South African Jews protest state-sponsored Hamas visit

South African supporters of Israel are furious about their country’s leadership’s plan to host senior Hamas officials.

In statement, the South African Zionist Federation “condemns in the strongest terms possible the fact that a delegation representing the Hamas Central Committee will be visiting South Africa as the honored guests of the ruling party,” a statement by the group reads.

“During these past few weeks of barbaric violence targeting Israel, Hamas has enthusiastically endorsed the cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians and instigated dozens of lethal attacks against them,” the statement continues.

The African National Congress has long been supportive of the Palestinians’ struggle against Israel and exceedingly critical of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians.

“Contrary to what is claimed, the ideology, values, aims and strategies of Hamas are diametrically opposed to the principles of the ANC, as embodied in the Freedom Charter,” the ZF declares in the statement.

At a recent summit, the party reaffirmed its support for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Hamas, by contrast, does not support, nor has it ever supported, the creation of an independent Palestinian state co-existing in peace alongside Israel. Instead, its charter explicitly stipulates that no negotiated settlement is possible in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians with Jihad being the only solution. Simply speaking, Hamas wishes to destroy Israel altogether and seeks to establish an Islamist dictatorship in its place.”

The only justification for meeting with Hamas would be to seek to “radically” moderate the organization, the ZF’s chairman, Ben Swartz, and president, Avrom Krengel, write. If that’s not the purpose of the meeting, “then any such engagement will simply prove both futile and counter-productive to genuine efforts aimed at the peaceful resolution of the conflict.”

— Raphael Ahren