Accusing your opponents of precisely the kind of misconduct that your own side is in reality palpably guilty of is a standard rhetorical ploy. Politicians are adept at it and unfortunately so are many public intellectuals, including university academics. Leslie London’s opinion piece of 3 September is an instance of this kind of rhetorical sleight of hand.
The article is a response to a previous piece of mine that appeared in the Daily Maverick on 18 July. London’s basic thesis is that those reporting on escalating levels of antisemitism at UCT are essentially fabricating such claims as a way of silencing voices critical of Israel. Why this amounts to a fairly obvious act of misdirection on his part is that precisely the opposite has in fact been happening. Whereas critics of Israel on UCT campus pretty much enjoy free rein, the harassment, intimidation and virulent abuse directed at those who dare to dissent from their views amounts to their voices being sidelined and silenced.
Contrary to those who charge Jews/Zionists with seeking to conflate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism, neither the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) nor any of the mainstream Jewish leadership in South Africa are using this as a stratagem to shut down debate. It is accepted that the right to freedom of expression means people can express whatever views they like about Israel, however extreme they may be. That right does not, however, amount to a license to deny that self-same right to those who wish to express a dissenting view. It also does not legitimate threatening their safety, violating their dignity or unfairly discriminating against them in any way. And because the vast majority of Jews in South Africa to varying degrees support and identify with Israel (something attested to by a range of credible academic studies), it is primarily Jewish people to whom I am referring here.
London points out that he has not experienced antisemitism, either directed towards himself or at others, in his more than 30 years at UCT as evidence that claims of rising antisemitism at the institution should not be taken seriously. One does not need to be a genius, however, to know that Jews who (like him) say what are deemed by the self-styled progressive left to be the “right” things about Israel are safe from the kind of targeted abuse that other Jews who speak out for the Jewish state are routinely subjected to. His invoking his own experiences regarding antisemitism at UCT to dismiss concerns other Jews are expressing is therefore pretty much meaningless.
According to the caricature that London seeks to create, the public is being told to uncritically believe that antisemitism has been on the rise at UCT simply because the SAJBD tells them that this is the case. As he puts it, “if the SAJBD, which claims to represent the Jewish community, says an incident is antisemitic, then it is so”. He further remarks that the only evidence I produce for there being an upsurge of antisemitism at UCT is “the ‘dossier’ of complaints the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) has ‘compiled’”. Well, the SAJBD knows the situation for Jewish students at UCT has deteriorated not through its own arbitrary, self-serving definitions as London alleges but because of the on-the-ground experiences and first hand testimonies of the affected students themselves.
When young Jewish people demonstrate in solidarity with Israel after the worst mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, taunting them with shouts of “We are Hamas” and “October 7 will happen again” is not “only criticism” of Israel; it amounts to a hate crime. It is likewise a hate crime when a Jewish student at a prayer gathering for Israel has his yarmulka struck from his head and thrown in the waste bin.
Beyond the physical assault aspect, it constitutes a deliberate act of humiliating and demeaning someone through desecrating a core and easily recognisable part of his religious identity. It is not okay when Jewish students who express support for Israel are slapped, spat at or receive threatening phone calls. Sending text messages conveying such sentiments as “you f**king b*tch” and “I will place your photo all over this campus you p**s” cannot be explained away as being “only criticism” of Israel. The same is true regarding ripping posters from the hands of Jewish students engaging in their right to peacefully demonstrate, or destroying posters that the representative body for Jewish students on campus have put up.
These are some of the incidents — first-hand testimony from those who had experienced them directly — that have been recorded at UCT since the 7 October 2023 massacre. They speak not to theoretical debates over which of the various definitions of antisemitism that are being bandied about is the correct one but the lived reality of many Jewish students on campus. By way of reminder, the thrust of London’s article is that false allegations of antisemitism are being resorted to as a means of suppressing criticism of Israel at UCT. But according to what is actually happening on the ground, which side is it whose views are being consistently suppressed? To charge those who protest against the bullying and intimidating into silence of anyone who dares to put forward a pro-Israel narrative with seeking to suppress voices that are critical of Israel is not just preposterous but dishonest.
No matter how one tries to spin it, what has been to an unacceptable degree allowed to unfold at UCT is the de facto targeting of Jews for expressing what has always been a core aspect of mainstream Jewish identity and belief, namely attachment to the land and people of Israel and to the ideals of Zionism. It is neither logically coherent nor morally acceptable to assure Jews on the one hand that when it comes to practising their religious traditions or other aspects of traditional Jewish culture, they will be protected and respected, but when it comes to Israel and Zionism, they must expect it to be open season against them. Disagree with those beliefs if you will, but responding with vitriolic insults, threats and even physical violence clearly crosses the line.
That a problem of antisemitism has arisen at UCT can hardly be denied, but the extent of the problem should not be overstated either. London asserts that according to me UCT “is awash with antisemitism”, but that is another common rhetorical sleight of hand on his part, one where the opposing side are made out to be extremist and irrational through purposefully overstating what they are supposedly saying. What I actually wrote was “UCT has [also] reportedly witnessed a significant increase in antisemitic attacks”, which is hardly the same thing.
That being said, when measured against what is happening at other universities in the country, it is a reality that in recent years UCT has been the campus where Jews have experienced by some way the highest levels of hostility. That is continually being attested to by those who experience it on the ground and is an issue that the university needs to confront. Far from being part of any potential solution, those who not only deny there is anything to be concerned about but charge the Jewish leadership with inventing such claims for their own immoral purposes share much of the culpability for the problem having arisen in the first place.
There is one more rhetorical ploy that London uses and because it is aimed at me I would like to address it. This concerns my being charged with supposedly “stepping up to the plate to serve the Netanyahu government”. In response, I would remind London that discourse of this nature can quite easily be turned on its head. I could, for instance, rejoin that it is rather a case of his furthering the agenda of the tyrannical, genocidal Hamas regime, one that in launching a terror attack of unprecedented barbarity against Israel has plunged the entire region into the most prolonged and destructive war in decades and brought untold destruction upon their own society. Since two can play this kind of game it is advisable rather not to play it at all but simply stick to the issues.
David Saks is a former associate director and now consultant to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.
It is not okay when Jewish students who express support for Israel are slapped, spat at or receive threatening phone calls; the university should address this
