ANC takes more heat on anti-Semitism

ANT KATZ

The DA Western Cape MEC of Transport and Public Works, Robin Carlisle, has accused Marius Fransman, deputy minister of International Relations and Co-operation and Western Cape ANC leader, of lying about property ownership in the city. And the story continues to make headlines in the Cape.

The furore erupted last week after Fransman had told the Cape Town Press Club that 98 per cent of the properties the province and the City of Cape Town were renting in Cape Town, were owned by “the white community and, in particular, also people in the Jewish community”.

This statement led to veteran ANC MP Ben Turok, who is co-chaiman of the Parliamentary ethics committee, calling on ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe, to take disciplinary steps against Fransman.

“Today you talk about Jewish ownership, tomorrow it can be Greek ownership – or any other ethnic group for that matter,” Turok told Jewish Report in an interview.

But it was Carlisle who hit out most savagely at Fransman. “Not only are these statements 100 per cent wrong, but Mr Fransman knows they are wrong, as he either signed and/or dealt with most of the leases himself,” Fransman knew his claims were untrue, because Fransman himself was a previous public works MEC, Carlisle pointed out. 

He disclosed that there were eight buildings in central Cape Town that met Fransman’s description. One was owned by a black-owned entity which was also Sharia compliant; two belonged to Cameroonian Moosa Baba; one to the Government Employees Pension Fund; one to JSE-listed Growthpoint Properties; two more to Ascension Properties, a black-managed and substantially black-owned JSE-listed company; and the final one belongs to the Benjamin Family Trust.

Carlisle challenged Fransman to a public debate, but as yet to no avail. A request by the Cape Times for Fransman to supply documents to support his argument, also drew a blank. But Fransman told the media he stood by his claim about white ownership regarding the province’s leasing of land which, he said, “is based on facts”.

A livid Carlisle referred back to a February radio statement in which Fransman made another anti-Semitic statement which is presently before the SAHRC: “He therefore knew what he was saying was untrue, just as he knew that his (February) accusations that the DA had taken building contracts… from Muslim businessmen and awarded them to Jewish businessmen, were also untrue.”

Fransman tried to quell the outrage about his anti-Semitic comments last week by saying that he “unreservedly apologise for the perception created that I was singling out the Jewish community”. After the February statement, which the SAJBD took to the SAHRC, Board President Zev Krengel, accused Fransman’s of a disingenuous, half-hearted apology.

Fransman reneged on attending an HRC-arranged mediation meeting in Jun, saying that South African Jews were “nose picking”.

But last week Fransman’s latest statements hit a nerve in fellow ANC-MP Turok, who has long since given up religion and makes clear that he is not a Zionist. “Primarily it was because I detest anti-Semitism,” Turok said of why he had faced off with Fransman READ PREVIOUS SAJR STORY.

Turok told Jewish Report that what Fransman said had motivated him to react, due in part to his own personal experience of anti-Semitism and his general distaste for any form of ethnic discrimination and labelling of people.

“My position is that I certainly have sensibilities to my anti-Semitic past.” Turok said that his parents had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in Ukraine only to find themselves in Latvia (where he and his two older brothers were born) when it became the first fascist country in Europe and they were again targeted.

Even when the family emigrated to South Africa in the thirties, they faced anti-Semitism from Afrkaner nationalists, Turok, a former Treason Trialist, told Jewish Report.

Political analyst Daniel Silke said Fransman’s comments might be his personal view and not that of the ANC, but it was “foolish for the ANC to play on existing religious tensions in the hope that it will improve its vote tally”.

Carlisle said he wondered “whom Fransman most insults: the Muslim community, the Jewish community or the long-suffering ANC whom he purports to lead”.