In a comment on my earlier post, David Schraub asks for a link to the SAHRC ruling which found Bongani Masuku guilty of hate speech. A copy of the ruling is pasted below.
Archive for the 'South Africa' Category
One of the drawbacks of writing about antisemitism and its anti-Zionist variant is that, too often, you feel like you’re living the same day over and over again. First there was the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, now Bongani Masuku has reappeared.
I had the dubious pleasure of writing about this most foul of antisemites back in February; almost a year later, he’s turned up in the UK as an honored guest of academic boycott advocates BRICUP. There’s a must-read post by Alana Pugh-Jones on Engage, here. The essence of it: South Africa’s Human Rights Commission has found Masuku guilty of engaging in hate speech. However, since his targets were Jews, I’ll wager that Mike Cushman, Steven Rose, Jonathan Rosenhead and their BRICUP colleagues will be positively salivating at the thought of escorting him around British campuses.
Our old friend Bongani Masuku, the international relations secretary of the South African trade union confederation COSATU, has been in action again at Wits University.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been a silent party to one of the most disturbing email exchanges I’ve ever encountered.
Globes, the Israeli business daily, reports that the Histadrut trade union intends to ask the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) for assistance with the planned boycott of Israeli ships by dockers in South Africa. “The union in South Africa is against anything connected to Israel, and in the past even objected to a cooperation agreement we signed with the Palestinian transport workers union,” the paper quotes Transport Workers Union chairman Avi Edri as saying.
As I reported last week, Fatima Hajaig, the Deputy Foreign Minister of South Africa, delivered a speech at a Palestine solidarity rally that could have been scripted by a sub-editor on Der Sturmer. “The control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money,” she screamed, “and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.”
Hajaig has now offered…what, exactly? A clarification? An apology? A restatement of her original remarks?
Continue reading ‘Fatima Hajaig: “I Meant to Say Zionists, Not Jews”’
It’s been a bizarre and disturbing day. I have nothing to add to David T’s take on the Prime Minister who quoted an obscure raving antisemite in the hallowed surroundings of Davos. But if we’re shopping for quotes, examine this one, from the South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
“The control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.” These words were spoken by South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Fatima Hajaig, at a Palestinian solidarity rally organized by the Cosatu trade union federation in the town of Lenasia on January 14th.
Continue reading ‘South African Deputy Foreign Minister: “Jewish Money Controls America”’
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff of the American Jewish Committee.
As despair about the possibility of a two-state solution swells, Robert Mackey in the New York Times is contemplating the idea of a one-state solution. As he notes, even as early as 1999, Edward Said called for the abandonment of the two-state solution - embodied in the Oslo peace process - and the embrace of a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state. More recently, Tony Judt echoed these arguments in the New York Review of Books.
This is from the indispensable It’s Almost Supernatural - essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Middle East conflict plays out in South Africa.
Helen Suzman, the courageous anti-apartheid campaigner, passed away on New Year’s day. A lone voice in South Africa’s parliament against the racist regime, this daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants was hailed by Nelson Mandela, whom she visited regularly during his incarceration on Robben Island, as a “powerhouse against apartheid.”
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff, Assistant Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Africa Institute.
The South African Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) - which includes several self-described “prominent” South Africans, among them former Intelligence Services Minister Ronnie Kasrils, Professor Steven Friedman of the University of Johannesburg, Patrick Craven of the Cosatu trade union federation, and Eddie Makue, the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches - has strongly denounced Israel’s attack on Hamas targets in Gaza. The group has called on the South African government to sever diplomatic relations with Israel and impose sanctions as well.
Continue reading ‘Gaza: From the Apartheid Analogy to “Genocide”’
This is a guest post by Michelle Sieff, Assistant Director of the American Jewish Committee’s Africa Institute.
The formation of a new political party in South Africa, called the Congress of the People (COPE), is the most important event in the country’s history since the first democratic election in 1994.
Have a listen to our latest podcast, in which I interview author Joel Pollak about his new book The Kasrils Affair: Jews and Minority Politics in Post-Apartheid South Africa“.
Hot on the heels of Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann comes South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, who has attached his name to an advertisement decrying alleged “apartheid-style” brutality meted out by the Israeli government.
