South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies Criticizes Leadership’s Stance on Israel

Edited by:  Fern Sidman

The Jewish Board of Deputies in South Africa, representing the country’s mainline Jewish community, has strongly criticized the leadership’s accusations of genocide against Israel and the case against the Jewish State that was brought to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. As was reported by the Times of Israel, in a statement issued by National Chair Karen Milner, the group accuses South Africa’s leadership of distorting reality, emphasizing the immediate leveling of the genocide charge after the conflict began and the failure to condemn Hamas’s actions inside Israel. The board alleges a dismissive attitude towards concerns over anti-Semitism and questions President Cyril Ramaphosa’s stance on other international leaders facing war crime charges.

The Jewish Board of Deputies condemns South Africa’s leadership for accusing Israel of genocide during the recent conflict in Gaza. The group contends that such accusations have anti-Semitic roots, denying Jews the right to defend themselves.

The statement highlights the lack of condemnation from South Africa’s leadership towards Hamas’s actions, particularly the organization’s massacres inside Israel, according to the TOI report. This selective condemnation raises concerns about the overt bias of South Africa’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The board accuses Pretoria of disregarding concerns over anti-Semitism with contempt. The report in the TOI also said that this reflects a broader issue of insensitivity towards the Jewish community’s apprehensions and reinforces the claim that the accusations against Israel may be rooted in an anti-Semitic worldview.

Karen Milner has questioned President Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitment to justice by pointing out instances where he did not act against leaders facing war crime charges, the TOI reported. The statement raises questions about the consistency and principles guiding South Africa’s foreign policy decisions.

Also taking issue with the government of South Africa’s decision to take Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague of charges of genocide against civilians in Gaza was the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement.

The Combat Anti-Semitism Movement is a global coalition engaging more than 830 partner organizations and four million people from a diverse array of religious, political, and cultural backgrounds in the common mission of fighting the world’s oldest hatred .

In a statement posted on the group’s web site, the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement said,  “In an attempt to score domestic political points and ingratiate itself with some of the vilest and repressive regimes on earth, South Africa has taken Israel to the ICJ. Unfortunately, South Africa has a deeply problematic history of utilizing international institutions for narrow political purposes to attack the Jewish people, most notably when the 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR), also known as Durban I, was appropriated by South Africa and the Islamic Republic of Iran, among others, to malign the Jewish state and Jewish delegates in attendance, while ignoring and abrogating its responsibility to the many real victims of racism and oppression around the world.”

“There is zero legitimacy in accusing a nation fighting genocide of perpetrating the same crime,” CAM added. “It would be like accusing the Allies in the Second World War of perpetrating genocide against the Nazis.”

CAM also noted that South Africa has a very problematic history standing against actual perpetrators of genocide.

“South Africa is extremely and deviously selective in its accusations of genocide, ignoring the mass murder of Yazidis, the hundreds of thousands of Syrians butchered by their own regime, and countless attempted genocides in Africa,” the statement continued. “In fact, South Africa has displayed a shocking and callous attitude toward the perpetrators of actual genocides in the past, notably when it refused to heed an International Criminal Court (ICC) order in 2015 to arrest former President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir, betraying the memory of hundreds of thousands killed during the Darfur conflict.”

“It is thus clear that South Africa has no interest in preventing genocide, and merely aims to propagate a ‘blood libel’ against the national and indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, while lending implicit support for Hamas’ exterminationist intentions,” it further pointed out.

CAM CEO Sacha Roytman explained the reason for the release of the statement.

“South Africa are trying to defame and delegitimize the one Jewish state, and needs to be called out for their hate, anti-Semitism and hypocrisy,” he said. “This manipulation and appropriation of the international legal system to score local domestic points and to lend legal cover and assistance to the genocidal Hamas death squads should be condemned by all decent people and nations around the world.”