Perez says genie of hatred is out the bottle

“What’s happened since 7 October is that something we may have known before but which was latent and not so clearly revealed, has become very apparent: just how vociferous, organised, and systematic the hatred of Israel is.” 

These are the words of Rabbi Doron Perez, the president of the World Zionist Organisation and executive chairperson of the World Mizrachi movement, on his recent visit to South Africa with the South African Zionist Federation, during which he took part in a week-long series of meetings, classes, and lectures with the Jewish community.  

He and his wife, Shelley, also met President Cyril Ramaphosa to express their heartfelt gratitude for the role he and his government played behind the scenes in bringing their beloved son, Captain Daniel Perez, back to Israel from Gaza for burial. 

“One would have thought that after the horrific events of 7 October, having Hamas terrorists invade Israel by surprise, including killing and taking our son hostage, there would have been some period of sympathy. Of the approximately 1 250 people killed on 7 October, only about 300 were soldiers or police officers. The other 900 were civilians: men, women, and children of all ages, from the nine or 10-month-old Kfir Bibas to people in their late 80s. People were burned, killed, raped, and tortured 

“Yet by 8 October, already on campuses across the United States, a campaign had been unleashed to delegitimise Israel,” he said. “It became so clear that anti-Zionism is not about this government policy or that government policy. It’s not about settlements in the West Bank. If you’re left-leaning, you might say that settlements in the West Bank are not helpful to peace. If you’re right-leaning, you might say they are helpful because it is our land and they provide a defence. 

“But even if you are someone who opposes the government’s policy of expanding settlements, it became clear that the anti-Israel campaign is not about this or that settlement in Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank. So, what is it about? It’s about the very existence of Israel.”  

For Perez, antisemitism and anti-Zionism are deeply intertwined, and he believes that over the past three years, “the genie of hatred has been let out of the bottle”. He argues that antisemitism has changed colour. 

“If you had gone back 90 years, there would have been antisemites in Germany holding up signs saying, ‘Jews, get out of Germany. You don’t belong here. Go back to Palestine.’ Now the message is, ‘Jews, get out of Palestine. Go back to Germany.’” 

In other words, when we were stateless, we were persecuted for being stateless. Perez calls it the “yellow star of powerlessness”, where we were seen as a wandering, anchorless people. Our enemies would say, “What a pathetic, stateless, wandering, anchorless people, the Jews. You don’t belong. Go back to your land. This is not your land. You’re a fifth column. Go back to Palestine. Go back to Israel.” 

“And now that we have a state, like all other countries, and now that, thankfully, it is successful, growing and thriving, antisemitism has changed colour. It’s no longer the yellow star of powerlessness. It’s the blue star, the Magen David of the Israeli flag and the Israeli army, representing power and sovereignty. We were hated for being powerless, and now we are hated for being powerful,” he said. 

Perez referred to Abba Eban, a South African-born Israeli diplomat and politician who served as Israel’s foreign minister in the 1960s and 1970s. Eban explained that traditional antisemitism denies individual Jews the individual rights that they should have in their host countries. Anti-Zionism rejects Jewish national self-determination and denies the Jewish people the collective rights that all other nations have among the family of nations. 

After 7 October, Perez and his family went 163 days not knowing if his son, Daniel, was alive in Gaza, and then a further 17 months waiting for his body for burial. But he says the hardest challenge came when Daniel was finally laid to rest, and the family was no longer a hostage family but a bereaved family.  

“There’s nothing more to do, there’s nothing more to fight for, there’s nothing more to bring back. It’s just living with the loss. There’s nothing more to do; he’s been laid to rest, and we can move forward. But on the other hand, there’s a certain finality to it: you now have to mourn, and there’s nothing one can do. And that comes with so many challenges,” he said.  

To continue to fight antisemitism, Perez believes the Jewish world needs to become more unified.  

“Whether you are part of a Reform temple in America, an ultra-Orthodox community in Williamsburg or a Jewish community in Melbourne, we face the same threats,” he said. “When our enemies tell us that they don’t care what type of Jew you are, that you are under threat simply because you are Jewish, then we have to recognise that we are part of the same family. That’s not to say there aren’t  any differences. Of course there are, and I’m not saying we should whitewash those differences. They exist. But we have to understand that we are part of the same family. We may be the smallest nation in the world, but we are the biggest family. 

“And families have to take responsibility for one another. When the family is under threat, we have to stand together. We can have our disagreements and all sorts of issues, but we have to get our act together,” he said.