MK Avigdor Liberman on Sunday warned South African Jews of a
“pogrom” at the hands of the government, accusing Pretoria of being
“anti-Semitic” and hypocritical.
Liberman’s statement was issued in response to harsh
anti-Israel rhetoric by South Africa’s International Relations Minister Maite
Nkoana-Mashabane, who said Friday that she was losing sleep over the
Palestinians’ plight and that Pretoria would “curtail” relations with Israel.
“The government of South Africa is creating an atmosphere of
anti-Israeli sentiment and anti-Semitism that will make a pogrom against Jews
in the country just a matter of time,” Liberman, a former foreign minister,
said in a statement.
He called on all Jews who live in South Africa “to immigrate
to Israel immediately, without delay, before it’s too late.”
Currently the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, Liberman might return to the Foreign Ministry if the court
declares him innocent in an ongoing fraud and breach of trust trial. The
Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court is scheduled to announce the verdict on Wednesday.
Citing the 2012 Marikana miners’ strike incident, during
which South African police shot dozens of striking miners, Liberman accused
Nkoana-Mashabane of hypocrisy.
“The same government whose police just one year ago
indiscriminately shot and killed 34 miners because they ‘dared’ to strike, and
afterward even wanted to bring the miners who survived to trial using a law
from the apartheid days; the same government that does not get involved, and is
not concerned by, what happens with its neighbors — not the murder of
journalists in Mali, or the terrorist attacks in Kenya — is concerned by what
is happening to the Palestinians thousands of kilometers away,” he wrote.
Liberman’s harsh comments prompted criticism from a former
Israeli ambassador to South Africa, who said the hawkish politician was the
main reason for Pretoria’s criticism against Israel. Liberman’s words were
“irresponsible and indicative of complete ignorance regarding the complex
situation of the Jewish community in South Africa,” Ilan Baruch told the Walla
website.
In an interview Friday, Nkoana-Mashabane launched a bitter
attack against Israel, saying that it was Pretoria’s policy that government
ministers do not visit Israel.
“Our Palestinian friends have never asked us to disengage
with Israel [through cutting diplomatic relations]. They had asked us in formal
meetings to not engage with the regime,” Nkoana-Mashabane told a Congress of
South African Trade Unions international relations committee meeting. South
Africa has “agreed to slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with that
regime until things begin to look better,” she said.
“The struggle of the people of Palestine is our struggle,” she
declared, adding that the Palestinians’ current situation was disturbing her
sleep.
In recent years, South Africa has been a harsh critic of
Israel, with prominent figures often drawing parallels between between the
country’s apartheid era and Israel today, slamming Israel over its treatment of
the Palestinians, and voicing support for cultural, economic and educational
boycotts of Israel.
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