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Hajaig spat takes new turn as anti

semitism debates continue
by MRN | Jan 1, 2013 | Archive 2012 | 0 comments

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Hajaig spat takes new turn as anti-semitism debates continue in the wake of new
questions about Israel’s future

Iqbal Jassat

Can it be argued that Minister Fatima Hajaig’s remarks on Jewish “money power” and
the hostile reaction by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies [SAJBD] displayed a tendency to
ignore the context in which these comments were made?

Now that the dust is settled following Hajaig’s apology – which incidentally the SAJBD
initially rejected but hesitantly accepted after President Motlanthe considered the
matter closed as far as government was concerned – it’s useful to probe this issue given
that the bogey of “anti-semitism” remains a tool to suppress freedom of expression.

A few weeks ago Professor Virginia Tilley, author of “The One-State Solution” and highly
acclaimed academic entered the fray through a letter published in the Cape Times. In it
she makes a number of observations worthy of noting as essential to distinguish anti-
Jewish tendencies as deplorable:

“Its understandable that some people translate the Zionist lobby’s skilled combination of
glossy information, slick lobbying, electoral sway and [in the US] campaign funds as
‘Jewish money’, but it is wrong and dangerous to do this and the problem needs 2
attention.”

She noted that racism against Jews is as wrong and reprehensible as racism against
Palestinians or black people or any people. And Tilley cautioned against such practise
poisoning the spirit and wrecking the human rights movement. 
Responding to her, the Associate Director of the SAJBD, David Saks immediately
launched into a frenzied attack on the Media Review Network [MRN] and the Muslim
Judicial Council [MJC] and their “unabashed support for Hamas”. His shocking attack of
them was to dispute Tilley’s assertion that both MRN and MJC have a noble track record
in campaigning against Israeli human rights abuses and that they high-mindedly insist
on distinguishing between anti-Zionism and anti-racism.

To support his knee-jerk response in the form of “evidence”, Saks cited a document
entitled “The Jewish-Broederbond Syndicate” as having featured on MRN’s website.
Again – as in the case of Fatima Hajaig – Saks deliberately nds it expedient to not only
isolate any context but to intentionally con ate issues in keeping with his objective to
slanderously demonise MRN as anti-semitic.

Since I have no recollection of any such article published on MRN’s website, my quick
google search elicited 10 results – none of them listing Media Review Network as host. In
any event, it may have featured alongside thousands of articles – many of them
construed by the SAJBD as anti-semitic given that authors and journalists like Mathatha
Tsedu, Anthony Holiday, Tim Modise, Barney Pityana and Virginia Tilley amongst others
have been cited in annual “anti-semitism reports” compiled by Saks for the Stephen
Roth Institute in Israel.

Saks’ disingenuous attempts to caricature MRN as anti-semitic is instructive. In his

2000/1 report on “South African Anti-semitism”, in addition to listing Tsedu, Pityana and
others, he cited MRN as follows:

“A high proportion of anti-Israel letters in the press originated from an extremist Muslim
group calling itself Media Review Network, which placed many of its letters in the largely
black-patronised daily Sowetan. Dr Anver Suliman used the writings of Jewish anti-
Zionists Israel Shahak and Noam Chomsky to portray the Middle-East con ict as a US
plot to control the region through its surrogate Israel [Daily News, 3 Aug.], and Iqbal
Jassat [Daily News, 5 July], blamed Jewish pressure groups such as the ADL for anti-
terrorist legislation that he claims intended to target Muslims.”

Yet the article which he today accuses MRN of “hosting on its website” was blamed then
on an unnamed “South African Islamic website” which he alleges was “launched in
1997”. Turns out this unnamed website bears no resemblance to MRN and by mixing
facts with ction Saks has yet again scored an own-goal.

It’s not any di erent to the type of sloppy research Saks has become notorious for. 

In his initial report on Fatima Hajaig published in the Mail & Guardian’s thoughtleader
blog, Saks’ failure to remain conscientious with regard to accuracy was thoroughly
exposed in the comments that followed by readers. For instance he wrongly identi ed 2
Nazeem Adams as the Provincial Secretary of the ANC. Adams is a well-known activist
and spearheads the Palestine Solidarity Alliance in addition to being a prominent
member of teachers union SADTU.
Of course it was expedient for Saks to ignore Makhuru’s powerful message of solidarity
at the same rally in Lenasia at which Hajaig spoke. Makhuru publically committed the
ANC to reassess the relevance of SA government’s foreign policy on the Middle East that
is heavily biased in favour of Israel.

Amongst the responses to his highly emotive blog, two make very compelling
observations of Saks’ “small-minded siege mentality”.

Duncan lapel writes that the SAJBD has for complicated reasons been allowed a
monopoly on the view of the Jewish community and that railing against “dissenting
views” as he accuses Saks of, would imply that such Jewish dissenters are on the fringe
of civil society or public debate. Lapel quite rightly nds the notion too insulting.

On the issue of distortions Ebrahim Khalil Hassan posted a response that con icts with
Saks’ narrow prejudiced views:

“But I understand your need to reduce a broad coalition – which is non racial, multi
ideological, across class and gender identities – as simply Jewish bashing”.

I suppose one is allowed to make “rudimentary mistakes” – but surely it’s an ethical
expectation to make amends and corrections once such blatant errors are pointed out!
Not so for Saks.

Indeed the latest controversy sparked by Saks is in full view in the latest Jewish Report.
His attack on the Zionist youth movement known as Habonim elicited a spate of angry
letters demanding an apology.

It’s a revealing debate that emanates from the SAJBD’s inability to reconcile with the fact
that members of Habonim could be ercely critical of Israeli policies yet remain faithful
to Zionism. In addition, the open display of anger against Saks by fellow-Jews spread
across the pages of the paper, suggests that his blinkered approach to Israel and
Zionism has justly earned him the wrath and fury of his own brethren.

These open divisions cannot be dismissed as “dissenting views of a small, albeit vocal,
fringe element”. Although these contemptuous and insulting remarks were reserved at
the time for the hundreds of Jews who took umbrage at a statement of support for
Israel’s military assault on Gaza by the SAJBD, the SA Zionist Federation [SAZF] and the
Chief Rabbi, Saks will be hard-pressed to launch a similar smear on more anti-SAJBD
sentiments expressed by Justice Chaskalson and others.

Their dispute is based on the fact that they di er very fundamentally on the radical,
hawkish and unconditional support of these groups for Israel and who claim to do so on
behalf of all Jews in South Africa.
2
An excerpt of the press release issued by Chaskalson and co-signed by persons such as
Nadine Gordimer, Anthony Sher, Geo Budlender and others reads as follows:

“We are aware of the public debate that has taken place among members of the SA
Jewish community on the use of military force by Israel in Gaza, and the articles and
correspondence in the South African media about this issue.

“As SA Jews, we wish to identify with the sentiments expressed in the statement by more
than 300 South African Jews, entitled Response By Members of the South African Jewish
Community to a Statement by the Jewish Board of Deputies, Zionist Federation and
Chief Rabbi Concerning Israel’s Attack on Gaza, condemning the excessive force that has
been used by Israel.”

Their consideration of Israel’s response to be inhumane and disproportionate is starkly

at odds with the extremely hostile position of these formations.

Saks’ over-indulgence in constantly creating diversions is clearly not working for him or
the SAJBD. Indeed, shortly after laying a complaint with the SA Human Rights
Commission against Hajaig for “anti-semitic hate speech”, Saks was literally torn apart by
political analyst Steven Friedman.

While accepting that the statement by Hajaig was “ill-advised”, Friedman dismissed Saks’
complaint as a “red herring”. He went on to charge that the SAJBD was diverting
attention from the real issue.

“What we should really be talking about is the aggressive campaign to camou age the
attempt by the Israelis to cower the Palestinians into submission.”

He further argued that unless the SAJBD was as concerned about the deaths of more
than 1000 innocent Palestinians as they are over the foolish remark of a junior minister,
he would not take their claims about concerns for human rights “seriously”.

The paucity of any substance in Saks’ tirade against all the diverse groupings allied
together in their solidarity for Palestine is shocking. In particular, his anti-MRN stance is
no less than an e ort to tarnish us in order to impact on our ability to function as a
credible, alternate voice on issues of Islamophobia as well as advocacy for a myriad of
human rights causes – not excluding Palestine.

Virginia Tilley’s public endorsement of MRN and the MJC speaks for itself. Not only does
she a rm our credibility, she also castigates Saks and the SAJBD for regularly defending
Israel’s worst atrocities toward the Palestinians with shocking lack of principles.

After all such glaring lack of principles came to the fore when Saks used the medium of
a radio broadcast to slander Tilley in her absence. He captures the idiocy of it all in the
following damning remarks against Tilley:

 “Radical”

 “Anti-Israel”
2
 “Untrustworthy”

 “In ltrator”

 “Anti-Western”
 “Imbalanced”

The context of the broadcast was the SAJBD complaint against the Freedom of
Expression’s [FXI] statement of support for Ronnie Kasrils’ right to reply to a scurrilous
attack upon him by the Jewish Report they refused to publish. Gagging Kasrils in the way
the Jewish paper did would naturally elicit a response from the FXI. It’s their forte to
protect the right to free speech after all.

Yet in discarding any semblance of objectivity and in keeping with his intemperate views
Saks went on the o ensive against the FXI, not sparing either Virginia Tilley or the MRN.

The host of the show, Tim Modise introduced Saks who he said complained about the
FXI being “radically anti-American, anti-Israeli and pro-Islamist”. Asked to explain his
criticism, Saks went into an anti-FXI tirade claiming that the NGO had become a platform
for people who hold overtly anti-Israeli views. He claimed that the result has been that
Jewish organizations, including the SAJBD have been singled out for vitriolic attacks.

It was a disgraceful conduct that left none in doubt about Saks’ miserable and infantile
e orts to rubbish people who cherished the idea of Palestinian freedom.

But what lies behind these anxious attempts to sti e free speech?

Perhaps the clue is in what Professor Richard Falk alludes to in his reference to the
“second war”.

Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practise at Princeton University, is the
United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories. He succeeded
John Dugard and being Jewish ought to enjoy the ability to make critical assessments of
Israeli policies and practices against the occupied people of Palestine, without being
demonised as a “self-hating Jew”.

The clue he provides in an article published in The Nation titled “Winning and Losing in
Gaza” emanates from his assertion that despite a horri c price in lives and su ering, the
Palestinians may be slowly winning the “second war”, the legitimacy war, whose
battle eld has become global. Also, Hamas may have won a major battle for Palestinian
hearts and minds.

In addition to addressing, albeit indirectly, the vexing question about the ferocity of
Israel’s military attack on Gaza, Falk also o ers a unique insight to the limits of Israeli
military power, which I suppose could be o ered as advice to Saks and the SAJBD:

“Neither the United States nor Israel has discovered the limits of military power in the
contemporary world. The leaders of both countries seem unable to learn the lesson of
recent history: that occupation in the post-colonial world rarely produces the desired 2
results at an acceptable cost”.

The stupor in which the SAJBD, SAZF and the Chief Rabbi nd themselves in having to
defend the indefensible may be short-lived once they recognize that legitimacy wars
have no clear boundaries and involve subtle shifts of public opinion. Falk believes that
the Gaza con ict, especially against the background of Israel’s prior siege and its 2006
Lebanon misadventure, is approaching that tipping point.

For South Africa its clear that the outrage from politicians like Hajaig and arching all the
way to churches, labour movements, academics, commentators and civil societies has
in icted on Israel and its band of apologists a major defeat in the battle for public
legitimacy.

In an equally devastating account of the outcome of the Gaza slaughter, Professor Ali A
Mazrui’s presentation to a panel on the campus of Binghamton University in New York
set out four sets of losers on the theme of “The New Anti-semitism and the Moral
Casualties of the Gaza War”.

1st: “The most tragic casualties were of course the people of Gaza who were killed in
their hundreds – men, women and children.”

2nd: “The next losers were the majority of Israelis who supported one of the most
inhumane con icts even by the standards of the Middle East. The Israeli army took full
advantage of its superiority in range of weapons and its capacity to destroy – and
managed to give real meaning to the concept of ‘state terrorism’.”

3rd: “The third category of losers of the Gaza war were the Jews of the world.”
“Whenever Israel commits war crimes and crimes against humanity as it has done in
Gaza, Israel narrows the moral distance between itself and the Nazis.”

4th: “The fourth casualties of the Gaza war are Arab moderates in the Middle East – both
in government and among intellectuals. It has become less respectable to regard Israelis
as viable partners for peace.”    

In a profound observation of the characteristics of what he describes as “new anti-

Semitism”, Mazrui said it is generated by Israeli militarism born out of Israel’s
destructive power.

Whereas Jews were once envied because they were creators of culture and exemplary in
invention and innovation, Mazrui claims that Israelis are hated now because they excel
in targeted assassinations and large-scale destruction of the homes of their neighbours.

Saks and his cohorts in the SAJBD and the SAZF must ready themselves for more
shocking news. Franklin Lamb has just revealed that according to a CIA study currently
being shown to selected sta members on the US Senate Intelligence Committee and
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Israel’s survival in its present
form beyond the next 20 years is doubtful.

The Report predicts “an inexorable movement away from a Two State to a One State 2
solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that
sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the
1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in
the region.”
Lamb’s study of the Executive Summary reveals that “during the next fteen years more
than two million Israelis, including some 500,000 Israeli citizens who currently hold US
green cards or passports will move to the United States.”

To Saks’ chagrin, in addition to nding greener pastures in the US, the Report claims that
1.6 million Israelis are “likely to return to their forefather’s lands in Russia and Eastern
and Western Europe with scores of thousands electing to stay, depending on the nature
of the transition.”

Contrary to claims by Zionist apologists that Israel is a “legitimate state”, I concur with
Lamb that there is no internationally recognized right for Israel to exist on stolen land
without the consent of the dispossessed.

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MRN
The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths
and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of
understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media
Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues
impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better
appreciation of Islam.

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Author: MRN Network

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths
and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of
understanding among the diverse people of our country. The
Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues
impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

MRN
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