south africa 2009

 

The Jewish population is estimated at 70,000 out of a total population of 46 million. The main Jewish centers are Johannesburg (48,000) and Cape Town (16,000); smaller communities may be found in Durban and Pretoria, among others. The SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) is the central representative organization and civil rights lobby of the Jewish community, with most of the country’s Jewish communal organizations being affiliated to it. The Community Security Organization (CSO) ensures security at Jewish communal functions and at Jewish installations, and has expanded its operations into the much-needed area of crime prevention, where it works closely with the police and private security companies.

            The unrest in the Middle East, and specifically during the three-week Gaza war in December 2008/January 2009, was a direct trigger for the number of antisemitic incidents recorded in 2009 reaching the 100-mark for the first time. Fully two-thirds of incidents occurred in the first two months of the year (similarly, the high 2006 total was a result of that year’s Lebanon war).

            It became very apparent in South Africa in 2009 that the greater Jewish community was increasingly being subjected to a broad array of threats, whether economic, legal or security-related, because of its support for Israel. By continuing to stand up for Israel, the Jewish communal leadership was regularly denigrated in the public domain, sometimes to the extent of moves to silence pro-Israel and pro-Jewish voices altogether. The Jewish establishment was further depicted as being the equivalent of those ultra-conservative whites who fought to uphold the apartheid system, a parallel that is extremely damaging to the Jewish image and self-image in South African society.

            As noted, the total number of antisemitic incidents logged in South Africa in 2009 was exactly 100, exceeding the previous high of 83 recorded in 2006. The rise in antisemitism is confirmed by the fact that in the 2001−5 period the average annual total was 30, whereas in the next four years, it more than doubled, to 75. However, it should be noted that despite the tensions generated by Operation Cast Lead, there were only three cases of antisemitic assault in South Africa during 2009, all of a fairly minor nature, while acts of vandalism went no further than tearing down posters and hacking into Jewish websites.

            It was the often threatening nature of public rhetoric that generated the most concern. Particularly culpable in this regard was Bongani Masuku, international relations secretary for the two-million member Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Masuku stated explicitly on several occasions that COSATU intended causing harm to Jews who continued to support Israel. Speaking at Wits University campus in March, for example, he stated that anyone who did not “support equality and dignity… must face the consequences even if it means that we will do something that may cause what is regarded as harm,” and that COSATU members would make the lives of such people “hell.” Masuku was subsequently found guilty of inflammatory hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission, following a complaint from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD).

            Local Muslim radio stations regularly broadcast aggressive and inflammatory statements, accusing local Jewry of “complicity in the Zionist brutality” and threatening to target them (for example, “Let the Jews take note that if this incessant killing carries on you will be fair game in South Africa and everywhere in the world”).

            In January, an e-mail campaign calling on South Africans to boycott Jewish-owned businesses was launched. The unsigned message claimed that ‘‘most SA Jews” support Israel’s attacks on Gaza and suggested that ‘‘as consumers we can avoid supporting businesses affiliated to those who believe incendiary-bombing helpless children is justified.” It named well-known chains with so-called Jewish connections, including Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Foschini, Nando’s and Discovery Health. The campaign occurred in parallel with calls for a boycott and picket protests outside supermarkets and shops stocking Israeli products, on Muslim radio stations.

            Statements made by deputy foreign minister Fatima Hajaig’s at a Lenasia (Johannesburg) protest rally on January 14 generated international media coverage. This was a rare instance in South Africa of overt antisemitism being expressed by a member of the government. Hajaig’s incendiary address (she had long been noted for the extremity of her anti-Israel vitriol) included the following statement: “They in fact control [America], no matter which government comes in to power, whether Republican or Democratic, whether Barack Obama or George Bush. The control of America, just like the control of most western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.”

            The SAJBD lodged an official complaint of hate speech against Hajaig with the SA Human Rights Commission. On February 5, immediately after the matter was discussed at a cabinet meeting followed by a meeting with president Kgalema Motlanthe, Hajaig apologized “unreservedly and unequivocally” and unconditionally withdrew her remarks. Hajaig was the only minister appointed under Motlanthe not to be reappointed to the cabinet of the new president Jacob Zuma after the April 22 elections.