Archive post. Issued by SAMNET on 8 November 2024, while the matter referred to was before the Equality Court. Published here as part of SAMNET’s advocacy archive. SAMNET takes no position on the outcome of any individual case; the argument below is about the use of litigation as a tactic.
Criticising Israel and Zionism is not antisemitism.
The strategy of lawfare is not to win or lose the case. It is to make people censor themselves through the cost, exposure and exhaustion of being litigated against. Targeting a well-known figure is how the message is sent to everyone watching.
Read the wording carefully
In the complaint reported by the SA Jewish Report, the references to antisemitism rest on a bracketed insertion — the word “[Jews]” added into quoted material. That is not a small drafting detail. It is the mechanism by which criticism of a state and of a political ideology is converted, on paper, into hatred of a people.
Where we stand
There is no place for hate speech in South Africa. SAMNET has consistently said so, and says so here.
But we must not allow legislation designed to protect people against hate to be weaponised to suppress criticism of what is being done to Palestinians, criticism of the State of Israel, criticism of Israeli war crimes, or the exercise of freedom of speech itself. A law that can be turned to either purpose protects nobody in the long run.
The two principles hold together, not against each other: protection from hatred directed at people because of who they are, and protection of the right to criticise a government and an ideology.
Cape Board takes Instagram influencer to Equality Court — Tali Feinberg, SA Jewish Report, 7 November 2024.
Related
Global Threats to Freedom of Expression Arising From Gaza — the UN Special Rapporteur on how the IHRA working definition is used as a quasi-legal basis to restrict expression.
Shared by the South African Muslim Network (SAMNET) in the interest of justice, fighting hate speech, and protecting free speech.