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ANC issues ‘venomous and insulting statement’
STAFF REPORTER
On Thursday July 10, Jessie Duarte, deputy secretary general of the African National Congress (ANC), issued the following statement:
The ANC, condemns in the strongest terms, the barbaric attacks on the defenceless Palestinian people of Gaza. Israeli attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of over 27 Palestinians, at least six of them children. The Israeli attacks have further resulted in injuring over 200 Palestinians and traumatising thousands of others.
As we move towards the month of August and are reminded of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, surely we must ask the people of Israel has the term “lest we forget” lost it meaning.
The State of Israel has turned the occupied territories of Palestine into permanent death camps. Of course the killing of any child irrespective of race color or creed must be condemned and the death of two (sic) Israeli young people is surely as senseless as any other death. But for the State of Israel, the notion of an eye for an eye has become perpetual massacre with merciless revenge which has lasted for more than 60 years. It is time to stop the killing now.
The recent attacks must cease as well as the ongoing and illegal Israeli occupation and collective Israeli punishment of the Palestinians. Gaza is the world`s largest open air prison with over 1,5 million Palestinians caged in and cut off from the rest of the world. The Gaza Strip is the world`s most densely populated piece of land on this earth making the Israeli bombing of the Palestinian Gaza Strip all the more horrendous. The collective punishment and illegal siege of the Palestinian people of Gaza must immediately end.
RIGHT: Jessie Duarte
In line with our 2012 policy resolutions, that called on “all South Africans to support the programmes and campaigns of the Palestinian civil society which seek to put pressure on Israel”, branches and structures of the ANC across the country will be joining the Palestine Solidarity and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in organising protests and pickets calling for the immediate end of Israeli violence against the Palestinian people. We call on all South Africans, black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and all others, to join us in expressing our solidarity. Solidarity will bring us together as different South Africans just as how the international Anti-Apartheid Movement brought people together.
The Israeli regime must realise that its acts of violence like these attacks on Gaza will only lead to its international isolation. After its 2009 attacks on Gaza which resulted in over 1 400 Palestinians being killed, more than 400 of them children, the BDS and international isolation of Israel increased exponentially. Apartheid South Africa`s wanton killing of our people during the 1980s lead to its isolation, it would seem that Israel is taking a similar path of isolation by embarking on these attacks.
The ANC reiterates its 2012 policy position that as an organisation we are unequivocal in our support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in our view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.
Responses
Numerous Jewish organisations and individuals have come out fighting against this statement, the most widely-representative being the joint statement by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies and the SA Zionist Federation (see below). SAJR will add other statements received after Shabbos.
Response to ANC’s venomous and insulting statement Issue by the SAJBD and SAZF:
The SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) and the SA Zionist Federation (SAZF) deplore and condemn in the strongest terms the statement on the current conflict in Gaza issued earlier today by ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte. Such naked invective is something one expects to find only on the more extreme wing of the anti-Israel lobby; coming from our country’s ruling party, it is nothing short of disgraceful.
In the weeks leading up to the present unrest, not one word of condemnation has emanated from the ANC concerning the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers. Nor did the ANC see fit to condemn the escalating bombardment by Hamas of Israeli population centres that preceded the current Israeli military response and was the direct cause of it. Hundreds of deadly missiles have been and continue to be fired at Israel’s cities and towns.
Not once in the statement issued in her name was Ms Duarte able to even acknowledge this fact, let alone denounce it. This is so, despite the fact that hundreds of South African citizens, including schoolchildren, currently in Israel are being continually subjected to this lethal danger. Instead, her supposed moral outrage has been directed solely at Israel’s response, notwithstanding that its purpose is to defend its people against such criminal acts of aggression.
Related to this has been the ANC’s signal failure to denounce what are objectively speaking among the worst current instances of human rights violations, both in the Middle East and in Africa. These include the more than 160 000 deaths in Syria and the atrocities committed against Shi’ite Muslims by the Islamist State in Iraq and the ongoing massacres of Christians in Nigeria. The ANC’s silence over these issues has been deafening, especially when compared with the sheer viciousness of its attacks against Israel.
The SAJBD and SAZF are particularly appalled over the shameful comparisons made by Ms Duarte between Israel’s actions and the Nazi campaign of genocide against the Jewish people during the Second World War.. Comparisons between Israel and the Nazi regime are obscene, not only because they are so grossly defamatory towards the Jewish State, but because they belittle the unspeakable crimes of Nazism itself.
It is self-evident that casualties resulting from a necessary and unavoidable military operation – casualties that Israel goes to considerable lengths to minimise – cannot be remotely be equated with the systematic mass murder of millions solely on account of their being Jewish.
We believe that Duarte is well aware of this, but has chosen to make such a comparison for the purpose of causing the maximum hurt and offence. In doing so, she has dishonoured the standing of the party of Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela – a party that has consistently fought against racism and bigotry – as well as grossly insulting world Jewry and the memory of all the victims of Nazi tyranny.
It is unacceptable in any decent, democratic society for a responsible political organisation to propagate such venom and bigotry, let alone a party that has been entrusted with the reins of government. In light of this, the SAJBD and SAZF demand that Ms Duarte issues an unequivocal apology to the Jewish community.
What do users think? Post your comments HERE
Gary Selikow
July 11, 2014 at 2:06 pm
‘The vicious and evil statements by Duarte could have come directly from Hamas, Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad. They are pure hate speech and incitement .
The ANC regime gives diplomatic support to regimes that really commit genocide such as Syria, Sudan, Zimbabwe and North Korea,
What is constant is that they always side with evil.
As regards the evil statements by Duarte comparing Israel to the Nazis. – the truth is The truth is that the ‘Palestinians’ and all those that support them aren the Nazis, trying to destroy 5 million Jews in Israel , through the cold-blooded slaughter of women and children.
Anyone who aids them in their propaganda-including the media and universities- around the world , are accomplices in genocide of the Jewish people , and therefore on a par with Hitler.
There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel.
If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.
As with the holocaust, the same kind of Jew-haters will again attempt to appease Arab rage with Jewish blood and land. We must stand up against it. Jews are still dying for only one reason; being a Jew.
‘
David Blend
July 12, 2014 at 4:47 am
‘Do we really expect anything less, from the ANC — I think not !!’
adam levy
July 12, 2014 at 9:44 am
‘Sorry, \”Adam.\” this diatribe has been deleted in its entirety. I do wonder, though, why you waste your time reading this website when you so obviously hate Israel so much. Is it all Jews or only Israeli Jews you detest so? C’mon, pop out of the closet and tell us who you are? -ED online.editor@sajr.co.za‘
jason iblis
July 13, 2014 at 7:25 am
‘1)Madame Duarte(nee Dangor) is one more example of muslim ideological thinking,insinuating its way into south African political discourse.
2)But she has a bad case of \”Rocket denial\”…The Israelis simply went wild and trashed the Palestinians to satisfy some pathological urge.
3)Israel has become a voodoo doll upon which the international community can inflict its failures in other arenas of conflict and human rights abuses.
4)Thus far there is NO infringement on Israel’s part of any humanitarian law especially THE 4TH GENEVA CONVENTION.(re indiscriminate attacks).It is truly Hamas that indiscriminately send rockets onto civilian targets,where there is no military target.
5)Ms Jesse,( a Jewish figure) needs to explain to me the difference between) being murdered in Treblinka and cremated,and a rocket that comes raining down on your home,kills you and then burns you.
6)Shame on you Ms Duarte,we have not forgotten.
The true genocidal madmen in this case are Hamas.
They are no freedom fighters/liberation strugglists!
It is us Jews whohave fought for our liberation from oppressors and those who felt that the Land of Israel was to be drawn and quartered over the ages.
‘
adam levy
July 13, 2014 at 10:43 am
‘Ant – you’ve shown your right wing, racist zionist colours now. you allow choni to make the most racist and egregious statements – yet you censor my comments.
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\nShow me the difference between the nazis and the right wing zionists. ethnic cleansing, racial superiority, violence, collective punishment.
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\nmy parents taught me true jewish values – equality for all people, humanism, justice, peace and love of G-d. Not the utilitarian judiasm practiced by you and your ilk and that immoral person who calls himself the chief rabbi. he is not beholden to G-d but rather to a state.
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\nONLINE EDITOR ANT KATZ RESPONDS:
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\nNot so, “Adam Levy” – This website and the SA Jewish Report newspaper reflect the opinions of our users and not personal views of the editors and writers. We simply follow our COMMENT GUIDELINE rules. While we, and that includes our board of directors, are all proudly SA Zionists, we all understand that that means different things to different people. \n
\nBoth I and editor-in-chief Geoff Sifrin are apolitical, much to the chagrin of both left and right.
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But one does sometimes need to ensure accurate perspective rather than simply use the knife with Anonymous users.
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By choosing to remain anonymous, you are moderated as such. Even though Choni Davidowitz is moderated as a known poster, he is moderated more so than you are.
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Choni has at times been banned from this and other sites I have edited. But at least he is prepared to identify himself – while you remain behind the cloak of anonymity.
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Why not come out of the closet and you will be moderated by the same rules as Choni?
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\nWhy have you gone to such great lengths to resist identifying yourself? Be glad that this website tries it’s hardest not to blacklist cowardly Anon users – even if they choose to be anti-Zionist, anti-Israel. But never if they are anti-Semitic.
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EDITOR’S NOTE TO USERS: Adam Levy has proven time and again to be an alias for either an anti-Zionist Jew or a non-Jew and SAJR publishes his anti-Israel comments that don’t break any of SAJR’s COMMENT GUIDELINE rules and is hence welcome to voice his or her opinion on this website.
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When he/she becomes anti-Semitic or otherwise
\ntransgresses the rules of this website, his
\ncomments are deleted. online.editor@sajr.co.za
‘
Gary Selikow
July 14, 2014 at 8:32 am
‘Editor I don’t understand how you can say that anti-zionist and anti-Israel rhetoric is acceptable but anti-Semitism is not
I would like to address the mantra readily accepted in the world today even by some who defend Israel that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not to be equated. That they are different – that the one has nothing to do with the other. Anti-Semitism is hostility to Jews anywhere. Hence the anti-Zionist cannot claim he is not an anti-Semite because he \”only\” hates Jews in Israel any more than someone can make the claim that they are not a racist because they only hate Blacks who live in South Africa. The enemies of Israel want the physical elimination of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel. This constitutes anti-Semitism. The point is that they want a Judenreihn \”Palestine\” the same way that Hitler wanted a Judenreihn Europe. The anti-Zionists claim that they are not anti-Semites but that think the only country on the earth that must be annihilated is Israel. The anti-Zionists claim that they are not anti-Semites but that the only children on earth whose being blown up is okay if it serves a good cause are Jewish children. The anti-Zionists believe that the only conflict that must be resolved by total dismemberment of one of the parties is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Dismembering Israel into a single Arab dominated state means a second holocaust. It means methodical massacre of millions of Jews , of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children. Furthermore to say one is anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic is saying one only hates Jews who live in Israel. This is absurd as saying one is not a racist as one only hates Blacks who live in South Africa, but has many African American friends. Anyone who pushes for this ‘1 state solution’ is actually pushing for a second holocaust. Denying a nation’s right to exist is genocidal racism, akin to Nazism, hence in my opinion , anti-Zionism is Nazism. Judea Pearl a professor of computer science at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation correctly reminds us that \”As a form of racism, anti-Zionism is worse than anti-Semitism. It targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, namely, the people of Israel, who rely on the sovereignty of their state for physical safety, national identity and personal dignity. To put it more bluntly, anti-Zionism condemns 5 million human beings, mostly refugees or children of refugees, to eternal statelessness, traumatized by historical images of persecution and genocide\”. Only the hard-hearted, hate-filled and cowardly will deny Israel the right to exist and defend herself Anti-Zionism is racism , as it involves hatred of an entire people i.e the Jews of Israel. I believe anti-Zionism ,is in fact , far more contemptible that traditional anti-Semitism. The new anti-Semitism is cloaked in the language of political correctness and academic language, but the end goal is the same, genocide of Jews. On university campuses, in the media, in the halls of the United Nations, and in Third World governments (like the government of SA) , prejudice runs strong. The leaders of today’s Nuremberg rallies are supposedly ‘enlightened’ and ‘progressive’ Left-wing academics, as Israel is pilloried, without the slightest compassion for the men, women and children of that tiny country. On the contrary, it is condemned by a coterie of malignant narcissists for destruction. It is a dangerous mistake to leave anti-Israel hatred out of the equation when monitoring anti-Semitism in South Africa or any other country It is fashionable on the intellectual left to call for a one state solution. i.e for a ‘unitary’ Arab dominated ‘Palestine’ to replace Israel, in which Jews would be a helpless minority at the mercy and whim of HAMAS , as the Jews in Europe and the Arab countries (from which 800 000 Jews where expelled in 1948.) were at the mercy of their persecutors. If these demand became a reality, Jews would wait, huddled in their ghettos, to be massacred by the Arabs. Those call for Israel’s replacement by a ‘unitary Palestine’ know full well that this would lead to a second Holocaust of Israel’s five million Jews. How well did the ‘unitary state ‘ work in Lebanon where hundreds of thousands of Christian Lebanese were massacred by the PLO and Syrians and went from being a majority in 1975 to a minority today? How well did the Animist and Christian Nilotic Blacks in Darfur and Southern Sudan fare in Sudan where millions have been massacred, or the Kurds in Iraq where 800 000 were butchered by Saddam Hussein?We all know how minorities fare in Arab countries and what makes anyone think the Jews in your suggested ‘unitary Palestine’ would fare any better, given the amount of hate in Palestinian society for Israel’s Jews. Why out of a massive landmass under Arab control , and a number of Arab states (today they number 22) it is regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish State, where they enjoy full civil and political rights. Jewish statelessness had led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the holocaust. Left Wing academics falsely refer to the nation-state as an anachronism, conveniently ignoring currents events around the world and recent history. Those insulated academics who refer to the nation-state as an anachronism are ignoring the message of recent history, which has seen the birth (or rebirth) of a plethora of nation-sates, from the ruins of enforced multi-national artificial entities : Hence in the last 18 years we have seen the independence of nation-states including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Eritrea and East Timor. The meaning of Israel is clear. The Jew has experienced too much death, and a portion of the Jewish people decided that they would die quietly no more (especially after Hitler’s Holocaust). So it is: and no argument, no clever political talk, no logic and no parading of right and wrong can change this fact.The Jews returned to Israel because it was their ancient land. From 1810 onwards, Jews in the Land of Israel have been murdered by Arabs. The pious Jews of Safed, who would raise no hand in their defense, were robbed and murdered and burned out again and again by Arabs – as where the Jews in Jerusalem and Tiberias. Bedouin Arabs passed through Land of Israel at will-and robbed and killed Jews for profit. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arab feudal lords in the Land of Israel organized pogroms precisely as the Tsar had organized pogroms. In 1920 Jews where massacred by Arabs in Jerusalem, in 1921 in Jaffa and in 1929 in Hebron. Thousands of Jews where murdered in 1936 to 1939 in the Nazi inspired Arab Revolt. Since 1948 Arabs have launched wars against Israel to try to drive Jews into the sea and since Arafat launched the latest war in 2000, after rejecting a peace deal, thousands of Jewish men women and children have died in Israel by bomb, bullet and knife. Jews will never again be put into a position where they can be subjected to another Holocaust (particularly in the ancient Jewish homeland). ‘
ANT KATZ
July 14, 2014 at 4:19 pm
‘Hi Gary – It is not I who say this. It was said by Abe Foxman, the National Director of the US-based Anti Defamation League after the biggest poll on anti-Semitism ever conducted at a talk I was privileged to be able to attend recently. This was the finding of the biggest poll ever conducted on anti-Semitism in the world which I will be writing about as soon as I get time the .’
Choni
July 15, 2014 at 9:49 am
‘Ant, You say that you and Geoff are proudly South African Zionists, and that that means different things to different people.
Can you at least tell your users what type of Zionism you are proud to be a part of, or is that being ‘political’
Gary, I think your analysis of anti-semetism/anti Israel is brilliant, and that Ant’s reply re Mr Foxman is very weak. I suggest Ant writes about his report as soon as possible.’
Elona Steinfeld
July 15, 2014 at 11:50 am
‘We MUST stop fooling ourselves. We can no longer trust the ANC government to come to our defence. They are hell-bent on supporting the Palestinians, no matter how many rockets are fired out of Gaza, or how many Israelis are hurt or killed. They refuse to acknowledge the amazing role that Israel has played in boosting the region in all spheres be it techinical, medical or agricultural, to name some. Israel and Jerusalem are the heart of the religious/spiritual world and that is what this everlasting jealousy and hatred is always about.’
Wayne Goldstein
August 16, 2022 at 3:50 am
Duarte is dead now.
And the world is an incrementally better place because of it.