THE MENDELSOHN review application against 2 UCT Council resolutions is taking place in the Western Cape High Court. It presents important challenges to a debate on rival definitions of antisemitism, academic freedom and the right to dissent under...
Tag: Gaza
Gaza, a fragile, uncompromising peace
IN 2011 at the People's Health Assembly I asked a delegation of Palestinian doctors whether or not, a binational state solution like Belgium, in which the Flemish and Walloons coexist under a unitary constitution, could be a possible solution to the problem. Their answer, like so many answers I r...
Allegations of Genocide by UNHRC and others are not new
LAST week a weighty tome released by the controversial UN Human Rights Council arrived on my desk. The council you may recall, is controversial for its appointment of Ali Bahreini, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to chair its 2023 social forum. The report: "Legal analysis of the conduc...
Ramphele’s grand inquisition proceeds
IT was Sartre who remarked: “If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.” The French philosopher's seminal work Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate details the manner in which Anti-Semites objectify and deprive Jews of rights ordinarily enjoyed by others. O...
General Rudzani Maphwanya & the creeping coup orchestrated by Iran
IT WAS during the height of the sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa that the country under PW Botha reached out to Iran in what became known as the 'Arms for Oil Deal': Initially, Iran under the Shah's regime had close economic and security ties with South Africa, including signific...
Palestine Solidarity targets South African Jews for being Jews
ON SUNDAY Heinz Winckler, a local Pastor, posted images of what appears to be a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) demonstration outside Cape Union Mart, in Canal Walk, Cape Town. The demonstrators can be seen holding Pan Arab flags (common to Jordan, Palestine, Western Sahara), and placards cla...