Zionism, ANC parallels

ACCORDING to Fadiel Adams there is a difference between being Jewish and Zionist, although in my view the two are inseparable (“Difference between Jewish and Zionist”, Weekend Argus, January 6).

However. Adams thinks Zionism is an evil doctrine and a type of colonialism and racism aimed at appropriating Palestinian land.

Palestine is an Arab construct for a geographic area. The former leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat, who was one of the biggest obstacles to peace in the region, was an Egyptian, an immigrant from Cairo.

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people in the same way as the ANC is for South Africans.

Adams, who is a member of the Khoisan, should take note of how the ruling party treated the activists when they went on a hunger strike at the Union Buildings on the eve of the ANC’s 54th Elective Congress to reinforce their demands to be recognised as the first nation of South Africa, for their language to be made official and their coloured identity to be removed.

But it went unnoticed by most of the media and President Jacob Zuma ignored their protest.

Only the new president of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, took notice when he accepted their memorandum.

That Jewish people have the right to freedom and political independence in their homeland, and, through political means, to develop and secure the Jewish people’s national existence in the land of Israel, is Zionism’s credo.

How different is that from the ANC’s liberation doctrine, as it refers to South Africa and all who live in it?

Adams refers to Palestinians “as an uncivilised clutter of humanity”. Those are his words and is one of the “tells” that suggest he is an AntiSemite.

Another tell is putting a spin on my words and then regurgitating them to suit his own agenda. His reference to genetics and his preposterous suggestion that only a minute percentage of Israelis “look Semitic”, the majority are “blonde and blueeyed”, is also a tell.

It’s wishful thinking from the playbooks of Hitler and Josef