Sweeping Anti-Semitism in South Africa Under the Carpet

I have been waiting for weeks for the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the South African Jewish report to publicize the findings of the South Africa Anti-Semitism report ,06 by the Institute of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University. And I will most likely continue waiting until the Messiah comes so I have decided to take the liberty of publishing its disturbing findings myself.

Last year South Africa recorded its highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since the commencement of detailed record keeping two decades ago. Seventy-nine anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2006, a more than three-fold increase on the previous year’s total. Incidents were also of a more aggressive nature, including verbal abuse, threats and intimidation (40 cases), assault (four), vandalism (seven, cemeteries mainly being targeted) and bomb threats (two).

The report attributes most of these anti-Semitic attacks to ‘the prevalence of strong anti-Israel sentiment within the mainstream South African political, media and NGO culture’. Radical organisations within the South African Muslim community such as the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), the Islamic Unity Convention and the Media Review Network were singled out as the major contributors to a more hostile atmosphere in South Africa towards Jews and Jewish institutions. This is a contention that we and many of our readers have often expressed.

I happened to be in London last year when a similarly shocking report about increased incidents of anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom was released. Immediately, the British Jewish community sprung into action. There was a major public outcry from a broad spectrum of British society. A bipartisan parliamentary committee was set up to monitor the situation and Prime Minister Blair stated on numerous occasions that he was personally tackling the problem. Of course it was a lead story in the London Jewish Chronicle (their ‘equivalent’ of the SAJR) for weeks with diverse opinions on the cause and an appropriate response. Many of these articles severely criticised the British Jewish Board of Deputies for not doing more to counter anti-Jewish views in the mainstream media. This is how an transparent and responsible community behaves.

So why was our response so different? I can’t believe that the leadership and professional staff of the South African Jewish community are so incompetent that they know nothing of these attacks. One can only conclude that there has been a deliberate decision to sweep it under the proverbial carpet. They have adopted a strategy of ‘Quiet Diplomacy’ in not a dissimilarly way to our government’s handling of Zimbabwe. And we all know what a success that has been.

Click below to see examples of the most severe anti-Semitic incidences mentioned in the report. Some we have covered and should be familiar to regular readers but unfortunately many of these incidents are first-time news to most of us.

Cases of assault included a Jewish youth being struck in the face with a bottle in a Johannesburg pub after objecting to an antisemitic joke and of Durban youths being drawn into an altercation at a Durban nightclub in the course of which one was called a “**** Jew” and another stabbed in the face with a screwdriver. A Pretoria man who is converting to Orthodox Judaism and wears a kippah and tzitzit was threatened and insulted by a farmer for whom he was doing building work. The latter called him a “Judenvark” (“Jewish pig”) and pointed his rifle at him. Anti-Jewish propaganda in the public realm occasionally surfaced. At a mass Muslim march in Cape Town protesting against cartoons portraying Mohammed in Danish and other European newspapers, placards reading “Die Grootste Mites: Israel, Die Holocaust, Vryheid, Demokrasie” (“The greatest myths: Israel, the Holocaust, freedom, democracy”) were amongst those displayed. A journalist interviewing some of the marchers recorded (Die Burger, 18/2) that many Muslims blamed the Jews for the cartoons. Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon’s Jewish background was again used against him and his party in the course of a municipal by-election in Cape Town in June. A pamphlet was distributed in the name of the African Muslim Party (but in fact not endorsed by it) prior to the election reading: “Did you know Tony Leon and his Israeli wife are supporters of the Racist and Murderous Israeli Government policies...Tony Leon and his wife are Zionists themselves!!...As Muslims, we are warned through the Quran to fight against oppression!!!!!!!!!!!” The DA nevertheless won the by-election comfortably. At an academic seminar in Pretoria, sponsored by the Iranian government in December, and ANC Member of Parliament, Farida Mohamed, cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a credible historic document and inferred that the historical authenticity of the Holocaust was a matter of debate. ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama subsequently reiterated his party’s position that the Nazi genocide “should be condemned with the contempt that it deserves”. There are ongoing efforts by Muslim groupings to organize boycotts of businesses that support Israel and sell Israeli produce. During the year, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the umbrella organization for the local trade union movement that claims a membership of two million issued numerous strongly worded statements calling for South Africa to break off all relations with Israel. In November, COSATU supporters combined with those of the militant Muslim group Qibla in a protest march in Cape Town. A memorandum calling Israel an “illegitimate, terrorist state, racist, expansionist and chauvinistic and has no right to exist” was handed over to the Foreign Minister. Following objections from the SAJBD the Johannesburg branch of the Goethe-Institut, the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institution operational worldwide, cancelled a scheduled seminar on the Israel-Lebanon conflict, at which Minister Ronnie Kasrils was keynote speaker. The Board protested against the extreme anti-Israel bias of the organizers of the event. Kasrils had previously likened Israel’s tactics in Lebanon to those of the Nazis. In the course of strike action against Karan Beef, a Jewish-owned company, antisemitic remarks were made by a representative of the S A Commercial, Catering Workers Union, viz. “this boer is insolent, maybe he's Jewish, I don't know if he's Jewish, but if he's Jewish comrades, we are going to force him to go back to Israel.... If he's Jewish and loyal to Israel its obvious how he came to own a place like this”. The SAJBD lodged an official complaint with the Union, which refused to apologize. A commission report into bias at the SA Broadcasting Corporation revealed that a number of political analysts had been blacklisted by Snuki Zikalala, the chief executive for news and current affairs. The commission found eight instances in which Zikalala restricted the use of commentators or analysts. Included in the blacklist was Paula Slier, a Jewish journalist. Zikalala, as cited in the commission report, justified his ban on the use of news items produced by Slier by saying, “from the movement where I come from we support PLO. But she supported what’s happening in Israel. And then I said to them Paula Slier, we cannot use her on the Middle East issue because we know where she stands”. Zikalala’s views contradict the official policy of the SABC, which is to be non-partisan in its news reporting.

Comments

[The Dictator / Embittered Correspondent]

The Antisemitism Report makes no mention of the fact that Kasrils took
his complaint against the SAJR to the Media Review Network. The report
does include a paragraph on The MRN but it fails to make a connection
with the way that Kasrils used it when attacking The SAJR.

When one considers the radical nature of The MRN, Kasril's cynical use
of it was one of the most worrying elements of the wider antisemitic
context. At the time, I found it particularly chilling and I wonder why
the point has not been made in the report.

THE DICTATOR / EMBITTERED CORRESPONDENT

[G]

Why would the SAJBD publicise this report when:

1. The gvt. of the day is clearly not going react in anything like the way the British Gvt has reacted. It is most likely that nothing good would come from publicising the report if strong Gvt. action is being sought.

and

2. The SAJBD would not, G-D forbid (note heavy sarcasm), give S.African Jews even more reason to leave the country