Jerusalem Center For Public Affairs Calls African Critics Of Israel ‘Anti-Semites,’ And Ignores Jewish Misdeeds

By Jehron Muhammad | Last updated: Mar 7, 2019 - 4:08:04 PM

A 2018 article published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs titled “Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism - African Style” distorts African critics of Israel by insisting their criticisms or arguments concerning Israel “should generally be seen as part of the historical continuity of anti- Semitism.”

In other words, all anti-Zionists are at least closet anti- Semites.

The Jerusalem-based think tank article used the subhead “Africa’s Black-Supremacist Groups.” It claimed these “Black-supremacy activist groups” were “either implicit or explicit” conspiracy theorists in “their discourse on Israel and the Jews … rhetoric is inspired by a work published in 1991 by the Nation of Islam ‘The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews (Volume one).’ ”

The article claims the book maintains “the Jews’ alleged involvement in the slave trade was the source of their financial power.” The book actually cites highly respected scholars of the Jewish community as its source material and does not attribute all Jewish financial power to the slave trade.

Cited under the same subheading is French national Kemi Seba, now residing in Senegal, who the JCPA claims is “a leading figure in this movement.” The article quotes Seba as saying “Zionist supporters of slavery … made their fortune from the blood of the Blacks that was spilled.”

Kemi Seba

Seba’s activism dubbed by European media as “the new Malcolm X” was broached in a 2013 edition of The Final Call. During an interview, he cited the source of his inspiration—and “the only key to the resurrection of Black people throughout the world, in my opinion, and that is the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, today taught by the leader of us all the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.”

Another section of the article, “The South African Paradox,” refers to discrimination against Jews by the apartheid regime, and Jewish involvement in the anti-apartheid movement without once mentioning Israel’s secret nuclear pact with the South African apartheid regime. This clandestine alliance between Israel and the South African apartheid regime was cemented by the ultimate gift of friendship: The sharing of atomic bomb technology.

Holocaust survivor Vera Reitzer, who after the Second World War moved to South Africa, in a 2006 interview in the British Guardian newspaper “saw no contradiction in surviving the Holocaust only to sign up for a system that was disturbingly reminiscent in its underpinning philosophy, if not in the scale of its crimes, as the one she had outlived. She vigorously defended apartheid as a necessary bulwark against Black domination and the communism that engulfed her native Yugoslavia. Reitzer let slip that she thought Africans inferior to other human beings and not entitled to be treated as equals. I asked if Hitler hadn’t said the same things about her as a Jew. She called a halt to the conversation.”

If you study their history, Jews eventually intermingled freely with White Afrikaners and either became a part of the apartheid system of oppression, or mostly turned a blind eye. As reported in the Guardian, “the bulk of South Africa’s Jews not only failed to challenge the apartheid system but benefited and thrived under its protection, even if some of their numbers figured prominently in the liberation movements.”

Why is ink being spent on accusing Black South Africans of being “silent on anti-Semitism,” when Jews were largely silent or actively joined White minority rule? For decades the Zionist Federation and Jewish Board of Deputies in South Africa honored such men as Percy Yutar, a Jew who prosecuted Nelson Mandela for sabotage and conspiracy against the state in 1963 and sent him to jail for life. Mandela served 27 years.

Yutar went on to become attorney general of the Orange Free State and then of the Transvaal. He was also elected president of Johannesburg’s largest orthodox synagogue. According to the Guardian, “Some Jewish leaders hailed him as a ‘credit to the community’ and a symbol of Jews’ contribution to South Africa.”

Yet a News24 headline read, “When it comes to anti-Semitism South Africa is silent.” A 2018 Jerusalem Post headline declared, “Anti-Semitism rears its ugly head in SA.”

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs claims the South African government has an “anti-Israel bias.” It accused the ruling party, the African National Congress, of being biased and infringing of key rights in the country’s constitution.

Without citing what constitutional rights were infringed upon, the group complained that the ANC has referred to Israel as “an apartheid state” and has called for Israel to end its “occupation” of land inhabited by the Palestinian people.

Similarities can be drawn between American and South African Jewry. Both benefit from White privilege and both use the anti-Semitism label to taint anyone who speaks out against Israel and its horrific or apartheid-like treatment of its Palestinian captives.

Why Jews, not only in South Africa, but throughout the Jewish diaspora fail to recognize Israeli soldiers routinely humiliating and harassing Palestinians at checkpoints and illegal settler communities harassing and painting hatefilled slogans on walls on Arab houses in Hebron, and the horrendous conditions in occupied Gaza, a place called an open air prison, is anyone’s guess.

One journalist said about Gaza, “Despair isn’t even the right word to describe what’s going on here because things are getting worse and worse.”

The Jewish think tank claimed its focus was Africa’s anti-Semitism but the country generally accused of anti- Semitism in the Jewish or the Israeli press is South Africa. It’s similar to how the Western press and Hollywood sometimes makes reference to Africa as if it is a country and not a continent with 54 independent nation states.

The go to “anti-Semite” in South Africa seems to be South African Economic Freedom Fighters Party president Julius Malema. His most recent transgression was pointing out the Jews that were responsible for “a group of white right-wingers who are being trained by Jews in Pretoria to be snipers.”

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