently published a book titled ‘Whose Land Is It Anyway?’. The book seeks to debunk the Zionist narrative surrounding Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Hoosen is noted for his strong activism against occupation, having embarked on a 2000km journey from Cape Town to Pretoria in 2010, protesting against the social issues plaguing South Africans. Known as the 1,000 Miles for Social Change campaign,  Hoosen reached the Union Buildings early in 2011, but did not hand over his memorandum to President Jacob Zuma as he had planned. Amongst the concerns he highlighted in his memorandum, were inequality in South Africa, poverty, unemployment, high crime, HIV/Aids, women and child abuse and corruption in government.

Speaking to VOC’s Breakfast Beat, Hoosen said his book would focus on the numerous myths woven by Zionists around the occupation, individually breaking them down and addressing the true facts about the issue. The book would also clearly address how these myths came about, and how they were now being used to fuel the Zionist agenda.

One of the major issues to be addressed in the book will likely be the topic of Semitism. He noted a noted common propaganda method by the Zionists, of labeling anyone in opposition, or critical of their campaign in Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’. This was despite the Israelis themselves not historically being Semitic people.

“That is a label that nobody wants to bear, especially politicians. If you look at the word Semitic itself, the Semitic people are the sons of Noah. So Semitic people would be Arabs, or the Palestinians,” he noted.

“They are from the Ashkenazi and Khazar tribes. It is a very interesting history if you look at how these tribes came along, and how they converted to Judaism and took on that mantle of Semitic.”

‘Whose Land Is It Anyway’ has received a fairly good response since its release, but Hoosen said there was a lot of work still needed in terms of education, and propagating the message of what the book was about.

Addressing the recent wave of protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Hoosen said he found members of the community to be extremely passionate about the issue at hand. However, he noted that sometimes individuals lacked the proper knowledge of the nature of the situation.

“You can’t be passionate and take action without knowledge behind it,” he said. VOC (Mubeen Banderker)