By Milton Shain, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at UCT.
His latest book, Fascists, Fabricators and Fantasists. Antisemitism in South Africa from 1948 to the Present was published by Jacana Media.
Headlines across the western world are horrific. “French Jews in Fear of Coming Pogrom”; “Jewish Cemetery in Vienna Targeted with Swastika Daubings”; “Jewish Student Harassed by Harvard Law Review Editor”; “Hamas Official Promises to Carry out October 7 Massacre ‘Again and Again’ Until Israel’s ‘Annihilation’”. And so on. Israel’s response to the October 7 massacres – perfectly legitimate in its goals – has now brought to the surface simple Jew-hatred.
The murder of over 1000 innocents by Hamas invaders, the rape of women and the kidnapping of scores of civilians, including elderly men, women and infants, is already forgotten. Day after day the media focus is on the destruction in Gaza and the death of innocents. Little is heard of the Hamas underground tunnels and command centres hidden beneath residential buildings. Nor do we hear of Hamas – designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union – blocking civilians who wish to escape the war zone, not to mention their requisitioning of fuel from hospitals. Perhaps more importantly, little is heard of the murderous ideology of Hamas, informed as it is by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a foundation document in the history of modern antisemitism.
Put simply, reportage on the Israeli-Hamas war has been shallow and one-sided. South African talk show hosts and commentators provide no historical context when reflecting on the war and little knowledge of radical Islam. Israeli, US, French and British efforts to identify the nature of the beast have hardly impacted.
Let us be clear: Hamas is not the equivalent of the ANC fighting an anti-colonial struggle. It is a movement determined to push Jews into the sea. That is ignored by most commentators.
AMNESIA
It took two days for the media to forget about the October 7 pogrom. Focus rapidly moved to civilian suffering in Gaza which is real and awful. For this Gazans have only their leaders to thank. But protesters – in their tens of thousands across the world – lay blame solely on Israel. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a popular chant. That means the annihilation of the only Jewish State which amounts to one percent of the Arab lands originally under Turkish rule. Do the protesters know what they are calling for? Do they know that on 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State and an Arab State in Mandatory Palestine?
This was never accepted by the Arabs. Five armies invaded Israel at its birth. They failed. Another attempt to obliterate Israel from the map was made in 1967, and again in 1973. These efforts also failed. Even a generous two-state offer under Bill Clinton was rejected by the PLO. But that is history. Today’s Israel-haters see only occupation. Yet Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and also withdrew from the Sinai decades earlier.
The occupation of the West Bank remains unresolved. It is oppressive and harsh, and has gone on for far too long. Only Arab acceptance of a Jewish state, however, will mark its end. Those chanting death to Israel in London, Paris and New York fail to understand this. They are oblivious to history. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is the result of a war not of its making.
HATRED IN SOUTH AFRICA
The outpouring of Jew-hatred in South Africa is not unlike that in Europe and the USA. With one difference. The South African Government leads the way. Foreign Minister Dr Naledi Pandor has enraged the Jewish community by separating good (non-Zionist) from bad (Zionist) Jews: a photo-op with Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian President, a phone call with Ismael Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, and failure to unequivocally condemn the October 7 outrage in its immediate aftermath illustrate her predilections. Like Haman of old and Eric Louw of the 1930s and 40s, Pandor will go down as a Jew-hater.
If not for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Government’s fear of losing its lucrative benefits, the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) may well have called for the obliteration of the Jewish state. Limp advocacy by the ANC for a two-state solution is hardly convincing. Shibboleths like “colonial settler state” and “apartheid Israel” reveal its true feelings.
On our streets, anti-Israel protestors also betray their real feelings. A flag with the writing “One settler, one bullet” was hung over a bridge in Johannesburg, while a social commentator suggested that Jews were reaping the storm for killing Jesus. “The only good Jew is a dead Jew” was the assessment of another social media critic. In calling for the removal of the Israeli Embassy in South Africa, and obviously oblivious to the history of antisemitism, Julius Malema proclaimed that “Cyril Ramaphosa was made president by the money donated to him by the Jewish people behind this embassy.”
Since October 7, reported antisemitic incidents in South Africa have risen tenfold. Anti-Jewish bile spews. Of course not all criticism of Israel is motivated by Jew-hatred; but it often is. For many, it is a fig leaf. In the words of novelist Howard Jacobson, it is “anti-Semitism’s get-out-of-jail-free card”.
In today’s protests, opponents of the Jewish state do not even attempt to separate Zionist from Jew. Social media is littered with blatant antisemitism. Zionism as an ideology of national rebirth has been mangled. The framing of Israel as an “apartheid colonial state” has finally and sadly borne fruit.
Click here for information on: Milton Shain to lecture on Antisemitism in SA at UCT Summer School
• Published in the December 2023/January 2024 issue – Click here to start reading.
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