“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, sums up Jessie Duarte’s rant outside the Israeli Embassy yesterday.
· “And I want to make it clear that we aren’t against people of the Jewish religion.”
· “Our movement is not against and I want to repeat it because Israel has already said that I am antisemitic. I can just say that that is the most stupid thing to say.”
· “Tomorrow they’ll have in the newspaper how antisemitic we are. We are not antisemitic.”
One wonders why Duarte feels the need to keep stating this?
For all her protestations, the theme of manipulative Jewish power, particularly in the financial sphere, comes through all too clearly, in the comments she made yesterday.
· The breakup of the BDS movement, “The Zionist lobby destroyed the BDS Movement by doing what they do and doing it so well”.
· WTO and the UN won’t use the word genocide, “Why? Because the lobby is strong.”
· The reason other African countries have made friends with Israel is because they have “already capitulated to the charm of the Israeli trade machine.”
As Acting Secretary General of the ANC, Duarte holds the highest executive office in the ruling party. Surely someone in this important position should know better than to use inflammatory and irresponsible language at such a volatile time. Duarte threatened to storm the Israeli Embassy which would be in clear violation of all international diplomatic regulations.
Furthermore her bizarre claims that Israel is becoming a global imperialist are ludicrous, “If we do not stop imperialism in Israel one day they will move into Africa and start dispossessing our land here. They will become the next imperialists of the world. They are getting ready for this”. This delusional and paranoid statement is embarrassing for a woman in such a key position.
Her numerous references of genocide are scandalously false and make a mockery of victims of real genocide.
In respect to Ms Duarte’s references to Jacobs Coffee, we thought to share with her that Jacobs Coffee is not Israeli but German. However, as Jacobs can be traced back to Borgfeld from 1581 and there is a likelihood that there was some Jewish lineage, Ms Duarte might as well play it safe by calling for them to be boycotted as well.