The BDS movement is clearly now a tool for anti-Semitism
By Melanie Nathan, March 12, 2015.
Threatening to kill South African Jews is surely not the South Africa Mandela would have endorsed. Unfortunately the BDS movement in South Africa is causing anti-Semitic terror. Reports have emerged from Johannesburg, that Protesters chanted anti-Semitic slogans and threatened to kill Jews outside a South African Zionist Federation event in Johannesburg on Sunday. Protestors seem to be defecating on the South African constitution as they threaten the safety of Jewish South Africans, who have as much right to live securely, and express their religious freedoms without hate in South Africa, as anyone else.
“You think this is Israel, we are going to kill you!” and “You Jews do not belong here in South Africa!” supporters of the BDS movement shouted in front of the Sandton Convention Centre, where the South Africa-Israel Expo and a federation conference was being held. They were joined by protesters in African National Congress and South African Communist Party T-shirts. Together, they disrupted traffic in the city’s business and financial center, reports HAARETZ.
Apparently the ANC officials and figures from the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement who took turns addressing the crowd from atop a small truck have forgotten that many of South Africa’s Jews helped fight against Apartheid in South Africa.
A man who said he had come from Pretoria to attend the trade expo told Haaretz: “The protesters were pushing security staff stationed outside the conference center. It was shocking.”
HAARETZ:
Security officers blocking the main entrance directed people leaving the event to exit through the attached shopping mall, out of concern for their safety.
It is “every South African citizen’s constitutional right to attend events of our choosing without fear of intimidation,” the South African Jewish Board of Deputies said in a statement.
Last week, an address by prominent Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid at the University of Johannesburg, organized by the South African Union of Jewish Students, was forced to end early due to BDS protesters, according to the board of deputies.
Eid, a vocal critic of BDS and Israeli Apartheid Week, is the founder and executive director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. He was escorted to safety by campus security officers after students climbed onto the stage; one stuck his fingers into Eid’s nose.
In a video clip, posted to the Stop the BDS Facebook page, a Muslim student who attended the event registered her shock and disgust with the behavior and messages of the BDS protesters in the audience. “These people are not Muslims, they are barbarians,” cried the young woman,
The BDS movement seems to have indeed triggered this anti-semitism, evidenced by this horrific protest calling for the death of South African Jews. Instead of denying that which many have witnessed, including video accounts, BDS and ANC participants should issue an immediate apology and a call for specific retraction of all threats of violence related to their movement.
Hate speech is criminal and punishable in South Africa. It is my hope that the South African Government will call for an investigation, especially to investigate members of the ANC – the ruling Government party – who participated in this threatening and hateful protest. I would also want to know if there were any Government representatives participating in the protest.
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A sickening story. Bigotry is alive and well in the world and it takes many forms. Blind group hate whether directed against Jews, gays, blacks, religious or ethnic minorities, is the scourge of mankind. It along with war and disease are the basic enemies of mankind.
The Jewish Religion calls for homosexuals to be stoned to death.
By your very standards Melanie, shouldn’t every progressive society actively seek to boot them out?
Shows how ignorant you are Dandate. Usually I dont allow such stupidity when I moderate comments. But this was just so funny an argument on your part I could hardly resist.
Nowehere in the world does the Jewish religion or its religious leaders call for or stand for stoning of gays. Read up about the Jewish religion and look at the latest reflections of groups of orthodox Rabbis – many of whom interpret the Bible as NOT outlawing loving relationships. Being gay or LGBT is not about sodomy. That is a sexual ACT to which the Bible refers in the context of rape, war, idol worship. None of which is happening in the context of loving couples. Judaism has not adopted the Christian view of the Bible’s first testament. The Jewish law is profound in its interpretative history with many books that followed. Jews do not call for killing gays. But Christians do and Muslims do. So what you say about the religion as it is practiced today is an absolute lie. Such ignorance is scary.
Unfortunately the biggest promoters of hate against gays in the world is fundamentalist Christians who have usurped the Jewish Bible and misinterpreted it and- they are the ones running around the world calling for the death of gays. Additionally Many hard line Muslims who preach Sharia law are murdering gays in the Middle East and Africa.
With that said Israel which has a Parliament of mixed religious and secular has more equality laws for LGBT people than most countries around the world and stands as beacon of hope and light for all LGBT in the ME.
What a fool I see before me… LOL seriously …. Progressives believe in human rights and religious freedom for all. We dont believe “booting” people out. What you are referring to is pure genocide – a consequence of such abhorrent anti-Semitism which you seemt o participate in by your very suggestion.
^ infact, considering that the ancient Romans, Greeks, and Hindus accepted homosexuality.
It would appear that the sole source of all homophobia is the Jewish Religion.
So how could you be pro-religious liberty and LGBT at the same time?
catch 22
The sole source of Homophobia is hateful people who misinterpret the Bible and who choose to use it to hate.They used the Bible as an excuse for Apartheid and for an excuse for slavery. Its man made bullshit and misinterpretation. However it has NOTHING to do with how people celebrate and enjoy their Judaism today,. So keep the hate going Dandate and prepare – when you meet your happy maker you may still find your hate filled heart harmonious with hell rather than heaven.