Viva PSC-Wits Viva!

I just read the latest edition of the South African Jewish Report. (No, it's not my Sunday newspaper of choice; I just wanted to see whether the tabloid covered the Al-Nakba conference (see previous blog posting).) I was thrilled to see the following letter:

SAUJS ‘unprepared’ for Israel debate

I AM writing to you as a deeply concerned
member of the Christian Zionist community
who was present at the embarrassing debate
held between the South African Union of
Jewish Students (SAUJS) and the Palestinian
Solidarity Committee (PSC) at Wits on May 4,
on the very emotive topic of “Is Israel an
Apartheid State?”
First of all, the Jewish students handled
themselves in a manner that seemed extremely
unprepared, disorganised and, indeed, unintelligent,
while the speakers from the
Palestinian Solidarity Committee (while I do
not agree with their sentiment) were very
knowledgeable and managed to have a massive
impact on the crowd that sat before them.
More than that, I was also very concerned to
see how relatively few Jewish students attended
the debate, as it made Israel appear weak
and outgunned. Did the Jewish students just
not care, or were they simply not campaigned
properly?
I sincerely hope that the Jewish student
leadership of the future will come better prepared,
better supported, more able to connect
with the audience they appear in front of and
simply more captivating when it comes to the
use of a term that is so often abused by the
detractors of Israel to delegitimise the state.

Johan Pieter Coetzee
Johannesburg

Well done, PSC-Wits. But before their heads become too swollen, let me remind the Wits PSC that they were only able to perform this well because they have truth on their side. I guess half the debate is won when your argument is actually true, verifiable and cold hard fact as opposed to spin and propaganda. So, the SAUJS students performed badly even though they were coached by members of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (as another article in the SAJR attests).

Ethical journalist, less than ethical editor

I felt a tad uncomfortable with the whole discussion. I was a speaker at the Al-Nakba Conference in Cape Town, commemorating the 59^th anniversary of the Catastrophe visited on the Palestinian people in 1948.

I was to speak on the third and last day of the conference, on the “Founding myths of the State of Israel”. But, just after all the speakers had been introduced and just before we could start speaking, one of the organisers asked for the mike to raise an issue.

Apparently, a reporter of the South African Jewish Report was present in the audience and some conferees had complained to the organisers that they did not feel comfortable about this. The organiser who announced this asked the conference what their feeling was about what should be done.

Now before any accusations of “anti-Semitic” start flying around, let me just mention that there were a number of Jews that had been present at the conference from the first day. In fact, most also participated very strongly in the discussions and one Jewish person facilitated the crucial “Way Forward” session at the end (and did a damn good job of it too). So the complaint from some members of the audience had nothing to do with the fact that Moira Schneider was a Jew. Rather, they were concerned, as it emerged in the discussion, about what she would write and whether the organisers would have the right to reply if they felt that her report contained certain falsities.

I sat there somewhat bemused as I observed the debate. Being the Director of Operations of the Freedom of Expression Institute, I knew what my position was on the issue. But this was not my conference; I was just a speaker. So I watched and listened.

Fortunately, conference made the correct decision: it decided to allow Ms Schneider to stay in the conference and to do her report. This followed her assurance to the conference that she would not submit her report to the SAJR until she received a guarantee from the editor, Geoff Sifrin, that he would allow the conference organisers – the Friends of Al-Aqsa – the right to reply if they felt aggrieved by the report. Conferees accepted her “journalistic ethic”, believed she was sincere in her assurance, everyone seemed to relax and we were finally allowed to speak.

I began my presentation by informing the audience of my position in the FXI and telling them that if they had decided to ask the journalist to leave the conference, I would have issued a media statement the next morning condemning the conference for its stance. Fortunately, the right decision was made and I was spared the tediousness of writing yet another media release.

Everyone seemed happy, so this story should end here. I cannot allow it to, however. Accepting Ms Schneider’s assurance was the right thing to do. However, the conference was also implicitly accepting another assurance – that of the SAJR editor, who wasn’t even there to give it. If recent events are anything to go by, Mr Sifrin does not have the best reputation for giving people the right of reply.

At the end of last year, the SAJR ran an article which was a direct challenge to Minister Ronnie Kasrils, asking him to answer a number of questions. Sifrin had assured Kasrils that the paper would publish Kasrils response. However, when Kasrils submitted his reply, Sifrin refused to publish. Not only did Sifrin deny Kasrils the right of reply, he also went back on his word. Not a very trustworthy editor, in my opinion. I’m sure the Friends of Al-Aqsa are waiting to see what Schneider’s article will say. And then they will probably wait to see whether the editor will make good on his promise. People do change, sometimes.

For some background on the SAJR-Kasrils issue, see "On Jewish Report's censoring of Ronnie Kasrils"