Jews blamed for US bill targeting SA

It didn’t take long for South African Jews to be made scapegoats. The progress of the United States (US)-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Bill of 2025 through the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee has stirred up well-worn antisemitic tropes.

Dubbed the Jackson Bill – which must still vault several hurdles before becoming law – it threatens targeted sanctions on corrupt government and African National Congress (ANC) officials. It condemns South Africa’s close ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Hamas, and it strongly decries South Africa taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Republican Representative Ronny Jackson from Texas said on X, “South Africa made its choice when they abandoned America and our allies and sided with communists and terrorists. Today, my bill to fully renew America’s relationship with South Africa and give President Trump the tools necessary to hold their corrupt government accountable passed through committee. The days of allowing our so-called ‘allies’ to walk all over us are over!”

Political theatre is on display. Michael Walsh, visiting scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley said, “The bill is more of a performative act than anything. It signals to the ANC and the South African government that the jig is up. The US government is ready, willing, and able to intensify coercive actions against individuals affiliated with the South African government and ANC.”

This has encouraged conspiracy theories. On an ANC WhatsApp group, “Tshepo/Benito” said the Jackson Bill’s advancement “is the consequence of subversive conduct of the likes of Emma Louise Powell from the DA [Democratic Alliance]. The South African Jewish right-wing lobby groups and the Afrikaners’ right-wing forces have been underestimated by the left-wing forces in the country.”

For context, Powell, who has since resigned as DA spokesperson on international relations due to threats, revealed that former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s chosen special envoy, was denied entry to the US due to unflattering public views of President Donald Trump. Afrikaner-rights group AfriForum has been repeatedly blamed for its long-term lobbying in the US that a genocide of white farmers is taking place.

Wendy Kahn, the national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, said, “Irrespective of the issue, the anti-Zionist, antisemitic lobby always manages to make it about the South African Jewish community. This has been the case since 7 October.”

Chrispin Phiri, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco), told the SA Jewish Report, “It is important to note that various non-state actors have consistently sought to influence South Africa’s independent foreign policy positions. These efforts often involve attempts to misrepresent our principles and actions. South Africa, as a sovereign nation, firmly upholds its right to determine its foreign policy based on its national interests and adherence to international law, free from external coercion.

“The South African government remains steadfast in its commitment to diplomatic engagement,” Phiri said. “We continue to utilise established bilateral and multilateral channels to articulate our positions and address any misunderstandings.” He said South Africa’s robust institutions and Constitution protected and served all its citizens.

“Regarding a potential backlash on the South African Jewish community due to South Africa’s stance on Israel,” he said, “South African Jews are not homogenous. South Africa’s foreign policy positions regarding the state of Israel are rooted in our commitment to international law, human rights, and the pursuit of a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These positions are distinct from, and should not be conflated with, the identity or views of the Jewish community in South Africa. We recognise and appreciate support from various organisations, including some within the South African Jewish community, for South Africa’s adherence to international law and its actions before international judicial bodies.” It’s good Jews versus bad Jews again.

Milton Shain, emeritus professor of history at the University of Cape Town and an antisemitism expert, said, “When Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein suggested that South Africans should support President Trump, I expressed concern that his sentiments could well result in South African Jewry being identified by some as a ‘fifth column’. It was clear that certain elements would take umbrage and see the chief rabbi as speaking for the entire Jewish community. It is, however, crude and simplistic to identify the South African Jewish lobby as being of consequence. The Jackson Bill has been in the making for years … To blame the Afrikaner, DA, and South African Jewish lobbies for South Africa’s troubled relationship with the US is to misunderstand the US. At issue is the behaviour of the South African government.”

Analyst Terence Corrigan said, “If South Africa and the ANC have been outflanked by Emma Louise Powell, AfriForum, and ‘Jewish right-wing lobby groups’, it raises serious questions about the capabilities of Dirco, South Africa’s diplomatic representatives abroad, and the intelligence services. Of course, it’s nonsense.

“The ANC is wrestling with a profoundly disconcerting reality: its inevitable decline, hastened by its own incompetence and venality. To make sense of this, it taps into a strain of paranoia and a strategy of deflection. All faults are in some way attributable to someone else, whether political violence, corruption, mismanagement, and now the failure of what passes for foreign policy.”

J Brooks Spector, a writer and former US diplomat said, “Outcomes from the devastation of the still-ongoing Gaza conflict are now encouraging various forms of antisemitic expression as well as, importantly, conflations of the nature of identity between Israel/Israelis and Jews in the diaspora, by others. Some are opportunistically choosing to assail Jews more universally over the deeds of the Israeli government, and even to dabble in darker, more ancient charges and libels against Jews more generally.”

Spector said the ICJ case and Trump’s support for Netanyahu had contributed to growing anti-Jewish sentiment. The desperate situation in Gaza has “in turn, deepened divisions within diasporic communities. Increasingly, it is pitting those who support the Netanyahu government, almost regardless of its decisions, versus those who believe this conflict – and especially the way the Israeli military is now pursuing the sharp rationing of relief aid – is deeply harming Israel’s core sense of purpose and standing.

“Israel’s harsher critics [Jew and non-Jew] are calling into question the very nature of the Israeli state, [labelling it] a ‘settler colonial state’. The lack of a realistic ‘plan B’ by the Netanyahu government and numerous expressions by right-wing ministers for turning Gaza into a Palestinian-free zone are giving Israel’s critics even freer rein to critique the international legitimacy of that nation amid violations of international law or worse.”

Spector fears that Israel’s conduct of the war, regardless of its genesis in the 7 October attacks, will “remain deep stains on Israel’s moral character that may be impossible to erase”.

If this bill eventually becomes law, it could, ironically, propel Pretoria ever closer to Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. It has given rise to naked antisemitism that doesn’t even hide under the fig-leaf of anti-Zionism. Jews can anticipate more opprobrium if the brittle relationship with the US shatters. How better to alienate the beleaguered South African Jewish community, already despised for the actions of the Netanyahu government?