Ag shame, Africa4Palestine

10 August 2022 

It has been a really rough few weeks for this band of pseudo `human rights’ activists.

They have been called out at least three times this year alone for posting antisemitic material on their social media platforms:

Ag shame: how humiliating for a so-called `human rights’ organisation to be called out on antisemitism.

As they try to regain their credibility, they once again expose their anti-Jewish hate using an age-old antisemitic stereo type of the `foreign conniving Jewish lobby’ conspiracy.  They refer to us “a foreign regime ..[that] works closely with the Israeli spy agency Mossad…”.  They clearly couldn’t stop themselves of using one of the oldest antisemitic tropes and accuse us of “dual loyalty”, the idea that Jews are untrustworthy and treasonous citizens more loyal to their fellow-religionist than their own country. 

Their narrative of Israel being “child-killers” has been exposed with the recent Gaza conflict where video footage has clearly shown that the majority of civilian casualties, including children, was caused by Palestinian Islamic Jihad misfiring.  Ag shame: it must be hard for them when the facts don’t support their narrative.

It must have been a real blow for them when their buddy, Minister Pandor said that she needed to mention the ‘two-state solution’ only because if she did not, many people would seek to paint her as an antisemite. 

Ag shame. It must be really damaging for their organisation to realise that the vast majority of countries around the world, including Arab and African nations are looking to develop relations with the country and are finally accepting Israel’s right to exist within secure borders alongside a Palestinian State.  This is something that we too believe fervently in:  that a Two State negotiated settlement is the only way to resolve the Palestinian Israeli Conflict.

In 2015 British leader Asghar Bukhari made the outlandish claim that a single shoe was stolen from his home stating that it was a deliberate tactic of intimidation by Zionists.  This was ridiculed with online parody using the hashtag #MossadStoleMyShoe.  At the time Maajid Nawaz, the Chairperson of the anti-Extremist organisation Quilliam said, “Satire is one of the best ways to combat this.  By mocking something like this I hope to make it more taboo and less acceptable for Muslims to spread these kinds of conspiracy theories.”  Our advice to Africa4Palestine is `Keep tabs on your shoes’. 

Wendy Kahn is the National Director, SA Jewish Board of Deputies