There are all manner of things to say about South Africa’s persecution of Israel at the International Court of Justice.
One of them might be that falsely accusing Israel of genocide is likely considered antisemitism under the definition adopted by the US State Department. Thus, sanctions might appear to be in order.
Another is that Israel’s diplomatic and economic retaliation ought to be immediate. South Africa should be cut off from Israel’s high-tech sector and banned from accessing Israeli technology.
It is also worth pointing out that Israel’s defense statement before the demon court was refreshingly ferocious. The court can do what it likes, but Israel has already made a fool of its persecutors on a global stage.
What hasn’t been noted much, however, is how utterly sad the whole thing is. For decades, South Africa has symbolized victory over institutionalized racism. Even more remarkable was that this victory was accomplished without a full-scale civil war and mass bloodshed. Of this, sainthood is made.
Now, however, the African National Congress government that dismantled apartheid has forged an alliance with Hamas, a genocidally racist terror organization, and is ardently trying to rescue it from destruction. In other words, the once-saintly ANC has sold its soul to the devil.
History is driven by irony, and ironic this certainly is; because while it is debatable as to whether Hamas is worse than the apartheid regime, Hamas is unquestionably just as bad. In other words, from an icon of the triumph over evil, South Africa has now become evil’s enabler and protector. It has not just squandered its claim to sainthood, it has doused it in gasoline and set fire to it.
All of this proves, once again, that there are no saints in this world. Indeed, despite the halo effect it enjoys, there were always aspects of the ANC that were deeply problematic. The halo concealed, for example, a long-standing and passionate alliance with Libya’s terrorist dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
“Those who feel irritated by our friendship with president Gaddafi can go jump in the pool,” Nelson Mandela once said. He apparently failed to consult the Libyan people on the issue, given that they eventually rose up against Gaddafi, dragged him from a drainage pipe, and beat him to death.
This does not by definition discredit or delegitimize the ANC. It was involved in a desperate struggle and could not be choosy about its friends. That it continues to ignore its friend’s crimes for sentimental reasons is understandable. But the same is true for everyone else; something the ANC is often unwilling to acknowledge.
In response to this, some would no doubt point to Israel’s relations with South Africa’s apartheid government during the 1980s. While these relations have been wildly exaggerated for propaganda purposes, including by the ANC, this only proves the point: Those in a desperate struggle do what they must. There are no saints in this world. It is better that way, but many of us find it difficult to accept, and this can only lead us into tragedy.
There is no doubt that today’s South Africa is such a tragedy. The world has become increasingly divided between those who take the side of racism, genocide, theocracy, and terrorism and those who resist them. Once among the latter, South Africa has now clearly chosen the former. It may or may not succeed in persuading the rest of the world of its blood libel, but that hardly matters. The tragedy is already complete.
My latest JNS column was published today, dealing with my critique of the American Jewish upper class—what I call “the Jews of Privilege”—and how the Oct. 7 massacre and the support for it from various sectors of the American aristocracy has essentially destroyed them.
I believe that the past three months have been devastating to the Jews of Privilege. Put simply, the overwhelming majority of American Jews now understand that the movements, institutions and ideologies of which the Jews of Privilege are an indelible part hate the Jews and want to kill them.
Where the Jews of Privilege will go from here cannot be said with absolute certainty, but if the past is any guide, some of them will wake up and “betray” their class, while the rest will double down on their contempt for the lower orders.
Given the current fracas in the US over the belated discovery that the American higher education system is a cesspool of genocidal antisemitism, pervasive corruption, and totalitarian intellectual terrorism, it’s not surprising that the minions of the professoriate regime are beginning to pop up with the usual nonsense about threats to “academic freedom.”
Its very unlikely that these professional Cassandras actually believe what they’re saying. Shrieking about oppression is what they do when faced with evidence of their malfeasance and they do it because it usually works. The minions are many things, but they are not stupid.
The “academic freedom” argument is worth examining, however, because at first glance it appears to make a good point. In a free society, after all, we should not be telling academics what to say and what to teach.
Under the current professoriate regime, however, the “academic freedom” defense is obviously absurd, because there is no such thing as academic freedom. The regime does not allow it. All the regime does, its sole reason for being, is to tell its subjects what to say and what to teach.
If any of the proles fail to comply with orders, the consequences are terrible. Indeed, the threat to one’s employment alone is usually enough to get the job done. Anyone in academia will tell you how hard positions are to come by, and very few of those lucky enough to get them will risk jeopardizing their livelihood for the sake of a struggle they know they cannot win.
Once the regime is smashed—and I believe it will be—then the debate over academic freedom can begin. Until the smashing is over, however, the issue will remain completely irrelevant. Under the current regime, there is no freedom, which is precisely the problem that needs to be solved.