This past Friday, 27 September, a senior Jewish woman, was assaulted by an aggressive Pro-Palestinian group, whilst standing outside Parliament. The Jewish woman’s identity remains anonymous due to safety concerns.
The Jewish woman arrived on Friday morning to join her Christian Zionist friends, who have been standing outside Parliament, every Friday for the past 25 years, singing songs and praying for peace in the Middle East. When she arrived holding her Israeli flag, members of the pro-Palestinian group, who were protesting, attacked her, grabbed her flag, injuring her hands in the process. They destroyed her flag and proceeded to verbally abuse her. One comment from one of the pro-Palestinian members was “Jews must go away, Jews must all die, pity that they didn’t finish Jews off in Europe.”
The Jewish woman then walked away from the aggressive group who continued to follow her whilst prodding her with their own flag sticks. They then grabbed the second Israeli flag from the Jewish woman and set it alight. Thankfully a member of the Parliament precinct arrived and came to the aid of the Jewish woman, firstly putting an end to the assault and finally retrieving the burnt flag. Throughout this ordeal, the Jewish woman kept calm continuously saying to the aggressors, “you can wave your flag and I can wave my flag.”
A case of assault has been opened with SAPS as the Jewish woman sustained lacerations to her hands and bruising to her face. The previous week, also outside Parliament, the same aggressive pro-Palestinian group, attacked an elderly Christian man, stealing his Israeli flag and then slapping him in the face and kicking him in the stomach. He too sustained injuries and will also be opening a case with SAPS. There is also a video of the incident.
The Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies condemns in the strongest terms, a deviation from a South African ethos of peaceful protest into a physical and verbal assault by certain pro-Palestinian groups. Freedom of expression is a constitutional enshrined right of every South African and for these groups to deny individuals of these rights and compound this by committing criminal acts, is unacceptable. We have engaged with both SAPS and the City of Cape Town to act against these hoodlums and ensure that they do not attack anyone else in the future. We may have differing opinions about the war in the Middle East, however, it does not validate or justify the use of hate speech and violence.
We call on our government leaders including the ANC to condemn the violence against fellow South Africans – regardless of the ANC’s political position against Israel, they must support their own citizens’ Constitutional rights to Freedom of Expression, free from discrimination, hate and violence.
For more information please contact Daniel Bloch on danielb@ctjc.co.za
Issued by Adrienne Jacobson, Chairperson, Cape SAJBD
Date: 1 October 2024