South Africans honour their fallen in Israel while lamenting how far South Africa has morally fallen
By David E. Kaplan
It was a strange feeling.
Some 150 South Africans - roughly half living in Israel the other visiting from South Africa on a Jewish National Fund South Africa -organised solidarity mission. They were joined as well by forty young South Africans on youth movement programmes. The same thought was on everyone's mournful minds – here we were in the heart of the JNF-KKL Lavi Forest honouring South Africa's fallen either in acts of war or terror, including the present war in Gaza, and the South African government could not care a damn!
Showing Solidarity. Flanked by the flags of South Africa, the JNF-KKL and Israel, Michael Kransdorff, JNF SA's national chairman speaks beside the memorial board to South Africa's fallen at the KKL-JNF ceremony at Lavi Forest on February 20, 2024. (Courtesy JNF SA)
Correction, they do care - it reserves its concern for the killers of those fallen Jews!
Even though former South Africans had been murdered the day of the massacre on October 7 2023 while others were kidnapped and held captive in Gaza, "It took weeks for them [ANC government] to condemn the single biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust," said Michael Kransdorff, Chairman of the JNF and Vice Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation. The two organisations that organized the high-powered Jewish leadership mission to Israel. "Rather than use their influence with Hamas and the Iranian regime to bring home the hostages, and to end the conflict, they have chosen to side with Hamas and the Iranian regime, and attack Israel in its defensive war to protect its home front and return the hostages."
Lives Cut Short. South Africans - comprising immigrants, community leaders visiting on a solidarity mission and youngsters on programmes in Israel - gather to honour South Africans who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel or in acts of terrorism. The stone memorial cleft in half in the background, expresses profoundly the lives of those that were cut short through war and terror. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Can South Africa's President Ramaphosa answer one question:
Would the late Mandela have behaved this way?
Although critical of "the occupation", Mandela fully supported Israel's right to exist. We know this because during a visit to Israel in 1999, Mandela said:
"I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognise Israel within secure borders."
An advocate of the two-state solution, Mandela would not have countenanced South Africa's present foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, recently joining in the chant – "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", which in effect calls for the elimination of Jews in its biblical homeland, something Hamas attempted on October 7.
Picking up on this theme, Kransdorff continued:
"We, as the Jewish community are deeply disappointed with the [South African] government and think that it missed a major opportunity to play a positive role in the world, in the spirit of Mandela. Instead, it chose to support Hamas and side with terror."
The Shoah cast a shadow over the Lavi Forest memorial ceremony incapsulated in the poignant words of former SAZF chairman, Avrom Krengel when he said:
"…Only when you visit these magnificent kibbutzim and settlements, places that flourished, do you realise that for one day, a 'Holocaust' came to Israel. It's a reminder of the Eastern Front of 1941 of what befell our ancestors in Lithuania and Ukraine when the Nazis went from town to town and murdered every single Jew they could find. And on the 7 October that is what Hamas did."
History of Heroism. Following announcing the recent names added to the memorial board, an emotional chairman of Telfed, Maish Isaacson continued, "We pay tribute here today to our heroes who lost their lives with courage." (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Looking towards the memorial board where nearly 90 South African have fallen - since Avraham Katz fell in July 1 1938 in the defence of kibbutz Hanita on the border with Lebanon, now still under attack in 2024 - Krengel turned back to face the gathering and continued:
"But unlike the mass murder of 1941 that continued every single day for another five years, and saw the death of six million Jews, this time we have a state and we have an army and while we were caught by surprise for one day, we fight back; we fight back in a ferocious manner; we fight back to protect the people of Israel and the Jewish people. That is what the world actually hates about us now. We don't go meekly and quietly to our deaths. We protect Jewish life. We take the fight to our enemies wherever they are, no matter how deep they are in every single tunnel. And that is the privilege of our generation that we have a State of Israel that is committed to the protection of every Jew in the world. We have not had that for 2000 years and we have not been able to protect ourselves until now."
Revival of Evil. Referring to the horrors of 1941 for the Jews of Eastern Europe, once again "a Holocaust came to Israel," said SAZF Honorary President Avrom Krengel.
With wind whistling through the trees and a hint of rain, I listened to one speaker after another, in particular the families of the fallen and former hostage Aviva Segal, who was born in South Africa and came to Israel with her family at the age of nine. And while she related the horrifying and terrifying details being held as a hostage for 51 days by Hamas while her American-born husband Keith, still remains a hostage in Gaza. I reflected on the words of PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shatayyeh, who this week has resigned by but only a week earlier had said at the Munich Security Conference - and 'Munich' of all places - that:
"One should not continue focusing on October 7"
No End to Horror. Former hostage Aviva Segal relates tearfully of her ordeal as a hostage in Gaza for 51 days and says the "horror continues every minute of every day" as she longs anxiously for her husband Keith still held in captivity. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
Really; after the worst massacre of Jews in one day since the Holocaust and which Israel needs to prevent ever happening again and this is the sentiment of the Palestinian leadership that Israel is expected to reach a rapprochement.
Back in November, senior Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub was one of the first Palestinian Authority officials to speak publicly about the October 7 attacks, and he openly justified the mass slaughter and kidnapping of Israelis.
Rajour, at a press conference in Kuwait drew no distinction between Hamas and his own Palestinian Authority when he characterized the massacre of Jews on October 7 attack as part of "the defensive war OUR people are waging." In fact, his choice of words embraces the massacre!
This is what and who South Africa choses to champion in the courts of law and world opinion.
Killed in Action. One of the sad new names added to the SA memorial board, Clive Chitiz speaks of his son Yaron who was killed in battle in Gaza. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)
And while on the question of law, one only has to compare the founding documents of Hamas and South Africa to know they set out on diametrically opposite ideological paths. South Africa's constitution - considered the birth certificate and soul of the "Rainbow Nation" - marked the way for a new democratic order. Considered one of the most advanced constitutions in the world, it established a constitutional democracy in which a finely crafted Bill of Rights enjoys pride of place.
In contrast, the Hamas charter warns about "transgressors…smitten with vileness" in general but Jews in particular.
Up front as a priority, it thunders:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will OBLITERATE it, just as it obliterated others before it."
This is the narrative that South Africa by its support now stakes its reputation on.
While South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s had its fair share of supporters for the Nazis - many of whom emerged as future leaders in a post-WWII Apartheid South Africa - its leaders of today have no problem supporting the spiritual heirs of Nazi Germany.
Victims of Terrorism. South African Israelis, Larry and Marlin Butchins stand before the memorial board, where Marlin points out the names of her family members - her mother Sylvia Bernstein (aged 73) and sister Gail Belkin (aged 48) -who were killed together in a suicide terrorist bombing of Dizengoff Center in March 6, 1996.
I take comfort that the day following the ceremony for the South African fallen, I received an email from esteemed South African author and journalist, Henning van Aswegen, who wrote the following:
"Realise please that South Africa's Corrupt Antisemitic ANC government does not speak for the people of South Africa, only for a portion thereof. There is massive support for Israel and its people here and we are cheering on the IDF every day in its righteous response to Hamas' terrorism."
With the support and understanding of true friends may the day dawn when no more names of fallen will be added to memorial boards.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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