The Killing of Eliyahu David Kay

The SA Government has failed us in Applying the Foreign Military Assistance Act (FMAA) Legislation

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has greeted the recent news of the killing in Jerusalem of a South African citizen with extreme disappointment.

Eliyahu David Kay, a young Jewish South African was killed and according to reports, by a Palestinian school teacher, Fadi Abu Shkhaydem (42) who was allegedly linked to Hamas.

The SA Zionist Federation (SAZF), through its spokesperson, Rolene Marks, condemned “the deafening silence from the SA Government and Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) on this issue”. The SAZF called for a message of condolence to the family of Eliyahu David Kay and “public condemnation of this attack” from government. It further condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization.

What the SAZF deliberately failed to mention is that the alleged murder victim, South African, Eliyahu David Kay, actually served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as an armed combatant against the people of Palestine.

In fact, his presence in East Jerusalem at the time was part of an IDF security operation to ensure the continued violent annexation of East Jerusalem that included the forcible eviction of hundreds of Palestinians from their homes which also constitute war crimes. Eliyahu’s role and mission was to uphold the continued Apartheid machinations of the Israeli regime and hundreds of fascist Jewish settlers who violently abuse, harass, terrorize and murder Palestinians as part of their ongoing colonial genocide of the native Palestinians.

DIRCO’s failure does not lie in its lack of condemnation or condolences to Kay’s family but rather its facilitation of South Africans serving in a foreign army that engages in colonial occupation and terror against the people of Palestine. Moreover, it is a gross failure on the part of our National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to not prosecute the likes of Kay and many other young Jewish South Africans who proudly serve in the IDF.

As early as 2014 we submitted evidence of this to the NPA in relation to Mr Dean Goodson, a young South African who served in the IDF and literally was its poster boy in the context of hundreds of civilians being bombed to death in Gaza by the Israeli regime. Even more appalling is the NPA’s double standards in relation to such cases, with the Thulsie twins languishing in jail while on trial for their alleged support of ISIS.

Actively serving in terrorist and foreign armies is illegal in terms of South African law under the Foreign Military Assistance Act (FMAA) of 1998. It is also a violation of the human rights and values of the SA Constitution. Why do South Africans serving in the IDF and the organizations that support them, like the SAZF and the SA Jewish Board of Deputies enjoy such impunity in South Africa?

We will be writing to DIRCO and the NPA and the relevant ministers demanding to meet with them as a matter of urgency.

Statement issued by Martin Jansen, Chairperson - PSC Cape Town, 24 November 2021