The anointed, self-appointed, savior of the ‘white race’, Pieter Kriel, whose past gesticulations on issues to do with Afrikanerdom (involving ritual cleansing of his ancestors guilt), provided him with a pulpit, has now chosen to target black Jews and African Zionists.
In the process Kriel displays a callous reiteration of the self-same racism indicative of white supremacy, a belief that persons of colour are unable to think for themselves, have no individual agency and are merely tools of white men. Kriel should read our secular Constitution which enshrines religious freedom, a right which Mandela called: “A deeply personal, right”.
One image posted by Kriel shows an African Zionist praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, an activity to which he takes great exception.
The Zion Christian Church (ZCC) is the largest African-initiated church in Southern Africa, with an estimated 9 to 15 million members across the region. Approximately 9 million of these members are based in South Africa, making it the largest religious group of its kind in the country
Mandela, was a secularist (unlike Palestinian theocrats such as Marwan Barghouti), whose many statements on religious freedom echoed Thomas Jefferson who wrote, shortly after the US congress passed laws enacting freedom of religion: “I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.“
Significantly, Mandela was both a Zionist and bipartisan on the issue of Israel and Palestine. Arraigned alongside fellow Zionists at Rivonia such as Arthur Goldreich, he publicly thanked Israel from the dock for assisting in the creation of MK which he modeled after the Palmach, a Jewish paramilitary unit.
In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela discusses reading Menachem Begin’s book ‘The Revolt’ and explains how it was “very encouraging to us, because here was a movement in a country which had no mountains”. Shortly after his release from prison, he appeared on the Ted Koppel show where he outlined his position: “Support for Yasser Arafat and his struggle does not mean that the ANC has ever doubted the right of Israel to exist as a state, legally. We have stood quite openly and firmly for the right of that state to exist within secure borders“.
Mandela is often misquoted to make his outlook appear to be sectarian rather than, universalist. The redaction is quite obvious in the 1997 statement: “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world.”
While statements by Kriel should be execrated, one should also point out the perversion of Mandela’s vision of universal rights by none other than Naledi Pandor, current head of the Foundation which bears his name. Like Kriel, she too has called for the ‘elimination of the doctrine of Christian Zionism’, promising funds and with language that recalls the current ‘Pay-for-Slay’ policies of the Fatah led Palestinian Authority.
Under the Jordanian occupation of East Jerusalem 1948-1967, Jews were prevented from praying at the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. The Jewish quarter was destroyed alongside some 50 Shuls and Yeshivas, with the so-named West Bank ethnically-cleansed of its Jews. Facts which are routinely omitted from the Pro-Palestine narrative.
As the recipient of an unlawful decision imposing religious purity testing in the field of journalism by a corrupt ANC official, I therefore have no hesitation in condemning the ongoing racist, religious inquisition of Secular Jewish identity by persons such as Kriel and Pandor.