29 January 2009 - South African minister's antisemitic rant exposed on TV
Per the suggestion of the bloggers at IAS:
Kudos to e-TV for airing the story--though they can't resist establishing a "context" of Israeli violence and Arab rage. (And what is up with the anchor's silly question: "In what way was she being antisemitic?" Huh?)
The segment features Aids activist Zackie Achmat, who along with Nathan Geffen and others spoke out against the minister several days ago. Commendable, yes--but again, IAS points out, they began their protest by attacking Israel.
What will it take for South Africa's leaders--and the human rights activists among them, who ought to know better--to simply condemn antisemitism, plain and simple?
posted by Joel @ 10:30 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Well I think that if Zev Krengel gets to be on TV again he must be primed and coached for a better presentation style. His articulation was not good and he was particularly poor in driving home why Hajaig's comments are so offensive to Jews. It's much more than "you know just like the Nazi's did". The Deputy Minister's comments go to the depth of the corroded core of racist stereotyping and should be separated from what position she takes on the I/P conflict. When asked by the presenter what action the government should take he was again wishy washy, saying that he is not in government. What he should have said, clearly, was that she had two options: 1) to apologise with some humility and to articulate her newfound understanding of how hurtful and inappropriate her comments were and to seperate these comments from her position on the conflict or 2) failing that she should resign or be fired. TWS
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