Not Everyone is Celebrating Israel’s 60th

The South African Communist Party (SACP), a member of the ANC’s tripartheid governing alliance, has issued a disgusting response to an invitation by Israeli Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch to Israel’s 60th birthday celebrations. If there was ever any doubt about their feelings towards the Jewish state, this letter in which Israel is denounced as an Apartheid state guilty of genocide, surely erases them.

Inviting the SACP to Israel’s official 60th birthday celebrations was a stupid move on the part of the embassy. It would be the equivalent of inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the Holocaust memorial ceremony at Auschwitz. Sure as a principle it’s important to reach out to your enemies but one also has so be practical, particularly when a rejection would provide them with another opportunity to slate you.

That they would refuse to attend should come as no surprise. But what is shocking is the viciousness of the SACP’s response. The SACP attributes to Israel every war crime imaginable from ‘murder, torture, banishment of millions of Palestinian refugees, settlements expansion and the creation of tiny Palestinian Bantustans prisons’ and blames the Jewish state for pursuing ‘racists, oppressive and genocidal (my emphasis) policies and practices towards the Palestinians in defiance of UN resolutions and international law’. Moreover Israel’s commitment to peace is questioned and it is accused of being an outpost of US imperialism with the objective of bringing ‘more wars, militarism, violence, torture and anti-democratic repression’ to the Middle East. This is a particularly laughable charge given that by all objective standards Israel is rated as the most free and democratic state in its region.

But the worst part of the SACP letter is its proposed solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. The SACP supports ‘the right of Palestinians to self determination and the creation of an independent sovereign state within the pre 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, including the right of return of all the Palestinian refugees.’ Supporting the creation of a Palestinian state not only in the West Bank and Gaza but in Israel proper (the ‘right’ of return) is a blatant call for the destruction of Israel.

Now if these were the rantings of a marginal party whose failed ideology had been discarded onto the South African political rubbish bin, it would be of little concern. But this is not the case. Not only is the SACP an alliance partner with the ANC in government but it is also an important power broker within the ANC. Together with COSATU their support was instrumental in getting Jacob Zuma elected as the new president of the ANC. Post-Polokwane, they have increased positions of importance in both the ANC National Executive Committee and National Working Committee lists. Their spokesperson, Jeremy Cronin is number 5 on the NEC list and his boss, Blade Nzimande is number 11. Thus there is a very real risk that in the years ahead their extreme positions could become official government policy in South Africa.

But it will not stop there. As they put it ‘we will work with all peace loving Israelis and the South African Jewish community and conscientious objectors in Israel to coordinate actions of solidarity for the Palestinians and to defeat the racist apartheid ideology of Zionism.’ If they get their way, once again South African Jewry might be forced to make a choice between their support for Israel and their comfortable lives in South Africa. This is something we must nip in the bud now. It is crucial SA Jewish leadership respond with a clear statement that we will never support such a policy and will always continue to support Zionism and its dream of a free Jewish state in our ancient homeland at peace with its neighbours.

Full letter: Open Rejection of Invitation from Israeli ambassador

Comments

[Shimshon]

Nobody should be forced to celebrate with us, but those Jews that don't shouldn't wonder if one day they knock at Israel's door that the door will stay closed! We only have on Jewish state and we should and can be very proud of it.

[TC]

How can any morally sensitive and sane person be a communist after communism has brought more death and destruction - torture, murder, genocide, expansionism, etc - than any other stupid ideology in history?

[Ariel]

With incredible self-rightousness it would seem TC.

[Castor Troye]

Mike I disagree with you, primarily for a reason you in fact mentioned in the article.

You acknowledged the power and size of COSATU and how influential they are. One has to ask, what if Baruch didnt invite them but invited all other major groups/organizations? Such a move would only play into COSATU's hands that Israel is ashamed and knows that it is wrong, and perhaps they could even strech it to say Israel is being 'racist' for not inviting a black workers union that has pro-palestinian sympathies.

I think the emabassy had no choice but to invite them. It sends a message that Israel is not affected by such accusations, Israel has nothing to be ashamed of but rather the problem is on COSATU's side.

[Gary]

For the SACP, which has such close links with Red China and north Korea, to accuse Israel of "murder, torture, banishment, ethnic cleansing etc" is a very sick joke.
It seems all Communists hate Israel- probabely because Israel is proof that G-D exists.

[BLACKLISTED DICTATOR]

‘we will work with all peace loving Israelis and the South African Jewish community and conscientious objectors in Israel to coordinate actions of solidarity for the Palestinians and to defeat the racist apartheid ideology of Zionism.'
Does this include the SAJBD and the SAZF?

[Mike]

Castor,

I think an invitation to the government of South africa would have been enough.

I wonder if they have been invited in the past? But I do take your point.

[Wessel van Rensburg]

Gary as far as I know the SACP has always been close to Moscow and not China or Korea. It was the PAC who has / had links with China.

Also, I have massive sympathies for Israel, but you can't deny that thousands of people lost their homes because of the creation of the state of Israel.

Of course the Communist Party is part responsible for the creation of the state of Israel. Many left wing pro-communist jews (and there were many prominent ones) were against the creation of a state, but when Stalin made a deal with the Nazis and it served as a huge impetus for Zionism amongst all jews.

[mike]

Wessel,

Your logic is rather simplistic. Yes when the state of Israel was created many Palestinians lost their homes. But this does not mean that is was because of the creation of the state of Israel.

The roots of the Palestinian refugee problem are complex and have been the subject of much debate. I really don’t want to get into the detail here. But what is undeniable is that if the Arabs had accepted the UN Partition plan in 1947, there would have been 2 states Israel and Palestine and no refugees. It is not the creation of Israel that is the root cause, but the war that was launched against the Jewish state when it declared independence.

On the SACP, its interesting to note that the Soviet Union actually supported the creation of the state of Israel. They voted for it in the UN partition vote.

[Wessel van Rensburg]

'Yes when the state of Israel was created many Palestinians lost their homes. But this does not mean that is was because of the creation of the state of Israel.'

I am rather au fait with what happened Mike and your sentence is also rather simplistic, but dont bother I don't feel like debating it with you either now. Save to say that Israel's actions since 1948 are slowly eroding all the moral high ground it had and it's weird and sad to observe a people that suffered so much busy destroying themselves.

As to the Soviet Union. Fetted as a friend of the jews was Lord Balfour. This British PM was of course instrumental in the creation of the state, but Balfour had ulterior motives. He did not want the jews in Britain, he called them 'a people apart' . (Exactly what many anti-Zionist jews feared would happen in the UK).

The same logic can be said Stalin's Russia. They persecuted jews and then supported the creation of the state.

I'm saying that the SACP should be more circumspect in their criticism, because their political grand daddies racism helped create Israel.

[Gary]

In 1948 Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet representative at the United Nations, reffering to the Arab attack on the fledgling Israel expressed surprise that the Arabs States "have resorted to such action as sending their troops into Palestine and carrying out military actions aimed at the supression of the national liberation movement" i.e Israel. . Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.
This is a truth serum to the venomous rantings of Ronnie Kasrils and his ilk, who try to demonize and delegitimize Israel and her people (in order to prepare the world for the genocide of Israel's people), coming from Kasril's own ideological mentors and former masters.
The fact that the Soviet Union would later be the incubation house for all the vile anti-Israel propaganda now espoused by the international left, cannot erase this admission.

The Soviets had voted for the state of Israel in the United Nations, hoping to dislodge Britain from the Middle East. She also couinted on the Jews, from whom Karl Marx originated, to join the Communist orbit.
But just as the Jews 2000 years earlier had refused to follow Jesus, and just as 1300 years earlier had refused to follow Mohammed, so they refused to follow Marx.
And just as the Vatican in the Middle Ages had turned against the Jews for the refusal to follow the Christian line, just as Mohammed turned against the Jews for the refusal to follow the Mohammedan line, and then Martin Luther had turned against the Jews for refusing to be lured with sweet words into becoming Christians, all with genocidal results, so the Kremlin in the Modern Age turned on the Jews for refusing to follow the Communist line.
Egypt and Syria offered the Soviets the Middle East foothold Israel denied them, and the Soviets gratefully armed the Egyptians and Syrians with the technology of death.
It was in the Soviet centers of agitprop that the evil network of lies that Zionism is 'racism', 'apartheid, 'colonialism', 'imperialism' and 'Fascism' were incubated and exported.
Eventually, after the Six Day War, they have become the staple diet of the international left.
Ronnie Kasrils learned his anti-Israel agitprop and hate against Israel and it's people, in the Soviet Union.
But let us not forget the original admission of the Communists before Israel refused to become their satellite.

[Gary]

Wessel, the SACP today is very close to Red China, they have regular meetings with the Chinese Communist Party where thewy discuss such things as how to strengthen communist parties around the world and how to fight "western imperialism"

[anonymous]

The earler comment: "Ronnie Kasrils learned his anti-Israel agitprop and hate against Israel and it's people, in the Soviet Union" does not really capture Kasril's anti-Zionist position. Up until 2001 one did not hear mush of a piep from him about Israel. His move was much more oppotunistcally based around securing and protecting his own political position at the time egged on by the hateful adrinalin produced through the Durban Racism conference. He remains locked in the inauthenticity of his posturing knowing full well that he gets his facts wrong most of the time, but then nuance and engaging with complexity appear not to be his strong points. Is is it just plain old self-deception? If Susan Sontag were alive today I am sure that Ronnie's writings (rantings) would not be on her bedtime reading list :)