By Raphael Ahren, Haaretz “Anglo-File” – 9 Oct 2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1119847.html
The South African Jewish community is in an uproar about the current visit of three Israeli conscientious objectors, who addressed Jewish and non-Jewish groups in Cape Town and Johannesburg, equating Israel with apartheid-era South Africa and calling for an international boycott against Israel.
The youths were reportedly greeted with insults and threats at some of the events they headlined. Community leaders condemned the visit, fearing it will stir up anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments. The organizers – including two former leaders of the Habonim youth movement – defended their invitation by quoting the need for open debate.
The so-called shministim (Hebrew for 12th-graders), whose 10-day speaking tour is being covered by local media, marked the first time a delegation of Israeli draft-dodgers visited South Africa. Besides meeting with the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and holding an event across the street from a Jewish high school, the itinerary included talks at universities, including a lecture at the University of the Western Cape attended by over 500 people.
The trio includes Omer Goldman, who is the daughter of a former deputy head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
During this lecture, one shminist said the international community has to make Israel understand there is “a price to pay” for the occupation: “Like during Apartheid, I believe this should be done by targeting Israeli academic institutions and the economy, and focusing in particular on boycotting international companies who are involved in military activity or who have any connection with settlement development.”
At the University of Cape Town, one of the shministim said she did’t believe in a two-state-solution and another one said she considered herself Israeli rather than Jewish, a spectator said.
At a tumultuous gathering at a Jewish institution Wednesday, the trio was “basically lynched,” according to an eyewitness. At the end of the event, “all mobbed forward” and called the shministim cowards, bringing one of them to tears, the source added. Organizer Daniel Mackintosh told Anglo File he and the shministim were insulted and threatened by “extremely aggressive” people in the audience.
More anti-Semites
“The debate was at kindergarten level,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it – they asked me if I was Jewish. After the event, a guy in an IDF-shirt looked me deep in the eyes and said: ‘We know who you are now. Watch out.'”
“They will leave South Africa having made a few more anti-Semites in the non-Jewish community and influenced a few school children, but the Jewish community, almost to a man, stood together with Israel,” said David Hersh, the former chairman of Western Province Zionist Council, who splits his time between Cape Town and Mevasseret Zion, after Wednesday’s event.
Maish Isaacson, the chairman of Telfed – the South African Zionist Federation’s Israel branch, said: “We are extremely upset that young Israelis take their gripes abroad – everyone has the right to object but we strongly believe the issue should be handled locally in Israel.”
Telfed only learned of the shministim visit after they had arrived in South Africa, Isaacson noted. “We have however put in place a monitoring system to try and find out about such visits in advance for the future.”
David Saks, associate director of the Board of Jewish Deputies told Anglo File it was evident in meetings with the shministim that ” they were very ignorant of South African history and weren’t aware of how false comparisons between Israel and apartheid are harming their country.” He added: “Ex-South Africans in Israel can always try to educate them. However, [the shministim] are so rooted in their smug self-righteousness that it may well be impossible to get through to them.”
Laurie Nathan, one of three co-organizers, told Anglo File the objectors are committing acts of moral courage and integrity. “We live in a world where we want people to speak up, to speak their minds, to speak freely and to engage in debate.”
The shministim were invited by Open Shuhada Street, an organization campaigning for Israel to reopen the Hebron street by that name, and the End Conscription Campaign, a group of South African anti-apartheid activists who opposed the conscription of white South African men during the 1980s, Nathan said. Saks called the juxtaposition of shministim and ECC “deplorable,” because the IDF’s purpose “is and always has been to protect [Israel] from external threats and attacks,” while conscription in apartheid-era South Africa aimed at perpetuating white minority rule.
Co-organizer Ilan Strauss defended the comparison, saying both groups opposed serving in an army that was not fulfilling a purely defensive function but was involved in repressing another people. “Obviously there is no equating the two situations,” Strauss told Anglo File, “but in both instances, the army is engaging in illegitimate activities – namely enforcing a military occupation on the Palestinian people for over 42 years – thus denying them political rights.” David Kaplan, a former Telfed chairman, knows Strauss, 24, and Mackintosh, 25, from their time at the left-wing Zionist Habonim movement.
“I am sure their motives are well-intended from their perspective, as they’re concerned about society both in Israel and South Africa. But they are misled by naivety – the atmosphere in South Africa at the moment is incredibly toxic in terms of attitudes toward Israel,” he said, referring to several incidents of South Africans politicians making anti-Semitic remarks.
“These youngsters don’t realize the damage they’re doing,” Kaplan continued. “The problem is that their movement has lost all sense of proportion, it’s drifting away from a balanced point of view and has become completely obsessed with the occupation.”
