Fransman charge of Jewish disloyalty shocking: SAJBD
13/3/2013
On 26 February, Deputy Minister Marius Fransman made a statement suggesting that Jewish businessmen in Cape Town had unfairly benefited at the expense of the Muslim community. For this, he was taken to task by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), which condemned his remarks as being divisive and inflammatory and as pitting one religious community against another for vote-catching purposes.
Instead of apologizing for his remarks and retracting them, Fransman has chosen instead to compound his original offence by accusing the SAJBD, the elected, representative voice of the South African Jewish community, of being disloyal to South Africa. As cited in a number of press reports dated 13 March, his remarks in this regard include the following:
"I am asking the Jewish board to act South African ... not holier than thou" (Business Day)
The Board should be more ‘patriotic' and should ask itself whether it represented South African Jews or the Israeli government (The Times).
"The SAJBD is driving an interest outside of the national interest" (Cape Times).
The SAJBD is shocked that a member of the South African government has equated speaking out on behalf of Jewish civil rights with acting on behalf of a foreign government. The issue that the Board has with the Deputy Minister has nothing whatever to do with Israel, nor with any other international issue.
It has everything to do with the fact that Mr Fransman has made statements likely to foster ill-feeling between the Muslim and Jewish communities of Cape Town as a clear ploy to gain political support amongst Muslims for the ANC in the Western Cape.
Nothing in the SAJBD's original statement was remotely connected to Israel, and it is shamelessly dishonest of Mr Fransman for having suggested otherwise. In falsely levelling charges of dual loyalty against the Jewish leadership, moreover, he is guilty of propagating a typical strand of classic anti-Jewish theorising.
The SAJBD finds it equally appalling that Mr Fransman has attacked those who speak out on behalf of the rights of Jewish citizens of being un-South African. He has effectively accused the SAJBD, and by implication the Jewish community that it represents, of being unpatriotic because of the stand it is taking on behalf of South African Jews.
The reality is that in inciting hostility between sections of the population, and then defaming those who exercise their constitutional right to object to this, it is Deputy Minister Fransman who has acted in an un-South African manner.
Statement issued by Wendy Kahn, National Director: SAJBD, March 13 2013
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