A leading Israeli scholar and former diplomat delivered an unprecedented blast at South African Jewry here Tuesday. “They are part of the white power structure and benefit from it. There’s nothing Israel owes people who are part of a racist regime,” Prof. Shlomo Avineri declared at a Hebrew University symposium on South Africa. Apparently referring to Israel’s reluctance to follow the West in applying sanctions against the Pretoria regime because of possible repercussions for South African Jews, Avineri asserted that “South African Jews can take care of themselves very well and don’t need Israel’s support.” Israel announced last week that it would phase out its military and other relationships with South Africa.
Avineri, who was Director General of the Israel Foreign Ministry in 1976-77 and is a world renowned authority on Marx and Hegel, raised a storm earlier this month when he accused American Jewish leaders of demonstrating a “galut” mentality in their response to the Jonathan Pollard spy case, “cringing” for fear of charges of dual loyalty.
Avineri, long a critic of Israel’s relations with South Africa, urged Tuesday that the estimated 15,000 Israelis living in South Africa be stripped of their citizenship.
As for South African Jewry, he said “The major mistake of the Israeli government has been to not tell South Africa’s 115,000 Jews: ‘Get out–you have nothing to do there’.”
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