South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein on Thursday slammed his government’s decision to recall all of its diplomatic staff from Tel Aviv to Pretoria in protest over Israel’s handling of the war against Hamas.
“South Africa, together with all of the opponents of the State of Israel who are marching in global capitals in every part of the world, they are in fact the useful idiots of Iran,” he said in a 25-minute video statement uploaded to YouTube.
“In its most recent actions, withdrawing South African diplomats from Israel and threatening the Israeli ambassador to South Africa with expulsion, this government is supporting Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to destroy the State of Israel and spread global jihad,” he said.
“In supporting Iran and Hamas ... , what the South African government is doing is not only betraying the State of Israel and the Jewish people, not only betraying democracies throughout the world, they are betraying black Christians in Africa,” continued the rabbi.
This is, he explained, “because part of what Iran is doing is sponsoring global jihad, which is spreading in Africa and causing more human suffering and deaths in Africa than in any other place on the globe.”
On Monday, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in the South African President’s Office, told a press briefing that the diplomatic staff in Tel Aviv will head back home for consultations.
“We are … extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians in the Palestinian territories and we believe the nature of response by Israel has become one of collective punishment,” Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said.
Pandor spoke by phone with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Oct. 17, less than two weeks after the Oct. 7 assault on the northwestern Negev, when thousands of terrorists stormed the border and murdered some 1,400 persons, wounded more than 5,000 others and took as many as 240 hostages back to Gaza.
In response to South Africa’s support for Hamas terrorism, Goldstein moved to amend the traditional prayer for the government of the Republic of South Africa, he announced last month.
The original prayer text specifically requested divine guidance for South Africa’s political leadership. The amended version reads: “Lord we beseech You, bestow Your guidance and protection upon all the people of this country.”
