In remarks reminiscent of pre-Holocaust Nazi propaganda, the South African Minister of Intelligence has "questioned the patriotism and loyalty" of South African Zionist Jews.
According to Voice of the Cape, this statement was made during a meeting between Kasrils and senior Hamas Politburo member Mohammed Nazzal, and leaders of radical Islamist organisations in Cape Town.
Kasrils questioned the patriotism and loyalty of certain groups within South Africa who rubbish the leadership of the South African government on its position of recognising the legitimately elected representatives of the Palestinian people. |
This is a veiled reference to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (the official representative body of South African Jewry) and various other Zionist organisations in South Africa who recently condemned the government for extending an invitation to Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh of Hamas to visit South Africa.
This represents an escalation of previous statements made by Kasrils aimed at intimidating South African Jewry into adopting the political positions of their government. In the ANC journal Umrabulo, Kasrils recently appealed to SA Jews to accept that Israel is in the wrong, and warned them that it is in their best interests to agree with the government and publicly denounce Israel.
This is not the first time the classic anti-Semitic slur that Jews are a foreign body in South Africa, which use their influence to advance their own sinister agenda, has been publicly alluded to. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad in his speech before the closing session of the United Nations African Meeting on the Question of Palestine on 10 May 2007 declared that ‘… governments and civil society have become victims of a very calculated and orchestrated campaign even in the South African media, to demonize the Palestinian leadership.’
It would seem that our government is now adopting the anti-Jewish positions of the Media Review Network (the chief Islamist advocacy group in South Africa). Their secretary, Iqbal Jassat, in a recent letter to the Business Day ewspaper, in far less diplomatic terms, accused the South African Jewish Board of Deputies of “arrogating to itself the role of dictator, by insisting that those who are engaged in a freedom struggle against a colonial enterprise such as Israel are ‘terrorists’” and described this as “a tragic and sad reflection of a group of gatekeepers bent on preventing SA from its right to exercise sovereignty over policy decisions.”
South Africa, contrary to the seeming yearnings of people like Minister Kasrils, is not yet Dreyfus’ France, Stalin’s Russia, or Ahmadinejad’s Iran. This is supposedly a democracy and as such Jews like all other citizens of this country have the right to publicly criticise their government’s policies. In fact as Thomas Jefferson observed, in a free society ‘dissent is the highest form of patriotism.’
Wendy Kahn, executive director of the SAJBD, echoed these sentiments in her response to these dangerous accusations levelled at the patriotism and motives of South African Jewry by explaining that “what we are doing is exercising our right as free citizens to lobby against actions by our elected representatives that we believe to be morally wrong and strategically counterproductive. This is known as Democracy.”
This attempt to bully South African Jewry into marching in lock step with ANC's Middle East policy is not an isolated incident. It is part of the South African government’s growing totalitarian impulses. If this trend continues, Jews, and for that matter all freedom loving South Africans, will have to question whether they still have a role in building this country’s future.
Steve,
Ronno Einstein (The Minister of 'Intelligence') is no fool. He has read
The Hamas Charter. He knows that The Jews are a Fifth Column. Some have
even voted for The Democratic Alliance when it was run by Tony Leon (a
Jew with an Israeli wife!).
To be honest, I can't sleep at night worrying about "the patriotism and
loyalty" of certain groups. How many of these "groups" have
anti-zionist vocalists? Do they sing songs with lyrics calling for
Israel's destruction??
Posted by: THE DEAF BLIND DICTATOR WITH NO CONCEPT OF POLITICS | May 18, 2007 at 09:33
You've got to hand it to Ronno.
Everytime you start to think he can't get any lower, he comes along and takes your breath away.
He really learned from his Stalinist/KGB mentors in the old Soviet Union.
Posted by: Gary | May 18, 2007 at 09:59
Its enough! He has got a letter in the Business Day (Israel is a Terrorist State) and an article in the M &G about his summer holiday in Palestine. Where does he find the time? While he is out bashing Israel all over the world who is looking after South Africa’s internal security? No wonder we have become such a cool hang out for international Islamists. Kasrils do your day job and leave us Jews alone!
Posted by: Mike | May 18, 2007 at 11:46