Israeli security personnel occupied, controlled and policed a University of the Witwatersrand campus for several hours on Monday this week, the Mail & Guardian has been told. The Israeli embassy in Pretoria denies this.
The Israeli occupiers and the South African Jewish Board of Deputies threateningly interrogated and denied access to Wits staff and students — particularly any who were Muslim-looking or black, according to eye witness accounts given to the M&G.
The Wits College of Education in Johannesburg exploded into violence on Monday afternoon in the run-up to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’s address in the campus’s Linder Auditorium. South African police used water cannons and batons in their clashes outside the campus both with demonstrators protesting against Peres, and — eyewitnesses say — innocent Wits staff and students. Several people were badly injured in the clashes and hospitalised. Police laid charges against 16 people — including two minors.
Among those charged was Salim Vally, acting director of and senior researcher in the Wits education policy unit, whose premises are on the College of Education campus.
“Domestic violence” and “assault” are specified on his charge sheet. “The campus was in our control” until mid-afternoon, Wits vice-chancellor Professor Norma Reid Birley told the M&G. “But it was then very quickly taken over. By the time I got there — a little before 5pm — the campus was completely sealed off. It was clearly a highly planned operation. I could not enter the campus in my car via the main front entrance, and had to enter via a back pedestrian entrance.”
Reid Birley then attempted to ascertain who was in control. “I identified myself to several personnel, who wouldn’t tell me who they were working for. I could find no one who claimed authority. It was clearly a private security operation: personnel were in plain clothes, but all of the same sort. “Clearly, a large number of the security personnel were not South African police. A number of these refused to speak to me and walked away.
“Peres’s own security were running the show,” Reid Birley said. “I’m very upset. I still don’t know who took over our campus. There was categorically no liaison between the security who took over and our [Wits] security. The Israeli embassy has not been in touch with me at all [since these events]. “What happened here was a complete takeover of our campus without our consent or knowledge.”
Other eyewitness accounts refer to security personnel with foreign accents and broken English who were operating both inside and outside the auditorium. They also say security appeared to be targeting black people while waving white visitors through.
“Israeli security with Mr Peres was not involved in the pre-event procedures,” says Daniel Pinhasi, first secretary at the Israeli Embassy. “That was the responsibility of the South African police, with some cooperation from Mr Peres’s people.”
Peres’s security was operating both inside and outside the auditorium, says Yehuda Kay, director of the Jewish Board of Deputies, which organised the event. “But staff and students were not denied access to the campus — I strongly deny that.”
Asked about allegations of racial targeting by security personnel, Kay told the M&G: “Well, I’m sorry there are no Indian-looking Jews.” The allegations are “unfair” and a “low blow”, he said.
Controversy is also boiling over the manner in which the Jewish Board of Deputies booked the Wits venue. The M&G has a copy of the booking form the board submitted to the university. Peres’s name appears nowhere on it, and the space under the heading “Full details of function” is blank. The form says the booking is from 2pm to 8pm on September 2 for a “public lecture”. “The booking was done through a junior administrator,” Reid Birley says, “and did not pass through Wits management.”
Asked how an application with incomplete information could have been sanctioned, she said: “I’m asking that question myself.” Reid Birley’s first intimation that Peres was to speak at the college came at about 2.30pm on Monday, she says. She then obtained confirmation of this from the Jewish Board of Deputies, who told her the board “had arranged security without reference to Wits”.
Kay says there was “no intention to deceive Wits”, but he could not comment on why the space on the application form asking for details of the function was left blank.
Reid Birley says the main issue is “the abuse of the rights of staff and students, in particular their freedom of movement and right to study, and the takeover of our property”. She has written to Minister of Education Kader Asmal asking for ministerial action.