Israel again blamed for ‘manufacturing’ water crisis

TALI FEINBERG

Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam, a member of the National Freedom Party (NFP), said the water situation in the Cape was “manufactured by the DA so that they could, in turn, engage the Israelis to give them quotes for desalination”, according to DA MP Michael Bagraim, who was there at the time.

“He proposed that the DA would then raise kickbacks from the Israelis to run the 2019 elections. He went on also to state that it was the whites who had engineered Aids in order to kill blacks.”

Bagraim recounted that “a member of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) then said the ‘Zionist DA’ had manufactured the water crisis. The term ‘Zionist DA’ is a refrain that Emam has been using for about three years.”

He added: “The debate was so ludicrous and full of conspiracy theories that I don’t believe anyone who is even half-witted would take any of the comments seriously.

“After all the negative comments by the individual speakers, the ANC backbenchers applauded loudly in agreement with the comments about the ‘Zionist DA’ and the fact that the drought was manufactured in order to engage the Israelis. It does appear that there is a strong move afoot within the back benchers of the ANC to try to somehow blame Israel for the drought.”

Said DA MP Darren Bergman, who was also at the session “I was not surprised when Emam put the topic on the order paper. He has an infatuation with Cape Town and Zionism, and uses the platform at any opportunity to attack them for the benefit of the ANC audience.

“If he spent half as much energy focusing on registering for elections on time and on issues affecting his voters in KwaZulu-Natal, his time in Parliament would be better utilised.

“South African politicians have a tendency to rely on the Middle East debates to detract from our local issues. It is disingenuous to fixate on one issue when a host of issues are taking place on our own continent, let alone our own country.

“Based on much of the rhetoric uttered, you can gather that the basis of their information and education about this complex issue has been through propaganda sold by organisations, causing a rise in anti-Semitism rather than the undisputed history books of our time.”

Emam’s comments received no rebuke from any political party or the media.

“These conspiracy theories are becoming so commonplace, no one is objecting to them,” said Bagraim. He suggested that these comments seemed to be designed purely to make the Cape Town Jewish community uncomfortable.

“They in no way benefit Israel or the DA. If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the norm,” he warned.

Commenting on the abovementioned parliamentary events, David Sacks, the associate director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, said: “It is a reality, however deplorable, that in times of crisis, some people resort to peddling noxious and wholly irrational conspiracy theories, with Jews often being the targets.

“Usually, such notions do not go much further than social media and other online comment platforms, but occasionally they creep into mainstream discourse. Emam is renowned for being an off-the-wall conspiracy theorist, so his buying-in to the theory that the Western Cape drought was orchestrated in order to benefit Israel is hardly surprising.

“That said, all parliamentarians, regardless of which party they belong to, should emphatically distance themselves from such statements – not only because of their obviously racist overtones (few doubt who is being referred to, even when the term ‘Zionist’ is substituted) but because such red herrings derail constructive debate on the real issues,” concluded Sacks.