ANC’s latest actions regarding Israel, a cause for concern

Monessa Shapiro

In the early 1990s when, fearing the new dispensation, hordes of white South Africans left, my family made a conscious decision to remain. After all, this is what we had prayed and hoped for during the dark apartheid years.

As a Jew I have, until recently, felt very secure in our decision to remain. But now this sense of security is waning, for in addition to being a loyal South African I am a proud Jew, unashamedly in love with and proud of the one and only Jewish state in the world – Israel. And creeping insidiously into the discourse of the ANC is an anti- Israel sentiment that is nothing short of anti-Semitism.

The Middle East is imploding. Millions of Syrians have been forced to flee their country of birth; over 250 000 have so far been killed. Women and children are being beheaded by ISIS and traitors to its cause are drowned in cages or burned alive.  

ISIS proudly flaunts its barbarity on videos for all to see. But Obed Bapela (head of the ANC’s national subcommittee on international relations) and his comrades remain undeterred.

It would also seem that they are undeterred by the fact that according to an Eyewitness News report at least 23 South Africans had already been recruited by ISIS. Does ISIS truly pale into insignificance for them next to the Arab-Israel conflict? 

On February 20, on Times Live, it was reported that since 1997 Al Qaida has had a presence in South Africa and that by 1995 there were already five Hezbollah training camps in South Africa. It was farther stated that the government was aware of these camps but has done nothing about them.  

In a survey by Gunnar Heinsohn in The Muslim Issue of September 24, 2013, it was found that in all the conflicts of the world since 1950, there have been 85 million deaths.  

Of those 51 000 have died in the Arab-Israel conflict – 35 000 Arabs and 16 000 Israelis. In this same period 11 million Muslims were killed, 90 per cent of them at the hands of fellow Muslims – 0,3 per cent as a result of the Arab-Israel conflict. 

And yet the ANC is seeking a law to ban dual citizenship in order to prevent Jewish boys and girls from enlisting in the Israeli army!

Bopela’s call to ban dual citizenship because of Israel and Israel alone, is not only steeped in anti-Semitism but it displays ignorance of the highest order.  

Glenhazel, Johannesburg