Israel-Russia relations put to the test as ‘Arctic Sea’ episode takes an intriguing turn

A mystery regarding a missing cargo ship has become the latest suggestion of a growing covert war going on between Israel and Iran, involving a variety of actors connected with both. What seemed initially as the latest piracy story to hit the news quickly moved into something quite different, and now resembles an elaborate plot from a James Bond movie.

The Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea and its 15 Russian crew mysteriously vanished in July days after leaving Finland, carrying, according to its official manifest, a cargo of timber to Algeria. It was found on August 16 off the coast of West Africa, with the Russian navy announcing that it had captured the hijackers and rescued the crew. Eight men were later charged by the Russians with hijacking and piracy.

David Olesker with the workshop group.

Over thirty students, young leaders and youth movement members were treated to an intensive, challenging and exciting Israel Advocacy workshop with David Olesker, founder of Jerusalem Centre for Communication and Advocacy Training.

The group of Olim ‘Aliyah Flight Daled’, Yossi Eshed, WPZC Chairman Moonyeen Castle and Justine Friedman, Aliyah consultant

July started off with a bang in the Aliyah Department, as Cape Town said “Lehitraot v’Behatzlacha” to 11 enthusiastic olim leaving in one group. On 4 July Capetonians joined up with fellow South Africans to take part in the fourth official group Aliyah flight, which left for Israel with over 120 passengers.

Ages ranged from individual young adults and new families with children, to older couples looking to reunite with family in the Holy Land. The Cape Town group was made up of a diversity of people, including a young family with two very small children and seven singles aged from 21 to 71, demonstrating that no one is too young or too old to settle in our homeland.

With Yoav Shamir, director of the movie ‘Defamation’ (second right) with Syd Kaye, Richard Freedman (director, Holocaust Centre) and Mark Brajtman.

“This is why I have called them the seventh million,” writes Tom Segev in his book The Seventh Million. His work explores how the Holocaust has impacted on Israeli history and society on every level, and how Israel is “still grappling to come to terms with the memory of the six million Jews exterminated by Hitler”.

An Israeli, Yoav Shamir, has also looked at this profound link, but in a differing way. The result of his explorations is the film Defamation, which questions the prevalence of antisemitism today, and the power of the Holocaust in Israeli and Diaspora discourses.

Defamation was shown at the ‘Encounters’ Film Festival in Cape town last month. Encounters brought out Shamir to take part in a discussion at the showing of the film, and the Media committee of the SAJBOD and WPZC invited him to talk about his movie with community members.

History has shown us, time and again, that revolution often occurs when authoritarian regimes take the obedience of their subjects for granted, do as they desire as they naively ignore growing discontent, only to then discover that they have pushed their populace to breaking point. History may be in the process of repeating itself in Iran.

In scenes all too reminiscent of the popular uprisings that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the late-1980s — and indeed Iran’s own Revolution in 1979 — Iran last month saw a political explosion after Ahmadinejad was inconceivably declared to have won a landslide victory in June’s Presidential election.

Iran’s population — that over the years has got ever younger, more educated, and via modern technology, become all too aware of what is going on in the outside world — had until now been placated by a limited form of ‘pro- Revolutionary’ democracy. Many were discontented, even angry, but at least they felt they had a voice.