MERVYN BENNUN: Crucial difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist

Prof Milton Shain equates criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism (“Anti-Semitism persists in the ‘Rainbow Nation’,” November 22).

There is a history of anti-Semitism in SA about which Shain himself has written. Challenges to Zionism have developed under the new democratic order as Zionism thrived under apartheid.

SA’s Bill of Rights prohibits anti-Semitism. Under section 15(1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion”.

Under section 16(1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression”. Section 16(2) limits how this may be exercised, reflecting the values of a free and peaceful SA. It states that freedom of expression under section 16(1) “does not extend to (a) propaganda for war; (b) incitement of imminent violence; or (c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm”.

Shain quotes disturbing comments by various individuals, with the gratuitous sneer that they have occurred in “the ‘new’ SA — the so-called Rainbow Nation”.

Where action has been taken in respect of anti-Semitism those responsible have come off badly — and deservedly so. Though all is not well in SA, Shain ignores evidence that anti-Semitic conduct in SA is not tolerated.

This is no accident. He would have had to explain why no action had been taken in other incidents used to bolster his claim that in SA, anti-Semitism is rife.

These are cases where the target has been Zionism or Israel or both. There is, however, a crucial difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist.

Being Jewish is almost invariably a matter of birth — usually, to a Jewish mother. Exceptionally, one may convert to become Jewish. How complex and burdensome the requirements are depends on the religious authority involved.

Being a Zionist is absolutely voluntary, but Shain deliberately confuses criticism of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism, highlighting its ignorant nonsense.

In Good Jew Bad Jew (2023), Steven Friedman describes how this “new anti-Semitism” camouflages the racism of Zionism by equating Jewishness with Zionism. He writes: “The new anti-Semite is not a person who hates Jews. It is a person, Jewish or non-Jewish, who embraces egalitarian values.

“Jewish people are no longer victims of a group: they are now divided into two groups — one ‘good’, the other ‘bad’ — and bad Jews are one of the groups most likely to be accused of anti-Semitism.”

Criticism of Israel and Zionism is now the “new anti-Semitism”. This is the intended effect of the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which specifically cites targeting Israel as an example.

For example, Shain describes as “anti-Semitic” a reference by Mandla Mandela, an MP, to “chequebook diplomacy” by Zionists. This is not unreasonable considering the financial support from many prominent SA Zionists for Israel and its policies. A prime example is Philip Krawitz, the head of Cape Union Mart, who has openly stated that he donates to Zionist causes and is sympathetic to Israel.

Equating the “new anti-Semitism” with genuine anti-Semitism reveals the cynical hypocrisy of SA’s Zionists. Anti-Semitic conduct is forbidden and perpetrators are dealt with, so why do Zionists make no attempt to invoke the law against these “new anti-Semites”?

Obviously it is because Zionists know they would fail. They hope to garner more sympathy by crying out that hostility to Israel and Zionism is antisemitic.

Dramatically, this is illustrated by how the “new anti-Semitism” reacts to the genocide allegations against Israel arising from the war in Gaza.

Let it be stated clearly here that whether committed by Hamas or by any other group, or by nonaligned Gaza Palestinians, what happened on October 7 last year, when Israeli civilians were deliberately harmed, was a sickening atrocity and a terrible crime under international law.

Arising from subsequent events in Gaza and the West Bank, SA, a state party to the convention, lodged an application with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that the crime of genocide is taking place in terms of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and seeking an order directing Israel, also a state party, to refrain from any acts that may constitute genocide or related crimes.

The department of international affairs and co-operation explained the reasons for the application: “SA is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants. Furthermore, there are ongoing reports of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed as well as reports that acts meeting the threshold of genocide or related crimes as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, have been and may still be committed in the context of the ongoing massacres in Gaza.”

Gaza is slightly smaller than the Cape Peninsula and has a population of about 2.2-million. It is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. Israel’s war on Gaza was described by the Wall Street Journal on December 30 as “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating warfare in the modern record.” 

Imposing a total siege, Israel denied Gaza food, water, fuel and electricity. According to the Wall Street Journal, by mid-December Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on Gaza, and damaged or destroyed nearly 70% of Gaza's 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings. Well over 23,000 people are known to have been killed, thousands are missing — believed buried under rubble — and all civil infrastructure has been destroyed.

If the World Court supports SA's urgent application it may issue a temporary injunction against Israel for a ceasefire to prevent further irreparable damage.

SA further requested the court to order Israel to allow Palestinians removed from their homes in Gaza to return to them; to stop depriving them of food, water and humanitarian aid; to ensure that Israelis are not inciting to genocide and punish those who do; and to allow an independent investigation of its actions.

The Genocide Convention was adopted unanimously by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, the European Holocaust fresh in the minds of its members. The Nuremburg trials of Nazi war criminals responsible for the Holocaust were likely taking place while the convention was being drafted.

The Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide thus: ‘…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Relevant to Shain’s claim of rising SA anti-Semitism is Israel’s response to the application. The Israeli ministry of foreign affairs rejected it. Denying the allegations of genocide, it described the application as “a blood libel” and a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation” of the court. It accused SA of being “criminally complicit” in the Hamas attacks.

Whether SA is exploiting the ICJ and complicit in what Hamas has done will be considered by the ICJ if relevant. No comment is necessary here. However, of all lies and fantasies, the anti-Semitic blood libel is the sickest, the most pornographic and most horrible, and the cause of the greatest suffering for Jews over the centuries. Israel presumably plans to respond to the application by referring to it, to show that SA’s motive is anti-Semitic.

Prudence advises one not to presume the outcome of litigation. However, reading the text of the application — published accessibly on the ICJ’s website — it is difficult to see what other defence Israel can offer.

The application attempts to meet the requirements of the Genocide Convention and its procedures. In the barest outline, the ICJ must be persuaded by the application that it is plausible that genocide is being committed. If so, subsequent proceedings will determine conclusively whether in fact genocide is being committed.

The application describes what is happening to Gaza and its population for the world to read, and to gasp at its horror. It quotes what Israelis who determine and execute policy have said, to demonstrate that what is being done is being done with the intention that it should be done.

If the ICJ decides that the genocide accusation is plausible then — again in summary — Israel must persuade the court that its actions are not genocidal, and that statements by those whose policy it is to commit them, and those who execute it, are not proof of genocidal intention.

Perhaps the ICJ will conclude that genocide is implausible. Perhaps it will conclude that the allegation of genocide is plausible, and that any provisional measures it may order must not be considered as prejudging any final decision.

The claim that there is a rising tide of anti-Semitism in SA will then be refuted. By referring to the blood libel, Israel will have immortalised a tragic pornography that will long resonate.

But best of all, the consequence will be the burial of Zionism in a democratic country where race, religion, and ethnicity are irrelevant to the value of its citizens.

• Bennun, a retired UK university law lecturer and research associate at the University of Cape Town, is a member of SA Jews for Free Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.