{"id":117709,"date":"2024-12-14T17:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=117709"},"modified":"2024-12-14T14:22:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T12:22:58","slug":"15-00-99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=117709","title":{"rendered":"South African Jews Demand President Condemn Alleged Bombing Attempt at Jewish Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>South African Jews Demand President Condemn Alleged Bombing Attempt at Jewish Center<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Algemeiner Staff<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS\/Rogan Ward<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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South Africa\u2019s Jewish community has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to condemn a recent alleged attempted bombing of a Jewish community center in Cape Town, decrying his silence on the\u00a0global surge in antisemitism<\/a>\u00a0following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

The local Cape Town branch of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the umbrella group of the country\u2019s Jewish community, released a statement last Friday saying that an \u201cimprovised explosive device\u201d had been thrown over the front wall into the community center and \u201cfailed to detonate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

No one was hurt and no damage was caused in the incident. The facility, located in the neighborhood of Gardens, reportedly contains offices for many Jewish community organizations, including a women\u2019s group, a youth movement, and a Jewish newspaper, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis confirmed earlier this week that city police were helping the South African Police Service (SAPS) investigate the matter and analyze closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage\u00a0to find the perpetrator<\/a>. He added that the case has been handed to South Africa\u2019s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have evidence showing the perpetrators committing the act, and all available evidence has been handed over to the authorities,\u201d Cape SAJBD executive director Daniel Bloch told the South African Jewish Report.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Hill-Lewis said that law enforcement had not yet determined the nature of the device.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShould the SAPS investigation confirm that this was an attempted attack on the Jewish Community Center, I know I would speak for all Capetonians in condemning such an attempt in the strongest possible terms,\u201d the mayor said in a statement. \u201cCape Town is a city of peace-loving people, where differences of faith and opinion are expressed loudly and fully, but always peacefully.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amid the investigation, SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn on Thursday shared a statement with\u00a0The Algemeiner<\/em>\u00a0demanding South African President Ramaphosa condemn the alleged bombing attempt, noting he has been silent on the incident for a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an act of antisemitism aimed at the Jewish community, whether intended to intimidate or to cause physical harm. It was an illegal act that constitutes a hate crime,\u201d Kahn said. \u201cThis incident is concerning not only to South African Jewry, but also to the greater South African society and has garnered much global attention. Arson and bomb attacks against Jewish institutions have become sadly commonplace in other parts of the world, but this is the first time in many years that a Jewish communal facility in South Africa has been targeted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The apparent bombing attempt occurred on the same day that\u00a0arsonists heavily damaged a synagogue<\/a>\u00a0in Melbourne, Australia, in what both law enforcement and political leaders called an antisemitic attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mayor of Cape Town, the SA Police Services, and now the Hawks have approached the situation with the extreme gravity that it deserves.\u00a0 However, nearly a week later, there has still been no word of condemnation nor any expression of support for South Africa\u2019s Jewish community from President Ramaphosa,\u201d the SAJBD statement continued. \u201cThis is not the first time that events that have directly affected the SA Jewish community have been met with silence from the presidency.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kahn called Ramaphosa\u2019s silence \u201call the more perplexing\u201d given how other world leaders have stood with their Jewish communities when they have experienced threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur own country\u2019s elected president, however, has, in nearly a week, failed to condemn this incident,\u201d the statement concluded. \u201cA year ago, on Dec. 13, the Jewish communal leadership met with the president to express concerns about growing antisemitism that was spiraling in our country, and\u00a0to call for him to speak out against this hate.\u00a0 A year later we are again forced to call on our president to speak out against this violent attack clearly aimed at our community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The South African Jewish community has repeatedly lambasted Ramaphosa and his ruling African National Congress (ANC) for insufficiently combating antisemitism and being one of the harshest critics of Israel since the Palestinian terrorist group invaded the Jewish state last Oct. 7 and launched the war in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the past year, the South African government has been pursuing\u00a0its case at the International Court of Justice<\/a>\u00a0(ICJ) accusing Israel of committing \u201cstate-led genocide\u201d in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza. In late October, South Africa filed the bulk of the relevant material to support its allegations, a move that the SAJBD slammed as a demonstration of \u201cgrandstanding\u201d rather than actual concern for those killed in the Middle Eastern conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Africa temporarily withdrew its diplomats from Israel and shuttered its embassy in Tel Aviv shortly after the\u00a0Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom<\/a>, saying that the Pretoria government was \u201cextremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians\u201d in Gaza.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then in December,\u00a0South Africa hosted two Hamas officials<\/a>\u00a0who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May, members of South Africa\u2019s Jewish community protested Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor\u2019s call for students and university leaders to\u00a0intensify the anti-Israel demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0that have engulfed college campuses across the US.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later that month, Ramaphosa led the crowd at an election rally in a chant of \u201cFrom the river to the sea<\/a>, Palestine shall be free\u201d \u2014 a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ramaphosa\u2019s ANC has also supported a\u00a0proposal by the City of Johannesburg<\/a>\u00a0to rename the street on which the US Consulate is located after notorious Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, who hijacked a Tel Aviv-bound plane in 1969 and attempted another hijacking, this time of an El Al flight, in 1970.<\/span><\/p>\n

The government\u2019s ardent opposition to Israel did not help its performance in elections earlier this year, when the ANC lost its majority in parliament for the first time in South Africa\u2019s post-apartheid democratic history. However, it still remained the largest party and retained power at the national level through a coalition.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Ramaphosa has not commented on last week\u2019s alleged bombing attempt at the Jewish community center in Cape Town, he has continued speaking against Israel. In a\u00a0message posted to X\/Twitter<\/a> on Thursday, the South African president falsely described the Israeli military campaign against Hamas terrorists as \u201cIsrael\u2019s war on the people of Gaza,\u201d comparing it to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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South African Jews Demand President Condemn Alleged Bombing Attempt at Jewish Center Algemeiner Staff South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Chatsworth, South Africa, May 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS\/Rogan Ward South Africa\u2019s Jewish community has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to condemn a recent alleged attempted bombing of a Jewish community center in Cape Town, decrying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117725,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117709\/revisions\/117725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}