Enough is enough with antisemites

As Israel haters and antisemites rear their ugly heads more and more, we cannot sit back and ignore it. We must take them on in whatever forum works.

So, we salute the Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies and its executive director, Daniel Bloch, for taking on antisemites in the Equality Court. This week, we tell of the first of four individuals that the Cape SAJBD is taking to the court on charges of hate speech. There will be more.

We dare not let our haters ride roughshod over our rights. They need to know that it’s not acceptable to run Jews and the Jewish state down and make absurd claims against us. Frankly, if they don’t like us, that’s okay, but they don’t get to destroy us publicly without recourse.

The problem is, as we saw during the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide, that the more people dehumanise others publicly, the easier it is to hate and destroy them. In Rwanda before the genocide, the Hutus began calling the country’s minority population, the Tutsis, “cockroaches”. This became part of Hutu parlance, and apparently it’s so much easier to crush “cockroaches” than it is to kill human beings. It was much the same during the Holocaust, as we all know. Jews were denigrated so much, they were seen as sub-human.

How deeply upsetting it is to watch people we have respected for years coming out as Israel haters and antisemites. It’s difficult for most of us to absorb because how can you still look up to people in their respective careers if they lambast our people and write or share the most absurd social media posts about us?

As a journalist, I keep being confronted on social and mainstream media by former colleagues whose views are so clearly one-sided and vehemently anti-Israel, there’s no middle ground. They don’t leave grounds for discussion, even though that would be my first choice.

In this week’s newspaper, we write about Professor Shabir Madhi, a respected university professor and expert on vaccines and infectious diseases. He is a learned and highly educated man at the top of his field. He is an educator, and someone whose advice the government and country listened to during the COVID-19 pandemic. We can agree that, like everyone, he’s entitled to his opinions.

However, a person held in such high esteem must be cognisant of the damage their views can do if they aren’t considered and fair. When such a person comes out against a nation or a community, they can do so much harm because people respect them and their views.

This is why, as a newspaper, we cannot ignore it when Madhi makes statements that are so clearly hateful towards us. I kept hoping that he would come to us and apologise, giving us some valid excuse for his hatefulness. But there was nothing.

Then, we look at Imtiaz Sooliman, a man who so many of us in our community have looked up to for the great work he and Gift of the Givers has done around the world. They truly have gone where angels fear to tread and saved many lives. We cannot take that from him and his organisation. However, his utterances of late against our community and the bank of evidence that appears to be growing about what he has done with money cannot be ignored. We cannot excuse his alleged support of terrorist organisations, nor can we just accept the things he says about our community. We won’t do that.

It is, however, deeply concerning and upsetting that someone of his calibre stoops to this level. He is a man whom I would have thought was above discrimination. And so, witnessing what’s happening now, is deeply distressing.

I would like to imagine that antisemitism and blatant bias and hatred for Israel is the territory of the ignorant and intrinsically thoughtless. However, that’s not the case. If it were, it would translate into those at the helm of the Nazi party being ignorant, and we know that isn’t true. They were just evil and full of hate.

This propaganda war is dangerous, as I explained earlier, and it’s incumbent on us to keep calling people out or taking the legal route to censuring them. I’m dumbfounded by some of the horrific claims against Israeli soldiers that are made. I know Israel is at war, and there will be cases where it may be found to have done the wrong thing, but the revolting accusations beggar belief. And when it’s said or shared by a respected person, it’s even worse. And those people know it.

Many of us in this community are in the fortunate position of being able to get information from all sides, with proof positive that the accusations made against Israel aren’t true. But most people don’t look that far.

How do we deal with it? Simple. We keep telling the truth. We keep calling out those in high places that have stooped to relinquishing reality for what’s popular. Therein is the problem. Being anti-Israel is so popular, and standing up against Israel haters is most certainly not something people are flocking to do.

I so understand that feeling of righteousness in standing up for the underdog, and there’s no doubt that Israel doesn’t look like the underdog, Gaza does. Only, we need to remember we didn’t start this war. Also this isn’t Israel’s war on Gaza. It’s Israel taking on Hamas and other terrorist organisations that are determined to destroy the Jewish state and all its people.

We didn’t want this war. Hamas broke into Israel and caused the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. That’s where it began, and it hasn’t ended yet. We still don’t have 101 hostages back. They are still languishing in the worst conditions in Gaza at the hands of terrorists.

The numbers of those who seem to feel that it’s now open season on Jews is growing, and we cannot allow this to happen. Because of this, I once again say kol hakavod to the Cape SAJBD for taking on our haters.

We all must stand up and be counted. Stand up against our haters!

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor