I ENCOURAGE readers to condemn Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) for targeting businesses merely because some directors happen to be Jewish. There are no ‘Cape Union Mart’ branches, as its name implies, within Israel, and no connection other than some directors happen to be Jewish. PSG have failed to provide any evidence of a direct financial connection, can offer nothing except calumny, and bear the burden of proof in the matter.
Our constitution does not protect hate speech, nor does it condone the targeting of minorities. There are no civil rights issues at stake here other than that a small interest group believes it may libel others for a cause whose root is elsewhere.
More concerning, is the fact PSC continues to harass and impugn Jews in general for being the ‘source of apartheid’ and “genocide’ even though the historical record demonstrates that South African Jews overwhelmingly supported the anti-apartheid movement and were jailed far in excess of their numbers for opposing the Christian Nationalist regime.
The assertions made by members of PSC are so over the top, they elicit ridicule and satire, as this piece I posted two weeks ago, in response to a protest at Canal Walk demonstrates:
“Is Faizal Sayed suggesting it wasn’t Jan van Riebeek, but rather Johnathon van Ruben who arrived at the Cape in 1652? Must be the reason why the second language for many people in South Africa is Hebrew not Afrikaans? I get the drift, so instead of Simon van der Stel, it was Saul van der Cohen, and not the Great Trek, but rather the Great Schlep? Must have been hell when the Hebrews finally arrived to create their Israeli Colony here? But nevertheless, many are still relieved it wasn’t the National Party that won when Jonah Schmutz’s Bagel Party lost in 1948, only to be replaced by that Zionist ghoul D F Maizels, and his Matzoh Boys? What an absolute shanda when they introduced obligatory Mitzvahs and took away your freedom of religion and pretzels? Now that most South Africans are forcibly Jewish and speaking Hebrew, we all know who is to blame for apartheid?”
I should also point out that the Torah mentions the word Israel 590 times.
Across the entire Hebrew Bible (which includes the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings), it appears well over 2,000 times. The term also appears 43 times in the Koran.
Our secular constitution enshrines freedom of religion and is the antithesis of any document submitted in support of the Palestine cause and Islamic Jihad. Unlike our struggle, there is no secular Freedom Charter in the Middle East. Nobody ever suggested, as Pan Arabists do, that we should unite Africa, or our country, under any one religion, race or ethnicity.
Mandela was famously bipartisan on the issue of Palestine and Israel, and in his biography credited Menachem Begin for inspiring the formation of MK . He was arraigned at Rivonia for treason alongside Arthur Goldreich, a committed Zionist. Mandela’s words are often redacted to make him out to be a sectarian, in truth, he stated: “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world.”
In 2003 Mandela directly addressed the conflict: “You, the people of Israel and Palestine, must now give the lead to your leaders; taking your societies beyond hatred and fear; recognising that achieving the peaceful co-existence between a sovereign and viable state of Palestine and a safe and secure state of Israel is your responsibility.”
SEE: https://www.medialternatives.com/palestine-solidarity-targets-south-african-jews-for-being-jews