TONY "Third" Ehrenreich, Cosatu's Western Cape provincial secretary, has announced that his pursuit of a final solution to the conflict in Gaza will be carried out in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the trade union federation.

Cosatu had - at least at the time of writing - yet to comment on the matter. But here at the Mahogany Ridge we can imagine the gratitude at not being roped into a campaign of violence against the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and "Zionist supporters" in response to events in the Middle East.

Ehrenreich made the call on his Facebook page on Wednesday afternoon. Noting the "terrible destruction and killing and maimings" in Gaza, he wrote: 

"We have seen in our own country that the Jewish Board of Deputies have arranged gatherings to pledge their allegiance to the killing of Palestinians. We are aware that the JBD has been facilitating and supporting the funding of the Israeli Army as well as getting SA youth to join the killings in Gaza. This makes the JBD complicit in the murder of the people in Gaza.

"The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the JBD, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye. The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel."

There followed pronto a chorus of disapproval. The Treatment Action Campaign's Zackie Achmat, for example, tweeted: "‘An eye for an eye' @TonyEhrenreich is that really you? Unlawful, wrong & harms." Another critic of the occupation of Palestinian territory, Equal Education deputy secretary general Doron Isaacs, described Ehrenreich's call as "idiotic and against the traditions of Cosatu".

Unsurprisingly, the JBD has accused Ehrenreich of hate speech, and announced that it would lay charges of incitement to violence with the police and lodge a formal complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission.

Not to be outdone, Ehrenreich was soon bothering the Facebook community once more with counter-offensive details; he would be laying his own complaint with the SAHRC, accusing the JBD of, among other things, "supporting crimes against humanity in Gaza, and for being complicit through their actions or inactions, in the killing of women and children in Gaza."

Embarrassingly, he attempted to explain that, at heart, he really was a bit of a mensch. "At the outset let me state it clearly that I am not anti-Semitic and am not calling for violence against Jews." Not only that, but folks apparently just didn't get the subtle drift of what he was banging on about when he suggested "in my private capacity" that the JBD should feel the wrath of the people. 

"The reference," he said, "to an eye for an eye, is to ensure that we take actions that are commensurate with the atrocities. . . This however is not a call to violence, it is a call for more decisive actions in SA, that would force the JBD to promote justice."

Perhaps we'd better leave it there. He did rail on further in an alarming manner about principles and genocide and what have you, but most of it was sloppy and emotional, and besides, I'm tired of correcting the spelling and grammar mistakes in his spew.

Let me just say, though, that there was some opinion among the Ridge regulars that Ehrenreich was spending too much time on Facebook, and this could be retarding his social development. 

Others however argued that, in his case, it may well be that apartheid was to blame, and not social media, and that it was separate development that has left him alone and loveless, filled with a curious need to bother others.

Elsewhere and away from the Jew-baiting, Ehrenreich has, in his role as a city councillor, announced that the ANC would be opposing Cape Town's plans to rename Table Bay Boulevard after former president FW de Klerk. 

As he put it, "I mean, naming of streets must be a matter considered by due process. They cannot be just a few whities who want to honour their heroes who were among the architects of apartheid."

Ehrenreich was referring to the 27 prominent Capetonians who wrote to Mayor Patricia de Lille about the renaming, suggesting it take place on or close to February 2 next year - the 25th anniversary of De Klerk's announcement that the ANC was to be unbanned.

That one of those whities was Archbishop Desmond Tutu was neither here nor there.

Still, if it's any consolation, Table Bay Boulevard is quite an ugly stretch of the N1.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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