South Africa is no stranger to antisemitism. In the 1930s, DF Malan’s Nazi-inspired National Party blocked the immigration of Jewish peoples, threatened violence against Jewish communities and suggested how easy it would be to rile people up against Jewry.
The Apartheid government formulated a conspiracy that Jews were conspiring to overthrow the white government. At the Rivonia Trial, anti-Apartheid Zionists were tried alongside struggle icons, most notably, Nelson Mandela.
Post-Apartheid South Africa seems to have forgotten the contributions of Jews and Zionists in the fight against Apartheid, and the vitriolic oppression that Jews faced by the National Party and its cohorts.
Rather, the new South Africa has seen Jews come under attack by government officials, political parties, media pundits, and even charity organisations. The rise of social media has seen disinformation spread faster that it can be corrected.
Antisemites carefully and not so carefully hide behind the term “Zionist”, instead of outright attacking Jews. But context does sometimes demonstrate that calls for fighting Zionists actually amount to an incitement of violence against Jews.
In reality, Zionism is an ideology many Jewish people regard as essential to their survival. Without a Jewish state, they argue, history will repeat itself over and over, where Jews are made victims, as they were by the Nazis, the Russians, the National Party, and countless other tyrants and regimes which, over millennia, have used Jews as a scapegoat. Dogmatic and knee-jerk hatred of Israelis and Jews, as seen by many pundits, is likely founded in their own irrational hatred.
Post-1994, there have been repeated attacks on South Africa’s Jewish community, from blatant Holocaust denial on Muslim Radio 786 in 1998, to the hijacking of the Durban Conference Against Racism in 2001 to become an Israel and Jewish hate-fest. PAGAD, a vigilante group that bombed restaurant Planet Hollywood in 1998, has made repeated threats against the Jewish community, threatening to track down and “arrest” South African Jews who hold dual citizenship with Israel. PAGAD’s “peace” marches saw protesters chanting “One Zionist, One Bullet”, while burning the Israeli flag.
The ruling ANC has also repeatedly backed incitement of violence against Jews. In 2009, then deputy foreign minister Fatima Hajaig claimed that “Jewish money controls America and most Western countries”. In 2013, Western Cape ANC leader Marius Fransman falsely claimed that 98% of land was owned by “whites” and “Jews”. This claim has been used to justify calls for violence against Jews and whites by those seeking land redistribution.
Rhodes Must Fall, a popular student movement, supported statements by one of its leaders, Wits SRC President Mcebo Dlamini (also a member of the ANC), when he said that he “Loved Hitler” because he knew that the “Jews are devils”.
In 2014, then Cape Town ANC councillor Tony Ehrenreich, now the Western Cape secretary for trade union COSATU, promised retribution and called for violent retaliation against South African Jews for every woman and child killed in Gaza. He has never been punished for his blatant call for violence.
After October 7th 2023, where over 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, with many being the victims of grotesque gender-based violence, South Africa in particular has doubled-down on its antisemitism.
The EFF has repeatedly threatened Herzlia, a Cape Town Jewish school, and called for it to be closed down. Synagogues, Jewish centres and even the Holocaust Museum have repeatedly been targeted by protesters, who harass everyone from the elderly to children. The fact that Jewish centres are being targeted, rather than the Israeli embassy, should show that the real target of hatred is Jews, not Zionists, as some like to pretend.
Earlier this month, what has been described as an improvised explosive device was thrown over the wall of the Cape Town Jewish Centre, but failed to detonate. Police have still not made it clear if the device was genuinely explosive or not, though the matter has been handed over to the Hawks. But even if it was just a bomb scare, the fact that it is being used to intimidate Jews may well be the result of calls for violence against Jews.
Organisations like the Media Review Network push antisemitic narratives, repeatedly romanticising the violent actions of terrorist organisations like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, and spreading misinformation about Israel and Jews.
Gift of the Givers and its founder Imtiaz Sooliman, an individual with links to organisations found to be aiding in the funding of Hamas, have pushed hatred against Jews in South Africa, while actively working in Gaza. Malik Regeila, the regional head in Gaza, is an avowed sympathiser of Hamas and hater of Israel.
Gift of the Givers’ murky finances, hateful rhetoric and refusal to be audited have raised questions about whether the charity’s role in the Middle East conflict.
The list of crimes and calls for hatred and violence against Jews is inexhaustible. The media doesn’t help, as many publications actively push a pro-Palestinian narrative, often characterised by falsehoods, while refusing to publish anything fair or balanced, let alone pro-Israel.
But most South Africans are not antisemites. There is a quiet majority of reasonable people who understand basic morality and human decency. They recognise Israel’s right to exist, and that Jews have a right to feel safe. And it is up to all South Africans to stand up against the vitriolic hatred being lobbed against our Jewish friends and neighbours. If we don’t recognise this incitement to violence and hate for what it is, it will only get worse.
[Image: wal_172619 from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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