ANTI-ZIONISM IS ANTI-SEMITISM

Gary Selikow, Johannesburg

When I see the gross intimidation and hate speech against Jews in South Africa whenever we show any affiliation or solidarity with the Jewish state, including Israel-related functions being violently picketed as well as threats against anyone who speaks up for Israel, I am reminded of the plight of Soviet Jews from the early 1950s until the late 1980s, who faced brutal pressure from the Communist authorities to cut all ties with Israel, aided by the ever pervasive Jewish-born, anti-Israel quislings.

We must not forget the brutal attempts of the Soviet authorities to stamp out Jewish identity and assimilate the Jews by force into the “Soviet people”.

The Soviet media was poisoned by a daily barrage of propaganda against Israel, and Jews were put under draconian pressure to renounce Israel.

In some places Soviet Jews, were accused of “Zionist propaganda” because they recited the traditional prayer at Passover: “Next year in Jerusalem.”

To speak as a Jew, or for Jews, in any Jewish cause, was dangerous. Thousands of Jews languished in Soviet prisons and labour camps for practising their faith, learning Hebrew, or identifying with the Jewish State.

Martin Gilbert wrote in his book, The Jews of Hope: “Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews were electrified by Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. But, it was the shrill Soviet propaganda about Israel’s imminent and total defeat that ignited the fuse of national identity.

“Some recall that this propaganda was so gloating in tone as to heighten to its limit the sense of affinity with the apparently doomed state. From that moment, many Soviet Jews regarded Israel as their nation, and emigration to Israel as their national purpose.”

Gilbert said that each week, and at times almost daily, press articles, television programmes, and wall posters portrayed Israel as a brutal – even Neo-Nazi state.

The propaganda so-beloved of the radical left today: “Zionism is fascism”, “Zionism is racism”, “Zionism is Nazism”, “Israel is an apartheid state”, was incubated in the Soviet Union.

The Jews of the Soviet empire persevered and today, hundreds of thousands have made their homes in Israel.

Israel and Jews are one. Anti-Zionism is Jew-hatred.