The South African Jewish community will always have a home in South Africa and should fear no threat of anti-Semitism, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday night.
Mbeki was addressing the centenary conference of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Mbeki expressed grave concern about a report which appeared in a United States Jewish newspaper, which quoted that 60% of South African Jews interviewed did not see a long-term future for themselves in South Africa mainly because of the perceived increase in anti-Semitism.
”I wish to respond to that sense of unease and pledge that we, as government, are prepared to spend as much time as need be talking to the Jewish community about that unease and about other concerns they have regarding their future here.
”We, as government, have a responsibility to all people who fall victim to marginalisation, fear and disempowerment and we cannot allow any sector of the community to plunge into a permanent sense of unease and displeasure,” he said.
He said history had given South Africa the Jewish community and it played an integral and inalienable role as part of the country.
South African Jews belonged here as much as other communities did, Mbeki said, and over the past 100 years had played major roles helping to free the country from apartheid and in the reconstruction and development of the country.
Speaking on the Middle East situation, Mbeki said he was concerned at the violence and terrorism that had gone on for too long and was becoming a permanent feature in the region.
”We support the roadmap to move forward to permanent peace and stability and this includes the two-state solutions — an independent Palestinian state and a state of Israel within safe and secure borders,” he said.
Russell Gaddin, national chairperson of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, said international Jewry was facing a growth in anti-Semitism that had not been seen since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
”Although it would be most unfair to paint all Muslims with the same brush, it would be irresponsible for Jewish leadership not to recognise that almost all of this anti-Semitism stems from the Islamic world, and in particular from the pulpits of their religious leaders in their mosques.”
Gaddin said: ”If leaders such as President Mubarak of Egypt, President al Asad of Syria and all the influential political heads of the Arab and Islamic nations stood up together and called for an end to the hatred and denigration of Jews, and for that matter, of the US, this would promote peace in the Middle East, more than a thousand United Nations resolutions or a hundred Camp Davids, and lead to the demise of organised terrorism as well.” — Sapa