Saks said both men have strong human rights records and seek to promote Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
#Freeciv jewish bias series#
Saks referred to one recent case in which a series of seminars on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was planned by Israeli Benjamin Pogrund, a former deputy editor of the now-defunct South African newspaper Rand Daily Mail, and Palestinian Walid Salem. The FXI added that it had taken a “strategic decision to support particularly the freedom of expression of poor communities and to prioritize marginalized communities who are resisting censorship, repression, colonial occupation, racism and sexism.” Jewish Report when they act in a censorious manner.” Put more bluntly, we see this as an attempt to bully the FXI into submission for daring to criticize bodies like the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the S.A. In response, the FXI said Saks’ letter was “a thinly disguised attempt to intimidate the FXI into not taking a principled position against repression and censorship in relation to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. “By contrast, the FXI’s silence on cases where Muslim organizations and activists have suppressed freedom of expression has been truly deafening,” he wrote. “We believe that however noble the motives of its founders might have been, your organization has de facto evolved into a propaganda platform for those holding radical anti-Israel, anti-American and pro-Islamist viewpoints,” Saks wrote.Īccusing the organization of pursuing “a very definite political agenda” on Middle East issues, Saks said it was “especially deplorable” that Jewish communal institutions such as the board, the South African Zionist Federation and the South African Jewish Report have also come under attack from the institute. The role of the nongovernmental organization, created in 1994, is to safeguard the right to freedom of expression.ĭavid Saks, the Board of Deputies’ associate director, wrote that the board has noted “with mounting concern the consistently partisan and selective statements” issued by the institute over the past five years. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies lambasted the institute, the FXI, in a letter sent to its director, Jane Duncan, and to the media, citing instances of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias.
South Africa’s Freedom of Expression Institute is biased against Israel, the Jewish community’s umbrella body says.
0 kommentar(er)
