Mail Guardian Newspaper 14 December 2012
BDS South Africa has sent out a press release about a powerful ad in South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, a weekly newspaper. The ad read as follows:
AS JEWS, WITH OUR OWN PAINFUL HISTORY OF OPPRESSION…
“The temptation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine … yet we would be less than human if we did so.”
– NELSON R. MANDELA
As Jews, with our own painful history of oppression, we are compelled to speak out against human rights violations being committed by the State of Israel – in our name – against the Palestinian people.
We note that the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) together with the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), recently met with the South African Presidency and other politicians. We also note, with great concern, the SAJBD and SAZF’s assertion that they represent and speak on behalf of all Jewish South Africans, particularly when it comes to Palestine-Israel.
Let us be clear, the SAJBD and SAZF’s position of supporting Israel at all costs does not represent us. We also appeal to the SAJBD and SAZF to respect one of the hallmarks of Judaism: respectful debate amongst those who hold divergent viewpoints. The SAJBD and SAZF’s position on Israel, and attempts to stifle opposing voices that speak out against Israel, is morally untenable.
The Jewish community is neither homogeneous nor monolithic. There is a growing number of Jews, in South Africa and around the world, who are organising to form alternative spaces and who unconditionally oppose Israeli policies and practices that shamefully privilege Jews over the indigenous Palestinian people. In this vein, we support the non-violent campaign of applying Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it abides by international law and respects basic human rights [see www.bdsmovement.net].
We are encouraged that our South African government is joining those countries that are taking a clear stance against Israel’s violations of international law and its acts of violence against the Palestinian people [ see this City Press newspaper article]. We also welcome and support our Department of Trade and Industry’s initiative to prevent the false labelling of Israeli settlement products [see this Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper article]. We hope that the ANC and the SA Government goes further and completely bans Israeli settlement products. Israeli settlements are in clear violation of international law and seriously undermine any chance of negotiations and a just peace.
Such positions as those recently taken by our government against Israeli violence and violations of international law, in fact, serve to affirm a proud Jewish tradition of respect for justice and human rights; regardless of race, religion or creed. Such positions connect us to our fellow humanity.
We humbly – and sadly – acknowledge that our voices may not be the dominant ones in our community, but neither were Dietrich Bonnhoefer’s in Nazi Germany nor Beyers Naude’s, Antjie Krog’s, Braam Fischer’s and Joe Slovo’s in Apartheid South Africa.
Our individual consciences, our Jewish tradition and our painful history compel us to declare to the SAJBD, SAZF and to the Israeli government that we will continue to speak out and take a stand for justice and human rights. Taking such a stand is in the very interests of being Jewish. For when we proclaim “Never Again”, we should mean “Never Again”, unconditionally, and to any human being – including the Palestinians.
Issued by Alan Horwitz for StopTheJNF, a campaign initiated by a group of Jewish South Africans committed to justice and rights for the Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis. Find the original statement and more information here: BDS South Africa: Stop the JNF South Africa
BDS South Africa adds:
Mentioned in the above statement is Joe Slovo: the well-known South African Treason Trialist, founding member of the South African Congress of Democrats, the former South African Communist Party General-Secretary, the Chief of Staff during the 1980s of the African National Congress’ armed wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)) and a leading NEC member of South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). Slovo, who was born Jewish, was an outspoken critic of Apartheid South Africa as well as a consistent critic of the Israeli regime – which he also considered an Apartheid state.
In fact, Slovo publicly exposed and highlighted the shameful military collaborations during the 1970s and 1980s between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa (see this UK Guardian newspaper article). In an unfinished autobiography, Joe Slovo wrote: “Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization [by Israeli supporters] for … acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices publicly against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified…”.
The line beginning with “As Jews” should follow the Mandela quote, as per the ad. I was left wondering how I didn’t know Mandela was Jewish!
this is brilliantly written. it really inspires me to learn more about Joe Slovo, the supporting links are fantastic, everything. this is more than i have come to expect from a press release. it’s more of a masterpiece. thank you, who ever you are, for writing this. and thank you to BDS South Africa. thank you for all the people on the globe in their persistence to get it right this time. we shall over come.
peace
“As Jews, with our own painful history of oppression, we are compelled to speak out against human rights violations being committed by the State of Israel – in our name – against the Palestinian people.”
I am about to call these Jews “dissident Jews”, but by that I do not mean that they are false to traditional Jewish values or disloyal to the Jewish people — or to the human race. I only mean that what seems, what has been “painted” and coerced, to be the wholesale approval of Zionism among Jews has made the expression of decent, humane values by Jews seem a form of dissidence.
THAT SAID, THIS AD IS GOOD. However, one wants everyone to speak out, and forcefully; not only (dissident) Jews.
If you believe (as we seem to be taught in the USA) that non-Jews (and secret dissident Jews themselves) need to receive (and know that they have received, and to know that their friends and neighbors know that they have received) “permission” from Jews, from the Jews they personally know, from the Jews who live in their neighborhood or city — to speak out for the human rights of the Palestinian people, then we can only be delighted whenever dissident Jews speak out. Let’s hear more of it, in every country!
Excellent!
Would also be great to see this appear in some US papers.
South African Jews, in particular, making this statement in/to the US could shake up some thinking.
I remember 5 or 6 years ago CNI doing a full page ad aimed at the Lobby showing Israel as a King Kong gorilla sitting on top of the capitol.
I don’t know how effective these ads are but I would think they do have to have some effect, at least arouse people who know nothing to do some questioning about Israel.