[Opinion] Accusing Israel of apartheid echoes the ugliness of racists like the AWB
[Excerpts]
In February 1990, within days of FW de Klerk’s magnificent speech announcing the release of Nelson Mandela and the ending of the Apartheid regime, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) marched through Pretoria demanding continued white supremacy and the upholding of Apartheid. Tellingly, this notoriously racist and antisemitic group burned an Israeli flag, which represented the democracy they despised.
Thirty years later, anti-Israel hatred in South Africa is coming from groups that claim to fight the racism embodied by the AWB. If Israel represented the antithesis of Apartheid for AWB, groups claiming to promote human rights now single out the Jewish state as guilty of this ghastly crime.
In an opinion piece on January 17, Shannon Ebrahim parroted the latest falsehoods about Israel, fawning over what she claimed to be an “unprecedented report … released by Israel’s most highly respected human rights organization B’Tselem.”
In reality, B’Tselem has long ceased to reflect Israeli public discourse, and instead its publications are geared to a foreign audience like the European donors that supply the lion’s share of its budget. Its latest announcement, so beloved by Ebrahim, was ignored in Israel, even by left-wing media.
Neither is B’Tselem’s announcement “unprecedented.” Had Ebrahim read beyond what amounts to a publicity stunt, she would have found that B’Tselem adopted the ”apartheid” accusation as far back as 2002.
